The Town

1

“Shit,” Paul said softly.

The stage lights had fallen during the night, the troupers they’d spent all yesterday rigging. Not only had they fallen, but they’d broken—every last damn one of them.

They stood looking at the damage, the dented casings and shattered glass, the overturned tables and cushion-ripped chairs. Gregory bent down, picked up a bent bracket, examined it.

“You must’ve put them in wrong,” Paul said.

Odd shook his head. “We installed those according to spec and added a few new specs of our own. There’s no way this could’ve happened.”

“Well, it did happen, obviously.”

“Someone musta broken in.”

“No one broke in.” Paul kicked at the broken glass with his boot. “Jesus, it looks like a damn earthquake hit this place.”

“A couple of these bolts sheared off,” Gregory said. He held up the bracket and two bolt heads. “This might not have been the cause of it, but even if this bracket bent on its own, the bolts should’ve been able to handle the extra pressure. They’re supposed to be designed for these things.”

Paul sighed. “I don’t need this crap.”

Gregory forced himself to smile. “No problem. We’ll just replace them. I’ll drive over to Tucson and—”

Paul shook his head. “I can’t let you do that. You’ve already wasted enough money on this. It’s my place and my responsibility. I’m thinking we’d be better off to bag the whole project.”

“Bullshit. You didn’t let me finish. I’ll drive to Tucson, explain what happened, show them what we have, and if they won’t replace everything, then I’ll buy new lights. The way I see it, this whole thing is the fault of poor workmanship on their part. We installed a faulty product. I’m going to emphasize that people could’ve been killed, tell ’em I’m going to report them to the Better Business Bureau and whatever other agency I can think of. I think they’ll fork over a new set.”

“But do we want a new set?” Odd asked. “You’re right. I think this here’s a faulty product. I think we should try to get our money back and buy something else.”

“We could,” Gregory agreed. “But the point is, we shouldn’t overreact. This is only a temporary setback. It isn’t the end of the world, and we shouldn’t let it derail our plans.”

Odd nodded. “Exactly.”

“Of course you guys say that, but I’m the owner,” Paul said gloomily. “I’m the one who pays the insurance bills, and it’s my ass if someone gets hurt because of this.”

“No one’s going to get hurt,” Gregory told him.

“By the time we’re through,” Odd promised, “kids’ll be able to use this thing for a jungle gym and it won’t even sway.”

Gregory took a deep breath. “I could chip in for insurance if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Paul waved him away. “I’m not looking for a co-owner.”

“And I don’t want to be one.”

Paul picked up one of the broken spotlight casings. “Look, let’s get this cleaned up, call the lighting company, and see where we go from there.”

“All right,” Gregory said. He went with Odd to get broom, shovel, and dustpan from the maintenance closet between the men’s and women’s rest rooms, and after taking Polaroids of the overall damage and close-ups of the broken bolts and bent brackets, the three of them spent the better part of the morning cleaning up. The outside tables and those closest to the counter and register weren’t affected, and Paul cordoned off the area of damage with yellow rope so that the morning’s customers would not be inconvenienced.

The place had potential, Gregory thought. The café’s space was easily big enough to accommodate forty or fifty people, and Odd had done a great job of building the small stage against the wall to the left of the counter. Despite Paul’s worries and reservations, they’d gone too far to turn back now, and he knew that his friend would not pull the plug on the project at this point.

Besides, Gregory had already been to the printer and arranged for a whole bunch of flyers to be made up. He was planning to slap them up around town—on the bulletin boards in both markets, in the office windows of the gas stations, in the windows of the bookstore and the hardware store and as many of the other shops as he could. He would put one up on the Community Calendar board in the post office and tack up the rest on various telephone poles around town. That should get the word out. If it didn’t, he was prepared to buy a full-page ad in the newsless mixture of Chamber of Commerce PR, high school sports photos, and garage sale announcements known as the McGuane Monitor.

He had faith that people would come, though. They were going to start with a Talent Night, an open-mike evening in which anybody who wanted to could come up onstage and do anything he or she wanted. Singers. Guitarists. Storytellers. Bands. Comedians. From there, they’d offer slots to the better performers.

It was a seeding of the grass roots, an outlet for local talent previously denied an opportunity to perform in public, and it was precisely that alternative ethos that appealed to him. They were giving people a chance. Providing a potentially receptive audience for garage bands who until now had only annoyed neighbors with their noise and offering exposure to sensitive singer-songwriters who’d been practicing in front of mirrors in their bedrooms.

The café might be dead now, but he would turn that around. He’d build a clientele for this place, build an audience for these performers. This was an exciting opportunity, and he was determined to make the most of it. He had never really pondered what it would be like to have a “career” before. He’d always just had a “job.” But he could see himself as a latter-day Bill Graham—booking name acts, performers on the way up or on the way down, discovering talent, managing careers. Eventually, the café might even have to expand into the hair salon next door. They would need some type of dressing room or backstage area if they were to lure professionals to their venue.

They finished righting the tables and sweeping the floor and taking the debris to the stockroom in the back.

Odd picked up a hanging socket. “I still say that someone did this. Vandals. There’s no way these lights could’ve fallen on their own. Not after the way we set them up.”

“I don’t understand it either,” Gregory admitted.

From behind them came the sound of footsteps, a clearing throat. They turned. Paul stood in the doorway, looking around at the tangled jumble of lights and cords and cables. He took a deep breath. “You think you can rig new lights that won’t collapse and kill people?”

Odd answered, “Of course.”

“By Saturday?”

“No problem.”

Paul nodded. “All right,” he said, turning away. “All right.”

Odd looked over at Gregory. He grinned. “I guess we’re back in business.”

2

Julia stood in front of the library, not sure if she wanted to go in. She’d finally decided to volunteer, to assist in shelving or checking in books or whatever the library needed done, but she was having second thoughts. There was no rational reason, just a vague feeling of apprehension within her, but if a vague feeling was enough to scare her in her own home, there was no reason one couldn’t just as legitimately steer her away from this.

No. She was neurotic enough as it was. She needed to set her mind to something and do it, follow through with the promises she made to herself and not just flit from one failed intention to another.

She grasped the handle, pulled open the glass door, and stepped inside.

The McGuane Public Library was big enough to be serviceable but small enough to be picturesque. In place of the impersonal bank of computer screens that had supplanted the card catalog in most Southern California libraries, there was an oak filing cabinet set against the far wall, between two open windows. Four reading tables adjoined the two racks of magazines and a glass display case filled with old photographs and mining tools. Fully stocked bookshelves took up the middle two-thirds of the well-lighted room, and a wooden bookcase marked BESTSELLERS AND NEW RELEASES was located just to the right of the checkout counter, where a friendly looking overweight woman was sorting through what looked like a stack of overdue notices.

There were two other women in the library. Patrons. A blond woman approximately her own age standing next to the best-seller rack and reading the dust flap of a new Stephen King book, and a gray-haired old lady sitting at a table with a stack of sewing magazines in front of her.

The library smelled deliciously of old books, the deep, resonant fragrance that had all but disappeared from the climate-controlled environments of most modern libraries. Breathing the familiar, half-forgotten scent took her back to her childhood.

This would be a good place to work.

She was glad she’d come, and she vowed to see it through. She needed to see it through. As much as she hated to admit it, she had not been prepared to win the lottery, and she understood now that she was one of those people who required imposed structure in her life, for whom adversity and necessity were motivators. Coming into money was the worst thing that could have happened to her.

She walked up to the front desk, and the overweight woman smiled up at her. “May I help you?”

Julia nodded. “I’d like to volunteer. I don’t know if you need anyone to work here—”

“Honey,” the woman said, “we always need volunteers.” She stood up with some difficulty. “What’s your name?”

“Julia. Julia Tomasov.”

“Molokan, huh?”

Julia nodded, not sure if there was disapproval in the woman’s voice or just simple recognition.

“I don’t remember seeing you before.”

“We just moved back to town. Or rather my husband moved back. He’s from here. I was born in L.A.”

The woman nodded. “I’m Marge Lindsey. The librarian. I have no paid assistants or aides, so everyone else here is strictly volunteer. You ever work at a library before?”

Julia almost gave the librarian her true résumé, but at the last minute she simply nodded and said, “Yes.” She didn’t want to appear to be competing or engaging in any sort of one-upmanship, and she had the feeling that in a place like McGuane, any prior experience would be seen as a threat. This was the woman for whom she would be working, and she was determined to remain on the librarian’s good side.

“Good. We can use all the help we can get. As I said, I’m the only paid staff member here. The library’s county-funded, and in addition to the money for my salary, we receive only a small stipend for purchases each year, so anything beyond that is strictly volunteer. Most of our acquisitions are from donations, and our volunteers are the ones who sort and catalog and index and repair the books. They also shelve, and sometimes check in and check out.” Her eyes swept Julia’s face to gauge her reaction, and Julia smiled pleasantly.

Apparently satisfied, the librarian called out to the two patrons, “Deanna? Helen? You’re not in any rush, are you? I’m going to take our new volunteer back and introduce her.”

Both the old woman at the table and the younger woman with the King book nodded their acknowledgment, and Julia followed Marge through the open doorway behind the front desk into a surprisingly large work area. There were two middle-aged women sitting at a long table in the center of the room, stacks of books piled in front of them, boxes of additional books on the floor under the table. A few volumes were arranged at one end of the otherwise empty metal stand-alone shelves behind them, and two handcarts were situated against the far wall, next to a small refrigerator and a sagging couch.

The women looked up as they entered.

“Alma?” Marge said. “Trudy? This here’s Julia Tomasov, our newest volunteer.”

The two women nodded, smiling.

“Alma here is in charge of acquisitions. She’s been with us for six years now—”

“Seven,” Alma said.

Marge looked surprised. “Seven? It’s been that long?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun.”

All three of them laughed, and Julia smiled politely.

“Anyway, Alma’s in every day, and she’s sort of my right-hand woman. Trudy’s been volunteering for about a year, and she comes in a couple times a week. I don’t know what you had in mind, but we can use you whenever you’re available. An hour a day, once a week, whatever.”

“I was thinking about Tuesdays and Thursdays at first. Maybe… ten to two?”

“That’d be fine,” Marge said. “That’d be great. As you can see, we’re processing donations right now. We got a pretty big gift from the estate of one of our ex-mayors a few months ago, but we were in the middle of a remodeling project, and we haven’t been able to get to it until now. We sort of let that slide. But processing these books is now our top priority.” She looked at Julia. “Were you planning to start today?”

Julia nodded.

“Great, great. You said you worked in a library before, so you can probably pick up on this pretty quick.” She motioned toward an empty seat next to Trudy. “The girls’ll show you the ropes. If you have any questions they can’t answer, just pop up front and I’ll be more than happy to help you.”

Marge remained a few minutes longer, helping her to get settled, then excused herself and walked back out front to check on the patrons.

“Molokan?” Alma asked, handing her a stack of blank accession cards.

Julia nodded.

“My first husband was a Molokan. Drunk bastard.”

She remained silent, not sure where this was going.

“Your husband Molokan?”

“Yes,” Julia said.

“He ever beat you?”

She laughed. “No.”

“You’re lucky.”

“They’re not all wife beaters,” Trudy said.

“I know.”

“And not all wife beaters are Molokan.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

Trudy smiled sympathetically at Julia, giving her a quick she’s-not-so-bad-when-you-get-to-know-her look.

Julia smiled back, understanding, and the conversation soon settled into the usual biographical chitchat. Alma had indeed had a hard life, and Julia was amazed by the soap-opera quality of her troubles, from her string of marriages to various losers and layabouts to the recent arrest of her eldest son on drug charges. Trudy, by contrast, had been married to the same man since she was sixteen, an insurance salesman and an elder in the Mormon church. Both women seemed simple and honest and refreshingly free of pretensions, and when Julia thought about what her day would have been like had she remained at home, in the house, she was very glad that she’d come here this morning.

After that, the conversation took a turn for the worse. It was Alma who steered the talk away from the personal and toward the political.

“The government’s lying to us again,” she said.

Trudy did not respond, and Julia followed her lead, saying nothing and continuing to fill out the accession card on the book in front of her.

“There’s a comet that’s going to crash into the earth, and the government knows about it, but they’re keeping it a secret.”

Julia could not help smiling. “Where did you hear that?”

“Joe Smith.”

“Who’s Joe Smith?”

“He’s on the radio. From midnight ’til four on the Wilcox station. Last night, he said that there’s a comet heading directly for Earth that’s going to crash somewhere on the West Coast and kill millions of people but they’re not telling people because they don’t want them to panic.”

Julia shook her head. “Don’t you think if that was true, we would’ve heard about it before? We would’ve seen it on the news or read about it in the paper?”

“That’s because the government’s keeping it a secret.”

“And even with all the big news organizations and everyone who has a telescope, no one’s heard of this except the nighttime radio guy in Wilcox, Arizona? Sorry. I don’t buy it.”

Alma squinted, looked at her suspiciously. “You’re not some kind of liberal, are you?”

“Alma’s right,” Trudy said. “Joe Smith tells the truth the government doesn’t want you to hear. Joe Smith’s not even his real name. It’s just the one he uses so the government can’t track him down.”

She had considered Trudy an ally in this, but now she looked at both of them as though they were crazy.

She was reminded, absurdly, of American Graffiti, where the characters all invented elaborate stories surrounding the Wolfman, their favorite disc jockey, some claiming that he was broadcasting from a ship in the ocean in international waters, others believing he was illegally broadcasting from Mexico into the United States, when the truth was that he was a local guy working in a cramped studio at the edge of town.

She didn’t feel like continuing the discussion, and she made the decision to ignore it, let it slide, and concentrate on the work before her. She was being arrogant and elitist, she knew, reverting to her old ways, but she put their opinions down to ignorance and a lack of sophistication. She assumed that the fundamental differences of opinion and diverging worldviews were due to the fact that Alma and Trudy had grown up here and had, at the most, high school educations, while she had grown up in Los Angeles and graduated from college. In her mind, she agreed that they would disagree and vowed to avoid the subjects of politics and religion entirely.

“You’ll see,” Alma said firmly. “When the comet hits California, then you’ll believe it.”

Julia refused to respond.

“The government lies to us all the time. They didn’t tell the truth about Oklahoma City or the bombing of Flight 800. They won’t even acknowledge helping to train the UN troops.”

Trudy nodded. “The government’s like that. That’s why we need our own militias, to protect America.”

Julia couldn’t resist. “A militia’s not going to do much good against a comet,” she pointed out.

Alma squinted at her. “What are you? A traitor? Can’t ever tell with you Russians—”

“Leave her alone,” Trudy said. “It’s not her fault. She’s just been brainwashed by the media.”

Marge walked through the door into the back room. “Girls, girls, girls…” She smiled tolerantly. “We can hear you all the way out front. I came back to tell you to keep it down. You’re disturbing the patrons.”

“Sorry,” Trudy said.

The librarian’s voice dropped. “Also, I heard what you all were talking about, and I couldn’t just let it slide. Julia, believe it or not, our country does face some mighty big problems and some serious choices about the future. There are threats confronting America that our government just will not or cannot respond to. The United States is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, and sometimes the people just have to take matters into their own hands. That’s why we have the Second Amendment. So that we can form militias, so that we can respond when America’s freedom is threatened.”

Julia met Marge’s eyes. “Who’s threatening our freedom?”

The other woman backed off. “I’m not going to get into a political discussion here. I just came to tell you all to keep it down. After all, this is a library.” She smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Come on, now. Back to work. You may be volunteers, but I’m in charge here, and there’s a lot that needs to be done.”

Julia watched the librarian walk through the door to the front of the library.

They were all loonies, she realized.

She returned to the pile of donated books in front of her, not looking at either Alma or Trudy. Silently, she filled out another accession card.

She left at lunch.

She did not return.

3

Jim sat on the edge of the unmade bed, head in his hands, elbows on his knees. He was tired, fatigued, and his head was pounding. He’d been sitting like this for nearly twenty minutes, wanting to get up, intending to get up, but for some reason unable to do so. It felt like a hangover, the pain in his head and the lethargy in his body, but he had not gotten drunk in a long time, and he knew that could not be the cause.

Ordinarily, he would have been at the church hours ago. It was nearly midmorning, the sun hot and high in the sky, and he should have already finished sweeping out the dust and cleaning the kitchen, and started preparing his sermon for Sunday. But he just hadn’t been able to do it.

Perhaps he was sick.

No. It was not his body that was troubling him.

It was not even his mind.

It was his heart.

It was Agafia.

He did not know why, not specifically, but his heart ached when he thought of her. This should have been the happiest time of his life. His prayers had finally been answered, and Agafia had returned to him free and unencumbered. She had apparently forgiven and forgotten, and she seemed more than willing to take up where they’d left off.

But…

But something was wrong.

She’d changed.

Yes, she had. That was to be expected, of course. Only saints and fools walked through life without reacting and adjusting to the circumstances of their surroundings, without learning from their mistakes. But in Agafia’s case, it was different. She hadn’t changed all that much in her attitude or outlook, and on the surface she seemed to be the same as always, only older. But there’d been a subtle shift in the core of her being, and there was now something about her that made him uncomfortable.

He did not like being around her.

That was why his heart was so heavy. The woman he loved, the woman of his dreams, frightened him.

Frightened him?

Yes.

The thought occurred to him that it might not be her doing. She might be under the influence of an evil spirit, a neh chizni doohc.

Jim sighed. He was overreacting, obviously worked into a state by his concern for her, by his love, and by his inability to understand the ambiguity of his feelings. Agafia was the same religious woman she had always been. She was a good Molokan, and it was beneath him even to think otherwise.

Wasn’t it?

He thought of what had happened in Russiantown all those years ago, and he closed his eyes, shivering.

He’d always assumed—no, he’d always known—that everything God did was good. God was all good and was incapable of doing something that was not good. So the Bible, God’s word, was inherently pure, supremely incorruptible, the closest thing to perfection on this earth. Yet when he’d gone over to Agafia’s home yesterday, when he’d looked at the big family Bible on top of the bureau in her dining room, he’d felt a vague sense of unease. He tried to tell himself that it was the room, the house, but that was not true. It was the Bible itself that was wrong. The black-leather binding looked ominous, the gilt lettering garish and almost obscene. There was about the volume a subtle air of decadence and corruption. He never would have thought such a thing possible, but the Good Book did not seem at all good. It seemed bad. Evil.

He was afraid of it.

He was a man of God. How could he be afraid of a Bible? He didn’t know, but he was, and as Agafia talked, he had gently urged her into another room, away from the horrid book.

The Bible a horrid book?

Maybe it wasn’t her at all, he reasoned.

Maybe it was him.

Maybe it was the house.

That was the most likely explanation. After what had happened at that location, it was more than realistic to assume that evil lived at that address. He had not yet asked Agafia whether she knew what had transpired in her house, and though he had not wanted to bring it up before, had not wanted to taint her homecoming, he now thought the time had come to tell her of the massacre, assuming she did not already know.

If she had not said the proper prayers, perhaps all of the church members could go over to her home and attempt to cleanse it. If she had done everything correctly, then they could still put their heads together and, with the combined power and goodness of all their wills, drive out whatever had taken root at that spot.

And if it wasn’t the house?

He didn’t know. But whatever the problem, whatever the cause of his unease, he still loved her.

He would always love her.

His head was still pounding and he felt like going back to sleep, but he forced himself to stand. He walked into the bathroom, wet a comb, and ran it through his tangled white hair. He rinsed with Listerine and grabbed yesterday’s pants and shirt from the top of the hamper, putting them on before going into the kitchen and grabbing a handful of crackers to snack on.

He walked down to the church.

And sensed immediately that something was wrong.

He walked slowly through the open room, his footsteps echoing on the dusty wooden floor. The windows were shut, the doors securely locked, nothing appeared to have been touched, but he could tell that he was not alone. He could feel it. The church looked empty, but it wasn’t, and it was with trepidation that he approached the darkened doorway of the kitchen.

“Zdravicha!” he called. Hello.

There was no answer.

He tried to tell himself that kids had broken in or that he was worried about robbers and vandals, but there was no sign of a break-in, there was nothing to steal, and nothing had been vandalized.

And the truth was, it was not human intruders that concerned him.

It was neh chizni doohc.

He flipped on the kitchen light, looked quickly around. Nothing.

There were only the stove, the sink, an empty counter, and the metal rack holding pots, pans, and various cooking utensils. At the opposite end of the room was the closed door of the storage closet, and Jim said a quick protective prayer as he walked across the kitchen and yanked the door open.

Again… nothing. Only brooms and tools and buckets and cleaning solvents.

He closed the closet door. That was it. There were no other rooms or spaces inside the church. He had looked everywhere and found nothing. He sighed heavily. He should have been able to relax, his fears allayed, but the feeling was still there, as strong as ever, that he was not alone, that someone—something.

—was in the building with him.

He thought for a moment, then decided to get out his Bible and walk through each square inch of the church in order to drive out any demons or evil spirits that might be lurking. He did not understand how neh chizni doohc could even enter the blessed house of God, but he thought of his experience at Agafia’s and reminded himself that just because he did not understand something did not mean that it could not occur.

He walked back through the kitchen, out the doorway, and across the dusty open floor to the wall against which the benches were stacked. Next to the piled-up benches was the small chest of drawers where he stored his Bible. He pulled open the top drawer—

And his Bible screamed at him.

He leaped back, startled, practically tripping over his feet in his instinctive haste to get away from that horrible noise.

There was another scream—high-pitched, loud, short, strong—and the Bible shot up, out of the drawer and into the air, as if it had been thrown. Jim continued to stagger backward, praying out loud, as the Bible turned in midair and flew toward him, its pages flapping. It looked like some sort of hideously deformed bird, not like a book at all, and he ducked, losing his balance and falling to the floor, as it dove at his head.

He was shouting now, Molokan prayers against the devil and his minions, as the Bible flew up to the top of the ceiling, then dove at him again. This time it smacked hard against the top of his head before he could move out of the way. He grunted with pain at the force of the blow and tried to grab the Bible as it bounced off his head and hit the floor, but it shot up between his grasping hands, closed hard on the tip of his beard and pulled away, yanking out hair.

There was laughter accompanying the attack, a close relative of the screams, a hideous high-pitched cackle that sounded like nothing he had ever heard.

He had never been so terrified in his life. None of this made any sense. He did not know why this was happening or even what was happening. He knew only that his church had been invaded, that he was being attacked, and that his prayers seemed to be having no effect.

Agafia’s Bible.

Was this some sort of plague afflicting Russian Bibles, some type of evil that could only manifest itself in this manner? Or had this originated with Agafia? He did not know. All he knew was that he loved her, loved her with all his heart and soul, loved her almost as much as he loved God, and the thought at the forefront of his mind was that he needed to get out of here, needed to get to her, needed to protect her.

The Bible was circling in the air above the benches, and Jim clumsily scrambled to his feet and started across the church toward the front door.

He was not fast enough, however, and before he had gone even one-fourth of the distance, the Bible swooped down and slammed into his back, knocking him over. He tried to get up, but this time it did not fly back into the air. Instead, it remained on top of him, its weight unnaturally heavy, pulling itself up his body toward his head with a series of thumping pulses. He rolled over, trying to throw it off, but he only managed to get himself turned onto his back. The Bible was not knocked off his body but was still on top of him, now open on his chest and slowly, steadily creeping upward toward his face.

He grabbed the book with both hands, but it was stronger than he was, and with a suddenness he could not hope to match, the heavy volume jerked hard to the left, hard to the right, and forced his hands off. There was the sound of cracking bone as the weight of the Bible broke his right wrist.

Jim screamed.

And the open Bible plopped onto his face.

He was fighting for his life. He knew it, and he was doing the best he could, but he was old and not in the greatest health, and he was battling something that had the strength of hell behind it.

With his one good hand, he grabbed the leather spine and tried to pull the Bible off him, but it would not budge. Beneath the binding, each page seemed sentient, thin individual sheets of bound printed paper suddenly strong and sinewy, competing with each other for supremacy as they tried to force their way into his mouth.

He tried to fight off the book, biting with his teeth, clamping shut his jaws, but the pages turned, shifted to the side, pulled down, paper cuts slicing into his lips until he opened his mouth to cry out.

The pages shoved themselves into his mouth, sliding into the narrow spaces between his teeth and cutting into his gums, slitting the soft delicate flesh of his tongue. The flapping page in front of his eyes whipped back and forth, back and forth, and the movement of the words made it look like an animated cartoon, several lines printed in corresponding locations on double-sided paper forming one blasphemous, incongruous message before him: God is dead. Thou art evil. The Lord thy God is a glutton and must be stoned.

His good hand grabbed the book’s front cover, tried to rip it off, but the Bible lurched again, hard to the left, and there was another crack of bone as his left arm went dead.

He was not going to win, he realized. He was not going to make it. He did manage to get his mouth shut again, but then a page of the New Testament sliced across his right eye, cutting into the cornea, and as he screamed in agony, the Book of Ruth shoved its way down his throat.

4

It had been a long time since either of them had gone to a Molokan funeral—and if they had been in Southern California they probably would have skipped this one, too—but they were here and they felt obligated, so Gregory and Julia dutifully put on their traditional garb and, leaving Sasha in charge of Adam and Teo, took his mother from the church, where she’d been staying with the body, to the Molokan cemetery on the ridge above the mine.

Gregory glanced in the rearview mirror as he drove. In the backseat, his mother stared straight ahead, looking at nothing, her gaze focused not on Julia or himself, not on the scenery outside, but somewhere in the middle distance. She looked old. She’d aged several years in the last two days, and the lines on her face seemed suddenly more prominent, the vicissitudes of life more pronounced in the defeated cast of her features.

She was taking Jim’s death much harder than he would have expected.

Harder than his father’s?

He didn’t know, but he resented her feelings, found himself angry with her for caring so much. She hadn’t seen the guy in thirty years, had gotten reacquainted only a few weeks ago, and now she was acting as though she’d lost the love of her life.

The love of her life.

He didn’t want to think about that.

He knew he was being petty and childish. After all, she had a right to be sad and shocked, depressed and upset. One of her old friends had died—been killed—and it was selfish and inconsiderate of him to ascribe motives to her feelings, to feel betrayed because she was experiencing an understandable human reaction to an incomprehensibly horrific event.

Was she supposed to be cheerful and happy, to feel nothing at all and act as if murder were an ordinary everyday occurrence?

Of course not, and Gregory chided himself for his suspicious self-centered thoughtlessness.

But he still felt it.

Jim Petrovin’s death was the talk the town. Everyone in McGuane was stunned by what had happened, and there were rumors flying every which way. It was truly bizarre, like something out of one of those Vincent Price movies where the villains were dispatched in ironically appropriate ways. A minister killed with his own Bible? It was an unlikely murder weapon, to say the least, and Zeb Reynolds, the lead detective, was in the process of interviewing all church members, trying to find out if anyone had had a grudge against the old man. He had already spoken to Gregory’s mother, and she had answered all of his questions and pretended to be cooperative, but her English became a little worse when she talked to him, her already thick accent a little more pronounced, and Gregory could tell that she didn’t want to involve herself with the police.

She did not think they could solve Jim’s murder.

And that was why the minister had not been left alone since his death, why someone had always been with him. His mother and a bunch of the other men and women from the church had taken turns and remained with the body around the clock, saying special prayers of protection even as they said traditional prayers for Jim’s soul. The assumption was that his death was not caused by the hand of man but was the work of demons or spirits, and there were hints that the minister had battled with a devil and lost, that he had died a martyr trying to protect the church. While Gregory didn’t believe that, the idea of it still gave him chills. He was not as divorced from the religion as he liked to pretend, and being back here in McGuane, being once again among his people, brought it all back and made him feel like a boy again, afraid of things that in California would have seemed to him like silly superstitions.

The dirt road wound up to the crest of the ridge, disappearing at the top, and Gregory drove across the rocky, ungraded ground to the spot where other vehicles were parked, outside the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. He slowed the van as he approached, feeling odd as he looked at the open gates of the graveyard. It was where his father was buried, and it had not changed one whit. The land, the sky, the fence, the headstones were exactly as he remembered them. It was as if time had stood still, and he licked his suddenly dry lips as he pulled to a stop behind a Ford pickup.

He had not been here since the day of the funeral, all those years ago, and he felt guilty and ashamed, acutely conscious of his filial neglect. His father had often been in his thoughts—not a day had gone by, in fact, when Gregory had not thought of him—but he had never made the effort to visit the gravesite. Until now he had been able to rationalize his actions and not face the fact that his avoidance was the result of a childish and selfish inability to confront his father’s passing. He’d always told himself that there was no reason to visit the grave, that his father was gone, that what was lying buried in the coffin was a husk, an empty shell. And he believed it. But the truth was that he also didn’t want to have to think about it. He had chosen the emotionally easy way out, preferring not to experience emotions that would make him uneasy or uncomfortable.

Now they were flooding over him.

He glanced at his mother in the rearview mirror and realized for the first time that she had never returned to McGuane either.

And she had not asked to visit the gravesite since they’d moved back.

She was unaware that he was watching her, and her face was set in what looked like a grimace. Her back had been hurting for the past few days, and he would have attributed the look on her face to the physical pain but for the fact that he recognized her expression: it was exactly the same one she had worn at his father’s funeral.

He remembered the way she’d broken down, sobbing, wailing, falling to her knees in the dirt next to the open grave; remembered that he’d been embarrassed and had looked away, looked over the side of the ridge, down at the ugly open pit of the mine; remembered that when he turned back to look at the group of mourners his mother was no longer crying but was grimacing as if in pain.

Precisely as she was now.

He couldn’t help wondering: was this face for his father or the minister? It was wrong of him to be so judgmental, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t like the fact that his father and Jim Petrovin would be buried in the same cemetery, and he hoped their graves were far apart.

Where would his mother be buried? he wondered. Between them?

Of course not. She had already purchased a plot right next to his father’s, had already planned out her funeral to such an extent that he knew where her burial clothes were and what style of casket she wanted. She was sad because an old friend of hers had died, and he was just being an insensitive asshole.

He and Julia got out of the van, Julia unfolding a sunscreen over the windshield so the inside of the vehicle wouldn’t be an oven when they returned. He opened the sliding side door, and his mother stepped out slowly, pressing one hand against her aching back. “Oy,” she groaned.

He took her arm as she straightened. “Come on,” he said kindly in Russian.

And flanked by his wife and his mother, he walked through the gates, across the rocky ground, past his father’s final resting place, to the open gravesite near the edge of the cliff.

5

Just as he’d thought, just as he’d known, his parents wanted to take him out for his birthday, and though he’d begged them not to, though he’d specifically requested that they celebrate alone, at home, his mom and dad had made reservations at the Mining Camp restaurant, the most popular eatery in town, and invited Scott to come along.

Adam just hoped to God they hadn’t told anyone at the restaurant about it and that all of the waitresses and busboys weren’t going to come over and sing “Happy Birthday” and embarrass the hell out of him.

He’d never be able to live it down.

At least he had gotten his family to agree to open the presents at home, so he didn’t have to sit at the table with a pile of wrapped boxes in front of him and open them while everyone stared. Two girls from his class were at the restaurant tonight, Liz and Livia Stanson, the blabbermouth sisters, and he knew that anything occurring here this evening would be all over school by Monday. If he had had to unwrap a package of underwear from Babunya in front of them, he would have been humiliated all the way through junior high.

Actually, things weren’t turning out as badly as he’d feared. The Mining Camp’s one banquet table had already been occupied when they’d arrived, so their party had had to spread out over two tables. Since he was the birthday boy, he got to sit alone at one with Scott, while the rest of the family sat together in a booth.

So, all things considered, it wasn’t too embarrassing.

Not as embarrassing as it could have been.

He’d been told by his dad that he could order anything on the menu, but there wasn’t a whole lot to choose from, and both he and Scott decided on bacon double cheeseburgers and Cokes. Over at the other table, his parents were having a difficult time getting Teo to order anything. She was in one of her non-eating moods, and they read off the menu items to her one by one, trying to entice her, but she continued to shake her head.

“I’m not hungry,” Teo said.

“Zdohcly!” Babunya admonished her.

“What’s that mean?” Scott whispered.

Adam shrugged, embarrassed. “I don’t know. She always says it when we don’t want to eat. I think it means, like, ‘puny’ or something.”

“You can’t speak Russian?”

“No,” he said, and now he was embarrassed about that.

The waitress came and took everyone’s order, and his stomach sank as he saw his father motion her over and whisper something in her ear. He knew what that meant. The old candle-on-the-dessert-while-everyone-sings-“Happy-Birthday” routine. Great. He had told his parents he didn’t want that, had threatened to walk out if they did it, and he’d thought they understood. They’d acted sympathetic, had promised there would be no singing, but apparently they had no intention of honoring his wishes. He should have known by the smirk on Sasha’s face when he’d talked to his parents that they had something planned.

“Looks like there’s going to be singing,” Scott said. He grinned. “But don’t worry. I won’t participate.”

“Yeah, that makes a big difference.”

He looked toward his family’s table and happened to glance over just as Sasha was shifting position. The booth bench seats were slightly higher than his and Scott’s on the floor, and he saw, between her legs and up her skirt, a flash of white that was her underwear.

His breath caught in his throat.

And he was instantly erect.

It was a completely unexpected reaction. He had never before thought of his sister in that way, had never really seen her as anything other than his older sibling, a bully and a pain in his ass, but that galvanizing look between her legs had stirred him, and he casually glanced that way again, but her knees were together and he could see nothing.

This was wrong. She was his sister, for God’s sake. He wasn’t supposed to be aroused or sexually stimulated by her. He never had been before this, and he didn’t know why it was happening now, but today he was a teenager, and maybe that was the cause of it. Maybe some kind of hormone kicked in when you turned thirteen and you just couldn’t help thinking about sex.

He wanted to tell Scott about it, wanted to share what he’d seen, but something held him back. It was not guilt or embarrassment. Not exactly. It wasn’t any respect for his sister or her right to privacy.

It was the fact that he didn’t want his friend to see her.

Jealousy and possessiveness? The waitress brought their drinks, and Adam took his glass and downed a huge swallow of Coke. There was something wrong with him. This wasn’t normal. He wasn’t supposed to be having these… Thoughts? Feelings? Urges?

He didn’t know what they were, but he knew they weren’t supposed to be there.

He’d seen Sasha in a bathing suit before, of course, but somehow this was different, and as much as he hated himself for doing it, he kept looking over as they waited for the food to arrive, hoping to catch another glimpse. It was the fact that it was her underwear that made it so exciting. The ugliest, unsexiest panties were more intimate than the tiniest bathing suit—their sole purpose was to shield the most private of areas, to protect a girl’s secret spot. It was something boys weren’t supposed to see, and it was the fact that he had seen that was so forbidden and nasty and sexy.

He had a difficult time concentrating on the rest of the evening. They did bring a chocolate sundae with a lit candle and everyone did sing, but he was not that embarrassed. He was too distracted to object, and he went along with everything without too much fuss.

Later, after opening the presents, after going with his dad to drop Scott off at his house, he pretended he was tired and retreated to his room.

He sat on the bed, replaying the scene in his mind. He saw again the way she’d shifted in the booth, moving her legs, and how for a few brief seconds he’d had that perfect view of white cotton-covered crotch. He’d had a boner for half the night, although he’d been able to successfully hide it, and now he was once again hard.

Sasha’s bedroom was right next to his, and he thought about drilling a hole in the wall between the two rooms so he could peek at her, so he could watch her getting dressed and undressed, but he knew that was not realistic. It was also not right. As he kept telling himself, she was his sister, and when he even started to think about her in that way, he should immediately try to focus on some other unrelated topic. That was unhealthy, perverted.

Still, he could not stop thinking about it, and the thought that there was only a wall between them, that she took off her clothes in there in order to put on her pajamas, aroused him.

He wondered what she was doing now. He wondered if she was naked. He placed his ear against the wall, listened. He could hear her, moving around, and he quietly pulled down his pants and leaned back on the bed. He began stroking himself, imagining she was walking around her room without any clothes on. He had never seen a naked girl before, not a real one, only pictures in magazines, but he could easily conjure up the picture in his mind.

He thought of her secret spot, covered only by thin, snugly fitted cotton material.

It was getting close, he could feel it reaching the fever pitch, and he began stroking faster, harder. He knew it was wrong, knew it was sick, but he wanted to hear her voice, wanted her to talk to him as he climaxed.

He closed his eyes, thought about that glimpse of white cotton panty.

“Sasha?” he called.

“What?” she said from her bedroom.

“Sasha?”

“What?” she yelled.

And he came.