John stood behind his wife, his spine crawling from being stared at by all the other parents. Someone at the high school, where they'd stopped first, had told him that Billy was dead and the boy's body had already been carried away in an ambulance, but Ramona had said no, she'd have known if her son was dead.
"Billy?" Ramona said, in a trembling voice.
The boy's eyes opened painfully. He could hardly see through the swollen slits, and the doctors had told him there were maybe forty wood slivers in his cheeks and forehead but he'd have to wait until the burned kids were treated.
She bent down beside him and hugged him gently, her head leaning against his shoulder. "I'm all right, Mom," Billy said through blistered lips. "Oh God . . . it was so terrible. . . ."
John's face had been gray ever since they'd left the school and had seen those bodies lying under the blankets, the gurneys being pushed along the hallway with burned teenagers on them, parents shrieking and sobbing and clinging to each other for support. The night was filled with ambulance sirens, and the burned-flesh stink floated in the hospital like a brown haze. "Your hands," he said. "What happened?"
"I lost some skin, that's all."
"Dear God, boy!" John's face crumpled like old sandpaper, and he put his hand against the tiled wall to support himself. "Lord God, Lord God I never saw anything like what I saw at that school!"
"How'd it happen, Dad? One minute it was just a bonfire, like every year. Then it all changed."
"I don't know. But all those pieces of wood . . . they cut those kids up, just cut them to ribbons!"
"A man there said I did it," Billy said tonelessly. "He said I was drunk, and I did something to the fire to make it explode."
"That's a damned lie!" John's eyes blazed. "You didn't have a thing to do with it!"
"He said I have Death inside me. Is that right?"
"NO! Who said that to you? Show him to me!"
Billy shook his head. "It doesn't matter now, anyway. It's all over. I just . . . wanted to have fun, Dad. Everybody wanted to have a good time. . . ."
John gripped his son's shoulder, and felt something like deep ice crack inside him. Billy's gaze was strangely dark and blank, as if what had happened had blown all the mysterious fuses in his head. "It's all right," John said. "Thank God you're alive."
"Dad? Was I wrong to go?"
"No. A man goes where he wants to, and he has to go some places he don't want to, as well. I expect you've done a little of both tonight." Farther along the corridor, someone wailed in either pain or sorrow, and John flinched from the sound.
Ramona wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked at the tiny slivers embedded in Billy's face, some of them dangerously close to having blinded him. She had to ask, though she already suspected the answer "Did you know?"
He nodded. "I tried to tell them, I tried to warn them something was going to happen, but I ... I didn't know what it was going to be. Mom, why did it happen? Could I have changed it if I'd done anything different?" Tears slipped down his Vaseline-smeared cheeks.
"I don't know," Ramona replied; an honest answer to a mystery that had plagued her all her life.
There was a sudden commotion over at the far side of the waiting room, where a corridor led to the main doors. Ramona and John both looked up, and saw people thronging around a large, thick-bellied man with gray curly hair and a boy about Billy's age, lean and red-haired. A shock of recognition pierced Ramona. That bitter night at the tent revival replayed itself in her mind—it had never been very far beneath the surface, not in all of seven years. A woman grasped Falconer's hand and kissed it, begging him to pray for her injured daughter; a man in overalls pushed her aside to get to Wayne. For a few seconds there was a shoving melee of shoulders and arms as the parents of hurt and dying kids tried to reach Falconer and his son, to get their attention, to touch them as if they were walking good-luck charms. Falconer let them converge on him, but the boy stepped back in confusion.
Ramona stood up. A state trooper had come in, trying to settle everybody back down again. Through the mass of people, Ramona's hard gaze met the evangelist's, and Falconer's soft, fleshy face seemed to darken. He came toward her, ignoring the appeals for prayer and for healing. He looked down at Billy, his eyes narrowing, then back into Ramona's face. Wayne stood behind him, wearing jeans and a blue knit shirt with an alligator on the breast pocket. He glanced at Billy and for an instant then-eyes held; then the boy's gaze locked upon Ramona, and she thought she could actually feel the heat of hatred.
"I know you," Falconer said softly. "I remember you, from a long time ago. Creekmore."
"That's right. And I remember you, as well."
"There's been an accident," John told the evangelist. "My boy was there when it happened. His hands are all cut up, and he ... he saw terrible things. Will you pray for him?"
Falconer's eyes were locked with Ramona's. He and Wayne had heard about the bonfire explosion on the radio, and had come to the hospital to offer consolation; running into this witch-woman again was the last thing he'd expected, and he feared the influence her presence might have on Wayne. His bulk dwarfed her, but somehow, under her hard and appraising stare, he felt very vulnerable and small.
"Have you brought your boy here to heal?" she asked him.
"No. Only to minister, alongside me."
Ramona turned her attention to the boy, and stepped a pace closer to him. Billy saw her eyes narrow, as if she'd seen something that scared her about Wayne Falconer, something he wasn't able yet to see, perhaps. Wayne said, "What're you looking at?"
"Don't mind her. She's crazy." Falconer took the boy's arm and started to herd him away; suddenly a hollow-eyed man in blue jeans and a T-shirt stood up from his seat and grasped Wayne's hand. "Please," the man said, his voice sad and raspy, "I know who you are and what you can do. I've seen you do it before. Please ... my son's hurt bad, they brought him in a little while ago and they don't know if he's gonna . . ." The man clung to Wayne's hand as if he were about to collapse, and his bathrobed wife rose to support him. "I know what you can do," he whispered. "Please . . . save my son's life!"
Billy saw Wayne glance quickly at his father. The man said, "I'll give you money. I've got money, is that what you want? I'll turn to the Lord, I'll go to church every Sunday and I won't drink or gamble no more. But you've got to save him, you can't let those . . . those doctors kill him!"
"We'll pray for him," Falconer said. "What's his name?"
"No! You've got to touch him, to heal him like I've seen you do on television! My son's all burned up, his eyes are all burned!" The man gripped at Falconer's sleeve as other people thronged around. "Please let your boy heal him, I'm begging you!"
"Well just look who's here, everybody!" Falconer suddenly boomed, and pointed toward Ramona. "The Creekmores! Wayne, you know all about them, don't you? The mother's a Godless witch, and the boy calls up demons like he did at a certain sawmill around here! And now here they stand, on the eve of the worst disaster in Fayette history, turning up like bad pennies!"
"Wait," John said. "No, you're wrong, Reverend Falconer. Billy was at the high school, and he got hurt—"
"Hurt? You call that hurt? Look at him, everybody! Why isn't he all burned up, like the son of this poor soul here?" He gripped the man's shoulder. "Why isn't he dyin', like some of your sons and daughters are right this minute? He was out there with the other young people! Why isn't he burned up?"