There was no noise—it was like being in a place where sound could not penetrate—but there was a lot of movement, and as the shadows touched her skin, her arm, her cheeks, she laughed. It tickled.
In less than a minute, the cat was gone.
“Good,” the banya said. “So good.”
She smiled, feeling pleased.
She was glad she could do something for the banya—because the banya had done so much for her. It had promised to help her, and help her it had. She still had no friends, the other kids still refused to talk to her, but no one was making fun of her anymore. The banya had given her… something, and the other kids in her class seemed to sense it. They stayed away, afraid of her, and that was good. She no longer had to spend her recesses in the classroom with the teacher, hiding. She strode bravely and proudly through the playground, doing whatever she wanted, and though she had to do it by herself, she didn’t really mind. Just knowing that she was not alone, just knowing that she had the banya, gave her the confidence to be herself, allowed her to shrug off criticism and not worry about what other kids said or thought or did.
Of course, Mary Kay and Kim hated her more than ever. They did not trip her or push her down like they used to, but she sensed the hatred and resentment building in them, and she thought that eventually they would probably try to get back at her somehow, do something to her.
If only she could get them first. If only she could beat them to the punch.
The banya seemed to know what she was thinking, because it gave her a comforting breath of warm, sweet-smelling air.
She smiled.
“It is time,” the banya said.
She blinked. “What?”
She thought she heard the sounds of a playground, thought she heard Mary Kay’s voice singing, “I see England, I see France, I see Teo’s underpants!”
“It is time,” the banya repeated.
And she understood.
Going out to morning recess, Teo was bumped by Kim, but when she said, “Watch it!” Kim just kept running, pretending it was an accident.
She stared after the other girl. Apparently whatever immunity her newfound confidence had given her had worn off and she was once again in for some teasing and torture.
She walked out to the playground. That’s okay, she thought. The banya would show them.
But how? she wondered. Was she supposed to lure the girls over to the bathhouse, trick them into going inside?
The thought came to her, unbidden, that she was supposed to present the girls to the banya the way she had the bird, the mice, the chipmunk, the cat. As an offering.
Was she supposed to kill them?
The idea stopped her cold. There was no way she would do that, no way she could do that, and for the first time, it occurred to her that maybe the banya wasn’t really her friend, that there was something wrong with it. It was trying to make her do things she shouldn’t do, things she didn’t want to do, and in a burst of clarity, she understood that it was not normal, not right, for her to sit in a bathhouse and talk to it, to bring it dead animals.
She thought about what had happened. She had not just picked up the bodies of dead animals and fed them to the banya. She’d actually killed a cat herself, had murdered a little kitty, and tears welled up in her eyes as she realized what she’d done. It was as if she’d been hypnotized or something and had suddenly awakened, and she looked back at what had happened and was horrified.
Now the banya expected her to bring girls home and kill them?
She heard its voice, faintly, as if carried over a distance.
“No,” it said smoothly. “No, Teo.”
The voice made her stop, pushed all those negative thoughts out of her head. She stood there listening to the faint words of the banya, and her doubts fled, her faith was restored. The banya was her friend, she realized, and it told her that it was going to punish the girls who had tormented her, that it was going to make them pay.
But they would simply be taught a lesson, the bathhouse told her. No one would be seriously hurt.
And then the birds came.
They swooped down from previously clear skies, a living black cloud. They were the same type of bird that she’d fed to the banya, and they buzzed the heads of the kids on the playground. Boys jumped out of swings and off slides, girls fled hopscotch and tetherball courts. The birds were shrieking, and it was like a scene out of that old movie. The teachers monitoring the playground were simultaneously trying to scare off the birds and yelling for the children to head for cover.
The birds were followed by mice and chipmunks.
The birds were still there, above, but on the ground chipmunks and mice raced out from the field, swarming beneath the playground equipment, dashing between the feet of the panicking students and the screaming staff.
Teo looked around, searching out faces she knew. Kids were crying, running, not just heading back to the classrooms but darting about in all directions, trying to avoid the birds and get away from the rodents on the ground. She finally found Mary Kay, and a thrill of vindication coursed through her as the bratty girl stumbled and fell, sobbing while other kids tripped over her and fell on top of her. She also picked out Kim and two of Kim’s friends and was gratified to see them stranded atop the monkey bars, swatting their own heads as they tried to keep the birds away.
A tabby cat walked through the melee, oblivious. It ignored the mice, making a beeline for her. Teo looked down at the animal, and the cat looked back at her. It meowed softly, rubbed against her legs.
She picked the cat up, petted it.
Standing alone, next to the drinking fountains, untouched by everything, Teo smiled.
Thirteen
1
Sunday.
It was the third week in a row that they’d tried to perform a Cleansing for the entire town, one that would exorcise once and for all the unseen beings that had invaded this place. They stood in the empty church, the ten of them, holding hands, praying. All of the other parishioners had gone home, and the pots and pans and dishes and cups and spoons had all been washed and put away, the leftover food placed in the refrigerator. All of the tablecloths and napkins were in Nikolai’s car, ready to be taken to the laundromat and washed.
The dying sun shone orange through the west windows, creating long shadows in the empty room. They continued the ceremonies, but no matter how many words they repeated, no matter how earnestly they wanted this to work, their efforts were in vain. The church remained clean, free of spirits—they had successfully cleared and protected it—but though they once again prayed and sang, performing virtually every Molokan exorcism ritual known, it seemed to have no effect on the rest of the town. There were no accompanying signs of either success or failure as they worked, not even a slight drop in temperature, and if Agafia had not known better, she would have thought that McGuane was clean, that there was nothing here.