“I’ll talk to my father,” Dan said. “He’s not too thrilled with me right now, but I think he’ll listen.” There was a pause. “This is serious, isn’t it?”
“I think so. My grandma seems to think so.”
“We should’ve said something earlier. We shouldn’t have waited so long.”
Adam heard a noise in the hallway, and he quickly hung up, ducking into his parents’ bathroom and flushing the toilet, then walking out, pretending to buckle his pants. His father walked into the bedroom, and there was something weird about him, something strange.
Adam was grateful that the toilet was still running. He tried to think of some reason why he’d come in here instead of going to the other bathroom, but his father did not seem to be interested or care. He walked past Adam and lay down on the bed, closing his eyes and laying a hand over his forehead as though he had a headache.
It was weird, weird and spooky, and he thought of what Babunya had said—
Remember what happen to other family in this house?
—and hurried out of his parents’ bedroom back to his own.
He hadn’t even had time to say good-bye to Dan, he thought.
Somehow that bothered him.
3
It had come to Agafia in Adam’s bedroom, when she’d seen his sister’s underwear wadded up beneath his bed. She had tried to remain calm for his sake, but inside she was in turmoil, filled with the sudden realization that the evil forces in this town were not just growing stronger and randomly killing people but were proceeding along other, quieter, more subtle lines as well. And when he told her he’d gone back to the banya, told her of the spoon on the ledge, she understood the extent of the influence. They were all at risk. Every one of them. Her family. Her friends. The Molokans. Everyone in town. Not just from without but from within.
Suddenly, it had all become clear, and she understood what the prophet had tried to tell her. It was the fact that they had not invited the Owner of the House that had led to this, that was the source of these murders and manifestations. That one breach had allowed spirits to gain a foothold here in town, had taken the lid off the pressure cooker. As Adam said, this was a bad house to begin with, home to evil of its own, and evil was like a magnet for other evil.
Evil always comes back.
Now spirits were overrunning McGuane, growing ever more powerful.
And their house was at the center of it.
She had blessed the home. Many times. Every time she walked into it, in fact. But that sort of mild defense did not make up for the lack of strong permanent protection, and she had allowed her reliance on habit to blind her to what was really going on. She had assumed that their house was safe because she was blessing it, while the truth was that it was being invaded under her watch.
It explained why none of the Cleansings had taken, why none of the rituals had worked. Their focus had been misdirected. They had concentrated their prayers and energies on the church because that was where Jim had been killed, but they should have been focused on this house.
Perhaps they could have stopped it earlier.
No matter. They would stop it now. She phoned Vera, told her to call the others immediately and gather them together. She didn’t say why, didn’t say what the hurry was, but she told Vera she would meet them at the church, and she made it clear that it was important. She did not want to speak in this house, did not want to reveal too much in case something was watching, listening. She knew the church was clean, and she thought it best to discuss things there. On the other end of the line, Vera seemed strange, distant, but she agreed to call the others and meet.
Agafia changed into a Russian dress, put on her white sneakers, and went into the dining room for her Bible. Gregory and Julia were both at home, and she could have asked one of them to take her downtown in the van, but she was wary of involving them. She had spoken to Adam, and she would talk to Teo, but Sasha and her parents were out. They were too old. There was a possibility of corruption, and while it was not their fault, she knew she could no longer trust them. Not until this was over.
Agafia thought of the prophet’s bony arm, wiping out the small town on the sandy floor of the cave.
She could not allow herself to think about that. She had to concentrate on what needed to be done now, and she quickly called Vera back, but the line was busy, so she dialed Semyon’s number. No one answered.
She made several phone calls, calling everyone in the church for whom she had a number, dialing Vera’s number in between each, but she could not get hold of anyone, and she made the decision to walk. It was foolish, perhaps, but it felt right, and, putting on her jacket, clutching her Bible, she sneaked out of the house and hurried up the drive, praying she would not hear Gregory’s or Julia’s voice behind her.
She headed for the church.
It was a long walk. She tired easily these days, and ordinarily she would have had to sit down and rest every so often, but the brisk air and pumping adrenaline gave her the sort of strength she had not had in years, and while she did not speed down to the church, she was able to make good time.
She remembered when she was younger and walked to the church all the time, when she and John and Gregory would get dressed up and all walk, and she found herself thinking that the years sped by far too fast, that life was too short.
It took only fifteen minutes for her to reach the street on which the church was located, and her step, which had been flagging, picked up as she hurried along the side of the road.
She did not see the building until she was nearly upon it—the bulk of the variety store blocked it from view—but as soon as she reached the vacant lot next to the church, she stopped dead in her tracks, her heart lurching painfully in her chest and causing her to gasp.
The church was covered with hair.
Not all of the other Molokans had arrived yet, but several of them had, and they were standing in the dirt parking lot, staring at the building. She hurried past the vacant lot, over to them.
Thick black hair had grown out from every inch of wood wall and stone step and shake roof, straight and shiny and several feet long. The church resembled nothing so much as some sort of fantastic beast from a children’s fairy tale, but there was no sense of the benign magic so common to children’s stories. This was wrong, this was evil, and it had been created not to amuse or inspire awe but to terrify.
Agafia had never seen such a thing before, and it was the absurd incongruity of the sight that made it so frightening. There was a cool, dry breeze blowing through the canyon, and the light wind caused the hair to waft left on unseen currents, waving slightly and giving the church beneath it the appearance of movement.
When had it happened? Last night? This morning? Had it occurred as these things usually did, under the cover of darkness, when no one was looking? Or had someone seen it? She imagined the transformation: the hair appearing, coming in, the church building suddenly growing darker, as though a shadow was passing over it, until the hair grew long enough to see and it became clear to anyone viewing the sight what it was.
Did this have any meaning? she wondered. And what was the significance of hair? She didn’t know, but she walked onto the church property feeling cowed and intimidated, certain that this bizarre desecration had somehow been meant as a warning to her.
Vera turned in her direction as she walked over. “It is you,” she said quietly. “You are the one who has brought this upon us.”