“What?”
“It is your fault. This. Everything.”
She understood now Vera’s diffidence over the phone, and she shook her head. “No.”
“Last night I dreamed of the prophet. He told me.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He told me you had been influenced. He said you must be cast out.” Vera looked at her evenly. “He said this is your fault. It is all your fault.”
She wanted to explain that it was her fault, that she had forgotten to invite the Owner of the House and that it was from that that everything else had sprung, but she knew that at this point Vera would not listen to her. The other woman was fixated on her dream, she believed it utterly, and nothing anyone could say would dissuade her.
“Pray for me,” Agafia challenged her.
“It is too late for that.” Vera turned away. “Leave. This is no longer your church.”
Pacifism or no pacifism, she heard hatred in Vera’s voice, hatred and fear, and she could sense the threat of violence just below the surface.
Agafia turned away, feeling frustrated and frightened, not knowing what to do. Other people were stopping, drivers on the street braking to a halt so they could look at the transformed building. A crowd was gathering.
She looked again at the church, and this time she saw it in a different light. She’d been thinking of this as a religious occurrence, an act of defiance against God, but now she saw it as vandalism. That was why the hair made no sense, she realized. Like everyone else, she had been thinking in biblical terms, trying to equate what was happening to the words and prophecies in the Bible, but this had nothing to do with that.
This was not sacred, it was secular.
A hand touched her shoulder, and she whirled around. It was Semyon. He’d obviously been standing nearby, listening to her and Vera, and he was offering his support. “I do not believe it,” he said. He smiled. “I know you, Agafia.”
She smiled back, took his hand, gave it a small squeeze of gratitude, but the expressions on the faces of the others were hard and harsh, judgmental and unyielding.
She pulled him aside, walked with him out toward the street. “Listen,” she said, quietly but earnestly. “We need Vasili. Someone needs to get him and bring him here. Our Cleansings are nothing, a squirt of water on a pile of dirt. There are… many entities. They are invading McGuane and there are more all the time. Nikolai knows nothing about this, and even Vera is in over her head. Maybe the prophet has some idea of what we can do to stop it.”
“He wasn’t much help last time.”
“Prophets only know what God wants them to know, and only when God wants them to know it. Vasili has no control over what is revealed to him. And perhaps he has had some revelations since that will let us know what to do.” She paused. “Besides, God may have nothing to do with this.”
She saw the look on his face, and she stopped him before he could start. “We don’t have time,” she said. “But this has nothing to do with prayers or God or Jesus Christ. It has to do with Jedushka Di Muvedushka…”
He frowned. “That’s just a… a tradition. A superstition.”
“It is not!” she said fiercely. “My father saw him, and I’m sure you know plenty of other people who have, too. And you and your family have always invited him when you moved, haven’t you?”
Semyon nodded a reluctant acknowledgment.
“So you believe. Don’t tell me you don’t.”
He was interested now.
She took a deep breath. “I forgot to invite him when we moved here. I cannot go into the details now, but as I’m sure you know, that left our house unprotected. And you know which house that is. You know what happened there.”
He swallowed, nodded. “The Megan house.”
“That is where it started. It grew from that.” She took his right hand in hers, looked into his eyes. “You see what I mean? This may have nothing to do with church.”
“The way it started might have nothing to do with the church, but the spirits that have come in, the evil that has come in since your house was unprotected…”
“That’s why I hope the church can help stop it. I don’t have any other ideas. So get the prophet. Tell him. Maybe he will know what to do.”
“I will,” Semyon promised.
“Vera will not listen to me, and that means Nikolai will not listen to me, but you talk to them, you make them know what is behind all this, what started it. And make sure someone brings the prophet here.”
“He may not come.”
“At least talk to him, tell him what is happening, see if he knows what to do.”
The others were staring at them, and Agafia released him, used her left hand to help hold up the Bible sagging in her right. “Go,” she said “Talk to them. Tell them.”
He nodded, backed away. “I believe you,” he said.
She smiled her thanks.
It was getting near dusk, and the air was growing even colder. The others obviously had something planned, and she hoped they’d at least called in someone else for whatever ritual it was. She doubted it would work, but there needed to be ten of them. Just in case.
They were staring at her, waiting for her to leave, and so, clutching her Bible, Agafia turned and walked through the long shadows of downtown back toward home.
Only she didn’t get that far. She was in front of the hardware store, standing on the corner, looking both ways, when to her right she saw a small, dark figure crossing the road, a little man with a beard, and her heart jumped.
Jedushka Di Muvedushka.
She had never seen him before, but she recognized him instantly. There was about the small man an air of the unearthly. Something about him bespoke an unnatural origin, and though he appeared calm and benign, she was seized with fear at the sight of him.
When Father had seen the Owner of the House back in Mexico, it had been accidental, pure luck, and it, too, had been right around sundown. Father had never been sure whether it was the special qualities of the light which had given him that glimpse of the little man, the fact that it was the time halfway between day and night, or whether the Owner of the House had allowed him a glimpse, but he had never doubted what he’d seen and neither had anyone else in the family.
Agafia understood why. There was something so there about the man, something so substantial about his presence that he seemed in a way more real than his surroundings.
It was that observation which made her think he wanted her to see him.
But whose Owner was he? she wondered. Where had he come from? And why was he trying to communicate with her?
He turned, smiled, beckoned.
She followed him to Russiantown.
She remained far behind, ready to run at any moment, though she doubted she could actually escape him. He did not appear to be after her, made no effort to chase her, and though she was cold and tired and winded, she followed him through empty alleys and empty streets, along a route that seemed specifically designed to avoid contact with anyone else, until they were halfway up the canyon and in the ruins of Russiantown.
She could not recall the last time she’d been here, but she remembered the layout perfectly, and she knew, even before they reached their destination, where he was leading her and what he wanted her to see.
The small man passed through a yard of overgrown dead weeds higher than his head, then climbed up the rickety remnants of wooden steps to a doorway.
The doorway of their old home.
She stood before the ruins of the house, the memories of that last day and night flooding over her. She’d vowed never to return, had promised herself she would not come back to this spot, but here she was, and she faced the past boldly, unflinchingly, something which would not have been possible even a week ago but was absolutely necessary now.