He needed to face this—whatever it was. Defeat it. But to do that, he needed its name. He needed to know what he was fighting. All power stemmed from naming. And the only way to discover the girl’s identity was to follow her. She was on foot and hadn’t gone far. He still sensed her, although distant. She was heading west, toward the river. He couldn’t follow her with the buggy. There was no telling how far she would travel, and Dee was already tired. Also, if she crossed the river, he’d have to use the bridge. Such an undertaking was dangerous. Tractor trailers barreled across the two-lane bridge at seventy miles an hour. If he was in front of them, they’d never be able to stop in time. He couldn’t do the Lord’s work if he was dead.
Even as he considered his options, he felt the girl’s presence getting farther away. If he followed on foot, he might lose her. Already, her aura was fading. No, there was only one way to follow her.
And he didn’t like it. He loathed it, in fact. It had been a long time since he’d done it, but now, it was a necessary evil. There was no other way.
Levi was afraid of flying. Afraid of heights. He had a fear of gravity.
“Thy will be done…”
He ran back into the grocery store and asked the manager if somebody could keep an eye on his horse and buggy. Levi explained that he had an important errand to run. The manager eyed the clock on the wall and pointed out that they closed in two hours. Unblinking, Levi stared him in the eye, made a slight motion with his finger and asked if the night shift would be willing to watch it for him. It was very important. Sighing, the manager agreed. Levi thanked him and left the store.
On his way back to the buggy, Levi rummaged through his pockets and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed his closest neighbor, Sterling Myers. The older man answered on the third ring. He sounded drunk. Southern rock music played in the background.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Sterling. This is Levi Stoltzfus. I hope I’m not disturbing you?”
“Hey, Levi. What’s up? I was just sitting here watching some stupid reality show. People singing. Don’t know why the wife likes this stuff.”
Levi silently agreed. When he’d finally gotten his first opportunity to watch television, he’d been underwhelmed. It wasn’t a tool of the devil. It was a tool of stupidity.
“Kids out trick-or-treating,” Sterling continued. “Don’t know why the township doesn’t wait and have that on Halloween night, but what the hell. At least the house is quiet. Anyway, enough about that. How’s it going?”
“Well,” Levi said. “Not too good, Sterling. I need a big favor.”
“Sure. What’s that?”
“I’m going to be late getting home tonight. Something’s come up. I was wondering if you could feed my dog, Crowley? He’s tied out back.”
“Yeah, I can do that. You know, those are weird names for your animals. Crowley and Dee. What’s the deal with that?”
“Old friends of the family. A long time ago.”
“I had a dog named Shithead, once.”
“Sterling, I have to get going.”
“No problem, Levi. I’ll take care of the dog. You got a key to the house hidden somewhere?”
Levi’s heart hammered in his chest. Sterling couldn’t enter the house without Levi being there. That would invite disaster.
“No,” he said, speaking carefully. “His food is in the garage. It’s unlocked. There’s no need to go inside the house at all. And Crowley has the dog house to go into if it rains, so he’ll be fine.”
“Okay. No problem.”
There was a burst of static and then Sterling came back again.
“You on your cell phone?” he asked.
“Yes,” Levi said. “I’m sorry about that. The network coverage is spotty in this area.”
“Let me ask you something, Levi.”
Levi rolled his eyes, anticipating what was coming next. He didn’t have time for this. Not tonight.
“What’s that, Sterling?”
“If you’re Amish, then how come you can use a cell phone?”
Levi sighed. “I’ve told you before, Sterling. I’m not Amish anymore. I use a cell phone for the same reason everybody else uses a cell phone: because it’s a lot more practical than a carrier pigeon.”
“Yeah,” Sterling cackled. “You got that right! Still, I hate the things. Wife has one, but I don’t. I think they’re just evil.”
“Perhaps,” Levi agreed. “But they are a necessary evil. Sometimes a little evil is necessary to achieve a greater good.”
Levi cut Sterling off in midreply and thanked him again, then hung up. He slipped the cell phone back into his pocket.
He did not smile.
There was nothing funny about what he had to do next. But it was necessary.
Thick clouds glided over the moon, engulfing it. The night grew darker.
CHAPTER SIX
Maria drove from York City to the site of the Ghost Walk. Urban row homes, ethnic restaurants, liquor stores, and pawnshops gave way to deserted industrial parks and factories, followed by the excesses of suburban sprawl, and then wide-open expanses of countryside. Along the way, she got lost on the back roads and had to turn around twice. Before leaving, she’d gone online and printed out directions; unfortunately, those directions landed her in the middle of nowhere. She’d never had to travel to the rural parts ofYork County before. It was a little scary after dark—just trees and shadows and darkened houses. Several of the porches held garishly carved jack-o’-lanterns. Their eyes and mouths flickered with an orange glow as candles burned inside them. Other than the pumpkins, the houses seemed deserted. No lamps or television lights. She passed only a handful of other cars. It was like she’d driven back through time. This part of the county seemed divorced from the rest of civilization. She felt like an astronaut exploring a different planet. In locales like this, it was easy to understand why primitive man had been so afraid of the dark.
The radio was on. Warm 103, the local easy listening station, played softly in the background. Whoever programmed the station relied heavily on songs from the sixties, seventies, and eighties—almost as if elevator music had died after 1989. Maria hated the selection, but for some reason the only other channel she could pick up in this remote area featured a preacher screaming at his audience. She tried again, scanning the dial, but found more of the same.
“Luke tells us, in chapter twenty-three, verses forty-four and forty-five, that there was a darkness over all the earth and the sun was darkened and the veil of the temple was torn in the midst. DARKNESS, brothers and sisters! It engulfs the world.”
“That’s wonderful news.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.
“And in that darkness,” the sermon continued, “only the light of the Lord can shine. All other lights will be snuffed like a candle flame. Only the Lord’s light shall prevail. Can I get an amen?”
There was a chorus of amens, and then the preacher continued.
“Great,” Maria said. “My choices are hellfire and brimstone or Whitney Houston and The Righteous Brothers.”
Sighing, Maria turned off the radio and drove in silence. She found it preferable to the preaching. Although she considered herself a spiritual person, Maria had little patience for organized religion or its spokespeople. At her father’s insistence, she’d been raised in the Islamic faith, albeit a watered-down Western version. She didn’t know what she was anymore. She disliked the agnostic label and she didn’t consider herself an atheist, but she didn’t believe in the Muslim, Christian, or Jewish versions of God, either. She’d always felt that God, if He or She existed, was probably more of a personal, singular deity—a God that was specific to the believer’s current needs rather than beholden to the dictates of an entire world. A personal Jesus, just like in the Depeche Mode song, or an instant karma, like John Lennon had sung about. She’d never told her parents this. If she did, she’d never hear the end of it. While neither of them were particularly religious behind closed doors, they were all about keeping up appearances—doing what was expected of them by the community and their peers. They expected the same of Maria. It wouldn’t do for the Nasrs’ only child to be labeled a nonbeliever, especially in times like this, when Islam was so misunderstood by so many others. She was supposed to embrace her Jordanian father’s Muslim heritage, not turn away from it—even if she didn’t truly believe.