"And now that I think about it, I'm sure that what I saw at the shack was Gran's shroud. After the funeral, after she was sure we were all in bed, Lilla went into the water and brought him out. She had to have done it, she must have-there was no one else to help her."
An hour had passed since he'd begun, speaking quickly, not giving himself a chance to think, and therefore backtracking several times. But the more he argued, the more he believed-and the horror of it was, he could see them believing as well.
And then he had offered what, for him, was the best argument outside any physical evidence: If he had been able to convince himself that the entire world had misunderstood him, had stacked deck and arrayed enemy against him to the extent that the only way he could win would be by ending it, why couldn't someone like Gran hate just as much? And it had been hate. Hatred for those fools who should have known, and didn't; hatred for those so-called friends who should have cared, and didn't. Colin had hated without understanding that his self-pity was blinding and the people he railed against were the very people trying to help him. His hatred had created a world beyond the real, and the only person who inhabited it was him.
Gran had hated the same way.
The difference had been in the final step.
Colin had slashed his wrists, and the pain had shocked him into the recognition of folly, into the realization that his so-called beliefs were false and falsely based. Gran, however, found himself dying and took a claw-hold on all those ancient beliefs and rituals he had brought from a home that had exiled him summarily. He took hold and refused to release them, and in that refusal made them as tangible as the shack in which he was ending his life-his rage had shredded the fragile curtain between the supernatural and the present.
"The point is," Colin said-he paused and looked at Hugh-"the point is, we're not in our world anymore. We're in Gran's now. And for the moment he's calling all the shots." His expression was grim. "All bets are off now. The rules we used to know aren't the rules anymore."
"What about Lilla?" Garve asked, though he needed no convincing.
"I don't know. I wish I did, but I just don't know."
"She isn't Lilla anymore," Peg said quietly, and they turned as one to stare. "She's not. Not the Lilla we used to know, that is. Maybe not Lilla at all. She was when she tried to warn us, she was when she tried to talk with Matt at the marina. But not anymore. Something happened, and if that business in the cell is any indication, she's… not. Right now, I don't know any other way to put it.
"Matt was right all along, too," Peg continued. "It was the songs. The ones we heard every night. She must have been using something-spells, maybe, or whatever you call them-that Gran taught her, to… I don't know, to bring him back, do something more? But I do know I'm right. She's either been driven crazy by Gran's influence and is doing these things without knowing what she's doing, or she's totally possessed.
"But whatever it is, Lilla is lost to us. We can't go to her for explanations. She just can't help us anymore."
"She's right," Colin said, crushing one cigarette beneath his sole while lighting another. "And we don't know enough. If we're going to get out of this, we have to know more. Jesus, we've got to know these new rules."
"And we have to tell the others," Garve reminded him, and looked angrily at the dead telephone. Hugh only shook his head sadly.
Colin strode to the desk and leaned over it, glaring. "What is wrong with you now, for God's sake?"
Hugh met his gaze with a glare of his own. "You're talking about Lilla being crazy, but have you been listening to yourself lately? Jesus Christ, Colin, I mean… really! Have you heard what you've been saying?"
He forced himself not to reach over and grab the doctor by the throat. "Look, Hugh, not one hour ago you were telling Peg about what happened with us and Tess. By God, you sure as hell believed then. What the hell happened?"
"Your so-called explanation," Montgomery said simply. "It's fantastic."
"Literally," Colin said. "You got a better one?"
"Give me time."
"Well, how much time do you think we have?"
The plywood shuddered, the venetian blinds on the outside clattering like musket fire.
Colin pointed toward the door. "The storm is starting to push in the tide. If we don't do something soon, we're going to be wading hip-deep in the damn ocean."
Hugh rubbed his eyes, pushed a hand across his lips. "You accept it all so easily."
"No," Colin assured him, "it isn't easy at all. But I don't have to meet more than one Tess Mayfair, or hear Lilla with Gran's voice, or see another demonstration like we did in the cell before I decide that evil isn't just another word in the dictionary. I'm a grown man, Hugh, but I'm scared shitless because there's a damn nightmare out there, and it ain't going away just because I say it isn't real."
The ceiling lights dimmed, grew bright again, and Garve stood and reached for his hat.
"Where are you going?" Hugh asked fearfully.
"If the phones don't work, I have to find out who's left in this place on my own, right? In the car."
"Crazy," the doctor whispered. He took hold of the ends of his handlebar mustache and begin to twist them, muttering to himself, sighing, jumping when something slammed into the plywood.
Garve left without a word, and Peg watched as he slid into the patrol car. He fussed with the sun visor, reached into the glove compartment, and stopped moving. She held her breath and waited, staring, until he left the car and returned to the office. He said nothing. He only threw a crumpled, soiled file card onto the desk. Colin frowned and smoothed it open.
"My God!"
Peg looked a question.
"This is a fingerprint card, from Flocks." He looked to Garve. "Is this what El went for?"
Garve nodded.
"Well, what?" Hugh demanded. He snatched the card away instead of waiting for an answer, and examined it. "Jesus. It's Gran's fingerprints," he said to Peg. "It was Gran's fingerprints on Warren's wallet."
"That son of a bitchin' old man," Garve said intensely. "That goddamned old man." He set himself in front of Peg, and she could barely meet his gaze. Colin wanted to intervene, but he waited instead. "You were closer to that family than any of us," the chief said tonelessly. "Can you help? Did Lilla ever tell you anything about Gran?"
She shrugged weakly. "I don't know. Not much. He… he wasn't from Haiti or any place like that. He was from one of the smaller islands, the Caicos, I think they were. Lilla told me once they're somewhere north of Haiti." She pursed her lips. "Haiti. Lord, you don't suppose this has anything to do with voodoo or something like that? It couldn't, right? I mean, it just couldn't." No one responded. Her voice lowered. "He had to leave there in a hurry, as I understand. A big hurry."
"Yes," Colin said, looking toward the cells. "When Lilla came to the cottage, she said something about him having to leave where he was. She said he did things wrong, and claimed they weren't wrong at all."
"Maybe he was a dissident," she said, looking at Hugh to be sure he was listening. "Or a blasphemer, something terrible like that. Voodoo's a religion, you should know that, and every religion has a few grumblers who think it's being done all wrong. Gran might have been one of them, and when he came here and didn't get rich right away… well, it's just like you said, Col. He got angry for all the wrong reasons."
"Great," Garve said. "Then he's still alive."
"No," Colin contradicted. "At least I don't think so. But he's still around, and he's using Lilla to help him."
"But how?" The chief grabbed at his hat and holster. His frustration was running high. "Jesus Christ, how?"