Getting out of bed, Kim hurried toward the bathroom, where her friend was kneeling on the floor in front of the toilet. A racking seizure hit Sandy, and she retched into the toilet, a blackish fluid spewing from her mouth.
As Kim ran cold water in the sink, soaked a hand towel and pressed it against Sandy's forehead, another spume of vomit burst from Sandy's mouth into the toilet bowl.
When the seizure passed, Sandy took the wet towel from Kim and eased away from the toilet. Not trusting herself to stand, she leaned against the wall and wiped her face with the towel.
"I'll get my mom," Kim said, then flushed the toilet and opened the bathroom window to let the rancid odor escape.
"Don't," Sandy said, pushing off from the wall and steadying herself against the sink. "I-I think I'm okay now. I don't want my mother to know."
"But if you're sick-" Kim began, but Sandy didn't let her finish.
"So I got sick! Remember what I ate last night?" She groaned just thinking about the pizza, potato chips, Fritos, cookies, ice cream, and Cokes they'd consumed. "I'm okay," she said. "Really, just let me take a shower, and I'll be fine."
But Kim wondered. She'd eaten nearly as much as Sandy. If it was the food, why wasn't she sick, too?
Kim stood at the top of the basement stairs, staring down at the closed door to Jared's room. Jared had left half an hour ago, so the room was empty.
Should she take a look at it? But how could it possibly look like what she'd seen in her dream, and what Sandy Engstrom had described?
But even as she argued with herself, Kim moved down the steep flight of stairs to Jared's door.
Don't do it, she told herself as her hand went to the doorknob. It's his room. Whatever he's got in there isn't any of your business.
She turned the knob and pushed the door open.
Inside, she saw nothing more than the four black-painted walls, the workbench, Jared's bed, and the mattresses that served as furniture.
No altar.
No stained-glass windows.
Nothing.
A dream, Kim repeated to herself as she went back upstairs.
It was just a dream.
But she didn't believe it.
Something had happened last night.
Something terrible.
CHAPTER 28
Ellie Roberts eyed her own image worriedly. The mirror on the back of her closet door was so old the silvering was flaking away, but despite the mottled look of her reflection, she knew something was wrong. Maybe she shouldn't go. Maybe she should just take off the dress-her best one, the one she only wore to mass on special holidays-and stay home. But she'd promised Father MacNeill, and a promise was a promise, especially to the man to whom she owed so much. When he'd mentioned the town meeting, it hadn't seemed so much to ask. Ellie knew practically everyone in town, especially the Catholics. She'd grown up with them-known them her whole life. But on the evening Father Mack had asked her, she'd had a bad dream about it, a horrible dream that woke her up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Ellie knew what was causing her bad dreams. Speaking at the meeting.
She had almost gone to Father MacNeill the next morning and told him she'd changed her mind, that she just couldn't do it, couldn't get up in front of the whole town to speak. But she'd put it off all day, and the next day, too, and every day since then. And every night, she woke up with her skin clammy and covered with goose bumps, and a feeling of dread.
And now the night was here and there was no turning back.
Her eyes shifted from the burning face in the mirror to the sparse contents of the closet. Just as she decided her best dress was too dressy and reached for the dark blue outfit she often wore on Sundays, the doorbell rang. Luke called out to her, "Mom! Father MacNeill's here!"
Too late to change.
Her stomach churning, Ellie turned away from the closet, patted her hair nervously as she checked herself out in the mirror one last time, then went out to greet the priest.
"Ellie, you look lovely," Father MacNeill said, reaching out to take both her hands in his own. "I swear, if I weren't a priest you could positively turn my head!"
Ellie felt a flush rise on her face, but pleasure turned to embarrassment as her son spoke.
"What's going on?" Luke demanded. "How come you're all dressed up?"
Before she could reply, Father MacNeill turned to Luke. "We're going to the meeting. Perhaps you'd like to come along."
Luke's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What meeting?"
"To protest the permit the council's considering issuing to convert the old Conway house into an inn."
Luke's expression hardened as his gaze swung accusingly back to his mother. "That's a bunch of crap!"
Ellie's shocked eyes flicked toward Father MacNeill. "Luke! Don't use that kind of language in front of-"
"I'll say whatever I want," Luke declared, his voice rising, his eyes flashing angrily. "Just because you don't like Jared is no reason to-"
"It doesn't have anything to do with Jared Conway," Father MacNeill broke in. Luke swung around to glower at him.
"Bullshit!" he said. "You got it in for Jared same way as Mom does. What the hell's going on?"
"That will be enough, Luke!" Ellie's cheeks burned with shame. "How dare you speak that way to Father MacNeill?" She turned to the priest, her hands playing nervously at the buttons of her dress. "I'm sorry, Father. Ever since he started hanging around with this Jared person-"
"He's not 'this Jared person'!" Luke broke in, his voice trembling with anger. " You don't even know him!"
"I don't have to know him," Ellie said, doing her best to keep her own voice under control. "I know he's a bad influence on you, and that ever since he came to town, you haven't been the boy I raised!"
"Maybe I don't want to be 'the boy you raised,'" Luke shot back, his voice mocking his mother's words with mimicry. "Maybe I want to be whoever I am! Did you ever think of that?"
"I just want you to be the best person you can-"
"No you don't!" Luke flared. "You want me to be whoever Father MacNeill thinks I ought to be. You think I don't see how he runs us? All I ever hear is Father Mack says this and Father Mack says that! So now you're gonna go down and make a jerk out of yourself in front of the whole town, just 'cause Father Mack says so? Jesus!"
"How dare you?" Ellie flared. Her temper snapping, she took a step toward Luke and struck him across the face.
The sound of the slap silenced the room like a shot, and for a moment not even a breath was drawn. Ellie, her hand stinging, froze, and her eyes flicked toward the priest.
Luke's eyes narrowed to slits as he took in his mother's glance, his fingers touching his face where the mark of her hand was already starting to show.
Father MacNeill instinctively took a step back, as if somehow to distance himself from what had just happened.
"That's right, Ma," Luke said, his voice so low it was no more than a rasping whisper. "Hit me. Hit me, then look at Father Mack to see if it's okay." His eyes fixed balefully on the priest. "What about it, Father?" he asked, his voice injecting venom into the priest's appellation. "Did she do all right? Did she do what you wanted her to?"
"I'm sure I can't countenance violence under any circum-" the priest began, but Luke didn't let him finish.
"Don't give me that! You think I don't know what's going on around here? It's Jared! You don't like him, and Ma doesn't like him, and Sister Clarence doesn't like him, and Father Bernard hates his guts. You think I don't know that? You think Jared doesn't know it? Well, guess what, Father? Jared's not going anywhere!"
"This has nothing to do with Jared," Father MacNeill replied. The careful neutrality he always tried to maintain when talking to any of his flock had started to crack under Luke's onslaught, and his voice took on a chilly edge. "Although it's obvious his influence on you has not been a positive one. And it isn't just your mother and I who object to the Conway house being turned into a hotel. There are many people who agree with us."