Perhaps that had been the true start of it, Agafia thought now. Perhaps that was why she and the Molokans were being targeted. They were being punished for what they had done in the past. Judgment had finally found them. Her unprotected opening had allowed the natural workings of supernatural events to resume, had allowed impulses and forces that had been blocked and dammed for all these years finally to take their course.
Did that mean there was nothing they could do to stop it?
No. She did not believe that. God would not let such a thing happen. And God would not allow the innocent to suffer. The children, like Sasha and Adam and Teo, the people who had moved into town since those days, none of them had had anything to do with the events of that time, and God would not turn His back on them.
But were any of them really innocent?
She recalled the look in her future husband’s eyes when he had helped to call forth the death spirit that night, and she remembered that there was something in the fierceness and determination of his expression that had appealed to her, that had drawn her to him. While she had not exactly been waffling in her commitment to him, it was that as much as anything else that had cemented her resolve to be his wife.
The sins of the father were visited upon the sons, she thought.
Evil always comes back.
No, she thought. God would not allow it. He would not stand by while the innocent were taken.
Jim had been innocent, though. He had fought against the summoning of the spirit. He had not taken part in any of it.
And he had been killed.
Evil did not play by God’s rules.
And evil always came back.
In the doorway of what was left of her old house, Jedushka Di Muvedushka turned, looked at her. His face was middle-aged, but his eyes were ancient.
He smiled, beckoned, but she refused to follow him any farther and would not walk into the house.
Whose Owner was he? she wondered again. Someone’s who had been left behind when Russiantown had been abandoned? She remembered father inviting Jedushka Di Muvedushka to come with them when they moved, and she remembered, even on that terrible morning, the kids laughingly making room for him on the buggy, though they could not see anything there.
No, this one was not theirs.
Still smiling at her, the little man walked into the open entrance of her old house and promptly disappeared into the shadows.
She dreamed that night of the pra roak.
She was back in the cave, and she was alone with him. He looked up from his fire at her and grinned, and she turned away, wanting to leave, but the bones had blocked the path and she was barefoot.
He cackled, and she saw that he no longer had his unnaturally white teeth. His teeth were rotted, blackened stumps.
He reached out an arm and wiped out the town he had rebuilt in the sand.
“It’s here,” he said in English, and his voice was Gregory’s voice. “It’s time.”
4
Gregory met Odd at the bar. Paul had severed ties with the handyman as well as himself, and the two of them had spent the past several days commiserating about it, feeling sorry for themselves, drinking away their troubles. It was clear to Gregory that the bartender didn’t like him, that the man was one of those ignorant yokels who bought into that bullshit rumor that he and his family had brought bad luck or evil or whatever it was to McGuane, but as usual beliefs took a backseat to bucks, and since he and Odd were the bar’s most loyal customers, the man put his personal feelings aside and served them.
He didn’t participate in the conversations, though. And he kept a wary, careful distance.
He was listening, however. He kept his ears open, and he kept track of what was said and who said it, in case he needed the information in the future.
That ticked Gregory off.
It was one of many things that ticked him off. There was nothing he could do about any of it now, but he, like the bartender, was keeping track, keeping score, and one of these days he was going to tally everything up and the bill was going to come due.
Gregory finished his beer, motioned for another. The headaches had been really bad the past few days, much worse than usual, and he’d considered going to a doctor. Aspirin and Tylenol did no good, and it occurred to him that perhaps he had something serious, like a brain tumor.
Drinking took away the pain, though, and for the moment that was his medicine of choice.
The bartender brought him a beer, and Gregory nodded his thanks, smiling unctiously. The bartender ignored him and went back to the other end of the bar where he was pretending to dry shot glasses.
Gregory raised the mug to his lips, took a long, cool drink, then stared down at the dark wood countertop. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He and Julia had made up, or had pretended to make up, but for some reason he’d been avoiding her ever since. It was as if her capitulation had somehow tainted her in his eyes, and if he had found himself too often angry with her before, now he was simply disgusted. He had no respect for her whatsoever; in fact, it was hard to remember what had once convinced him to marry her.
He didn’t want to go home tonight, and he realized that he was drunk when he found himself trying to concentrate nonexistent psychic powers on Odd in an effort to get his friend to invite him over to his place. He kept repeating the same phrase over and over again in his mind, concentrating so hard that he gave himself a headache: Invite me to sleep at your house. Invite me to sleep at your house.
Finally he gave it up and just came right out and asked.
“Julia kicked me out,” he lied. “Do you know someplace I could stay the night, until things cool off?”
Odd squinted at him. “What’re you talking about? A separation?”
“No, no. Just for tonight. Just this one time.”
“Hell,” Odd said, “Lurlene and I’d love to have you over.”
That was what he’d been fishing for. “Thanks,” Gregory told him. “You’re a real pal.”
The old man grinned. “At least you got one left.” Gregory nodded. He wasn’t sure why he did not want to go home. And he didn’t know why he wouldn’t just go to a hotel if his goal was merely to stay away. But this was what felt right, and he was glad that Odd had invited him over.
Or else he would have had to kill him.
Where had that thought come from? Gregory didn’t know, but it frightened him, and he pushed the mug away, declining to finish the last half of his beer. “I’m ready to go,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
They were both too drunk to drive, and so they walked through town, ignoring the hostile stares of the passersby. Odd had said before that things had turned nasty, and he was right. There was a feeling of tension in town, tension combined with a wild unpredictability that reminded Gregory of the mood in Los Angeles just before the riots.
He thought of his father, wondered what his father would think of this.
Odd lived in a run-down one-story wood-frame home just behind the business district. He hadn’t kept up maintenance on the house—ironic for a handyman—but the yard was carefully landscaped and, rare for this town, sported two tall citrus trees and a full lawn.
The old man pointed proudly at his grass. “Lurlene refused to live in a house without a lawn. Water bills cost me an arm and a leg, but it looks good, if I do say so my damnself.”
Gregory nodded his agreement, and the two of them walked up the porch steps into the house. “Hon?” Odd called.