There was no answer.
“Probably in the kitchen.” Odd led the way through the rather shabby living room, opening the swinging door that led to the kitchen.
Odd’s face lit up. “Gregory?” he said, turning around proudly. “This here’s my wife.”
In the center of the kitchen was a cow.
A heifer.
Gregory stared in horror at the animal, which stood in the middle of the room placidly chewing its cud. There was a bale of hay on the floor next to the refrigerator, and dirty hoof marks marred the yellowed linoleum.
Odd kissed the cow on the mouth, and Gregory could see, through the gap between their ill-fitting lips, his tongue caressing hers.
Through the fog of alcohol, through the headache that still lay somewhere beneath that, a rational part of his brain was telling him that this was not right, that there was something wrong here, that whatever had led his friend to do this was dangerous and he should get the hell away from here as quickly as possible. But amazingly, incredibly, he was already rationalizing it, and whatever protests had been forming in his mind were quickly squelched.
Love was blind, Gregory told himself. And if he could marry an outsider like Andrea, well, Odd could marry a cow. Who was he to pass judgment on someone else’s private life?
Again, there was a nagging hint of disagreement from somewhere deep within his brain, but that faded into nothingness.
Gregory walked over to the opposite side of the kitchen, slumped down in the breakfast nook, and smiled at his friend. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.
5
Julia was frightened, Gregory had not come home last night, and his mother had been upset and agitated, ranting in Russian about evil spirits and Jedushka Di Muvedushka. Promise or no promise, this was the last straw. She was going to pull up stakes and throw their stuff in the van and drive back to California as quickly as her lead foot would take her. She had not slept at all, wondering whether Gregory was dead, murdered, lying in a ditch, or whether he had… what? Run away?
She didn’t know, but she was scared. She’d called Paul in the middle of the night, but he said he hadn’t seen Gregory in days. She’d called Odd, but no one had answered the phone at his house.
Maybe he was at Odd’s, she told herself hopefully. Maybe they’d gotten to talking and lost track of time and he’d had a little too much to drink and he’d decided to spend the night there.
But why hadn’t he called?
Because something had happened to him.
It was an idea she could not get away from.
His mother was even more worried than she was, if that was possible, and the two of them had talked about evil spirits and the Owner of the House, and the skepticism Julia had always feigned before had been completely stripped away.
Her mother-in-law’s worry was of a different sort. Agafia seemed to believe with unshakable certainty that nothing injurious had happened to her son, that he had not been hurt or killed, but she was worried about… something else. She was wary with Julia, but though it did not disappear completely, that suspicion did break down a little as the night stretched on, and Julia learned that it was the house that made her mother-in-law so guarded, the fear that she, Julia, had somehow been corrupted or influenced that kept Agafia from trusting her fully.
The house.
It was terrifying to have her worst fears confirmed, but it was also strangely reassuring. Gregory’s mother told her it was because Jedushka Di Muvedushka had not moved with them to this house that other spirits had been allowed in. Julia remembered the flippant and condescending reaction she’d had that first day when Agafia had been so worried about not inviting the Owner of the House, and she was ashamed of her attitude. If she’d had more respect, if she’d been a little less arrogant and a little more open-minded, perhaps she would have caught on to this earlier. They might not have been able to stop what was happening, but they might have been able to get away from it.
The house seemed even darker than usual to her, though it was morning and the brightest part of the day.
What was here? she wondered. What existed in this place with them? The ghosts of Bill Megan and his murdered family? A demon from hell? Some nebulous, shapeless, evil entity?
As ridiculous as those concepts would have sounded to her before, they all seemed perfectly plausible now, and Julia understood why Agafia was so wary. She thought of Sasha’s behavioral reversal since they’d moved here, Adam’s arrest, Teo’s secrecy, her and Gregory’s personal problems. They’d all been influenced in one way or another. She’d noticed it before, and she’d always attributed it to natural causes, but the pattern now seemed too clear to ascribe to such innocent origins.
She’d let the kids go to school earlier without telling them that their father was missing, without letting them know her fears, and she was glad now that she’d done so. It would make it easier to do what she knew she had to do.
She faced Gregory’s mother across the kitchen table and told her that they were going to leave. “After I find Gregory, we’re getting out of here,” she said. “We’re going back to California before anything else happens. Just pack enough for a week or so, and we’ll get the rest later, when we sell the house.”
“No,” Agafia said in Russian. “I cannot leave. I am responsible for allowing this evil in, and I must remain to fight it. Only our church can put an end to this—”
“But your family comes first,” Julia said, also speaking Russian. “Your first loyalty is to us. We need to get out of this town before one of us is killed and ends up like Jim Ivanovitch or my friend Deanna.”
“I cannot leave. There is evil here.”
“I know there is,” Julia told her. “That’s why we need to get out. That’s why I have to get the kids out especially.”
The old woman seemed to understand. “Take the children back. Keep them away from here.”
“You too.”
“No,” Agafia said firmly.
Julia knew it was useless to argue, and so she gave in, nodding her acquiescence. She did not know what the old woman had planned, did not know what she intended to do, but she imagined Agafia standing in the church, praying, attempting some sort of exorcism, and she figured that if her mother-in-law was going to stay, that would probably be the safest place for her. Besides, Agafia seemed to know what she was talking about. She’d been right about all of this from the beginning. Perhaps she did know how to put a stop to it, though to Julia the most logical tack would be for all of them to leave. If it really was the fact that the Owner of the House was not here to protect them and keep out other supernatural entities, then shouldn’t that breach be closed with their departure?
“Go to Montebello,” Agafia said. “Stay in my house, Helen, across the street, has the key. I left it with her and asked her to water my plants.”
Julia had almost forgotten that her mother-in-law had refused to sell her home, and now she was ready to weep with gratitude for that bit of stubbornness. They would not have to put themselves up at some hotel or stay with friends or relatives. They had a place to go, a house where they could live until they got resettled.
“Thank you,” Julia said. She stood. “I’m going to try and find Gregory. Then we’re getting the kids and getting out.”
“No,” Agafia said.
Julia blinked. “What?”
“No!” The old woman slammed her hand down on the table. “Get the children and go! But leave Gregory here! I will take care of him!”
“I don’t want Gregory to stay here. I want him safe, and with us.”
“He is my responsibility. I will take care of him.”