. . . Amen.
“Amen,” he repeats.
I feel dizzy and disoriented, but when he smiles at me, I try to smile back.
“Now,” he says. “I’m not opposed to you visiting your friend in the hospital—and I want to get supplies for that storm coming in—but I need you to finish your chores first. Can you do that?”
“Of course,” I tell him, my voice weak and quieter than I mean it to be.
I stand up then off the frayed rug—but looking down at my father, I see the imprint of something beneath his dress shirt. Is it my imagination, or are there small tears all over it? Is he wearing the string of barbwire, too? Feeling the sickness back in my stomach, I turn and run out of the room.
Downstairs I eat toast with strawberry jam and butter and drink strong coffee with milk and sugar.
I decide to call Stephanie back in Johnstown—to try to at least get some kind of outside perspective on all this craziness—even though I’m not too sure how to explain any of it.
Twisting the long phone cord over and over around my finger, I dial the number and wait to hear the familiar ringing. But no ringing comes. Instead, there is only a strange clicking and the sound of metallic breathing that makes the hackles all stand out on the back of my neck.
I slam the phone down.
I don’t pick it up again.
Whatever that noise was—I don’t want to hear it again.
So I forget trying to call her.
I guess she wouldn’t understand any of this anyway.
It’s pointless.
I leave the kitchen and the phone and set about doing my chores around the house. Then I put on boots and a heavy raincoat to go sweep the falling leaves outside. Already the gray clouds have turned black overhead. When I get right up on the perimeter of the forest, I duck quickly behind the trees, then run stumbling through the wet leaves and twisted roots.
I have to take the back roads into town, but eventually I make it to the little drugstore, where I buy five different pregnancy tests—just in case the first four don’t give me the answer I’m looking for.
By the time I get back home, I realize it’s almost time to meet Colin—if he shows up today. So I decide to wait on taking the pregnancy tests ’til after. I mean, obviously, if I find out I’m fucking pregnant before meeting him, that’s all I’ll be able to think about. If I wait, at least, I can stay in denial for a little while longer. When in doubt, stuff it way down deep inside and don’t look at it again until it comes up and bites you in the ass. That’s how you know I’m my father’s daughter.
So I hide the pregnancy tests in that stone garage behind the house.
Then I walk back through the tall grass.
Entering the shadows of the forest, I hear a voice again whispering to me—familiar-sounding—like the older sister from my vision, Sister Angelica.
“Liar,” it says. “Sinner.”
I pass the giant oak with the initials carved into its trunk.
AMJG.
The voice like Sister Angelica’s grows ever louder in my ears.
“The wicked shall be punished,” it says. “The wicked will burn.”
I shake my head, trying to clear it—trying to drown out the voices.
I walk deeper into the forest, crossing a small creek and sinking down into the mud. I take another step and then another. But then, in the impression of my boot print, something tied with a faded, now-colorless ribbon catches my eye. I bend to pick it up, only to recoil back in revulsion. It is a braid of thick, black hair, buried in the mud. Sickness almost overtakes me again, as I scramble out of the muddy creek bed into a covering of dead, rotting leaves.
I struggle to catch my breath.
And then I’m aware of a movement through the leaves—a rustling—something weaving there. I look down and have to cover my mouth to keep from screaming. A snake, fat and striped horizontally, with a big flat head and a rattle on its tail about an inch and a half long, comes gliding on the top of the leaves in a wide, sweeping S.
I step slowly backward out onto the grass.
A sour animal sweat breaks out all over my body. I feel it cold down my legs. My heart beats so hard and fast I can hardly catch my breath. I’m dizzy and dry-mouthed and I keep stepping backward and the snake keeps