“No wonder Mom left,” said Murphy. “You’re stark raving insane.”

Grandma ignored her. “Open the door, Lee.”

I looked at Grandma, and I looked at Horace all tied up on the floor. He didn’t seem so fierce anymore. He seemed like a wounded bleating creature, barely a man. For the first time since the day Mom brought him home, I looked at Horace—bloodied, gagged, writhing on the barn floor—and I wasn’t afraid. Not one bit. I felt nothing but hatred for him.

And I loved it.

Grandma had caught Horace for us, protected us from him, saved us when no one else would bother. Grandma had taken care of us, just like I thought she would. I looked down on Horace, his eyes wide, his gag thick and crusty with blood, the man who had murdered my mother, weak and helpless on the floor.

I stared Horace in his terrified, blood-rimmed eyes, and I spat in his face.

Let me tell you, it felt good. It felt powerful. I felt powerful. I felt like the world was mine for the taking, like I could do anything I wanted on this earth, and for the first time ever, no one could stand in my way.

I grabbed the lock on the barn door.

“No, Lee!” said Murphy. “Don’t do it. We don’t know what those people want with us.”

“Actually, Murphy,” I said, “I think I know exactly what they want.”

And I threw back the bolt and slid the door open.

Chapter 36

They stood hooded and dark in the entranceway to the church, ten or twelve in all. But with the lantern light splashing over them, they didn’t look so fearsome. For one, those weren’t cloaks they were wearing, no mystic order druid robes. Just raincoats, the big kind fit for tromping around in the stormy woods at night. I moved aside, and they stepped into the church one by one, clomping the mud off their boots at the door so as not to track anything on the floor. They stood in a slumping line in front of me and dropped their hoods.

Sheriff Bearden with his cockeyed grin, a toothpick between his teeth.

The old man from Piggly Wiggly, Wilmer Jenkins, the one who had kissed my hand.

The lady from the gas station, her graying ponytail all frizzled from the heat and rain.

Stephens’s father, Mr. Brownderville, grinning and proud, looking like he wanted to slap me on the back.

And Cass. There stood Cass, her hair rain-soaked, her eyes deep and beautiful and alive in the night.

The rest of them were there too, Stephens and Luther and even Jack. They smiled at me, finally revealed for who they were, for why they’d come to the Farm in the first place.