I glared hard at Murphy. I felt Jeremiah standing behind me, could picture the bright burning of his eyes, could feel his anger toward Murphy.

“You don’t have to believe in me,” I said. “But you can’t stand in my way either.”

We sat in silence a moment. It was strange, all the people in the house, the noise of their feet overhead, people coming and going, everything. I loved being in the middle of all that life, knowing I had a place in it, knowing that it circled around me. Why didn’t Murphy love it too?

“I guess that’s that, then,” she said. Murphy stood up from my bed. “Good night, Lee. Hope your dreams aren’t too apocalyptic.”

Chapter 38

The next day—five days left till the first Gathering—I woke up to a problem, something I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with.

That problem was Horace.

Sheriff Bearden had moved Horace to an old toolshed out back. It was less secure and secret than the church, but since it would be hard to have the Gathering with my chained-up stepfather flopping around on the floor, it seemed like the toolshed was a pretty good bet.

Let me make this clear: I hated Horace. I hated what he had done to Mom. I hated what he’d done to our family.

Still, it was hard to be in that shed with him bloodied and bound and duct-taped to a chair. It was hard to smell the filth on him after days of being starved and unwashed, hard to look at his blood-spattered, busted-lipped face, hard to look him in his blackened, red-rimmed eyes. It was hard to act all brave in the face of a man who had so often scared the ever-loving shit out of me. So I walked into that toolshed with its one bare hanging light bulb more than a little afraid, even though Grandma was with me and Sheriff Bearden was waiting outside with his gun.

I stood there in front of Horace, and I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t really even know what I was doing there.

“You’re to face him,” was all Grandma had told me. “The Spirit will show you what to do then.”