This was a warning. I couldn’t trust Murphy anymore. I would beware of her from then on. She didn’t belong here, and she would never truly be one of us. Murphy was someone I was supposed to leave behind. She was a traitor, and her faith was weak. I didn’t need her anyhow. I had Grandma, and I had Cass, and I had anyone I wanted to protect me. I had Jeremiah, I had the Farm, I had my new family, and they were enough. I felt the Spirit spread out and cover the world, swallowing every trace of darkness, bathing the earth in light.

I had everything I ever wanted and more.

It was a glorious vision.

The best I’d ever have.

Chapter 46

Grandma shook me awake.

She wore a white dress that came down to her feet, like a wedding dress. She had a leather satchel slung over her shoulder, and in her left hand she carried the shotgun.

“Get dressed,” she said, “and be quiet about it.”

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing at all,” she said. “There’s just one thing we have to do before the Gathering. Come along now. It’s time.”

“Time for what?” I asked, but Grandma only told me to hurry.

I got dressed, and we crept quiet out of my room, walking soft down the hall as if this journey into the night were secret, as if the rest of the Farm could never know about it.

Outside, Grandma lit a lantern. The night was balmy and loud with bugs, with tree frogs and insects, the hot swirling forest call of the night. I liked to pretend the cricket sounds were the stars hollering their light down and the breeze from the wind was just the song of the moon. I followed Grandma’s lantern through the black like it was a rogue star loosed from the sky. Grandma guided me toward the toolshed next to the barn, the one Horace was chained up in.

Grandma creaked the toolshed door open, but she left the electric bulb off, as if anything but lantern light would somehow spoil things. Horace slumped in his chair, duct-taped and bound, his eyes fluttering awake. He moaned a little, the gag muffling the sound, and he stank. Somehow he was worse even than he had been the last time I’d seen him. I shivered, revulsed by him, and in that moment I hated him more than I had ever hated another person in my life.

“Good,” said Grandma, as if she could sense my thoughts. “You’ll need that.”

Grandma propped the shotgun against the shed wall and laid her satchel on the concrete floor. She pulled out a small pouch and took to sprinkling the contents in a circle around Horace, chanting quiet to herself all the while.

“Grandma,” I said, “what are you doing?”

But still she wouldn’t answer me.