A spasm of fear clutched at me. I reached down and gave my rubber band a couple hard snaps. Confront the new, I reminded myself. Exploring what was going on with my pictures was a good step forward.

“So you think the weird pictures are part of this seeing-bits-and-pieces thing?”

“Yeah, I do, and I want to see it in action. Let’s wait until dark, though. It’ll be easier to disguise our presence.”

I sat down and ran through the camera’s settings. It was pretty straightforward; using it shouldn’t be a problem. We’d see how much trouble my subject matter posed.

After I’d examined the camera, I thought I might ask Graham some more questions. Unfortunately, he was on the phone again.

I wandered down the hallway, curious about how Callie was doing. I found her and Kara in one of the bedrooms. Kara motioned me in. Callie was still deeply asleep. Her skin looked much better — still pink and inflamed, but no longer blistered. I wondered if Williams had been back to the house for healing as well, maybe while I was sleeping away the morning. The thought made me shudder. I didn’t want him nearby when I was asleep.

I felt awkward standing there gawking.

“Will I wake her up if I talk?” I whispered.

“No, she’s drugged,” Kara answered in a more normal tone.

“Is she going to have scars?”

“No. The burn’s superficial now. Even if I left it this way, it wouldn’t scar. But I won’t leave it — it’s too painful. I’ll do a little more tonight.”

I nodded. “What you can do, it’s really amazing. If I hadn’t seen how bad it was, I would never believe it.”

Kara shrugged. She looked uncomfortable. “So, Graham’s here training you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

She didn’t follow up, so eventually I took my leave and headed to the room I’d been using, which I thought was Callie’s. I wondered if she’d given it to me because the en-suite bathroom meant I didn’t have to go out into the hallway if I didn’t want to. If so, that was really thoughtful. Maybe she understood about being terrified, even if she wasn’t scared of Williams herself.

By 9:00, Graham and I were sitting in his sedan behind St. Mary’s. It was quite dark — the sun had set more than an hour earlier.

He said, “Stay here a sec,” and got out of the car. He turned on a flashlight and walked into the cemetery. I watched him moving through the gravestones; then the dark claimed him, and I could only see the little ember of his flashlight bobbing along.

Before long, he came back to the car and gestured me out. I followed him through the dark cemetery. He led me toward a big maple in the back.

“You see that tree?”

“Yeah, sure.”