“You haven’t done much so far.” Outside on the steps I turned to him. “If you think, as your brother evidently does, that I’m psychotic, why did you call up and tell me you were praying for me?”

“It’s not unusual to pray for disturbed people.”

“Thanks!”

“Wait.” He caught up with me when I was halfway to the car. “It did enter my mind Saturday that there might be something . . . unexplainable, I guess. I’ve truly never seen such evil anywhere as I saw—or thought I saw—on your face. Anyway, don’t do anything about Margaret Dorn today. I have to work on the parish budget today with the old man, but I’ll come to your place tomorrow.”

“Make it before my children get home from school. I don’t want them to see that their mother is reduced to needing a priest.”

I drove out of town, angry at him and more angry at myself for having gone to him. For some reason it seemed to infuriate me to have him think that the strange things happening to me were all inside my head, even though I had tried to convince myself of that very thing earlier in the morning.

Be happy you’re crazy, I told myself now. None of it has happened. You’re not Margaret Dorn, you haven’t been visited by the General, and there’s nothing wrong with Duff. You have had a temporary mental illness, and now that you’re aware of it, you’re going to get over it.

Then I thought of something I hadn’t mentioned to Father Jackson. The glasses he had found and that Duff insisted were mine. If Duff wasn’t lying, what did that mean? Could Stephanie have taken my glasses either by mistake or by design?

I was approaching the Weber house again, certain that nothing strange was going to happen this time. I was wrong. As I reached a point a hundred yards or so from the Weber drive, the car disappeared and I was in a buggy again, but not the same buggy as before. This was the one I had seen in the yard. The upholstery was rich-­looking leather and the wood and metal were highly polished. The horse in front of me was the handsome chestnut, trotting briskly along.

I wasn’t afraid now because I was no longer Margaret Caine. I didn’t even remember Margaret Caine, but afterward I remembered what I did as Margaret Dorn. The horse went up the graveled drive and stopped beside the house. I got out of the buggy, holding up my long black taffeta skirt, and went to the door. It wasn’t locked, as I knew it wouldn’t be.