The next day I went to Mass. I couldn’t make myself walk up the aisle and receive Communion, but I thought it would only be a matter of time before I was able to do it. In any case, Father Jackson was pleased that I had come, and afterward he let me take his car to drive to Ashland and see Franny.

I might have been kidding myself, but I thought she smiled a bit—just a hint of movement at the corners of her mouth—when I entered her room. Anyway, that day I made arrangements to have her transferred to a nursing home in Cainesville near the motel.

Then one afternoon a couple of weeks later I borrowed the car again and drove out to the farm. Father Jackson didn’t want me to go, but I persuaded him that it was necessary therapy, that I had to be able to face the place again.

I parked in the yard and stayed there a long time, staring at the monstrous old building. But then the sun came out, sparkling the frost on the oak branches, and the place didn’t seem so bad. I drove away, but in a few days I came back again and this time unlocked the front door and went into the parlor.

Nothing had been changed. One of Jack’s legal pads was on the table near his customary chair, and Franny’s rain boots were on the floor near the stairs. I went out to the kitchen and found nothing unusual there. The cocoa cups must have been taken away, and if I had left other dishes in the sink, someone must have washed them and put them in the cupboard.

Nothing was wrong now, I thought. Whatever evil had been in the house was no longer present. I could go away with Franny and put it all out of my mind. There was just one more thing to do. I had to decide whether or not to leave Duff’s body in the graveyard.

It shouldn’t make any difference now, it seemed to me. If the evil was gone, then why disturb the grave. I had to look at it though, just once. I would do that, then take what I wanted out of the house and never come back here again.

I went out the back door and along the path to the graveyard. I wasn’t frightened. There didn’t seem to be anything to be frightened about. The sun was still shining, and though it was almost winter some blue jays were chattering on the fence as I approached the gate.

Then I opened the gate and saw the hole. It was where Father Jackson had said Duff was buried, next to his father. The empty cement vault was below, and its lid was on the pile of earth next to the hole.