“I talked on the phone with the boy,” he said. “He admits being with you, but he left because you were acting strangely. He says he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“They’re using him too. He’s General Caine now.”

“Then what about Duff?”

“I don’t think they need Duff anymore. I think they were telling me they can use him, if it becomes necessary, to make me submit to them.”

“Duff is dead, Maggie, you’ve got to believe that. His soul has gone. Whatever you saw, or thought you saw, it wasn’t the Duff you knew.”

She thought about that for a while. It seemed logical that if they, through the power that controlled them, could make people become other people, it shouldn’t be very difficult for them to make a dead body move and smile.

In a few days she was able to return to the routine of visiting Franny and sitting in front of the TV set. The priest went out to the farm and came back to report that Duff’s body had seemingly been reburied. Or at least his grave had been filled in.

He is still imploring Maggie to take her daughter and leave the area, and she keeps promising to go very soon. He also says that since she had made him a believer in the existence of absolute evil, she has also strengthened his faith in an ultimate good.

Then the other day, since he wasn’t making any headway with her, he drove out to the Duncan farm and suggested that the Duncans take their son and move somewhere else. Apparently Jeff’s parents thought he was out of his mind.

He won’t let Maggie use his car anymore, and he has told all the local rental agencies that she is an irresponsible driver who can’t be trusted with their cars. Nevertheless there are ways.

Yesterday she walked out to the road that leads to the farm. She stood there for only a moment before Jeff Duncan came along. He opened his car door and asked if she would like a lift to the farm.

“Not today,” she said, “but perhaps another day.”

This afternoon the young priest came with the old priest and a strange priest. They put on their stoles and lit candles, and the young priest swung a thurible filled with fuming incense and the old priest shoved a crucifix in Maggie’s face, while the strange priest intoned some prayers. Maggie Caine was only irritated, but Margaret Dorn was angry and began to curse them. Then she realized that was what they wanted so she was quiet again.

Later Margaret put a thought into Maggie’s mind. If they can make Jeff become General Caine, maybe they can make him become Duff too. At first Maggie rejected that, because she was sure that Duff’s soul was not available to them.