I wanted to ask Stephanie (hoping I could trust her not to repeat it) if what I had seen in the car could be related to what she had described as the evil in the house. Also, for some reason I felt I ought to warn her that I had talked to her mother and her grandmother about her. As it turned out, it was too late for any warning. Maybe it wouldn’t have done any good anyway.

Upstairs, the door to the bedroom I shared with Franny was closed and her portable radio was blaring rock music. I went into Duff’s room and turned on the light. The bed was made and his brush and comb and some paperback books were arranged neatly on the dresser. I had been expecting to find disorder, reflecting the changes in him, but this room looked the way his always did at home.

Then I went into the storeroom. Again, the piles of books and scrapbooks had been neatly arranged. On top of the nearest pile was Duff’s loose-­leaf notebook, containing a few filled pages in his handwriting. The first few lines were in his customary scrawl—I had helped him with enough homework to be able to decipher it—but, after that, the letters were larger and better formed.

Something else occurred to me later. Considering where the notebook had been left and the legibility of the writing, it was quite possibly intended that I read it.

July 25, 1976. I have decided to keep this journal because I think it is important that what is happening be recorded. I want my parents and my sister to know how I feel now and how I felt in the past about them. I do love them, just as much now as I did at home, but I’m beginning to be afraid of them. I’m afraid they might try to prevent me from becoming what it is intended I become. What is that? I don’t know yet, but I have a feeling I will become a person of great power.

July 25, 1976. Evening. I got out of bed to write something, but now I don’t know what to write. I am very confused.

July 26. Early morning. I am Duffin Caine. I am Duffin Caine. I was born November 10, 1959. I am Duffin Caine.