She waved to me and reentered the church. I stood on the steps a moment longer, undecided about what to do with the aspirin bottle. Then I went to the car and put it on the shelf above the dashboard, thinking I would dispose of it when I got home.

There has to be a logical explanation for the girl’s knowledge, I told myself. Her information about me—the fact that I have a son whom I’m worried about—had to have come from somewhere other than a supernatural source, and the most likely informant, it seemed to me, was Mrs. Reddy.

It seemed obvious that the girl was unbalanced, and if she was typical of the kind of people being attracted to the shrine now, I didn’t blame Father Fogarty for being upset. Then another frightening thought came to me. I hadn’t said anything to Mrs. Reddy about the man I had seen. How could she have known I wanted to keep someone away?

Because she was involved in the man’s appearances obviously. It was the only logical answer. She had sent the man to me, or at least she knew about his coming. Maybe she wanted to frighten us away from the farm, in spite of the fact that she seemed to be trying to encourage us to stay. Maybe the property was more valuable than we thought and she wanted to be able to buy it cheaply. Maybe there was oil on the place, or natural gas. Hadn’t I read somewhere about rich oil deposits in this part of Ohio? Or maybe it was mineral deposits.

Trying to comfort myself in this manner, I drove around the countryside for a while, wasting gas. I just didn’t want to go home. I stopped at a hamburger stand somewhere and ate half a greasy sandwich, and then drove around some more. About four o’clock, I realized I couldn’t keep putting it off, so I went back to the farm.

Duff was at home and presumably in his room, but Stephanie was still missing. Franny was home too, having just arrived on the bus.

“You might’ve picked me up if you were in Cainesville,” she complained.

“I intended to, but I was detained longer than I expected.”

“What were you doing?”

“Oh, lots of things. For one thing, I visited a church.”

“A church!” Her incredulity made me ashamed for a moment of the way I had raised her. But then I thought, why should it bother me? She’s a good girl and surely will remain so despite the fact that she’s never had any religious training.

“Was it nice?” she asked.

“Very nice. I’ll take you sometime.”