“Well, you do and you know it. Not everybody understands things like entities, for instance. Who’d want to believe there were spooks floating around, like even on this bus?” Grace looked around as if she expected to see some. She frowned. “You’d better not talk about stuff like that anymore,” she advised solemnly. “People could get entities mixed up with those friends witches have, what do you call them?”

“How would I know?”

“Familiars,” Jerram offered in sophomoric tones.

“Yeah, like black cats,” Grace said, pleased. “We have no cats,” Jerram said. “Our mother is allergic to cats. We used to have a dog but he ate the walls. He now lives in South Dakota.” “Jerram!” Grace said. “Dogs can’t eat walls.” “Ours did,” Jerram went on. “His name was Plastertooth. We sold him to some people heading west in a covered wagon.”

They arrived at school, and Jerram abruptly ended his discourse. He had succeeded in flustering Grace. She got off the bus half huffy and half laughing, not sure if she’d been had.

But in true Grace style, she shook herself out of it and escorted Rose to the lockers. “Don’t worry if anyone says anything, just ignore them,” she said. It was reminiscent of Mom’s advice. Ignore it. Forget it. Stick your head in the sand.

But all Rose got was some ribbing and a couple of unsure looks. For a moment she wanted to enjoy it, thinking of pretending to give them all the evil eye. Daniel stopped her.

“They’re not worth it,” he said. He told her how he’d come up to the house on Sunday but hadn’t come in because the Reverend Joan got there first. He’d stood in the patch of woods across the road, trying to send Rose a message to come out.

“Why didn’t you come in after she left?”

Daniel looked sheepish. “She saw me and said she’d take me home.” He imitated the reverend’s nasal voice. “ ‘The family needs to be alone at a time like this.’ I didn’t know what was going on in your house, so I took the ride. I was freezing my butt by that time anyway.”

Rose felt disappointed. She’d trusted him. Was he going to let her down? “Afraid she’d come to do an exorcism?” she said sharply.

He began to protest, but she interrupted. “It’s okay, don’t mind me. I’m gonna be late for art.” She walked away.