He jabbed at her with the knife. "No."

"But the worst was when Mama beat you. You were filthy. Stupid. A foolish son is a sorrow to his mother. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Isn't that right, Jimmy Joe?"

She was close enough now he could easily cut her if he wanted to. Instead the blade drooped. The killer's hand quivered, as if she'd passed her palsy on to him.

"There, there, child." Ruby held out her arms to him, offering her embrace. "Let Mother take away your pain."

Take away your pain.

The phrase triggered Martin's memory. His palm red and angry, the flesh still sizzling where he'd touched the—scissors—furnace.

Let Mother take away your pain, she'd said, exactly as she did now. Only she hadn't been directing him away from the pain, she'd been pushing him toward it, the heat prickling his face, the smell of his own hair singeing in his nose—

Barclay stepped into her embrace, weeping openly, the knife an afterthought. She wrapped her arms around him. Patted his back as tears streamed down his face.

Martin held up his hands, both of them injured because of Ruby: the stigmata he'd borne from living with a monster for a mother.

"You did this to me, Ruby. I remember now."

"Oh boy," Norma said gravely. Hunkered beside her at the foot of the counter, Sheila gave him a puzzled look.

"When they sent you away, it wasn't because you tried to kill yourself. You tried to kill me, didn't you?"

The old woman's head flicked toward him but she didn't let go of Barclay, didn't stop whispering in the killer's ear.

Barclay's eyes had closed, still leaking tears. "Mama," he said, his voice weak and wet. Like a weeping child.

"You tried to push me into the furnace. I don't know if you were planning to burn me alive or to cook me to eat—" He remembered it all now. "—but I had your scissors. And I cut you with them. There was black smoke, like a snake slithering out of your wrist. And that's when you went crazy. That's when you lost your mind. Or maybe it was when the demon lost its hold on you."

Ruby stopped whispering. He had her full attention now, though she still hadn't turned.

"I heard the both of you screaming from upstairs," Norma said. "I ran down, almost broke my neck on the dang steps, and there was Ruby covered in blood and you with those silver shears in your hands. I had no idea what happened but I knew we couldn't let the police know the truth, whatever it was. And Ruby, you started babbling about your little sister. I never knew you had a sister. Something about a bedwetter, saying he smashed in her brains on a rock."

"Ledbetter," Sheila said. "The captain of the Ruby. The ship she traveled from Ireland on with her baby sister."

Ruby finally turned, letting go of Barclay. Glaring at Martin.