“Want to talk about it?” I say.

“They didn’t act like that with the lady down the street. Remember her? Mrs. Wilson? They just yawned while she was on television.” Another sniff, another sleeve wipe. “Maybe because she was old or they didn’t know her. But they all knew Julia. We all went to school together before . . . before it all changed.”

“It,” I repeat.

“So her picture came on the screen, and Mr. Gustavson told us she was the kind of girl we all had to watch out for because she had the devil in her and would drag us down. You know, like to hell.”

“Jesus, Steven.”

He’s composing himself now, pulling in deep breaths and steadying his voice. “You know what he said?”

I don’t think I want to. “No. What?”

“He said we should never call people ugly things, like whore and slut and harlot. But then he told us that some people deserved to be called that stuff. Like Julia. So he made us scream at her while she was on television. She looked so small, Mom. So helpless. And they cut off all her hair. All of it. Like a marine cut, you know? Mr. Gustavson said that was good. It’s what they used to do to heretics during the Spanish Inquisition and witches in Salem.” Steven starts laughing, cackling almost. It’s a maniac’s laugh.

He keeps going.

“It gets worse. He went around the room, smiling, and he handed out a sheet of paper with the foulest garbage written on it. You remember that old thing about seven dirty words? Well, they were there, and about fifty other ones. He wanted us to take out our notebooks and write a letter—one letter from each of us—to Julia King, using as many shitty words as we could. We were supposed to tell her she deserved whatever she got, to have fun breaking her back in the fields.”

I don’t flinch when Steven says “shitty.” Compared to everything else he’s telling me, profanity sounds like a goddamned lullaby. “Did you do it?”

“I had to, Mom. If I didn’t, they’d all think—” He stops short, and a smile creeps up one side of his mouth. “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. That’s what they say, right?”

He’s got the essence of Burke’s quote, if not the exact words. But I know what he means, and I nod.

Jackie would like that.

Chapter Forty-six

FORTY-SIX