She’d expected,You lost a lot of blood. She’d remembered the blazing heat and the stickiness of the blood on her shirt. She pressed a hand to her chest where she remembered having stabbed herself with the yew wand. It was a little tender, maybe, like there might be a bruise there. She blinked at him. “What happened, exactly?”
He hesitated. “I told the hospital that I was waiting for you to get your things together in the next room, then heard a crash, and went in to find you on the floor. They said that youprobably fainted from low blood sugar and banged your head. You were…acting confused, so they decided to keep you overnight for observation.”
“Acting confused,” she repeated. “Do you mean—”
“Talking about how you’d stabbed yourself to get rid of the demon,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. Her face was warm. “You just said—what you told the hospital. Was that the same as what actually happened?”
He gave his head a quick, hard shake. “There were voices,” he said quietly. “Not just you. There was someone else.” He paused. “Somethingelse. I couldn’t open the door, even though you hadn’t locked it. Then we heard this—horrible howling sound, so I kicked the door in.”
“Wow,” she said, smiling despite its making her head hurt more. “Charlotte must have liked that.”
Father Barry turned pink. “She probably would have liked it better from my brother,” he said, and cleared his throat. “They were here earlier, by the way. Charlotte and Janine. Then they left to go get your cat and some of your things from your house. Janine said she had a key. You’re not supposed to exert yourself too much after a concussion, so we don’t want you walking up and down that hill for a while. Janine said that you can stay in her spare room for as long as you need, and Charlotte has volunteered to take the cat if he’s too much for you.”
“He’s no trouble,” Sherry said. “As long as he doesn’t talk.” Then she went abruptly teary. “You’re all being so nice.”
“We’re your friends,” he said, and then smiled slightly. “And this sort of thing is technically part of the job description.”
“That’s true,” she said. She felt as if she was slurring again.Her eyelids were drooping. “Ministering to the possessed. And the dispossessed. After you’ve exorcised them.”
“Is that whatdispossessedmeans?” Father Barry asked. He stood up. “Get some sleep, Sherry. Janine will come get you in the morning, and I’ll stop by to check on you.”
“In the morning,” Sherry mumbled, and fell asleep.
When she woke up again it was the morning, and a nurse desperately wanted to check her blood pressure. She permitted the woman to do so. Then Sheriff Brown walked in, holding his hat in his hand. He looked…different, somehow. Sherry wasn’t sure if she could put her finger on how, exactly.Relaxed, maybe. Or maybeat ease. Like a seasoned performer who had finally reached the end of a long run of a particularly grueling show. “Sherry,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know that we’ve cleared up the source of the poisoning.”
“The what?” Sherry asked, baffled.
“You know,” Sheriff Brown said, in the tone of voice of a man who really, trulyneededSherry to know. “The poisoning. The”—he paused for a fraction of a second—“ergot poisoning.”
“The ergot poisoning,” she repeated. “You mean—”
“Yes. The bakery got a delivery of tainted flour. And you know how popular those doughnuts are. The whole village lost its mind. We all thought—”
“That all of those people had been killed?” Sherry asked, her heart giving a leap up toward her chin.
“Oh, no,” Sheriff Brown said hurriedly. “No, they’re, ah, they’re definitely dead. They died in the bus crash. Remember? That terrible bus crash?” Something in his expression caught and held her.Please, it seemed to say.Please, say that you remember the bus crash.
“Of course,” Sherry said, after she took the moment sheneeded to bite down on her cheek to keep herself from crying. “The—bus crash. With all of those people from Winesap on it. They were going…”
“Down to the city. To see a Broadway show.”
“Right,” Sherry said. “Of course. Alan did love going to see shows. How silly of me to have forgotten. It must have been the bump on the head. And then we all thought that there had been a string of murders? Because of the…ergot poisoning.”
“Exactly,” Sheriff Brown said. “It was all just a series of tragic accidents. It’ll take a while to get it all sorted out. All of those people who I—who were arrested.”
“Of course,” she said. “But it will all get sorted out?”
He gave a firm nod. It seemed to her that he was blinking less than he normally would. “Yes, definitely. Since it was all down to the bus crash. Followed by the mass hallucination caused by ergot poisoning. The prosecutor’s office is already working on it. They’ll all be exonerated. There will probably be some sort of payout from the state, even.”
“Good, good,” Sherry said, and then looked him in the eye. “Isn’t it nice. That there was such a tidy explanation for all of this, after all.”
He looked straight back at her. “Yes, Sherry. It’s very nice. I’m very glad that we won’t need to look into any of those deaths any further. It’s all over now. We can leave it alone.”
“Right,” she said. “I understand. Thank you for coming to see me and letting me know. About the source of the poisoning, I mean.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, and put his hat back on. “And, Sherry—thanks. To you, too.”
