Dobbs nodded. “I do. Look after my town and its children.”
“Now, you, Mayor Browning.” Eleazar turned to him. “I’d say it’s your responsibility to accompany the good sheriff.” He paused. “If your people don’t get their children back after you got Charlie…? I’ve seen some ugly things in these wilderness towns. Folks can go a little wild themselves out here. A mob is a wicked thing, Mayor.”
Browning looked from Eleazar to Dobbs. And he knew he didn’t have a choice. This was the cost of bringing his boy back. The real cost.
Addie
Addieraced all the way home. She got there just as Preacher and Sophia arrived. Any other time, walking together, they would have been talking or whispering, and Preacher would have had his hand on Sophia’s arm. Today it was as if each walked alone, silent and stone-faced with shock.
Preacher saw Addie first. He seemed to take a moment to recognize her. Then he said, “Adeline,” and Sophia started from her stupor.
“You were there,” Sophia said. “You saw.”
Addie nodded.
“I—we don’t know how to explain it,” Sophia said. “It is…beyond reckoning.”
“There must be something to it,” Preacher murmured, as if to himself. “Some science. Perhaps the boy was not dead. I’ve read of such things. Perhaps it’s not diphtheria but some new disease. These men pretend to raise the dead, but they know the childrenwere never truly gone, so…” He shook his head. “No, I don’t see how that’s possible. Doc Adams would have noticed.”
They reached the porch. Preacher ushered them inside. Neither seemed to have noted that Addie hadn’t breathed a word. As soon as the door closed, she said, “Something’s wrong with Charlie.”
Preacher blinked, as if waking from sleep. “Wrong…?”
“Besides the fact that he’s been raised from the dead?” Sophia stopped and her cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry, Addie. I don’t mean to be sharp. I’m still trying to reconcile what I saw. That a boy could rise?—”
“It’s not Charlie.”
She got them into the living room, prodding them along as if they were the children. “I went inside to see him. Whoever—whatever—is inside Charlie, it’s not him. Or he’s wrong. Very wrong. He didn’t know me at all.”
Preacher lowered himself into a chair. “Eleazar said he’d be exhausted?—”
“It was more than that. He had no idea who I was. He didn’t recognize a feather that he wore in his cap for half a year. He didn’t care totryto recognize it. Or me. It was not Charlie.”
“But that’s…” Sophia trailed off and shook her head. “I’m not sure if that’s more or less incredible. How would it not be him? Who would it be?”
“Whatwould it be,” Addie said, correcting her. “Eleazar has summoned a demon into Charlie’s body. He is possessed.”
Preacherand Sophia didn’t much like Addie’s possession notion. It seemed quite reasonable to her. She’d grown up in a world where monstrous things happened, and rather than runfrom the idea, she’d always embraced it. Nothing thrilled her so much as stories of hags and squonks, loup-garous and wampus cats.
She knew all about possession. It was right there in the Bible. And it was real, too. Millie Prior’s cousin up in North Bay had been possessed, and they had to bring a priest all the way from New York City to exorcise her. If priests did it, then it must have been real. Addie didn’t see how you could argue with that. Preacher still did.
Eventually, they seemed to accept that something might be wrong with Charlie.
“If he was brought back, it would make sense that he’d be…not right,” Sophia said. “It’s unnatural. It’s not the work of God. I know that.”
“The work of the Devil,” Addie said.
She could tell Sophia didn’t like that idea much either. If Addie found herself pulled toward demons and evil, Sophia sought out angels and goodness. That’s the way she was. As for Preacher, Addie figured he didn’t quite believe in angelsordevils—he just knew this was wrong. The dead ought not to come back, however much one might wish it.
“His assistant is dead, too,” Addie said.
Sophia stared at her for a moment, then managed to say, “His…?”
“Rene,” Preacher murmured. “Or Mr. Rene. I’m not sure if it was a Christian name or family.”
“There is no Christian in these men,” Sophia muttered. “You mean the old one, then? He was the assistant? And you say he’s…he’s…” She couldn’t seem to finish.
“Dead. I saw him at the hall. I thought he was asleep, but his eyes were open and…he was dead. I’m sure Eleazar has killed him.”
