Mystery Walk

won't need it!'

The black aura pulsated around her.

'No!' Ramona said, and started to rise to her feet. 'It's not—' But then Billy pulled free from her and was running up the aisle. She shouted, 'Billy!' but John's hand closed on her arm. 'Leave him be!' he said. 'He knows what he's doing—finally!'

When Billy reached the front, a grinning usher swept him up so he could speak into the microphone. Up close, the young evangelist—about his own age, Billy realized—had eyes that glinted like chips of blue ice. Wayne started to reach out for him, then stopped; the power of his grin seemed to falter, and there was a hint of confusion in his eyes. Billy could feel the hair at the back of his neck standing on end.

'Sin!' Billy wailed. Suddenly he was crying, unable to hold it in any longer. 'I've sinned, I've been in the dark place and I need to confess!'

Wayne paused, his hand out toward the other boy. Suddenly he trembled, and his hand closed into a fist. He stepped back from the edge of the platform as his father quickly brushed past him and took the microphone. Falconer helped Billy up. 'Confess it, son!' Falconer told him, putting the microphone to his lips as Wayne watched.

'I went into the dark place!' The loudness of his voice through the speakers startled him. He was crackling with electricity, and he could feel Wayne Falconer's stare on him. Everyone was watching him. 'I ... I saw Evil! It was in the basement, and ...'

Ramona suddenly rose to her feet.

'. . . it crawled up out of the coal pile and it . . . it looked like Will Booker, but its face was so white you could almost see right through it!' Tears rolled down Billy's cheeks. The audience was silent. 'It spoke to me . . . and said for me to tell people . . . where he was. ...'

'Billy!' John Creekmore shouted, breaking the awful silence. He stood up, gripping the chair before him, his face agonized.

'I sinned by going into the dark place!' Billy cried out. He turned to reach for Falconer's hand, but the evangelist's eyes were ticking back and forth. Falconer had sensed the gathering explosion, had seen the poisonous looks on the faces of the crowd.

And from the rear of the tent came a voice: 'Demon!'

Someone else—Ralph Leighton's voice, John realized— shouted, 'The boy's cursed, just like his mother! We all knew it, didn't we?'

'He's got the dark seed in him!'

'Like his mother, the Hawthorne witch!'

The tent erupted with ugly shouts. On the platform Billy felt a wave of hatred and fear crash over him. He stood stunned.

'He's a child of the witch!' Leighton shouted, from the rear of the tent. 'His mother's Ramona Creekmore, and they don't belong in here!'

J.J. Falconer had sweat on his face. He sensed their mood, and he knew also what he had to do. He gripped Billy by the scruff of the neck. 'Demon, do you say?' he crowed. 'Are this boy and his mother pawns in the hand of Satan?' The name Ramona Creekmore had struck an alarm bell of recognition in him: Ramona Creekmore, the Hawthorne Valley witch, the woman who supposedly spoke with the dead and weaved evil spells. And this was her son? His showmanship went into high gear 'We'll drag the Devil right out of this boy tonight! We'll pull out Old Scratch, a-kickin' and—'

Then there was utter silence. Ramona Creekmore was walking along the aisle, looking to neither right nor left. She said in a soft but commanding voice. 'Take your hand off my son.'

Falconer released his grip, his eyes narrowing.

Ramona helped Billy down. Behind Falconer she saw Wayne's frightened face, and something inside her twisted. Then she turned to face the mob. 'You scared sheep!' she said, in a voice that carried to the back of the tent. 'Nobody's been healed here tonight! People who think they're sick are being told they're well, but those in real need are being doomed by false hope!' Her heart pounded. 'It's akin to murder, what these two are doing!'

'Shut your damned mouth!' a woman shouted. It was the young mother, still clutching her child.

Ramona turned toward Falconer. 'Murder,' she said, her eyes flashing. 'Because deep in your hearts, you know what you're doing is wrong.' She looked at the boy, who trembled and stepped back under her gaze.

The evangelist roared, 'Do you know what the Unpardonable Sin is? It's seeing the Lord's Power and calling it the Devil's Work! You're lost to the Lord, woman!' A cheer went up. 'You're lost!' he bellowed.

Before the ushers rushed them out of the tent, Billy looked over his shoulder. Behind the yellow-suited man, the boy in yellow stood rigid and frozen, his mouth half open. Their gazes met and locked. Billy felt righteous hatred, bitter and hot, flowing from that boy.

Then they were out in the field, and the ushers warned them not to come back.

They waited for over ten minutes, but John never came out. The congregation began singing in loud, loud voices. When Falconer's voice boomed out, Billy felt his mother tremble. She took his hand and they began to walk into the darkness toward home.

13

'Billy? Son, wake up! Wake up, now!' He sat up in the darkness, rubbing his eyes. He could make out a vague figure standing over his bed, and he recognized his daddy's voice. Billy had cried himself to sleep a few hours earlier, when his mother had told him that John was upset at them and might not come home for a while. Billy was puzzled, and didn't understand what had gone wrong. The power of that young evangelist had drawn him to the stage, but when he'd confessed his sin everything had gone bad. Now, at least, his daddy had come home.

'I'm sorry,' Billy said. 'I didn't mean to—'

'Shhhh. We have to be quiet. We don't want your mother to hear, do we?'

'Why not?'

'She's alseep,' John said. 'We don't want to wake her up. This is just something between us two men. I want you to put on your shoes. No need to change clothes, your pajamas'll do just fine. There's something I want to show you. Hurry now, and be real quiet.'

There was something harsh about his father's voice, but Billy put on his shoes as the man asked.

'Come on,' John said. 'We're going out for a walk. Just the two of us.'

'Can't I turn on a light?'

'No. Open the front door for your daddy now, and remember to be quiet.'

Out in the humid night, crickets hummed in the woods. Billy followed his father's shape in the darkness. They walked down the driveway and toward the main road. When Billy tried to take his father's hand, John drew away and walked a little faster. He's still mad at me, Billy thought.

'Didn't I do right?' Billy asked—the same question he'd repeatedly asked his mother on that long walk home. 'I wanted to confess my sin, like that preacher said to.'

'You did fine.' John slowed his pace. They were walking alongside the main road now, in the opposite direction from Hawthorne. 'Just fine.'

'But then how come everybody got mad?' His father looked a lot taller than usual. 'How come you wouldn't go home with us?'

'I had my reasons.'

They walked on a bit further The night sky was ablaze with stars. Billy was still sleepy, and he was puzzled as to where his father was taking him. John had started walking a few paces ahead of Billy, a little more out into the road. 'Daddy?' Billy said. 'When that boy looked at me, I . . . felt somethin' funny inside me.'

'Funny? Like how?'

'I don't know. I thought about it all the way home, and I told Momma about it too. It was kinda like the time I went into the Booker house. I didn't really want to, but I felt like I had to. When 1 saw that boy's face, I felt like I had to go up there, to be close to him. Why was that, Daddy?'

'I don't know.'

'Momma says it was because he's ...” He paused, trying to recall the word. “Charis . . . charismatic. Somethin' like that.'