She lowered the rosary to her lap and continued to gaze out the window. The neighbors across the street turned on the lights in their living room, and she wondered if they were oblivious to the shadow of evil that had clouded Newman. Although Hailey was certain nearly everyone in Newman had heard of Jared's possession and death, was it possible there were some who remained completely oblivious to the fact that true evil had lurked in the shadows? Could tragedy occur just down the street, without someone ever knowing that it had happened?
* * *
Stella had ordered room service—two carafes of hot cocoa and a plate of warm cookies. She explained that it was her suite during her stay in Newman, and that she and Lou had decided the guys might be more comfortable in a more spacious environment.
The suite definitely looked more expensive than Lou's hotel room, which Adam mentioned in his typical manner. "Yep. This looks like it cost twice as much as Lou's hotel."
Adam's observation put Conner at ease. He settled in an armchair and immediately noticed a wet red leaf stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Slightly embarrassed that he'd tracked debris into the semi-fancy suite, Conner pinched the crumpled leaf from his sneaker and set it onto the table. After draping his coat on the arm of the chair, he leaned forward and warmed his hands with a mug of hot cocoa.
Lou sat with Stella on the sofa across from the three. He glanced at each face as if waiting for someone to speak, then he finally said, "Do you guys wanna tell us about what happened at school?"
Conner opened his mouth, but Adam blurted out, "Let's talk about Lake Bantam first. What the hell do you guys think went on there?"
The seriousness of Adam's delivery was not lost on Conner. He noticed the purse of Adam's lips and the slight crease between his eyebrows. Conner wanted to chuckle because Adam had obviously taken his earlier words of advice to heart. You don't always have to let me or Trevor take the lead.
"Stella and I have talked about this a few times," Lou said as he wiped cookie crumbs from his shirt. "And she has a better education about demonology than I do. So perhaps I should let her answer."
She handed Lou a small square napkin and then smiled at the boys. "I don't want to give the impression that I'm an expert. I'm not. But I do know my fair share of demonology."
"Lay it on us," Adam replied.
"I read a little, and I consulted someone who knows more than I do, but I have a pretty good idea of what the man at the lake hoped to accomplish."
"Voodoo crap," Adam stated assuredly.
Conner edged closer to the coffee table and set his mug down. "So, it was a ritual thing that man was doing?"
She nodded once before speaking again. "He was going to use the goat as a sacrifice to the demon he wanted to conjure. You said that the goat was standing on a fresh pile of dirt. That symbolized earth or Mother Nature. The rattlesnake symbolized the demon and its transformation; snakes shed their skin when they become a bigger, better version of themselves. The tree had four symbols etched into the bark. We don't know what all four symbols were, but it's safe to say that they represented four elements important to the ritual. And the tree itself possibly played the most important role."
"The tree?" Trevor asked. "Not the goat?"
"The man was going to sacrifice the goat. Therefore, the spilling of blood would have represented life. The snake would have slithered through the blood on the fresh dirt and then slipped into the tree. You said the tree looked very old, because it was tall and wide. The snake would have taken shelter in the tree, which would have summoned the demon to our world. Then, when the man was confident that the demon had been successfully conjured, he would have cut the tree open to release the demon."
The silence in the room seemed to cling to Conner's skin like a fine mist. Again, he was sweating, and his nerves burned like fire. He understood that the information he'd just heard was affecting him to such a degree that he was uncomfortable with the comprehension of what had taken place at Lake Bantam.
Adam let out a drawn-out "fuck."
"The goat," Conner said, "was the one thing that the man no longer had, so he used Jared?"
"Yes," Stella replied. "I'm sure he could have gotten another goat or some other animal. But it was about timing. You guys set the goat free when he was already set to perform the ritual. So, Jared was the replacement for the goat."
Adam jumped to his feet, gulping air like it was difficult to breathe. "I screwed up. I screwed up so bad," he cried out. "Everything was my fault."
Lou appeared surprised by Adam's quick retreat to the window overlooking the street. Stella swiftly stood with a sympathetic glimmer in her eyes, but Conner cast her a look that signaled don't even bother.
He and Trevor huddled close to Adam, resting their hands on his shoulders and tilting their heads close to his.
"It wasn't your fault," Conner said. "You didn't cause this to happen."
Adam nodded. "It was my idea to set that damn goat free. I made you guys help me. We should have just left it tied to the tree."
Trevor said, "It was that man's fault, Adam. Not yours."
Adam shook his head and sniffled. "I always screw things up. Just like my parents said, I don't think about the consequences."
"You didn't know," Conner said. "How the hell could you have known what was going to happen?"
"I'm the one who said there was some voodoo crap going on."
"Shut up," Trevor said, cupping the back of Adam's neck. "We all made a choice to set that goat free.
