Four Summoners Tales Part 13

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 Addie raced 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

children were 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 to try to 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?"

"What would it be," Addie said, correcting her. "Eleazar has

summoned a demon into Charlie's body. He is possessed." Preacher and 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 run from 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.