News vans littered the area around the courthouse and gravitated toward the Traveler’s Inn, one of our more famous structures. People swore it was haunted and we’d had everything from ghost hunters to novelists visit to get a glimpse of the lady in white. But the news vans and all the visitors were like blemishes on our small town. I realized how selfish I was being. The world would want to know about all the strange activities going on, but having the signs of the apocalypse, the one that I was supposed to stop, advertised all over the world upped the stress levels already coursing through my veins.
And then I saw them. Sprinkled among the throngs of sightseers snapping pictures and end-timers praying en masse were those who were just a little bit different. They stood in the middle of all the chaos and yet apart, their stares vacant as we passed by. A blond woman in her thirties. An elderly man with a gray beard. A young girl no older than myself with dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes and a snarl on her mouth. They watched us as we slid past. No, they watched Jared. These were the possessed people Glitch told us about.
I turned an astonished gaze on him, but he was busy staring back through glittering, dark eyes, as though promising their fates would end soon.
Then we pulled up to my grandparents’ store. My home. We lived in the back of the store and my bedroom was upstairs, above it. I never thought I’d be so happy to see that old store, but I was a little shocked at the state in which I found it. Most of the plate glass windows were broken and either had to be boarded up or duct-taped. One corner had been spray-painted, but not tagged as one would expect. It was a threat. An accusation. All it said was TRAITOR.
I looked away from the evidence of what my grandparents had been going through on my behalf, and anger coursed through me. How dare they treat my grandparents with such disrespect after everything they’d done for the church, for the town. A thought—so small, it barely took root before I pushed it away—flashed in my mind. Why would I want to save people like that? Why would I want to risk my life to help those who treated my grandparents so horribly?
But I couldn’t think like that. The mere idea caused a wave of nausea. How dare I judge them. That made me no better than those who would behave so callously.
Several old friends and members of the congregation were waiting for us at home. They’d organized a potluck, and Betty Jo, my grandma’s best friend, was busy setting out utensils when we walked in through the store. She stopped, her round face full of relief and joy and something that resembled hope. I tried not to let it weigh me down. She was a member of the Order. She knew what was supposed to happen just like the rest of us. She knew the premonitions where I was concerned. And she believed.
I set my jaw. Tried to believe with her as she rushed forward and wrapped me into her soft arms. Getting hugged by Betty Jo was like getting hugged by an overstuffed Barcalounger, comforting and warm.
“We have missed the dickens out of you,” she said when she set me at arm’s length. “Your grandmother has been beside herself.”
“Now, now, Betty Jo,” Grandma chided, a soft warning in her tone that only someone who knew her as well as Betty Jo and I would pick up on. “I have been just fine.”
A look that I could only describe as horror flashed across Betty’s face, and I almost laughed out loud. Clearly Grandma was a big fat liar. I’d have to tease her about that later.
“Right,” Betty said. “Fine.” She winked at me and I smothered a giggle.
Sheriff Villanueva came in through the store then, his arms full with ice in one hand and a casserole dish in the other. “Mrs. Chavez said this needs to go in the oven.” He stopped then and, after looking me up and down, dropped his load on the breakfast bar and came forward for a hug, too. I’d never hugged the sheriff before, but he was part of our family if anyone was. He’d been there for us when we needed him most.
“Good to see you, kid.”
I offered him my very best grateful smile. “Thank you for sticking by them.”
He shrugged it off. “Wouldn’t dream otherwise.”
We followed the hum of voices. A few of our closest friends were grilling hamburgers and talking about the strangest things they’d seen so far, each trying to one-up the other.
Many of our congregation were there, people rushing around preparing for a cookout. Most came up and hugged me. It was a nice homecoming. But a few didn’t. They were clearly just as angry with me as they were with my grandparents, and that made me angry. I wanted to rail at them. Turn on my cyclone-with-arms trick. But that hadn’t worked very well the first time. I could take only so much humiliation.
Kenya fixed herself a plate after some preemptive introductions and said to me, “Seems like a lot of your grandfather’s parishioners are a little peeved with him.”
The feelings of resentment came crashing through again. “How dare they try to dictate what we do. It’s our lives. My life.”
She shrugged and crunched a chip. “You can’t be too mad at them.”
Brooklyn’s jaw came unhinged. “Yes, we can. They don’t have the right to try to tell Lor or her grandparents what to do. How to live their lives.”
“You have to understand,” Kenya said, “they believe in you. They believe you are going to save them from whatever is coming. When you left, they felt abandoned. You need to try to see it from their side.”
“Well, their side is stupid,” Brooke said, stealing a chip off Kenya’s plate. “They don’t know what Lorelei has been through.”