She had always been a proud woman. Proud of the floor she washed on her hands and knees (but Who had provided the hands, the knees, the very water she washed with?), proud that all her children had turned out all right - none in jail ever, none caught by dope or the bottle, none of them frigging around on the wrong side of the sheets - but the mothers of children were the daughters of God. She was proud of her life, but she had not made her life. Pride was the curse of will, and like a woman, pride had its wiles. At her great age she had not learned all its illusions yet, or mastered its glamors.
And when they filed through the gate she thought: It's me they've come to see. And on the heels of that sin, a series of blasphemous metaphors, rising unbidden in her mind: how they filed through one by one like communicants, their young leader with his eyes mostly cast down, a light-haired woman by his side, a little boy just behind him with a dark-eyed woman whose black hair was shot with twists of gray. The others behind them in a line.
The young man climbed the porch steps, but his woman stopped at the foot. His hair was long, as Ralph had said, but it was clean. He had a considerable growth of reddish-gold beard. He had a strong face with freshly etched lines of care in it, around the mouth and across the forehead.
"You're really real," he said softly.
"Why, I have always thought so," she said. "I am Abagail Freemantle, but most folks round here just call me Mother Abagail. Welcome to our place."
"Thank you," he said thickly, and she saw he was struggling with tears. "I'm... we're glad to be here. My name's Larry Underwood."
She held her hand out and he took it lightly, with awe, and she felt that twinge of pride again, that stiffneckedness. It was as if he thought she had a fire in her that would burn him.
"I... dreamed of you," he said awkwardly.
She smiled and nodded and he turned stiffly, almost stumbling. He went back down the steps, shoulders hunched. He would unwind, she thought. Now that he was here and when he found out he didn't have to take the whole weight of the world on his shoulders. A man who doubts himself shouldn't have to try too hard for too long, not until he's seasoned, and this man Larry Underwood was still a little green and apt to bend. But she liked him.
His woman, a pretty little thing with eyes like violets, came next. She looked boldly at Mother Abagail, but not scornfully. "I'm Lucy Swann. Pleased to make your acquaintance." And although she was wearing pants, she sketched a little curtsy.
"Glad you could come by, Lucy."
"Would you mind if I asked... well..." Now her eyes dropped and she began to blush furiously.
"A hundred and eight at last count," she said kindly. "Feels more like two hundred and sixteen some days."
"I dreamed about you," Lucy said, and then retired in some confusion.
The woman with the dark eyes and the boy came next. The woman looked at her gravely and unflinchingly; the boy's face showed frank wonder. The boy was all right. But something about the woman made her feel grave-cold. He's here, she thought. He's come in the shape of this woman... for behold he comes in more forms than his own... the wolf... the crow... the snake.
She was not above feeling fear for herself, and for one instant she felt this strange woman with the white in her hair would reach out, almost casually, and snap her neck. For the one instant the feeling held, Mother Abagail actually fancied that the woman's face was gone and she was looking into a hole in time and space, a hole from which two eyes, dark and damned, stared out at her - eyes that were lost and haggard and hopeless.
But it was just a woman, and not him. The dark man would never dare come to her here, even in a shape that was not his own. This was just a woman - a very pretty one, too - with an expressive, sensitive face and one arm about her little boy's shoulders. She had only been daydreaming for a moment. Surely that was all.
For Nadine Cross, the moment was a confusion. She had been all right when they came in through the gate. She had been all right until Larry had begun talking to the old lady. Then an almost swooning sense of revulsion and terror had come over her. The old woman could... could what?
Could see.
Yes. She was afraid that the old woman could see inside her, to where the darkness was already planted and growing well. She was afraid the old woman would rise from her place on the porch and denounce her, demand that she leave Joe and go to those (to him) for whom she was intended.
The two of them, each with their own murky fears, looked at each other. They measured each other. The moment was short, but it seemed very long to the two of them.
He's in her - the Devil's Imp, Abby Freemantle thought.
All of their power is right here, Nadine thought in her own turn. She's all they've got, although they may think differently.
Joe was growing restive beside her, tugging at her hand.
"Hello," she said in a thin, dead voice. "I'm Nadine Cross."
The old woman said: "I know who you are."
The words hung in the air, cutting suddenly through the other chatter. People turned, puzzled, to see if something was happening.
"Do you?" Nadine said softly. Suddenly it seemed that Joe was her protection, her only one.
She moved the boy slowly in front of her, like a hostage. Joe's queer seawater eyes looked up at Mother Abagail.
Nadine said: "This is Joe. Do you know him as well?"