I’m walking through the wheat.
The setting sun is an intense red-orange, making it look like the crops are on fire. Even the sound of the wind moving through the wheat makes it sound like it’s sizzling. The sky is a sheet of solid gray. No break in the clouds, like it’s trying to cover something up. The row in the wheat begins to narrow, bending in all around me, leading me to a hollow. I hear a soft humming noise—one of Noodle’s songs, an old one. My heart starts pounding in my chest; my palms are sweaty. Each step fills me with dread. The smell of musty iron and sweet decay fills my nostrils, like rotting meat and candy. As I get closer, I see Noodle kneeling next to the dead calf. That decrepit baby doll is nestled into the calf’s split-open belly. Noodle’s holding something in her hands. Whatever it is, it’s dripping blood. At first, I think it’s a piece of meat, maybe an organ from the calf. She looks up at me. “It’s all for the chosen one,” she says with a childish lilt as she shows me the gift.
*
I WAKE in the woods, retching up the contents of my stomach. Pine straw and bile stuck to my face. I sit up and all the blood rushes from my head. It’s pounding so hard, I feel like I’ve got to hold it together or it’ll crack right open. I feel the back of my head; I’ve got a pretty good knot. It’s sticky with blood, but it’s not bad. Nothing an ice pack won’t fix.
I think about searching the woods for that little prick, but I’m not even sure what happened last night. The dreams are so real now. And life sometimes feels like a dream. It’s all mixing together into one fucked-up mess.
Making my way out of the woods next to Merritt’s, I shove my head under the hose. The water’s freezing, but it jolts me out of my stupor.
I go to my truck and pull out my cell phone. I try Miss Granger, but it goes straight to voice mail. I call home. Noodle picks up.
“You must’ve gone out real early this morning,” she says. I can hear every breath, like her mouth’s pressed flat against the receiver.
“Yeah, I had some errands to run. Hey, is Jess there?”
“Still sleeping.” Noodle sighs. “But Miss Granger gave me a present, a really neat outfit that I’m supposed to wear to school. It’s not as fancy as the nun’s costume, but it’s nice. There’s a skirt and a shirt and a coat thing and there’s even a matching outfit for—”
“That’s great, Noodle.” I glance at myself in the rearview mirror and wince. Man, I look like hell. “Show it to me when I get home, okay? I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Okay. Bye,” she yells into the receiver. I rub my temples.
I know I should go home, try and piece together what happened last night, but I really need to talk to somebody—an adult—before I lose my mind. Sheriff isn’t an option, and Miss Granger’s unavailable. The only person I can think of is Reverend. He said I could come and talk to him anytime. Pretty sure there’s a confidentiality thing. He’s a man of God … so he must believe in the Devil, too.
26
I PULL into the dirt lot at Midland Baptist. The only car is Reverend’s old maroon Buick parked out back by the little apartment he lives in. I wonder why he didn’t park in his garage. His car’s got an I LOVE JESUS sticker along with the mandatory I LOVE MIDLAND HIGH PIONEERS. God and football—one and the same in this town.
I glance at the clock on my dash: 7:42. He must be getting ready for his sermon by now. I heard he downloads them straight off the Internet.
I sit on the front steps of the church and wait for him. It’s so different from All Saints. There’s no extravagance or mystical outfits. What you see is what you get, from the rotting wood steps to the chipped white paint. The founding families built this with their bare hands. We don’t have some fancy baptism font—we go down to the creek that spills over from Harmon Lake for our baptisms. People might call us backwoods, but it seems more honest in some way. The people in this town might whoop it up on a Saturday night, get in brawls, cheat on their spouses, go down to the old trailers near Ted Bannon’s junkyard looking for meth, but they’ll always show up here on Sunday morning to make amends.
I don’t even know what I’m doing here, what made me come here. Maybe it was Reverend dressed as Jesus last night. I know it sounds stupid, especially because I don’t really believe in that anymore, but there’s a part of me that wants to. Maybe he can help, not with Ali or the others, but help me, with my soul. “Lay your burdens down.” That’s what they’re always singing about in those hymns. I want to lay them down and leave them here. Part of me thinks we should’ve gotten out of Midland when we had the chance, but I’ve seen enough horror movies to know you can’t run from the Devil.