And then the exorcist saved her life.
He confessed to everything. He said Abby was at the beach house trying to save Gretchen. He said he’d forced her to steal the fetus for his own satanic rituals. He said he’d abducted Gretchen. He’d shot Max. He’d bought alcohol for minors. He’d coerced Abby into the whole thing. She was under his influence. He was an acolyte of Satan. He was out of control.
A conference was held in front of the judge’s bench for everyone but Abby, and then it was all over. They had to send someone downstairs to get shackles in the exorcist’s size.
When Abby and her parents got home, someone had broken two of their windows and sprayed “Babykiller” on the front door. Abby’s name hadn’t appeared in the papers, but everyone knew what she’d done. A week later, her mom told her they were moving to New Jersey. There was a shortage of nurses there. Her dad sold the Dust Bunny without even telling Abby he’d put an ad in the paper. And then Charleston was gone, like it never happened.
They got her a therapist in New Jersey, but Abby refused to talk to him. She knew that the longer she stayed silent, the more she was worrying everyone—but what good would talking do? Nothing she could say would change what had happened. They ate in the only booth of a Chinese take-out place on Christmas Day, and she slept through New Year’s. January came. It was the first time Abby had seen snow. Her parents managed to rent a condo and sold their house at a loss. Abby thought about calling Gretchen. She wanted to know if her life was normal again, she wanted to know if she was okay, she wanted to know if anything good had come out of all this, but she was forbidden from contacting the Langs and so she didn’t talk to anyone, and every day was the same as the day before.
February. The longer she didn’t talk, the easier it became to stay silent. She tried to write Gretchen a letter, but it sounded thin and fake. She wrote a letter to Glee and another one to Margaret; both came back marked “Return to Sender.” She had gone to the library and looked up the Charleston papers. The case against the exorcist was falling apart because no one would testify. Glee and her family couldn’t be located, and Gretchen’s parents just wanted everything to be over. He was sitting in jail, but eventually they’d have to figure out what to do with him.
Abby’s parents were eager to move on. They had gotten Abby into Cherry Hill West. She could make up tenth grade in summer school and start as a junior in the fall.
“I know you’re smart enough to do that,” her mom said when they got home.
Abby didn’t say anything.
Both her parents were working now. Her dad had found a job in the Garden Center at Wal-Mart and her mom worked in an old folks’ home. Every day, they went to work and Abby stayed behind. They talked about making her see a new therapist, but they were so busy rebuilding their lives that they never got around to it.
Every day, Abby had assignments to get her up to speed for summer school, but the work didn’t take her long. There was a neighbor who made sure she didn’t leave the house, so mostly she watched TV. Before noon, there was Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune, and The Price Is Right. In the afternoons she lost herself in All My Children, The Bold and the Beautiful, Santa Barbara, and Another World. But more and more mornings, she missed The Price Is Right altogether and only dragged herself out of bed in time for the afternoon shows.
She was lying in bed one March morning, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about anything at all, when a horn honked outside. She heard it beep once, then twice, then a third time. Abby ignored it, but it kept on blaring, eating into her brain, bleeep bleeeeep bleeeeeeep, refusing to leave her alone. Finally, she trudged into the living room and knelt on the sofa to look out the window and see who the hell was out there. Her heart gave a single, low kick.
Mrs. Lang’s white Volvo was idling out front.
Thick billows of exhaust plumed from its dripping tailpipe and the rising sun hit its fogged-over windows and made them burn gold. In a trance, Abby dragged on her jacket, stuck her feet in a pair of sneakers, and opened the front door, fully expecting the car to have disappeared.
It was still there. She shuffled down the sidewalk on numb feet; the closer she got, the more real it became. She could hear its engine idling. She could see a vague shape behind the wheel. She could feel the frozen handle underneath her fingers. She heard the door clunk open. Warm air swirled out and she smelled hibiscus and rose.
“Hey!” Gretchen said. “Want a ride?”
Abby’s brain couldn’t put the pieces together.
“You always drove me everywhere,” Gretchen said. “I figured it was time to return the favor.”
Behind Abby, a condo door opened.
“Abby?” Mrs. Momier, their next-door neighbor, called. She was standing on her front porch, arms wrapped around herself, looking worried. “You’re not supposed to be outside.”
“Come on,” Gretchen said. “I’m wanted in, like, at least two states by now. Get in.”
Abby slid into the Volvo and slammed the door. The heaters were on high, drying the skin on her face and pulling it tight. Gretchen ground gears as she shifted from neutral into first, and the Volvo shuddered and jerked, then the smell of burning motor oil came through the vents as she pulled onto the street and shredded into second gear.
“I called but they wouldn’t let you come to the phone,” Gretchen said. “I wrote but I never heard back. I couldn’t wait anymore, so I borrowed my mom’s car and here I am.”
Abby looked at her. Gretchen’s face was greasy and a pimple was forming next to her nose. Her hair was sticking up in the back and the car smelled like she’d slept in it. But her eyes were clear and her chin was up as she overhanded the steering wheel to the left and they pulled out of the condo parking lot.
“I’m not sure how long we have,” Gretchen said. “I called from the road to let them know I was all right, but I’m sure they’re spazzing. Because when I say I borrowed my mom’s car, I guess the technical term is that I stole it.”
She pulled into a Blockbuster Video parking lot and the Volvo jerked to a stop. The engine gave a death rattle as they rolled into an empty space. Gretchen yanked the emergency brake, then turned in her seat to face Abby.
“Someone else was living my life,” Gretchen said. “And all I could do was watch. I saw myself getting my friends drunk and telling them lies, and sleeping with Wallace, and feeding Margaret poison, and I can’t remember much of anything except flashes.”
A Blockbusters employee in a bright blue and gold shirt walked past to unlock the store, giving them a bored glance through the windshield.
“I’d wake up and have no idea where I was or how I got there,” Gretchen said. “Where the cuts and bruises came from. I remember your face, and smearing something across it, and I remember listening to you cry and feeling happy, and I remember Good Dog Max . . .”
Gretchen’s voice cracked.
“All winter,” Gretchen said, “after the beach house, everything hurt so bad and I felt like it would never stop. Something was wrong inside of me. I was empty and ashamed and I knew I was broken in a way that could never be fixed. I needed to hit the reset button and start over. So a couple of days before Christmas I went into my parents’ bedroom and got my dad’s gun, and I carried it with me all day until it was warm; and I taught myself how to turn the safety on and off, and how to open it and put in the bullets, and how to pull back the hammer. And then I sat on my bed for a long time, and finally I just couldn’t think of any reason not to do it, you know?”