The Servants of Twilight

"To send help," Sandy said.

"You think we should wait for it?"

"No."

"Me neither. We're sitting ducks here. This place was a good idea only as long as we figured they'd never find it. Now, our best chance is to get out, get moving, before they know we've spotted them. They won't be expecting us to suddenly pull up and light out."

Sandy agreed. He turned to Christine." Get your coats on.

You can take only two suitcases, 'cause you'll have to carry them both.

Max and I can't be tied down with luggage on the way to the car; we've got to keep our hands free."

The woman nodded. She looked stricken. The boy was pale and waxy. Even the dog seemed to be worried; it sniffed the air, cocked its head, and made a peculiar whining noise.

Sandy didn't feel so good himself. He knew what had happened to Frank Reuther and Pete Lockburn.

34

Thunder shook the window-walls.

Rain fell harder than ever.

Heat streamed from the ceiling vents, but Charlie couldn't get rid of a chill that made his hands clammy.

Denton Boothe said, "I've talked with people who knew Grace before this religious fanaticism. Many of them mention how close she and her husband were. Married forty-four years, she idolized the man. Nothing was too good for her Albert. She kept his house exactly as he liked it, cooked only his favorite foods, did everything the way he preferred. The only thing she was never able to give him was the thing he would have liked the most-a son. At his funeral, when she broke down, she kept saying, over and over, 'I never gave him a son." It's conceivable that, to Grace, a male child-any male child-is a symbol of her failure to give her husband what he most desired. While he was alive, she could make up for that failure by treating him like a king, but once he was gone she had no way to atone for her barrenness, and perhaps she began to hate little boys. Hate them, then fear them, then fantasize that one of them was the Antichrist, here to destroy the world. It's an understandable if regrettable progression for psychosis."

Henry said, "If I recall, they did adopt a daughter-"

"The one who had Grace committed for psychiatric evaluation when this Twilight business first came up," Charlie said.

"Yes," Boo said." Grace sold her house, liquidated investments, and put the money into this church. It was irrational, and the daughter was correct in seeking to preserve her mother's estate. But Grace came through the psychiatric evaluation with flying colors-"

"How?" Charlie wondered.

"Well, she was cunning. She knew what the psychiatric examiner was looking for, and she had sufficient control of herself to hide all those attitudes and tendencies that would have set off the alarm bells."

"But she was liquidating property to form a church," Henry said."

Surely the doctor could see that wasn't the act of a rational person."

"On the contrary. Provided she understood the risks of her actions and had a firm grip on all the potential consequences, or at least as long as she convinced the examining doctor that she had a firm grip, the mere fact that she wanted to give everything to God's work would not be sufficient to declare her mentally incompetent. We have religious liberty in this country, you know.

It's an important constitutional freedom, and the law steps respectfully around it in cases like this."

"You've got to help me, Boo," Charlie said." Tell me how this woman thinks. Give me a handle on her. Show me how to turn her off, how to make her change her mind about Joey Scavello."

"This kind of psychopathic personality is not frightened, shaky, about to collapse. Just the opposite. With a cause she believes in, supported by delusions of grandeur that are intensely religious in nature. well, despite appearances to the contrary, she's a rock, utterly resistant to pressure and stress. She lives in a reality that she made for herself, and she's made it so well that there's probably no way you can shake it or pull it apart or cause her to lose faith in it."

"Are you saying I can't change her mind?"

"I would think it's impossible."

"Then how do I make her back off? She's a flake; there must be an easy way to handle her."

"You're not listening-or you don't want to hear what I'm telling you.

You mustn't make the mistake of assuming that, just because she's psychotic, she's vulnerable. This sort of mental problem carries with it a peculiar strength, an ability to withstand rejection, failure, and all forms of stress. You see, Grace evolved her psychotic fantasy for the sole purpose of protecting herself from those things. It's a way of armoring herself against the cruelties and disappointments of life, and it's damned good armor."

Charlie said, "Are you telling me she has no weaknesses?"

"Everyone has weaknesses. I'm just telling you that, in Grace's case, finding them won't be easy. I'll have to look over my file on her, think about it awhile… Give me a day at least."