The Servants of Twilight

But she knew it had been real, yes, terribly real, knew it wasn't just imagination or lunacy. Oh, yes. She knew. She knew the truth. She knew the awful truth-but what she didn't know was how she had gotten from the bathroom to the floor at the foot of the queen-size bed, where she next found herself. Apparently she had passed out in the bathroom and had crawled to the bed. But she couldn't remember anything. When she came to, she was naked, on her belly, weeping softly, clawing at the carpet.

Shocked, embarrassed, confused, she found her pajamas and pulled them on-and became aware of the serpent under the bed.

Hissing. It was the most wicked sound she had ever heard. It slithered out from beneath the bed, big as a boa constrictor, but with the supremely evil head of a rattlesnake, the multi-faceted eyes of an insect, and venom-dripping fangs as big as hooked fingers.

Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, this one spoke: "Your God cannot protect you any more. Your God has abandoned you.

She shook her head frantically: no, no, no, no!

With a sickening sinuosity, it coiled itself. Its head reared up.

Its jaws fell open. It struck, biting her in the neck — and then, without knowing how she had come to be there, she found herself sitting, some time later, on a stool in front of the dresser mirror, staring into her own bloodshot, watery eyes. She shivered. Her eyes, even the flat reflection of them, contained something she didn't want to see, so she looked elsewhere in the mirror, at the reflection of her age-wrinkled throat, where she expected to find the mark of the serpent. There was no wound. Impossible. The mirror must be lying. She put one hand to her throat. She could not feel a wound, either. And she had no pain.

The serpent hadn't bitten her, after all. Yet she remembered so clearly.

She noticed an ashtray in front of her. It was overflowing with cigarette butts. She was holding a smouldering cigarette in her right hand. She must have been sitting here an hour or more, smoking constantly, staring into the mirror-yet she couldn't remember any of it. What was happening to her?

She stubbed out the cigarette she'd been holding and looked into the mirror again, and she was shocked. She seemed to see herself for the first time in years. She saw that her hair was wild, frizzy, tangled, unwashed. She saw how sunken her eyes were, ringed with crepe-like flesh that had an unhealthy purplish tint.

Her teeth, my God, they looked as if they hadn't been brushed in a couple of weeks; they were yellow, caked with plaque! In addition to banishing sleep, the Gift had driven many other things out of her life; she was aware of that. However, until now, she hadn't been so painfully aware that the Gift-the visions, the trances, the communications with spirits-had caused her to completely neglect personal hygiene. Her pajamas were spotted with food and cigarette ashes. She raised her hands and looked at them with amazement. Her fingernails were too long, chipped, dirty. There were traces of dirt in her knuckles.

She had always valued cleanliness, neatness.

What would her Albert say if he could see her now?

For one devastating moment, she wondered if her daughter had been correct in having her hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation. She wondered if she was not a visionary after all, not a genuine religious leader, but simply a disturbed old woman, senile, plagued by bizarre hallucinations and delusions, deranged. Was the Scavello boy really the Antichrist? Or just an innocent child? Was Twilight actually coming?

Or was her fear of the devil only a foolish old woman's demented fantasy? She was suddenly, gut-twistingly sure that her "holy mission" was, in fact, merely the crusade of a pitiful schizophrenic.

No. She shook her head violently. No!

These despicable doubts were planted by Satan.

This was her Gethsemane. Jesus had endured an agony of doubt in the Garden of Gethsemane, near the brook of Kedron. Her Gethsemane was in a more humble location: a nondescript motel in Soleded, California. But it was every bit as important a turning point for her as Jesus's experience in the garden had been for Him.

She was being tested. She must hold on to her faith in both God and herself. She opened her eyes. Looked in the mirror again. She still saw madness in her eyes. No!

She picked up the ashtray and threw it at her reflection, smashing the mirror. Glass and cigarette butts rained over the dresser and the floor around it.

Immediately she felt better. The devil had been in the mirror.

She had smashed the glass and the devil's hold on her. Self-confidence flooded into her once more.

She had a sacred mission.

She must not fail.

48

Charlie stopped at a motel shortly before midnight. They got one room with two king-size beds. He and Christine took turns sleeping. Although he was positive they couldn't have been followed, although he felt safer tonight than he had felt last night, he now believed that a watch must be kept at all times.