We followed her into a hall lined with cheap religious prints. Gospel music boomed from deep in the house. I squinted at a needlepoint hanging on the wall. A Bible verse of some kind, but damned if I could read it—half the stitches were out of place.

“I’ve found Jesus,” Carol said, beaming.

“Huh,” I murmured under my breath. “I didn’t know he was lost.”

Adam gave me a look, his eyes telling me to watch it, his lips holding back a smile.

She waved us into what must have been the living room, but looked more like a Vegas chapel, every inch of space crammed with cheap china Madonnas and butt-ugly cherubs.

“Do you know Christ our Savior, child?” Carol said as we sat.

“Not personally.”

I got another look from Adam, who prodded me onto the loveseat, then sat beside me, close enough to elbow me if I got out of line.

I have nothing against organized religion. Well, not much. But if you’re going to have a religious conversion and clean up your life, then do it when your child is born, not after she dies.

“How about you, young man?” Carol said, turning to Adam. “Have you accepted Christ into your life?”

“I’m still ...” Adam gave a sheepish shrug. “Looking, you know? Trying to find the right church. Which one do you belong to?”

“Our Holy Savior in Battle Ground. It’s a very old church. Small, but old.”

“Can’t say I’ve heard of it. Maybe I’ll check it out. How does it feel about ... ?” He squirmed. “I’ve got this problem. More of a question, really, and I’m having a hard time finding the right answer from the churches I’ve tried.” He glanced sharply at me. “Don’t give me that look.”

I wasn’t giving him any look, but I rolled my eyes on cue, murmuring, “Not this again.”

“It’s bugging me, okay?” He turned back to Carol. “I’ve got this good friend who’s been dating this girl and she’s into ... stuff. Occult stuff.”

“Occult?” Carol’s eyes widened.

“It’s not occult,” I said. “I keep telling you it’s—”

“Witchcraft, I know. She says she’s a witch.”

Carol frowned. “Wiccan?”

“No, this one says she’s a real witch.”

Carol looked genuinely confused. “You don’t mean devil worship, do you?”

“It is Wiccan,” I said. “A branch of it anyway. And I keep telling him it’s not occult; it’s an earth-based religion.”

“I don’t think I’d call it a religion myself,” Carol said slowly. “But if they do, then maybe ...”

“What does your church say about stuff like that?” Adam asked.

“I don’t know. I’d have to ask. Personally, I don’t agree with it.”

“See?” Adam said to me.

“She said she doesn’t agree with it. She didn’t say she thinks ‘something should be done about those people.’”

“I was kidding.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“I’d had a few beers.”

“So which was it? You were drunk or you were kidding?”

As we faced off, Carol said timidly, “I might not agree with it, but the Bible teaches us to respect the customs of others.”

“No, the Bible says ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’” Adam said. “It’s right there in black and white.”

“I can’t believe the Bible would say ...” She stopped herself and nodded. “No, our pastor does teach us that the Bible includes passages that have been misinterpreted. The teachings of Christ are clear. We must respect others, even if we disagree with them. That’s what my pastor said about homosexuals. I might not agree with their choices, but Christ would want me to treat them the way I want to be treated. I think he’d say the same about witches.”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about Brandi,” I said.

If there was one word to describe Carol Degas, it was vague. Not evasive, just, well, not entirely present. It was as if all those bottles of whiskey had washed away both her personality and her memory, and she was just struggling to hold on, clinging to her new religion with a death grip.

She could talk about Christ, and that’s really all she could talk about. Seemed to know him better than the daughter she’d lived with for twenty-five years.

“I wasn’t a good mother,” she said, finally. “I know that and I accept my share of the blame, but it’s like Pastor Williams says—no one is entirely responsible for another person, even a child. They grow as they will. Look at Ginny Thompson. Paula is a fine woman. She might not be a churchgoing Christian, but she’s a Christian at heart. Look at how her daughter turned out, in spite of that. I do feel guilty about Brandi, though. The dreams prove that, Pastor Williams says.”

“Okay, so about that night—”

“The dreams prove that,” she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken.

Personally, I had no interest in Carol Degas’s dream life, but obviously she wanted to tell me.

“I dreamed that the little girl died,” she said.

“Little girl?”

“Ginny’s daughter. I dreamed that I heard Ginny and Brandi planning to kill Kayla, so Cody would take Ginny back. They were right in this house, in the basement, gathering up supplies. I heard them, and they then left and I knew I had to do something. So I tried calling Paula. She always knows what to do. Only I couldn’t finish dialing the number. I kept trying and trying, but I couldn’t do it, and then I passed out and when I came to the little girl was dead and I cried and cried, because it was all my fault.”

She looked at me expectantly.

“Okay...” I said.

“The little girl was Brandi,” Adam said.

I turned to him. “What?”

“Subconsciously, it was Brandi. Her little girl.”

Carol nodded emphatically. “That’s exactly what Pastor Williams said. When we dream, things aren’t always as they seem. Kayla was Brandi. Brandi and Ginny represented evil in the world. They conspired to kill my little girl and I didn’t do anything to stop them. I wanted to, but I was too drunk, too ...” She searched for aword. “Ineffectual. That’s what the pastor says. It proves that I felt guilty.”