Practical Demonkeeping

night sitting up in a train.’
    “I think it was then that I realized that I was in love with her. Not that it mattered. It was just that after living so long with Father Jasper’s abuse I wasn’t prepared for the kindness she was showing me. It never occurred to me that I might be putting her in danger.
    “As we pulled away from the station, I looked out on the platform, and for the first time I saw Catch in his smaller form. Why it happened then and not before I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t have any strength left, but when I saw him there on the platform, flashing a big razor-toothed grin, I fainted.
    “When I came to, I felt like my back was on fire. I was lying in the sleeping berth and Amanda was bathing my back with alcohol.
    “‘I told them you’d been wounded in France,’ she said. “The porter helped me get you in here. I think it’s about time you told me who did this to you.’
    “I told her what Father Jasper had done, leaving out the parts about the demon. I was in tears when I finished, and she was holding me, rocking me back and forth.
    “I’m not sure how it happened—the passion of the moment and all that, I guess—but the next thing I knew, we were kissing, and I was undressing her. Just as we were about to make love she stopped me.
    “‘I have to take this off,’ she said. She was wearing a wooden bracelet with the initials E + A burnt into it. ‘We don’t have to do this,’ I said.
    “Have you, Mr. Brine, ever said something that you know you will always regret? I have. It was: ‘We don’t have to do this.’
    “She said: ‘Oh, then let’s not.’
    “She fell asleep holding me while I lay awake, thinking about sex and damnation, which really wasn’t any different from what I’d thought about each night in the seminary—a little more immediate, I guess.
    “I was just dozing off when I heard a commotion coming from the opposite end of our sleeping car. I peeked through the curtains of the berth to see what was happening. Catch was coming down the aisle, looking into berths as he went. I didn’t know at the time that Catch was invisible to other people, and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t screaming at the sight of him. People were shouting and looking out of their berths, but all they were seeing was empty air.
    “I grabbed my overalls and jumped into the aisle, leaving my jacket and the candlesticks in the berth with Amanda. I didn’t even thank her. I ran down the aisle toward the back of the car, away from Catch. As I ran, I could hear him yelling, ‘Why are you running? Don’t you know the rules?’
    “I went through the door between the cars and slid it shut behind me. By now people were screaming, not out of fear of Catch, but because a naked man was running through the sleeping car.
    “I looked into the next car and saw the conductor coming down the aisle toward me. Catch was almost to the door behind me. Without thinking, or even looking, I opened the door to the outside and leapt off the train, naked, my overalls still in hand.
    “The train was on a trestle at the time and it was a long drop to the ground, fifty or sixty feet. By all rights I should have been killed. When I hit, the wind was knocked out of me and I remember thinking that my back was broken, but in seconds I was up and running through a wooden valley. I didn’t realize until later that I had been protected by my pact with the demon, even through he was not under my control at the time. I don’t really know the extent of his protection, but I’ve been in a hundred accidents since then that should have killed me and come out without a scratch.
    “I ran through the woods until I came to a dirt road. I had no idea where I was. I just walked until I couldn’t walk anymore and then sat down at the side of the road. Just after sunup a rickety wagon pulled up beside me and the farmer asked me if I was all right. In those days it wasn’t uncommon to see a barefoot kid in overalls by the side of the road.
    “The farmer informed me that I was only about twenty miles from home. I told him that I was a student on holiday, trying to hitchhike home, and he offered to drive me. I fell asleep in the wagon. When the farmer woke me, we were stopped at the gate of my parents’ farm. I thanked him and walked up the road toward the house.
    “I guess I should have known right away that something was wrong. At that time of the morning everyone should have been out working, but the