Strangers

this out, see what happens. Of course, as I remain a fallen-away priest, I can't hear confessions or say Mass. But while I'm waiting to see what happens, I could do some cooking, help you catch up on the filing."
        Father Wycazik was relieved. He had expected Brendan to express the intention of returning to a secular life. "You're welcome, of course. There's much you can do. I'll keep you busy; no need to worry about that. But tell me, Brendan… you do think there's a possibility that you'll find your way back?"
        The curate nodded. "I don't feel alienated from God any more. Just empty of Him. As this situation develops, perhaps it'll lead me back to the Church, as you're convinced it will. I just don't know."
        Still frustrated and disappointed by Brendan's refusal to see the miraculous presence of God in the healing of Emmy and Winton, Father Wycazik was nonetheless glad that he would have the curate close and be provided the opportunity to continue guiding him back to salvation.
        Brendan went downstairs with Father Wycazik, and at the front door the two men embraced in such a way that a stranger, without any knowledge of their occupation, would have thought them father and son.
        Accompanying Father Wycazik as far as the front stoop, where a blustery wind gave a howl more suited to Halloween than to Christmas, Brendan said, "I don't know why or how, Father Stefan, but I feel we're about to embark upon an amazing adventure."
        "The discovery - or rediscovery - of faith is always an amazing adventure, Brendan," Father Wycazik said. Then, having gotten in the last clean jab, as a good fighter for souls should always do, he left.
        
        Reno, Nevada.
        Whimpering, gasping for breath, struggling valiantly against the narcotizing effect of his lunar obsession, Zeb Lomack clambered through the garbage and squirming roaches that carpeted the kitchen, grabbed the shotgun that lay upon the table, jammed the barrel between his teeth - and suddenly realized that his arms were not long enough to reach the trigger. The urge to look up at the bewitching moons on the walls was so overpowering that he felt as if someone had hold of him by the hair and was pulling his head back to force his gaze up from the floor. And when he closed his eyes defensively, it seemed as if some invisible adversary began to pry insistently at his. eyelids. In his horror of being committed to a madhouse like his father, he found the strength to resist the mesmeric moon-call. Eyes still closed, he collapsed into a chair, kicked off one shoe, stripped away the sock, braced the shotgun with both hands, put the barrel in his mouth, raised his unshod foot, and touched one bare toe to the cold trigger. Imagined moonlight on his skin and imagined lunar tides in his blood (no less forceful for being imaginary) demanded his attention with such sudden power that he opened his eyes, saw the many moons on the walls, and cried "no!"into the barrel of the gun. Even as the spellbinding mooncall pulled him back toward a trance, even as he pressed his foot down upon the trigger, the swelling memory balloon at last burst in his mind, and he remembered everything that had been taken away from him: the summer before last, Dominick, Ginger, Faye, Ernie, the young priest, the others, Interstate 80, the Tranquility Motel, oh, God, the motel, and oh, God, the moon!
        Perhaps Zebediah Lomack was unable to check the downward motion of his bare foot or perhaps, instead, the suddenly revealed memory was so terrible that it encouraged suicide. Whichever the case, the.12-gauge went off with a roar, and the back of his head blew out, and for him (though for no one else) the terror ended.
        
        Boston, Massachusetts.
        All Christmas afternoon, Ginger Weiss read Twilight in Babylon, and at seven o'clock that evening, when it was time to go downstairs for drinks and dinner with the Hannaby family, she resented the interruption and did not want to put the book aside. She was a willing captive of the engrossing story, but she was more captivated by the photo of the author. Dominick Corvaisis' commanding eyes and dark good looks continued to arouse in her an uneasiness bordering on fear, and she could not overcome the peculiar feeling that she knew him.
        Dinner with her hosts, their children and grandchildren, might have been pleasurable if Dominick Corvaisis had not exerted a mysteriously