CHAPTER 3
That face haunted my dreams. I was aware of Agnes tumbling into bed at my side and knew she wanted to talk about the initiation, and about Jim, but my mind was elsewhere.
I could see that carved face with the slightly almond-shaped eyes and the pointed ears whenever I closed my eyes. Yet the face was not made of wood. It was alive and looking down at me. I knew it was talking or trying to communicate, although I did not understand the words. It was hideous, emanating an ancient evil, and I wondered if it was connected to the whistling.
I lay in my hard bed, with the compressed straw mattress barely rustling under me and faint moonlight trickling through the bars on the window. The darkness surrounded me, suffocating, pressing down upon me like a solid weight, so dense that I f
