Horns

The soul may not be destroyed. The soul goes on forever. Like the number pi, it is without cessation or conclusion. Like pi it is a constant. Pi is an irrational number, incapable of being made into a fraction, impossible to divide from itself. So, too, the soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you. The soul would be no good to the devil if it could be destroyed. And it is not lost when placed in Satan’s care, as is so often said.

banging his head on the roof and his knee on the gearshift.

. She had lived there before him and would continue to live there after they were through with each other,

The doctor’s shoulders sank.

He turned his face away and let out a slow, seething breath.

He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “

his hands balled into fists, and offered no opinion

He couldn’t stand the cross either, planted in the place where Merrin had bled to death from her smashed-in head.

People had left remembrances at a diseased black cherry tree,

HE SHOVED HIMSELF BACK into his khaki shorts—he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes—and leaned over the sink for a better look.