People are the Problem

Shawna ran through the rain with the cat that Ms. Carmona tried to sacrifice. The animal was docile now in its captor's gentle embrace. The apartment complex did not allow animals and Shawna did not really want a cat for a pet, but a sense of kinship with her fellow escapee was growing. They had both been traumatized and lived to tell about it.

Shawna had decided she would tell her father and mother the whole story as soon as she got home—if he was still at the apartment, and if she would listen. She would come clean about everything: the party, the spell and sacrifice, Ms. Carmona and the conference in San Francisco, the secrecy about Terilyn's interest in other religions and their practices, even her own confusion and temptation on those issues.

It does not matter where you live or who the governor is or what the laws are, she had decided. Kids are going to do what they want. And if kids can get into drugs and spells and animal sacrifices and who-knows-what-else, adults can get into that much and worse. The problem is not the place; the problem is the people.