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Summary: Chapter 14

Cal returns home late that night to find Fox asleep on his couch, and they talk about what they have learned so far. They recall that no one in their families has ever been impacted by the Seven, but that it sometimes harms even people who have left Hawkins Hollow. Cal and Fox wonder how Layla and Quinn are connected to what is happening. Soon Gage arrives and tells Cal and Fox about his encounter with Cybil. The next morning, Quinn goes to the gym at the community center and is surprised to see that the lights and televisions are off. She turns on the lights and begins exercising, but the lights go out again. In the dark, Quinn hears noises that indicate she is not alone. As she gets off the machine, something knocks her to the ground, and she hears a voice. Quinn finds her way to the door and opens it to find Cal right outside. Shaken, Quinn gets her stuff and leaves the community center with Cal. They go back to the rental house and tell Cybil and Layla about what happened.

Summary: Chapter 15

The next day while working at the Bowl-a-Rama, Cal wonders where Ann Hawkins could have gone after the night Giles Dent died, and whether that information could help them find more of her journals. Quinn visits Cal in his office, and after they have sex, Quinn tells Cal that she’s in love with him, but Cal doesn’t feel ready to answer her. Later that day, Quinn, Layla, and Cybil visit the cemetery where Ann Hawkins is buried. Quinn finds a stone marking the grave of someone named Joseph Black who died in 1843, and notes that his last name is the same as hers. Quinn goes to Town Hall to research Joseph Black to see if she is related to him. She traces the Blacks to Quinton Black, who was born in 1676. At the rental house, Quinn tells the rest of the group what she has learned and mentions that she read about a Clark family as well. Layla says that her grandmother’s maiden name was Clark, and they all agree that, most likely, none of this is a coincidence.

Analysis: Chapters 14–15

The scene in the gym and the scene in Cal’s office demonstrate that both evil and love are growing more powerful. In the gym, for the first time, one of the characters is physically threatened by the evil presence. Before this scene, the characters have been terrorized by horrible images and occurrences that no one else can see, and they have repeatedly made it through these incidents by reminding themselves that the occurrences are not real. In the gym, however, Quinn is physically knocked from the elliptical machine and is frightened to be scrambling in the dark, in real bodily danger. This suggests that the evil force is growing stronger and will continue to grow stronger still.

Immediately before Quinn is attacked in the gym, she realizes she’s in love with Cal. Later, at the bowling alley, she confesses her love to him. Though he’s unable to reciprocate in the moment, it’s clear that the feelings between them have grown much stronger, too. Cal argues that it isn’t the time to fall in love, and Quinn argues it’s precisely because of what they face that the love between them is so important. Their love may be more powerful than the evil that haunts them.

The visit to the cemetery is redolent with the grief of the past and reveals what brings Quinn and Layla to Hawkins Hollow. The marker for a fire that destroyed the First Church of the Godly indicates it occurred on July 7, 1652. The day is Cal, Fox, and Gage’s birthday,  and is the year the fire occurred at the beginning of the novel. This suggests the church burned the day Giles Dent and the demon inside Lazarus Twisse burned near the Pagan Stone. Quinn notices a gravestone with her surname on it, and later, Layla learns an ancestor of hers is buried there, too. The past is calling out to them, and they are narrowing in on what they need to do to answer.

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