an instant: her name is Allie, she isn’t especially fond of her daughter, and she is having an affair with her golf instructor. Much like the receptionist, Allie confides in Ig that she’d like to beat her daughter for misbehaving, but wonders what the other people in the waiting area would think. She too asks Ig for his opinion, and casually tells him about her affair with Michael, an African-American tennis instructor. The receptionist again tells Ig she wants to say something; this time, Ig encourages her and feels a strange heat in his horns. As soon as he gives the okay, the receptionist uses a variety of four-letter words to tell Allie to take her daughter outside. As Allie and the receptionist launch into a high-decibel screaming match, Allie’s daughter tries to run away and falls, scraping up her knees. The adults take no notice and keep arguing, so Ig helps her up. He instantly knows that her name is Marcia, and the girl confides that she wants to burn her mother up in her bed. 

As Ig heads in to see the doctor, a nurse confides in him about her anger at her ex. When the doctor finally sees him, he too seems unalarmed by Ig’s horns. When they shake hands, Ig discovers the doctor has a sexual obsession with his daughter’s teenage friends. He then confesses to Ig that he’d like to snort some OxyContin. When Ig explains his concern that he’s having some kind of mental problem, the doctor reassures him that the horns are there. He tells Ig that while he notices the horns, he forgets them just as quickly. Ig begs him for help but the doctor continues to obsess about drugs and underage girls.

Not sure where to go, Ig drives to the base of the Old Fair Road Bridge. He recalls his friendship with Lee Tourneau. When Merrin had been alive, the three of them has been inseparable. After Merrin’s murder, Lee slowly and discreetly began to distance himself from Ig until the friendship fully disintegrated. Lee worked for a senator, and his relationship with Ig could have compromised his job prospects. Ig also remembers his courtship with Merrin, and a particularly strange night in the place called the Tree House of the Mind. Ig had convinced himself that it was a hallucination, but Merrin remembered it the same way. Lost in thought, Ig doesn’t notice the police cruiser pulling up behind his car. It is driven by Sturtz, a beefy officer who has delighted in harassing Ig for petty violations since Merrin’s murder. Sturtz’s partner, Posada, joined him and soon the two began confessing their inner thoughts. Posada was a closeted homosexual who harbored a deep-seated attraction to Sturtz. Sturtz was an ardent homophobe who admitted that he wanted to plant evidence in Ig’s car to give him cause to arrest Ig. Testing his powers, Ig first suggests to Posada that he simply make a physical move on Sturtz, and tells him Sturtz must be returning his affections secretly. Next, Ig reinforces Sturtz’s violent anti-gay mentality. Unable to find anything to charge Ig with, the officers let him drive away. As he departs, he can see Posada put his head in his partner’s lap to make his move.

Everyone in the town of Gideon was convinced that Ig’s well-to-do parents had hired a fancy lawyer to get him exonerated of any charges related to Merrin’s death. Ig’s father had enjoyed some brief celebrity for his trumpeting skills. After playing on some of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra’s recordings, Ig’s father became a teacher at Berklee College of Music. Ig’s older brother Terry, followed in his father’s footsteps musically while Ig was unable to trumpet because of severe asthma. Terry had also become the star of a successful late-night television show. Ig had initially been jealous of Terry, but recognizes his brother’s inherent decency—particularly when Terry stood by him during Merrin’s murder trial. After leaving the cops, Ig heads to Sacred Heart of Mary, the Catholic Church in which he had grown up. Though he no longer attends, he goes inside to see if the priest, Father Mould, could help him. He finds the priest and a sixty-something nun, Sister Bennett, in the gym downstairs; she is spotting him on the weight bench. As Ig attempts to get spiritual counseling, they too confess their inner thoughts to him. Father Mould has been carrying on a sexual relationship with Merrin’s mother and both of them hope that Ig hangs himself. Sister Bennett is a closeted lesbian who dreams of embezzling the church money and running away. Again testing his newfound powers, Ig convinces Sister Bennett to go steal the money. When Ig tries to talk the priest into hanging himself, the priest refuses. It seems Ig can only convince people to do something if they already want to do it. Ig leaves Father Mould struggling on the weight bench. On the way out, he runs into Sister Bennett leaving with the church money.

Ig didn’t necessarily want to go visit his parents, but he wasn’t sure where else to go. Heading to his old house reminded him of the night Merrin’s body had been found and he’d been brought in for questioning. His parents had been ready to defend him fiercely, but Ig was saddened that they both seemed to assume that he was guilty. A formal case was never brought against Ig because the forensic evidence gathered from the scene of the crime had been destroyed shortly afterward in a lab fire. He had lived with his parents for nine months, however, they became increasingly distant as time went on (and the threat of his arrest evaporated). He had moved in with Glenna in part to get out of their house. As Ig pulls up to the house, he sees his grandmother asleep in her wheelchair at the top of the hill in front of his old house. He is touched by the sight of his grandmother and the memories seeing her brings back. He kisses her on the top of the head and gets an upsetting flash of information from her. Vera, Ig’s grandmother, thinks that he is guilty of the murder and is embarrassed to be seen with him. Moreover, she thinks there has been something wrong with Ig for a long time. She also believes that Ig’s mother, Lydia, had been a prostitute during her days in Las Vegas before landing her rich husband, Ig’s dad. Ig reels away from his grandmother and heads inside and finds his mother. When he unwittingly accesses her inner thoughts, he finds out that she favors Terry, Ig’s brother, and blames Ig for ruining her figure. She also hints that Vera’s version of her past might be true. Finally, she tells Ig that she wished he would go far away so she could be happy again. He complies and starts to leave.

Upstairs, Ig runs into his father, who also confesses his disappointment in and disgust for Ig. Ig’s dad seems particularly hung up on Merrin, whom he loved like a daughter. He feels guilty for covering up his son’s crime when he loved her so much more than Ig. Ig’s dad confesses that his friend Gene worked at the lab where the fire happened. He had done some big favors for Gene, and assumed Gene had started the fire as a kind of repayment. Ig is angry because he believes the evidence would have exonerated him. His dad also thinks Ig is guilty and has long been capable of crimes.

Ig had originally gone upstairs to look for any stuff that was his and take it with him. When he gets to his room, the first thing that he finds is his trumpet case. Long after it had been clear that asthma would keep Ig from playing like his father and brother, Ig used to continue practicing silently in his room. He didn’t dare use his full breath or else he’d risk passing out from oxygen deprivation. Ig remembers all of this bitterly and empties the trumpet case to use it as a makeshift suitcase. He pulls out the foam casing for the trumpet to maximize the space. He throws in some clothes and a passport, which he finds inside of a bible. He also notices the bible contains an attempt at the Morse code, which he intended to master to write a secret message to Merrin. After he packs up what he wants, he heads out of the house, trying to sneak out of the house to avoid running into anyone in his family. Stopping by the kitchen for a drink, he runs directly into Terry.

Terry looks worse for wear; he is either jet-lagged or suffering from allergies. Terry is allergic to so many environmental things: pollen, peanut butter, and bees. Terry announces his intention to tell Ig something and Ig braces himself for something upsetting like what his parents told him in their “private” confessions. Ig is surprised to find out how badly Terry feels for Ig. Terry had stood by his brother’s innocence, even when it wasn’t convenient for his Hollywood career. Terry admitted that he had nothing to do with Merrin’s murder. Ig is initially relieved because he did not think his brother had anything to do it. The real revelation comes when Terry says

that he knows that Lee Tourneau killed Merrin. Terry is obviously guilty, and says Lee forced him to remain silent. A reeling Ig runs from the house in a rage. His horns ablaze, he fixes his anger on his bigoted grandmother, Vera. He unlocks the brakes on her wheelchair and sends her careening down the hill. Ig’s horns are throbbing and he feels a combination of pleasure and pain. As she goes rolling down the hill, Ig makes his way to his car, a 1972 Gremlin that felt like the only home that he had left. While his grandmother smashes into a fence at a high speed, he feels incredibly satisfied and heads out.

Ig first met Merrin when he was fifteen years old, in church during one of Father Mould’s sermons. As he and his family sit listening, Ig feels a light flashing in the corner of his eyes. When it persists, he finds that the light is coming from across the aisle. A pretty, redheaded girl is using the cross necklace she is wearing to flash light in his eyes. Ig notices a pattern to it and Ig’s father, Derrick, suggests she might be using Morse code. Ig and the redhead continued to exchange flirtatious glances until the girl’s necklace accidentally breaks. Another teenage boy standing directly behind her attempts to fix it, but the girl pulls away from him. The boy is obviously interested in her, but her father makes himself a barrier as the families began to filter out of the church. On his way out, Ig notices the broken necklace sitting on her pew and pockets it. He wonders if she left it on purpose to provide him with a way to come talk to her. Unfortunately, she and her family are driving away by the time he makes it outside. 

That same summer, Ig’s brother, Terry, and his ne’er-do-well friend, Eric, had gotten a hold of some cherry bombs. The boys had amused themselves blowing up all kinds of things, including mailboxes. Their latest plan involved blowing up a frozen turkey, so Ig helps Terry fashion a sling and haul it out into the woods. As they near the river, they find an old, nearly broken shopping cart and decide to use it to push the turkey in the cart the rest of the way up the hill. They pass by a rough group of boys with one girl in their gang, Glenna. Up at the top of a very steep hill leading to the river, a boy is debating whether or not to mountain board down it. The rough boys try to goad him, but he remains too scared to go down the treacherous hill. Through their taunts, Ig learns the mountain boarding boy’s name is Lee Tourneau. Ig recognizes him as the boy from church who tried to fix the redhead’s necklace. Eric and Terry blow up the turkey to great acclaim from the other boys, who watch from behind the trees. When Eric jokes about one of them riding down the dangerous hill in the shopping cart while naked, Ig volunteers to do it. Terry tries to talk him out of it, but Ig has inside knowledge. While Eric and Terry were setting up the turkey, Ig had been playing with the shopping cart on the hill. He noticed that on one side of the trail was a half pipe running down to the river; the shopping cart’s wheels fit just inside the half pipe and the lip on each side prevents the wheels from slipping out and into the dirt. Ig proudly strips, jumps in the cart, and heads down the hill before anyone can talk him out of it. He accelerates incredibly quickly and gets launched into the air at the bottom of the hill.

While Ig is underwater he feels like he’s in another world. He is sure that he’s either dead or dying and feels there are souls everywhere but that he is too far away from God. Before he knows it, he is dragged upwards and laid on the beach. Someone slaps him soundly on the back and coughs up a lot of river water. Ig initially assumes his brother is the one who saved him, but is surprised to find out it was Lee. Ig’s face is throbbing with pain and blood is running down his face; he has broken his nose. Terry, Eric, and the others make their way down to the riverbed and Terry also thanks Lee. Lee tries desperately to downplay his bravery, but Terry and Ig want to invite him over to the house to tell their parents that he saved Ig’s life. Eric is worried about his parents finding out, so Lee declines. Ig asks if Lee will come by the house some time and Terry promises to come up with a good excuse for Ig’s bloody face. 

A few days later, Lee comes by the house while Terry and Ig’s parents are out. It’s raining, and Lee is soaked from head to toe. Lee is selling magazines for charity, so Ig agrees to buy all his remaining ones. Ig is fascinated by Lee and feels a strong need to find some way to thank him for saving Ig’s life. When they go up to Ig’s room, Ig asks Lee about music and is surprised by how little Lee has heard of. When Lee mentions how expensive CDs are, it occurs to Ig that Lee might be poor. He imagines Lee living with his single father in a trailer park. Lee asks Ig if he has any porn, noting that the magazine seller he works with has a variety of specialty adult magazines. Lee mentions that he has been experimenting sexually with Glenna, even though he doesn’t really seem to like her. Lee sees the broken necklace and asks about it. He tells Ig he can fix it and Ig feels obligated to give it to him, even though Ig wants it (and the girl) for himself. Lee confesses that he has an attraction to the redhead, in part because he thinks she’s a virgin. When Lee leaves, Terry returns with the cherry bomb that was payment for Ig’s shopping cart stunt. He and Ig make plans to blow something up with it at the end of the summer.

Ig goes to church the following week feeling incredibly nervous. He is anxious to see the redheaded girl and is also nervous about what Lee will do. As much as he feels indebted to Lee, he wants to be the one to give the necklace back to the girl. Ig spots Lee in church and is shocked to find him wearing the necklace. He and Lee both search the sanctuary but do not see the girl. Lee and Ig exchange silent glances wondering where the girl went. After the service is over, Ig notices some of the older women who were seated with the redheaded girl last week. He finds out her name is Merrin, and her family is moving to town; she most likely will be in church next week. Ig is excited, but unsure of what to tell Lee (or if he should tell him at all). One of the older ladies notices that Ig has a crush on the redheaded girl. 

The next time that Lee and Ig hang out, Lee is again wearing the cross. They have been swimming in Ig’s pool. They talk about the music that Ig gave Lee during his last visit. While Lee likes AC/DC, he does not care for the Beatles, much to Ig’s chagrin. Lee explains that what he likes about AC/DC is that it would be good music to kill people to. Lee again talks about porno magazines and explains that his favorite depicts girls who are supposedly virgins. Even though Lee knows the models are not virgins, he thinks of the intimacy of a first time would be something real. He knows that messing around with Glenna isn’t real attraction; they both just want to avoid being lonely. Ig goes into the house and brings out the cherry bomb to show Lee. He tells him that he’s saving it to use with his brother, because Terry forced Eric to make good on his promise to give it as payment for the shopping cart ride. Ig can tell that Lee wants the cherry bomb and is embarrassed that he enjoys withholding something from Lee. Ig still assumes that Lee is very poor and doesn’t have the money for CDs or cherry bombs. Ig is still upset about Lee wanting the redheaded girl. Despite this, the boys spend the rest of the afternoon coming up with a variety of intricate scenarios for things they could blow up with the cherry bomb.

Lydia takes her sons to the barber shop to get haircuts. While Lydia is providing detailed instructions to the barber for Terry’s haircut, Ig sees Glenna outside. Glenna writes suggestively in the condensation on the window, and Ig goes out to see her. Ig is surprised to find out that Glenna knows a lot about his friendship with Lee. Glenna is especially interested in the cross and who it belongs to; she seems aware that Lee might be infatuated with this mysterious girl in church. Glenna laughs at the fact that Ig thinks Lee is poor; she tells him he lives in Harmon Gates, an upper-middle class subdivision. He also hints that Lee’s subscription charity may not be everything it seems. Glenna tells Ig that Lee is obsessed with blowing up a car. Glenna has an uncle who lives in the woods and has some junk cars in his yard that would be perfect for Lee’s plans. Lydia has noticed Ig’s absence and taps on the window for Ig to come back in the shop. Glenna suggests an edgy haircut, but Ig doesn’t think his mom will go for it. One of the boys who’d been hanging out in the woods the day of the shopping cart ride comes over. He and his friend have been rooting through the barber shops garbage looking for hair; the boy has glued it to his face in an attempt to look older. As he heads back into the barber shop, Ig notices Glenna’s expensive looking leather jacket, which was a gift from Lee.

Ig and Lee are hanging out by the pool again, with Ig’s eyes still fixed on the cross Lee wears around his neck. It’s Saturday, and the girl is expected to return to church tomorrow, so Ig is desperate to find a way to get the cross necklace back from Lee. Lee invites Ig to a party at Glenna’s cousin’s place in the woods, and then asks if he can buy the cherry bomb from Ig. Ig says he doesn’t want money but asks for a trade: the necklace. Ig felt embarrassed at his own selfishness and confesses to Lee that he had a crush on the girl. Surprisingly, Lee willingly surrenders the necklace. Ig also admits that he knew the girl was coming back, but Lee takes that in stride as well. He admits that the girl didn’t seem interested in Lee and points out Glenna as a consolation prize.

The girl, whose name he learned was Merrin Williams, is indeed in church the next day. Ig gets her attention using the cross to reflect the sun in her eyes, just as she did the first Sunday they met. Once he has her attention, Ig and Merrin take turns avoiding the other’s glances. If one stares, the other tries to appear fully invested in the church service. At the end of the service, Merrin seems to be on the verge of getting away but gestures covertly to a quiet corner of the church. Feigning a need to go to the bathroom, Ig waits for her at the appointed place. When she finally returns, he gives her the necklace back. He admits that Lee fixed it, and tells her Lee was the boy who tried to help her when it first broke. Merrin seems to find Lee creepy and is much more interested in Ig. When Ig asks Merrin if she was using the cross to flash Morse code, she laughs at him. He thought she was spelling the word “Us,” but doesn’t admit it to her. As they head outside, they find their parents talking to each other as Father Mould and a group of boys play touch football in the churchyard. Soon, Ig and Merrin join in, and she repeatedly tackles him throughout the game. He facilitates this by making sure he is in her path.

Soon Merrin and Ig begin spending a lot of time together, often with Lee making them a trio. Ig finds it very easy to talk to Merrin. One day, while they are alone, Merrin talks about her sister Regan, who had recently died of a rare form of breast cancer. The family had moved in part to get a fresh start. Before she died, Regan had said terrible, hurtful things to Merrin and her parents; Merrin would not speak about her sister again for years to come. At the end of the summer, Merrin and Ig are volunteering at the church’s blood drive when Terry came tearing in, demanding to speak to Ig. He told Ig that Lee and some of his friends had taped a cherry bomb to the hood of a junked car. Initially, the bomb seemed to fail, and Lee started to go back to the car. The cherry bomb exploded and a piece of the windshield pierced Lee’s eye. Terry is worried about the cherry bomb being traced back to him since Lee is in a lot of trouble with the police for bombing the car. After the incident, the police searched Lee’s parent’s house and found tons of stolen goods. They also discovered that Lee had been stealing magazines and selling them in the name of a fake charity so he could pocket the money. Ig starts to have an asthma attack and Merrin takes him out for fresh air. Ig confesses his guilt over trading the cherry bomb for her cross. Merrin assures him that he didn’t trade her; she left the chain for Ig to find because she liked him. The next day, Terry drops off Ig at Lee’s house, which is indeed in Harmon Gates. Lee’s eye is badly patched, and he is lying in his basement bedroom. Lee assumes Ig is mad about the CDs or the money for the magazines, but Ig just wants to stay friends. Lee apologizes for lying to him and insists he wanted to tell him the truth after they became friends. Lee worries that Merrin won’t want Ig to be friends with him anymore; he cryptically says that his eye injury will serve as reminder of something, but he won’t say what.

In the present day, Ig speeds away from his parents’ house wondering what damage he did to his grandmother or if he even killed her. He thinks it would be ironic if he killed the miserable Vera, so that he could finally become the killer everyone in Gideon thinks he is.

Wanting to be alone, he heads to the Pit, the bar he and Merrin visited the night she was murdered. As he pulls into the driveway of the bar, he remembers that night. Ig had been away for three weeks training for an Amnesty International job in London. He was set to fly out early the next morning, so this would be his last night with Merrin before a long separation. She seems distant when he first arrives, barely acknowledging his kiss. Unexpectedly, she suggests that they take a break from their relationship when he’s in London so that they don’t put unnecessary pressures on each other about their future together. When Ig asks why, she says that she doesn’t want him to have a midlife crisis later on and blame her for being his only sexual partner. A waitress comes by several times and the two keep ordering rounds of drinks. Finally, Ig asks Merrin if she has been seeing anyone else and she admits that she has. While she insists the relationship is still platonic, Ig drunkenly yells at her for details. The waitress comes by again and Ig swears at her, drawing the attention of most of the restaurant. Merrin tells Ig that her new romantic interest isn’t anyone he knows and stumbles off to the bathroom. A bouncer arrives and asks him to leave. Ig staggers outside and finds himself in the middle of a downpour. He backs his car into a telephone pole and speeds off just as Merrin comes out of the restaurant. He is simultaneously angry and hurt, happy to leave her there and worried about her. He thinks he is being followed by a cop, so he pulls over behind an abandoned Dunkin Donuts building. He decides to sleep it off instead of driving drunk, and passes out. In the morning, he worries he’ll miss his flight, so he races home to get his belongings. Terry was supposed to drive him, but he apparently tied one on as well and hasn’t come home. Ig makes the hour-long drive from New Hampshire to Logan Airport in Boston. He is at the gate for his flight when he notices a commotion caused by a large group of armed guards. As Ig waits to board, it never occurs to him that they might be there for him.

It is odd for Ig to be back at the Pit, but he’s grateful that the place appears to be empty. He spies a booth with pizza and beer left behind by a previous diner and he sits down and helps himself. He sees the waitress approaching and recognizes her as the one who waited on him the night Merrin died. She is frightened to see him as Ig is well known as a murder suspect. The horns then elicit another inner monologue. The waitress is a compulsive liar who told the police that Ig forced Merrin into his car the night she died. She only recanted her story when other patrons who had seen Ig hit the telephone pole testified that he was alone and left Merrin outside the restaurant. She also regularly tells patrons lies about Ig, including one in which he sexually assaulted Merrin’s corpse. The waitress asks him where his horns came from, but Ig cannot remember anything about the night before.

Ig drives up to the senator’s office where Lee worked. After Lee’s cherry bomb accident, he had turned his life around. He had found religion and regularly spoke at church and civic gatherings about his dark past and how God had helped him turn it around. Lee originally planned a career as a minister but dropped out when his mother became gravely ill. After she died, he got a bachelor’s degree and began to volunteer for the senator. He soon became one of the most important members of the team, helping him get re-elected. Ig recalled one fight between Merrin and Lee that came about when Lee helped the senator with some anti-abortion action. Lee took the criticism in stride and Merrin eventually dropped the subject. After spending his car trip reminiscing about the past and fantasizing about killing Lee, Ig finally pulls into the office that housed the senator’s headquarters. He decides to smuggle a flare gun under a jacket and heads into the building. He catches sight of his own reflection, complete with horns, and realizes how crazy and frightening he looks. He asks the receptionist to send Lee down. As he waits, he looks into the security office and sees himself on the monitor. His image keeps splitting into two, one man with horns and one without; it is almost as if the two are fighting. As he waits, he is greeted by Eric, his brother’s old friend who talked him into the naked shopping cart dare. Eric is now the senator’s head of security and during his horn-induced confession reveals that he knows Ig has something hidden in his jacket; secretly, Eric would love to shoot Ig and bring embarrassment to Terry and his family. Realizing the precarious situation, Ig heads back out to his car and is about to leave when Lee comes out to talk to him. Eric, with his gun drawn, watches from nearby. When Ig demands the truth, Lee initially apologizes for his indiscretion with Glenna. When Ig presses him about Merrin, Lee asks Ig if he’s being taped and realizes Ig hasn’t thought of it. Out of Eric’s earshot, Lee says that Merrin wanted Lee to rape her that night and had enjoyed it. He insists that Terry was the one who killed her afterward. Lee pulls a knife and lunges at Ig. Ig blocks himself with the car door, jumps in, and drives away. Lee tells Eric that the knife was Ig’s, and Eric shoots after Ig’s car.

As Ig returns to Gideon, he goes back to the foundry where Merrin was murdered. The foundry is right next to Evel Knievel hill, the steep path where Ig rode the cart into the river as a teenager. Ig had come to the memorial site the night before and urinated on some of the religious remembrances left. As Ig walks around the abandoned foundry, he notices that hordes of snakes appear to be following him. One even bites him when he tries to toss it out of his way. Ig cannot figure out why his horns didn’t work on Lee. He remembers Lee had been wearing a cross and Ig wonders if it was Merrin’s cross. Perhaps it was able to block the dark honesty that the horns normally brought out of people. Ig listens to his cell phone messages; they are from his mom, his dad, Terry, and Glenna. They all tell him that Vera is critical condition from her wheelchair rolling down the hill. They all seem to have little to no memory of their interactions with Ig. Ig locks himself in a room with a cot after yelling at the snakes to leave him alone. He finds a matchbox that reads “Lucifer Matches” but still can’t piece together what he’d done the night before aside from visiting the memorial site/crime scene. Exhausted, Ig falls into a deep sleep.

For a moment after he wakes the next morning, Ig hoped that everything that had happened had been a horrible dream. When he realizes he still had horns and had slept in the furnace room of the abandoned foundry, he knew it wasn’t a dream. He hears cries from outside and starts to run, grabbing a pitchfork for protection. Three boys are tormenting a fourth, who has been stripped to his underwear. The leader of the group has pinned the boy down and burned his chest with a cigarette. One of the other two boys taunts him with a snake. The boys cut off the head of the snake with a pair of garden shears and then demand that the pinned boy suck the blood out of it. Ig, wielding the pitchfork, finally interrupts the torture session and the boys separate. In their confessionals, the other two admit to having no loyalty to Rory, the gang leader. Ig convinces them to run away and then makes Rory confess to the dysfunctions of his family. Instead of thanking him for saving him, the boy in his underwear is mad at Ig. The torture had been part of a swim team initiation and now it has been ruined. Ig tries to use his horns’ powers to convince the boys to tell others to keep away from the foundry. After they leave, Ig buries the decapitated snake. 

As the day continues, the foundry and surrounding area become overrun with snakes. Even during a skinny dip in the river, Ig is surrounded by water snakes. Remembering that Glenna is at work, he decides to go to her apartment and gather his things before she returns. Upon arrival, Ig finds the door unlocked and assumes Glenna left for work in a hurry. He sets some eggs to boil in a pot on the kitchen stove top for a quick bite to eat. When he heads to the back of the apartment to gather his belongings, he hears the toilet flush. Eric emerges from the bathroom and tells Ig that Lee sent him. The two begin to fight as Ig attempts to escape from the apartment. A surprisingly spry Eric, wielding a formidable nightstick, corners Ig. When the fight moves to the kitchen, Ig throws the pot of boiling water on Eric and escapes as the security officer attempts to nurse his burns.

Ig, figuring that his family is out visiting Vera at the hospital, decides to go to their house after his fight with Eric. He initially thinks the house is empty, but finds his brother sleeping fitfully in his bed. Ig grabs his brother’s arm to wake him and is bombarded with the truth of the night Merrin died. After Ig had gone to meet Merrin at the Pit, Lee and Terry go to an outdoor party. Riding in Lee’s car later, Terry is very high and sick feeling. Lee pulls the car up to the Pit and they see Merrin standing in the rain. She gets in and Terry offers her his jacket. She is upset about the break-up and Terry is at a loss about how to comfort her. Merrin is also fairly inebriated and asks Lee to pull over so she can be sick. He pulls down the road to the foundry and lets her out. Lee tries to talk to her, but Terry can’t make out what they are saying. Having bumped his head on the toolbox in the backseat, Terry is feeling very woozy. Lee offers Merrin some dry clothes from his gym bag and she heads off into the woods to change. Terry passes out and comes to momentarily as Lee is driving. Terry feels something heavy on his chest—a rock—and moves it. He passes out again and wakes up in the back of Lee’s car, which is now parked at Lee’s house. Lee tells Terry that Merrin came on to him in the woods, and when they struggled, she fell, hit her head on a rock, and died. When Terry wants to call the police, Lee threatens to blame him. Terry’s fingerprints are on the rock that killed Merrin, which Lee has hidden just in case. Terry keeps his silence even when his brother gets arrested. Through this window into his thoughts, Ig sees that Terry even attempted suicide in the months after Merrin’s death. As Terry stirs, Ig finds he is able to conjure his mother’s voice. As Lydia, Ig tells Terry to go back to sleep, and to head back to L.A. tomorrow to work on his show.

Ig goes back to the foundry and starts a fire in the chimney. He feels as if the fire is talking to him and he listens intently. Later, he heads out and finds the foundry swarmed with stakes. Horns blazing, Ig rubs his goatee, grabs his pitchfork and speaks to the snakes. He embraces his increasingly demonic nature and tells the assembly that God is a liar while the Devil is honest. Ig likens sinning to living, and notes that God has always been afraid of women and aligned them with the devil.

After speaking to the snakes, Ig sleeps again. His awoken by Lee, who attacks him with a wrench. Ig tries to escape, but the multiple blows and kicks leave him barely conscious. He is bleeding and several of his teeth have been knocked out. Lee drags him outside toward Evel Knievel hill. Lee tells Ig that no one at the senator’s office can remember Ig being there. In addition, Eric can’t remember the attack that left his face burned. Lee also mentions the distorted image of Ig on the surveillance video, but cannot figure out what it all means. Using his last bit of strength, Ig lunges at Lee. He attempts to strangle Lee and rips off Merrin’s cross necklace. Lee regains the upper hand and begins confessing, which confirms Ig’s suspicions that the cross had been what protected Lee from the power of the horns. Lee tells Ig that he didn’t rescue him after his shopping cart ride on Evel Knievel hill. Lee found him on the shore already with a snake nearby. Lee didn’t even pound his back to get the water out; he had accidentally kicked Ig in the back while trying to get rid of the snake. Lee now drags Ig to his car, douses him and the car in gasoline and lights it on fire. Ig screams in pain as Lee pushes flaming car toward the hill. Ig’s car rolls down the hill and plunges into the water.

Lee drives away in his car as some snakes slither into the water. Moments later, Ig emerges from the river transformed. His skin is now a burnt red color and his formerly asthmatic breathing is now clear. In addition, the numerous injuries he suffered at Lee’s hands appear to have healed—even the bruises are fading as he looks at them. As the dawn approaches, Ig remembers the incident he and Merrin would later call the Treehouse of the Mind. Young Merrin and Ig come across a well-built treehouse in one of the older trees. They climb the tree, note a sign on the door offering blessings to those who enter, and go up into the treehouse. They quickly strip down and make love. When they finish, they notice a kind of altar with a variety of figurines: a menorah, a statue of the virgin Mary, an alien toy, and numerous candles. Ig lights the candles and the two of them kneel naked in the treehouse and pray. After they make love again, their reverie is broken by thunderous pounding on the treehouse door. They quickly dress and descend the ladder but find no one. They head home, and despite numerous searches later, they never again find the tree or the treehouse. Eventually, Merrin convinces herself that they imagined it.

For the last few weeks of his her life, Lee tortures his mother. She is dying of kidney failure and suffers from dementia. To make her more uncomfortable and difficult to breathe, Lee turns off the air conditioner. It’s so hot that he walks around the house naked because it’s the only way he can stand the heat. He also feeds her salt water or drinks something cool right in front of her. When she has an accident in the bed, he frequently lets her sit in it. When his mother finally dies, Merrin is the first person Lee calls. Lee still harbors feelings for Merrin even after all her time with Ig. He thinks that she feels the same way, but feels duty-bound to Ig. Lee analyzes her every word and action and frequently sees what he believes is covert communication from her. When Merrin comes over to comfort him, Lee thinks she dressed up just for him. Lee uses his uncanny ability to generate tears to fake-cry so that she’ll comfort him. As she hugs him, he vaguely attempts to make advances on her, but can’t tell if she notices. When she suggests he take a shower, he takes it as an invitation for sex. While he’s in the shower, Ig arrives to help out with Lee’s mother. Lee is inwardly furious at Ig for once again standing in the way of his destiny with Merrin.

After his mom’s death, Lee gets a lot more attention from Merrin and enjoys it. Merrin frequently mentions a hot blonde he wants Lee to meet, but Lee suspects she doesn’t really exist. Ig heads off to New York to train for an Amnesty International job while Merrin remains in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she’s studying at Harvard. Both Merrin and Ig ask Lee if he will bring a dresser down to Merrin’s apartment, but Lee is initially hesitant. He does not want to make a move on Merrin until Ig is out of the country. Lee still berates himself for letting Ig trade the necklace for the cherry bomb. Lee had been obsessed with blowing something up, and he had sacrificed Merrin for it. Lee assumes that the rich, privileged Ig would one day bore of Merrin and take up with someone else. Lee goes to Merrin’s parents’ house and gets the dresser. On the way down, he texts her to say he’s coming. She responds that the “blonde” is unavailable, which Lee interprets as a sign that she wants to be alone with him.

When Lee arrives, he finds Merrin is not alone. Her mouthy roommate talks incessantly into her cell phone and occasionally inserts herself into Merrin and Lee’s conversation. Merrin begins to question Lee about Ig, wondering if he is interested in other women. Lee takes the opportunity to make it sounds like Ig looks at other women all the time. Merrin wonders if they will get married and whether he’ll philander out of boredom. She even admits that they have named their two unborn children. She also confides that one of her professors offered to set her up as his mistress in an apartment, which Lee is disgusted by. As they finish chatting, Lee notices that Merrin doesn’t look well. When he asks her about it, she brushes it off as a virus. On the way home, Lee is furious because he thinks Merrin is playing games with him. On one hand, she begged him to come down and see her, but when he does, she looks terrible and blows him off. Lee also fumes about the fact that they spent the whole night talking about Ig.

On the way home, Lee notices he’s received a voicemail from the senator. Instead of going home, Lee makes the drive out to the senator’s house. The senator frequently gets migraines and from the message it sounds like he has a particularly bad one this evening. Lee notes that the headaches usually seem to accompany something stressful about his work or campaign plans. When he arrives, the senator’s two forward daughters flirt with Lee, which he secretly finds disgusting. The senator thanks him for coming to visit and shares his concerns. He is about to announce a run for the governor’s office, but the incumbent governor just revealed that her husband has Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The senator is now worried that this will compromise his chances for running because she’ll get the sympathy vote. Lee tries to assuage his concerns by stating that the voters could look at her as neglecting her husband in favor of her political career. The senator claims to feel guilty about discussing the campaign in the face of the man’s deadly disease, so he and Lee kneel down and pray. Despite his efforts to abstain, the senator continues to talk about the campaign. He inquires about the possibility of Lee getting the senator booked on Terry Perrish’s late-night show; Lee agrees to find out. The senator also asks Lee if he ever thought about running for office, but Lee politely declines.

When Lee’s mother was near death, her mind was mostly gone and her speech nonsense. One day near the end, however, she regains her faculties briefly. Early in the morning, Lee awakens to the sounds of movement from the other room. He makes his way to his mother’s bedroom and finds her phone off the hook. She is pulling at the cord in an unsuccessful attempt to pull the receiver up off the floor. When Lee asks her what she’s doing, she tells him she is making a call but will not say whom she is calling. She asks Lee why he keeps torturing her, even though she already knows the answer: he is testing his own power over the world around him. Then she tells Lee that he may have a handsome exterior, but he is empty on the inside. She begins to laugh at Lee, which enrages him. He wants to punish her more, but instead gives her a heavy dose of morphine. When the visiting nurse comes to the house, he wants to be sure his mother will not be conscious and therefore won’t be able to talk about his awful treatment.

Earlier in his childhood, Lee’s parents move to Maine for a few years, for reasons which aren’t exactly clear to him. They live out in the country next to an abandoned cornfield that is rotting from lack of care. Lee loves to go running out among the corn. One day, a black cat appears outside the house. When Lee’s mother feeds it, the cat scratches her. Angered, Lee’s mother kicks the cat and chases it away. From then on, she becomes obsessed with getting rid of the cat, chasing it away every time she hears it yowling outside. Lee wonders if the cat missed the previous owners and wants to befriend the cat. One night, he takes a can of sardines out into the cornfield. When he sees the cat, he tries to talk sweetly to it, but the cat runs away. A little while later, he spots the cat on top of a wooden fence. Lee climbs up and begins to follow the cat. The cat seems to warm to him and finally stops. Lee approaches the cat and is about to pet it when the animal tries to claw him. Moving his head out of the way just in time, Lee loses his balance and falls off the fence rail. An old rusty pitchfork is lying on the ground and Lee’s head strikes it upon impact.

When he comes to, Lee does not immediately see the cat. Instead, he gazes up at the sky: it looks like the moon might fall. In fact, the sky seemed to wave like a piece of fabric. Using his fingers, Lee reaches up and put the moon back in place. Lee notices he had grown much, much larger. He is no longer lying in the cornfield; he is up in the sky looking down on the town. He sees his father driving home with some beer as his passenger; Lee imagines driving him off the road with the flick of one of his fingers. He sees his houses and the houses around him and wonders what it would be like to simply wipe them all away with his hands. Looking down into the cornfield, Lee spots the cat. Lee is angry at the cat for tricking him, for pretending to care about him only to attack him later on. Lee presses the cat into the ground with his finger and crushes him like a bug. Lee regains his bearings and realizes he is now sitting in the cornfield, the same size as he always was. Nearby is the cat’s body, its neck wrung and its head wildly out of joint. There is also a piece of slate nearby caked in blood and Lee notices he now has scratches on arm. He cannot remember how this could have happened while he was giant-sized and up in the sky. He goes home and goes to bed without his parents seeing him or his injuries. In the shower the next day, he realizes he still has an open head wound from falling on the pitchfork. When his mother finds blood stains on the pillowcase, she is more concerned with her linens than her son.

After his unsuccessful visit with the dresser, Lee is anxious to come see Merrin again in Cambridge. The opportunity arises when the senator has to attend to some business in Boston. He shows up at her door insisting that Ig wants him to take her out to dinner while he’s in town. Merrin’s roommate has a bunch of noisy friends visiting, so they go up to the roof to talk. She still looks bad and Lee asks if she is still sick. She says yes, and tells Lee that she plans to break up with Ig. Despite every sign that she is still in love with Ig, Merrin says recent events have forced her to reevaluate her relationship. She tells Lee she is going to break up with Ig on his last night before leaving for England. Lee is desperate to make a move on Merrin, but they are interrupted by one of Merrin’s roommates announcing that Ig is on the phone long-distance.

The night of the murder, Lee is on edge. With Terry high and half out of it, he pulls up to The Pit hoping to see Merrin. When he sees her standing in the rain, he is relieved and ogles her in her wet clothes. When she gets in, he analyzes everything she says or does looking for signals. He is especially mad that Terry is with them and wishes he had taken him home before picking Merrin up. When Terry offers her his jacket, Lee’s inherent dislike of Terry intensifies. He still remembers Terry calling him a coward the first time they met, when Lee was trying to muster up the courage to mountain board down Evel Knievel hill. Now, Lee thinks Terry is already making the move on his brother’s ex-girlfriend less than an hour after their break-up. When Merrin starts feeling sick, Lee worries that his plans for the evening (a romantic night with Merrin at his place) will be thwarted. After she throws up, he tries to talk her into coming back to his place to get changed, but she refuses. When he offers her his gym clothes, she accepts. After making sure Terry is passed out, he heads into the woods after her. He finds her in the woods wearing his sweats and covering her chest with Terry’s jacket. She tells Lee that there was no shirt in the gym bag and asks for him to take his off so she can wear it. Lee takes this as a come-on and tries to kiss her. At first she thinks he is kidding, but is horrified to find out he is not. He insists she has been subtly coming on to him, which she denies. He insists she responded to his advances the night his mother died. She counters that she didn’t say anything about it because he was drunk and had just lost his mother. She reminds him that Ig is his friend and so is she. When he refuses to listen to her, she laughs at the possibility of ever having romantic feelings for him. He snaps, and starts to strangle her.

Lee hits Merrin with the rock to stop her from struggling and then begins to rape her. She is barely conscious and starts talking about something that makes no sense to him. She is speaking to Ig, telling him that she found the treehouse again. As Lee continues his brutality, she quietly dies.

When Ig catches a look at his own reflection in the water by the foundry, he hardly recognizes himself. His skin is red, but smooth and unblemished. His head is totally bald, as if cleanly shaven, but his goatee seems to have survived the fire. Ig cannot stop thinking about Merrin’s death and the terrible things that Lee did to her. He had seen it all when he had touched Lee and the images still haunt him. Taking his pitchfork, Ig searches for clothes on the grounds by the foundry and finds a few articles. He puts on short lace skirt, and uses a sock to cover his genitals. He completes the outfit with a dark trench coat, and heads down the river. On his way out, he spies Merrin’s necklace and puts it on. The police have discovered Ig’s burned-up car and are in the process of dragging it out of the water. In the woods, Ig sees Posada and Sturtz groping each other and making out, a surprising outcome of Ig’s mental manipulation of them. Ig also sees Dale, Merrin’s father, watching them work on the car. Even though Lee removed the license plates, Dale can obviously tell that the car is Ig’s. Ig finds Dale’s car and climbs inside. When Dale returns, he is frightened by Ig and tries to run away. Ig realizes that by wearing Merrin’s necklace, he is blocking the power of the horns, so he takes it off. He convinces Dale to get in the car and drive to Dale’s house.

Along the way, he tells Dale that Lee is the one who killed Merrin. The horns seem to be starting to work again, so Ig hopes Dale believes him. At the house, Ig begins to go through boxes of Merrin’s belongings. He finds a large manila envelope with many papers in it, including results of a mammogram. Ig questions Dale about his daughter’s cancer and Dale explains that he and Heidi, his wife, didn’t find out about it until after Merrin was dead. Apparently, cancer was congenital in their family, which is why Regan, Merrin’s sister, had died from it. Dale is still haunted by the terrible things Regan said when she was dying, and longs to leave his unhappy marriage with Heidi. Ig suggests that all the time Heidi spends with Father Mould might not be church related, and leaves Dale to rest.

Sitting in his room in the chimney, Ig reads a letter written to him by Merrin. He found it in the envelope with her mammogram results and other medical paperwork. The entire note is written in Morse code so it takes a long time for him to translate it. In the letter, she tells him that this is for him to read after she’s dead, although she’s not sure she wants him to see it even then. She has the form of cancer that her sister had. Over the course of months it takes her to write the Morse-code goodbye letter, the cancer metastasizes and spreads quickly. She has already decided that she is going to commit suicide because she doesn’t want to turn into the monster her sister became at the end of her life. Regan had a fiancé when she got her diagnosis, but drove him away with her cruelty before she died. Merrin senses some of that same negative energy in herself and doesn’t want to inflict it on Ig. She knows watching her die will ruin him and she wants him to have a good life. She knows she has to hurt him, but thinks he will be better in the long run. She wishes sometimes it would happen quickly out of the blue, so she wouldn’t have to plan it herself. She reminds Ig what a good person he is, and how he always believes in the best in people. She sees a very long, fruitful life for him, and promises that at the end of it, he’ll go for a walk in the woods and come upon the treehouse—their treehouse. When he does, she’ll be waiting for him in it. She signs off, telling him, she loves him.

After reading Merrin’s letter, Ig heads outside the foundry; it is almost dusk. He hears someone approaching and hides in the woods. Glenna, looking scared and donning her usual worked-over wardrobe steps out of a car. She starts calling and looking around for Ig; he follows her in the distance. She finds the site of the fire, including the gas can and seems to be putting together what happened. Before she can call someone on her cell phone, Ig interrupts her. He stands in the shadows so that his upper body is mostly hidden. Glenna implores Ig to come back, but he refuses. He takes off Merrin’s cross and hangs it on a branch. Stepping forward, she can now see him, but the horns are able to do their work. Ig uses his powers of persuasion to convince Glenna to stay away from Lee and to treat herself better. He encourages her to take Ig’s money and credit cards and go on a wild trip or to start over somewhere. She thinks about going to New York City and he tells her to go. She kisses him goodbye and he can see all of her sins—all against herself and not others. He wills her to forget everything but her desire to get out of Gideon. After she leaves, he finds her cell phone in the woods with a text from Lee looking for a hook-up. Adopting Glenna’s voice, he tells Lee that he (Glenna) has gone out to the foundry looking for Iggy and gotten the car stuck. Lee promises to come out and take Glenna back to his place. Ig hangs up and picks up the gas tank; it’s not empty.

As Ig prepares for his fateful meeting with Lee, a car pulls into the Foundry lot much earlier than expected. At first, he worries that Lee was on the road when he called him, but then he sees that it’s Terry’s rental car. Ig is surprised to see Terry because he had used his mind control to tell him to go back to Hollywood. Ig gets in Terry’s car and Terry explains that he quit his job hosting the late night show. He hasn’t enjoyed his work since Merrin’s death. He was driving out of Gideon and toward Massachusetts when he heard a report about the burned car in the river. Away from town, he couldn’t remember why he’d been in such a hurry to leave, so he drove back, stopping at the foundry to see if he could find out about Ig. Ig tells him that Lee is coming and he knows the truth about what happened the night Merrin died. Terry feels guilty but Ig forgives him, and then uses his mind control to make Terry leave. He heads back into the foundry, which is carpeted by snakes. Suddenly, Terry appears again; he parked his car back behind the foundry and returned. He tells Ig that his powers only work on someone who wants to do what Ig suggests. Terry feels like the only way to redeem himself is stay and help Ig. Ig tells him to go hide in his car, and his brother complies. A moment later, Lee’s car pulls in.

The snakes gather together under Ig’s trench coat; slowly the coat rises off the ground and forms a figure vaguely resembling a woman. Using Glenna’s voice, Ig calls out to Lee, but is surprised when Eric comes into the foundry. Eric attempts to battle the snakes, thinking it is Glenna. Ig goes after Eric and stabs him with the pitchfork. Eric rolls them both into the doorway in full view of the headlights of the car. A shotgun rings out and Ig takes a shot in the leg. Lee, gun in hand, rushes into the foundry and joins the fight. Ig takes another bullet, but when Lee tries again to shoot him, Ig uses his pitchfork to knock away the barrel of the gun. The blast hits Eric, killing him. The shotgun is out of bullets, so Lee begins to beat him with the barrel. As Lee is about to deliver what might be a killing blow, a horn sounds out; it is Terry, creating a distraction. Ig runs at Lee and gores him with his horns. Upon contact, Ig sees every evil act Lee ever committed and is shocked. Lee struggles on the ground as a snake slithers by on the floor. Using his mental powers, Ig tells the snake to use Lee as a hiding place. The snake burrows into Lee’s mouth and throat, choking him. As Lee expires, Ig wonders which of them is human and which is a demon.

Ig had laid a trap for Lee in the event that Lee would overtake him in their fight. He had placed one of the snakes in the chimney room with strict orders to strike an intruder. But Ig had forgotten about the trap until Terry started toward the room. Since Glenna’s phone is in there, Terry heads to the room to call Ig an ambulance. Ig tries to scream but finds he has no voice. Terry enters the room and the snake strikes him. Terry grapples with it and the snake gets in several more bites before Terry is able to kill it. Terry starts to lose consciousness and Ig knows he has little time before the venom kills Terry. In excruciating pain, Ig drags himself out of the foundry and sets himself on fire. On his way out, Ig can finally see clearly the events of the night before he grew the horns. It is the anniversary of Merrin’s murder, and Ig has come out to the foundry site. Angry at God, he urinates on the cross and Virgin Mary statues laid at Merrin’s memorial. He is startled when he looks up and sees the Treehouse of the Mind in the tree directly above the murder site. Despite his drunkenness, he climbs up the tree to the entrance in the treehouse floor. He can hear voices inside and he pounds on the door in an attempt to open it. When he hears the voices again, he realizes that young Merrin and Ig are in there, having just made love. He pounds on the door several more times, wanting to come inside and warn them. By the time he enters the treehouse, however, the teenaged visions of himself and Merrin have left. He sees the candles that he lit so many years ago. In a rage, he swipes them all onto the floor and lights the treehouse on fire. He climbs down as the fire kicks up, feeling glad that he has destroyed the place since it only mattered to him when Merrin was alive. When he gets to the base of the tree, he feels pressure at his temples, as if something pointed just below the skin was trying to break out. 

The fire heals Ig just as it did the first time. He steps out of the fire he started and goes back into the foundry. He tells the half-conscious Terry a story of what he is going to remember about this night.

Ig follows a trail cut by the fire that leads to a cherry tree, taking Terry’s horn in tow. The tree is surrounded by fire, but Ig walks through it and climbs the tree. As he does so, the first few emergency vehicles make their way onto the foundry grounds. One veteran fireman is sure he could see the shadow of a devil. Ig sees that the treehouse is at the top and it sounds as though there is a wedding celebration inside. He enters and kisses his fiery bride.

A few months later, Terry comes back to Gideon for a visit. He tells the police his version of the story: he came upon Lee and Eric trying to cover up evidence of their murder of Ig and they locked him in the room with the snake and then turned on each other. Terry mostly believed the story, even if the policeman did not. Terry did quit his show, although the network made it sound like he took time off to deal with his brother’s death.

One night in the hospital, Terry was sure he had seen Ig and Merrin sitting at the end of his bed. As he stands on the foundry grounds reflecting, a car pulls up. It is Glenna, who sometimes comes to the site to have her lunch. She shares lunch with Terry as the two talk about Ig, and how much they both miss him. She tells Terry that she has just given her last haircut to Merrin’s father Dale, who is leaving his wife and moving to Florida. Dale asked to be shaved bald, just like Ig. Glenna is moving to New York City, where Terry himself has recently relocated. He gives her his phone number and asks her to call him once she’s in the city. They both find themselves looking at the burnt cherry tree, which looks like a pair of horns. They notice a chain with a cross hanging from one of the branches. They each tell the other to take it, but decide to leave it there so whoever owns it can come back for it. As Terry walks Glenna back to her car, the two of them hold hands. She drives away, and Terry wonders how soon he can try to get together with her in the city. In the distance, he thinks he hears the sound of a trumpet playing a jazzy little riff. He smiles, thinks of his brother, and then drives away.