Summary

Chapter 7 begins with a shift in perspective. Mary Katherine is a seventeen year old denizen of Mill Grove who has just gotten her driver’s license and is trying to get home before the midnight driving curfew for teenagers in town. It is told in a limited third-person, past tense point of view, like the previous chapters.

Mary Katherine is a devout Catholic and stickler for rules, and she is terrified of breaking curfew and being punished by her parents. She blames her boyfriend Doug, with whom she has just been to the movies. She harbors a tremendous amount of guilt over the physical intimacy she has shared with Doug, though the intimacy she sees as so damning is just a single touch Doug gave once to the sweater over her breast. She feels guilty for letting him do it and guilty for...