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and probably a few hidden in places that were not readily discernable.
    Oh, yes, Ellis knew all about those cameras.
    The incessant winking of the red eyes had reminded him night and day that he was never alone. Not in his room, not in the cafeteria, not in the showers or on the toilet. As long as those red eyes were blinking, someone was watching. Always.
    Even when he prayed.
    Maybe especially when he prayed, seeing as how it had been his religion that had netted him his first trip to the psych ward in the first place.
    Well, not his religion exactly. Not back then. That was before his awakening.
    It was his father’s interpretation of the gospel that had caught the attention of Child Protective Services in the backwoods Georgia town where he grew up.
    His father, Nevil, had been a preacher and an avid follower of the teachings of George Went Hensley, one of the founders of the charismatic movement. Ellis’s father, like Hensley, had believed in a strict interpretation of the Bible, including the “signs” passage from Mark:
    And these signs will accompany those who believe; in my name they will cast out demons;
    they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.
    As a boy, Ellis had been enthralled by the serpent-handling spectacle that accompanied some of his father’s sermons. Ellis hadn’t been a true believer back then, but he’d loved watching the snakes. To him, they were among God’s most glorious creatures. Even the thick, leathery water moccasins, with their white mouths and razorlike fangs, held a certain fascination.
    Along with the rattlers and copperheads, the moccasins had been kept in cages behind the chicken coop at Ellis’s home. Once his after-school chores were done, he would head out there and sit in the grass for hours, mesmerized by the sinewy movement of the reptiles as they climbed up the mesh wire of the cages and wrapped themselves around one another.
    By this time, Ellis was quite adept at catching the creatures in their natural habitats—underneath rocks and rotting logs and in muddy sloughs—but once they were placed in the cages, he wasn’t allowed to handle them. That privilege was reserved for his father and some of the elders of the church.
    It was a common misconception that serpent-handlers believed the Holy Spirit would keep them safe. Every last one of them knew the dangers of what they did. Many had lost fingers and limbs as a result of the infection brought on by a bite. One or two had even lost their lives.
    It wasn’t a matter of faith, Ellis’s father had once explained. It was about obeying the word of God.
    Ellis’s first snakebite had come just after his fifteenth birthday.
    He’d found a copperhead sunning on the bank of the creek that ran behind their house. Holding the head so that the snake couldn’t strike, he’d lifted the reptile close to his face, admiring the flicker of the serpent’s tongue, the dark gleam in the slitted, catlike eyes.
    Ellis had become so engrossed in watching the play of sunlight on the glistening scales that he hadn’t realized the snake’s head had slipped free of his grasp.
    The fangs caught him in the side of his neck, and the copperhead hung there for a moment as Ellis’s skin started to burn like wildfire.
    Afterward, he hurried home, washed the bite with soap and water and kept his mouth shut. He didn’t tell anyone about his carelessness or that he’d flown into a rage and killed the poor snake before it could slither away.
    A few hours later, he began to feel achy and weak, like he was coming down with the flu. The bite area was swollen and tender, but he told himself he’d be fine. Copperhead venom wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the poison from the other pit vipers. Sometimes the bites had no