school, filed into Carrie's room, each bearing a single
candle held so her face was lit up under her chin. Such
lighting made their eyes appear sunken, dark hollows
and lent their youthful faces an eerie, ghoulish
appearance-- enough to terrify a little girl still
crouched in the corner, already in a trance of haunted
fear.
They came to form a semicircle around Carrie,
to stare down at her as each put over her head a
pillowcase with holes for eyes. Then came the ritual of
weaving the candles intricately in formalized patterns
as they chanted in the way of real witches. They
sought to drive the smallness out of Carrie. They
sought to set her "free" and themselves "free" from
whatever evil they were driven to do for selfprotection from someone so "unnaturally small and
strange."
One voice shrilled above all the others and
Carrie knew it was Sissy Towers. To Carrie, all those
shrouded girls in their long nightgowns with white
hoods over their heads and the black holes for eyes were devils straight from hell! She began to whimper, to tremble, and oh, she was so scared, as if once more the grandmother were in the room, only this time she
had multiplied until there were twelve of her! "Don't you cry, don't you fear," soothed the
nightmarish voice from a mouthless hood. "If you live
through this night, through this initiation, you, Carrie
Dollanganger, will become a member of our most
private and very exclusive society. If you succeed
from this night forward, you will share in our secret
rituals, our secret parties, our secret hoards of
goodies."
"Ohhh," moaned Carrie, "go away, leave me
alone, go away, leave me alone."