The Weight of Blood

Kenny leads Maddy offstage and outside to the protest. He asks everyone to look at what some of the white kids have done to Maddy. He’s irritated when Officer Ross casts doubt on Kenny’s accusation. Kids try to get into the country club. The camera crew’s camera stops working, and the police radio for backup.

Wendy finally enters integrated prom and finds the spilled paint. She encounters Regina, who suspects Wendy’s entire purpose in lobbying for an integrated prom was to be a part of this racist bullying. A kid named Rashad appears and tells them something’s happening outside. Wendy hears a scream and someone yells the name “Kenny,” so she rushes out along with the others.

Kenny is still telling everyone to look at the paint all over Maddy. Officer Ross tells Kenny to go home, but he refuses. Maddy wants to leave, but the crowd is pushing. A girl trips and falls into Kenny, who then tumbles into Officer Ross. Officer Ross beats Kenny with his baton until he’s unrecognizable and unconscious, despite Kenny, Kali, and Maddy trying to stop him. He only stops when another police officer intervenes.

There’s a terrible, loud noise that hurts the kids’ ears and heads. Most fall over, and some vomit or faint. The adults have no idea what’s going on because they can’t hear the noise and aren’t affected by it; they question if the kids are pranking them. One younger officer can hear a faint noise, but others can’t. Kali crawls to Kenny. Maddy raises all the police cars into the air and then crashes them into the ground, causing a large fire. She then enters the country club.

While Kenny is getting beaten up by Officer Ross, Mr. Scott gets a call from the power plant where he works, saying the meters are out of control, so he heads to the plant. Mrs. Scott heard an explosion nearby, and the power goes out and phone lines die.

Wendy rushes to Kenny and Kali. Some police officers are dead, and others are wounded. Kenny is unconscious, but he’s breathing. Wendy wants to go into the white prom to see if everyone is okay, but Kali needs help bringing Kenny to the hospital. They can’t call for an ambulance or ask the police for help because the phones are dead—and so are a lot of the people around them.

The podcast interviews Cole Lecter, one of the survivors from the white prom. Cole can’t remember everything from that night because he was drinking heavily. Cole was on his way to the restroom when the doors opened and he got stuck behind one of them, as if it were magnetic. He looked through the door’s window to see a lot of people laughing and Maddy walking in covered in paint. Cole felt nauseous, and then a chair crashed into Kayleigh’s face. Everyone got knocked down, and then some people tried to run but would get knocked down again. Chris tried to attack Maddy, but she somehow made him bleed excessively. Others got choked with cords, hit by chandeliers, or had bones magically broken. Once everyone was quiet, Maddy was about to leave and saw Cole stuck behind the door. He heard a voice telling him to go home, although her lips didn’t seem to be moving. She then left, so Cole also left. He doesn’t remember walking home, but he made it there after slipping in blood puddles on his way out.

In 2014, Maddy exits the country club, and those left standing outside try to shoot her. She derails a passing train, which runs over several people. Mrs. Morgan is killed by some flying metal. Maddy starts walking home.

Maddy’s father hears the alarm in the distance and instantly knows Maddy is somehow connected to it. He’s decided to kill her, something he’s been considering for years. Now, this is the last straw because she is “beyond salvation” and “no longer his daughter” (260). He gets his father’s old gun and waits for Maddy to arrive home.

The podcast interviews Becky Longhorn, who was a junior in 2014 and didn’t attend prom but was at Sal’s pizzeria instead. Kat Longhorn, Becky’s sister, was at the integrated prom. Becky heard an explosion, and the power went out. People went into the street to check what was happening. Becky felt nauseated. Car alarms and lights started going off inexplicably. Maddy then walked down Main Street, stopping near her father’s antique store. Power cords fell, and the store caught fire, which then spread to other nearby stores. Sal chased Maddy with a bat, but she flipped her wrist and he crashed into a car’s windshield. Some people tried to leave in their cars, but the cars ran over other people or crashed into stores and brick walls. Fire hydrants opened, and Becky fell against a mailbox, unconscious. When she came to, everything was on fire. Officer Sawyer drove by, and she got in the car with him and another person. Kat died, and people tell Becky her death was an accident and that her sister was not one of Maddy’s intended targets.

Officer Sawyer’s testimony is shown. He is angry that people don’t believe him about Maddy’s powers. He saw a number of officers get killed and then walked into the white prom after Maddy left and saw the level of damage there.

Back in 2014, a few surviving students gather in the Barn. Wendy and Kali tend to Kenny’s wounds. Kenny regains consciousness and wants to know where Maddy is, if she is okay, and if Wendy will go find Maddy and help her. At first, Wendy doesn’t want to help Maddy because she is responsible for so many deaths. Kenny says the true blame is theirs for bullying her and pushing her to this breaking point. Wendy agrees and leaves to find Maddy.

The testimony of a townsperson named Jude Friedlander is also shown. He heard the alarm at night; the electricity and phones were out. He also heard the plant’s alarm going off at the wrong time, so he got in his truck to leave town. He then saw Maddy, who started a fire with power lines. He traveled about 10 miles out of town until a police officer stopped him. His house was destroyed, along with the homes of many of his neighbors.

In 2014, Maddy, believing that Kenny is dead, is devastated. She goes home and asks Papa to help her out of the trouble she’s in. Papa says he believed that if he raised Maddy right, she would turn out different and not be like “her.” Maddy assumes Papa is referring to her mother. Papa shares that when he hired Maddy’s mom to care for his own mom near the end of her life, his mom was terrible to Maddy’s mom, abusing her and playing tricks on her.

When Papa’s mom died, he thought “it” was all over, but then he had sex with Maddy’s mom, and Maddy was born. Papa immediately knew that Maddy had “it.” He was hoping that “it” would skip Maddy like it skipped Papa, but it didn’t, and Papa assumes God punished him for having premarital sex. Papa reveals that it was his mother, not Maddy’s mother, who passed along magical and potentially evil powers to Maddy. Papa’s mother killed his father by just looking at him, for example. Maddy’s mother wanted to cure Maddy through love, but Papa knew it wouldn’t work; his attempts to cure his own mother through love and prayer failed. Maddy’s mom tried to take Maddy and leave. Papa said he’d kill Maddy before letting her go, so Maddy’s mom left alone. Papa says he should have killed Maddy at birth to prevent any further evil. He shoots her once near her heart and then tries to shoot her again, but she stops the bullet in mid-air. He then grabs the gun and shoots again.

Kali leads Kenny out of the Barn and through the wreckage. He tells her he doesn’t want to go home. Jules wakes up in the hospital and claims that Maddy attacked her and her friends for no reason. She also realizes she has lost an arm.

After leaving prom and Kenny, Wendy drives to Maddy’s house. She finds Maddy upstairs, sobbing over her father’s dead body. Wendy tells Maddy that Kenny is alive and asks if Maddy has any family or anyone she could run to. Maddy says she doesn’t know who or where her mother is. Wendy and Maddy search Papa’s secret study and find letters from Maddy’s mother: Her name is Mireille Germain, and her South Carolina address is listed.

Maddy decides she’ll find her mother. Wendy instructs her to take the cash that Papa had left in a coffee can. She gives Maddy her own clothes and cuts her hair so she’s less likely to be recognized. Maddy sets her house on fire before getting in the trunk of Wendy’s car. Wendy then drives Maddy to Greenville so she can take a bus to her mother’s address.

Testimony is shown from Laura Coates, who worked at the Springville power plant. The night of prom, she felt bad for Kenny’s dad, Mr. Scott, who had to come to work even though his kids were at prom and possibly in danger. They were about to evacuate the town, but then the meters suddenly stabilized. Laura also saw an excessive number of crows circling in the sky that night.

The podcast asks Wendy if she knows who poured the white paint on Maddy. She says she doesn’t, but they were all implicated. Kenny was admitted to a hospital after prom, but he went missing shortly thereafter and has never reappeared. Wendy denies knowing where Kenny is. She also denies knowing who Mireille Germain is. Based on cell phone records, Wendy was near a bus station in Greenville on prom night, and Maddy took a bus from Greenville that night. Wendy counters that the phones were messed up. The podcast hosts say her phone started working normally once she left Springville. Wendy says she did go to Greenville but didn’t take Maddy to a bus stop.

The testimony of Sheriff West is shown. He woke up with the alarm, but in order to call for backup from state police, he had to drive to a rest stop. When the backup got there, the Springville police station had already burned. Nearly all the officers died, including Sheriff West’s son. Sheriff West had to block off Maddy’s old street to discourage tourists from coming to see where her house was. West wonders if he could have changed the outcome had he had stayed at prom.

Jules’s testimony is shown next. She still claims Maddy ruined her life and that Maddy hated white people. Jules survived the massacre by pretending to be dead until Maddy left.

Since most of the evidence of Maddy’s alleged murder spree is based on witness testimony rather than hard facts, Tanya is still skeptical that Maddy started such destructive fires and killed so many people with telekinesis. However, even if Maddy does have magic powers and is still alive, Tanya thinks people are blaming the wrong person for the destruction: The true culprits are the proponents of Springville’s racist ideologies. She thinks it’s best for Maddy to stay hidden.

David Portman’s book indicates that more than 90% of the graduating class died on prom night, along with more than 100 townspeople. The Barn, Main Street, and the country club burned and were not rebuilt. The power plant closed permanently. The block where Maddy’s house stood was also shut down.