Ig concludes that only the devil loves humans for what they are, despite some of their negative characteristics. The following morning at the foundry, Ig is abruptly assaulted by Lee, and the contact with him enlightens Ig as to just how Lee murdered Merrin. Ig finds that Lee is wearing Merrin's cross and tears it off him, leaving Lee exposed to the horns' influence. Lee viciously beats Ig and tosses him in Ig's AMC Gremlin, douses the car with gasoline, and lights it on fire. Ig is able to release the parking brake, and the car, ablaze, rolls down into the river, in imitation of Ig's journey in the shopping cart years earlier. The fire, though reddening Ig's skin, has somehow completely restored him to physical health, healing the damage from his fight with Lee. There is another flashback with Merrin, regarding the time she and Ig visited a mysterious treehouse in the woods filled with religious paraphernalia. The two have sex and then pray when suddenly someone startles them by banging on the door in the floor of the treehouse. They quickly dress as the pounding continues, but when they open the door, no one is there. They are never able to relocate the tree house and begin to believe they both imagined it, dubbing it the "Treehouse of the Mind." Lee Tourneau's adult life (as a close associate of a Christian conservative congressman) and his sexual pursuit of Merrin is explored. His mother acquired dementia and became weak and confused. Lee uses this as an opportunity to torture her, while pretending to be a loving, caring son whenever anyone visits. Ultimately she dies, and he uses her death as an excuse to become close to Merrin. He consistently finds more meaning than is intended from Merrin's gestures and choice of words, believing her to be sexually interested in him and, knowing that Ig will soon be leaving for Britain, eager to begin an affair with her. In reality she means no such thing. Lee also remembers an experience from his childhood in which he attempted to feed and befriend a stray cat, only to be swatted at, causing him to fall from a fence and hit his head; he is impaled in the head by the spike of a pitchfork and is severely brain damaged; he undergoes a hallucination in which he perceives things as God would, and murders the cat. When he returns, his mother perceives nothing wrong, not investigating the cause of but rather only reprimanding him for his blood stained pillow cases.