“I take it back. That jar just knocked me up. I’m with child now.” That got a smile out of Stella. How did Vee do that? Her letters had come every few months, so chock-full of vapid cheeriness and admiration for her older cousin that Stella had allowed herself to write back.
Stella said, “I just hope Hump doesn’t ruin the next batch.”
“Hump? You know someone named Hump?”
“One of my employees. Doesn’t matter.” That boy had better be cooking by now. Willie Teffeteller wanted those barrels before Friday night. If Hump screwed up, it could fuck this new deal with Willie and screw her existing customers to boot.
Veronica fished a locket from her cleavage. Trapped inside was a young man in navy whites, glaring at the camera. “That’s Rickie. He’s Italian but doesn’t look it.”
“He’s handsome.” And looked very Italian.
“Daddy’s going to give him a job at the furniture store. My job, actually.”
Stella raised her eyebrows.
Veronica shrugged. “I handled all the accounting since I was sixteen, and I’ve been doing the inventory, too. But Daddy says the war’s over, and he doesn’t want me to work once I’m married.”
“So Rickie’s going from the navy to retail. He must be so excited.”
“Alas, we can’t all be criminals.”
“Maybe you can rob a bank or something while he’s at work.”
“A housewife does need a hobby.” Veronica drank and passed the jar back to Stella. “I tell you what, I don’t want to be broke again.”
“I used to think y’all were so rich.”
Veronica blew out her lips.
“I did! Your clothes were so fancy.”
“That’s about all we had. You know Daddy lost near everything—nobody was buying living room suits in the Depression.”
“You were city poor. Country poor’s a whole ’nother thing.”
“We did have indoor plumbing.”
“There you go. Does Riccardo know you’re a flush-toilet kinda girl? He’ll need to provide all the facilities to which you’ve become accustomed.”
“You can ask him yourself. He’s driving up tomorrow.”
“Have you told him about the church? Because it looks like Hendrick’s told half of Atlanta.”
Veronica smiled in faux embarrassment; she wasn’t capable of the real thing. “Mostly.”
“What’s that mean?”
“We’ve told him a lot, just not…everything. Rickie’s family is Catholic.”
“But he’s not?”
“He’s flexible.”
“He damn well better be.”
Veronica laughed. “Don’t worry, Daddy knows how to lead people gently.”
“By the nose.” Stella could almost believe that Hendrick and Veronica could bring this sailor boy into the fold without spooking him or letting him squeal. But strangers? What the hell was Hendrick doing talking to outsiders? “Do those city slickers in the suits know how fucking weird our family is? They haven’t read the books, have they?” Stella had been raised to believe that the knowledge of the Revelations stayed in the family. Secrecy above all else.
“You’d be surprised how popular it is,” Veronica said. “People are hungry for something, I don’t know, a little more real than two-thousand-year-old Jesus in the sky.”
“But they can’t know it’s real,” Stella said. “They’re just taking Hendrick’s word for it.”
“You know Daddy, he’s so sincere. Folks eat it up.” Veronica had always been happy to mock her father, though never to his face.
“This is crazy. He can’t hold services, or—” She stopped herself from mentioning communion. “There are already tourists tramping through here every day, and pretty soon this whole farm will be gone.”
Veronica sighed. “I know, I know. And I think Daddy knows it, too. He’s always talking about the life of the church after the cove. With him in charge, of course.”
“How is the church supposed to survive without the cove? You can’t just…” She searched for a word, couldn’t come up with it. “Without this mountain, without what’s in the mountain, you don’t have anything. There’s no going forward.”
“Tell Daddy that.”
“I tried. Do you know what he’s got planned for Sunny?”
“Besides treating her like a princess?”
“He likes her, then.”
“He adores her. I hope he’s got some precious attention left over for when his actual grandchildren show up. Rickie and I have already talked about children.”
So Hendrick wanted to treat her like a princess. But would he love her if she couldn’t help him with this church? Stella couldn’t picture it.
Veronica was saying something. Stella asked her to repeat it.
“I said I was sorry, I don’t mean to lord it over you.”
Stella shook her head in confusion.
“With my engagement,” Veronica said. “My good fortune. You never got that chance.”
Stella felt a rush of emotion. Anger, shame, guilt, and maybe a dozen other feelings she couldn’t name. Nothing that couldn’t be burned out.
“No,” Stella said. “I’m happy for you.”
Hendrick had appeared in the backyard, holding a casserole dish in one hand and a sack in the other. He crossed the yard, heading for Abby’s.
Stella took a hard pull on the jar, then set it on the roof of the car. “Fucking elated.”
“Where are you going?” Veronica asked.
“Back in a bit.”
* * *
—
stella went up the same path as Hendrick. He was well out of sight, and she didn’t yell for him or try to catch up. Kept her steps quiet in the dry leaves. Considered, over and over, whether she should turn around and finish that drink.
She came in sight of Abby’s shack and stopped beside a tree, watching through a scramble of foliage. Hendrick approached the door, called out.
The door swung open. Abby stepped out, not smiling. Stella thought, That’s right, big man, don’t give that bastard the time of day.
Then Abby turned back, pushed open the door wider. Sunny stepped out.
Her skin, in sunlight, was a shock: swaths of dark and light, like a pinto horse. Last night those dark patches had seemed almost black, but in the daylight the color was a deep scarlet. The red swirled up her pale arms, arced across her face. Her condition was more striking than Stella’s, deeper by far than Motty’s. Anybody in the cove would know her for a Birch woman.
Hendrick and Sunny stared at each other for a long moment. Stella held her breath. Then Sunny flew across the grass, running for him. Hendrick put up his hands, protecting the food. Sunny threw her arms around his waist.
Hendrick’s delighted laughter carried through the trees.
5
1936
On a saturday a few weeks after her twelfth birthday, Stella stood on the front steps, ignoring the chill in the air, watching the road, ears straining. She would not wear a coat, or even sit, for fear she’d wrinkle her dress.
This morning Motty had opened a box to reveal it, an old-fashioned ivory gown with a high collar, stiff and crinkly, fancier even than the one Veronica had worn. After Stella put it on she wished the house had a full-length mirror to see herself. For three years she’d lived her life like the Man in the Iron Mask, and now she was about to assume her rightful place in the world.
She and Motty had long ago worked out the terms of her sentence. Stella would do her chores without complaint, and when she was finished Motty would leave her alone to do as she wished. Mostly she wished to read books and pester Abby. She visited him often at his cabin, and he’d trusted her with the secret of how he made his money.
School was another kind of prison. She hiked alone to t
he Carter School at the west end of the cove, what they called the consolidated school, since there were only a couple dozen families left in the cove now. But even in those close quarters her fellow students were cruel to her. Birches had a bad reputation, Motty particularly. The girls said she cursed people, and put evil spirits into stray animals, which was why she didn’t go to church no more.
The proof that Stella was just as bad? Look at her diseased skin, that permanent rash, like Motty’s but even worse! Her first day at school three years ago the girls had looked her up and down and said, “Yep. She’s one of them.” It hadn’t got much better since.
The only person who showed her any positive regard was her teacher, Mr. Whitehead, who allowed her to borrow as many books as she could carry. Most were on loan from the library in Maryville, and Mr. W put no restrictions on her reading—at least when choosing among the books he’d allowed into the schoolhouse. The Count of Monte Cristo rode in her satchel alongside Nancy Drew, Odysseus, and Tom Swift. Uncle Hendrick had told her she was special, and she was preparing herself by reading about special people.
The most special person of all, of course, was Clara, the first woman to meet the God in the Mountain, the protector of the Birch clan. But Stella had read The Book of Clara so many times her eyeballs had scoured the words from the page. Hendrick wouldn’t give her the next diary, however. Said it was Motty’s rules. Stella couldn’t read The Book of Esther until her first communion.
While she waited for her life to begin, Stella drew strength from one thing: whatever was waiting for her in the cave, Motty wanted it too, and Stella would take it from her.
The rumble of a car engine made Stella hop down from the porch. Three cars rolled into the yard and parked. Uncle Hendrick stepped out first, and he beamed at her.
The men—seven of them, all of them decades older than Hendrick—one by one shook her hand as they entered the house. They acted like they were meeting royalty, and in a way they were. They were the elders of the Church of the God in the Mountain, her uncles and cousins, all Birches by blood—and she was their Revelator.
* * *
—
hendrick had brought in a big trunk full of robes. Vestments, he called them. The men chatted casually as they put them on, like a team suiting up for the big game. The Holy Uncles. The collars and sleeves were embroidered with strange symbols: crescents and stars and human eyes and balancing scales. Hendrick’s robe was extra special. The cloth was shot through with gold thread, and stitched across the right breast was a five-point star blazing with sunrays, fit for a sheriff of Oz. Stella was awfully glad she was wearing her special dress.
Motty watched from the doorway, scowling, her arms crossed.
The oldest and most desiccated of the men moved his hand, summoning Stella. His mouth was a toothless cavern. Stella was reluctant to go to him. Uncle Hendrick put a hand on her shoulder. “Stella, this is Morgan Birch. He’s Esther’s brother—he wrote much of her book!” A nudge moved Stella closer to him. His carp mouth widened into perhaps a smile.
Stella looked to Motty, but her face was impassive.
The old man reached toward Stella’s face with fingers stained a sickly yellow. She pulled back in revulsion. He didn’t seem to notice. “The God in the Mountain.” His eyes searched hers. “Tell me what he said.”
“Not yet, Morgan,” Hendrick said in a solicitous voice. “She hasn’t gone in yet.”
He looked up at Hendrick. “What did he say?”
“Not yet,” Hendrick said, louder.
One of the men brought in a chair from the kitchen and set it in the middle of the circle. Hendrick made her sit and then, alarmingly, knelt in front of her, his legs under the robe. He looked like a mushroom.
“Stella, tonight’s service is sacred,” Hendrick said quietly, as if only she could hear him—but the men and Motty were so close there was no keeping it from them. “We don’t talk about this with anyone who’s not in this room, right now. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Good, good,” he said. “Are you ready?”
She nodded again, though she had no idea what she was agreeing to. One of the Uncles handed him a copper bowl filled with a shimmering liquid. He set it on the floor between Stella and himself.
“And let him call for the elders of the church,” Hendrick said in a strange, foggy voice. “And let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”
The men gazed at her, waiting. Hendrick directed her with his eyes to look at her hands. What did he want her to do?
Hendrick said over her shoulder, “Did you not talk with her?” He was annoyed.
Motty said, “Get it over with.”
Hendrick pursed his lips. In a low voice he said to Stella, “Hold out your hands, dear. No, palms up. That’s it.”
He held her left wrist and dipped the fingers of his other hand into the bowl. Lifted them, dripping.
Stella’s arm trembled. She tried to pull back but Hendrick gripped harder. “Open your fingers,” he whispered.
She felt like she was about to vomit. Tears filled her eyes.
“It’s all right.” His thumb combed her fingers open. “Everything’s all right.”
Oil dripped onto her hand, and she jerked. A dollop of oil fell onto her lap. The gray stain widened like an eye.
Her hand was fine. She thought the oil would burn, but it felt like…nothing.
Hendrick rubbed the substance into her palm. “Behold his daughter, the child of God.” The men murmured their approval.
She felt flushed by all this attention. It was like being onstage, exciting yet terrifying, because no one had told her what to do, what to expect. Again she glanced back at Motty. Her grandmother met her gaze and then walked into the kitchen.
Hendrick winked at her. They were sharing a joke, a joke on Motty, though what was so amusing Stella couldn’t say. But she liked it.
In that same velvet voice Uncle Hendrick said, “And when Clara had offered her gift, the God in the Mountain said, On the day I step into the light…”
“The world will know my name,” the Uncles answered in unison.
“And I will give unto my children…,” Hendrick said.
“One body,” the men said, “ever blooming.”
Hendrick dipped his hand again and held it over her right hand, and this time Stella cupped her palm.
“So that the poison of this world…” Hendrick’s voice rose.
“Shall never corrupt us,” the Uncles responded.
“Amen,” Hendrick said.
The oil touched her, and she held her arm steady. She didn’t want to spill a drop.
* * *
—
the next step couldn’t happen until nightfall. The Holy Uncles took off their vestments and crowded around the table in the small dining room, waiting for the food and complaining loudly about the new park and the damage those CCC boys were doing. Camps of workers “reforesting” and tearing down farms, but at least no Black workers, thank the Lord.
In the kitchen, Stella perched on a stool, the skirt of the white dress spread out prettily. As she eavesdropped she traced the contours of her palm, trying to feel where the oil had touched her.
At the stove, Motty dropped pieces of battered chicken into a skillet of hot oil. Stella asked for a drumstick.
“This ain’t for you,” Motty said.
“What, I don’t get to eat?”
“You’ll thank me later.”
In the next room the men were talking loudly to each other, but Stella lowered her voice anyway. “Tell me what’s going to happen.”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Suppose I don’t go in.”
Motty dropped in a big thigh, and the skillet erupted in applause. “Suit yourself.”
/> “Did my mama go in?”
“She did.”
“And you went in?”
Motty speared a piece of browned chicken in the skillet, shook it, and dropped it onto the plate.
“Just tell me,” Stella pleaded. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do!”
“Stop fussing. I’ll be there with you.”
“You will?”
“I’ll walk you in. I decide how long you stay in there, when you get to go back in.”
No one had told Stella this. She thought she would be going in alone. For a moment she was relieved. Then she thought, Did they not trust her? Did they think she’d run away?
“Why do you get to decide?” Stella asked.
“I’m the eldest Revelator. I have say. Now go on, take in the side dishes.” On the counter sat orange and green glass bowls holding corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, beets soaking in juice.
“I can’t do that,” Stella said. “My dress.” She didn’t say that she’d already stained it with the oil.
“Get your princess hind end off that stool and get to.”
Stella was offended. Was she blessed or not? This was her day. She wasn’t supposed to share it with Motty, and she sure as heck wasn’t supposed to ferry dishes like a slave girl.
“You’re jealous,” Stella said.
“What did you say?”
“You wish you were the Revelator. Like you used to be.”
Motty set down the fork. The chicken kept sizzling.
Stella said, “You wish they were here for you.”
Motty walked to the counter. “You think these men care about you? You think they’ll be offended if you wait on them?”
Stella said nothing.
Motty picked up the bowl of beets. “Take this out.”
Stella didn’t move.
“Take it to them.”
Stella set her mouth. Raised her eyebrows in mock innocence.
Motty upended the bowl. Two quarts of deep-purple juice slapped her knees, soaking her lap. Stella screamed, jumped up. Red chunks of beet plopped wetly onto the floor. The dress was awash in violet.
Revelator: A Novel Page 6
