Revelator: A Novel

by Daryl Gregory

  “The point is,” Tom said cheerily, “I’m sure the service will want to keep it.”

  “When you say you’re sure,” Stella said, “that means somebody else ain’t.”

  “Oh. Well. Yes, there is a committee—a good group of people, not just administrators but historians and anthropologists too. They’ll decide. It’s a tough job. You can’t keep everything. You have to pick and choose. You have to curate.”

  “You mean burn away everything that doesn’t fit the product you’re selling.”

  Sheriff Whaley said, “You may know something about that process.” He was watching her face. Hendrick too. As for Tom, he looked freshly embarrassed. Or maybe confused. He must have heard the rumors about her business—even a Yankee couldn’t be that clueless.

  She decided to laugh. “I may know something about distillation at that. I’m Motty’s granddaughter.”

  “And Abby’s apprentice,” Whaley said. “The apple doesn’t fall far.”

  Hendrick said, “The sheriff was saying you’ve got a reputation as quite the lady businessman.”

  “I think the word you’re looking for is madam businessman.”

  “Ha!” Tom said. Then seemed to regret it.

  “Alfonse and I are going into the house before this rain comes down,” she said to Hendrick. “See you inside?”

  “Alfonse?”

  “Her boy,” Whaley said.

  “That boy,” Stella said, “served in the 452nd Artillery on the front lines. Where were you all during the war? Tom excepted.”

  “Uhm, thank you,” Tom said. “But—”

  “I’ll be inside in a minute,” Hendrick said. “It’ll be good to say our goodbyes before you head back home.”

  * * *

  —

  rain hammered the tin roof, a whooshing racket as familiar to her as the roar of blood in her ears. She’d fallen asleep to that sound a hundred nights. Now it filled the kitchen like steam, making the small room even smaller, yet somehow more private too.

  Uncle Hendrick sat across the table from her, both of them with their hands on coffee cups like dueling pistols. Veronica and Rickie sat between them. Brother Paul and half a dozen more of Hendrick’s disciples surrounded the table, watching a little keenly for Stella’s taste. She was happy to have Alfonse leaning against the wall a few feet away—with his hands in his pockets.

  The rest of the house was full of Georgians, at least a dozen of them, nowhere to go in this rain, and for some reason not going home.

  The skinny man started to raise the 8-millimeter camera and Stella said, “Touch that crank and I’ll shove the whole camera down your throat.”

  He looked shocked that a woman would talk to him that way.

  Hendrick said, “It’s all right, Stanley.” But his eyes were on Alfonse.

  Stella liked that Hendrick didn’t know how to judge Alfonse’s presence. She wanted all of them wondering if this Black man was armed or not, if he was dangerous, and most especially, if he knew about the church. They’d have to watch what they said. They’d have to be careful how hard they pushed her.

  “Let’s all remember this isn’t an argument,” Hendrick said. His voice had shifted to the tone of a kindly patriarch. “We’re just here to talk through some issues, as family.”

  Sure, just a family discussion, Stella thought. There were less people at Lee’s surrender in Appomattox.

  “If there’s anything you want from the house, I’m happy to discuss it,” Hendrick said. “Or pay you fairly for it. For personal and historical reasons, I’d like to preserve as many keepsakes as possible.”

  “You sound like Tom Acherson. You making a museum?”

  Brother Paul said, “As a matter of fact, we are.”

  “I’m not here to talk about keepsakes,” Stella said. “This is about Sunny.”

  “Of course, of course,” Hendrick said. His sleeves were rolled up, tie loosened. He should have been as tired as she was, but he was keyed up, excited. Was it because he’d finally stepped out of Motty’s shadow? “The important thing is that we both want what’s best for the girl.”

  “The important thing,” Stella said, “is that we agree what the hell ‘best’ means.”

  “I’m sure that—oh.”

  She liked throwing a swear into a sentence when dealing with the devout. Knocked them off their game.

  “Why’s Brother Paul here carrying a pistol?” she asked. “You a cop, Brother Paul?”

  “A man’s allowed to carry a weapon,” Hendrick said.

  “Aren’t we all,” Stella said. She reached into her pocket. Brother Paul stepped forward—and she showed them the flask. Poured the last of the moonshine into her cup.

  Alfonse chuckled quietly.

  “I don’t understand,” Rickie said. “Why is he here?”

  Stella said, “Vee, could you tell your boyfriend to keep a lid on it?”

  “Fiancé,” Veronica said quietly.

  Hendrick said, “I know you can be emotional, Stella. Whatever I can do to soothe your fears, I’m willing to do.”

  How fucking thoughtful, Stella thought.

  “I just want you and Abby to be comfortable,” he said. “He’s not family, but Sunny listens to him.”

  Right. The blessing.

  “I want to make sure you have the means to take care of her,” Stella said. “Not just a year, but until she’s old enough to be on her own.”

  “We have the means,” Hendrick said. “Don’t you worry.”

  That “we” was telling.

  “Let’s start with this ranch of yours,” she said. “Where’d you get the money for five hundred acres?”

  Hendrick smiled to cover something that looked like indigestion. “I think you’ve gotten something wrong. It’s not my ranch. It belongs to the church.”

  She looked at Brother Paul in exaggerated surprise. “Holy shit, did Hendrick convince you folks to tithe to him?”

  “We tithe to the church,” Paul said.

  “I bet I know whose name is on the bank account.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Ooh, she thought. Paul’s getting angry. She wondered how much money he’d sunk into this deal.

  “You’re right, I don’t care where the money comes from,” Stella said. “What does matter is that as long as Sunny’s at this church ranch of yours, I have the right to visit her at any time, without notice. And she has the right to call me at any time.”

  “Why is she taking an interest now?” Brother Paul asked Hendrick. “I thought she washed her hands of the girl years ago.”

  “Because now Motty’s dead,” Stella said. She addressed the devout. “Sunny’ll need a Birch woman in her life. I already told her, she’s going to have questions as she grows up, questions you can’t answer. That’s why I need to be able to see her, at any time she wants, or any time I say.”

  “Stella’s right,” Hendrick said. It was annoying to have him agree with her. “She’s now the eldest, and that’s an honored position. Clara guided Esther, Esther guided Motty, and so it goes.” He was still using that pastor voice. God, he loved performing. “Now Stella, I don’t approve of all the choices you’ve made the past few years. Heavens no. But whatever my personal qualms, I will not be the first Birch man to break that tradition.”

  He gave in a little too easy, and Stella smelled bullshit. Maybe he figured she’d never take him up on a visit. After all, she’d avoided Sunny for ten years. It wouldn’t be unexpected if she avoided her for ten more.

  Stella had to consider how to phrase her next demand. She sipped from her cup, letting the taste of weak coffee and strong liquor sit on her tongue. Strange to taste it at night; coffee and whiskey was usually a breakfast item.

  “Second,” she said. And here, at last, was the moment
for which she’d brought Alfonse. “Till she’s of age, Sunny never sets foot back in the cove without me here. No picnics in the park. No services in the chapel. Nothing.”

  “What?” Brother Paul, taking umbrage—and he looked like a man who liked to take it by the barrel. His fellow Georgians started mumbling among themselves.

  “That’s the deal,” Stella said. “Nothing happens without me.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Paul said. “This woman can’t dictate terms.”

  “Let me spell it out,” Stella said. “If you try to bring Sunny here without me, I’ll tell the park service about the chapel, the cave, everything. You’ll never have access to it again.”

  Fresh consternation rolled through the Georgians.

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Hendrick said.

  “Of course I would.”

  “You can’t pretend you don’t love our God. You were the Revelator,” Hendrick said. “Once you’ve touched the divine, that mark doesn’t fade.” He spoke with confidence, but he’d never experienced the Ghostdaddy direct. He’d heard a story about fire and thought he knew what hot was. “I’m sorry your fiancé died. I’m sorry that you—”

  “Boyfriend,” Veronica said.

  “—felt the need to run away. I thought it was a mistake to run from your family, but I respected your decision.”

  “Because Motty told you to.”

  Hendrick smiled. “True enough. She was a force. And you! You take after her quite a bit. Sunny, too, if I’m honest.”

  If, Stella thought.

  “Here’s what I need to know,” Hendrick said. “What will you do when Sunny comes of age?”

  “Then it’ll be her choice,” Stella said. It wasn’t even a lie—by the time Sunny was twelve there’d be no choice for her to make. “If it comes to that, I’ll do my best to get her through the communion, safe and healthy. Not for you. For her. The Ghostdaddy’s more dangerous than you men know.”

  Alfonse grunted in surprise. Hendrick and Veronica were looking at him, no doubt wondering how much Stella had told him. Not near enough, she thought. She was going to have so much to explain after this.

  “So we have a—an agreement?” Hendrick asked.

  “Depends on Veronica.”

  Veronica looked up, surprised.

  “I need you to promise me you’ll look out for her,” Stella said. “You’ll make sure she stays safe. Can you do that, Vee?”

  Veronica played at flighty, and she was as vain as a Broadway actress, but she’d never been dumb. She knew this was serious. She reached across the table and squeezed Stella’s hand. “I promise.”

  Stella stood up, and Alfonse straightened. They exchanged a look. You good? I’m good.

  “I’ll talk to Abby,” Stella said to Hendrick. “I’ll make him feel all right about it.”

  Hendrick clapped his hands. “Praise God.” He rose to his feet.

  The men in the room looked to him. Brother Paul may have the money, but Hendrick was the God damn prophet.

  “We’ve waited a hundred years,” Hendrick said, raising his voice. “We can wait two more.” He was looking at Stella but he was talking for the history books. He’d be writing this speech down tonight. “In the meantime, we study the Revelations, we take care of the Revelator. The God will reveal himself when it’s time, when the world needs him. And on that day, the church will stand ready. Do I hear an amen?”

  “Amen,” Brother Paul said, reluctantly. A chorus of prayerful amens followed.

  When she was a girl, Stella once asked Uncle Hendrick, What do we get from the God? And he’d told her about love and a sense of purpose and vague promises of an immaculate body. Nothing concrete. Nothing now.

  But Hendrick had figured out how to leverage the God for something more immediate. First use divine access and mumbo jumbo to acquire followers, then soak the followers for money, and then spend the cash on real estate and whatever the hell else you wanted. Political power, even. It was the oldest trick in the book.

  Hendrick extended his hand to Stella. “It’s good to have you on our side again,” he said.

  She looked at that hand and thought, He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how easy I could kill him.

  She gripped his hand and he winced.

  “One more thing,” Stella said.

  Hendrick suddenly seemed worried. “Yes?”

  “The iron skillets.”

  “What?”

  “You mentioned keepsakes. I want Motty’s iron skillets. Do you know how many years she’s been seasoning them?”

  * * *

  —

  alfonse drove in silence, eyes on the narrow, twisting road. The car was loud with the drumming of the rain and the slap of the automatic windshield wipers.

  Then they reached the highway. Alfonse hit the gas and said, “What the actual motherfucking fuck?”

  “Thanks for being there,” Stella said. “It went better than I thought.” Hendrick had given her everything she asked for. The three nested skillets lay heavy on her lap.

  “What the fuck is a Ghostdaddy?”

  Stella sighed. “A made-up god for a made-up religion.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “I tried to warn you.”

  “That’s crazy hillbilly shit.”

  “Again—warned.”

  “You want to explain what kind of deal you struck? Because I do not know what the fuck was going on in there.”

  “All you have to know is I got what I wanted.”

  Alfonse shook his head. “You sure about that? I’m not sure I trust that uncle of yours.”

  “Hendrick?” Stella laughed. “I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”

  “Then what the hell?”

  “I had to put up a fight. Make it look painful, even threaten him a little, or he wouldn’t trust the deal. You know how it is when you’re negotiating with some son of a bitch. They ain’t happy unless they feel like they’ve screwed you.”

  “Yet I have no idea what you were selling.”

  “More like what I was buying—time.”

  “To do what?”

  Kill a god, she thought.

  Aloud she said, “I needed Hendrick to go, get out of the cove, just for a while. Make him think everything would go his way if he waited a couple years.”

  “And what’re you going to do in the meantime?”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “I do have one more favor to ask.”

  “Here we go.” But he was grinning.

  “You still got cousins working that mine in Chattanooga?”

  “The Bowlins are everywhere.”

  “Think they’d sell you some dynamite?”

  Alfonse looked at her. Put his eyes back on the road. “How much we talking?”

  “Enough to—let’s call it a significant geologic event.”

  “Shee-it. Is this about that cave you was talking about?”

  “Maybe so.”

  “How soon you need it?” he asked.

  “Think you could get it in a week?”

  “I’ll make some calls.” They talked over the amount, the probable cost. They didn’t talk about the legal ramifications. Then he asked, “What about that girl, Sunny? You going to let her go with your uncle?”

  “Hendrick adores her. More than that, he needs her. He won’t hurt her.”

  “But if she’s—”

  Alfonse stopped himself. She waited for him to ask the question. But if she’s yours…?

  He said, “She looks an awful lot like you.”

  “It’s the skin condition. Runs in the family.”

  “Mom or Dad’s side?”

  “What? No. The man I called my pa has got fuck all to do with any of this.”

  13

/>   1937

  Abby caught her staring into the woods, an open book on her lap. “You all right, Little Star?”

  She didn’t know how to answer. For the past six months she’d been living somewhere between all right and all wrong. The God hadn’t come to her again, but she’d gone to him—Hendrick and the Uncles had let her commune three more times. Each recovery took longer. She’d lie in bed for days, dizzy with foreign thoughts. Now she didn’t know what part of her still belonged to her, and what belonged to the God in the Mountain.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just…daydreaming.”

  “It’s okay if you miss your daddy.”

  “What’s he got to do with it?”

  “I just thought—”

  “Motty told you about the letter.” It had come two days ago, postmarked Cook County, Ill., all of six sentences, most of it how cold Chicago was in the winter and how muggy in the summer, and how much better it was in Tennessee. He’d ended with a sentence like a confession finally beaten out of a gangster:

  In November I married a woman named Marie, she is very nice and I hope youll meet her soon.

  —Pa

  “It don’t matter to me,” Stella said. “Ray Wallace can jump in a lake.”

  Abby blew out his lips. Sat beside her. She pretended to read her book.

  The silence didn’t last. After a while he asked what she was reading, trying to sound casual. Then more questions: How were things going at school? Did she like any of them boys? She wondered if he’d heard about Lincoln Rayburn coming to call on her after her visit to his church. Motty had run him off, but Lunk kept coming by the school, kept asking her out, hoping to wear her down. She was thirteen and all the other girls her age at the consolidated school were boy crazy, couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t pair up with such a handsome boy. Stella remained unconvinced and unconsolidated.

  “I’m fine, Abby.”

  He was so worried for her. Had been for a long time, probably. Motty had been watching her, too, as close as she watched her sow, a burly sweet-faced pig who was mean as spit. That animal could move quick as a blacksnake even though she’d been packing on pounds for a year, her body turning into a new shape. Stella knew how she felt. Her own body was out of control. Her legs ached, what Motty dismissed as growing pains. Her thigh bones were stretching her muscles like guitar strings, tighter and tighter, ready to snap with a plink! Spots had broken out across her forehead.