Revelator: A Novel

by Daryl Gregory

A scientist ought to have her own materials. Write clearly—you’ll thank me later.

  With Affection, Merle.

  P.S. Start with Muller in Science, #1699. One article can kick off a golden age.

  “They’re mine?” Stella asked. “To keep?” Finally someone was treating her like an adult. Hendrick was hiding his books, Motty hiding Stella’s Revelation. Only Merle trusted her.

  “You get to keep these, too.” He handed her a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes and a small box. “Pee Wee sent these.”

  “My brand. He’s so thoughtful.” She opened the box. Inside lay a brass mechanical lighter. “A real Zippo! Just like Pee Wee’s!”

  “He thinks the way to a woman’s heart is through her lungs.”

  “Well, technically…”

  “One more thing.” He went to the mantel. “I had this framed.”

  It was the picture of Abby, her father, and her mother, dressed as cowboys and Indians. “I think you ought to keep it.”

  Out of nowhere, tears. Her chest was tight and she couldn’t see.

  Abby looked flummoxed. “Aw, sweetie…”

  She turned away from him and waved a hand. “I’m fine, I’m just not used to these—” She was going to say gifts, but it wasn’t that, it was the idea of these people thinking of her when she wasn’t around, having ideas about her, probably picturing her face when she finally unwrapped the present. It was intrusive. Didn’t matter that it was an attack of love—it was still an ambush.

  She pushed the tears from her cheeks. Laughed at herself. “Y’uns are messing me up.”

  Abby grinned. “I apologize.”

  Stella ran a thumb across the glass. “She seems to get younger every year.”

  “I know what you mean. She was only twenty when we took that.”

  “Were you here when she died?”

  He didn’t answer and she looked up.

  He admitted it with a nod.

  “Did she suffer? I mean, at the end.” She’d read a novel about a poet who was dying of consumption. “Did she cough and cough?”

  He looked away. Ran a hand across his stubbled jaw.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” she said.

  “She didn’t suffer,” Abby said. “Not at all.”

  Stella put her arms around him, still holding the frame. “I love this picture. I always have. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Little Star.”

  * * *

  —

  it was stella’s birthday but Abby brought Motty a gift, too—several. Motty unscrewed the top off the first jar, sniffed.

  “This batch came out pretty well,” Abby said.

  An hour after supper they were both tipsy and Stella was holding one of Merle’s new journals in front of her face. She’d read it front to back but didn’t want to get up to retrieve another. She’d learned that adults were more likely to say interesting things when they forgot she was there or thought she wasn’t listening. Drunk adults would say almost anything. Unfortunately, they’d decided to argue about pigs. Abby was very much in favor of harvesting the sow and getting another litter.

  “I decide when I harvest and when I restock,” Motty said. “Not you.”

  “But it’s spring. If you get some shoats now, they’ll be fat by the fall. And this time, I’ll help you do it right.”

  “Do it right?” Motty said icily.

  “You step in too early. Pigs give birth all the time—the trick is keeping the piglets alive while they’re weaning. The mamas just roll over on them. Suffocate them.”

  “I know how to raise my stock.”

  “But your sows keep having problems birthing, it makes no sense. Let me help. I’ve helped birth cows and this ain’t much different.”

  Stella kept her head down.

  “I told you,” Motty said, “it’s none of your business.”

  “Or we could call the vet.”

  “Nobody’s calling a vet! You don’t talk about this with anyone, you hear me? No gossip about what I do here.”

  “When have I ever gossiped?”

  They kept arguing, a sloppy tug-of-war greased by whiskey. On schedule, Motty brought up the fact that Abby was not paying a dime of rent, and Abby pointed out that she was drinking her rent, not to mention all the work he did for her, and besides, didn’t Hendrick send her money every month?

  “That’s none of your God damn business. You got to know your place, Abby Whitt. You ain’t better’n me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m no fool,” Motty said. “I know how people whispered about me after Lena.”

  Lena! Stella went still as a stone. Kept her eyes locked on the page.

  “I never talked to anybody about her,” Abby said.

  “You told that brother-in-law of yours, and Merle, and—”

  “Merle’s my sister!”

  “Who knows who else. Just had to let everybody know you wanted to drive her to town and go see a doctor, when we both know that would do no good. But no, you went around crying like a baby.”

  Abby lurched to his feet. “I loved her like she was my own!”

  Stella thought, No doctor could treat her?

  “Next thing I know the whole cove thinks I killed her, all because you’re making a big show. You worried they was going to blame you?”

  “That’s too far, Motty. Too far.”

  “Aw, get the hell out of my house,” Motty said to Abby. “You’re nothing but a freeloader.”

  Abby stormed from the room, banging every doorframe and door on the way out. But Stella’s eyes were on Motty.

  “What are you looking at?” Motty said. She was planted in her chair like a queen under siege.

  “You lied to me,” Stella said. She squeezed out the words.

  “What? Get off to bed. You should have gone long ago.”

  “You lied.” The room had narrowed to just the tunnel between them. “Lena didn’t die of tuberculosis.” Enunciating every ridiculous syllable. “There was no lingering disease.”

  “Oh, it was slow.”

  Stella forced herself to ask the question. “Did the God kill her? Or did you?”

  Motty said nothing. Then, very deliberately, took a sip of whiskey. Stella waited, a fluttering feeling high in her chest. If Motty was ever going to admit to anything it was now, when she was drunk and mired deep in memory. In the morning she’d be sober and daylight would stitch her shut.

  “Tell me,” Stella said.

  “She went too far,” Motty said. “And I didn’t stop her.”

  Too far. “How many communions?” Stella asked.

  “Fifteen, sixteen,” Motty said. She started describing them, each one longer than the last. Near the end Lena was staying with the God for over an hour.

  “I shouldn’t’ve let her,” Motty said. “It was more’n I could ever do. But she was better than me. And the things she brought back…it was like she had a direct line, a holy—” Motty shook her head. “Nobody got as deep as she did. Not even Esther.”

  Stella didn’t speak. She thought, I could do an hour. I could do an hour, easy.

  “Then the last time…” Motty was gazing into some memory. “Oh Lord.”

  “What happened?” Stella asked quietly.

  “She stayed with the God for nearly two hours. She wouldn’t let go of him.”

  “You mean the God wouldn’t let her go.”

  “I mean what I say. Lena held on. And then finally she passed out, and the Ghostdaddy left her. I carried her to bed, laid her down like always. Bandaged her. I did everything the same. But she just lay there. Staring at the ceiling. Sometimes her mouth moved but she wasn’t saying nothing. I couldn’t get her to eat, could barely get a sip of water into her.” Motty took a ragged
breath. “I should’ve called a doctor. But we don’t do things like that. We always thought…”

  Stella waited. Motty drained her glass. Set it down with a thump.

  “Five weeks,” Motty said.

  Stella stopped herself from speaking.

  “I took care of her body for five weeks. Then she died, and that was that.”

  Motty leaned forward in the chair, pushed up with her arms until she was on her feet. Swayed there.

  “What did she do wrong?” Stella asked.

  Motty’s head came up. “She didn’t do nothing wrong. She did her duty. You should be proud of her.”

  “I’m stronger than her,” Stella said. “You know I am.”

  “Sure you are.” Motty shuffled out of the room. “Just keep telling yourself.”

  16

  1948

  Two figures stepped onto the lip of the road like hesitant animals. It was near dusk, and their bodies threw long shadows down the pavement. Stella stopped the Ford and jumped out.

  Abby held a satchel in one hand and Sunny’s hand in the other. Sunny eyed the car skeptically.

  “No trouble getting to your car?” Abby asked.

  “They were in the house,” Stella said. “I could hear ’em worrying about Rickie’s terrible terrible wound.” One of the Georgians had been standing on the porch when she pulled out of Motty’s yard, but he didn’t get in her way and as far as she knew, nobody had followed her. Still, they could change their minds at any moment.

  “Go ahead and get in,” Stella told the girl.

  “Where we going?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get there.” She didn’t want to say in front of Abby. The less he knew, the better.

  Abby waited till the girl was in the car before he said to Stella, “He’ll come after her.”

  “I know.” As long as there was a God in the Mountain, there’d be the church, and as long as there was the church, Hendrick would want his Revelator. She’d always known that—she’d only fooled herself into thinking he’d changed. Hendrick had lied to her, and Veronica—well, Veronica had either lied too or been fooled herself.

  She said, “He’ll come for you first.”

  Abby shrugged, handed her the satchel. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Keep that shotgun close.” She’d left him the Winchester 97.

  He went around the car, leaned through the window. Kissed Sunny on the side of her head. “You be good, now.”

  The girl scowled. “Come with me.”

  “Wish I could.”

  “You can’t leave me alone with her.”

  “You’re going to be all right,” Abby said. “There’s nobody you can trust more.”

  * * *

  —

  for the next half hour, Sunny sat with her arms folded across her chest, stewing. Stella was grateful for the silence. Once they hit 321 Stella gave it some gas, but kept to the speed limit. She remembered the first time she’d driven this road with Abby, her first brush with the police.

  A sign for Jimmy’s Market came up on the right and Sunny said, “Coke-drinking bear?” She sat up. “We have to stop!”

  “Sorry, kid.”

  “They have a bear that drinks Cokes!”

  “You can’t believe everything you read.” The sign wasn’t lying in this case—Jimmy did keep a black bear in an outdoor cage, and if you bought a Coca-Cola or a Nehi, Jimmy’d hand it through the bars. The bear would grasp the bottle in both paws and tip it up like a toddler.

  Half a mile later they passed the market and Sunny saw the cage. She screamed. Stella screamed back, louder. The girl jerked back in surprise.

  “I promise you,” Stella said. “We’ll come back someday and see the bear.”

  “When?”

  “Someday.”

  “There isn’t time. I need to see it now.”

  “What do you mean, there isn’t time?”

  The girl growled and looked out the window.

  Stella said, “You aren’t going to Georgia. You know that, right?”

  “You don’t know what’s what, Stella Wallace.” Sunny slumped dramatically against the door. “Nobody knows how anybody’s going to die.”

  Stella sighed. “Did Motty tell you about Esther at the river?”

  She could see the answer in Sunny’s blank expression. Stella told the story of how Esther drowned herself. Then she told how Lena’s story ended—the Revelator overwhelmed by the Ghostdaddy. The stories took them all the way to Maryville. Sunny had gone silent, absorbing each new detail like a blow. A pocketful of stones. Motty watching from the shore—and decades later watching Lena waste away. Five weeks.

  Finally Sunny said, “But you’re all right. You ran away.”

  Stella stuck out her right arm. “Pull.”

  “What?”

  “Pull my jacket off.”

  The girl sat up. Tugged on the sleeve, and Stella shrugged out of it.

  “Push up on my shirt. There you go.”

  Sunny stared. The scar meandered along the inside of the arm, from wrist to elbow. “Did the God do that?”

  “No, I did it to myself.”

  “Why?”

  “When I was fourteen, I wanted nothing more than to get out of the cove. So I got out. And then I began to think, What good am I, if I’m not a Revelator? What if I’m nothing but what the church made me?”

  “Maybe you weren’t good enough.”

  Stella felt a flash of anger. Tamped it down. “Maybe not. But maybe none of us are. Including Motty.”

  Stella glanced at the girl, and her eyes were wide with fear, her lips tight. As if she already knew.

  “The Ghostdaddy killed her,” Stella said.

  “You can’t know that.” Her voice strained.

  “The wound was right here.” Stella touched a spot above her breast. “Three tiny holes. Needles, straight to her heart.”

  Sunny put a hand to her mouth.

  “I don’t know why the Ghostdaddy would do that. I don’t even know how it got out of the cave to do it.”

  Sunny stared at her. She was scared. And Stella thought, Good. She ought to be fucking scared.

  “There’s no way to know what a god does or doesn’t do,” Stella said. “Yahweh sent a flood to kill everyone but one family. Later He sacrificed His own flesh and blood. Human rules don’t apply.”

  * * *

  —

  she parked deep in the trees, then led a quiet Sunny up and over the hill, until they reached the side door of the Acorn Farm. The interior was dark, and silent.

  “Fuck me,” Stella said. She flipped on the lights. Hump Cornette was nowhere to be seen.

  “What’s the matter?” Sunny asked.

  “A boy who works for me is supposed to be here. I thought I’d put the fear of God into him, but shit, now I got to fire his ass.”

  “What is that?” Sunny was gazing at the eight-hundred-gallon vat.

  “You never seen a still before?”

  Sunny turned defensive. “It’s different is all.”

  “Sure it is. That’s Queen Bess. She rules this kingdom.”

  Sunny walked around the big space, looking at everything, smelling barrels, but refusing to ask questions.

  “Abby taught me,” Stella volunteered. “He’s the best durn moonshiner that ever came out of these here hills.”

  “Are you mocking my voice?”

  “No! That’s Uncle Dan. Never mind.”

  Sunny’s eyes lit up. “I love Uncle Dan.”

  “When I was your age I wished I could meet him.”

  “Me too.”

  “Let me show you something,” Stella said, and walked her to the window. “See that dirt road through the trees? Anybody who comes down that road is n
o friend of mine. If you see a car, you hide.”

  “Hide where?”

  “That’s the second thing.” Behind Stella’s desk was a false floor. Stella knelt and pulled up a section of boards.

  “That’s just like the chapel,” Sunny said.

  Huh. That had never occurred to Stella. But yes, it was exactly the same. Down below was a hidey-hole, about three feet square. Stella reached down and pulled out an ancient carpetbag. Its reds and blues were faded long before Stella had taken it from Motty a decade ago.

  “What’s in that?” Sunny asked.

  “None of your business. If someone comes to the window, you crawl in here, and pull the panel down over yourself. You understand?”

  “Where are you going to be?”

  “I’ve got to run an errand. I’ll leave this partly open so you can hop in quick.”

  “You can’t leave me here!”

  “We need food. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  “Wait,” Sunny said. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “How I die.”

  Ah. Fuck.

  “That’s up to you,” Stella said. “If you want it, you can have a life that’s bigger than the cove. You’re more than just a girl they send into a hole.”

  * * *

  —

  she drove into Alcoa just as the sun was dropping over the tar-shingle roofs of the company-built houses. Her moonshiner’s mind saw the process of distillation everywhere. The Aluminum Company of America had distilled its name down to an acronym, cooked it down further to title case, and the town name followed suit. A few more decades and company and town both would be reduced to the letter “A,” and then nothing at all.

  Stella turned off Bessemer into the neighborhood the company had carved out for its Black employees. It used to be called Black Bottom, but after the Great War the company built new houses and named the area after Charles M. Hall, Alcoa’s cofounder and the inventor of the aluminum reduction process. Named all the new streets after inventors, too—Newton, Kelvin, Edison—as if to remind the residents of all the great things white men had created for them.