Revival Season

by Monica West

  I walked up the driveway and sat down next to Caleb on the top step of the porch. His gangly legs were folded beneath him in cartoon character pajama pants that were far too short. The distant buzz of a plane flying overhead interrupted the silence. Caleb and I looked up to see the blinking light moving slowly across the sky. I closed my eyes and imagined myself gliding tens of thousands of feet above this place, turning the houses into specks and the people into grains of dust. I’d never actually been in a plane, but I’d imagined flying many times, especially when we were on the revival circuit, feeling every bump of the road underneath the van.

  “Where would you go?” Caleb asked after the plane droned away and left a trail of vapor in its wake.

  I’d only ever really thought about the places where we’d driven—Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina. So I surprised myself when I said Alaska.

  Caleb laughed. “Why Alaska?”

  Mostly because it was bigger than Texas. But also because it was far away, even though I knew I couldn’t tell Caleb that part. “Not sure. It would be nice to see the northern lights. What about you?”

  Caleb’s teeth glinted as he smiled. “Arizona.” He didn’t even pause before he spoke—he’d clearly been thinking about it for a long time.

  “Why?”

  “The Grand Canyon.”

  Ma had taught us about the Grand Canyon during geography lessons several years ago—Caleb’s eyes widened as he heard about a 277-mile-long canyon that was a mile deep, as though he couldn’t fathom anything that large.

  “What would you do there?”

  I imagined him telling me that he would build a church out in the desert, or that he would use it as his main base while traveling the country to preach the Gospel like Papa.

  “I’d be a park ranger at the Grand Canyon.”

  My neck swiveled over to him. “Really?”

  “Yup. I’d help people hike down there. But mostly I’d get to stand there and look at it every day.”

  I hugged my knees to my chest as a chill settled in. The flickering filaments of fireflies sparked and extinguished just as quickly, briefly lighting a path to nowhere.

  “What’s it like?”

  “What’s what like?”

  “Healing people.”

  I whipped around to look at him, to see if he was really saying that he believed me. But he was still looking at the sky. My shoulders relaxed from where they had been by my ears, and the first real smile in months cracked my face. I took a deep breath and let my body return to each of the healings—from the stuffiness of the annex when I’d healed Micah to the claustrophobic bathroom with Nadia. “Kind of weird. This tingly feeling travels through me when it happens—kind of like a tiny electric shock. Then everything hurts as though I’ve taken some of their disease into my body.”

  Another long pause.

  “When did it start?”

  “With Micah, I guess. It was an accident. It happened right after we came back from revival season. And it didn’t work all the way. That was the first time I felt something though.” I caught a glimpse of his profile, his strong jaw moving, like he was chewing all the taste out of the words he couldn’t bring himself to say. His eyes widened for a moment with a slight twinge of jealousy before they returned to normal.

  “Did you really heal Ma?”

  I nodded, but he didn’t look over. Maybe he sensed the disturbance in the air, the subtle wind from my swaying head.

  “How many have there been?” His voice was tight.

  “If you count Micah, six.”

  I wanted to tell him more, about how Hannah would be my seventh this summer, but I knew I shouldn’t—not yet. The moon shone above us overhead, and next to it, the unmistakable pan and long handle of the Big Dipper. Even though I was older than Caleb, he had been the one to teach me about constellations. When he was nine and I was ten, he gloated as he took me by the hand and led me in the backyard one night. I had followed where his finger pointed as he told me how to identify Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper. But that day felt like ages ago as we sat there for a few minutes in our older skins, looking at a canvas of dark sky that stretched above us, dusted with stars.

  * * *

  Spring drew to a close, and the house fluttered with activity as we prepared for the upcoming revival season. And finally, without much ceremony, the day had arrived. While Ma and Papa finished packing, Caleb, Hannah, and I spent the last few minutes in the front yard. Caleb fake chased Hannah on the grass, exaggerating the slow-motion speed of his arms and legs. Hannah squealed and sidled away from him, looking back over her shoulder to see if he was still on her trail. When he finally grabbed her waist, she looked happy to be caught. Click. I froze the moment in time when Caleb’s hands were on Hannah’s waist, her head leaning into his chest. Click. I froze Hannah in Caleb’s sure arms, clapping in delight.

  Mrs. Cade’s car pulled up and stopped at the end of the driveway, leaving some space behind where Papa was loading boxes into the trunk. She always came to say goodbye to us before we left for revival season. As soon as I saw her, I rushed to her car, almost dropping the box in my arms.

  “Mrs. Cade!” I fell into her embrace. My nose pressed into the crepe skin of her chest as her hug squeezed me too tightly to speak.

  “I wish everyone greeted me like that,” she said into my scalp. She walked over and tousled Caleb’s hair before kneeling down to hug Hannah. When she walked back into the driveway, her eyes searched my face. She scowled as though she had seen something in the way my cheeks puffed with air or my eyebrows were raised.

  “Take a walk with me.” She grabbed my wrist, leading me into the humid late-spring air that had already pulled my hair out of the careful curls that Ma had made that morning. We walked past where Papa was standing in the driveway.

  “Can I borrow her for a moment, Pastor? I promise I’ll bring her right back.”

  Papa waved his hand in assent. I slowed my steps at the corner to match Mrs. Cade’s lumbering gait, her shoes’ thick soles clomping on the sidewalk squares. She threaded her arm in mine.

  “Something’s weighing on you. I can see it.”

  My head dropped to see my feet straddling a sidewalk crack.

  “You can tell me anything.”

  We stopped four houses away; over my shoulder, Papa was hefting one box and then another into the trunk. At the edge of the street, electricity poles towered above us and swooping power lines crackled in the silence; I was one of those wires, with so much surging inside that I didn’t know how to keep it all contained.

  “I’m going to heal Hannah,” I whispered.

  She closed her eyes and nodded as though I was telling her something that she already knew. A sound ricocheted from down the street, and our necks snapped in unison to see Papa wrestling with a box that had fallen on the driveway.

  “Does he know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “He wouldn’t believe me even if I did.”

  She inhaled and closed her eyes again, tilting her head as though summoning wisdom from the breeze. “I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but this is bigger than you.”

  “I thought you believed in me. You were the first one. The only one for a while. You saw what I did for Hope.” I took a step back as though the widening expanse of concrete between us would take away the sting of her words.

  “Just because you may be able to heal Hannah doesn’t mean that you should.”

  “May be able to heal? I can heal her like I healed Ma. Besides, I thought you were on my side.” My voice was rising.

  “I am on your side, Miriam. But this isn’t a game. You’re treading in serious water.” Her voice dropped as her tone turned grave. With a shuffle of her feet, she collapsed the distance between us. I tried to get away, but she grabbed my elbow and pulled me into her. I kept my arm slack by my side.

  “Just think and pray more abou
t whether what you’re doing is in God’s plan.” Her lips buzzed right beside my ear. “If it is, then do it. That’s all I’m saying. I know you’ll do the right thing.”

  She squeezed me once more and then started to walk back to her car. Papa eyed her as she approached the driveway, but his forehead was flat, placid—he hadn’t heard anything. He kept his eyes on her as she pulled down the driveway, waving out of her window as she drove away.

  I walked back inside and surveyed the partially empty living room. I had been waiting for this moment for weeks, but as it got closer, Mrs. Cade’s words filled the room’s emptiness. She was right—God still hadn’t spoken to me, hadn’t confirmed that this healing was in His plan. The excited jitters I’d felt the first few days after Easter seemed more like nausea every time I thought about what I was going to do.

  I walked over to the dwindling stack of boxes by the door, bent down to pick one up, and brought it out to the driveway. Papa stood a few feet away from the trunk, surveying his handiwork. I stepped closer to him, one unsteady foot in front of the other.

  “Papa,” I began. He turned to look at me with one arm resting on the open trunk; barely veiled disdain scored his forehead and his bottom lip hung open as though he’d eaten something putrid. Through his glasses, I saw the outline of my face, my slumped shoulders, the quaking box between us. From his side of the lenses, what did he see? He had already told me I wasn’t a healer, but there had to be more than that—more than annoyance and shame when he saw me. He must have also remembered all the other times—the times when he carried me to bed, his biceps sturdy beneath me, my head against his clavicle. Or when he led me by the hand into his study and lifted me into his tufted leather chair as my feet dangled. He had loved me once—that love couldn’t have just disappeared. And I had loved him once too.

  “Here’s one more.”

  “Miriam, this isn’t going to fit,” he snapped. “The trunk is already full. This box will have to go in the back seat with you.”

  My shock at the sharpness of his raised voice sent the box out of my arms and onto the driveway. Hannah’s toys flew out as the cardboard flap opened. Tiger, a rag doll, and other colorful plastic baubles that kept her quiet at night rolled down the driveway. I rushed after them, snatching Tiger from the fate of the waiting sewer grate. I stuffed all the toys back into the box, Tiger’s floppy head drooping from the side in his own silent protest, before I shoved the box in the back seat.

  As we settled in the car, Ma said the obligatory parting prayer: “Lord, watch over these, Your children. Use us to do Your will. Amen.” Papa looked over his shoulder as he eased the minivan down the driveway and rumbled onto the road. I never liked to watch the house receding in the rearview mirror—to know that when we came back in three months, the structure, though physically the same, would feel different. But the house hadn’t provided me with the comfort it usually did this past year, so maybe different would be okay.

  Normally, families lined the side of our street to wave goodbye to us. The littlest kids from homeschool would hold poster-board signs that they’d decorated in the last few days before summer break—rudimentary crayon letters formed barely legible words that Ma had dictated while standing over their shoulders. Papa would put down his window and we would hear the shouting of our last name—Horton, Horton—accompanied by applause. We would wave like celebrities until reaching the stop sign, when the crowd died down. Today, the sidewalks were empty and silent as Papa drove slowly down the street. With each glance out of the window, he waited for someone to realize we were leaving and come outside, but no one did. Ma sang to Isaac to quiet his cries as we got onto the highway—her lilting lyrics about climbing Jacob’s ladder modulated into higher octaves and drowned out the music from the radio. The rest of the minivan joined in with her at the chorus: “Soldiers of the cross.”

  FIFTEEN

  Shelby Church of the New Covenant—the third and final stop on this new iteration of revival season—was at the end of a dirt road, miles away from the highway and anything else that resembled civilization. It sprang from the dust that surrounded it like a mirage—wavy at first, and then the sharp perpendicularity of white towers, gold turrets, and a sloped cathedral started to take shape. Ma and Papa always warned against places like this, places that worshipped vanity more than God, yet there we were, pulling into the biggest parking lot that I had ever seen, turning off the engine, and piling out of the car.

  I stretched my legs, looked up at the cloudless sky, and closed my eyes. A miracle will happen here. A light breeze ruffled the trees and blew across my face, confirming the conviction that had just settled in my soul. I will heal Hannah here. Despite my fervent prayers every night, the conviction hadn’t come among the modest crowds during the previous weeks in Tennessee or Arkansas—crowds that Papa had stood in front of, staring at me as he proclaimed that he’d healed members of his church from diabetes and heart disease. But now time was running out—the miracle had to happen in Shelby if it was going to happen at all.

  Caleb pushed open the heavy gold doors that led inside, offering a partial glimpse of the sanctuary. The carpet looked like no one had set foot on it before. I wanted to take my shoes off to feel the plushness beneath my toes.

  “Reverend Dixon?” Papa asked into the empty room. The words echoed off the dozens of rows of gleaming white pews.

  “Reverend Horton, welcome!” A short man with thick gold chains around his neck came out from behind the pulpit where he must have been crouched. All along I’d been trying to imagine what the man who pastored this church would look like. As he descended the stairs to get on our level, he was smaller than I imagined—a couple of inches shorter than Caleb. A white short-sleeved dress shirt contrasted his deep-brown skin and revealed a thick layer of coarse hair on his arms. The clink of gold bracelets resonated through the empty sanctuary as he reached out and shook Papa’s hand that enveloped his like a catcher’s mitt. Papa forced a smile as he introduced us.

  “Anyone in the mood to go to the revival space?”

  I wanted to settle into the place that would be our house for the week, but my opinion meant nothing as Papa told Reverend Dixon that he’d be happy to. As we followed Reverend Dixon’s gold luxury SUV along a winding North Carolina road to the revival location, I pressed my face against the warm window and watched the trees pass by at a rapid pace. Reverend Dixon turned a corner, and the familiar outline of a tent took shape: with its swirling yellows and blues, it could have been mistaken for a circus tent.

  We stepped out of the car. Papa jumped out first and walked around the perimeter, examining the tent’s stakes that had been driven deep into the ground. While he traced his forefinger on the tent’s vinyl walls, he was seemingly trying to measure how many souls he could deliver and heal in one night’s time. Caleb hung back for a minute after Papa went into the tent—his reluctant support of Papa had become more obvious this revival season. Hannah and I stayed with Ma and Isaac in the back of the tent while Papa walked up and down the aisles. His fingers grazed the wooden folding chairs at the end of each row; from my estimate, there were about six hundred of them. Way bigger than most of the revivals that Papa had conducted—twice the size of the previous ones this season in Tennessee and Arkansas.

  I watched Papa like a hawk as he hoisted himself up onto the stage, his microphone-less voice barely audible in the emptiness. I needed to memorize every foot of this space without him knowing what I was doing. Trying to look as nonchalant as possible, I stayed close to Ma and clutched Hannah’s arm. All the while, I mimicked Papa’s steps from the back of the tent—my sandals shuffling on grass rather than up on the stage where he was. I made my hand into an O to practice holding the microphone when the time came. I knew so many of Papa’s motions by heart already, but since this would be bigger than any healing I’d ever attempted before, it needed to be exactly right.

  When everyone was in bed that night, thoughts lapped the edges of my brain. Is this the right thing
to do? Is this what God wants? I had felt so sure when we arrived here, but after seeing the tent and watching Papa make his final preparations, the conviction that had settled so firmly in my heart dissipated. I looked across the room at sleeping Hannah, nestled under the covers. This was all supposed to be for her, but maybe Mrs. Cade was right—maybe this was too big a thing to attempt.

  I climbed out of bed and walked over to Hannah. Three months since the last seizure—a new record. I sank to my knees in front of her, my arms stretching to where her jutting shoulder blades were exposed under the thin sheet. I closed my eyes, and a prayer formed on my lips. “Dear God, if it is Your will for Your child to be healed, give me the strength, the ability, and the power to heal her. If it is not in Your will, reveal Your will to me. Amen.”

  I expected to feel lighter when I rose from the edge of her bed, but I didn’t feel much different. It felt like God, who had always been near—the breeze behind me, the heat on my face when I prayed—was receding like the sun behind a cloud. As I was getting closer to my miracle, God’s will for me was getting more obscure.

  * * *

  Monday morning’s sunrise teased the horizon before breaking into full-fledged splendor. When God had previously revealed Himself to me, it always happened like this. Radiant sunrises, torrential downpours, rainbows—anything that we couldn’t control was a reminder of His power. It was God promising me that Hannah would be healed in Shelby. Tonight.

  Thank you, Lord.

  Hours after Papa and Caleb left with Reverend Dixon, I slid into a dress and zipped it in one motion. Then I lifted a stolen bottle of holy oil from the front of my suitcase and put it in the pocket of my dress. When we marched into the tent later that evening, my posture was a little straighter than normal as we took our seats in the fourth row.

  “Can I sit on the aisle tonight, Ma?”

  Ma nodded as I placed my hand over the protruding bottle of holy oil so no one would notice its outline through the thin layer of cotton. Hannah settled into her spot next to me, and I laid her crutches onto the ground in front of us. After I healed her, she wouldn’t need them.