“So far. Does that sound crazy?”
She thought, You don’t know crazy. “Next time you should just do it. Seize the moment.”
“Seize the moment.”
“That’s right.”
“You mind if I kiss you?”
“I suppose I wouldn’t mind.”
He leaned in. Her lips were chapped but he didn’t complain. His hands moved under her coat.
She backed away from him, pulling him, toward the moon. Her heel caught a root and she stumbled.
“Easy now,” he said.
They stood on a lip of rock hanging over a hundred feet of black air. The moon was close enough to touch.
“Stella?”
“I was just thinking.”
“Me too.”
He brought her in close. They swayed like dancers. He was tipsy now, drunk on infatuation and alcohol both. Numb to the sadness rising in her like a tide.
His hand bunched the side of her skirt, pulled it higher, and then his hand was hot on her skin.
She said, “You trying to reach the promised land, Moses?”
“Moses! Ha!”
“Maybe I’ll let you see it one day, but you’ll die before entering.”
He groaned. She chuckled and touched his cheek. He lowered his head and kissed her neck. His hand hadn’t moved from her thigh. Oh, this poor Christian soldier, she thought, stranded in foreign territory.
She took pity on him and pressed his hand to her. He made a tiny sound, like a boy startled awake.
* * *
—
the holy uncles were dying off. Uncle Hendrick came to the next communion with only five elders. They’d lost Calvin Whit—no relation to Abby’s double-T Whitts—just three weeks ago. The survivors who gathered around her in the living room were a creaky, paper-skinned bunch, dry as kindling. She wondered how long it would be before Hendrick was forced to come alone.
Hendrick knelt before her chair as always, the bowl of oil set between them. Just seeing it made her palms itch. He started to speak and Stella held up a hand.
“I have some questions.”
The room went quiet. Prickles ran up the back of her neck, but she steeled herself to keep going. She’d been practicing in her head for this moment all week.
“Questions?” Hendrick said at last. “Let’s do the anointing and then perhaps after dinner you and I can—”
“Why can’t I read the other Revelations? My mama’s dead, there can’t be any harm in letting me see The Book of Selena.”
He looked over her shoulder where she knew Motty was standing, but he received no support. “We’ve talked about this,” he said.
“I’m the one who talks to the God in the Mountain,” Stella said. “I deserve to read what came before, with Lena and Motty both.”
Hendrick looked toward a few of the Uncles as if to say, What can I do with this child? To her he said, “Mathilda’s book is not closed, and Lena’s story can’t be revealed until the one before it is known. You know the rules.” One of the men offered an “Amen.”
“My own book, then,” she said. “I have to know you’re getting it correct.”
“Pardon?”
“How do I know you’re writing down the truth—what it really means?” To the Uncles she said, “I’ve read The Book of Clara and The Book of Esther. I don’t believe Hendrick has properly understood the God’s message.”
The portion of old men who could hear were alarmed. Hendrick got to his feet. Stella glanced behind her. Motty was staring daggers at her. Ha! The old woman didn’t know what Stella was going to say next, but she wasn’t going to interrupt. Not yet.
Hendrick said, “The commentaries are as divinely inspired as the words spoke through the Revelator.”
“You don’t know that,” Stella said from the chair. “You’re just guessing.”
“I’m not guessing. God speaks through me. Writing the commentaries involves reflection, and prayer, and—and study. You’re too young to understand.”
“I think I understand better than you. I’m the one who communes.”
“You commune in a delirium! You can’t know what was said, much less what it means.”
“Sure, I’m in a fever while it’s happening—but you’re one more step removed than I am. At least I can remember what the God intended. I may see through a glass darkly, but you’re staring at a brick wall.” She’d thought of that line last night, when she was preparing for this service. “Even if I don’t remember what each word means, I’d know how he felt when he spoke to me. I’d know what he wants.” She addressed the Uncles. “Do you know what the God wants from us? Do any of you know?”
“He doesn’t want anything!” John Headley Martin said.
“Except our faith,” Donald Birch said.
“Yes, of course.”
“And our service.”
“Faith and service, yes—”
“And love!” Porter Martin added.
“What?” Morgan Birch asked.
“Love, Morgan, love!”
“Fine,” Stella said. “And what do you get in return?”
“Love!” Porter said again.
“I know he loves me,” Stella said. “I can feel that he loves me. But how do you know he loves any of you?”
“He’s told us so in the Revelations,” Uncle Hendrick said.
“Did the God say that?” she asked. “Or you?”
Hendrick lifted his hands. “Motty, what’s going on here? What have you been saying to her?”
Stella thought, It’s my own words that transformed me. My own thoughts.
“Answer her question,” Motty said. “Tell her what you get from the God.”
Stella looked at Uncle Hendrick. Waited.
“On the day the God reveals himself to the world,” Hendrick said carefully, “he will reward us for our faith and devotion. The children of the God will be given a great gift.” He’d taken on the same tone as Elder Rayburn when he preached. Stella wondered if he’d intentionally copied him, or if every man around here grew up knowing how to sound as condescending as Moses. “Eternal life. Not in heaven, not in some world after this. Right now. In The Book of Esther it was first promised that the God will provide ‘one body, ever blooming.’ Like a flower that blooms every year, but continuously rejuvenated.”
He was performing. Stella looked around at the Uncles and said, “You think he’s going to give this to you? You men?”
“If we keep the faith, yes,” Hendrick said.
“Why hasn’t he, then? Cousin Calvin just died. Any of you could die before the next communion.”
“Stella! What’s gotten into you?”
“Can we get on with it?” Morgan Birch asked.
“I’m not going in,” Stella said.
The men were too old for an uproar, but they gave it a shot. A few of them managed to get to their feet.
“I’m not going in,” she repeated, “until you promise me I can read the Revelations. All of them, including my own. Talk about it over dinner. But you can’t force me. You think the God will come if I’m kicking and screaming?”
The Uncles weren’t about to discuss it—not over dinner, not ever. Hendrick loomed over her, called her a child. Worse, a girl. One of the old men said, “Take the belt to her!”
“Go ahead,” Stella said. “I been whipped plenty.”
“We’ll send you back to your father!” another one said.
An empty threat. Her father wouldn’t have her, and they wouldn’t let her go. She knew she was the last Revelator.
“Please, everyone, calm down,” Hendrick said. When all of them were seated again, he asked, “What about the God in the Mountain? You’d do this to him?” His voice hoarse with dismay. She wanted to laugh at him. At all of them. D
id they think they could come between her and the God? It was ridiculous. They didn’t know about her visits, or about the hogs. This secret knowledge glowed in her like a fiery sword.
The Uncles battered her with words, growing more mystified and angry each minute she failed to collapse. Even John Headley, one of the oldest, was shouting. “Drag her in there,” he said. “Drag her in there and tie her down!”
Stella glanced back at Motty. She stood at the edge of the room, arms crossed, face closed like a book. Would she protect her? Or let this play out?
“All you have to do is one thing,” Stella told the men.
“That’s not going to happen,” Hendrick said. “You’re not giving us a choice. Gentlemen? Help me hold her down.”
She jumped up and shouted, “Stop!”
The men exchanged smug glances.
“You’ll comply?” Hendrick said.
“I won’t.” She stared him in the eyes. “And if you don’t give me what it’s my right to know, I’ll leave. Just like Lena.”
“What, run away with Lincoln Rayburn?” He laughed at the shock on her face. “I know you’ve been making time with that boy. I’m not stupid.”
She couldn’t summon a reply. She hadn’t practiced anything like this.
“I’ve got news for you,” Hendrick said. “Lena came back.”
“I’m stronger than her—strong enough to walk away for good.”
Hendrick looked at Motty. “You told her?”
“I’m dead serious,” Stella said. “Do not force my hand.”
* * *
—
they didn’t try to stop her when she walked out of the house. In the backyard Veronica nearly bowled her over, threw her arms around her, crying hard. Of course she’d been listening, hovering outside the front room window.
“What are you crying about?”
“Daddy’s so mad at you!”
“He’ll get over it. Most of that was for show.” She didn’t know if either of those things was true.
“You’ve got to make it up to him. Please tell me you’ll apologize.” Even in tears Veronica was adorable. Ten years old and on the verge of movie-star beauty: clear skin, huge eyes, blonde curls, that God damn button nose. She’d certainly never made Daddy that angry, and may have never even seen him blow his top. It was good for her.
They hiked up a short ways to the spring, holding hands. Stella said, “They brought up that boy I told you about.”
“Lunk?”
Stella looked down at her. “Come on. Did you tell your daddy about him?”
Veronica was horrified. “You said it was a secret! I’d never tell him a secret.” She burst into fresh tears.
Motty, then.
Veronica liked to drink the cold milk they stored in the springhouse. Stella hauled it out of the water and let her sip from the jug. Then they sat on top of the cement and waited. Stella didn’t feel like talking. She pictured her mother at the top of a cliff, shining in the moonlight. In her mind’s eye Stella was standing a dozen feet away, too far to stop her. Lena glanced back, smiled, and then stepped off.
Veronica touched the tear on Stella’s cheek. “It’s okay,” she said. “Daddy will forgive you.”
“I ain’t worried about that.”
“Tell me about having a boyfriend. Do you pet?”
“What do you know about petting?”
Veronica smiled bashfully. “What’s it like?”
“It’s…all right,” Stella said.
Vee drilled for details, and Stella moved them on to other topics, and waited for the elders’ meeting to end. Stella had expected it to break up immediately after her declaration, but it was nearly an hour before Hendrick called for Veronica.
Stella said, “You better go or he’ll leave you behind.”
Veronica laughed.
“Trust me, it happens.”
* * *
—
stella came back after the last set of headlights had pulled away. The plates were still on the table, littered with chicken bones. Not even outrage could convince them to drive home hungry.
“Any left?” Stella asked.
“There’s a plate on the stove.”
Stella ate the chicken standing up while Motty sat with a coffee cup in her hands. Dirty skillets sat beside the sink, waiting to be salt-scrubbed and oiled. It wasn’t like Motty to let a mess sit.
After a while Motty said, “You proud of yourself?”
Stella bit off a chunk of meat. Couldn’t keep from smiling as she chewed.
“It doesn’t do any good to confront them,” Motty said. “You don’t embarrass them.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re men. They can’t take it.”
“Somebody had to do it.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“You were just standing there,” Stella said.
“Watching you act the fool. You weren’t ever going to get them to give you the Revelations.”
“Then they weren’t going to get me into the cave.”
“You wanted to tell them about your visits, didn’t you? You were itching to.”
“I didn’t say a thing.”
“I would have whupped you upside the head if you had. What were you thinking?”
Stella considered the bone in her hand. “I’m thinking I been lied to enough.”
Anger flashed in Motty’s face. “I told you when you was ready.”
“You don’t get to decide that anymore,” Stella said. “It’s time I wrote my own Revelation.”
“That ain’t what we do. The books don’t matter.”
“Oh, they do. And it matters who writes them. All those Baptists reading the King James, without thinking how it was one man who decided what made it in and what was left out. Whole books were cut out. The king’s men decided what to—”
“There ain’t nothing left out!” Motty barked. “What’s in the Bible is all that’s supposed to be there, no more, no less.”
“You sound just like Elder Rayburn.”
“Who put all these thoughts in your head? His boy, Lincoln? Merle Whitt?”
“All our church has is Hendrick’s version, and you know that’s not the whole story. But because it’s all the Uncles read, it’s what they use to make the rules.”
“Their rules don’t matter. The books don’t matter. We know what’s true.”
“No, we don’t,” Stella said. “Not the whole truth.”
Motty tilted her head. Like she was waiting to see if Stella would take a swing.
“You got any more big secrets, you should tell me now before I find out myself,” Stella said. Thinking: It better be more enlightening than the story of a suicide. Stella had come to think that Motty had made the whole story up. It was too much like some banjo murder ballad.
Motty leaned back in her chair. Crossed her arms.
“Fine,” Stella said. “I’m done getting yanked around by you people.”
* * *
—
the god came to her when she called, as he always had. She sat on the stone table, feeling that deep rumble of the stone. And the shape loomed over her.
Flickering lantern flames and shadows brought out features in his blank, boulder face. He was like a manikin, or a homemade doll, that needed her attention to become fully alive.
“I’m not here just to visit,” Stella said. Her heart beat fast, but she told herself, I’m stronger than Lena. Stronger than anyone. “They ain’t up there. This is for me, just for me, all right?”
The Ghostdaddy moved, or almost moved. A deep moan filled the cavern, rumbling her bones.
Stella lay flat on the rock and lifted her left hand, palm open. It was the first time she’d ever asked to commune without the Uncles h
overing in the chapel above, or Motty waiting back at the house to bind her hands. If Stella bled out through her God wounds, then so be it.
“I want to know everything,” she said. “Tell me what you’re trying to do. Let me help.”
His limb drifted close to her outstretched hand. She reached with her other hand and pulled it toward her. Its smooth skin slapped her palm.
“Do it,” she said. She pressed harder. “Please.”
The spike of pain arched her back.
18
1948
Five hours in the auxiliary wing of the Blount County Jail and Stella couldn’t stop moving. She’d try to sit on the cot and then she’d imagine what was happening in the cove and she’d be up again, pacing the six-by-ten cell, checking her wristwatch, cursing. Picturing that field mouse, floating. The girl was dangerous. The girl was a danger.
Tomorrow Hendrick would lead her to the chapel and send her down into the hole, without Stella to guide her. Whoever Sunny was before she went in would be gone. The God would roll over her young mind like a tide.
Sheriff Whaley hadn’t driven Stella to the main jail, or taken her fingerprints, or done any paperwork whatsoever. He wasn’t arresting her—he was putting her on ice. Almost literally—the cinder block building he’d thrown her into was cold as a springhouse. Whaley had taken away her flask, so the only thing left to keep her warm was her anger, bubbling away on a low boil.
To soothe herself she contemplated homicide. She nursed a vivid fantasy of shooting Whaley with his own gun. Uncle Hendrick featured heavily in several scenarios, as did Veronica.
Sheriff Whaley had waltzed into the Acorn Farm with Hendrick at his side and Bobby Reed behind them, dragging Hump Cornette by his arm. They picked up the moron at his mama’s shack, and he’d led them straight to the still. And how’d they know about Hump in the first place? Veronica. Stella had mentioned the boy’s name and she’d squealed to her daddy.
Stella was furious with herself. She’d fallen for Veronica’s game like that lonely sailor. All those letters over the years—Vee constantly bringing up their shared childhood memories, expressing her concern for Stella’s situation, “worrying” that her daddy was a fool—had lulled her into forgetting that Veronica was Hendrick Birch’s daughter. Then came their reunion, and that friendly night of drinking at the sittin’ up, and Stella thought she’d found a fellow sinner to confide in. She still didn’t know if Vee was a true believer—she’d never touched the God in the Mountain, or seen it in person—but she’d picked her side.
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