Revelator Page 9

  Hendrick’s mouth was agape. The conversation had taken a turn he didn’t understand. “Sunny is an orphan,” he said. “From the North Carolina Birches.”

  “A family no one’s ever seen or heard from,” Rayburn said.

  Stella said, “Is that what this is about? You won’t let us bury Motty because you want something from me? You want to trade?”

  Rayburn blinked hard. Good lord, was the man going to cry?

  “We want to do right by her. You owe us that much.”

  “Let me tell you something,” Stella said. “Sunny Birch is not Lincoln’s. There’s no grandchild for you or Elsa.”

  “We can pay you.”

  Her body jerked. She’d stopped herself from slapping him, the movement arrested as violently as a stick jammed into bicycle spokes. Her right arm had already come up, her hand open. A hot wire burned from her neck to her palm. She could picture Rayburn bent sideways in the chair from the blow.

  Mary Lynn cried out as if she’d seen it too. Rayburn’s eyes were wide, his mouth open. He’d suddenly become ancient, frail as paper.

  Stella closed her fist. “Keep your God damn graveyard,” she said. “I’ll bury her myself.”

  Mary Lynn ran outside before Stella could climb into the car. She was crying, too. Before she could speak Stella said, “Tell your father he’s right. Motty was a pagan. All the Birches—we’re all God damn devil worshippers.”

  The Georgian—Brother Paul—watched her as she backed out at full speed.

  She drove fast, wiping at her eyes, cursing. After three minutes she pulled over, leaving the car running, and popped open the back seat compartment. Ran a hand through the straw packing material. Jesus Christ, they couldn’t have drunk it all, could they? Then her fingers touched a jar and she pulled it out, unscrewed the cap.

  The whiskey hit the back of her throat and burned. She took another pull. Got back behind the wheel. She was ready to leave the cove again, funeral or no funeral. But there was one person she had to see first.

  7

  1936

  Elder rayburn waited until Stella was twelve years old before he paid a visit, perhaps finally worrying about her immortal soul. A month after Stella’s first communion, he drove up in the black buggy, his fool son, Lunk, by his side.

  Stella was out by the hog pen when they pulled up. She was perched on the fence rail, pouring feed over the rail and into the trough. The sow was gigantic. She’d been growing all that winter, but suddenly, in the month after Stella’s communion, the beast had somehow taken on a hundred pounds. Usually the sow watched her whenever Stella climbed the fence, glaring at her with those eyes that looked too much like a human’s, as if Stella were her next meal, as if the corncobs and chestnuts and the pounds and pounds of suet she consumed every day were not enough for her, would never be enough. Stella was sure if she fell over the fence and went down in the mud, the hog would squash her and then calmly chew her limbs off.

  But not today. The sow wouldn’t come to the trough. She was walking in circles around a pile of straw she’d made, squealing low and plaintive.

  Stella dropped the feed bag and hopped down. Elder Rayburn and Lunk were already striding toward her. She looked at her filthy hands and hoped her scars didn’t show through the dirt.

  “Miss Wallace,” Elder Rayburn said in that deep voice. “So good to see you.”

  “Afternoon, Elder,” she said. “Hey there, Lunk.”

  Elder Rayburn raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s what we call him at school,” Stella explained.

  “No it’s not,” Lunk said. To his father he said, “It’s what she calls me.” Lunk had grown a couple of inches, and his hair was combed with a straightedge part just like his daddy’s. A white box was tucked under his arm. She didn’t see much of Lunk these days. Since he’d turned fourteen he started going to a fancy high school in Maryville. But the elder showed up often enough to give his daughter, Mary Lynn, a ride home.

  “That sow looks ready to drop,” Rayburn said.

  Stella thought, Is that what’s going on? “She has been acting strange,” she said.

  Rayburn asked for Motty, and Stella ran to get her. Motty was suspicious. Then she saw the white box in Lunk’s arm and grunted. “So it’s this.”

  “I’ve been meaning to visit for quite a while,” Rayburn said. “The church has a gift for Stella.”

  “She don’t need that,” Motty said.

  Stella looked up at Motty, projecting a mental plea: Please don’t run them off! She hardly ever got gifts. An orange for Christmas, a new pair of shoes for her birthday. Motty said anything else was a waste.

  “We’ve brought something every child your age should have,” Elder Rayburn said to Stella. “Your very own—”

  “Bible,” Motty said. “It’s always a Bible.”

  “Yes, well,” Elder Rayburn said. “Son, why don’t you…?”

  Lunk handed over the box. His expression was serious, as if he were applying for early elderhood.

  Stella lifted the lid. Inside was a book, with a black leather cover. It said “Holy Bible” in gold script, and the thin pages were gilt-edged.

  “That’s the King James Version,” Rayburn said. “The inspired word of God in English clothing, passed down to the true church.”

  “Red letter edition,” Lunk said solemnly. Stella had no idea what that meant.

  “Thank you,” she said earnestly. “I’ll read it cover to cover.”

  Elder Rayburn smiled indulgently. “Well, that’s quite a task you’ve set yourself.”

  “She’ll do it,” Motty said. “You can’t keep her from anything with words on it.”

  “That’s fine, that’s fine. Now, Stella?” She looked up from the book. “I want to invite you to church. Motty hadn’t brought you yet, and I wanted to make sure you knew you were welcome.”

  “I’ll bring her,” Motty said, “when I decide to bring her.”

  “Of course, of course.” Rayburn decided to focus on Stella. “Has Motty told you that you might be one of the Elect?”

  “Uhm…”

  “She doesn’t know what that is,” Motty said tiredly.

  Elder Rayburn seemed to relish this news. “Well now, the Elect are the souls going to Heaven. Jesus Christ died for your sins so that you might be welcomed there, but it was God the Father who would have picked your soul to be one of the Elect, way back at the dawn of Creation.”

  Stella didn’t understand. “God already chose me?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps. He gives His children eternal life—and neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

  “John 10:28,” Lincoln said.

  “I don’t have to do anything?”

  “Exactly! If you’re one of the Elect, the work’s already done for you. Grace is already yours.”

  This didn’t correspond to anything Stella had read about Christians. “But if God’s already decided everything, why did Jesus have to die?”

  “For your sins,” he repeated. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” She thought, Have these Rayburns memorized the whole book? “You see, Jesus was the sacrifice.”

  Stella knew all about sacrifices—she’d read The Return of Tarzan. “Who was God sacrificing Jesus to?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I thought you made a sacrifice to get a god to do you a favor.”

  “There’s only one God.”

  “So God sacrificed His son to Himself?”

  Motty barked a laugh. Stella didn’t know why that was so funny.

  “Not exactly,” Rayburn said. “Jesus is God, and He’s also the holy spirit.”

  Stella was amazed. “So God sacrificed Himself to Himself.”

&
nbsp; “Keep going, Elder,” Motty said.

  “How about the other gods?” Stella asked.

  “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” Lunk said. “That’s a commandment.” Elder Rayburn scowled at him. The boy wasn’t helping.

  “But not all the gods, right?” Stella asked. “How about—?”

  Motty seized Stella at the back of the neck. Stella yelped and dropped the Bible.

  “Get inside the house,” Motty growled.

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  * * *

  —

  stella spent the rest of the day in her room, stewing. She’d thought everything would change once she’d had communion, but as soon as Hendrick and the Uncles had left, life went back to normal, and Motty treated her like a peasant. She refused to tell Stella when, if ever, she’d be allowed to commune again. “I’m the eldest Birch woman,” Motty said. “I say when you’re ready.”

  And Stella would decide when she left her room. Let the old woman do the chores on her own.

  Stella was curious about the Bible, but at least she had The Book of Esther.

  She’d been reading it every day since she’d received it, dipping into her favorite passages every chance she got, going so far as to whisper aloud her favorite passages. Now she turned again to the first page, the entry for March 3, 1865, and said, “God has seen fit to give us a daughter.”

  The book, thick despite the thinness of each onionskin page, contained twenty-two years of Esther’s life, as told by Russell Birch and then, after Russell’s death, by his youngest son, Morgan, now an old, old man. It was the most delicious thing she’d ever read—and she’d thought nothing was better than Nancy Drew. Days after the communion, the God’s thoughts had faded from her mind, but every time she read The Book of Esther it was like crawling into that cave again.

  Well, almost. Nothing was like touching the hand of God. But this was the closest thing she’d found—that feeling of being part of a mission, a captain riding atop the machine of history.

  She turned the page. Here was baby Esther in the arms of Clara. Turned again, to young Esther bleaching her gown white. Then a teenage Esther commanding her brother to build a church. She could picture Esther pointing her finger at him.

  Hunger finally drew Stella out of the room. Motty had made biscuits and greens for supper. Stella was happy to see her looking worn-out.

  “You take care of that sow yet?” Stella asked.

  Motty gave her a sharp look. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was walking around in circles,” Stella said. “Elder Rayburn said it was about to drop.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?” Motty said. She cursed and went out to the pen.

  Stella smiled to herself. She reached over and took one of Motty’s biscuits, got out her book, and went back to her reading.

  When Stella heard the gunshot an hour later, it almost seemed to have come from The Book of Esther. She scrambled into her coat and pulled on shoes. Outside it was already full dark. A skiff of snow lay across the yard. The tractor was backed up to the hog pen, engine rumbling, but there was no one at the wheel. What was happening?

  She heard Motty cursing. Stella peeked around one of the big metal tractor wheels. A lantern sat atop a fence post at the hog pen. The pig lay on its side, and Motty stooped over it, looping a rope around the animal’s front legs and neck. The air steamed with the heat from its body—an alarming amount of steam, as if it lay on a cook fire.

  Suddenly Motty straightened and grabbed the rifle, which had been propped against the fence. She walked toward the tractor, dragging the other end of the rope with her. Her dress was stained with blood.

  Then Motty spotted her, her murderous glare like a shout.

  Stella realized she wouldn’t be safe in the house. She sprinted away from Motty, across the yard, and then up, into the woods.

  * * *

  —

  moonlight danced ahead of her like a will-o’-the-wisp, but she would have known her way blindfolded. She pushed through Abby’s door without knocking and slammed the door behind her.

  Safe!

  “Abby?”

  He didn’t answer, and neither did his menagerie. She was surrounded by wild animals. Heads, mostly. Four spectacularly antlered deer who looked like they’d just burst through the wall and couldn’t back out. A trio of decapitated bears, mouths agape, teeth sharp, permanently ravenous. A manic-eyed bobcat head.

  A few lucky critters had retained their bodies. Trout swam the walls. A small wolf howled. A fat raccoon squatted in the corner, tiny black hands in the air, begging. And everywhere skeletons: coiled snake spines, fleshless birds with wings spread like a fan of tiny daggers, gape-eyed elk skulls.

  Warming itself by the embers in the fireplace stood Abby’s crowning achievement as a taxidermist: a long-snouted Russian boar, ready to charge, grinning with mischief.

  This was her secret home. When Motty was acting cruel, when Stella was feeling so lonely she could die, this cozy shack was where she ran to. The front room was barely twenty feet long, both sitting room and kitchen, though “kitchen” was a grandiose word for a single-burner cookstove and a metal tub full of dishes. His water came through a spout fed out through the wall to the cistern.

  Motty would have called it a God damn mess. Stella loved it, especially the stuffed animals, though at the moment that boar reminded her of the sow Motty had just shot.

  Stella called Abby’s name again, just in case he was asleep in the back room, the only other room in the cabin. She didn’t even think about opening that door. Never had. She knew without being told that it was a Man Place, private to Abby.

  She knocked, but there was no answer. If he wasn’t here this time of night, she was pretty sure of the one place he’d be. And that gave her some time.

  She dragged one of his rickety chairs to the fireplace and climbed up. The “mantel” was a few rocks jutting out of the stone chimney, but on it sat what were surely Abby’s two most valuable possessions.

  First was an ornately carved wooden box. The items inside had taken on a magical significance for her: an ivory-handled jackknife, a handful of silver and gold foreign coins, and the prize, a bronze war medal with a rainbow ribbon. On the front of the medal was an angel holding a sword, and on the back were six stars, a fancy shield, and the names of a dozen faraway countries: France, Rumania, China, places she’d only read about. The box conjured an entire life of war and adventure and distant travels. She often pictured Abby in the trenches as his best friend was shot and fell to the ground with a surprised expression. Or on a navy destroyer, loading shells into a giant artillery gun. In a port, kissing a beautiful red-haired woman. Then sitting alone in a Paris café, writing love letters that never received a reply. (The woman had died tragically by a sniper’s bullet when she left her house to find a baguette.) Stella could never ask Abby to tell her the real story, because then she’d have to admit she’d peeked.

  Beside the box leaned an unframed black-and-white photograph of three people that had been painted to add color. Abby and Ray Wallace wore cowboy hats and vests. Between them was a skinny, sharp-nosed woman dressed like an Indian in fringe and feathers. Tourist costumes. The three of them stared without smiling at the camera, but their expressions spoke of deep friendship; she was sure of it. In pencil on the back of the photo it said, “Cherokee NC Feb 3 1924.”

  She knew that the woman was her mother. Nobody else had kept a photograph of her—not Motty, not Pa. She promised herself that if she ever ran away from the cove she was going to come here first and steal that picture.

  * * *

  —

  stella went farther up the mountain, following the smell of smoke to a hidden spot she’d visited many times.

  Abby and another man sat beside a fire—two fires, a
ctually. One to keep them warm, the other to boil the mash in Bessie, Abby’s big copper pot. Abby spotted her. “Stella! What are you doing up here so late?”

  “Stars do come out at night,” the other man said.

  Abby laughed. Both of them held tin cups. She understood what was happening; she’d seen Abby drunk.

  The stranger offered his hand. “Pee Wee Simms. I’ve heard a lot about you, little miss.” He spoke with a nasal, northern accent. He was a long, tall man with oiled hair and a pencil mustache that made him look like William Powell. “We heard a gunshot. You haven’t turned us in to the revenuers, have you?”

  “Leave her be,” Abby said.

  “What, have you managed to keep this activity a secret from her?”

  “I been up here plenty of times,” Stella told the Yankee. She couldn’t quite believe that his name was Pee Wee. “I know what a still is.”

  “Do you now?”

  “It’s a machine that turns corn into money.”

  Pee Wee laughed so hard moonshine sloshed out of his cup. Stella had stolen the line from Abby. She didn’t think it was that funny.

  Abby said, “Does Motty know you’re out of bed?”

  “The hog’s sick and Motty’s riled up,” she said airily. “She chased me out of the house.” Stella didn’t want to talk about it, or be sent back.

  “What’s wrong with the sow?”

  Before she was forced to answer, Pee Wee said, “I hope you appreciate that you are in the presence of genius. Abby is a miracle worker—and this, my dear, is his miracle machine.”

  “It’s not a miracle,” she said. “It’s just…science.”

  “Damn straight,” Abby said.

  Pee Wee sat up straighter, suddenly intrigued. “And what does a little girl like you know about science?”

  She resented his tone. Abby said, “She knows this machine backwards and forwards.”

  “Challenge accepted,” Pee Wee said. Stella thought, What challenge? “Question One: Tell me about…” He surveyed the still, pointed at the small barrel between the pot and the larger condenser barrel. Copper pipes connected all three containers. “This piece.”