Revelator

by Daryl Gregory

But Stella wouldn’t come in. She wanted her father to look back and see her standing there. When he got to the top of Rich Mountain she wanted him to look down and see her burning like a bonfire.

White southerners feasted on nostalgia, even the manufactured kind. They loved tales of true country folk, authentic and unsullied, running barefoot in the hollers and living life the way it was supposed to be lived. Nobody

“This is The Book of Clara,” he said. “Do you know who Clara is?” “My great-great-grandmother. She was there when the bushwhackers came.” Hendrick was delighted. “Ha! Yes, she was! But nobody knows what really happened—nobody but us.” He put the book in her hands. It was thin, and the deep red cover was blank.

The Book of Clara Being the First Volume of a New Revelation From the God in the Mountain To Clara Birch, Recorded by Russell Birch, her Husband with Commentary and Clarifications by Hendrick Birch

“It starts with the story of the night the Rebels came to this farm,” Hendrick said. “This is the story of the first time a Birch met the God in the Mountain.” The God in the Mountain. That was what she’d seen.

You’re about to learn how special your family is, and the great things the God has promised us.” “One body, ever blooming,” Aunt Ruth intoned. “One body, ever blooming,” Hendrick repeated. Stella had no idea what they were talking about, but she was alarmed to see that it had caused a tear to well up in his eye. “You don’t even know what you’re capable of, do you?”

Light sliced across the valley, igniting the western hills opposite, the trees burning orange and red under a blue fog. It really did look like smoke, she thought. Autumn in the Smokies made for the world’s prettiest forest fire.

Cars started rolling in soon after Sheriff Whaley and Tom Acherson left, and kept coming like troopships on D-Day, deploying Christian soldiers armed with casseroles and jugs of sweet tea.

The men—seven of them, all of them decades older than Hendrick—one by one shook her hand as they entered the house. They acted like they were meeting royalty, and in a way they were. They were the elders of the Church of the God in the Mountain, her uncles and cousins, all Birches by blood—and she was their Revelator.

Her face seemed more caved in than yesterday, her skin grayer, but otherwise the same as when Stella first saw the body. Death took some time to assert itself. Maybe grief did, too.

Mary asked them if they wanted coffee and Stella said, “Lord yes.” Hendrick shot her a glance. What, was “Lord” too close to taking His name in vain? Her hangover didn’t leave room for worrying about blasphemy.

This was a southern home, and even blood enemies wouldn’t draw swords before coffee and corn bread.

Mary Lynn inhaled sharply. Her father was practically calling Motty a pagan. Or worse, a Catholic.

Hendrick was flustered. He couldn’t say what the stories were without lending them credence. But everybody in the cove had theories about the Birches. You couldn’t stop them from talking.

That girl made him dance in the moonlight and drink whiskey straight from Abby Whitt’s still and sent him on his way with her lipstick on his cheek. The next morning they found that new car wheels-up in the icy-cold Little River. Hillbillies did love a good murder ballad.

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.”

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

“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.”

There are backroads in the cove, and backroads to the backroads, rutted tracks, barely wide enough for a car, that followed the old Cherokee trails up into the mountains and along the ridges. The park service hadn’t mapped them—can’t map what you don’t know about—but

Stella didn’t know what she was talking about and was in no mood for newly invented chores. She had a book to read.

five years on the farm had taught Stella a few things. One: Everything dies. Two: Eat it if you can. Three: Everything that ain’t dead, shits.