I. You returned to find wife and son and the butcher and his wife before the open grave of your second son. You were hued black with soil and your clothes seemed as rags, your jacket held before you in a bundle, but rather than ask of your condition your family gasped with fright, for your eyes glowed with a lively madness.

II. And in the first days of what you called your “ministry” you removed a stack of golden plates from beneath your jacket, and you set these golden plates into a burlap sack, and you tied the sack with twine, and you set the sack in the dankest closet in your house, and you padlocked the door and about your neck you wore the only key. And there you left those plates to sit and molder. And when your wife asked why you locked the closet you explained, “For no reason at all.” And how often you woke to the Almighty’s creature swaying alongside your bed, its wings and the bony hooks protruding from its wings. And when you cried with your hand upraised, “Please, but one more week!” your wife awoke beside you and she saw no creature, nor did she scent its atmosphere, the faintest lingering of brimstone.

And when you found your boy standing before the closet with wide brown eyes and trembling lips you shouted, “Isaac!” and you seized his arm and swatted him upon the rump, and the boy wailed and wept, and as he fled the room you called after him to never again stand before the door.

And as you ate, and as you bathed, and as you rode to the butcher shop, and as you sliced fat-mottled flesh from bone, and as you laughed at the butcher’s jokes, and as you wrapped the chops and the loins and the ribs and the kidneys like glistening loaves and the livers and the jowls and the noses and the hooves and any other requested cut of meat, and as you wiped the gristle from your hands unto the fly-strewn towel, and as you walked the black night, and as you gazed unto the mountain while holding back the sickness, and as you continued into your house, and as you removed your clothes and stepped into your flannel pajamas, and as you lowered yourself against your wife, snoring or murmuring of the children she had birthed only to see die, you heard only the hum of those golden plates, the rustling of the Almighty’s creature along your floorboards, and through the blood crashing in your ears, the thumping of the veins within your neck, the coarse, furious pulse of your heart, you knew Him upon His black mountain, ever and ever again uttering your name into the faint and terrified reaches of your soul: Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph.

III. And you have said you knelt in the yard, whispering, “The language is meaningless to me, a mystery,” and pleading, “I am not the instrument you seek.” And you have said you soon discovered a pair of wire-rimmed glasses on your nightstand. These glasses seemed as ancient as the plates themselves, although they were neither cracked nor dusty, and you understood then their purpose and their origin. And to hold them seemed to place your entire figure within a vise.

And when your boy stood in the doorway you saw him through these lenses. There he seemed a bulge of coal, or a char, or some awful, scorched thing. You flung up your hands, crying out, “Be gone, Evil One!”

IV. Soon the morning came when you told your wife the Almighty had finally chained you fast to the wheel of your “terrible duty.” She said nothing, her eyes wide. Now you fell to your knees, weeping, and her hands fast within your hands, as you cried, “Oh, my darling, His heart is so very full of love,” and by this you meant, “Even if we fled He would find us. No corner could seclude us and no fish’s belly could shield us.”

You led her into the room you called your “office.” There your desk stood swept free of debris save a jar of ink, a crow feather quill, and a stack of loose paper. Now you said, “None but I may see these plates,” and your wife said, “Plates?” and you said, “We must bring His Word to the gentiles.” And she seemed frozen when you bade her “sit,” and “take up the quill,” and “listen well,” for your ministry depended upon her faithful transcription. And when she did not speak or move you led her by the hand, lowering her to the chair with a gentle pressing of the shoulder while into her hand you thrust the quill. Finally she whispered your name so softly it seemed phrased as “?” and you replied, “I will be nearby,” and in the smallest voice she said, “Where?” and when you did not answer she asked again, “Where will you be?” and now you said, “Within the closet.” And so you went.

And you have said that within the darkness was born all the hues of light. And from your lips came the sounds and words of the Almighty’s ministers, the paradise they sought and the lands they pillaged. And you spoke of the doom they found: dead and decaying on the beach, their armored garments rusting and tinted golden under the light of a falling sun, the tide lapping through moldering sockets, and the jut of spears, and the motion of shadows, and the howling of what others have called devils or savages, but now you understood as the lost progenitors of all humanity. And from your lips to your wife’s fingers to the pages before her. How soon her fingers seemed as black as oblivion while the pages of your ministry rose in columns. How she wept for her hand, bent and crippled, and ever the cracking of knuckles, ever her gasps, soft and terrible, and still you did not pause, for the language fell continuous and irrepressible once you traversed the depth of the void.

And you continued without respite through the night and into the next day, pausing not for food or for drink, and when your voice broke and hoarsened your wife transcribed words like “cough” and “wheeze” and “rasping.” And when your boy stood in the doorway wanting dinner, his mother could say only, “There are potatoes to be boiled,” and “You know what to do with a chicken,” while from the closet came the strangled rasping of his father.

After some fifty pages were translated you emerged, hollow faced and pale, the hair fleeing your skull in wild shocks and your bloodshot eyes rocking back and forth. Your voice rasped some incomprehensible language, and you gestured for your wife to lay down her quill. How she gazed at you. And when you had fed and rested you said, “We must bring these pages to the gentiles.” And you laid your hand upon your son, saying, “Your father has been called into the ministry,” and you said, “And so you also have been called into service,” and when he asked, “By whom?” so it was you answered, “By the Almighty, whose terrible word is all.”

V. And so you selected the most pertinent of these pages, those that read “The light is the spirit of the Almighty,” and “When the old people heard any blasphemies of His name they tore the blasphemer to pieces,” and “Justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins,” and “We are placed here, in the midst of a glorious sensible scene of visible things, a world that is truly amiable and beautiful, and may be said to be the image of the Almighty,” and these pages your wife and son copied a hundred times over, while you paced and gesticulated and raved. Thus you issued the Almighty’s new commandments, for you needed not the creature to usher forth His commands—now the words simply appeared in your mind as if they were your own thoughts.

VI. Now before your first mission you led a lamb into the yard, but when your son saw the lamb’s kind eyes and the blade’s cruel glint he wept and fell before the beast. And you could not pry him away. And the boy pleaded. And he wept and wept and he cried, “Oh, Papa, then you must kill me!” So you bargained with the creature, immense and terrible and issuing char with its very laughter, and finally the creature uttered a new proclamation in its awful language. So to your son and this lamb you returned, and this lamb you pardoned with great booming show, claiming the Almighty had decreed the end to all burnt offerings, for all men now stood as lambs of God.

VII. And you commanded your son to place the loose pages of your ministry into the hands of the townspeople, so he went about saying, “Behold, the new words of the Almighty.” And stray dogs trotted in his wake and birds overburdened the trees, watching him by the hundreds. But most citizens he came upon furrowed their brows and sent your son on his way.

And when they mocked your son’s claims now you went door-to-door, smiling and preaching and glad-handing. And when your wife asked to be absented from these excursions you commanded her to walk at your side. And so she went, whispering how she felt naked before the eyes of all, saying, “I did not know it would be like this.” And by this you figured she meant the wife of a great man and prophet. So to her you insisted, “It will become easier. You will see.” What a fine presentation you both made, she in her finest blue dress with her red shawl and feather-trimmed bonnet and ink-blackened hands, while you stood in your soot-black coat, your high collar, and with the onion-slender pages you outheld as you announced, “Brothers and sisters, the Almighty has blessed me with His terrible presence.”

And the servant girls who opened the doors gasped at your eyes, bloodshot and rocking, and you learned to insert your boot into the entry, saying, “I am here by commandment of the Almighty.” And when the lady of the house came you said, “Madam, I am here to speak about the Almighty.” Her pale, severe face as she said, “Aren’t you the butcher?”

And very often you were led into these homes, and very often the children stood silent in their velvet jackets or sailor outfits or their dresses, and perhaps the husband sat puffing his pipe, and perhaps he sat in the library with a glass of whisky, and perhaps he sat on the back porch, gazing at his lawn, or his yard of dust and chickens, or perhaps the small woods he called his, for many a man in those days longed to survey the bounty of which he was master after those hours when he was made to know the smallness of his life and power.

And sometimes the husband commanded you leave, for he was already “too much put-upon” by “maniacs” in his regular hours. And sometimes he allowed you your say. Now you cleared your throat, and the words to follow surely originated from His lips. And sometimes the husband offered you a drink and smoke, for you were known as a “joyful fellow,” and always you declined after your wife glared. And sometimes the husband and wife listened to your language, and sometimes the entire family gathered, and sometimes the smell of woodsmoke, and sometimes the glow of oil lamps, and sometimes the flicker of candlelight, and sometimes you waved a book you said was filled with your “revelations” but was in fact an empty ledger. And sometimes their eyes glazed while you revelated, when you said, “Rebuke the tempter and punish the sin,” and “The inward actings of Grace are invisible to others,” and “Let people be friends and helpers to their own welfare,” and “I propose to my brethren to drop the use of the elements and the claim of authority in the administration of the ordinance.” And if your audience drifted in their attention, you clapped your hands and said, “Consider now what you desire most and the Almighty will whisper in my ear the substance of this desire.” And in a voice booming you continued: “Yes, my friends, He will bequeath me the power to fulfill this desire.” And there were those who closed their eyes as if this would invoke the power you described, and there were those who said, “Perhaps some other evening.” And some offered you a lamb and a dagger as if you required bloodshed, and unto these you said, “He has decreed no more shall we murder the meek.” And now you brought the family onto the front lawn, promising to “conjure his language.” So a liquor was poured onto the readiest bush and now a lit match was dropped. How the leaves and limbs blossomed into flame. And before the bush you crouched, mock-whispering to the blaze, “Speak your secrets.”

And you said the flames from “ancient times” had served to convey messages from the mountain unto the intelligence of “even the humblest fellow.”

And when you were not cast out you revealed what the ash and smoke said: “You desire most that those you love will never die.” And no man could contradict these words, nor could his wife, nor his children. And now you said, “Salvation is found only in the light of the Almighty, and the Almighty is found only through the language of my ministry.”

And maybe only now were you cast out by the boot of the husband, or the hee-haw laughter of the husband, or by the muzzle of the husband’s musket, or the wife’s weeping, or the screams of the children as their yard flickered and glowed with the embers of their shrubbery.

VIII. Soon those who believed your revelations wise and true gathered before your home. And so you held up your ledger, saying, “The sun, moon, and stars have had more worshippers than the uncreated fountain of light from which they derive their luster,” and “There is a difference between having an opinion that the Almighty is holy and gracious and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace,” and, finally, “We have in great measure forgotten our errand into the wilderness.” And these followers lingered in the dust of your yard and they trailed you to the butcher’s shop, loitering there until the butcher tossed them into the street. And when the butcher asked who these people were you told him of the plates you kept within a box, covered in burlap, and hid within your home.

And the butcher asked, “Have I not been as a father to you? And unto your children?” You said he had. And the butcher said, “Why then would you not tell me any of this? Why would you not warn me of what you intended to bring into our lives?” You began to say, “Because the Almighty commanded it so,” but when you saw his fallen expression you said, “I do not know.” And when the butcher sighed, you reached for his shoulder, saying, “I did not think to do so.” And the butcher soon departed in silence.

And your followers loitered your yard through the failure of the sun. They stood as smudges of darkness along the edges. They built bonfires and cooked venison and rabbits, but when a lamb was brought for slaughter your son stood before them, crying out that offerings had been outlawed. So you nodded that the boy was correct. “He no more requires such sustenance,” you said.

Later, the butcher returned, shooting a musket into the weeds, so now your followers fled to the outer shadows of the yard. Now the butcher’s eyes gleamed a terrible light, but when you relented not his posture sagged, and with a voice anguished he sighed. “Do you hate me so much?” he said.

“I hate no one,” you said. “A preacher has only love for the world, my dear butcher.”

Now the butcher demanded to see the plates, and you revealed the Almighty’s decree that none but you could look upon them. But little strength you had for his tears and gnashing—you brought the butcher to your house, and onto the kitchen table you set the plates, covered in burlap, with great noise and ceremony.

“This is them?” said the farmer.

“Indeed—these are the golden plates of the Almighty’s testament,” you said. “See how they glow.”

He shook his head. “I see only burlap.”

“Some glow protrudes,” you said. “There and there—you see now, yes?”

“I see nothing. Pull aside the cover.”

“The Almighty has decreed—”

“Goddamn your Almighty!”

Silence.

The butcher wept. And he wailed: “To do this to me—after I have been as a father to you—”

“—I have only one father—”

“—and gave you land to raise your family.”

“All of this is His land!” you shouted. “What you see here and what you cannot see. From a thousand feet below the soil to the peak of yon black mountain—all of this is His, butcher, and all of this He has decreed as inheritance to my ministry.”

Now upon his knees, whimpering: “Just show me the plates—”

Proudly now, strutting as a cock struts: “You may place your hand on the burlap covering, but you may not look upon the plates.”

“I gave you my daughter—”

With pity now: “This is for your safety, don’t you see? These plates would annihilate you. The Almighty’s light is not for mortal eyes.”

IX. Now strangers approached you on the streets, from the shadows, asking to hold and look upon your plates, and when in a high, exalted voice you insisted none but you could know their holy glow these strangers spat: “Don’t forget who your friends are, fellow.” And some, smelling of moonshine, grabbed your coat until you wrested free, and others pressed you into corners with jagged bottles and pipes to slit your throat and smash your skull, while no one ever heeded your cries, while ever around you the world continued with its commotions and its machinations.

Soon even your journey home proved treacherous, for bandits lurked in the darkness, beneath trees with pistols and knives, wanting nothing more than the glory of your plates and the fortune they would certainly bring.

And thieves slunk about your farm, watched your family through spyglasses, and at night they crept across the yard, hunched silhouettes in the moonlight, peered in the windows, and in the morning the many smudges of their noses marked the glass. Soon even your ceiling creaked at night as they crawled about your rooftop on hands and knees until you brought them down with a musket fired to the sky. How your wife and son wept for these intrusions. How they begged you to return those plates to whence you found them. And some said you now hid the plates in the loose hay of barns, or in the shadows of lofts, or in the dankest corners of caves, or beneath the moldered leaves of the forest. And others said these rumors were of your dispersion, insisting you stored the plates where you always had, although these too had multiple theories about where exactly in your house the plates lay, for your wife and son dared utter your story to no one.

X. As the infamy of your claims spread, more pilgrims and wanderers and empty spirits and dreamers emerged from the roads. On the dust of the yard they constructed patchwork tents of deer hide and quilts, and around fires they gathered and chatted, their faces weather blistered and gaunt, their long, yellowing beards. And you chatted and joked with these men as if you had known them all your life, although in the early days your father-in-law scampered after them, musket drawn, until he pulled up gasping for air. They wandered the edges with spirit-ravenous eyes, and when the butcher quitted his terrorizations they resumed their posture on the yard. And your wife peered through the kitchen window, a musket at her side, while your son attended to his chores. When you found her thus you bellowed for all to hear: “Put aside your weapon, my wife. The Almighty has brought these gentiles and the Almighty will have what the Almighty will have.” And from her place by the window your wife did wonder, “Why are you shouting?”

Evenings you went unto your flock, playing cards and swapping stories of your devotion to the Almighty, and indicating their tents you said you knew such structures well. And some say your visage shown with the deepest sorrow when you said, “For in such places I have long lived, and in such places I have suffered for love.”

And you asked, “Brothers, why have you come to me?” And some said they had always known an emptiness, and some said they feared death above all else, and some said a dream brought them, and some said your humble, unrefined manner called them forth, while others attested to the compelling nature of your story. And some men said the Almighty’s voice approached them in their lowest moments, and now these men spoke of their mortal doubts and afflictions, and, yes, they confessed unto you their frailties and what secret horrors they dreamed at night. And a man named Samuel explained he had forsaken his daughter and wife to hang in the forest of birches. “Such was my mysterious sorrow,” Samuel said. “All my life, this terrible emptiness.” He had removed his watch and shoes and composed a note of farewell, and this note he had nailed to a tree. But at the final moment a voice came to him, saying, “No, you shall not.”

And now as one they feasted, gnawed rabbit meat from spindly bones and tore hunks of blue-spotted bread, and when they had no food your wife brought them soup, and they slurped this oily broth, although what her trembling hands did not spill was often cooled and greasy. And as they ate you hunkered in the shadows, and then finally in the quietest sounds, you wondered what should be done with His new pilgrims.

XI. Mostly now you did not work at all. Through the days customers and busybodies told the butcher they had seen you ministering to the sick and crippled in the streets, and others found you wandering back roads, gesticulating to the heavens, and still others indicated you remained with your pilgrims, and there you passed the day joking and playing cards.

And such a morning came when the butcher declared, “Either you clear this rabble for good or I have to fire you. My God, son, I will have to evict you. Don’t you see that I will banish you from your family if you don’t shake free of this madness?” Gravely you nodded: “I will speak to them now.” So you went unto your faithful, and when you found them, snoring near the faded embers, you called for them to awake. Now they sat upright, rubbing their eyes, while you said, “My brothers, He has come to me in a dream. And there He decreed we will build a great church and there we will preach the word of revelation.” And when they asked where you would build this church, you answered, “The Almighty will guide our hand.”

And when they asked, “When?” you answered, “When our translation is complete,” for you and your wife worked through most days, her hands now gnarled and ever blackened, no matter how she washed and scrubbed her flesh to bloodiness. How she wept to see the quill and ink, set before her. How she trembled to hear your voice, echoing from cloistered rooms.

XII. Soon strange eyes populated your followers, and now black-whiskered men stood on tree stumps loudly questioning how “a butcher’s apprentice, clearly unschooled,” could read such an ancient script. “It is unreadable with the naked eye,” you answered, pulling the glasses from your pocket, and you explained they contained “a great magic.” You said for any other man these glasses would work only as a typical pair, clarifying the natural restrictions of sight, and you said, “In days now long distant, many of you knew my skill with the seer’s stone. Many of you know the power bequeathed me by the Almighty and the riches I once gathered. This is much the same.” And when a great many of these followers sought to question you further, you waved them quiet: “For now you must have faith, for the Almighty insists upon it. In time you will witness a great many wonders, for our Father intends to return us to Paradise.”

XIII. And one morning the butcher approached while you stood amongst your followers, saying, “I have hired a fellow to take your place at the shop.” The way he spoke you would have thought his entire family had perished, this man whose whiskers shone entirely white, his hair thinned to wisps. “My good man, it is understood,” you said, touching his shoulder. “My worries now are of that mountain”—you gestured to the smote blackness—“and the ancient fellow who lives upon it.” The butcher’s stricken expression as he sagged into his clothes, drifted the outskirts of your camp as a mere and fragile spirit. And he spoke unto you no more for the rest of his days, but many nights he was said to speak of you in his dreams. And some said by midnight you had forgotten his name. And some said you had never known it.

XIV. And while you dressed for sleep in nightcap and gown, your wife lay in bed with wide eyes, listening to these crowds’ hymns heard vividly on the wind. “Husband,” she wondered finally, “when will they disperse?” And so unto her you laughed: “Why, my blossom, not until the end of time!”

And when she asked why her father would no more meet with your family you simply looked at her.

XV. After some period of toil a man arrived at the encampment with hat in hand. All were stopped for the finery of his dress, the gentleness of his voice, and how he paused at the head of the walk to smile at the song of a jay. Once in your home he stooped for the ceilings, and when he dwarfed your chairs he crouched pleasantly upon a stool. His calm, simple smile.

“The Almighty has visited me,” this man said, his bland, gentle tone.

“Has He?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “He told me of the marvelous work we will accomplish.”

(Your raised brows.)

“I am to help with your book—”

Interrupting: “How very interesting, because I have received no—”

But already this man continued with his story. He began before the beginning, with his father’s ambitions: come from distant shores to tame the wild by force of will. And he described his father’s sad end, the old man gone from “oaken figure” to “a collection of mere sticks,” and unable to eat or drink the fellow passed on to the mountain with scarcely a rattle. They wrapped this frailty in linen and laid him to rest beneath a slender willow. “For the first of my life I stood fatherless and alone, although I stood in the midst of a great many.” Vigorously you nodded: “Yes, I know of these matters.” And this man continued: “And then I was told all the land before me and to the reaches of my imagination was mine, and so ever after, my wife and I have lived surrounded by a great plenty of barren fields. You see, our abundant land has been overgrown from disuse.” You were silent, considering, and then, “Where is this land?” and when he answered you nodded deeply.

And the creature ever watchful fogged the windows with his blast-char.

So this man was named Martin, although others called him Harris, and still others deny his existence as a phantom or some madness similar. No matter.

XVI. And that night, while your wife feigned sleep, you said unto her, “The Almighty long ago promised me He would send assistance in a man’s figure. I had forgotten. But that man has now arrived.” And into your wife’s silence, you continued: “You will be pleased to know I no longer require your help in transcribing.” When she still said nothing you asked, “Did my wife not hear me?”

Only now did she whisper: “Yes, my husband.”

XVII. And Harris occasionally cried out, “His foul hand is at work!” while he labored, and when you emerged from your closet you found him cowering in the corner or standing on the table, because a page had shifted, or a candle had blown out, for Harris believed the Evil One’s machinations everywhere present in mundane doings. How much effort you expended insisting the Almighty would allow no harm done to those who furthered His designs.

And how Harris moaned when your wife observed him at his occupation, how he covered over his eyes, closed the door and propped a chair there. And so never again was she allowed to see the text or hear the language, and never more did you invite her on your “missions” into town, for now you brought Harris alone. And you admonished her when she wept. And when she said, “I do not trust this man—I have heard queer stories about him,” you bulged the wall in with your fist.

And when you rested in your labors there was lemonade sometimes outside your door. And sometimes you drank and told Harris someday when this work was finished you would hike to the black mountain and together gaze upon its splendor. And this good man wept with simple joy.

XVIII. Now wherever your wife went she listened to the encampment swell, its joyful song and murmuring prayers carried on the breeze. And in this group there were those you had charged with planning the construction of the church, although your wife did not know, so when she watched them through the kitchen window, hunched over unfurled papers, pointing branches here and there, gesticulating with some passion or fury, she believed them plotting some terrible strangeness. She watched warily until the day she could observe them no more, and now she went to where there were no windows, and there she sat, watching the walls in silence.

So you found her one day, and to her you loudly said, “My dove sings no more.” And when she responded not you leaned to her, and repeated your saying. Slowly from the wall she turned, and now she merely looked at you.

“The flute—” you said quietly. “You no more play the flute.”

Now she regarded you with a powerful blankness.

“You used to play the flute, didn’t you?”

Through her teeth she sighed. “Yes, my husband. I once played the flute.”

XIX. And that night, as their fires glowed through the bedroom windows, you said, “There is much doubt ripened within your heart.” When your wife denied this you said, “I have insisted that He must be patient, that your faith will grow, but He insists it will not be so.” And now you took her hand, your voice breaking, for her tears were apparent in the light of the fires, and you said, “Please, you must open your heart. Oh, my wife, I beg of you.” She watched the yellowed glass, the shadows flickering, while in a frenzy now came their songs about the Almighty’s creature. You pulled her hair aside, your fingers across her cheek, and she gave you no other notice. How long then before you went to your closet, and sat before those plates, ever shining?

XX. As word of your church grew, many gentiles arrived in wagons with pitchforks clasped, looking for your plates, asking your pilgrims why they followed a man on his word alone. Your followers answered that they trusted you as “an actual man,” and by this they meant you were in no way schooled or educated or warped by the vanities of life, for you had struggled in the dust and the offal like the rest. And when no others could corroborate the existence of your plates, when not even your wife, or your son, or the butcher could speak with certainty of their existence, there were some who spoke of “opening up that house” to see for themselves. And there were those who said “this is nothing torches and guns” could not sort out. And soon a man you did not know rapped at your door, telling your son to fetch you “before we burn this damn building to the soil.” How your child came to you in tears, babbling of the mob. When you stood before this man, stinking and bleary eyed and some weeks unshaved, he said with his mouth of darkness and rot, “This is your last warning before we take what is ours.”

And when you returned to the house the creature stood within, smoldering and glowing red. And when it opened its mouth the creature yawned a terrible fire, and so you were made to know the way of its path.

XXI. And in the glow of their fires, and in the shadow of their shovels and guns, you told Harris the Almighty had revealed a new mission. Now you copied out a dozen holy symbols, and giving him this scroll you said, “You shall be the steward of this ancient script.” So you bade him journey to a university of your naming. There he would bestow the scroll unto a professor of “antique languages” who would grant the symbols his certificate of legitimacy. But when you announced Harris’s mission your gathered people said, “You send the man who speaks to animals?” for who had not witnessed Harris’s communications with a squirrel or deer he believed to be the Almighty. And you said, “I send nobody unless He first commands it.”

And indeed Harris met with the professor in his office of dust and books. And there are those who say this professor marveled over the ancient script, soon issuing a certificate. And there are those who say he translated the scroll to read “And there shall come a man of the lineage of Joseph who will return His true word to all the land,” but after Harris explained the origin of the plates, the professor destroyed the certificate, shouting, “There is no ministry of angels!” And there are those who say the professor “guffawed himself red and tearful” before proclaiming the language to be “insensible squiggles” and “mere stupid illustrations of plants and animals.” And there are those who insist the professor told Harris, “I worry over you, man,” for he was convinced your “plates” were little more than a confidence game. And indeed he wrote letters to the gentile papers decrying your texts, but only after you had long perished from the earth.

And the news of authentication was cheered greatly within your yard and derided as “lies” and “hogwash” by those who chose to disbelieve the word of the Almighty. But very few followers left the encampments, and much of the turmoil subsided, for indeed in Harris’s absence you had returned to hunkering in the camp, telling jokes and playing cards, and you promised that the Almighty would allow those of “the strongest faith” to see the plates soon enough.

XXII. And now you returned to your book with a renewed vigor—Harris’s fingers dusky with ink, his expression haggard and worn to the nubbin, for you worked this man some fourteen hours a day. And while his penmanship was not as elegant as your wife’s, nor was his spelling so accurate or his punctuation as proper, none could ever doubt his enthusiasm for the work, for he arrived earlier than even you, his quill and ink and paper readied when you entered the room, and none could question his belief nor his earnestness, for he never wondered of what you saw in the darkness, nor did he express concern at any scripture you shouted, no matter how crazed it sounded, although there were moments he could not suppress his wonder and delight, muttering, “Marvelous,” and “Astonishing.”

And when others asked if he hungered even slightly to see the plates, Harris said, “No, I don’t believe so,” for often he had already known their radiance in dreams and visitations, and indeed he had there been promised to know them in person when “the time was at hand.”

XXIII. In this time your son grew and developed, and soon he wearied of standing in your doorway or trailing at your heel, of never hearing your praise or even the commonest expression of devotion or love or interest, for no more did you throw back and forth some ball, or read to him stories from his various books, or even say his name or look upon him with anything but an expression of surprise, and perhaps now you would say, “Oh! You!” as if only now remembering his existence. This son roamed the camp with absolute freedom, and soon he knew every follower’s name, those established and newly settled alike. And he was a great favorite to all, for he carried no animosity within his heart, nor pretension in his manner, nor did he covet the goods of any other, and in fact gave his own to those who had little for themselves. And he listened to all, never joking, but smiling at the jokes of others. And when some animal ventured to the yard he often tamed the beast. Yes, your boy passed many hours in the sunlit dust, stroking a feral squirrel or rabbit, and to this creature no harm would come, for none could bear your child wounded for the slaughter of his little companion. And he was a great favorite of all the children, for he allowed himself abused by the older boys and he wrestled the young ones with tenderness.

And he was often seen walking in the long grasses or strolling into the forest with the freckled daughter of the follower known as Samuel, and there they rested on a log, watching frogs and dragonflies, clasping hands in uncertain mutual silence. How at night she feigned sleep alongside her mother and her father, before crawling into the moonlight at your son’s signal, the hooting of an owl or the tapping of a woodpecker or the pawing of a barnyard cat. They went into the forest, where they traded the language of their affection, and there they were said to lay with each other, although most called this only a posture of sleep, believing they were too young to do any other. And there were those who said Samuel woke one night to her absence, and peering through the opened skin of his tent he saw the slither of her tracks. And there were those who said he took his pistol to the forest with impulse murderous, but when he saw your son’s figure upon his daughter he set his weapon aside, and he returned to the tent without word.

XXIV. When Samuel ventured to speak of the friendship between his daughter and your son, you did not answer the door, nor did Harris, nor did your wife. And there were those who advised Samuel that the friendship would bring favor to his name and there were those who said you would excommunicate him if you knew. And none admitted he feared you could do worse. Soon your child spent his hours at Samuel’s elbow, and he sat for dinner with that family, and never again would he sit with your own.

Soon your son revealed to Samuel and the others that the Almighty had commanded him to take Samuel’s daughter as his bride. And when the boy ventured to your presence you were moaning with your brow upon the kitchen table. And now he called you “Father.” And he proclaimed himself a man, and now you finally saw him before you. “How old are you now?” you asked. When the boy said his age you smiled: “Is that so?” And he insisted on helping with the plates, for “if you have this in you then I must too.” And you answered, “There will be time enough for that, Isaac”—and the boy began to say his name was not Isaac—“for the Almighty has decreed that you will follow me as head of this church.” This was tabulated within your ledger and would be revealed “when right.” And with this announced you again settled your brow against the table. For a long while you heard no sound, and when you looked up the boy was gone.

XXV. Little you saw of wife and child in the following weeks. To see the boy meant you gazed out the window and to see your wife meant it was dinner, although you now seldom dined; most nights now, your wife sat alone in the candle glow, with beef and potatoes and carrots plated for three. And perhaps she consumed these foods with plodding bites and stared at the wall, the table, her hands. And perhaps she could eat nothing at all.

XXVI. So continued your days until Harris came to you, wild eyed and clasping a letter from his wife, where she called the professor’s endorsement “hardly satisfying,” for this wife was a great skeptic. Now Harris beat his head with his fists until blood streaked his brow.

“My fellow,” you cried, “what is it?”

“She means to leave me—”

“Is that all it—”

“—if not for some proof of our labors.”

You clasped his shoulder. “Buck up, and to hellfire with the weaker species, man!”

“She will leave if I do not bring the manuscript.” And he tore his hair in bloody shocks. “Oh, I will die without her!”

Now when calmed you asked Harris of this wife. And from around his neck he drew a gold locket, saying, “There sits my wife, as she has looked in years past.” So this woman in a blue dress, her blond hair tied up, her blue eyes faint in the miniature, and indicating her neck you said, “Is this mark true to her likeness?” And Harris said, “Mark?” And you said, “Does she wear a black mark upon her neck?” and he said, “Ah. Yes. She does. She has always.” And you regarded her some while before you said, “I will see what we can do about this troubling matter.”

So you consulted the Almighty in the depth of your closet, the creature there snorting and scrapping and unfurling its wings within the confines, for the mortal limits of space and time fall aside for a beast of the Lord. Finally you emerged, saying, “You will take the pages of our translation, but no one must know of your journey. And you will show these pages to no one but this wife. And you will return immediately after you have shown her.” How the camp murmured as Harris departed, calling after him to no reply.

And as his figure diminished to the distance you watched the creature follow after like some immense burned vulture blotting the horizon. And when both had diminished you realized for the first in a long while you smelled nothing of brimstone or fires.

XXVII. And now your wife found the door to your room open, and you alone within, and no papers sat before you, nor ink, nor quill, and when she asked, “May I come in?” you smiled: “Of course, my love, why not?” And when she laced her arms about your neck you did not pull back, and when she kissed your cheek your hands found her hands, and now into your ear she exhaled: “Oh, my husband, has it ended?” And to this you laughed. And to this you said, “Oh no, my wife, all of this has only begun.” Now she fled the room and you found her weeping in some distant corner.

Your hand now at her shoulder. “Have faith, my darling,” you said. “If not in me then in the Almighty. And if not in the Almighty then in me.” Now your hand against her cheek, and there such softness as you spoke: “Has He not already blessed us with this lifetime together?”

That night you both lay in the folds of your bed, and now she whispered, “Hold me close as you once did, husband.” You turned to her, your body warm into hers, and now for the first in a long while you lay together as man and woman. So you came to know the distance between the girl you had wed and the woman you now held, and how strange she felt, for the body you had known seemed gone to dust, and the movement of your hands seemed the inspection of a woman entirely new, and the beauty of this woman was the bounty of her figure, curved in ways the girl never was. Such is the fever when it overcomes even a man of the Almighty: soon you were lost in the tasting of her neck and the devouring of her chin and lips, there opened and welcoming. And her taste was a new taste. And the having of her was a new occupation, for she no longer lay beneath you as in your days in the tent, fixed and unmoving, screwed up and terrified of what duty demanded, but now she moved against you, now she grabbed and sucked, and now she chewed, and now she dragged and bucked her pelvis, and now she pressed herself into your mouth, and as you tasted her now she tasted you, and as you pushed into her now she moaned. Now she rent your flesh and the blood sang in the air.

And in the soft light of the morning how gray and figureless was the woman before you. And when she turned over, her eyes tender, smiling, uttering your name with a tone of affection, you looked away, saying, “Up with you, then, for there is much work to attend to.”

Through the window your wife watched you with the ladies of the camp: how they laughed and blushed at your jokes, how natural you made the touch of an elbow or the brush against a cheek. And she commented not when you went to her at night, when you peeled away her clothing, when you fell her across the bed, those wide brown eyes. And now you counted the freckles upon her chest, described them as constellations, gave them new names in place of the old. And in these moments of endearment the childish mystery of old was cast aside for the entirety of years past, and all the days you had known each other, and all the days to follow. And how sorrowful and lonesome was this lovemaking on the ashes of the worlds you had built, only to see them dead and cast away.

XXVIII. And while you awaited Harris’s return so it was the belly of the girl your son tarried with began to bulge, and soon your son announced to you, “We are to marry.” You gazed at him for some while before saying, “Who?” He indicated the girl at camp with her parents, their anxious glances from the fire. And you said, “No doubt she’s very lovely,” although she had not bathed in weeks and her face was clouded with smoke and ash, her figure engulfed by garments loose and bulky. “But loveliness fades—a woman grows husky, she becomes gray, she mounds and mounds. And this says nothing of what becomes of her character. For the love she shows you now she will someday show her brood alone.” You sighed, wrapped your arm about him: “There is much alteration from the girl to the woman, my lad, so beware this one.” And from your pocket you removed a locket, saying, “This was once your mother. You now understand how she has wilted.” And the locket you held before you was Harris’s own.

“But the Almighty has visited me—” the boy began.

“Has He now—” You smiled.

“—and He has—He has—He has ordained our union.”

“Probably you dreamed all this.”

“He appeared in a blinding light.”

“I wonder why He told me nothing about it, my young sir.” Now you patted the boy on the head, although he now stood near your height.

“We have learned from your own lips that the Almighty gives visitation to all.” And the boy’s chest seemed to expand as he spoke. “And from your own lips we have learned the Almighty will share His language with even the commonest fellow.”

Now you put your finger to his chest, and how solid it was, how substantial, and there are those who insist you began to say, “Don’t believe everything you hear,” but instead you said, “Don’t think I won’t remember this, my young Isaac.” And you said, “Then you will clear out of this home I built, won’t you?” and you said, “If you’re man enough to wed, you will lay with this girl under your own roof, as your father assuredly did and as your father’s father most likely did.”

Now the creature awaited you within the room in which you translated. And its eyes burned the smoke crimson. And some say you wept and beat its chest, and some say you wrestled the creature upon the floor, and it left your shirt in tatters and drew gashes along your chest. And some say it gave commands and you merely nodded.

And in bed that night you ran your finger along your wife’s smooth girth, and you said, “I have been told the Almighty will grant us a new son in place of the old.” And you said, “I have been told all of this will be his.” How still she grew. How rigid and cold. And when no passionate entreaty was met with like passion, now into her ear you mewed: “My wife, be reasonable! The replacing of this current son is the Almighty’s bidding, not mine.”

XXIX. And your son went next to his grandfather, professing his desire for this girl. And the butcher only looked upon him to weep. Now the butcher’s wife gave your son a package of salted bacon and a kiss upon his brow, before begging him to return home, for “a young boy’s place is beside his father, no matter how strange.”

And while your wife wept and pleaded your son gathered his schoolbooks and his trousers and his shirts and his jacket and his boots and the quilt and pillows from his bed. And from bedsheets and branches he fashioned a tent on the outskirts of the camp. And within this tent he lay with the girl as a man does with his wife, and he pressed his hands to her belly, and he felt the slow expansion as the life within struggled and kicked. And to her the boy said, “It knows it’s me.”

“Of course he does.”

XXX. In many ways now your fever subsided, and you no more longed to rave within your closet. Such yearning for the greatness of His Word no more ravaged your soul, and through the day now you wandered your camp as a shepherd watches over his flock, stopping to tell bawdy jokes, offering advice on the card games they played. And when you returned to your wife in the night she believed you were again the man she had known before the days of your ministry. She saw not the creature uttering its language into your ear. And in the hours you scanned the horizon for Harris, your wife prayed no rider would approach. And so it was she prayed to the Almighty to curse that man, Harris, offering “any sacrifice no matter how mighty or trifling” to see him made no more. And when each night she closed her eyes your wife saw this man Harris cut apart by knives and ravaged by a thousand dogs, and she smiled to hear his screams.

XXXI. Then the evening came when a wailing was heard from the camp. Eventually Samuel neared with hat in hand, explaining his daughter was ill. “Lay your hands upon her,” he pleaded. So you went into the camp, and there you found your followers massed with hats in hands, and expressions solemn and eyes downcast. And you peeled open the skin of the tent, and there the daughter, her wide-open eyes, glassy and unknowing. Beside her the mother crouched, a damp cloth pressed to the girl’s brow while before her a red and clotted mass, unmoving and expressionless. And your son stood in the shadows, weeping not and expressing nothing through his ashen countenance. And the girl said no words. And she did not buckle, nor did she thrash. And so it was the wailing you had heard was from the mother, now mute and tearless. And you could not breathe. Now you went into the open yard, gasping. And when Samuel came to your side you moaned, “This girl is not ill—she is dead.” How calm seemed the silence before he whispered, “You promised our children would not die.” You looked at him and you could not speak. So you returned to the tent, one hand upon her brow and the other gripping the rags of her shirt, and you seethed: “Rise,” and “Breathe,” and “Move.” And this girl did not exhale. And she did not buckle. And now her once-fevered skin only did cool.

And you went out of the camp and Samuel trailed in your wake. And soon your son stood before you, insensible and sobbing, until you bade him fetch you a shovel. And you meant to wrap your arms about him and sob his name and say, “Oh, my boy, I have known this pain,” but instead you told him, “Such a time comes when a man may see some invention of his flesh returned to the soil.” And to Samuel you said, “The Almighty giveth and the Almighty taketh away.” And he again said, “You promised our children life forever,” and you tried to explain to him, but instead you gestured to the black mountain, saying, “Your daughter lives with Him now.” And this man argued no more. And no more did he weep or allow his wife to weep. And so it was he bade your son to bring another shovel, and he wrapped his daughter and his grandchild in cloth, and together your son and Samuel dug the graves. They returned to their tents in the evening, covered in the same dirt and streaked with much the same sweat. And so it was from that day forth your son called Samuel “Father.” And your son called the wife of Samuel “my other mother.”

When you returned to the porch your wife opened the door the slightest crack, asking through that barely space, “Why are you so pale?” and “Why are you shaking?” and you said, “I cannot say,” and when the door remained open you insisted, “It is no business of ours,” and when the door yet remained open you finally admitted, “Our son is healthy and alive.” Now the door closed. And you did not go to her; this night instead you remained alone, thinking of your first days together on the plain, and the ways you each suffered in the shadows.

XXXII. A day soon followed when a speck showed on the line of the horizon, and how quickly you saddled your horse to meet this apparition. And you rode faster when you saw the creature circling in the clouds above. And you called out, “Goddamn you, Harris!” until you saw the stranger who approached, his face dust blackened, a leather satchel slung over his shoulder. “You are that revelator?” he asked, bringing from his satchel a letter writ in Harris’s hand and addressed to “the revelator.” It was not written in lemon juice nor was it composed in code. And you cursed Harris’s name.

The letter began with recollections of the weather, of his wife’s appearance when he first arrived home, the way she read the pages in silence, the chicken and potatoes their cook roasted for dinner, how they ate in mostly silence. And he mentioned encounters with old acquaintances, the drinks they shared at the tavern, their kind inquiries of “my recent activities.” And so it was Harris told them of the plates. And Harris told them of the translation. And Harris told them where he kept the translation. “Sadly,” his note continued, “I realize too late how I have acted in error.” And you cursed his name, and your hands shook and your teeth chattered and you fell to your knees, weeping. And at your choked commandment the rider read the rest aloud: how Harris returned to find the mud spatter of boots through the parlor, and up the stairs, and into the bedroom, and there “the dresser wherein the pages were kept was dismantled and clothing and drawers strewn.” And so the pages of your translation were gone. “We are looking for them,” Harris concluded, “seeking out the thieves. This is why you have not heard from me in the weeks since our designated hour.”

XXXIII. And you rode through the day and into the night, the creature circling and blotting the sky, the sound of rage throbbing your veins, until you found his property. His yard was a rolling hillside, and the house seemed more like a courthouse or capitol building or castle than any house you had known. And his wife stood in nightgown and shawl, a candle in hand, before the open door. She was nothing like the woman in the portrait. And you two gazed at each other until finally she said, “He is not at home.” You staggered past, calling his name, and from room to room you went, brandishing your riding crop, until you found him in his nightcap and gown, squirming under his bed, his bare legs and feet protruding, and you cried out, “You have damned us all!” His swinish cries while you hauled him from the bed. And the creature beat its wings and you thrashed Harris, the blood droplets leaping from his hands, the back of his head, until finally his wife shouted, “Stop this!” Now you let the crop fall to the floor. “You have damned us!” you wept before all.

You took over his office, and there you smoked his good tobacco and fumed, and when in the days to follow Harris came to seek your forgiveness you said, “Brother Martin, it is not my forgiveness you need seek,” and you gestured to the black mountain, saying, “Don’t you know what He will do to us?” and you said, “My word, man, we will roast in eternal fires if we don’t find those pages.” Now you sought the streets for the men Harris claimed he had spoken to, and when Harris could not recollect their names nor their appearance beyond their “spectacles” and “whiskers,” you said, “What do you know of her whereabouts at the time of this theft?” and you leaned in close, saying, “What do you know of her heart, Brother Martin?”

XXXIV. Those pages were never found. Finally Harris announced, “I will commit any penance to see our slate made clean.” And the creature whispered in your ear and so foul was the brimstone you nearly sneezed. Then you announced His verdict: “You are to bequeath your home and all of the land surrounding your home unto…” and you began to say “me” but you corrected yourself: “… our church.” And Harris opened his mouth, and then he closed his mouth, and then he said, “If that is the Almighty’s desire.”

And when Harris told his wife of his penance she shattered dishes until the air fogged with the dust of porcelain, and the floor streaked with her blood. You found her in the kitchen wrapping her split hand, the black-red-soaked bandage. Your hand to this wound as you asked, “I wonder, good woman, if you know the whereabouts of those pages?” How she cried out when your fingers tightened.

And that night the creature showed to you the ways of your coming greatness.

XXXV. And soon the land beyond what was once Harris’s yard was filled with the familiar tents and smoke and stink, the dung and flies, horses and mules, and the lines of wash buckling in the breeze. And you walked this new camp as a general does, swaggering and calling out, “Some fine land here, eh, boys?” And you began each morning by calling out: “Look sharp, fellows,” or “Boys, listen up,” and typically you followed with some speech on the nature of the Almighty’s glory. Now, however, you told them, “We must begin our temple.” And so the men cut and hauled pines through the grasses—the echo of their labor, their calls of “timber,” their arms and hands sticky with sap, the fires they built coughing green and black fumes.

As you surveyed the work, Harris ventured to your side.

“She won’t even look at me,” he said.

“My dear brother,” you said with a sigh, “we’re fortunate He did not cast us into the fires.”

“She calls you a wicked man.”

“What does your heart say?” you implored. “What does the Almighty tell you?” For you often found him speaking in hushed, reverential tones to sparrows and dogs, believing His voice manifest in these beasts.

Now no more did he question your glory to your face.

XXXVI. And your wife could not suppress her wide smile as you led her through this house. And when she asked of her parents you said, “You are nearly thirty, my darling—it is time to cast off our youths.” And she did not weep or argue, for she saw there were more and more rooms, silk-upholstered sofas, splendid golden-framed portraits of persons unknown, statues of naked children with wings and muscular men wrestling bulls. And touching a clock taller than she, your wife said, “Who knew there were all of these things in the world?” And in the room you called her “recital room” she found a baby grand piano, and how she held you, her kisses and warm, streaming tears. And later, after she ministered to your needs, your wife wondered, “How will I ever keep this house tidy?” and when you said you knew nothing of those matters, she nodded: “Surely I will need a servant girl or two,” and so you decreed this would be arranged. And now she slept on a spring mattress with down pillows, so soft all her aches and miseries seemed diminished to none. And while she dozed that first night you regaled her with stories of the Almighty. And when she rose on that first morning she began to say, “All my faith is in you now,” before she caught herself, saying instead, “All my faith is in Him.”

XXXVII. And you and Harris translated in his old library, taking breaks now to sample the cognac he had squirreled away, the excellent tobacco you each puffed to daydreams of an expedition to the mountain, while outdoors ever continued the chopping of his pines, the milling of timber with long saws, the continuous labor of men who were bankers and farmers and shopkeepers and schoolteachers before they were born anew in the Almighty’s light. Their sleeves rolled to their elbows or these men shirtless entire, their grunts and exhalations with the back-and-forth thrust of the long saw, the flex and ripple of their arms, the pinched red expressions, these men made blond by the shavings and dust of pines, caught on the wind and mounded in the fields.

And when you returned to the manuscript you explained to Harris, “The Almighty has said the stolen pages will return manipulated and cloaked in misinformation to cast doubt upon His word.”

“Yes, yes.” Harris nodded. “Some creeping beast has told me similar.”

And so it was you would not begin at the beginning. Rather, you would begin where you left off, summarizing the first pages of your book within this new book to “counter the machinations of the wicked.” Now you worked with a mere bedsheet suspended between you, and Harris later claimed he “witnessed the celestial glint through the sheets, and the hunched shadow of the revelator.” And when asked if the creature was ever apparent, Harris replied, “Creature?”

XXXVIII. And while you labored at your task your congregation labored at theirs, the pounding of nails, the sawing of boards, the erecting of structures, until one wall was hoisted, and then another, and soon men populated the rafters, walking and hunkering upon them, chewing tobacco and observing the world below. There they worked while wives and daughters watched anxiously from laundry lines, or from wells, pumping water into wooden buckets, and there the men rested, the frenzied rise and fall of their chests, and there they told rude jokes no woman or child would admit to hearing. And in the evenings you wandered the rafters, crouched with your men, told the same blue jokes they told. And when you apologized for the “old habits” of your sinful past they praised you as a “right down-to-earth preacher.” And when you said, “Well, I never was much for education,” many of these men confessed that neither were they, while others said, “Were I not, so I could act by the goodness of my heart alone.” And so it was you knew these men would follow you always.

And now your wife was a helpmeet to all the camp, no more the quiet and downcast of eyes, for now she carried herself “as a lady,” her head held erect and her bosom out puffed. Now at her instruction all the wives and the daughters of the camp brought tins of cornbread and buckets of water to the men while they rested. And your wife carried water and bread to your son, who ate his lunch alongside Samuel. And the two sipped from the same ladle. And they ate from the same plate. And in the evening they sat before the same fire and supped from the same pot. And your wife spoke kindly and softly to Samuel, blushing as she talked, while to her son she said, “Your father would appreciate seeing you again.” In a sullen manner the boy replied, “I’m here, am I not?” And when the women were not cooking or washing you sent word through your wife that the women must till those soils long fallow. Now these women, stooped and dusty browed, scattered seeds while your wife oversaw beneath a parasol, and while the men laid the floors, and the men hammered the walls, and you drank cognac and translated your book with a man who spoke to birds and wilted before shadows he considered of wicked intent.

XXXIX. And you and Harris worked busily, until your voice hoarsened, or Harris’s hand numbed beyond feeling. And from the grasses below Harris’s wife watched the shadows of your figures playing off the walls. And often Harris left you snoring on the floor, although some evenings you remained awake long enough to visit with your wife, who updated you on the progress and the mood of the camp, calling the gardens “flourishing” and the temple “breathtaking.” And when she spoke of your son or some mood or ailment of her own, you interrupted her with the stories you had translated that day. “How the world will tremble before these revelations,” you said.

XL. The evening you proclaimed the book of your ministry complete, the men of the congregation arrived at your porch with torches and shovels, asking to see the plates, for “we have lived in fields of mud and constructed a temple with our bare hands for this book.” And now the boldest stepped forward and then another, until you cried out, “He will cast you into the flames! He will cast us all!” They hesitated before one shouted, “He’s bluffing!” And now you went into the house, and there the room expanded with ancient darkness, and the creature seethed and hissed and the light of its eyes glowed like lanterns lost in a sooty fog. And when you returned, you gestured to a man in a brimmed hat and to a man with long white whiskers and to a young man with wide, searching eyes. “You are the chosen,” you said.

Now Harris whispered in your ear: “And me as well?”

“You are indeed a tragic figure.” You chuckled grandly for all to hear.

Now his back straightened. “This was my house,” he said.

(Silence.)

“How will you publish your book without my money?” Now you again consulted with the creature, before returning with the decree that Harris could “join in.”

XLI. Once in the woods, you shrouded your face, screaming that a light dissolved your hands and peeled open your lids, and that overhead the creature flapped its terrible wings and yawned flames. These men cast silent glances until one cried, “I see it!” and another said, “Oh my!” and the third admitted, “It is beautiful! And terrifying!” When Harris alone saw not your creature, you smiled. “Brother Martin prefers the spectacle of squirrels,” you said. So Harris journeyed into the darkest reaches of the forest, and there he prayed before the swinging shadows of suicides. When he returned he fell weeping for the creature’s terrible beauty, and now when you shouted, “You see it holds the golden plates!” each of the others reached with struggling fingers.

And the creature told these men if they testified to the brilliance and authenticity of your word as the word of the Almighty, they would be named “elders of the new ministry.” So they assented. And when one asked, “Can we not keep the plates in our temple?” the creature replied, “There is no need, for the earthly task is accomplished.”

And when the creature fled in a burst of light you cried out, “He is gone!” and so it was there remained no scorched smell of atmosphere, nor glinting gold of plates. And all in camp agreed you and your followers seemed as those who had experienced a “hallowed state,” for your eyes were glassy and your hair arranged in mad shocks. Now you gathered your flock, saying, “Boys, we have spoken to the creature,” and in this way you introduced the men as elders. There came some applause and some murmuring, and when one woman said, “But there was to be no priests,” you replied, “Who is your husband again?” Now when her husband stepped forward you asked if he wished to question the Almighty, and this meek, trembling follower scuffed the dirt with his bootheel. “No,” he said. “Of course not.”

XLII. When the temple stood as finished you walked the silent aisles, pressed your brow to the floors, whispered to the boards. Now at the pulpit you gazed into that room’s emptiness and spoke words hallowed and now forgotten. And when you lifted your hands, the silent ghost of your fingers and palms remained.

Now the women of the camp filled wooden tubs with well water, nude but for their knickers, dabbing themselves with sodden rags and fatty bars of what they called “soap.” And the men bathed in the nearby river, naked and shameless before the Almighty, laughing and sudsing up and retelling your most outrageous jokes, for there was a great joy in the coming of the Word. Thus cleansed and straightened, the men shaved for the first in months, all now dressed in the finest clothes they retained from former times, the women with their peacock-plumed hats when they had them or their hair up when they did not.

And in the hours before service you did not compose a sermon, nor did you wonder of the substance of the sermon, nor did you consult the books upon your shelves or the book of your composition. No, in your solitude you simply came to know those words you must speak.

From the pulpit you saw the world of your construction, the multitudes now seated and expectant, and none of them knew you as “the orphan boy.” And to your wife you looked, and to Harris, and to your son, seated with Samuel and his wife, and now to those who waited through these moments of hesitation and silence. Now with the first cracking of your voice in this cavern of a room, you said the Almighty had visited you, that you had journeyed to His mountain and there you had known all of the valley below, and He had said, “This world is for you and those you love.” And He said, “You will be known by all as a man of revelation.” And He said, “There will be no gatekeepers, for all men carry divinity within.” And He said, “All men shall stand as priests.” And He said, “The names of women will be cast to the dust.” And He said, “They will be known as Wife or Sister or Daughter or Mother.” And He said, “And she will stand as a helpmeet to her priests, to her brothers and fathers, and to her husband before them all.” And it was said you puffed your chest, growing into another man, strutting as a cock struts. And all spoke of your eyes, fevered and wild, and all seemed possessed in their grip, and indeed many wept and leapt to their feet, crying out “Hosanna!” and many fell, raving in tongues and thrashing in exaltation. And when they woke they remembered only the love and power of His embrace.

After service many fell at your feet, and you said, “Rise up, brother, for no man shall ever again belong at the feet of another.” How flushed you were, glowing with His power. How your heart pulsed. How you said, “We must expand our coffers,” and then you corrected yourself, saying, “Congregation.”

XLIII. Now you traveled from town to town in a donkey cart illustrated with paintings of you clasping the plates, crouched beneath the tremendous horror of the creature, and you walked door-to-door in a new top hat, black waistcoat, high-collared white shirt. And sometimes your wife journeyed with you, and sometimes you found your son with Samuel. And when he would not come along you took him roughly by the scruff, and now sullen and silent he joined you door-to-door. And you preached that you followed the way of the Almighty “for the eternal welfare of my son, whom I cherish more than my own existence.” And when the boy refused to praise your church you cuffed him as you ambled to the next house.

And you proclaimed the era of smoke and blood and offerings truly gone, and you iterated that this would be an era of love and tithing. And you proclaimed houses would be built, for no more would your congregation molder in the dirt. And you proclaimed the publication of your book. And you ordered the skins and heads of lions, and you hung these in your library, your parlor, over your bed, and there the impressive shadow was cast, and often you were found, lost in thought, gazing at their frozen snarls. And you explained, “Someday, when the coffers allow, I will import them live, and they will fill this house with their roaring.” Now expenses only increased: traveling salesmen exhibited rare papyrus scrolls you absolutely needed, and you and your wife and ministers required many new garments, and your wife desired dishes to replace those destroyed, and it was said soon one temple would not be enough. And the bottom of Harris’s funds was surely nearing. So you doubled all tithes.

And to the boys too young to work you proclaimed, “Jobs are everywhere!” and soon they swept floors and cleaned streets and worked on farms and in factories and mills. And you proclaimed, “Labor builds a character you will someday need, for each of you lads will become a priest, and you will tend to your own spiritual flock, and you will need to know what it means to suffer under the rule of another.” And those men who already had work were compelled to find more, and those who labored only on your land now opened bakeries and shops, and those who sang or fiddled gave performances in town squares. And all men to some industry, for all men must tithe in what you called a “marvelous harmony.”

And as the cash heaped into hats and baskets, you wept, saying, “See how He smiles from His mountain at your devotion and sacrifice.” And many women wished to work at jobs in town and to them you said, “Tend to your children,” and when they said, “Our children are grown,” or when they said, “We have none,” you said, “The Almighty commands you and your priest make some,” and when they said, “I have no husband,” you said, “A woman without a man is as a cart without a wheel or a horse without legs.” And you touched their elbow or their shoulder or their chin, and you said, “Come now to my office and we will discuss this matter further,” and you led them inside, where it was said you “discussed eligible bachelors.”

XLIV. And when your coffers swelled you ordered the first printing of your book. And soon volumes arrived, crated and stacked in a wagon, and deposited onto the dust of your yard. And the children ran from their tents. And the women ceased their knitting, or their darning, or their washing, or their cooking, or their weeding. And now you bade some lovely blue-eyed daughter to fetch your wife. And while you split open a crate children swarmed and strewed packing straw to the wind. And copies were passed from woman to woman and all marveled at the heft. How many young ladies now came to you, saying with admiration, “You translated all of this?” And they smiled, batting their eyes, until your wife attended to the scene with her quiet, dignified air. And now those ladies returned to their chores, while you said to your wife, “My darling, I owe all of this to you.” She smiled, saying, “Do you? Really?” and you asserted that you did, but when she opened the book you laughed: “How curious is my dove!”

And when the priests returned from their labors you dispensed the literature of your new ministry and bid them study well. Soon all stooped, reading and exclaiming at the revelations within. And the night was populated with the noise of fathers reading to their children while their wives listened at the door. And so it was they learned of how holy men in armor and plumes had journeyed to these lands in centuries past, and so too had wicked men. And so the war between these wandering tribes had thrown both the wicked and the good under the pall of terrible ignorance. And in the absence of the Almighty the world had been given over to drink, gambling, fornication, false idols. “The stain of the gentile hordes,” you commented, “is thick upon the land.”

And you walked amongst them, saying nothing, nodding and suppressing a grin at the adulation of your audience, for how you swelled when they wept or cried out or turned a page with insatiable swiftness. How you said with hands raised, even when none said otherwise, “Thank you, but I was merely the conduit.”

XLV. And now you made missionaries of all wives and daughters and sons, and these went forth with your book. And unto all who exhibited genuine interest they bestowed a copy of your text, and now many missionaries returned with strangers who immediately constructed their own tents. So it was your congregation swelled with strangers wandering, constructing tents, tithing reluctantly.

And houses were purchased and houses were constructed. And soon your yard was emptied of tents and mud and horses. Now all of what you called the “neighborhood” belonged to the men of your church. How fine it was to wander cobble-paved roads without fearing to meet an unruly gentile. And while the men labored so you could extract your tithes, the women tilled your gardens, and they cooked and washed and darned and knitted, and with much pride now in this time you said, “The quality of a community may be measured by the sweat of its laboring women.” How you enjoyed the house-to-house stroll, taking tea and joking in the parlors with wives and daughters. And when their husbands and fathers returned from their labors, these ladies spoke only of “our dear Revelator,” the coarse wit of your jokes, the way your eyes twinkled in the light, the righteousness of your posture.

XLVI. From the pulpit you tore the gentile gauze from the eyes of all. And you preached of the sins and follies of the world, and you preached of the godliness of man. And all swooned before your uneducated passion. And many fell to the floor shaking and foaming and speaking in tongues. And many rose to their feet with cries of “Hosanna! Hosanna!” Now your priests were asked to sermonize, and so they rose and raved at the gentile’s vice, the harlotry of his ladies, the “wayward nature” of his youths. They claimed his lands were overrun by the “pestilence of sin,” and they said such a pestilence must be “eradicated” if mankind were to survive, while from your chair you cried “Hosanna!” and all cried “Hosanna!” after you.

And you preached, “Best is the woman who is silent,” and “Woman, stand close to your man, praise his ways, and nurture his spirit, for he is your priest, and your fortunes are hitched to his.”

And with these preachings your wife ceased to attend service, nor would she speak to you or look upon you or grant you the favors owed to all husbands. And you prayed hard on the matter, receiving finally a vision instructing her to choose the hymns for your services. And through her bedroom door she said, “Choose?” and you said, “Perhaps you should compose one or two as well.” And if she pleased the Almighty, someday she may compose a hymnal of her own. Now she rose from her room and prepared you a breakfast of bacon and eggs and hotcakes. And all were astonished and gratified by the sight of your wife finally toiling in the kitchen. And so it was from that day forth your wife labored always to make your favor, outworking even the servant girls, cooking only the foods you desired, dedicating her every energy to darning and washing clothes and plucking weeds from the garden. And when you returned home she dropped her tasks to massage your shoulders, to coo into your ear, and when you complained of a stiffness in your feet she removed your boots and massaged those soles. And when you said your nerves were frayed she fetched your pipe, your tobacco, your matches, and a glass of brandy. And she attended all your sermons, crying “Hosanna!” the loudest. And her selection of hymns was praised by all for their grace and piety, including “My Faith Looks Up to Thee” and “The Spacious Firmament on High” and “Work for the Night Is Coming.” Indeed, her former airs were soon forgotten, and now all agreed your wife was the fulfillment of the female in the eyes of the Almighty.

XLVII. Each evening you walked along the avenues of what you called “our town,” and you watched the houses of your congregation, the smoke from the chimneys, the shadows moving within. How distant the mud fields must have seemed. How long ago the farmyards. And some nights you found cripples in the mud and vagrants roaming the dirt roads, and to these you bequeathed a new testament until they crawled away or spat on you. And some nights you walked to the boundary of your settlement before returning home. And some nights you continued until you came to a clearing and there a lake, the moonlight flickering on the black water. Here you sat in the silence, and reflected on what you had built and the world to come.

So there followed a night when you met a man in the clearing, hunched in the shadows before his fire. He called a man’s name into his cupped hands, and you knew his voice well, echoing along the years. And your hands shook with ancient loathing. And your throat tightened with sick and madness for this man who knew what you had been. And your teeth rattled. And from the hammering of your heart came all the sounds of eternity. And you asked the Almighty to make hard your emotions and guide now your hand. Now the moon was obscured by the immense darkness of the creature, and so the beast’s ancient language pulsed within your blood. And from the soil now you took a rock, and in the stink of the soil was the origin of life, and in the loamy musk was the decay of father and mother and child, and the future decay of wife, and your own foul dust to come. And you crept to the farmer. How ancient and gray, how easy to cave in and smash, to render into timelessness. Now he turned to you, pulling aside his hat, and in the light of the fire he said, “I know you.” From your hand the stone fell, and now a second man approached from the lake, a bucket swinging from his hand, the doomed thump of fish within. And this man proved identical to the man before you. Men of your age, stout men of haunted gaze. And they ignored the rock fallen. And they ignored your eyes, crazed and livened. And the seated man said, “You’re that preacher, so called?” Vaguely now you nodded. “We were coming to see you, Preacher,” the seated one said, and smiled.

And now you thought to flee, and now you dreamed to retrieve the rock, and now you longed to summon the creature’s great horror and gnashing. Instead you whispered, “Were you?”

“Yes, Preacher,” they said. “We surely were.” And now they told their tale of woe: Their father was a righteous man and a devoted farmer who one night did not return home. How the “creditors lined the road” and the family farm was lost. How the mother soon followed him to the grave while the brothers then devoted their night hours to the taverns and slept under the stars—

And you said, “What of the boy?” and they said, “There was no boy.” Words spoken with certainty. And they smiled to look upon your fallen expression. And your vision seemed to cloud, and you settled to the dirt, while the brothers watched you. And you mumbled, “Wasn’t there some boy?” And the seated brother smiled. And the other brother said, “We were the boys.” Finally, the seated brother said, “Once, long ago, there was an orphan who lived in the barn, but he died of a fever years before.” And you saw the dead pale face in the hay. And you heard the animals below. And you felt the body carried through the yard. You shook your head: “No, not him then.”

And the creature shifted in the night. And its red eyes glowed.

“Our sister, however,” one brother said, and you blushed and coughed and looked away. “Your sister,” you said. They quieted and looked at you, and you motioned for them to carry on. Finally, they continued. “Our sister,” one said, “by then was married. We believed the husband to be a fine fellow, but soon he became known as a… as a man about town, and after some while…” And the brother’s voice trailed, before resuming, “… ever after our beloved sister has lived on the mercy of ladies’ societies. Such is our sad lot, Preacher.”

And now you regarded these men, their rough postures and brooding shapes. All your days found in the silence of this moment. And now you trembled to speak: “Come, join my church,” you said. “And bring your sister. For my wife and the wives of the others will take her in as their own.”

And these brothers were not surprised at the offer, for the Almighty had come to them in the night, foretelling this event. Now you three clasped hands in prayer, and now one brother fell to uttering in tongues. There on the ground he foamed and babbled and trespassed the void. And when he fell silent you commended him on these utterances, for having pried from the firmament “a most ancient sound.” But when you asked the other to offer words he merely mumbled that he was not given to fine speaking. And you embraced them and called them each “brother.” And you said, “Now you and all you love will live forever.”

XLVIII. You returned at dawn, covered in dew and dust, and now you announced to whatever follower you met on the street that a family would join your cause, and to a woman at random you said, “You must sacrifice your home.” And that night the brothers held a feast in their new home. And all sang and danced and stuffed themselves with roasted duck and venison, and even after the fiddler tired and slouched to a wall, many continued in their jubilee. How many couples fled to the lawn, barefoot now, falling into each other, in the shadows, the moist grass and smooth dirt. And days later the sister arrived, attired in a widow’s black gown and veil. And to the vocal brother you asked, “On account of her husband’s death?” He shrugged. “This is the first I have seen her in such garb.” She pulled aside her veil as she emerged from the carriage. She was aged, full in the face, in the figure, but you knew her all the same. And when the other wives emerged, chattering and calling out their various greetings, you knew only the woman before you. Soon your wife pushed past, taking the sister’s hand. “I am the Wife of Revelation,” she said. “Welcome.”

XLIX. In the days to follow, many priests—the young and the single and riotous, the longtime married whose eyes glazed when their wives or children spoke, the freshly married who lamented their newly figured “shackles”—gathered in the brothers’ parlor, playing cards, telling jokes, clouding the air with smoke and streaking the floors brown with their spittle. How you avoided the commotion of this house as you walked the streets. How you crept past, lingered behind trees, spying on the windows for some shadow of the sister. Sometimes the brothers sighted you and called you in, and when you demurred they persisted: “Don’t be a stick in the mud, Prophet!” Now, while the brothers laughed and joked and proclaimed their skills as gamblers and womanizers, you watched from the back shadows. And when the fathers of pretty girls were not in attendance the brothers spoke freely of growing curves, or the lascivious glances they believed forthcoming from the sisters of men not in attendance. And sometimes the men winked and said, “You give me a week and I’ll have that ass in my bed.” And men you had ever known to be faithful and good-hearted cried out, “Why bother taking her to bed? What’re outhouses for?” And all fell to laughter and cackling. And you did not laugh. And you did not speak. Some later said you suppressed your humor, and some said you were “already nipped at the nuts,” and when one of the brothers called out, “Why so silent, Preacher?” some of the men smiled at you. And perhaps you blushed, and perhaps you shrugged, and perhaps you feigned a yawn, and perhaps you said what you hoped was a joke, although in the presence of these brothers you never could find your voice.

And some nights these brothers pulled you aside, asking of certain women of the congregation: “How did So-and-So’s wife taste?” or “I bet she’s wild in the sack.” When you pledged ignorance they laughed: “Boy, you are the funniest preacher I ever met.”

And other nights these brothers asked the men at their table if they feared “our preacher here.” Did they lie awake, anxious over your laws, your decrees, and your priests smiled, and one said, “Why, Preacher here wouldn’t hurt a lamb.” And the brothers became quiet, saying, “You see?” and one brother said before all, “Were we in authority this fellow would lose a lip or an ear,” and the other brother said, “Or a house,” and both concluded, “Or a wife.” Now from the shadows you said, “But you are not,” and these brothers cupped hands to their ears, saying, “What was that?” They laughed until their faces purpled, until the whole house echoed and shook with guffaws, until you forced a chuckle from your own throat. And then they stopped.

L. And another night Harris chased a stray cat through the brothers’ parlor, begging of it remission of some recent sin, and when he hunkered to the beast the brothers pelted him with lit cigars. And while the cat fled Harris yelped and cried for his flesh singed. Now the brothers hooted, and then all others followed into laugher. And it was said that you laughed the loudest.

So the next day Harris came to you, saying the Almighty had told him to trust not the ways of those brothers. “What do we need of them? Were we not following a righteous path before they came?” So it is said he went about telling this to a great many others too.

And when Harris disappeared into the woods only his wife worried of him. And when you told the brothers to seek him out they laughed: “Ask yonder cat where its friend is.” So you alone went into the forest. Deep in the shadows you found him, clawed open and made a house to all manner of creeping things. You found him eyeless and lipless and mostly chest-less, leaves and soil kicked upon him, surrounded by the scattered tracks of various animals of the forest. Here also were the tracks of another man, but these you did not inspect, for you told yourself they were the work of the wind, or some hiker long ago—no matter the yellow eyes and smoldering lips that whispered otherwise from the heavens above. And you made him a shroud of leaves, and now finally you covered him with your jacket. And you did not weep. And you said no words but words unheard and asking forgiveness.

So you told his wife that you found him praying to the squirrels, and from them he received a mission westward. Such was his simple faith. So his wife wept, and she called you a “thief” and a “murderer,” and at dawn she was gone, never to return.

LI. Now you proposed an expedition to the black mountain, with the brothers and those elders who could be spared from work.

Your elders loaded packs with tarpaulins and poles and jerky and bread and canteens heavy with water, while you carried along your book and your ledger and a pencil. And in the evenings you sat before a fire while the brothers drank from a flask, and their eyes swam and they jeered at the others, the mountain, the Almighty, and the Almighty’s Word. So the elders watched you say nothing to what the brothers spoke.

And one day along the road you asked a brother about the orphan who had lived with his family. “You said he died—were you just saying that?” And the brother smiled: “Am I the one who tells stories, Preacher?”

And when you reached the mountain the brothers insisted on scaling to the peak. Now you alone refused to climb, for many had fallen before the terrible light of the Almighty. “It is not our time to ascend,” you said. So they went without you, and you watched as they went into the mist. And in the evening you built a fire and jotted into the emptiness of your ledger. And for three such days you waited. And no voice in the silence came. Finally they shambled down the mountain, slurring and bloodshot and covered in black dust.

“Did you see anything?” came your voice.

“He must not have been home, Preacher,” one of the brothers answered, and now his fellow climbers smiled with dazed merriment.

LII. During this period came many of your greatest revelations. And when He bade you preach, you bade your wife clang bells until all the wives and children and priests emerged from their dwellings. And dinners went uneaten—plates pushed away, the flies alone feeding. And the studies of children too went undone; indeed all chores and hobbies and obligations were nothing against their obligation to the Almighty and His Preacher. And they thronged the streets at your summons, little boys darting in circles, mothers calling for them not to tumble in the dirt, while little girls skipped in velvet jackets and skirts. And some children sang hymns and some wives and priests joined hands and sang along. And all songs ceased when they neared the temple, silent but for the tittering of children as they filed into their seats. Finally the brothers and their sister filed into the back row, she dressed in mourning, her eyes averted.

You called this temple the “House of Revelation,” for here the veil of dream was cast aside. And within this temple any earthly name you held was cast to the wind, for here the Revelator alone remained. And while you preached, and as you sermonized, women swooned and men raved and children sweated, eyes bulging and hearts thundering, and many nights these children woke screaming the name of His creature. How many children dreamed this beast in the whirlwind, the howl of flame. How many dreamed himself or herself whisked through the air by rough beating wings, their dream-throats hoarse and broken. And when passing carriages heard this jubilee as if from on high the travelers crossed themselves, or they entered the temple, and soon they too fell under your sway.

And you preached the narrative of your book, how those “original peoples” came in ships from distant lands, dressed in golden armor with horsehair plumes. They went in search of wealth and lost their souls. They became as savage as animals. Now they wandered, darkened by the fires, in ignorance of His Word, cast out of Paradise and drifting. How their souls screamed in agony from the fiery pits for this ignorance, although they were by birthright “His chosen people.” And at first you preached how judgment could not come until the last of these natives were eradicated. And then it was your wife who took you aside, debating the point, and soon you insisted the natives be brought before you and converted into “soldiers of light.”

And you preached the Almighty was once a man of “flesh and beard,” who “walked the land on two legs,” eating “the foods a man eats,” drinking “what a man drinks,” and tasting “the fruits of woman as a man tastes.” And He knew the sorrows of the heart and He knew the anguish of existence, for He was born of dust as a man is born of dust and He returned to the dust as a man returns to the dust, but He ascended to the top of the black mountain and was born anew in a transcendent light. And you preached, “You and all you love will ascend,” so long as they tithed and obeyed the Almighty’s Word, which was the words from your lips, and so long as the women and their children obeyed the words of their priest, which was the word of men.

And you preached an end to liquor and tobacco, and you preached an end to “games of chance,” and you preached an end to visits to “dens of iniquity,” and you preached an end to novels, ladies’ magazines, and all other “materials lewd and idea giving.” Now you heard the grumbling of many, born of late nights at the brothers’ house, the brothers themselves intoxicated on banned liquor proposing, “Perhaps what we need is a new Preacher.” And when one man professed his belief that your word came from the lips of God a brother said, “Maybe what we need is a new god then.”

So now you called the brothers before you. They were tall and loutish and cocky and swaggering, but you were the Revelator, and your book was the light of revelation, and into your heart reached that black creature, and now in tone cold and true you said, “Allow me to fill your days with a more splendid duty than loafing.” And you told them you had considered at length this matter of “discipline,” consulting His creature, who suggested you put together a trusted crew. So you told the brothers they were to head this crew, enforcing your laws and dictates with a “loving cruelty.” And the louder of the brothers said, “Finally.” Soon they went from house to house in black masks, kicking open doors, brandishing knives, piling wheelbarrows and wagons with what forbidden wares they did not confiscate into sacks and under coats. They built incineration piles in the center of the neighborhood, and while the whole of your neighborhood gathered you doused them with liquor and lit the flame, admonishing the wicked hearts of even your sturdiest followers.

And you preached against all other preachers and prophets and teachings. And you preached against those who worshipped the trees as gods. And you preached against those who shook and foamed and refused His commandment to multiply. And you preached against those who preached in churches and in temples, and you preached against those who called for the liberation and elevation of women, and you preached against those who called for the freedom of the African slave. And you preached against those who preached in tents. And you preached against those who studied the Word of the Almighty in schools, those “advisors” and “experts” and “gatekeepers” who claimed for themselves authority over the remission of sins. Who claimed they could conjure His blood and flesh from common household goods. And from their heaping coffers they crafted idols and golden faucets and other such obscenities coveted only by their sinful class. And what a lather you inspired, the cries of “Blood, blood, blood!” when you preached against the preachers, and the books of the preachers, and all the other churches and philosophers of the land. And when you said the ministers of the Evil One walked this land in the guise of agents of God, there were cries of “Let’s get ’em!” Now you calmed them with the waving of your arms, saying, “Let us not respond with our wrath. At least, not until we are better prepared.”

LIII. And when the other preachers heard this news they said amongst themselves, “It might be time we burn down that church,” and they added, “But let’s make sure all of them are in it.” And they made plans. And they readied torches. And now when you walked their gentile streets you knew the pressure of their eyes, the gust of their whispers, even if their doings on loose inspection appeared as normal gentile doings.

LIV. And many priests now rose to preach the language of the Almighty. And some preached from scraps of paper. And some preached from memory, their eyes searching the ceiling. And others preached spontaneously. And some preached with voices so soft the congregation cupped their ears, the brothers in the back row shouting, “Speak up!” And some preached with red faces, thumping the pulpit. And others preached with stutters. And others preached mumbling. And many preached how the Almighty desired for “young lads to obey their fathers.” And there were those who preached to “suffer not the gentiles.” And there were those who preached the glory of the kingdom to come, for they had dreamed the top of His black mountain and known the spoils, the heaped golden splendor, and they had known their dead, in the guise of marvelous birds, perched there and watching.

LV. When your wife’s hymnal, printed and bound, arrived in crates, the congregation sang. How quiet and blushing was this woman as she received her congratulations. And that evening as she ran her fingers over the pages, as if the grains of the paper did impart some further knowledge, she began to speak of perhaps a second hymnal. Now you spoke loudly over her thoughts: “Yes, perhaps it is time I wrote another book—there are so many revelations to tell. An excellent thought, my wife,” and you kissed her brow.

“Of course, my husband,” she whispered.

LVI. And when an awful breath of flame streaked the night sky, lighting the streets as in the day and making invisible all the stars, you began to preach the word of the end of time. For in the final hour man will become wicked and greedy, and the governments will be dissolved, and the good will hide in the mountains, subsisting on honey, pheasants, root vegetables. And the skies will light with balls of fire, and the skies will fall before periods of darkness. And while in years past the destruction came by flood, where man survived atop some mountain, or within some boat, this will prove the final hour for all. There will be earthquakes and fires, and there will be plagues, and bodies will swell fat with blackness and cough blood as thick and putrid as oil. And whatever man has domesticated will turn against him and assault him. Now man will fall against the gnashing of his hounds and his horses and his mules and his oxen, coughing blood and broken teeth beneath the furious trample of their teeth and hooves. And the creature of the Almighty will sharpen its horrid sickle. And bodies will fill the streets. And ships will drift with the deadweight of entire crews. And mothers will forsake their children. And wives will denounce their husbands. And entire populations will be sought out and murdered as scapegoats. And men will lash themselves with iron-spiked whips, spreading the ground with their blood, crying out, “Mercy! Mercy!” and “Peace! Peace!” They will claim to heal the dying and they will claim to raise the dead, and they will tell stories of their meals eaten with the Almighty. And they will murder priests. And they will ravish the flesh of their congregation, making bloody love to their parishioners. And many dead men and beasts will cover the ground, the air rife with their pestilence. And when the last of the people can find no food they will eat the last of the tree bark and the final strands of grass. And then the wicked will murder their brothers, and these they will feast upon. And mothers will eat their children, and wives will eat their husbands. And tornadoes will diminish towns to the dust, and hurricanes will pull cities into the sea. And the sea will blacken, and mountains will explode in fire, and locusts will fill the skies, until ears bleed from the force of their hum. And from the heavenly darkness shall come yellow eyes and the most ancient of beasts will unhinge its jaws, devouring the sun and the moon. Now the world will fall into winter. Now long hours of sleep, for even the Almighty will weary. And when the last cock crows upon the scarred land His ancient eye shall blink open, and He will stand in judgment over the good and the wicked. And the world shall be cast into flame. And the world shall be dissolved. And from the molten ash the mountains will rise anew, and the fields return shimmering. And the righteous will be called from the soil, and the sinners will be cast into flaming pits. From the loam the good will rise, as they were in life, nude but for the shroud of soil, reborn and cast anew in the Almighty’s image. And the end will be known as the resurrection of the saints, and the trumpets of His creature will radiate across the heavens.

LVII. And the brothers rose to preach a return to the “grand old days” of offerings. With great longing they recalled the final bleating struggle, the hot splash of blood, and the rank, delicious burning flesh. How the brothers’ eyes glowed, and their throats filled with blood. That night they stumbled the streets, drinking from substances banned. Here they beckoned to a stray dog with meat scraps and kissing noises, and they seized the animal by the scruff, and they slit that body gone limp, and blood gushed to the street. And they folded their hands into trumpets, calling out, cackling, “O God, O God, save us O God.”

And when some came to you with this news you could only say, vaguely, “Yes, I see.”

LVIII. Now others rose against you, claiming revelation contrary to your preaching. And many of these said, “The voice of the Almighty came to me in a flash of light.” And some preached from sheets of paper they insisted contained the dictated message of the Almighty. Many were against the concept of the Almighty having once been a man of flesh. And others wanted the names of their wives and daughters returned, although no man sought to diminish man’s dominion over woman. And others preached against the ban on substances. And others preached against tithing. And others abhorred the houses they shared, or the houses you put them in, for the Almighty insisted their families belonged in bigger houses, or more rustic houses, or warmer houses. And all insisted the Almighty had come unbidden, as they shaved or walked to work, or during the lulls of the afternoon hour, as a voice much like any other, perhaps even in their own voice. For you had once preached that men in the grip of revelation must trust the conviction in their hearts and that the language of their mind was also the true language of the Almighty.

And while these men preached you flushed crimson and shifted in your seat, and the brothers cheered from the back of the church.

LIX. And the more you preached of the divinity of man, the more revelations your congregation received, and soon you could not preach for the preaching of all the revelators in your midst. And many of these men now claimed the Almighty desired no “Preacher” at the head of His church, for all men should share in the making of laws and rules and revelations. And at this pronouncement you swayed and gnashed and foamed, and you shouted that you knew a bursting light and the stink of brimstone. Now you were “thrown” from the pulpit and you lay quivering on the floor, lost in some grim unconscious state. When you awoke you said you had wandered the mountain, and there He had warned a time of many false revelators had come. “I have seen your faces,” you seethed. “He has shown me your ways, and dare you again speak, or mutter, or wink, or gaze in knowing ways, then He will extinguish us all.” And now one of the brothers cried out, “It is true! There glows yonder mountaintop,” although no temple window opened to His black mountain. And several men now murmured it was the truth, while a young boy wept and several young girls screamed at what they called “an awful light.”

LX. That night the brothers told you of the many “fine young ladies” they had known since moving to your town. How “pliable” the girls were in your congregation. The brothers’ slithering eyes and wet lips, their darting tongues. And the brothers described many methods of copulation foreign to your understanding—indeed, many instruments and tools. And they said, “Have you never heard? Why, there are books.” And the vocal brother said, “Do you know how many wives those old prophets had?” How you blushed when the sister entered, offering you tea and a cake. Abruptly you rose. “This is all for tonight, gentlemen,” you said. “My old bones get awful weary at these late hours.” How strange you felt under the moonlight. How you seemed another man in the open air, as if you were barely alive.

And upon your return home, you shut your eyes and dreamed her consuming dinner or brushing her hair or curled upon her bed, dreaming of you. And you imagined the substance of her voice as she said your name. And you imagined the nature of her hand upon your own. And how your pulse quickened and your throat constricted, until your wife said, “My darling, how far away you seem.”

LXI. Now you watched the shadows move and breathe on the ceiling. Horns and hooves and wings of black. The pacing fury of a creature that exhaled brimstone, whispering of what must come next.

LXII. And soon you preached that the Almighty desired the natives within the “western lands” to know the truth of their birthright. “The Almighty longs for His time on earth. The Old Man desires again to leave His mountain.” You chose the brothers as His emissaries into the wilderness and named the vocal of these brothers as commander of the expedition. When you informed the congregation the vocal brother cried out: “Our luggage is prepared. He spoke to us as well.” And all cheered this revelation. All welcomed the coming of light into darkness, for all godly welcome the end of time.

LXIII. And soon general stores were emptied by boys and men with rolled-up sleeves, dripping sweat in the October chill, as they piled wagons with burlap sacks of oats, dried beans and apricots, tinned peaches and jellied pork, pouches of tobacco, wheels of cheese, and casks of water, wine, whisky, and bundles of shirts and linens, and sleeping bags, and tarpaulins, and stakes, and boxes of nails. How still and silent the oxen in their yokes. The horses snorting, their bulging eyes. These brothers milled and guffawed, leered at the ladies and whispered sordid schemes, spat rosettes in the dust. And when they called for their sister you said, “Well, nothing was said of her—” and the brothers smiled: “He probably saved that revelation for us, don’t you think, Preacher?” Their quiet knowing laughter, her black dress and veil-obscured eyes. And when she opened her mouth, there the line of her teeth as in fantasies long ago, and the curve of her youthful neck rose from the fumes of time, and there the black mark, as in those dead years past. How you welled up, saying, “This damned sun,” although the clouds rolled heavy and gray. Soon she and her brothers and their cronies went into the dust, into the mystery of the western lands, into worlds you had written about but none could promise existed.

LXIV. Now in the evening you regaled your wife with dreams and proclamations as in days of old. And now you saw her for all you had known together. And you embraced her, kissing her cheeks, while the years flowered before you, the children raised and the children dead. “Oh, my wife,” you said, “we are young yet, although we have seen our Isaac… grown into a man and left us,” and you gestured in the direction you believed he must live. “Shall not our love some new life into this world?”

And soon her belly mounded, and soon this wailing creature pulled forth into the world, red and slick. And soon this infant was bathed. And soon this infant was swaddled. And when the midwife asked the child’s name your wife began to say, “Elizabeth,” and you said, “Daughter. For that is what she is.”

LXV. Now as word of your preaching spread along the land, so too did the story of how the testament came unto you. So your name and story appeared on the front pages of the gentile newspapers, and there the gentile experts and gentile natural scientists and gentile philosophers and gentile preachers and gentile schoolteachers and gentile professors denounced your explanations and words as “obvious fabrications.” And in town squares they derided your religion as a “confidence game.” And in the press they mocked your prose as “rudimentary” and “childish,” and your followers as puppets and dupes, for who could believe God would call a mere butcher, without education or degree, to translate such a text?

And the gentile priests sermonized about the ancient laws you sought overturned, and they preached how you preached of their illegitimacy, their corruption, and their coming damnation, and the damnation of all who followed them, and the damnation of all who did not follow you. And they scoffed, “He does not believe in burnt offerings, yet he claims to know the ways of God?” Services along the land were interrupted by crazed, indignant cries, and some threw hymnals, and many stomped their boots, and others screamed, “Let’s tie ’em up!”

And the gentiles called every man of your flock a scoundrel and a threat to their rule, for you kept to yourselves, and during elections your priests voted only for those men the Almighty told you to vote for, and your priests shopped only at shops owned by your priests. Yes, your way was the ruination of democracy, and your way led only to oppression. And you responded, “The Almighty never spoke of separating the church from the state.”

And gentiles accused you of “corrupting” their young, for whenever you saw a gentile lad on the street you handed him your book, saying, “This is the best way to avoid hellfire, lad,” and when this did not work, you said, “Say, I bet you like pretty girls, don’t you?”

And now gentiles sent letters to the editors of newspapers decrying your influence, insisting you and your followers must be “driven from our valley.” And the editors called your influence “shadowy.” And they called your followers “warped” and “dangerous.” And now gentiles lurked in the shadows, tossed bricks through windows with twine-fastened notes reading “leave hear” in charcoal lettering. And they set barrels ablaze, rolled these through your streets, embers cascading and smoke spiraling, while children and women watched the glow through parlor windows. And your priests gathered their muskets and rifles and bowie knives. And they bunkered behind porches. And they roamed the streets, shouting, “Show yourselves, gentile dogs!” And the gentiles uprooted your gardens, and the gentiles pulled the bungs from your casks of ale and cider, and the gentiles left your pet dogs buzzing with flies. And they menaced your followers on public roads by whispering phrases like “I would watch myself” and “Heard the weather’s mighty nice out west” in passing.

And you waited for the creature and no more did the rough wings beat. And you called for the brothers and heard only silence. And you called for Harris and he was moldering. And when you stood before your wife, she said, “These gentiles mean to impoverish us. They want to take our house, and diminish the inheritance of our son.” Against you now she pressed, “You are our shepherd. Now, darling, a shepherd deals roughly with wolves.”

So you gathered the cruelest and the stealthiest of your priests, and when gentile bodies were found sprawled on the streets and rotting in fields, headless and emptied of blood, none could cease whispering of your “avenging angels.”

And fights between your priests and the gentiles broke out in the streets and shops, men rolling in the mud, on floorboards, your priests beaten with pipes and planks of wood, your priests left moaning, spitting black blood, eyes mashed in and lips split, burst and gushing. Stray dogs slunk through the streets, wagging tails and licking wounds. And gentile children scampered about, giggling and thrashing bleeding priests with hickory. And these priests moaned and waved at the children, and the children spat in return, calling the priests “devils.”

Now you barricaded yourself within your home. When supplies were needed you sent your wife, and you delivered all new revelations via envelope, with your crest, the lion, pressed into red wax. And when commanded by the Almighty you positioned four husky priests before the entrance of your home. These priests hefted pistols and pipes, their expressions a mystery beneath the slouch hat shadows. And you told them to “shoot on sight” any gentile who wandered near. How many shots were fired, the shells gathered into mounds, the gun smoke a choking fog. And there were those who said to clear the world of gentiles would mean to clear the world of people, for the doctors were gentiles, and the professors, and the mayors, and the senators, and the architects, and the schoolteachers, and the newspaper editors. And indeed all those who wrote laws and passed laws and enforced laws were gentiles, and these gentiles now decreed the eradication of you and your church. And you offered this decree to the greater nation as proof of your persecution. Now stampeding hooves and rifle fire, now taut ropes and sharpened knives. Soon none could find the mayor, or his family, and his house was burned to ash while his faithful hound roamed the streets, half blazed to blistered flesh, wagging its hairless tail and whimpering for alms.

And the police raided your possessions, and the police smashed your icons, and they battered your priests, led them to jail bleeding from busted lips. And jeering crowds spat. Nights now in feces-and-blood-smeared cells, listening to flies, skittering rats. And the police fired pistols into your neighborhoods, their faces covered by hoods or smeared with black polish, glinting in the firelight like pooled oil, whooping in alien tongues they believed mimicked native languages.

And when the names and addresses of policemen became known, now too their bodies were found in fields, fly covered and headless.

Now your priests found their shops and places of employ set ablaze, and now into ruin and ash while the fire department stood by with water wagons and horse-drawn engines, smoking cigars and telling jokes, ignoring those priests pleading for help. And when the flames rose to impressive heights firefighters wet the neighboring rooftops of gentile-owned buildings. And policemen pulled your priests from the blaze, beat them with billy clubs, and tossed them into the paddy wagon, gasping and sooty and drooling blood.

And policemen brandished their billy clubs and stroked the edges of their pistols from your steps, and they called into bullhorns that if you ever preached from your book they would arrest you, and none could be certain of your fate, for “many mishaps happen in jails.” And while your wife held you back you opened your shirt and laid bare your breast. And you said, “Draw your pistols upon me if you will.” And you said, “Kill me, I am not afraid to die, and I have endured so much oppression that I am weary of life. But I am more lion than man, and from the mountain of my fathers I will cast you down.” So these officers merely repeated their warnings and left without further harm. Once indoors you stared into the shadows, and you did not weep or shake, but from your mouth now such a horrid, lonesome sigh that your wife called from the kitchen, “What has happened?”

Now you summoned your priests around. “The Almighty desires some quiet on our part,” you said. “He does not wish to see His Revelator come to harm.” And there was a great uproar. These men with blotched eyes and torn apart lips, bloody bandaged arms and legs and brows, suggested you “reconsult,” for “we have already shed much blood” and they “heard no weeping from His mountain.” So your parlor was filled with such men, looking upon you harshly.

And when you next stood before them at the pulpit you thumped your book and railed against the gentiles and their wickedness. You said the gentiles would be cast into fires and brimstone, for the Almighty was no small plant to be bent by “malicious winds.” And you said, “Our will, our conviction, our mission cannot be detoured by the acts of the damned.” And you said, “The time for conversion is done. We stand at opposite ends and there they lie for us in the weeds. Lo, behold their great wickedness—” and you gestured to the rows of bloodied and battered priests, and women who lost their homes, and children who slept not for the nightmares of masked riders in the night, the pistol shots of policemen, and their fathers, arrested and flogged and hanged. And your temple quaked with applause and hooting, and men shouted: “You tell ’em, Preacher,” and “Give ’em what for!” The shadows of the gentile police loomed as you said, “I come to you waving not an olive branch, but brandishing the sword of His everlasting vengeance.” And then the shadows disappeared.

LXVI. They came for you as you slept, beating open your door with logs. And they spilled into your parlor, grunting, shouting, and they smashed in your windows, while their torches licked and scorched and painted the ceilings black. And they shouted your name and not the name your followers called you. And some came hooded. And some came black polish painted. And of those who came undisguised you recognized many as followers who disputed the suppression of spirits and tobacco. And they pulled your wife struggling and screaming from her bed. And they pulled Daughter from bed, her skull striking the floor. And now a man hefted the limp child. And you shouted, “Oh my Father, protect me!” as they grabbed your arms, as they slapped you across the face, as they punched you in the belly. They dragged your wife outdoors and cast her into the street, weeping for Daughter. And Daughter struck the cobbles with a dull, loose thump, bouncing once. And she did not thrash. And she did not wail. And you cried out through your tears, “Oh please don’t kill me!” They brought you now into the streets, dragged you past your wife, your daughter, pulled you through the jeering throngs that kicked you in the ribs, in the face, that stomped your back, until you could no longer scream. And after they stripped you naked they brought forth a copper pot bubbling with hot pine tar. This they poured over your body entire, coating your chest, your back, your genitals, and down your legs and feet. And the seething. And the fumes. And they spat upon you, saying, “You should have listened to us.” Now they said your name and not the name your followers called you. And they pried your mouth open with their hands. And you bit them until they stopped. And they jabbed a funnel into your face, your lips bloodied and mashed, your mouth yet clamped. Finally they cast the funnel aside and poured the pitch over your head, and they slit open pillows, and now the feathers gathered about your figure. And they promised the next time you preached they would “put a rifle in your mouth.” And they said, “We’ll spatter the streets with you.” So they left you, writhing and smoldering and nude, and so your followers found you, stinking of burned skin and pine tar. And your wife screamed for she thought you coated in dried blood. Your followers attended to her, feverish and fainted in bed, while you peeled free the tar and feathers, the floor soon covered with the black and blistered shell of your flesh.

LXVII. You did not ask after Daughter, and if you had they would have said, “She is sleeping.” for indeed she lay silent and still, although by the morning that followed she had not waked and she would never again. And while your wife wept and prayed you went to the yard. And there you sat until the eyes of wives and widows pressed upon you, and then you moved on. And you walked the forests, your flesh moaning in the open air, and there you understood His language in the wind, the scurrying of animals, the musk of leaves and dirt. And when you did not immediately return many believed you would resign as Preacher. And many believed you would quit the valley altogether, as so many false prophets and revelators had done before. And many believed you would return for your wife and son. And many believed you would not.

Yes, now you walked until you came to a clearing. Your brow pressed to the ground. “O Father,” you said. “O God.” And here there waited no creature. And here no voice vibrated from the mountain. Here only silence and the crawling of things.

LXVIII. And when you returned your wife could say only, “She is unmoving.” Now you, scorched and yet tar stinking, carried the blanket-bound remains of Daughter into the yard. Into the soil without ceremony, beyond the digging of a hole and the uttering of the words of your book: “You were raised from the ashes of this world and you are returned the ashes of this world.” And you held your wife, who did not speak, your arm about her waist. Oh, that familiar warmth. “We shall see her again, Wife,” you said. “She is with Him now.” And you gestured to the mountain, the cruel lines of that peak.

“But will we know her,” your wife wept, “full grown and by then ladylike?”

“Her soul shall know us, Mother,” you said. “And we will know hers.”

LXIX. In the hours to follow, all awaited your arrival, seated silent in the shadows of your temple. And many men who had thrashed you and rolled you in tar and feathers sat in attendance, waiting to take possession of your church when you did not arrive. And little was said, and there was much coughing and shifting of bodies and anxious breathing. And then you arrived, scorched and blistered, leaning upon your wife in mourning costume. And all stood. And some gasped. And many former assailants from the night prior began to edge out of their seats. And some women wept at your scars while priests gaped in astonishment. At the pulpit, your eyes glistened while in a ravaged voice you spoke: “You don’t know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don’t blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself.” And your voice shook, and your fist thumped the pulpit, and you announced, “When I am called by the trump of the creature and weighed in the balance, you will all know me then.”