“Well, I hear tell from Mildred,” Linda Catter is saying, “that Sarah never got over what happened out here that day and has become a dead weight round Abner’s neck. She don’t even warsh herself proper, and mostly won’t eat lest they set something in front of her. Then she’ll eat anything and won’t stop till they take it away again. Don’t ask me about other things.” “Some days,” Wanda Cravens says with a weary sigh, “you cain’t take no more’n jist want the Rapture to hurry up’n come.” She is still the same old Wanda, Betty notes, though more beat down; she used to have nice little breasts, but no more, and she has gone slack in the britches and her belly is sagging, unless she’s stumped her toe again. They have all crowded into Mabel Hall’s caravan here at the foot of the Mount of Redemption to get out of the afternoon sun and catch up on each other’s lives over the past five years and wait for the visit, promised by Mabel when it starts to get dark, of the young woman in spiritual contact with Marcella Bruno, who died right here on this road. Betty was here. At Clara’s side. And the next day up there on the hill where the body was laid out on a lawn chair, pointing stiffly up at Heaven. Hazel Dunlevy wants to know what happened to Marcella’s body afterwards, and Betty says it disappeared and folks reckon she got raptured straight to the other world. “She seemed to stand straight up and she ain’t been seen since!” Betty had not met Hazel before. A pretty little thing with freckles and a dreamy look. She and her husband Travers, who is a plasterer and carpenter, are recent converts who have been here all winter. Hazel is a palm reader, and she read Betty’s palm and everything she said was completely true: that she is a down-to-earth person with solid values, a practical outlook on life, a soft heart, and a pleasant romantic nature. Her money line and fame line cross, which means, Hazel said, that she will come into some money by surprise and luck, and her fate line means that her life will find its way into the public eye, but that already happened, which just shows how true palm-reading is, because Hazel didn’t know that. Hazel wouldn’t say anything about the health line, only that there was nothing to worry about, and so of course she has been worrying ever since. “Well, if this Patti Jo is talking to Marcella’s spirit,” Corinne Appleby the beekeeper says, “maybe she can just ask her.” Sarah Baxter, who is not privy to these after-dark plans of Mabel’s, has left, too miserable even to say goodbye, which gives them the opportunity to talk about her and her enfeebling illness. Sarah told Linda a long time ago that she saw the girl’s head hit the windshield, she said her eyes were wide open, staring straight at her, and then
smack! and that was what caused the miscarriage the next day, especially when the corpse just reared up like that, and Linda, who has given Betty a fresh perm this morning, relates that event to everyone now, goggling her eyes out at the staring part, and they all jump and gasp when the poor girl’s face smacks the windshield, and they flutter their hands at their breasts and shake their heads at the tragedy of it all and how it has undone poor Sarah; it half undoes them, just imagining it. Glenda Oakes, who is another of Clara’s new converts and is said to have the gift of interpreting dreams — having only one good eye, she explained to Betty, helps her to see into the fourth dimension, where dreams are — says she thought Sarah was just going to tip over into the ditch herself a while ago over at the mine road: “Her ankles look like her thighs has slid down round them.” Truly, Betty has noticed, Sarah does look dreadful, her chin fallen to her breastbone, her eyes rheumy and hair all snarly, barely able to shuffle along by herself, her shoulders higher than her head. Bernice Filbert put some of her miracle water on her, but it didn’t seem to do any good. She has been crying almost without stopping since they arrived, though Mildred said that was really out of happiness at seeing everybody again. It was the first sign of life she’d seen in the poor woman in years. Mildred joined them in the caravan for about five minutes, but could not leave Ezra alone any longer than that without him yelling for her and calling her names, mostly those of the devil and bad women of the Bible. She has dark circles under her eyes now and an unhealthy skinniness about her, probably from pushing the wheelchair around all the time, and she has adopted bitter ways. Why, after all that had happened, that man wanted to go back down in a mine again, no one can imagine, but there it is, you can’t tell what’s coming next in life. Unless, that is, you have someone like Mabel and her story cards. Mabel kept her husband Willie home from the mine on the night of the disaster because of what she saw in her thick little deck and she even foretold Ezra’s accident for Mildred. “The five of spades come up flat against the Tower on its head, it was plain as the nose on your face,” she said while Mildred was still here, and Mildred allowed as how all that was so, though just when this happened, neither of them could remember. Betty has already had Mabel read the cards for her, but without the best results, so she is hoping they will have another opportunity before they go back to Florida to see if they come out better, for Mabel has usually found good news for her. Betty, who is known here more as Betty Wilson than as Betty Clegg, realizes, talking with her widowed friends, how very fortunate she has been and how envious they all are of her, and how all this was prophesied long ago by Mabel, though she didn’t exactly understand it at the time. Yes, she’s been lucky, but nothing’s perfect. As she admitted when the others kept remarking on what a fine man her Hiram is, “Yes, he’s a mighty good talker and a holy man, and I’m right proud a him, but he don’t do nothing for hisself,” and they all laughed at that and said what man’s not the same. It was a pretty short romance. Lasted about a day. Of course, Clara’s the luckiest one of all, even if dear old Ben is showing his age. Betty still feels a twinge in her heartstrings when she sees him. “I hear tell Abner’s people is baptizing with real fire,” Linda says, and Betty is able to confirm this, for Hiram has spoken about it, saying that Abner has misread what John the Baptist said in the Gospels and that is sure not what Giovanni Bruno meant when he commanded them to baptize with light. “But how do they do that?” Bernice wants to know. Bernice is not exactly a Brunist either, having always been her own church of one. She dresses in long skirts with layers of things on top like shawls and capes and aprons, and today she is wearing bracelets and a pretty beaded headband. Hiram has spent some time talking with her about faith and prophecy and the afterlife and she seems interested in a deeper commitment. Most ladies are when Hiram talks to them. Bernice is providing home nursing care for the wife of the town banker, who is wasting away like the synagogue ruler’s daughter, as she remarks, but she has the weekend off. “I mean,” she asks, “when they do their baptizing, do they really burn theirselves?” Betty doesn’t know, but she says she thinks at least at first they walked through fire, or else jumped over it like jumping over balefires. “Hard to say whether that’s for saving souls or getting them used to the other place,” says Corinne. The room is dimming as the twilight settles. All the talk about fire has reminded Mabel to light some candles and get out the folding card table she always uses. That girl who talks to the dead will be here soon.