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Chapter Text

Paradise Mart, 1972. 

In Paradise Mart, a small grocery shop, aisles lined with colorful branded products and a smell of produce mixed with cardboard packaging, there’s a sign that reads “Heavenly Groceries.” Soft instrumental music, tasting of nothing, like airy candy, fills the place. It’s faint and unnoticed. 

 A certain woman's presence disrupts the smooth flow of everyday routines, but she needs to eat. Her grieving, darkened eyes set her apart and make her seem dangerous to touch. Even in a small town where everyone knows each other, people avoid talking to her, there just isn’t something right to say to someone going through a pain of that sort. A mother's grief is like a bomb. A dangerous and delicate kind of pain, best not examined too closely.

They follow her gaze to the milk cartons behind the fogged glass, with their white packaging and blue writing, which seem fresh and clean. But it's the photograph of her daughter that grabs her attention, a warm, alive image amidst the cold, beaded condensation on the cardboard. Could she be dead, when she looked that alive in the dairy aisle? But the black and white picture can't capture the brightness of her daughter’s cheeky blue eyes, the same shade as the lettering on the carton. 

Her eyes tell the whole story, or at least, the important parts. She’s the kind of girl who goes missing, the kind parents use as a cautionary tale. She’s her girl. The one on the MISSING posters. 

MISSING. HAVE YOU SEEN HER? HAVE YOU SEEN MERCY MILLER? IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT MISSING YOUTH, PLEASE CALL SAN ELIDO COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT. 

Mr. Miller thinks saying their daughter deserved this will ease his pain. He tells his crying wife that she'll be found safe. He says he believes the scare will turn her around. She'll get straight As and stop being immoral. At least she isn't pregnant. He wonders how far she might have gone if she ran away. But Mrs. Miller knows she didn't. Or if she did, she did with someone. Or with something. How could she be running from her parents when they were barely ever home? 

She was cheer captain. Did she try to kill herself over being called a slut? But that didn't seem like her. She never cared, or at least that’s how it looked. Like she didn't care. Not even when her father said it to her in fits of anger. “Did I raise a fucking whore, Mercy?”

Mrs. Miller shouts at her husband, "Someone took our girl!" He's hurting her. She might be dead. Her husband replies, "Such things don't happen in Paradise.”

Sunday Farmhouse, 1971. 

The Sunday farmhouse sits low in the valley, a dark speck against the sprawling, dry expanse of land that stretches out endlessly beneath a wide, pale sky. The earth around it is sunbaked, dotted only here and there with clumps of wiry grass. A brittle fence encircles the property, its posts leaning and splintered, barely standing against the gust that sweeps down from the modest hills. The farmhouse itself looks like a relic from another time, an anachronism. An old windmill towers beside the house, its blades unmoving, as though even the wind doesn’t recognize the house as part of reality. The trees stretching up against the sky cast spindly shadows across the sun-bleached earth. Life here carves itself out of dust and heat, stubbornly rooted in the middle of Nowhere, USA.

The sheriff adjusts his hat and takes a moment, letting his eyes sweep over the place. It is quiet, too quiet, in the way of people who’ve seen his car on the road and had just enough time to fall still.

It takes a moment before the door opens, just a crack at first, and he finds himself looking into the wrinkled, aged eyes of a woman, Mrs. Sunday. He recognizes her from town, though she rarely comes in. He’s never seen her alone, always surrounded by a flock of her children, with her husband’s similarly old, meek, and pious-seeming figure trailing a step behind her. They don’t even trust the medical system. Mrs. Sunday was self-taught in home remedies and gave birth to all her children at home. 

The Sunday children, all blond with shades ranging from wheat to corn, are scattered through the room, watching him with expressions from curiosity and fear to fierce anger, like in the eyes of Eli. He is the oldest, since Paul left, yet still thin and soft-looking — a bit like his father, but younger, angrier, and more beautiful. The sheriff doesn’t know why it strikes him to remark on the boy being beautiful, but he is.

“Sheriff,” the father, Abel, starts, “What brings you out here?”

“It’s about your boy, Paul.”

The sheriff sees something flicker in the oldest boy’s eyes at the mention of his brother, something different from his sister’s anxiety, quick as a spark, but it’s gone in an instant, leaving the sheriff wondering if he hallucinated it. He should get this over with; the less time one lingers in this farmhouse, the better. He isn’t prejudiced against those who decide to live a life dictated by religious dogmas. This is God’s country, after all, and it’s Abel’s right to live this way in the land of the free. But they still give him the creeps.

“Paul’s not my son anymore,” Abel replies bitterly. “Whatever trouble he’s in, that’s his doing, not ours.”

“Well, that might be,” the sheriff says, folding his hands behind his back, “but he left a trail behind him. Took a few swings at the deputies, and the deputies don’t forget that too easily. And there’s talk he’s been running with a draft-dodging crowd in San Francisco.”

Abel’s face remains unchanged. “I know that boy’s a devil, always known. That’s his business, and his business alone. I’ve got another boy to worry about, Eli, who’s all right with God and with the law.”

“Sure he is,” the sheriff replies, “but people around here have started taking notice. Folks in town — well, they’ve been asking why the Sunday kids haven’t seen school. Asking if maybe they’re being kept home too long.”

Abel’s eyes narrow. “We teach them ourselves. That’s our right.”

The sheriff looks up with a sharp, sympathetic gaze, knowing Abel is too meek a man to blow up at him. He’s someone you can reason with, even if his resentments fester. “See, that’s the thing, Mr. Sunday. I don’t doubt you teach ‘em, but folks around here, they don’t see it that way. And the county might start asking questions I’d rather they didn’t. You understand what I’m saying?”

“And if I don’t?” Abel musters some quiet, understated resistance.

The sheriff stays steady and unblinking. “I don’t want to bring any trouble to your door. But the county has laws, and right now, you’re a family folks are starting to talk about.” He pauses, looking over Abel’s shoulder at the poverty apparent in the house’s interior. “All I’m saying is, if you could see your way to sending the oldest ones to school, just for the last few years…might save a whole lot of trouble. Eli’s a boy of strong faith, is he not, Mr. Sunday? I’ve seen his latest TV appearance, his talk about the Book of Revelation. I doubt two years of high school would place him in any danger.” The sheriff tries to sweeten the pill with some flattery.

“I’ll think on it,” Abel says, in a tone that gives the sheriff some hope.

He tips his hat. “Good enough,” he says, stepping off the porch, “good enough.”

Chapter Text

Paradise High School, beginning of the school year.

Eli's clutching his school bag, its worn, distressed leather stained, in his sweaty palm. It once belonged to Abel, back in his elementary school days in Tennessee, before he moved to start a family in California. Eli used it to carry his written sermons and annotations for his preaching and prophesying on Sundays, and sometimes his TV appearances. As one of the youngest to appear on Channel 5, on the Flame of Pentecost show, the first time he was broadcasted he gave a fiery sermon about God still handing down gifts to believers, just like in Apostolic days, claiming he was the living proof. Everyone in his town knew, he said on air, that the gifts of prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, and the gift of healing had been given to him by the Lord, which he saw in a thunderstorm as a little boy. The broadcast sometimes crackles with static, the image slightly distorted, but for those tuned in, Eli commands the utmost attention. Many viewers at the beginning still saw him as just a boy, but they couldn’t help but believe him, and now, he is a renowned guest on the show. 

The bag holds blank papers and a single black pen. 

Eli’s wearing a snug, pastel blue knit sweater and beneath it a white collared shirt. He is glad that the new sweater will hide the yellowed shirt that’s a bit too big for him — also belonging to Abel, who is not a big man. Eli’s just a rather small boy. His wide-leg jeans sit high on his narrow waist. They’re meant for work in the fields, not that he did any, with what his mother called his “fragile constitution.” His brown boots are dirty, their dark brown coated in a layer of greyish dust. 

His blond hair is shaggy and cut in a page boy style. If Paul were still at home, he would have kept it neat to show him what a Godly boy should look like. Now that Paul is away, he's waiting for it to grow a bit longer before getting a trim. He likes how it moves in the wind and, although he knows it's frivolous, he wants to look attractive among the new people. 

He wears a gold cross around his neck, its colour matching his hair, a gift from his aunt before she became a Catholic. Perhaps she did it to defy his father, Abel, who didn't believe Catholics were true Christians. Eli thought her behaviour was a bit pathetic, like an overgrown, female Paul, but he cherished the beautiful cross. Over the pale blue sweater it looks as if the cross is shining brightly in the sky. 

The school is loud. That’s the first thing. The air buzzes with conversation. Crude words. The Lord’s name is profaned often as if it holds no weight. Laughter and sharp slaps of lockers shutting. Long hallways like serpents stretching in every direction, with faded posters and smudged words, cracked in places from years of willful teenage hands pushing too hard in moments of excitement or boredom. There’s so much smell of chalk and books like he never felt in one place, the air is stale from the sweat of too many bodies. For a moment, he feels like he is in hell. The sheriff came for him. He knew they were going to come. He saw it in a vision once. He wishes his father had taken out their guns. He wishes he had protected him. 

He just hoped it would be something quieter, more orderly. This place reeks of freedom, of sulphur, that is, more than any other scent. Freedom he doesn’t want, strange, forbidden things he doesn’t care to understand. Is this the factory where they make boys like Paul? Their face looked so similar, “almost like twins”, some used to say. What if he wasn’t able to resist metamorphosing? 

In the corridor, he can barely take a few steps without being pushed. Everyone looks. Everyone is stronger than him. He can make out the sickly sweetness of perfume; he wants to gag. This is how he imagined the stench of brothels. It looks like one. A pair of girls walk by, smelling of hairspray, their clothes cut and fitted in ways he’d never seen before. 

He is in 11th grade, or he thinks so. He barely understands what that means. Being in a grade. 

He scowls, responding to the voices in his head that shout sin and temptation but for once he feels like he can’t answer them, like his disapproval is weightless, null. These strong people, here they were, dressed in flesh, looking through his body, so thin he might slip and disappear, like he is a ghost floating among them. His bag-gripping hand seems frail, all bone and pallor. But lay those fingers on an ailing granny, and she'll swear they're blessed. 

The boys in the hallway enjoy whispering the word "queer" as he walks past. From the way they say it with disdain, he can gather that it means sodomite. It's a nasty word, one that is usually accompanied by spitting. He doesn't understand why they would call him that; to him, they look just as sinful with their godlessness and lawlessness. In his eyes, this entire building could be compared to Sodom and Gomorrah.

What hurts more is when people whisper, “That freak foams at the mouth, he shakes on the ground." But his father is gentle with him when the Spirit fills him. He doesn't understand why they can't see that it's what makes him better than they could ever be. Abel is a meek man. He is not a tender man. He is the only one he is tender towards. He's still got marks from his belt, but they're few and far between. It brings him honour.

In the hallway, a girl leans against her locker, chewing gum. Her striking blue eyes are so penetrating they fill him with fear, leaving him unsure whether to rage or run. There is something taunting about the whole scene. Her red lips remain still and bored, but her eyes tell a different story. Her breasts press against her dusty-coloured turtleneck, which matches the dust on his shoes. Her gingham skirt falls above her knees, even above her thighs. Her long legs, stretched forward, covered in smooth, opaque white tights seem obscenely bare. Dark, glossy waves of hair frame her scrutinizing face, with voluminous bangs sweeping across her forehead. A velvet hairpiece nestles between them. 

The bulletin board near the principal’s office is cluttered with notices: club meetings, bake sales, a poster for the cheering team that makes Eli flush and turn his gaze away. His eyes finally land on the yellowed, dog-eared sheet of paper listing the eleventh-grade homeroom assignments, thumbtacked crookedly in place. 11th Grade 3B Class Composition, Paradise High School, 1971-1972. 

His long finger traces down the list of names. Jones, Kelley, Miller…

He sees “Elijah Sunday” near the bottom, his name set apart, hanging on the edge of the list like an afterthought. 

The kids crowding behind him almost push him to read, until a tall, broad-shouldered footballer points to the list, a sickening grin spreading across his face as he jeers, “Mercy Miller's in class with the fundie kid. Sounds like the start of a bad joke.” “Or a bad porno”, whispers quietly but with the same amusement the boy’s shorter friend, as if despite his boldness he too knows it’s shameful. 

He shoots a glance, his gaze cutting and angry, but no one is looking at him, no one is noticing that the pale, skinny boy has his fists curled tight in his pockets. To them, he is just another name on the list, one that doesn’t quite belong.  

His first classroom is History, Room 202. He slides into an empty seat in the back. The desks are battered, scarred with initials and phrases. He doesn’t try to read them or understand their meanings. Next to him sits a girl who looks kind. Her strawberry blonde hair is softly gathered in a bun. She has on a green, striped pullover and black pants. If he could choose, he'd sit with a boy, but the boys in this classroom look like men, wicked ones, and they're intimidating. It's as if she knows he is thinking this and is being gracious.

Yet, the blue-eyed girl sitting at the last desk beside his is the one who unsettles him the most. She's sitting next to the broad-shouldered boy he noticed earlier, but it's him she's staring at. Her brightly coloured lips catch his attention as she brushes a pencil against them, making them seem even redder than before. He recalls his recent talk on Flame of Pentecost, where he mentioned the Book of Revelation's connection between the Antichrist and the colour red. He was talking about communism. He was talking about Paul. “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads”, Revelation, 12:13. He can't imagine how lost someone must be to want to wear that colour on their lips, the same lips that should be speaking words of prayer and praise to the Lord.

Now she's walking, and her slow, deliberate movements are unbearable to watch. The trail of filth she leaves behind her like a giant slug, stretches from her desk to his, and when she rests her hands, with their brightly painted nails, on it,  Eli’s startled, almost leaping out of his seat.

"Sandy, want to swap seats with me? I need a break from Andrew. We've been stuck together too much lately.” 

The blue-eyed girl seems to know Sandy, Sandy seems to be a popular girl to know the blue-eyed girl. 

Sandy fears her and wants to please her. But, she is a bit worried for him. “Mercy…” 

She puts one hand above her chest. Her tone somewhat offended. He did not like the teasing lilt in her voice. “What? I’m not going to do anything to him. Promise! I’m just too curious!” 

Her face draws near. Her eyelids caked with a thick, powdery substance that seems to flake off with every fluttering blink. He thinks it could graze him. He braces for impact, imagining her mascara scraping his skin. She bats her lashes with a flirtatiousness that sets his teeth on edge. The sweet, suffocating aroma that comes from her pores is an attack on his senses, overpowering the mix of perfumes that hung in the hallway. Although his lungs want more of it, his mind is repelled by the thought of the toxins flowing through her veins, and how much of it she must have in her system when she wears it daily. Her scarlet slit of a mouth opens and twists into an expression you'd give a child who'd just done something mildly impressive. 

"I've heard you've been on TV. Being on TV is something I've always wanted to do. I actually auditioned for a commercial once.”

Sandy starts to walk towards Mercy’s empty spot, but Eli stops her. Standing firm, he says a quick prayer for courage, then speaks up. "I don't want to sit next to this girl. Please, come back here. Or better still, could I sit beside a quiet boy?” 

Mercy sighs and looks around the room. She notices the only empty spot that fit his criteria is next to a quiet boy with hair down to his lower back and round, thick glasses. He sits alone because his girlfriend graduated and left for college. Mercy had a threesome with them, but it was underwhelming. She didn't like them. They thought they were so much smarter than her. The whole time, it had felt like his girlfriend was using her as a dumb toy to get her boyfriend off. Nowhere else would she be seen with a cheerleader. 

When Eli sits next to him, the boy immediately greets him by quoting Nietzsche about Christianity being the greatest misfortune of mankind. So, he goes back to sit next to Sandy. 

In the introductory lesson to the year’s history program, he hears the word “protest” spoken with a positive connotation for the first time. The teacher talks about students marching in San Francisco, and the protests in Washington earlier that year. It's about Vietnam and rebellion but he’s not understanding much. “Civil disobedience”, “mass arrests.” That word: Disobedience. He thinks of Paul and his dealings with the devil in that awful city, chanting against Nixon and the “rich man’s war”, or whatever Red incantation they had taught him, telling everyone how it was hell at the farmhouse, only to end up living in a cramped flat that Eli was sure was probably dirtier.

The teacher doesn’t put it the same way Abel did, it confuses him, but Eli remembers what he knows. He can see it even in this classroom. This world cannot last, and he longs for its end, knowing he would be the first to see it. It would come to him in a storm, the knowledge of Armageddon, it would come to him like the one he saw as a little boy, where thunder cracked the sky open with blinding flashes of white, setting fires, and proclaiming him a prophet. Many unbelievers thought it would be nuclear power that would bring about the end times, they had forgotten thunder. The church sometimes, when he and Paul were little, would put on this song, Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb. Paul was scared of the atom bomb. Eli knew that what he should have been fearing should be the wrath of God, that will come like a thief in the night and Paul will be naked and he will be seen, and it wouldn’t be a surprise given how often he would show himself to Eli so shamelessly. 

He recites to himself in his mind, “And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”

He sits alone in the cafeteria with roasted potatoes and a glass bottle of milk. After a few sips, milk gathers above his lips, nearly vanishing into his pale skin. 

Even there, the scary girl tracks him down, placing her orange tray with fries and fruit on his table. Unlike his meal, hers is from the cafeteria. He's cornered, with no one to shield him like Sandy did. The room's chatter would drown out his protests, and she could pretend not to listen. "So, what's the deal? You didn't want to sit with me? You don't like me? I'm nosy, I want to hear all about the new kids.”

It was even in her speech and the sway of her hips when she sits. Her shameless provocation, something corrupting, was near his food and he didn’t want it. He could imagine the white milk in the glass bottle spoiling right before his eyes, growing darker and darker as it absorbed the fumes of her perfume. He always loved the colour milk, like the wool of the goats on his farmhouse. 

"Listen, we're both TV stars, so we need to get along. I almost landed that Coca-Cola commercial, I'm telling you!”, Mercy goes on.

“I…”, he takes a slow breath, feeling a deep sense of unease. “I don’t talk to girls like you.”

Mercy lets out a soft chuckle. "Girls like me, huh? Are you saying I'm a slut? You’re certainly bold, but still polite about that... That’s too bad, I was hoping maybe the new kid hadn't heard the worst about me yet. Did Andrew tell you that? He's mad I won't be exclusive with him. To be honest, he's really boring. But he's got a nice enough car. If we become friends, I'd be happy to have you ride with us. It would be a blast, unlike those carriages you guys have.” 

From a nearby table, a girl from the Art club chimes in, always ready to mock her, but too smart to admit how shallow she thinks Mercy is. "Mercy, the ones with carriages are the Amish.”

"Same difference, Eleanor. Shut the fuck up. It’s the same, right, Eli?”

"No, it's not the same," he says, his naturally gentle tone a thin veil for his seething anger. “And I don't want to ride in that guy's car, especially not with you.” 

For a moment, Mercy's eyes blaze like unspeakable blue flames, like the lake of fire where sinners will be tormented. He wonders if he's done something wrong to catch her attention this way. Her words are ominous: "Do you know what I'd really like to do? Forget the car ride.”

"I'd love to walk you home, to the farm where you live. And hear you condemn me for my sins.”

He takes off in a hurry, leaving the milk and half-eaten potatoes on the table. Mercy grabs the milk bottle and tucks it away in her school bag before anyone notices. Then she settles into Andrew's arms, sitting with Sandy and another fellow cheerleader, the wealthiest girl in school, perhaps in the whole town of Paradise.

“Condemn me for my sins?" Sandy says as she repeats Mercy’s bizarre words.  

Mercy smirks, shaking her head. "You guys just don't get it. You have to start somewhere, I’m trying to be friendly.”

“I get it, you’re screwed in the head.” 

Andrew adds, “leave that creep be.”

The girls' bathroom at Paradise High, where Mercy seeks refuge, stinks of bleach and hormones. It is strangely silent at this hour of the school day. Except for the soft gulping sounds from the last stall and the girl muttering to herself, “Mercy, what are you doing?”

Mercy’s eyes are glassy with infatuation. Their blue dulled by the haze of it. She brings the bottle to her lips once more, she inhales deeply, wishing he had collected his sweat in the same bottle where fresh dairy was later placed. Then she extends her tongue and licks at the rim that his lips and his saliva had touched like she is fellating it, capturing the sour, almost rancid taste where the milk has lingered too long. The faint chill of the glass prickles against her overheated mouth and tongue. 

As she swallows, a visceral shudder runs through her body. It's disgusting, having sat too long. She feels like gagging, but she tilts the bottle up further, wanting it to fill her. It looks enough like sperm, she thinks. Guzzling greedily, she nearly finishes the lukewarm liquid. Her stomach churns as it sloshes inside. She retches, but succeeds in holding it down. 

At the end of the school day, she ambushes Eli in the hallway. Before he can scurry off like a woodland creature that smells danger. Her eyes lock onto his back, with the swift precision of a hunting cat, she cuts off his escape route. He is pinned in place like a butterfly on a specimen board. She taps his pale blue knitted sweater with two fingers, holding up the almost empty glass bottle with a few drops of milk left, a horrible crimson stain of lipstick on the rim. His mother had packed this milk for him so gently because she feared the contamination of school food. Mercy sees its reflection in his wide eyes, his pink lips slightly parted.

“Sorry Eli, I got thirsty.”

Chapter Text

From: Penitence Diary of Mercy Miller, someday of winter (1971 or 1972? I haven’t heard fireworks.) 

He tells me I have to write about my pain, to make it real on the page. I can't just fill the page with how much I love him, because right now, that's all my shaking hands and burning eyes can handle. Just love. But that's not the whole story. Not my penitence’s whole story, nor God’s. So I’ll start by saying that whether there would be a concept of time in the afterlife is something I never wondered about. Now I know there isn't one in hell, but I didn't want to know. God exists beyond these dimensions. 

Winters are cold in houses without anything that can warm you. We take many things for granted. Burned skin in the freezing cold feels like the atmosphere is made of giant shards of glass. I don't know if sheets would feel better on my burns than the icy floor. All I've seen above me are wooden planks for a length of time I can't define, and to see this paper and this ink is a blessing I haven't done much to earn. But the point is, memory of the pain fades quickly when it is all over, the ink lasts. 

Even before the burns kept me awake and my hunger drove me to crave rotten things, I'd rather feel hunger than sickness. It's strange to sleep - or even try to. Sleep just won't come. I hope it comes soon, so I can briefly feel like I've overcome this suffering. My forehead almost touches the wooden planks underneath the bed frame. The dust is all that fills my new world, and it never stops accumulating inside and outside of me. 

I can't even hear him above me from under here, and that's the worst of all, I hope for an innocent child's snore, a little whimper as he falls asleep. But nothing. He doesn't even move, but I guess the bed doesn't give him the room to. He sleeps like in a coffin. We take so much for granted. So many things like heat and big beds and intact skin. 

Now I know the pain of absence. The colours are always muted, the light is always out. I have known the pain of too much, now I know the pain of too little. I have only my burns and cuts for company. I trace them, with my frost-bitten fingers stinging around the nail with the skin peeled off as he broke my nails and roughly polished away the paint.

In the first days, the letters I can trace  — there are no mirrors in the house and if there are, not anywhere I can reach — are chaotic slashes, there was so much blood, cascading over me, like red waterfalls, all over my face. I remember how I prayed that there would be no infection. As well as I know the alphabet, it was the word RAPIST that he enjoyed carving the most.

I guess that's what I am now. The way it's carved in my skin tells you that, and not because it's in my tissue, but because it's carved with the desperation of someone who wants to get clean. His is the desperation of someone who sleeps with the goats as if they were lambs, hoping to come back as one, unstained, but I have done my work and they are goats and they are not lambs.

I want to kiss the purple bruise on his cheek before it fades, I want to suck it into my mouth. I want to bring down the one who did it, but I don't tell him that I want to tear off limbs, that I still imagine my body with the power to hurt and comfort. 

The first kiss is supposed to be special, that's what they say. How would I have felt if someone had put me to sleep for mine? I wanted to be there to see it. Everyone does. He will never be awake for his. And when his wife lies with him, she will also lie with me, covering herself with the film of slimy sweat that covers my body, and she will have some of my cruelty in her. She will not be a wife, but someone who completes the work of defilement, a whore of mine. 

In the days that follow, the centres of pain shrink to smaller dots as the words carved into my skin become less like slashes and more like skinny, devouring little worms. It becomes more elegant, so to speak, but they still hurt and I still fear infection. 

“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” 

The cuts come alive when I hear these words under the glow of the TV, as if the voice lights them and fills the holes with light. 

Chapter Text

Paradise High School, month two. 

Eli's first month of high school doesn’t teach him anything, except for one thing: how to hide. It doesn’t even teach it that well. He tries to figure out all the best spots in the school to avoid getting hurt, to avoid getting a bloody nose, his bones broken or worse. But it doesn't matter - they always seem to know where to look, his favourite hiding spots were, in order: empty classrooms, dim, narrow stairwells, a spot behind the bleachers outside, janitorial nooks. All discovered. They're still out to get him. Eli can't help but wonder why his dad didn't do something to stop it, why he didn't stand up to the sheriff. It's a sign, sent by the Almighty to warn him of the apocalypse and of His coming soon, while these others are left in the dark. That makes him feel a little better. The teachers do not intervene much. They appear embarrassed, as if they realize he is an easy target and don’t want to deal with the additional problem.

He sometimes finds by his locker crude caricatures of him shaking, eyes rolled back, in mockery of his “fits”. And they like to say cocksucker. He guesses it means the same thing as queer, that is, a sodomite.

They made Eli ashamed to befriend a boy from the Drama club. They would see him as impure because the boy was handsome. But that wasn’t Eli's interest. He was drawn to the boy's soulful eyes. Also, the boy's friends laugh with him when he speaks. Eli wants to be part of that.

During his first science oral of the year, about atoms, some kids snigger to the science teacher, a man in his forties with glasses not unlike Eli’s own reading glasses, who looks young despite his balding head. He reacts with some complicity. 

"Let's go back a bit, ask him about evolution," they say.

 The man tries to stifle a smile, without acknowledging his students. 

“Come on Eli, that’s 5th grade curriculum.” 

He cannot focus when Mercy Miller keeps filling the room with obscene sounds. She slides a pink, circular lollipop, strawberry and vanilla, in and out of her mouth. It is pinker on top and whiter at the base. Her lipstick is less red today. Instead, it’s coated in a sheen that makes it seem like viscid mucus. In, out, slurping sounds of someone ingesting some liquid, watery goo. That’s what it sounds like. And her gaze is upward, as if she is threatening to suck the blood from him in a similar manner. 

The science teacher is fine with teasing Eli, but not with disturbing him. He is lenient with Mercy. He knows that imposing on strong-willed kids gets you less. But, he knows she is trying to disturb him. 

“Throw that away, it’s annoying, Miller.”

She pulls the lollipop out of her mouth, the sound of suction releasing a tiny burst of sugar-scented air. "I don't know where now.”

She says, "By the way, sir, I was thinking," and holds the tiny white lollipop stick between her fingers, its surface already crawling with ants in Eli's imagination.

"I'm not buying this evolution thing. We're supposed to have come from monkeys? Please. Maybe that's your family tree, not mine.”

"Miller, you're going to fail this year. I'm not going easy on you like I did last year.” 

“That desperate, huh?" Andrew, sitting beside her, quips. "He's not into women, I keep telling you.” 

“And how do you know that, pray tell?”

"Just look at him! He looks like my sister before she got fat! You dyke.”

Mercy forms a V with her fingers in front of her mouth and sticks out her tongue. Eli figures out it means something unspeakable, but he cannot tell what that, or the word Andrew called her, exactly is. 

After classes, he heads to the bathroom to be alone, but his solitude is short-lived as a group of boys, a gang of wicked men, children only according to the school system, burst in. He cringes in the last stall, bracing for impact as the door bangs shut. He's terrified. 

He emerges scarred. His wrists, delicate as lilies, are hurt from being pushed. The bridge of his nose throbs similarly, and he feels blood in his nostrils and a little underneath. When he touches his nose, his pink fingertips stain with red in the same shade as Mercy’s favourite lipstick and he remembers her beastly mouth.

He whispers obsessively, "The Lord is my shepherd…", wondering in utter bewilderment why they don't seem to fear shedding a Prophet's blood, even as the end times approach. But these people are the end times. He recalls Paul, how he didn’t care when Eli would cry that his very own brother will be left behind. He hopes for them that these wicked men will not sire children soon. God will strike down their fruit in the cradle for their acts and He won’t rise them during the Rapture. 

In the parking lot, Mercy can smell blood as well as any white shark. Most of all, she can smell barely concealed, simmering fury. She can make out its distinctive scent before it sets off, even through the smell of freshly cut grass. 

It’s a hot October. Eli wears a white sleeveless t-shirt, clearly too small for him, made of cheap material - another hand-me-down intended for a boy around twelve. The shirt is just cropped enough to reveal a sliver of midriff, Mercy feels a shot to her groin at the sight of flesh, she wants to do more than to caress it and kiss it, she wants to make her hands sink down to the internal organs so she can touch it from the inside as well. It makes him look so vulnerable. Makes her think of penetration and defilement. He should know better. Couldn't expect her to act right, the virgin boy-whore. 

He should remove the yellow cross - she doesn't believe it's gold for a second - from his neck if he wants to show off his fair belly, and all of his fair arms. With their slimness and subtle definition, so smooth that she wants to run her tongue over them. The blood, dried and wiped off, has a similar effect on his skin above his lips and under his nose as the milk had that time in the cafeteria. He’d look good nailed on a cross. 

Mercy's voice trembles as she asks, making an effort to stay composed and not sound like a creep on a playground. She wants to make it clear that she won't accept rejection, but seem gentle enough towards the bunny she’s trying to trap. “Do you like football? Will you come to the game on Friday night?”

"Uhm…. I'm not a big fan of the people on the team…but… I suppose I could go. Why do you ask?" he wants to cut it as short as possible.

“All these two months, our cheer team has been working hard on a new dance routine. We're finally performing it next Friday night, and it'd be great if you could come watch. I'm the captain, by the way." There’s pride and excitement in her tone. More genuine than what she’s used to showing. 

"I don't believe in that.” 

"What is it you don't believe in? Football?”

"I don't believe in this exhibition of girls' bodies in worldly rituals.”

Mercy chuckles, and her voice finally starts quivering slightly at the sight before her, despite her best effort to conceal the desperation. "What about your shirt?" His pupils shrink, and he tries to pull it down, but it doesn't budge, being simply not made for someone his age.

"They'll think you're even weirder if you're the only one who doesn't participate in school activities, look at you today. Look what they did to you." She tries to lean forward with a handkerchief, but even that seems to have an unclean, cloying smell of lavender powder, and he leans back before it can touch his blood, almost toppling over, but she lunges forward. "You know what you should say to them next time they pick on you?”

"You have to tell them that you fucked me. Even if it's not true. Tell them you split me in two and that I couldn’t stop screaming.”

Fear grips him, transforming his soft—featured face. Muscles tense, hands shoot up defensively. 

It’s a primal reaction, all instinct, very little thought, speaking to atavistic terrors lurking in human memory. His body responds as if facing a Satanic threat or an inhuman predator wearing human skin. Every movement, every flicker of expression, reveals a visceral dread in Eli for the unknown and unnatural. 

He thinks about split me in two. He's drawn to that expression because it makes him think of floods, plagues, and seared entrails. If only it had been used in a holier situation. He thinks he will repeat a variation of it on Flame of Pentecost.

His face is almost entirely red now and he struggles to speak “I-I…..no!!! No, I don’t want to do ANY of that with you!!! And I don't want to speak of it either!” His voice rises, in an attempt at being forceful, as she draws near. He recoils, hoping his amplified tone will repel her slow march. 

She flashes a slight grin. "You think I'm ugly?” 

He tilts his head in a violent shake. “I don’t have such… impure intentions towards you! Why do you do such things to yourself?” 

Oddly, his voice mixes pity with fear and anger.

“I’d let you if you wanted to. You could come to me anytime you need to get off.” 

Her words come out on a breath that's both sweetly strawberry-scented and overwhelmingly foul, so pungent to Eli that it makes his eyes water and redden. The red on his face now resembles that of a newborn's raw complexion on its first day. 

In his watery eyes he sees a creature wallowing in filth, both pitiful and repulsive. How could it live this way? The sight evokes in him conflicting feelings.  Sympathy for its squalid existence, yet revulsion at its apparent acceptance of such degradation. How could anyone want to be a bowl into which someone else can vomit up their wickedness?

He clutches the cross around his neck, the only familiar thing, like a security blanket, and tears stream down his face, turning to loud sobs. He stands in the emptying parking lot, his grip on the cross unwavering, as if he hopes it could turn Mercy into a pillar of salt. His body shakes with emotion. The few remaining people are unnoticed, hidden behind a blurry veil of tears, inconsequential. He prays, asking God why he's been targeted, what he's done to earn this. He pauses, thinking about her comment on his shirt - was it a punishment for his own indiscretion? Mercy's wicked and a sinner, but not even she deserves to be tempted when she’s already struggling. He didn't do it with an evil heart, though. The Lord would know that. He doesn’t have many clothes. 

He murmurs a prayer. His grip on the cross around his neck is steady despite the sweat on his slippery hands. His weeping breaks his voice, so he cannot enunciate clearly but he tries to, like it could save his life, “Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: defend me from them that rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men. For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul: the mighty are gathered against me; not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O LORD. They run and prepare themselves without my fault: awake to help me, and behold. Thou therefore, O LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors…”

Mercy is caught off guard. Does he think she will kill him? She has never witnessed such a thing before. For the first time, she feels scared to approach someone with a short fuse. 

Though she moves carefully, she doesn’t run away. 

She waits for him to calm down, but he shuffles awkwardly, still tear-stained, as he realizes the threat abated, and says, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna head home." Before she can respond, he hurries off again. She calls out after him, "Good luck on your way home! See you next Friday!” 

That late October Friday night the air is crisp as Eli steps out of the car into the buzz around the high school stadium. He hasn't told Abel he's there, because he knows Abel wouldn't approve. Eli is scared of what people might think or do to him if he doesn't show up. Really, only Mercy would care or even notice, but Eli doesn't understand social dynamics well. He's afraid of upsetting the strong, handsome football players.

The car belongs to a woman in her fifties, she is convinced that her mother was once healed by Eli, who made her stand up and walk. In Paradise, Eli has a few connections, including the pastor who started the Flame of Pentecost show and has a soft spot for him. Although Eli only goes to town to prophesy, preach, sometimes heal, and now to school, the people there really like him - even more than they like Abel. When Eli said Abel's old tractor had broken down and he needed a ride, they didn't think twice about it. They had no idea to what extent Abel protected himself from the outside world. 

Something about it feels unreal. The faint smell of popcorn and hot dogs, that he cannot quite identify until he sees them, drifts over from the concession stand. The stadium lights blaze down, casting the field in a bright, almost surreal glow. It feels like the whole town is there in the bleachers. It probably is. Eli fantasizes about one day having a grand church, a house of God as mighty as that of Sister Aimee, the Angelus Temple in Angel City. And a congregation as large as this one looks. 

The students are wrapped in jackets and brightly coloured scarves. He makes his way up the creaking metal steps of the bleachers, looking for a lonely spot. Some are clutching pom-pons and handmade signs. There’s a nosy camaraderie in the stands. Friends clumped together, sharing snacks. Shouting to friends below. 

The players are warming up on the field, with their vibrant uniforms. From both sides, there’s a waving of banners with icons and colours that are meaningless to Eli. 

The band strikes up a tune, the fight song, a sparking of loud applauses and cheers. Eli once again fantasizes about his dream of a mighty, modern temple where he could lead loud and exciting worship. He likes to shout and sing and he imagines it amplified to a similar scale as what he is witnessing now.

A group of girls steps onto the edge of the field, close enough to the stands for him to make out their features. He quickly identifies the demonic captain, her cutting gaze as scary as ever. Notably, her voluminous hair is tied back in a ponytail, held in place by a yellow ribbon, with the ends curled neatly. It’s too cute looking, it doesn’t suit her. But the pleated skirts that sway with every step, showing off their shapely, well-formed long legs without the protection of tights, as they wear only short white socks that don't even reach their knees, do. It's unsettling to see Sandy like this, when he had clung to her as a protector, it almost feels like a betrayal. No one, however, makes it look as bad as Mercy. He kind of likes it, because it proves his point. Godless propaganda may portray this moral decay as an innocent, all-American tradition, but now he can say that Mercy is its true face, Sandy its mask. 

Eli is thrilled by the sharp clapping and stomping, having never seen a cheer routine before. It’s startling in its precision, almost like a drum beat, and then they repeat it in perfect unison, their movements quick and exact. There is something about the repetition that reinforces his sense that he is watching something demonic, a pagan ritual. He feels as if he is hypnotized by something from pre-Christian Rome, where all kinds of women were prostituted for the impious gaze of men. 

They shift into lines, break apart, and come back together, like parts of a machine, almost as if they’re sharing the same heartbeat. There's something worrying about how capable Mercy seems. His body is so weak in comparison. He could never jump like that, lift others up into the air. The Devil must give her this strange strength. In an instant, she is the one being lifted. She stands at the very top, her arms raised in a V-shape and triumphant, seeming to command the attention of the entire crowd. Her smile is wide and fearless and they cheer even more for this glossy façade. 

He wishes he could rush through the bleachers, shaking everyone's shoulders, and shout that even though this seems mighty and beautiful, it's the Devil's doing. He wants to warn them to escape his tricks and deceptions before it's too late, because this is exactly how he deceives people - through instruments like her. He wishes to tell them to stop ignoring the fact we have an enemy. 

Now he craves the mic. Shouting consumes his thoughts. He yearns to bellow. He'd holler at them: “BE SOBER, be VIGILANT; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” 

There's some more acrobatics that he can't quite focus on because in his mind he's screaming and spitting into a microphone, he can't wait to release that tension. 

The routine is over, and then the match, he doesn’t care about who won, but he can tell it’s them, Paradise High School. Flushed and radiant, Mercy bolts for the stands. She had been poised for this instant. A quick drink of her water, then she's off again, sprinting full-tilt, trying to find him. He wants to walk away before she can reach him, but the chaotic crowd is in the way. His stomach is all twisted up.

"So was it fun?" Her voice is unmistakable, with its lightness.

He gives a rather agitated nod before answering, "Yeah...I guess it was something. I almost thought your stomping would split the ground in two." 

Mercy chuckles at his unwitting use of her expression. She has no idea that he's actually seeing it - the earth opening its mouth. 

"You don't seem convinced," she says, swaying her black curls. "Something bothering you?” 

He gives another nod, this one more irritated than the last. "Yeah...something's bothering me," he says, his teeth almost gritted.

"What is that?" she asks, taking another sip from the water, making it seem like a tease.

He starts to fidget in his seat before he replies, “That whole show you just did…Everyone else might think it's okay, but I'm the one who has a problem with it. I don't care what they think, anyway. What's important to me is what God thinks. And to me, it's just plain wrong - it's a celebration of the signs of the last days.”

She giggles, fiend-like, full of malice "Are you saying we should outlaw high school football? Is this the kind of topic you discuss on your TV show? Do you think there's too much football?”

"Don't put words in my mouth! Football is a sport, but what you did is sinister. If it wasn't, you'd be doing it fully clothed.”

"That wouldn't work. Do you really think we should ban cheerleading at games then?" She asks, with no less amusement. "You know with who you have something in common with? Eleanor from the Art club. Strange bedfellows.”

She is calling him a feminist, a handmaiden of communism like that girl Eleanor, as if she doesn’t get his point even when he knows she does! He responds with a near snarl, as if to say your proposal isn't outlandish at all. “Yeah…yeah I would! If it were up to me I’d outlaw all this ungodly dancing and cheer-leading…they only serve to fill people’s heads with carnal thoughts and temptation. And before you ask unclean questions, no. Not my head. I know these tricks.” 

She almost flinches. "Wow, you're strict," she says. He, however, is pleased. He thinks he has successfully repelled her.

She sits beside him on the bleachers, her bare flesh closer to him than anyone else's ever has. "You shouldn't be mean to me, you know why?" He suddenly feels like drowning, recalling how strong she was when she jumped and danced, and he's sure she could seriously hurt him. At least, she isn't behind an awful cloud of perfume today. 

"And w-why is that…?”, he stutters.

“Next month is my birthday! Would you like to come to my birthday party on the 16th of November?” 

He would have preferred it if she had threatened to break his neck between her dancer’s legs. He falls silent. With her ability to make people jump like that, he's sure she's capable of doing much worse than what she has planned for the party. If he refuses, he's afraid she'll hurt him.

"I’ve never been to a house party, my family doesn’t associate with such things…”

She makes something up to put his mind at ease. In truth, they wouldn't be back until 29 November.

"My parents will be home, so we can't get too out of hand. I promise it'll be okay, nothing to worry about. They’re believers. My parents won’t let me have anything too wild—no weed, no pills, and definitely no cocaine. Not that they’d know sweet little Grace gave it to me, God knows where she got it, I wish I had friends in Angel City…Just alcohol. And of course, no fucking in their home.” 

That didn't lessen his distress.

“You don’t have to drink it! I’ll watch over you!” 

"I’m only staying for about twenty minutes, okay? I’m only coming to deliver a gift, say happy birthday, and leave.”

"Oh, I’ll get a gift?” she smiles. “How kind of you… You don’t have to. Your presence would be enough of a gift." She's genuine. She knows his family is broke and made up of poor farmers. She doesn't want to trouble him. “Staying longer would be the biggest gift. I'll see what I can do to make it happen.”

He doesn't like the way she says it. His face reddens as he thinks about asking her to confirm a disturbing rumor, hoping she'll tell him it's not true. Typically, he'd accept any negative gossip about her without question. But this time, something's different. The source seems less trustworthy since it was Andrew, whom he disliked just as much. 

“Andrew told me you defiled yourself with him on the first time you were alone together.” 

She shuts her eyes and laughter bursts out of her at the abruptness of the statement.

"Andrew needs to get it into his head that he is nothing more than someone I fuck occasionally. He thinks he's doing something by telling people I blew him on the first date, like I haven't fucked all his stupid friends. And some of their girlfriends, too.”

He can't look her in the eye. She's making up new forms of disobedience he's never even heard of, not even in the Book! He can't imagine how two girls could sin together. Is there anything on this earth that Mercy's presence would leave untouched? 

He feels like he's going to faint, just like when he's overcome, but this time it's as if something dark and wrong is taking over. He wants to get out of there, now. This was war's ugly face. This evil demanded confrontation, yet he faltered. The familiar horror of sin felt oddly renewed. 

“Really…that’s…that’s unfortunate…”

“Yeah I know. You don’t have to pity me.” She says in an unnervingly serene way. It's as if she's saying, let me soak it up. Let me wallow. I'll never have this again - youth, beauty, my lifeblood. Our vitality ebbs away, and that's our only shot. It's like milk, to be consumed before it turns sour. She guesses that’s how Eli feels about divine terror. Young enough to savor apocalyptic anticipation, he hasn't yet grown weary of waiting. The end times still hold their allure, unlike for those jaded by prolonged expectation. His prime age fuels his fresh fervor for impending doom.

He shoots her a confused glance, wondering how the unrepentant and damned can reject the one comfort they're offered: pity.

“Of course I pity you. You’ll see how wrong you are when you’re roasting in Hell…”

She looks away. Smiles for a second. Fixes her gaze on an empty spot; it’s almost tender, a far cry from its piercing laser focus during the routine. “Can you tell me what will happen? Just so I can be prepared…”

For a moment, he feels secure. Like on his show. No longer on a foreign field.

“Furnace of fire. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Where the worms do not die, and the fire is not quenched. You will be tormented with fire and brimstone. There’s no rest, no rest at all for people like you.”

She looks down at her cheer uniform's yellow and green pleated skirt, raising the hem slightly, then higher still. He covers his face, as if preparing for a hit from his father's belt.

She adopts an exaggerated, syrupy inflection, like a sugary coating on top of her already jarring natural accent, which normally sets his teeth on edge with its nasal twang. “Do you think all my white flesh will turn charred and black and fall down? I’d hate that; everyone says it’s so pretty now…”

The sight of her thighs makes his whole body tense up, make him feel jumpy and nervous. He needs to shake off the feeling before he can answer her question.

“I…yes…your skin will burn…that’s the least of your worries though…the torment on your soul will be even more painful—”

She interrupts, “Will I twist and writhe in pain?” 

Eli nods, a bit too hastily, as the image of Mercy in pain flashes through his mind - a gruesome thought that, oddly, holds a certain appeal for him.

“Oh, wow…you sure do know a bunch of things!”

He tries to avoid distractions but can't stop thinking about Mercy's suffering. So, he just nods, finding it hard to talk. Embarrassment reddens his face. Despite his efforts, the image of Mercy in a lake of fire is too vivid to shake off.

“You look a little shaken…What’s the deal?”, she says, her tone somehow caring. 

“I….I was just…imagining you. You in hell. Burning.”

With a sarcastic tone and a suppressed giggle, she says "Oh, how lovely.” 

His hands clench, knuckles whitening with fury. The fragmented words that spilled from his lips moments ago now fuel his rage. Her flippant response to his open, vulnerable state is unbearable.

“You think it’s FUNNY?? You think that’s FUNNY?? That you’ll be burning in the fires of hell and feeling TORMENT you can’t even comprehend??” 

"I think it's funny that you said that like it's normal to imagine your classmate burning in hell.” 

He hates that she's right. He hates that he’s been unable to stop picturing her that way for the past few minutes, he hates how unrepentantly evil she is. He hates Mercy.

"You're a sinner who deserves hell, and I don't think it's wrong to imagine you getting what's coming to you. You asked me to tell you what that's like.”

"I did ask, didn't I? Are you still coming to my party?” 

She’s feeling as though she may physically wilt if he says no. Like she might die if he says no. She won’t take no for an answer. His mental landscape holds a word and concept she despises: No. She’d like to obliterate it and wipe his brain clean. There’s nothing endearing about his terrible chastity, it just destroys her. She will fuck Andrew again tonight. She’ll shut her eyes and use him to quench the thirst Eli’s words cursed her with. 

Eli suddenly hesitates in answering, knowing what the party will be like. Is he justified in being too much of a coward to decline? Full of temptation, alcohol, drugs, probably debauchery in all sorts of ungodly acts, even with her parents there. He doesn’t think he wants to go to a party like that, but he wants to fuel his wrath, he does want to hate Mercy more. 

“Yes. Yes, I’ll be there.” 

After she finishes talking, Andrew steps forward, sweat and satisfaction written all over his face as he surveys the bleachers. His jersey is streaked with dirt and stained with grass. He quickly locks eyes with Mercy and his expression shifts. "You're acting like he’s the one who won this match, not us. You didn't even say a word to us.” 

Mercy shrugs. "The Lord was with you, that's why you won. You prayed for our victory, didn't you?" she asks Eli, her head tilted to one side. 

He nods quickly, a fleeting image of Andrew's jersey stained with blood, rather than dirt and grass, crossing his mind. He's careful to convey only admiration.

"Let's get out of here and grab something to eat somewhere else. This place is a headache." 

"How about with Sandy?”

"Nah, she's got a curfew at 11 today.”

She looks at Andrew, then at Eli, and thinks she's found the perfect excuse. "Let's bring the new kid!”

Eli pulls back, he doesn’t want to get into Andrew's car or explain himself to the woman waiting to drive him back to the farmhouse. With their devil-given strength, Andrew and Mercy could easily overpower him if he resists.  They’re athletes. At this moment, they appear to him as wild, primal beings - unpredictable soulless animals, with dirt, grass, and sweat clinging to them, and an undercurrent of threat, not just spiritual but physical. Andrew has hit him before, Mercy, worse. To survive the rest of the year, he must try to keep her satisfied, otherwise he'll have to compromise on the important things. Andrew seems jealous, judging by what he's seen of them. He'd try to stop her if she attempted to…

While he reflects on this, Mercy is leaning over the woman's car window. She promises not to return him to the farmhouse too late. She says all the right things — oh no, it’s not just us alone, there’s my boyfriend too! — and the thing is: Mercy, much like the devil that disguises himself as an angel of light, doesn’t look evil. She looks like everything good about America. 

Andrew gives Eli a look before Mercy heads back to the bleachers. It's not his usual aggressive stare. "Why are you bothering with her?" he says. "She's not really your type, is she? People like you generally don’t hang around people like her.”

He’d like to say he wonders the same about her. If you're immoral, don't expect to attract a good girl, that’s what upsets him about Andrew’s badmouthing her. But why do the righteous get picked on by the godless without any clear reason? To him, it feels like he’s being prosecuted, but really, she's just inviting him to eat. She makes it seem that way. 

His response is defensive. “And what exactly do you mean by “people like me”?! You mean a God fearing man who doesn’t partake in the worldly vices you clearly enjoy and encourage her to indulge in?” 

Andrew's eyes narrow, thinking about how his part in the mistreatment must have made the kid crave inclusion. That was the way you were supposed to treat “the queers”, or those that resembled them. His eyes soften slightly at the kid's naivety.

"You know that any kindness she shows is just because she wants to lay you, right? You're just another notch on her belt, she doesn't mind taking your innocence just so she can brag about it like any fifty year old pervert would after he got to fuck a high school girl”.

Andrew's harsh words are the only empathy he's gotten from a student, except for Sandy, in those two months, and he instantly feels the need to seek protection, his face contorting slightly as he asks.

"Hey, I'm riding with you to get some food, but if she tries anything funny, you'll step in, okay? I know you don’t like me much but you won't let her get away with it or turn a blind eye? Or even help her hold me down…I'm not strong! If she tried to do something, I wouldn't be able to stop her.”

Andrew is a bit thrown off.

“I mean, she is a slut, but she wouldn’t force you…”

Eli glances down at his boots, then back up into Andrew's eyes. He takes a deep breath, his heart racing as the memory comes flooding back. His parents always said food from the outside was poisonous, but since that day, he can barely eat anything homemade.

“She drank my milk.” 

"What do you mean?" Andrew asks, his face a mix of a scowl and morbid interest. 

"On my first day, I walked away from the cafeteria because she was pestering me. But I didn't realize I'd forgotten my food and a small glass bottle of milk my mom had given me from our goats. Later, before I left school, she cornered me, holding up the empty bottle, and made fun of me with a mean, nasty look, saying she was thirsty.”

No sooner had Andrew opened his mouth to respond than she appears again, looking pleased with herself. “The lady who brought you is a nice lady. Is it true? You healed her mother? I have pains everywhere from cheer practice. Oh, I could use that.”

She talks on as they walk towards the car, a modern one like the city people have. He's always liked looking at them in catalogues. He wants one badly, but that's not going to happen for a while.

"I need him to lay his hands on me so bad..."

Andrew shoves her shoulder. "Don't be disgusting!"

"Hey, that's the expression they use.”

"That is not how divine healing works. You have to believe in God's power that He still heals people. And if it is not God's will to heal, then you might not be healed. God wouldn't heal you the way things are.” 

Andrew shoots Eli a look, a reminder of his earlier words, before opening the car door. "She is mocking you, you rube.”

The night lights glow, blending before his eyes as he passes them, pouring into one another like watercolours on wet paper. They pierce through the fog that wraps around the town like a damp, grey blanket. Andrew’s driving. Eli’s in the back with Mercy, looking out the window. They're just going to get something to eat. For him, it feels like the pilgrimage of the century. He's never ventured so late into the night. He was sure everything slept at this hour. But, even in a small town, that wasn't the case. When they reach the small, red and white Dairy Queen’s building, Andrew slings an arm out, pointing to the ice cream sign, parks the Ford Mustang in the parking lot and they spill out. It’s one of the newer buildings, very attractive for Paradise High students. 

They talk about their weekend plans. Eli tells them he will be on Flame of Pentecost that Sunday. He has been invited again, as they heard about his forced enrollment in the public school system. He says he will talk about what happened with the Sheriff. The government has strayed from God’s path, interfering where it doesn’t belong and leading people astray. He says he’ll speak of what he’s witnessed in high school—the corruption of young minds, the sinfulness encouraged by the sexual revolution, and how it all points to the times foretold in Scripture.

"You may not be aware of it," he tells Mercy, "but you're being used by God. I have no doubt whatsoever that these are the signs of the first years of tribulations that are building up and soon to come, and the battle of Armageddon take place in this very decade. Just because you're part of a prophecy, though, doesn't mean you're excused. I used to say this to my brother Paul.”

“You have a brother?”

“He is not worth talking about.”

"Is he as beautiful as you? Maybe I've got a chance with him then.”

He brushes his hair behind his ear, overcome with a deep sadness that might be mistaken for bashfulness. It's as if he can't say anything right, and no matter what he says, he won't be taken seriously. He thinks he should probably cut his hair. He no longer wishes to be beautiful among the new people. For a moment, he wonders if he's bringing it on himself, if someone wicked is that fixated on him. He's horrified by the possibility that there's something sinful about him that draws her in. But he tries to reassure himself: that's just the nature of the wicked - they prey on and prosecute the innocent, a story as old as time itself.

"Man, is this all you care about? The end times, I mean. Don't you have any other interests?" Andrew asks, his tone frustrated.

"We need to prepare, we won’t know exactly when’s the Rapture, Andrew, please think on this, you need to be ready. I don’t want you to be lost and neither does He, he wants you…but I have to say, I really like your car. I wish I had one like that. My family, though, we only have this old tractor. My dad doesn't even have a license to drive it on the streets, but we still use it to get to Paradise for the church and the healings and my show.” It wasn’t his show, but he was the one who people tuned in for. 

Mercy smiles, endeared. “Next year, I’ll get a car, and I’ll drive you around anytime you want."

He doesn’t reply. They push through the glass door. The plastic trays are stacked by the counter, ready to be loaded with decadent cones, sundaes and burgers. Mercy tells everyone she’ll pay. They find a booth by the window, collapsing onto the red vinyl seats. “You’re mooching off her and won’t even put out.” 

Andrew baits him but he doesn’t know what he means, he just remarks “I didn’t even want to come!” 

“I’m kidding, man! I didn’t want you to come either.” 

When eating his burger, Eli takes small bites, holding them against his mouth with his long fingers, which possess a delicate strength similar to his arms. He's conscious of every jaw movement. And God forbid that he should put his lips, with their slight Cupid’s bow, together around a straw to suck in a little Coke. 

He can feel her gaze. It’s more than a sense of being observed; it’s about her making him into something less than human, even less than a creature, a thing, an object of pornographic scrutiny; he is not being seen. He is the reactions he is causing in her.

Andrew lowers his voice, "do you see the way she's looking at you?”

He is not imagining it. It’s not one of his visions. He suddenly gets up, unable to take any more. "I...I need to use the restroom…”

Eli runs to the bathroom, where the rows of urinals and stalls, the sticky maroon tiles with brown footprints, and the yellowed walls make him feel dizzy. The rows seem to stretch on forever, even beyond what he can see. He's lucky it's this late, as there doesn't appear to be anyone else around, at least no one he needs to worry about. As he usually does, he locks himself in the last stall.

After around ten minutes, Mercy tells Andrew she needs to go to the bathroom. Andrew feels like he's in the middle of a crime scene, as if he'll need to recall the exact time later. He knows what she's after. He doesn't trust her to be alone with him. He's unsure how to tell it to her.

"Mercy...have you ever considered...this kid thinks the end times are around the corner. He mentioned guns on his show. I don't want to get my brains blown out in the hallway one day because you crossed a line. We all like to bash him, hell, I know I've gone too far myself sometimes. But hitting is one thing, this…"

Mercy glares at him. "You're getting paranoid yourself, Andrew? I have to check on him, he has seizures, what if he gets one in the bathroom and hurts himself? It's been over ten minutes.”

Eli is trapped in the stall, his mind racing with scenarios of sexual and physical violence being inflicted upon him, and the decay of all that is unpolluted.

He pictures someone treating him like Paul did with the flowers. Every time, he pissed on the few flowers growing outside the farmhouse. Eli always scolded him in the hope that it would grow into a green garden, those scattered, misshapen flowers in the dry soil, but he was only a child then, with hopes for that land. Paul insisted it was just like watering them, but it made Eli think of death and always aimed away. Paul was harsh with him about it. Who cares if you piss on a flower? 

He paces back and forth like a hamster in a plastic cage. His hands are clenched in his hair, as if trying to physically hold his sanity together. The sound of footsteps outside is like a trigger, and his heart goes from zero to sixty in an instant. He's suffocating in fear, his body slick with cold sweat, his breathing shallow and rapid. He can still taste the blood from his last bathroom beating, the flavour on his tongue as he licked beneath his nose. He recalls curling up under their fists, feeling the snap of his twisted wrists.

He's convinced that if he screams, the waitresses will hear him, but will they care? His heart is a jackhammer in his chest as he hears Mercy's voice, where it shouldn't be. She seems to him like a barbarian pillaging the women’s quarters. 

"Hey, are you alright?"

There's hardly anyone around to notice her entering the men's room. In fact, the scarcity of people is beginning to feel like a liability rather than an asset.

“What are you doing in here?! This is the men’s restroom!”

It's not easy to hide that he is in the grip of panic.

Mercy's reply feels like a sledgehammer, pounding against the door of the stall as she calls out, "You've been gone for a while, I was just checking on you!”

The continued pounding echoes in his eardrums, synchronized with his heartbeat that feels supersonic. He swears he can feel the blood pumping in his ears, and he swears he can be sure his heart has shifted position more than once from beating that quickly. Each of her knocks jolts him as though hit by a surge. He presses into the corner, as far from the door as he can. The sound a reminder of all the things that can go wrong. Mercy's knocks are a countdown to pending calamity; each one ticking away the seconds until the sky falls.  

"You shouldn’t be in here though, people will get the wrong idea…”

She can tell he's not okay even as he keeps forcing himself to speak normally.

"Open the door, please! I won't do anything to hurt you. You sound like you need help. I swear on my life, I won't harm you! And who's people? The waitresses? Nobody cares. I can't leave you on your own when you're sick.” 

“Send Andrew!”

He doesn't want to leave the stall but he doesn't want her in either. Mercy lies. She thinks it’s ridiculous he’d prefer someone who has hit him over her. She lies like she lied about her parents when she invited him to her November party.

“He left. He got upset for some reason.”

“WHO WILL DRIVE ME BACK HOME??’, Eli yells out.

"Hush, I'll take care of it. I've got the money for a taxi.”

Eli becomes quieter, but the door remains shut.

"Can I check in with you? I've been hearing things about blackouts and foaming at the mouth. Maybe it's just gossip, but I want to make sure you're okay.”

“That stuff is just them mocking the Holy Spirit's power that works through me!” 

"I had no idea they'd make fun of that! It's a beautiful thing, really. Please, let me in. I'm not the monster you think I am. I wouldn't hurt you!” 

Eli knows that whether he'd have to walk through the dark, desolate valley to his farmhouse that night or ride home in a warm car depended entirely on her. He has no choice but to appease her.

She enters. Leans against the bathroom wall. She doesn't look scary. Not with her yellow ribbon and her sweater. She doesn't look scary or smell scary tonight when he's not looking at her naked legs. He has never been in such a small room with such a soft body. He does not think, not even with his mother. He does not think he has ever shared such a small space with his father. Maybe with his brother Paul, but he'd rather forget how he hurt him. Compared to him, even she, Mercy Miller, seems safe.  

"You're all red in the face.”

His eyes go wide when she mentions how red he is, and he's surprised he's that red in the face. He wonders what she thinks he's been doing in here for fifteen minutes. He remembers that time Abel used that word towards him. Onanist. He was twelve, he didn’t know it was a sin. Paul had taught him that vice and then told him it was all right. Always Paul. But he was the one who got the punishment. 

He feels guilty and worried even if that’s not what he was doing in this stall, because he wasn't praying - he just let panic take over. 

His wide eyes moisten up with tears. “May the Lord smite me if I speak falsehood, I wasn’t doing anything impure!”

"I know that. I know you don't do impure things in fast food’s bathrooms, look at you!" 

She says this as if whether or not he was impure depended on his face.

She walks forward and she places her hand on his forehead, the first time these hands, slick with everything unclean in his brain, from menstrual blood to semen to waste of all kinds, these hands that should burn hot and sear and ruin the candour of his forehead, come into contact with him. His body relaxes, he sighs, his back pressed against the bathroom wall.

She touches his forehead in a manner reminiscent of how one might handle a lamb. It is a tenuous and perhaps sacrilegious connection to draw between Mercy and his mother, yet it is an unconscious association.

“You don't have a temperature, great.”

He remembers winter mornings when he was ten years old, when his bed still felt big enough and he could sleep comfortably. He'd have a fever, and his mother would nurse him, checking his forehead for a temperature. Only Mercy's hand feels younger and more tender.

He swallows hard, then says slowly, "See... I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about.”

“Do you want to come out? Are you done?”

He doesn't want to leave this bathroom. But, he also can't be alone with her in this state. He'd be at risk of sin. He can't keep eye contact. He's too focused on not looking at her cheer uniform, which hugs her body and exposes it’s lush spring to the world’s merciless stares. 

“Yes, I'm all set now.” 

When he and her reach their booth, Andrew is still there. He is slumped, bored, and having a second serving of ice cream. Andrew. Mercy lied. She lied, so that he’d let her enter his domain. And he was too scared, too scared to protect the sacredness of his space, too scared to obey God. Mercy lied, and with that lie, she crossed the threshold into his private world. For the first time, welcomed willingly. He should have been brave enough to face the dark valley instead of sullying his purity, but he didn't have the strength.

For the first time, he feels as tainted as she does. He's terrified that he now shares something with other boys who can claim they've "touched" a girl, or been touched by one. Even if it was just a touch on the forehead. Would they be able to tell? He wishes he could become a flower, an animal, something without a soul, so his innocence would be obvious and never at risk of being lost.

He intones to himself, but more to Mercy Miller, even though he admits the sin of his cowardice. He should tell Abel what he did. He knows he'll beat him, though. 

“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks in his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” 

Chapter Text

From: Penitence Diary of Mercy Miller. (I'm pretty sure it's 1972 now, but I'm not sure if what I heard outside were fireworks or the sound of gunshots.) 

Some would say I did not deserve it. Some would say I should have paid my dues in juvenile hall. 

That I shouldn’t have been taken down to live with him down below. That I don't deserve to be hungry and dirty. But it hurts to have a body that doesn't match your soul. It hurts to be a stranger to yourself, a beautiful vessel when you're not beautiful makes you a sad, distant stranger to yourself.

There's a divine plan for each and every one of us. To dust we shall return, for those of us who are filth, to filth we must return. Praise be to the Lord who will bring us back to our filth. This month that just passed, I was bleeding from everywhere but my shameful places.

I still remember - I was the one who went down there. I wonder if he would have taken me had I not gone down there to bring back the bag. To say “sorry.”

I used to say the word "sorry" too freely. You should be economical with sorry. It should mean something, it shouldn't be a word you say, sorry should be a scourge and we are only once given mortal flesh to flail. 

To those who say these things, I tell them, there's nowhere a rapist can find forgiveness but with hands tied with ropes under the bed of a victim who will never sleep again without being haunted. I cannot haunt him if I am there. My spirit can't haunt him if my body is under his bed. 

I remember being dragged, kicking and screaming, if anyone who knows me ever reads my words: I hate you all. You lied to me, you lied, God knows you lied. But I still won’t let you pay for my sins with your blood. I love you. I miss you but my absence will save you. 

The filthy could not possibly imagine what it means for the pure to be brought down into the mire. But I saw him, I heard him. His weeping, all night, every night in that barn. I can't give back what I have stolen - what I have stolen has been given once and will not be given back, not even to the saints. We have fallen. 

I must ask myself what my whitest lamb, my most fearsome executioner, cries his eyes upon, the drowning of innocence or the black heart of the woman who drowned it. 

Drowning. Today he took me to the bathroom and I didn’t need it so I didn’t know why. It has no mirrors, I can feel all the dirt of me, but I'm lucky enough not to see it. He held me down by the sink, his fair hand on my forehead. He covered my face with a white towel. I felt the waves wash over me. It was as if several solid balls of glowing blood red lava had been forced down my throat and into my nostrils. I swallowed them all. I wonder if I kicked much. I couldn't tell if the sunlight was out because my face was covered or because I was dead. I know I must have passed out once. I was happy because he was holding my hand. When I came to, I vomited everything, the water in the sink, there wasn't much else to vomit. It felt like it was coming out of my eyes and not just out of my nose and out of my mouth and it didn’t feel like water, it felt like charcoal. My ingénue hangman held my hand and then he undid my ropes. 

I tell him that I am afraid of death. He tells me that he will never let me die until he is sure that I will not go to that terrible place. When I regain my hoarse, faint voice I whisper blessed be the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world! I have this one on my arm. 

I ask him if being drugged feels like drowning. He stares into space. I don't ask him again. 

Chapter Text

Paradise High School, month three.

In 1971, Title IX hadn’t yet been passed. Even if it had, sexual harassment wouldn’t be considered until much later, nor would Eli have known what it meant. Or that he could have asked someone who wasn’t God. Mercy Miller could look kind. 

One moment she corners him, the next she smiles at passersby students. She pushes him into tight spaces, words on her lips that he cannot repeat, not even when he talks to Jesus, then retreats, leaving only the bitter aftertaste of shame in her wake. Not sin, shame. She knows how to make him feel ashamed. 

One day, she discreetly removes her panties from under her skirt and tucks them into her cardigan. She leaves without anyone noticing as everyone else passes by. There's something about the way she acts that makes him feel just as disgusting, as if he is somehow involved in her actions. Filth beckons filth. 

He starts to fear his schoolbooks and notepads. She slips in images of herself, like those you'd find in forbidden magazines, like Playboy - he remembers the name of one because he recalls snatching it from Paul's hands and sprinting wildly across the house to toss it into the fireplace. The word "play" stuck with him because it had almost been fun to run, until he got caught and pinned to the ground, beaten by his brother. But that didn't matter when he saw his father's proud warmth, his mother's silent approval. At that moment, he knew he hadn't just run off with the magazine, but with all their love too. Now this girl threatens to take that love away from him.

He has no idea how she gets her hands on his books. He's meticulous, double-checking everything, yet he still can't shake the fear of stumbling upon some disturbing image. He couldn't even begin to describe what's in them. He closes his eyes, and all that comes to mind are flashes of soft flesh - thighs, breasts - like scenes from a documentary on working in a slaughterhouse.

Towards the end of November's first week, she touches him for the second time since his attack of nerves in DQ’s bathroom. With a permit from Abel, he could skip PE and go to the library instead. He had confided in his father that the boys were sodomites and had touched him, but in reality, they had thought he was the one with those tendencies and felt entitled to touch him because of it, in the locker room. Girls could have been his safe haven had it not been for Mercy. He didn’t want her to see him in a PE uniform, or to smell his perspiration. 

The classes were segregated, but the mere thought of her catching a glimpse, a millimetre of his thighs or buttocks, made him retch. 

He couldn’t tell Abel about the locker room. He would have asked if he gave them reason to think it. 

Mercy figures out a way to ditch PE and follow Eli there. He works on a sermon at the library desk, where a Bible lies open halfway. She grabs a plastic blue chair and sits beside him, pretending to read The Scarlet Letter. She places her hand, long nails adorned with purple nail polish, on his thigh, feeling his skin through the thin denim of his pants. She explores it like checking a peach's ripeness, then gently strokes it. He gasps sharply, but can't loudly protest. He knows how it would look. His pupils burn behind his glasses as he fixes his gaze on the other students scattered around the library, from different grades. Sometimes students behaved indecently like that in public, and they'd think it was mutual. 

She whispers, “If you knocked me up, I wouldn’t tell anyone it was you.” 

Her hand hovers just above a precarious surface. Her fingers are like snakes. He imagines himself lying naked in the desert. His body becoming a feast. Ants marching in lines across his skin, their tiny feet tickling his flesh. Beetles, with their iridescent shells, crawling across his chest, leaving behind trails of tiny footprints. The sun beating down on him, its intense heat draining the moisture from his skin, leaving it dry and cracked like the sand. The sun doesn’t respect anyone’s decency. Mercy Miller is like the sun. 

He is faced with a dilemma. Should he touch her hand to push it away, or let her fingers slither up? Either way, she wins. He musters all his strength and grabs her wrist.

She steals a look at his writing in progress. “You will make a lot of money hating on girls like me. I don’t mind. You have no idea how much it turns me on. How angry you are.”  

One day, Mercy is crying at lunch, a sight as rare as snow in Paradise. People doubted that she even had tear ducts at all. Sandy tries to console her. Mercy asks, "What if I'm in love with a boy who hates me?" Sandy looks lost, unsure how to respond. "You? You're in love with someone?” She has never felt her friend to be both that near and that far away at the same time.

The day he overhears that - much to Abel’s happiness - he trims his page boy cut. He gives himself an austere haircut, the cut strands falling into the sink like the sacrifice of a fairytale princess's golden locks. The result is a humble, unpretentious look: medium length on top, with shorter sides and back. As he combs it, staring into a pocket mirror, he realizes the new style makes him appear even younger, drawing attention to the softness of his cheeks in a way that he doesn’t quite like. He expected more out of the haircut. He hoped it would deform his face, making him unattractive and inviolable.

His first period the day after is Math. America needs scientists if it wants to contend with the USSR, the vermillion Kingdom of the Antichrist. Eli acknowledges that, but he's concerned that by banishing Bible education from schools, since around a decade now, the modern system is compromising the nation's moral fabric and, more significantly, failing to cultivate the prophets who can lead the country through its darkest hours and illuminate the way forward.

The teacher is callous with him. An old and bitter man who never fails to remark on the physical quirks of the students, or if girls gain weight. 

“My, Mr. Sunday! Have you lost your binky on your way to school?”

Mercy jumps in, vociferously, with no regard for reprimands.

"Oh, shut up! He looks handsome and manly! Not that he didn't before, he always looked like a young knight, like those dragon-slaying boys in old paintings or book illustrations.”

November 16th is suddenly here. Eli has a note with her address, but he copies it onto a different piece of paper because he's uneasy about keeping anything of hers. He's even suspicious of small things, like what she might do with a piece of paper. Witchcraft of some sort. He asks the same woman from the football match for a ride. This time, he doesn't mention where he's headed. She drops him off in front of the pastor of Flame of Pentecost's home. He tells her he needs to work on something with the pastor and his wife. He tells her that he will drive him back home, so she might as well go. 

He has a bag with him. He hopes to hand out the announcements for his next appearance on the show to the guests at Mercy's party. It's a power play, he wants to stand her up. He likes the way he looks on the poster, he's wearing a black suit and tie, too big, because like the white shirt he's wearing under his blue knit sweater, it's Abel's. It is his only good suit, and he only lets him wear it for the show. In bold, thick white letters it says, "The Soon Coming Rapture? Tune in for 16-year-old Elijah Sunday's latest prophecies: “THE LAST DAYS UPON US, Judgement Is Near - SAVE YOURSELF BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE! PREPARE!” Flame of Pentecost TV Special. Tomorrow morning, 11:00. Channel 5.” 

His face is contorted in fervent speech in this one. He looks almost ugly. For once.

He can already see the pale silhouette of Mercy's house against the spent grey of the evening sky. The siding is the colour of old cream, and the steep gable of its roof jutted upward, stark against the brown-leaved trees that frame it. All the windows are lit, but the attic's round window stands out, gazing out like an eye at the road. A Ford Mustang rests to one side - Andrew must be there already. There are a few other cars parked nearby too. Although it's home to just three people, the two-story house is still bigger than his farmhouse, which has five people, formerly six. 

He hears pop and rock music as he steps up to the porch. That screams danger already. Two girls, holding full plastic cups, chat outside the open door. He doesn’t feel like going in until he’s invited, so he just stands there. When he hands them the announcement about his TV appearance, they laugh at him. 

When Mercy appears, she is wearing a white buttoned top with a high neckline that clings to her like a snake's skin, accentuating every bulbous protrusion of her chest, tucked into a too-short purple suede skirt that looks more like a belt to him. Tall, black leather boots over the lower part of her legs and a velvet headband over her full, shiny head of hair, like the one she had worn on the first day, but a similar purple to the skirt. 

"You came!", she exclaims with the adoration of a six-year-old with a crush, as she leans against the cream door frame.

He wants to do something mean. He wants to dampen her excitement. 

He pulls out the paper from his bag and says, “Your gift.” She examines it closely, her tongue darting over her blood coloured lips. 

She's entertained by his boldness and the hint of meanness. A smirk plays on her lips. "I'm pretty sure this is the most interesting gift I've gotten in a while," she says, reading the words again. “I assume it’s too late for me?”

He sighs, “It isn't - not yet.” He knows that's what he has to say, even though, to be honest, he's not really sure. He feels bad for thinking it might be too late. 

"Why didn't you wear that suit to the party?" she says, still gazing at the picture. "You look like a young god in this!”

He cringes at her blasphemy. "I wouldn't waste it on an occasion like this. I'm not staying long, as I said. Where are the Millers?” 

She suddenly recalls her lie and knows she must keep it up. "They're coming back today, but you're a bit early. Why don't you come in and wait?”

He scans the streets, silent except for the occasional creak of a thin branch and dry leaves being stepped on or distant car hum. The evening light makes the sparse, sleepy houses seem ominous, as if everyone hides cannibal trophies in the backyard. The party has a warm and inviting atmosphere, with the string of coloured lights hung over the porch rail, seeming like the only colour in the area, and from where he stands, it doesn't seem too out of hand. He steps in. 

She reaches out with her long-nailed hands, like a witch's or the devil's, and places them on Eli’s shoulder, making him feel like he's being dragged down to that desperate place where God is absent.

“That picture! Short hair, suit and tie...you're turning into a real man, aren't you? You need to get yourself a girl, you could have your pick!" she says more like an overly eager aunt than a peer.

"I'm pretty sure there's time for that, and anyway, when said time comes, it won't be someone like you." 

"Time’s running out! You always say that! I didn't say anything about me. Tell me, you know I like you, but is there anyone you like? I know everyone at Paradise High, I could set you up with anyone you want.”

She whispers to him repeatedly, and he feels frustrated, so he walks away to explore further. 

He stands by the snack table, pushed to the side of the living room to make space for a makeshift dance floor, he munches on some chips, a decadent treat he's not used to, and listens to the music in silence. He winces at the scent of vanilla candles, cologne and wood mixing up with that of cigarette smoke. At the table's centre is a birthday cake. It's a heart, with pastel pink frosting and sugar flowers. Seventeen candles wait to be lit, but, it looks like a cake for a much younger girl. He secretly tastes some frosting with his finger. He dislikes its extreme sweetness. It's far from his mother's savoury, hard pies. 

He sees them dancing. Bodies swaying and twisting, to godless music rather than anything that exalts Christ. A girl in a light, long, loose white maxi dress spins slowly, her bare arms rising above her head as her blond hair follows, like something out of a Northern European idolatrous festival. Other groups of friends half—dance together between conversation, sips of their drink and laughter. He feels like half-dancing too, and figures he probably should. He has to catch himself to avoid jumping up, since he loves to jump around wildly sometimes - like he does at church when he feels God's power working especially strong. 

The girl in the white dress sets him spinning around in a circle. He twirls, stomping out a rhythm on the floor with his feet, and can't help but let out a deep, gut-busting laugh, like a child's loud giggles when being playfully tickled on the ribs. His joy is impossible to contain, and the room spins, leaving him feeling drunk without having had a drink. He is starting to sweat. The thought hits him: he loves spinning, no matter what others think. 

He hardly notices Mercy, who should have been the star of the show, flickering at the edge of the room like a ghost. Pale, wide-eyed, and tense. Her lips pressed together, and her eyes holding the same laser focus as during the cheer routine. There was an odd duality to her movements: dancing yes, but not quite, like she was pretending. She looks around the room, checking to see if anyone was watching her odd behaviour - going in and out of the kitchen and over the table. But Eli wasn't paying attention. He was lost in his own world, sometimes closing his eyes to imagine heaven, the angels, and God's glory, and his body would jerk in response. Apparently even godless music could do that. 

The kitchen door awning flaps open and shut, but Andrew's eyes stay fixed on Mercy, even when his friend screams in his ear. 

That's when he he should’ve left. 

Eli gets thirsty. His face flushes red, like a fresh bruise, and sweat droplets cling to his forehead. He's panting. He's craving a drink. That's when it happens. 

When Mercy offers him the cup, he sees it as a hassle he wants to get rid of quickly so he can go back to spinning. The drink is foamy and slightly bitter, but not overwhelmingly so - it doesn’t taste like water, nor does it seem like alcohol, though he's never had any before. He figures it’s some kind of soda. That’s what he remembers of The Fall. Maybe the apple is a spiked drink. Even the most godly of folks don't get back to that original state of grace. The rest of the story is about making amends. 

Andrew's friend can't understand why the boisterous footballer is so subdued that day, at the party of the hottest girl of Paradise High at that. Andrew knows why he can’t let himself relax. He just pretends not to. 

Andrew also knows he should have done more than just yell at Mercy, "He's too wasted! You're the one who said he has seizures. You don't want to be the one responsible if something goes wrong, Mercy.” Like he was wasted because he wanted to get wasted. It feels wrong to put it this way after what he saw. 

Judging by the look in her eyes, she doesn’t seem to care. She would have fucked him even if he had died in her arms.

When Mercy carries his limp body up to the attic, he should do more than just run up the stairs. Eli's face is deathly pale, as still and lifeless as a doll from the Victorian era or a corpse in a post—mortem photograph.

As she locks the door behind her, he bangs on it, shouting, "Get the fuck out of here! You can't do this! Mercy, it's wrong!" He should call someone, but he doesn’t. 

After failing to get a response, Andrew kicks the door again out of frustration and then heads back to the party downstairs. 

No one notices Eli is gone. They think Mercy is in the bathroom getting high. Andrew, however, keeps the secret. He saw Mercy carry Eli upstairs, but no one else did, with the crowd, the loud conversation, the music. He doesn’t know why he keeps the secret. He doesn’t want to ruin everyone’s night. He doesn’t want to get called a sissy for defending the freak. He doesn’t want Mercy to get in trouble. Despite everything, he thinks he knows her. She is a slut. But she wouldn’t force him.

The attic is mostly empty and dark, now that evening has fully fallen, with the round window only reflecting the darkness outside. The wooden floor is thick with a blanket of dust, and a crumpled heap of discoloured pillows in pale blue, pink, and yellow lies on the floor, along with a sheet. To the side, childhood toys that haven't been touched in seven years or more are stacked up. There are dolls, table games, and toy kitchens. 

When she lays his light body on the sheet, his sleeping face makes her feel as if she were still a little girl playing with dolls, she strokes his round cheek, it's flushed, warm, despite his pallor. He breathes softly. Nothing too catastrophic has happened yet.

She lunges forward, her feet propped up and she devours his parted pink mouth, but he just lies there, unresponsive. She forcefully licks his lips, forcing her tongue inside to taste the moisture of his tongue. Then she greedily captures both his lips with hers, thrusting her tongue deep into his throat, as deep as she can. His drool and spit taste like drinking from an alpine spring for the first time after only knowing the taste of polluted sewer water. It's refreshingly gelid and doesn't respond, like something frozen melting under her hot mouth. 

She has a violent desire, she wants to crush his cheeks, feel the pliable flesh beneath her hands as she voraciously kisses him, so she does just that.

After three months of abstinence, soothed only by furtive touches and the second-hand, rotten taste of milk, she devours a body that remains still and silent. A wild, needy creature, wailing over a body that lies motionless. 

As her lips move away from his and trail down his chin, she's struck by his neck, a slender, white column that seems tailor-made for vampiric predation. When she lifts his fair head, the subtle network of veins becomes visible, and he strains against her. The neck's delicate, marble-like. A fragile work of art, at risk of crumbling. The soft ridges of his jugular vein and the fine, downy hairs on his skin only enhance it’s vulnerability. When she tilts his head back, his throat is exposed, soft and defenceless. Open. She's more famished than she's ever been; she kisses and bites, sinking her teeth into the skin of his neck. The savoury taste lingers in her mouth as she pulls away, leaving behind a bite mark that will surely bruise. Yet, she can't help but kiss it even more.

She becomes patient when she has to undress him, she undresses him like a holy corpse, or a virgin sacrifice, stripping him of his underwear, unbuttoning his yellowed white shirt, unveiling the smaller torso nestled inside it like a matryoshka and taking off his blue sweater and jeans. She is merciful enough to remove his cross necklace, placing it delicately over the folded clothes. She takes her time, running her hot hands over his body, his chest, his stomach, which is softer and fuller than the slenderness of his arms and legs would suggest, his narrow hips and their curvature, his legs with their blond hair. She rubs his feet as she looks at him from her vantage point, his circumcised genitals lying softly between his thighs, as still as the rest of him.

She slinks up against his belly, eagerly kissing his shaft and taking it into her mouth. Her lips and tongue explore its contours and she pants, pushing out hot breath against it. But despite all her efforts, it remains limp. She persists, using more saliva to try and arouse it, but it refuses to respond. For the first time, this part of him is being used and violated by a mouth. She holds it tightly, smearing it with her lipstick as she rubs it against her face, sullying the pristine skin, reddening it. Frustrated, she forces his member deep down her throat, gagging herself and tears stream down her face from the suffocation. She feels it twitching slightly, but quickly pulls away at the sound of a small whine from above. She kisses his cheek, whispers to Eli, “lay still angel, be good.” The consequences flash through her mind and she refuses to let this end so soon, not now, not yet. 

While she‘s still coughing, she reaches for the buttons of her own white shirt and starts to undress, hastily removing her bra, skirt, and panties. She pays little attention to her own actions as she had earlier when undressing him. She takes his hand and presses it against her chest, feeling her nipples harden under his touch despite having to support his arm. She can momentarily delude herself that he is grasping her breast out of his own free will, disregarding his morals just to make her his. 

Straddling his naked body, she feels his half-erect member brushing against her slick entrance, she grinds against it, gyrating her hips in search of friction, taking advantage of her flexible, trained body. She searches friction like she used to do as a kid against the angles of the house’s tables before her mother would scold her. She feels just as tense, waiting to be found out.  

She wants it inside. Her eyes are completely void of any thought other than finally satisfying the hungry beast inside her that had driven her for three long months. If Lot’s daughters could, why not Mercy Miller? 

She leans towards his face once more, her lips barely touching his as she whispers tenderly, "Stay still, it won't take long. Don't wake up, angel. It feels nice, and it doesn't hurt."

She desperately stretches herself open, attempting to engulf his member. Despite the lack of support from his hips, she perseveres and slowly lowers herself onto the semi-hard shaft. As it sinks deeper inside her, it springs to life and grows to its full size. She grasps at his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath her hand. His innocent cries and squirms begin to worry her, but she keeps riding, harder and faster, time’s running out. His breathing is starting to morph from slow, quiet and steady to erratic. 

His eyes snap open just as she is about to climax from impaling herself on his unwilling and formerly untouched body. The minutes that passed with him inside of her, with her jumping and rocking against his length, had felt like endless centuries of bodily bliss. But now, even with her head thrown back, she could feel his resistance and fear pulsing underneath her. She meets his wide-eyed gaze, his teeth gritted in pain and terror. His expression mirrors the shell-shocked stare of a World War I teenage soldier missing his mother, coughing up blood in the trenches.  

He lets out a sudden gasp, still not fully awake, and his hand instinctively covers his mouth as if to hold back a scream. She can feel him lose his erection, and she can feel the disappointment of her own missed orgasm overshadowed by the knowledge of having done something irreversible. She quickly presses her hand over his, but he flails out, pounding his fists against her and sending her naked form crashing to the attic floor. She rubs the fresh cuts on her body, while he weeps uncontrollably, his head in his hands, worse than that one time in the parking lot right outside school. 

He lies bare, his body scrunched up like a fetus, racked with weeping that tears through his chest. 

He's clearly confused, screaming out in panic, "WHERE'S MY CROSS? WHERE?”  

She points to his clothes and the necklace resting on top of the pile. He quickly puts them on. He wants to run out the door, but he is so disoriented. Mercy surely knows he will fall down the stairs and hurt himself. She quickly dresses, ignoring the pain of the cuts the wooden floor has made on her body in vulnerable areas. Then, she follows him, helping him with the stairs. 

As he reaches the living room, he pushes everyone out of the way and runs out to the empty streets, still crying. Mercy follows him. Andrew looks on, pretending to be indifferent as the other guests watch, curious. 

The night breeze dries the salty tears, encrusting them on his cheeks. Mercy follows behind him. 

"I'll call you a taxi.”

There's nothing else she can say.

His eyes are lost in the deep end of the small-town lanes. 

With a tearful voice, he speaks to Mercy when she comes back out. She's outside, leaning against the door, waiting for the cab she called to take him away. His eyes leave the road, focusing on hers.

“Trust, that the day of your doom is near, Miller.” 

And the day of mine too. I drank it. I drank it. 

Back inside, Mercy still has to blow out her seventeen candles. She finds Sandy sitting on her couch, a piece of paper in her hand. Eli's forgotten bag catches Mercy's eye. Sandy looks up, asking, "Judgement Is Near?”

Mercy's response is a soft, forced laugh and a head-shake.

“Apparently." She says.

Outside the cab, Eli throws up. It made him sick like the milk had once made Mercy, though unlike her, he wouldn't have drunk it if he'd known. 

“You’re the kid from that show my wife’s always watching. You don’t look too good, son. Had too much to drink?” remarks the driver. 

“Don’t tell her. Please don’t tell her.” 

“Don’t worry, I did much worse when I was your age. The halo must be a heavy weight to carry over such a little head.” 

Chapter Text

From: Penitence Diary of Mercy Miller. (1972. LORD, I AM AFRAID.) 

I have been disobedient. I don't know how I did it, but lately I've been getting more breaks from the punishments, and some days I'm allowed to read the Bible over his bed instead of under it. The Bible he bought for me with his money, the one that is only mine, mine, mine, and no one else's. Just as he is mine. My redeemer, my saviour, the only lover I've ever loved, of whom being under the bed has given me more pleasure than being over the bed of so many empty bodies.

[I DISCOVERED THIS PASSAGE IN THE LAW. Deuteronomy 22:25. Eli says there was a New Covenant and I know that. Eli says that even if there hadn’t been, that law only applies to violators of betrothed women. That he was not to be married, nor was he a woman. So I should not imagine that I should be put to death. Because that's not what it says. But I just think that they couldn't even conceive of my wickedness. I know it in my heart. A vision like the ones he gets. And I doubt him. I think my saviour is weak and tender-hearted. I try not to think it, but I do. Blessed are the meek. They shall inherit the earth. But will I fall into hell because I was not put to death? I’m glad he doesn’t read my diary. I don’t want him to know I still fear this.] 

He tells me not to speak of love in the Penitence Diary, but how can I when he is all love. He tells me that's not the whole story, but then you look at him, he is all love. That's the whole story. I know I disobey. I don't understand this part. How it could not be the whole story. Why do I have to make a distinction between love and something outside of love? I love him as much when he does everything, sleeps, eats, drinks milk, studies with his schoolbooks, that also used to be my schoolbooks, drowns me, cuts me, mothers me, forgives me. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him…”

How do I write JOY? Pain is easier to write, there are more words for it's details. Maybe that is why he says to talk about pain in the Penitence Diary. But pain is just the background noise now, the stage where all the love happens.

I got sidetracked.

Usually this indulgence happens on Sundays, like today, while I watch the show. Nothing hurts like sinning. 

It is in my nature to take advantage of any kindness. I can't bear that his break is over and I'm all alone, not just on Sunday but in the weekday mornings like at the beginning. Sometimes I make him hide me in the barn. I try to scratch myself, just to feel something, I imagine him there, tired on his desk, looked down on, while I am here, aching just to worship him, Finally, with a pure heart, or a heart on its way. 

He doesn't close all the windows when he goes out anymore, he knows I'm too weak to go far with my weight, and anyway his father watches me, but I have managed to sneak out the window and get a rifle from the shed, one of Abel's, not to escape but because I can feel them coming for us. Whenever I can sleep, I have constant nightmares, I dreamed that Sandy was standing out, that she had come here and I was only in my nightgown and she could see all my bones and she was so disgusted and asked what had happened in this farmhouse to make me like this. And the horror that this put upon me was terrible and when I woke up and stared out of the window, outside I could see all this smoke coming from somewhere in the valley, thick dark smoke as if straight from hell, so I started shooting, I shot all the bullets screaming "GO AWAY! GO AWAY! I'M STILL NOT SAVED! YOU CAN'T TAKE ME YET!" and then I collapsed, clutching the rifle to my stomach. 

When he came home from church he picked me up from the floor and tied me up again with ropes, he wouldn't have been able to if my body hadn't weighed like a little girl's from starvation and I told him about my dream and that I saw the fire but that was no excuse for disobedience and I told him to punish me but he saw my hair is turning all white and grey and curly, my scalp now almost completely white and said that would kill me, he couldn't kill me. 

I prayed to him not to bring me milk, saying I didn't deserve it, and when I raised my arms in prayer, even he was amazed at how frail they looked as I lay there at his feet, so he went out to get me the milk anyway, and I drank it because I didn't want to disobey any more. While I had gotten used to sleeping under his bed, that night I had chills and my teeth clashed and he could hear the sound. 

So he gave me his hand so that I could sleep holding it, knowing that it comforted me during the Drownings. I only had three, by the way, because I was truly humble and repentant. 

But even that wasn’t enough. He allowed me to sleep on top of him. I asked him all night if he wasn't afraid, it was still me. But he told me that he knows I don't feel that way anymore, because I'm so thin that I don't even bleed anymore, and of course I can't feel anything. The Lord is good! He remembers that we are dust! 

How can you not talk about love? It's strange - I was so cold and he was telling me about a dream his mother told him she used to have. A bride on her knees over her chest, suffocating her. But he says - she was stronger than you. You weigh like the feather of an angel. For a moment I whisper about the bride, wondering if a bride was killed in this farmhouse sometime before Abel came to California. For a moment we are children telling ghost stories by the fireplace. 

Was I down below or up above? I wasn't sure anymore. It must be a sign - it must be close. 

He continues to say he wants me to graduate with him. He says that, but I am not sure if that is the way, and I hate to say that I doubt him, but his heart is too tender. They are coming for him. And I can't let them. I beg, I ask him if he would hide me. More for his good than mine. But Lord, I fear them. 

Chapter Text

Sunday Farmhouse, 1971. 

Despite what the flyers Eli had handed out at her party said, the day after, there was no mention of his latest prophecies on the show. Mercy had gone to her grandmother's house on her bike, where she was, of course, watching Flame of Pentecost. The old woman couldn't understand why Mercy looked so anxious, her eyes fixed on the TV like never before - she didn't think her granddaughter was that religious. Mercy looked like she was about to tear her hair out when they announced that Elijah's bible prophecy had been postponed until the next week. She didn’t know why — she had imagined something different. She had expected him to storm in, fiercely denouncing the previous evening's events, and ordering his loyal squadron of middle-aged housewives to string Mercy up by her intestines. She smiles to herself, wishing that's how it had gone, but her smile quickly fades, she’s worried. “Grandma, that kid Elijah’s in my class. I've been mean him. I did something I regret, and I want to apologize. The thing is, I'm having trouble finding the right words to say. I'm not sure there are any words that can fix what I did."

In hindsight, Mercy should have realized the Sunday family had no trust in either the bloodthirsty mob or the secular justice system when she went to bring them the forgotten bag. 

If she had confided in a teacher or Eleanor from the Art club, it would have been different. Unlike Andrew and Sandy, they wouldn't have swept it under the rug. But, she would have ended up on trial. She might have even done some time in juvenile hall. That would have tarnished her image as the all-American “bad” girl — future hot wife of a footballer — with a heart of gold. It would have exposed the rot beneath, even if just for a moment, before it was all buried again. The media would have tossed it into the dustbin of sordid small-town scandals, along with the ant-infested remains of her birthday cake and the used cups. “Cheerleader Rapes TV preacher” is the title of something being shown at an adult movie theatre, not a subject matter worthy of discussion in polite society or among intellectuals. Eli would have had a certain authority, having a practical and deeply personal example to back up his views on contemporary youth society, nothing more than that.

But an easy way out isn't what Mercy wants that day. As soon as she realizes Eli is absent from school too, she slips out and walks down to the farmhouse, her sturdy legs carrying her to the bottom of the valley. She's plagued by worst-case scenarios. She imagines Eli confessing to Abel, but Abel refusing to believe him, instead accusing him of losing the precious halo — the only thing he’s got going on for him — between a whore’s legs. She pictures the drugs taking hold as soon as Eli got home, and envisions him in a hospital bed, tubes and wires snaking around him, his small form overwhelmed, his heart faltering as his soul struggles to return home. Worse, she imagines him a pool of blood in the bathroom, his veins slashed and spilling out on the floor trying to bleed out the sin, or hanging somewhere, his pale neck, which she had adored with such unholy fervour, broken as two men in uniform cut him down and carried him away to be registered, Elijah Sunday, 1955 - 1971, died at hour X of November 17th, cause of death: suicide by hanging.

When Mercy steps through the brittle fence, wearing her dark blue pullover and long skirt - her usual attire when she's not feeling well - she tries to determine the original colour of the farmhouse, whose peeling paint makes it hard to tell if it was once white, grey, or dark brown. She assumes the barn beside it is where they keep the goats. The vast open space before her is blinding. 

Someone fires. A single shot rings out and she feels a searing pain in her thigh, a bullet feels like something as heavy as an anvil lodged inside. She collapses to the ground, her vision blurring as she tries to scream. It couldn't have been that easy to get in. That's what she thinks, as much as she can after someone just shot her in the thigh. They must have gotten scared after Eli was made to go to public school. When they carry her inside - she can't make out who's carrying her, or if it's more than one person, through the haze of pain - they dump her onto a stained, worn-out sofa. Her hands are yanked behind her back and tied with what feels like twine. It hits her then: she wasn't shot to stop her from getting in. She was shot so they could force her in.

In the faint light of a lone, ochre bulb, the last thing she sees is a room with peeling wallpaper like the paint on the outside, warped floorboards, and an unused fireplace smeared with soot. And at last the image of her favourite boy, freshly returned from the attic of the house where he was deflowered, with his newly trimmed hair, the dirty white shirt that was too small, and his always shining gold cross, clutching a rifle that seemed almost as big as his torso.

When she awakens, it takes a moment for her to realize where she is: underneath a bed, her gaze staring up at the wooden planks above her. The pain in her thigh has dulled to a persistent, bandaged, throb, evidence that her wound has been tended to. She's wearing a pale yellow, long-sleeved nightgown that reaches just above her calves, but it's not hers. The fabric is old and feels scratchy on her skin.

She's choking on the dust and can't catch her breath. All she can do is cry, and she's not confused - she knows exactly why she's there. Her fear is about what comes next, and she's trapped with a gunshot wound on her thigh, wondering where to escape to. The first night is filled with Mercy’s cries and screams.

The morning after, she's taken out from under the bed, like someone risen from a coffin or an old item dug out from a drawer. Her boy's eyes — she sees him as that now, her boy — are red and puffy. He must have been crying too.  

"Why are you crying now? What made you come here?”

"I came to return the bag. I came to say sorry.”

"I'm letting you say it. But you need to understand, sorry isn't just a word. It's something that’s done.”

“Then let me do it.” 

Red-faced after his own nighttime tears, Eli forces a bitter smile.

“You don’t get it, Miller. Sorry is something I do to you.” 

From his pocket, he extracts a carving knife, and in what looks like his room, he sits her up under the window, kneeling down beside her. He is chaste in everything but wrath. Well, not everything, not anymore. 

"Stay still," he commands in the booming tone he uses before his flock, straddling her body as he presses the blade to her forehead.

"Please, don’t..."

Mercy’s voice is softer than the faint sound of Eli’s breathing in the attic that night at her party, a desperate plea because she has no idea what to expect - a brutal knife murder, where the knife is driven through her chest like a stake through a vampire's heart. 

“SILENCE!”, he snaps. She is met with a forehead kiss from the cold, agonizing lips of a metal blade as he proceeds to gouge the word "PENITENT" into her skin with sharp, furious strokes. With each letter, incandescent pain rips through her body as her forehead skin tears open, and she screams, but even she can't hear it over the silent roar of her bodily suffering, which is drowning her from the inside, submerged in a lake of blood.

Eli takes a step back to admire his handiwork, his chest puffed out with artisan’s pride.

Mercy's blood is trickling down her forehead, mixing with the other thick, salty fluids streaming from her eyes. She tries to wipe it away with shaking hands, but only smears it across her face. It doesn't go away that easily, she can't will the suffering away.

Throughout the day, more words are angrily sliced into her flesh, Rapist, Rapist, Rapist, she gets more showers of tears and blood, and he does it sometimes through clenched teeth, her boy, she has never had him so close. He has that tearful rage that all sensitive people have when they are overwhelmed by the enormity of their own ire and can only vent it through tears before it chokes their minds. 

By the end of that first day, under the bed, she’s wailing and scratching her wounds against the dusty planks, even banging her head on the top. It's a compulsion, one she can't resist, even though she's afraid of getting infected. The morning after, he disinfects the previous day’s wounds, returns from school, and then opens up new ones.

Fire becomes her clock during those first weeks. 

She shudders helplessly every time she sees him hold the rectangular lighter, or hears the grating sound of its wheel turning. She fights against her restraints, but they hold her tightly as he slices into her skin and then sears the wounds with the flame. The metallic clinks of the lighter and knife become the only way to track time.

And then there's the fire in her stomach, which is always empty. She is teased with rotten food, the leftovers, but she can see the judgment in his eyes. How can you be so hungry to degrade yourself like this? How can you be so completely consumed by bestial needs? He hates the thought of her eating - the satisfaction it brings, the way it's an act of dominance, the way it's a threat, like the time she drank his milk, stole his nourishment, made it hers, to impose and assert that he, too, was something to consume. 

So she starves. Water, and two pieces of white bread a day. That’s her new diet. One before he goes off to school, the other before he gets to sleep on the bed under which she lies. It’s comforting to know of a disease that comes from nothing rather than something. Isn't it better to say you're sick with nothing rather than sick with something?

She is not allowed to bathe, he won’t even wash her like cattle, with the hose. 

She asks why, she begs to know, and the feel of sweat glueing the dust to her skin in that same old nightgown, now stained with red patches and stinking of bodily fluids, is more than she can take. She dreams of cool, clean water flowing over her cuts and burns, and in her mind, she magnifies the relief it would bring.

"You must not have a body, you must not think of all this, this vessel is useless to you now for anything," he gestures grandly, enjoying the sound of his own voice, "except for atonement. If I send you to Hell now, it's so that you can taste heavenly bliss when you cross over. You once asked me if the fire of hell would make you ugly. I thought it was such a misguided question. It is the soul that burns, you have to feel your body as a soul, we have to make do. And the evil that it is hasn't finished burning: you don't deserve relief.”

It's comforting to Mercy. This isn't happening to her body. It's her soul. If it burns, there is something to burn. One day, all the suffering will turn to ash. 

He kneels before the window, pressing her bound body under it as if he were a child playing on the floor, with the colouring book against a solid surface. His movements have become gentler after weeks of this routine, as he slowly unbuttons her long-sleeved nightgown. Her breasts are pressed against the wall this time, facing forward. He wants a larger canvas to work with. Donning his glasses, like when he writes sermons, he begins to carve delicately but torturously for Mercy just below her shoulders. The blood dots burn as they trickle out, as if some acidic substance is seeping out from within and splitting her skin that’s flaking off. She can feel him writing in cursive.

He says, beaming with pride like a child who's just finished colouring a pretty picture without going outside the lines, "I wrote, 'For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.’" 

Pale as a sheet, her eyes brimming with tears, her hands shaking, and blood running down her back, she still feels the need to affirm it. Mercy nods her head. 

Eli shifts from his knees to a sitting position, his knife beside him, as Mercy remains facing the wall, still quivering.

“You’re not alive right now, Mercy. You have strayed too far. You can hear me — I cry all the time. It’s like I can feel it…I can imagine it too well…It must be so scary to have strayed so far from God. I don’t even think of myself as much, what you did to me, I think of you.”

Mercy is certain it's not true. She knows it haunts him, and that's just how it is. 

"When you're alive again, you'll be beautiful in a way you can't even imagine."

He uses a damp cloth to wipe away the long droplets of blood from her lower back, rebuttoning her nightgown as he does so, the fabric sticking to the cursive cuts. She wishes he would make love to her now that she's under his power, but she knows it's evil. He doesn't touch her like a woman, and he never will, and trying to make him is what brought her here. All she will ever be to him is a penitent, a soul to be saved, it's almost as if his eyes can only see beyond her flesh. 

Mercy is confined to her own thoughts and forced into solitude. She can't help but think of the tortures she's read about, like being locked away alone or deprived of all senses. 

All she has is the paper and ink he gave her. He tells her to keep a journal, so that one day she can look back with pride at the progress she has made. She wishes she could kiss him to thank him. When he gives it to her, she feels as pampered as a rich man's wife being taken on a surprise cruise. She barely has the energy for writing, and when she does, it is as disjointed as her sense of time is. She tells him how dear he is to her, as the desperate tell the gods when they're lonely and afraid, like infidels on their deathbeds, but he tells her to make the journal about something else, about how it feels in her skin to face her penance. 

But other than that, the only time he speaks to her is when he cuts and burns her. She is in a sense a prisoner of war. The Lord has commanded war before, the destruction of cities, commanded people to take vengeance, and this is what Eli is doing. It's not a war against her, but she's in the crossfire and she's happy to be in Eli’s custody, she doesn't want to be with the wicked when the time comes, all those tortures multiplied tenfold.

Although she was part of the Enemy's army, the Lord freed her from their control and put her under the care of a righteous servant of His. What choice does she have but to rejoice, considering how bad things could have turned out? She could have been abandoned to rot. Her parents and grandmother always told her to pray, but Mercy’s the type who has to see it to believe it. She misses them. 

One morning, she sees him put on his suit. She's lost track of the days of the week, but she remembers the flyer. She knows he only wears that suit for the show or to preach at church, not to school. Seeing him in it, she figures it must be Saturday or Sunday.

"Can I watch Flame of Pentecost? I want to learn.” Mercy's throat is dry, so she only speaks when necessary to conserve it. She doesn't chat to pass the time, because everything here is scarce and precious. This was the second time she'd seen him put on the suit, but it was the first time she'd found the courage to ask, now that pain had become her daily reality.

He took the portable Zenith TV from the living room, with great effort, and plugged it in. It was a small, boxy set with silver dials on the side, the kind of luxurious item the family was now used to receiving as a gift from the Paradise community, who raised money so that "little Eli could see himself.” And it was in colour! 

After being deprived of colour and sounds beyond the valley, Mrs. Sunday’s chores, and the quiet footsteps of his younger sisters, watching the colours come alive is like freedom. She loves him. 

From under the bed, she can only see half the screen, but she's grateful he's not scared of her voice coming from underneath, or of the fact that he set up a TV for a living corpse.

Her head is pounding, she's nauseous and sick, and she's lost her will to eat. Even though she knows she's starving, the thought of eating makes her feel like a victim of atomic bombing being offered water. She still wants it, but it would make her sicker. 

She feeds on the glowing box before her instead. She hangs on like a hound for his speech. 

"Once I sinned. Once a truly unrepentant sinner asked me if it was too late for salvation, and I told her it wasn't, but in my heart I knew I was lying, I doubted Jesus Christ's free offer of salvation to all men at that moment, and that, my brethren, is a sin. You could hardly look into the eyes of this God-hater and feel no fear, but times are hard enough, too hard for those who are cowardly. It is war. Now it's time for war, and those who are tenderhearted and fear evil, you must make yourselves warriors for Him. Do not be afraid to look into the face of darkness, take the sinners by the hand, they have free will, but you must believe that Jesus saves! I believe it.

I have outlined in my prophecy that no one before us has seen such a series of events that proclaim that the time is short, spread the Gospel to your brothers and your sisters! Don’t leave anyone behind! And don't let anyone deceive you, He speaks to me, He has been speaking to me since I was a boy, in the thunder clouds, and I have seen the proof of the coming end times, which God has allowed us to be vigilant about, I have seen it in school and elsewhere, and now it is not the time of those who are afraid. He will judge those who cowered, you don't want to, not now, you must not be afraid to take the sinner by the hand…”

She loves him. He loves her too, he tells everyone.

He loves her so much that he lets her watch all the reruns. He lets her watch all the reruns! Channel 5 reruns his sermons almost every day of the week, knowing they draw steady viewership not just from the devout, but from the curious, captivated by the age of the boy preacher. She finds out he was just thirteen the first time. Watching his younger self makes his current self seem bigger. 

Now, he's taller, yet his face still holds the softness of early adolescence. She can even hear him arguing with his younger sisters, who want the TV back because he gave it to her. 

What's worse than his nights of silence for Mercy are the nights when he retreats in his room later than usual, a time she knows because she's been counting to fall asleep, a habit her mother taught her to calm her when she felt too restless. Lying on her side helps with the pain in her back. 

She can't see his face from where she lies, but she knows he's been crying in the barn. The smell on him and his soft, stifled sobs, even as he drifts off to sleep, are giveaways. She can smell the goats. She knows he feels more tainted after going there. He would do anything to be as saintly as a human could be. He wants to be so pure it burns the eyes of anyone who stares indecently.

She knows what she is. She knows she is a rapist. But she'd still defend herself against those who’d claim she only needed him to restore her own purity by sucking his rare goodness. Sex was the only way she knew to show her desperate need. But even now, with him no longer gentle and unsullied, consumed by wrath, having experienced the urge to beat and hurt, to tear skin, overflowing with righteous rage and no longer virgin, she goes crazy under the bed with the need to comfort him.

She's afraid of scaring him as her hand slowly emerges from under the bed and touches his. His hand is warmer than hers, almost hot. She longs to nestle her hand there, finding some relief from the cold. Her broken nails, not fully torn off, are raw and so short they expose the skin underneath from the way he ripped them. In this chill, they feel like tiny wires are under them. 

In the darkness of the night, she can sense his response. If she were to describe it in her own words, she would liken it to illicit lovers, but she knows this is more than sex, something he has shown her.

"Do you want to cut me? Beat me, burn me?" 

She says it in the same way she would ask someone she slept with in the same bed, "Do you want to fuck?" if they woke up and pressed against her.

He raises from the bed. She sees his face, and a purple bruise catches her eye. Though she hasn't heard Abel hit him, she wonders about it. She wants to ask, but knows he won't give her a straight answer. He looks so pretty and holy, bruised and teary. When she has bruises and tears, all she looks like is a miserable, abused whore, or at least she imagines that’s how she’d have to look now. She's angry if it's someone at her school... She imagines bombing it or shooting senselessly. Then she imagines those corridors where her body had taken shape before shrinking again in this farmhouse, and her stomach clenches. 

He brings a chair, it’s white paint weathered, into the room, carefully lifting it to avoid scraping the floor and waking anyone. He's got his cross-covered wooden box containing his ropes, carving knives, and other such items.  She is pushed onto the chair.

Mercy is too weak to help get out from under the bed, so she is dragged by her frail har, this way it hurts more and there are some black strands on his hand after. The gag tastes like the promise of heaven, that is, his sweat. 

Rough ropes, akin to the unkempt fields outside the farmhouse, dig into her wrists and ankles, rendering her completely immobile. They twist and bind her in an awkward position, resembling a neglected scarecrow. Mercy’s fear is that of a witch before her inquisitor. She’s left only with the senses of sound and smell to navigate her world, she can’t even shake before him. She now longs for his caress, wanting her silent world of strained muscles to be filled with light, just like his words do through the light of that box.

Her muscles ache with smarting cramps as the hours pass, but she remains still, afraid the ropes will cut deeper into her skin. By now, she assumes he's fallen into a deep sleep, comforted by the fact that she won’t hurt him again and violate his unconscious state. 

Had she not been gagged, she would have disturbed his sleep with her lamentations. She’s glad he still has a last week of school, he can’t wake up too late. Her legs and feet are numb, she imagines the tingle of pins and needle. She imagines herself as a Voodoo doll. 

When she is freed from the chair, her eyes sting from the sudden light, and she blinks rapidly, trying to adjust. But it's too much, and she hastily covers them. Her bonds are undone, and she whimpers as feeling and circulation returns to her limbs. She collapses to the floor, her muscles wobbly, and shivers violently. The taste of bile rises in her mouth, and she retches, but doesn't vomit. He picks her up, still shivering, and sets her back in the chair, holding her steady. 

Her wrists are vibrating as she sits there, emotional like an old woman at her hospice or a sickly young girl trying to make sense of her illness.

She keeps repeating, "I love you, I love you, I love you. Do you love me, Eli?” 

The weight of this question feels like something too heavy to carry for a boy his size, unsure of what to say or feel. How do you answer your rapist when she asks you if you love her and you’re sixteen? God hates sinners. And you should hate your rapist, or what does that mean? That deep down you share the guilt. But the question is not simple. God hates because He loves. Because He saves. And maybe Eli too can keep her close. Maybe he should.  

“You know that He hates all evildoers. I told you that He hates the wicked. Otherwise He wouldn't punish them in hell. As I am doing now with you, I am punishing you because I hate what you have done. But you're blessed, God sent you to me, I sacrificed my purity to save you before He could hate you forever.”

There is a way out. He tells himself it was ordained. He would rather be clean. But just as Jesus was sent to die on the cross, he was sent to Mercy Miller's attic. He was sent to serve, and he shouldn't resent it. 

She knows that he would rather have been a saviour to no one, and that he would rather not have met her. But she doesn't know the whole story. There's a strange, wrong kind of warmth that comes from unwanted hands. It's something sticky that binds.

"You will have knowledge of His love, His mercy, you are so blessed, more than all your classmates…” 

Nostalgia strikes suddenly as she thinks of their lost souls. Her eyes well up.

"God so loved the world that He hated sinners like you, and I so love you that I hate you enough to make you feel like this so that you might be saved.  So think, of course I love you. I must love you because you are the first and only woman I have slept with, even though I didn't want to, and I love you more than I will love my future wife, because your evil and your harm was sent to me so that I could suffer it and save you from it before it could destroy you…”

He can't stomach his own words, not because they're lies, but because they're too real. He yearns to release her, to find freedom in separation rather than suffocating closeness. His deepest fear is that if she walks away, she'll take the remnants of his innocence with her. With her by his side, he's divided, as if she's a part of him, holding a piece of his soul that she's claimed. If he can redeem her, he can reclaim himself. He wants to erase the attic, and at the same time, live forever under it’s eye. 

He begins to cry too, and the room is filled with the anguished sounds of their cries, like two babies who feel abandoned by someone older and wiser. 

As he tucks her back under the bed, puts her away in the drawer, and buries her once more, she says softly, gazing at his face through her tears, "Have a nice day at school.”

She can only feel December's approach through the sharpening air and it’s increasing sting against her wounds. One day, she hears multiple voices coming from outside other than the ones she’s used to. It must be a Christmas dinner or a family gathering. She wishes she could join them, to remove her nightgown and reveal her scars and injuries. She wants them to see her as part of the family, someone who is trying to be good. She crawls out from under the bed like a spider, her body feeling heavier than it is, and presses her ear to the door. But Eli catches her, opening his room door to find her kneeling there, her bony knees and emaciated arms visible under her soiled nightgown, looking mortified by her own curiosity.

Mercy’s gaze falls on his new boots from down there. The shiny, black leather makes him appear taller, thanks to the heel, and the deep green shoelaces catch her eye. They resemble the combat boots worn by soldiers in Vietnam, but on him, they look more like the elegant shoes of an Edwardian lady, surprisingly suited to his graceful figure. 

He stands before her, a vision of pure white and ice. She can almost feel the raw force of his immaculate anger as she imagines him kicking her in the face with his brand new gifted shoes, the impact so brutal that she might lose a tooth. As much as she dreads the thought of tasting blood and feeling for the painful gap in her mouth, there's a strange part of her that wants it; wants him to kick her and leave the imprints of his soles on her cheek. He has something else in mind, disgust written all over his face, as he views the curiosity that leads to sin, which seems to define the very essence of the penitent kneeling before him.

He grabs her arm with force, causing her to stumble as she struggles to stand. She fears for a moment that her arm might break under his grip. He pulls her out of the room, and a wave of paralyzing terror washes over her. Will he take her life and discard her body in the valley? Does he believe she is beyond redemption? She doesn't want to make things worse, so she simply shuffles along behind him on the chilly floorboards, barefoot.

The inky sky outside is sprinkled with a sea of twinkling stars, indifferent witnesses, and she's completely entranced. The sudden joy of being back in the outside world hits her all at once. As her bare feet step on the brittle grass, she feels a moment of freedom, as untroubled by her fate as the stars above. And he’s holding her hand. And he’s telling her to undress and kneel on the grass.

Her heart races, will he make love to her now? She hates the knowledge of the feeling that is all she is waiting for, but the hope that one day he will choose to do so cradles her and makes the pain more bearable. And that is why one must not be complacent. 

The chill in the air snakes its icy tendrils across her naked skin and it’s bruises, raising goosebumps over every inch of her shivering, starved body. That nightgown had been it’s own dirty cell. She takes a big gulp of air now that it’s momentarily out of the way. The wind carries the bite of a whip. 

“Arms up.” 

“Will you shoot me?” 

“How many times do I have to tell you..” 

Mercy rises her arms, revealing armpits that seem to be nothing more than hollowed-out cavities. Eli unbuttons his pants. He lets out a long sigh of relief, high—pitched and lovely for Mercy to hear. A stream of warmth hits her cold thighs and stomach, a pleasant sensation due to the temperature that both burns and soothes her lacerations. She feels nurtured, like she might bloom as he waters her. She bites down on her lip, willing herself not to moan out as her brain stops under the stream. The piss washes away the dirt and grime, feeling almost as cleansing as the bath she has spent so long imagining. If it was a punishment, it didn’t feel like it. 

“If you value your eyes, harlot, you better keep them closed. Try to look at me sinfully. I'll aim at your eyes.” 

She giggles, and tightens her eyelids further. She can’t help it, she’s happy, she enjoys it when he talks to her that way. She does wish she could stare, though. The road to atonement is long and they’re lost, so far from Eden. 

He relieves himself for what seems like a straight minute, leaning his head back and breathing softly in satisfaction as the pungent, yellow liquid cascades out of him with audible splashes against her flesh. He recalls that childhood memory of Paul and the flowers. He is not like him, because Mercy is not a flower, but he feels the same pride his brother felt when he soiled something helpless in that act of claiming ownership of his rapist in the most primal way possible.

When he finishes pissing, he shakes out the last drops and buttons up his pants. Mercy is really drenched. The muddy ground under her pale knees is wet with a puddle of urine. She has a little, content smile on her weary face and her hands are clasped together. She really acts as if she has just been dunked in holy water. She liked it. More than she should have. She feels like a lovingly tended lush garden, rather than a tired, hurting girl.

He liked it too, but wouldn’t admit it to himself that easily.

"You're a filthy person, so it's no surprise you feel at home in filth.”

“Thank you, Eli.” 

"Whore," he spits, the globs of saliva landing on her like hot raindrops. 

She can hardly keep her heart from jumping out of her chest, and she can hardly stop smiling.

Eli thinks she needs water, real water, to make any progress in her penitence. Without the atoning blood, all her suffering is hollow and purposeless. He invents the Drownings. 

Chapter Text

Paradise Town, 1971—1972.

Balmy fall days fade as an unexpectedly harsh winter grips the town. The disappearance of the cheering team's captain is noticed by Paradise High School before her parents even realize she is gone. When they return at the end of November, their initial thoughts are that their daughter is out partying somewhere, possibly with drugs and older boys. Their anger overtakes their worry. Meanwhile, signs and banners start appearing around Paradise High School, urging her to return. Not everyone is sincere, but the overall feeling of the school is one of imbalance; with their captain gone, Paradise High's centre of gravity had shifted downwards.

It wasn't until a week passed that Mr and Mrs. Miller finally reached out to the police for help. The name Mercy Miller is well-known in the town, not just because everyone recognizes each other's faces, but also because of her behaviour. The local cops know of her sneaking into bars, joyriding, recall having to intervene at a party hosted by her wealthy friend at her mansion, where the whole town had complained about the noise. Police found Mercy intoxicated by Grace’s pool, half—undressed, with an empty Vodka bottle by her side. Grace’s parents were furious with the state of their property. Mercy was known to be wild and promiscuous, as any girl with absentee parents tends to be. And they know she did cocaine sometimes. 

Mr. Miller stands with his tie loosened, flanked by his wife in her polyester blouse and slacks, who appears to have coerced him into attending. He looks like he's struggling to accept that this is real and not just some absurd dream or paranoid delusion of his wife’s overactive imagination. Mrs. Miller’s clutches her purse, her eyes darting between her husband and the middle—aged officer, chewing on the end of a cigar at his desk. 

She begins the conversation, her words tumbling out frenetically. 

“Mercy’s gone! We—we came home last week, and she wasn’t there, we don’t know for how long but…It’s been almost ten days now since we’ve returned. She’s never disappeared like this, out of thin air. We even ringed Sandy…she has no idea. She says she had a quiet birthday party. It wasn't wild. Then, two days later, she stopped coming to school…I know, she’s had her issues…She has her issues, but she’s still my baby.” 

The officer sighs and leans forward, removing the cigar from his mouth, his voice is calm, but tinged with impatience. 

“Now, Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Miller, I hear you. But Mercy’s seventeen, isn’t she? Old enough to take off if she wants to.”

"Oh no, she's not! I'm really beating myself up over this, because we haven't been very present. But let's be real, she's just a kid out there. You know how the world is. She's still not even an adult yet, not even on paper.”

He waves a hand dismissively. 

“Hell, you’re talking as if she hasn’t done this before.”

"She's stayed out late, but this is different. She's never been gone for days!"

He sighs again, slower this time and tries a placating gesture. 

“Look, I know Mercy’s been a headache for you, but these kids today, they’re always looking for a little freedom. A little rebellion. She probably holed up with one of her friends, in their car, went somewhere, with some boyfriend. You know her better than I do. She’ll turn up in a day or two. I don’t get all this fuss being made at her school.”

"You're not listening! I'm telling you, she wouldn't go this long!" 

Mr. Miller looks embarrassed at his wife's outburst.

"I hear you. I do. If my daughter were in your shoes, I'd be scared too. She's always got her nose in a book, so she'd probably be hiding out at the library…"

Mrs. Miller can sense the man's judgment and the underlying subtext of his irony, and it cuts deep. Parenting is a competition, and she's coming up short. 

“Give it another day, maybe two, and then we’ll file a missing person’s report, alright m’am?”

Outside the police station, Mr. Miller holds his wife close. When she gets home, she breaks down in tears, calling Sandy, her daughter's only reliable friend. Sandy listens, unsure of what to say, as the woman unleashes her grief. Sandy herself is still reeling from the lack of Mercy - the blazing fires and suffocating smoke that were suddenly, brutally extinguished from her orderly life, leaving behind a bleak, boring December.

The next afternoon, Sandy waits near the edge of the high school football field. Andrew isn’t the same since Mercy stopped showing up. He has new friends, he avoids her. Andrew, like Mercy, knows how to get new friends fast. But he doesn’t look calm in the least. He isn’t just avoiding Sandy, he is treating her like a ghost, like a dirty affair he doesn’t want his hands in. But more than that, he looks disturbed. His life has become one big football obsession and he's lost his humanity. He's just a machine. Eating, sleeping — barely even that, he's lost weight — and breathing football.

When practice wraps up and the winter sun is low, she sees the players joking and pushing each other around as they make their way to the locker room. Andrew hangs back, not saying much, but the others still pay close attention to what he has to say.

Sandy steps forward, her voice firm. “Andrew."

He looks at her, frowning slightly, and adjusts the strap of his helmet slung over his shoulder. 

“Sandy? What’s up…You look more serious than usual.”

She wants to tell him he's changed too in these past three weeks, that she can see he's in a worse state than she is, but she's not sure if it's the right thing to say. 

“Mercy’s mom called me last night. They’re starting to freak out because well…It’s been too long. Even for her. She said they’ll file a missing person report in a few days.”

Andrew's breath hitches, then stills. The words "missing person report" jerk him back to the world beyond the distractions he has spent the past weeks imposing on himself. Sandy's a good girl, always there for Mercy, even when Mercy makes life hard for her, even when she doesn't treat her with kindness. 

He feels sick and nauseated by what he knows. He longs to share it, to pass it on like an infection. He wishes he could transfer it to someone else, like a deadly parasite, so it would loosen it’s claws on him. He's tired of being the only one who noticed. And come on — how could they have missed it? Her carrying him up to her attic like a corpse-carrier taking away a plague-stricken child.

"Damn it, Sandy. Something weird happened at her party. It's just coming back to me now...I don't know why I'm thinking of it now.”

Sandy's kind tone turns sharp as she looks at him closely. "Andrew, if you know anything, even just a hint, that could help make sense of this. I have a feeling it's not like before.”

“Ok Sandy, but don’t tell anyone. Not a fucking soul. I’ll make you regret it I swear, not even her mom — it’s between me and you, for now at least.”

Andrew wishes he could scream it out at the top of his lungs, but he is still afraid of the contamination that he might spread with the taint of his knowledge.

Sandy's eyes narrow, then her face relaxes and she nods. "I appreciate that. I won't betray your trust. I know what she's capable of, how crazy she can make you…"

Andrew lets out a bitter laugh. He knows he wasn't kind when talking about her behind her back, but if others went too far, he'd get ready to fight with his fists. Then he turns serious again.

"Do you remember how she stepped out for a bit at her party? She wasn't hanging around us like she normally does. She had a…" He tried to find the right word. “An altercation. Yes. With the fundamentalist. Remember how he ran off, crying like a bitch like always, and Mercy went after him? I saw a little bit of what happened earlier. The kid got a little drunk. She made a pass at him while he was drunk, but you know how Mercy is, she was not subtle, he was offended, but like... I mean, the kid is scared of pussy,  thinks is a sin and all, we know that. But he stormed off like a madman.”

Andrew is struggling not to blurt out the truth, but instead, he's trying to sugarcoat it. How can he put it differently? Should he just tell Sandy straight out that she spiked his drink and took him to the attic? It's still hard for him to accept that things really happened that way, not the way he's telling her.

Sandy's face falls, as if she had been expecting Andrew to come up with a game-changer, but she can't hold it against him. He's likely still trying to wrap his head around everything.

“You call that weird? She’s been having run-ins with him of this kind since day one. And he always reacts the same way. He cries, storms off. At first, I thought it was all a game. But no, she really had feelings for him. I'm sorry, Andrew, but I have to say it - she'd cry herself to sleep over this stuff. It was unbelievable. But it's always the same story. I don't think it has anything to do with what happened.”

"Sandy..." Andrew says, his frustration evident. "You don't happen to have relatives who watch that crazy show he's on? He's like a madman, screaming and shouting. It's this 'warriors for Christ' thing that really gets to me. It gives me the creeps, to be honest. I just don't like it.”

She shrugs. "New kid is weird. Mercy is weird because of the new kid. We know this stuff, Andrew, we know.”

Three days later, the report is filed. Mrs. Miller makes them do it. 

Andrew can barely stand Sandy, and when she tells him, he pretends not to hear, just as she pretended not to understand what he was getting at three days earlier. Eli had gone back to school at the same time Mercy had disappeared. Why did she pretend not to understand? 

As winter break approaches, it becomes clear to Andrew that Eli was never shy, nor an introvert. If anything, he loved the admiration of large crowds. His show proved it. People who could have been his grandparents felt like worms before his sainthood. It hadn’t translated well in a high school context. Eli kept to himself partly because he felt himself superior. The beatings kept him in line. But most of all, Mercy kept him in line. With her gone, he carries himself without the mask of shame he always wore, without the stench of fear that used to draw her in. He becomes more boring to bully. Less disturbed. Equally strange and self-righteous, but without the haunted look. His eyes no longer dart around wildly, chasing shadows in every corner.

They couldn’t know that it was because he keeps her beneath his bed. He holds the centre, the core of their world, in his hands. 

Eli had excised the palpitating heart of this lost city, leaving it to hemorrhage. Yes, his purity had been sacrificed - but now they were on their way to salvation. All of them. He was Paradise High's very own Lamb; God gave them His servant, who meekly took their blows and their ravages, all for that one beautiful purpose.

Now that she is gone, he realizes how much of the school's sinful talk was about Mercy Miller. The prurient disgust, which he never took seriously because he knew they hated Mercy for not being embarrassed about things they all did, always sparked a chain reaction of indecent conversations. Now, most of the talk he hears in the hallways is about school stuff. The indecent talk is probably limited to locker rooms, bathrooms, or hushed conversations between close friends in the cafeteria.

Andrew starts to close in on him. Eli's smug smiles infuriate him. Eli is aware that Andrew is onto him, and that his quick temper, much like Mercy's, could be his downfall. Additionally, he knows his secret has the potential to cut both ways.

The dark blue sky, still indigo, slowly surrenders to the morning light. It creeps upward above the school grounds. The stillness of the parking lot, broken only by the mid-December wind’s diaphanous gusts, feels lonely, with its empty concrete, dew-kissed lawn grass, and silent buildings standing in the shaded corners.  Andrew gets to school early, even though the early winter mornings leave a bad taste in his mouth, like wet dirt and snot, as he hopes to talk to Eli before classes start. As he always does, Eli arrives from the valley, emerging like an animal from the depths. The air feels grey, as if a nuclear winter has settled in after the firestorms. 

“Sunday!” Andrew calls out as he catches sight of him. "I need to talk to you.” 

Just Sunday, Eli thinks. No “sissy” this time. He must be in urgent need of something.

"About what?" he answers in a soft voice. Helpful, available, like the future pastor he is supposed to be. 

“About my girlfriend," answers the football player, dressed in his green and yellow varsity jacket, his jaw clenched.

“His girlfriend”, he calls her that now. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, he thinks. And Mercy, under his bed, should he tell her that Andrew said that? She found him boring at the time. Even when she was lost. That's why she had sought Eli out. She desperately needed something clean, after rolling around in so much filth and realizing that she did not belong with these pigs.

"I pray for your girlfriend Mercy, every day. I wish you hadn't lied to her about the safety of the godless hedonistic life you promoted to her. I'm sorry. You must be hurting. Reach out to the Lord and He will deliver you.”

Andrew's nostrils flare, just as a bull's do, when a Matador goads it into a charge.

"You...have you ever tried to talk like a fucking person? Like there is no microphone and no pulpit. Like a fucking normal person.”

"Why are you angry with me, Andrew? I'm not to blame for your misfortune. The Devil's come to claim what's his, as they say. What evil gives, it takes away. The pleasures of sin only last for a season. Satan's greatest weapon is deception. When you lied to her, you played into his hands. Now, more than ever, you need to ask the Lord to forgive you for what you did to her. My arms are open.”

Eli opens his arms in the parking lot, his clear, pleading eyes looking up at the taller boy. Andrew recoiled from sentimentalism like it was putrid. His friends and parents tried to be affectionate, but their sweetness sickened him in his grief. He was stiff around them; it was a well-rehearsed pantomime. It was like offering a homeless person candy when what they really needed was cash. But for a moment, he wonders, without knowing. What would Eli's tender arms feel like? What would his soothing voice sound like as he welcomes him “home”? 

"I would like one day to be able to say, Brother Andrew, and mean it. I forgave you, you know. I remember telling you that one day. Stop her when she holds me down. But you didn't know, did you? How she could get." His voice is soothing. It's seductive. It only makes him angrier.

"Now tell me what YOU know!" Andrew seizes him by the collar, and even as he instinctively springs up, their eyes remain locked. Eli doesn’t look afraid, and Andrew’s blood is running cold.

"I didn't know anything about Mercy Miller. I just wanted her to leave me alone. Me, my faith, my body.”  The smaller boy's voice wavers, but there is sincerity in his eyes. It’s a half—truth. He only wanted her to leave him alone and yet he does know about Mercy Miller. 

"Everyone says you're some kind of prophet or something. At church. On TV. My mother believes it. That you can see things others can't. You keep saying that. If you know anything, now is the time to prove you’re the real deal.” Andrew says, his voice seething with anger as he barely restrains himself from permanently contorting his cherub face. 

"There’s a misunderstanding. I only see what the Lord allows me to see, I am only a vessel, sometimes the Spirit comes down and fills me and I have visions and I can feel that I have the authority to prophesy because I have studied the Bible carefully and I can interpret the signs that I see. But I'm not omniscient, only God is, and you would do well to pray to Him for His grace to deliver you and Mercy, even though you are worms.”

"GET OFF YOUR FUCKING HIGH HORSE, COCKSUCKER!" Andrew yells suddenly, feeling a blur from his anger and jerking his arm back to deliver a powerful open hand smack. It lands squarely on Eli’s cheekbone, sending him stumbling backward and falling to the cement of the parking lot.

Eli's own vision blurs with tears, but he holds himself steady, there would be bruising, but nothing a little ice couldn't fix. Andrew had no idea how much a real blow, Abel's belt, could hurt. Should he confess that Andrew’s friends were more brutal than him right then, and that he could feel the weakness in his palm? 

"Andrew, stop! This time I’ll report you, I’ll get you expelled, once and for all.” 

The voice’s Eleanor, the Art club feminist, handmaiden of communism. 

Eli is nonetheless glad to have her assistance. 

As she helps him up, he fixes Andrew with a cutting gaze. Andrew, shaking with anger at his own weakness, seeks a reason for it. 

Eli brushes himself off and begins to speak, unnervingly sure of himself, "You want to know what I know, Andrew? Well, there's only one thing: the attic where she took me. You know about it too. Like I told you, I've forgiven you. You just didn't think.”

From that moment on, Andrew's plans to confront Eli during the last week of school before winter break were foiled. Eleanor, who had seen how Eli was treated all autumn, takes him under her wing. Now that she has heard his words, "the attic where she took me", she can’t ignore it anymore. Maybe she had also been too scared of Mercy to stand up for Eli until she was gone. Andrew kept his secret close, never thinking Eli would speak out. But Eli wasn't stupid, and he knew to confide only in Eleanor, who would keep quiet if he wanted her to.

He trails behind her like a baby duck. Andrew wasn't sure if he told her. On his second attempt to confront Eli, she interrupts their conversation. Eli still has a purple bruise from the last time he and Andrew talked. 

"Why are we making it seem like he's to blame when she's the one who hurt him?”

Now Andrew is sure. 

"Mind your own business. I'm so goddamn sick of you criticizing me for every little thing. You always make me seem like the worst man in the world. But it's okay for him to isolate himself in some farmhouse, with no one bothering him, even though there's a missing person investigation going on - and we know he had it in for the girl who's missing. I'm done with it. Tired of all of you acting like I'm not justified in being angry." Andrew looks at her like he's at his breaking point.

"Grief is not easy. But just because she's gone doesn't mean we can erase the harm she caused. We can't pretend it's okay to shift the burden of scrutiny to the victim of a crime.”

A crime. She knows. She knows Andrew did nothing to intervene. Now it’s a secret shared between three. He wants to keep it from Sandy as long as possible, much like a parent who tries to protect their children from the realities of death, sex and the possible emptiness of the sky - he can't keep it a secret forever, but he'll try to for now.

Eli remains calm and collected, not letting their conversation rattle him. He's determined not to show that Andrew's words have any effect on him. He has faith that the Lord will protect him, as he's doing the Lord's work. Now he knew why he had willingly let the Sheriff take him, for he had a mission to complete in Paradise High before the Rapture, so that as many of these sinners as possible would not be left behind to face His divine terror. 

He trusts Eleanor, too. Years of witnessing silenced victims of prevarication bred her fierce resentment. He trusts her commitment, seeing in her rage against the bestial force of Andrew and Mercy’s ilk a mirror of his own. 

Despite their ideological gulf, they have reached a temporary, tacit truce. She speaks to him about sexual violence. Teaches him the term. Sexual violence. Shows him her paintings. Women's art. He asks her to come on the show - to say a word about whether the sexual revolution is doing more harm than good. She can't agree. She tells him she wouldn't recognize herself. He resents it, but he can't really dislike her until there's the threat of Andrew. He has always known - he is weak, he needs the strong to lean on. But he is a perfect instrument of God and He meant for him to have this protection, even if it’s imperfect.

Winter break arrives, and Eli is nowhere to be found except on his show and at church.  Andrew keeps his distance from his domain, yet he tunes in to the show. He views it with his mother, taking notes, in anticipation of someone asking him to connect the dots later on. But the police don't seem interested. Mercy's missing posters are plastered everywhere, yet no one is actively searching. If they were, Andrew would know where to look, but they're not bothered. And they won't ask for his help. At Christmas Eve, the officer's daughter is among the carolers singing. When she passes by, Andrew spits. 

Chapter Text

Sunday Farmhouse, 1971-1972.

Mercy has a fever. She's not sure if it's because she's only wearing a nightgown that's more brown than yellow, or from being stripped and left in the cold night air, or from the impurities being purged from her body.  She doesn't dare think about the possibility of infection. The Lord won't let it happen, and Eli is doing his best to prevent it. All she knows is that she's hiding under the bed, and in that tight space, she feels like she's balancing on a thin line - one wrong move might send her tumbling into the flames. She's always been the weepy kind when she's sick. She remembers the first time she got sick when her parents were away, and it felt just like this. Lying under the bed, paralyzed, burning up, her eyes heavy as gunshot wounds (now that she knew how that felt) and burning like hot irons, her limbs twitching with a light shiver and aching all over.

Eli wets her daily bread for her sore throat. He holds her up and helps her take a big gulp of water. He gives her a lot of it. She loves him so much that she's convinced she's not dying. She remembers reading that when you're really sick, one of the first things to go is the longing she's feeling. Sexual desire. She wouldn’t call it that. It’s a hunger to kiss the feet of one’s redeemer. She looks up at him, and her eyes feel lighter as she watches his mouth curve slightly upwards like a mother’s when she’s spoon-feeding a child, while Mercy swallows the water, which brings her throat a mix of relief and strain.

He is relentless, even then. Despite her thin arm, he carves into it. She thinks she can feel the blade getting dangerously close to her bone, for a moment, the fever is overshadowed by something worse. Soon, she starts to yearn for more of the slicing and burning antiseptic treatment that follows, it makes the fever feel distant, as if when the pain stops, it will take the fever with it. She finds comfort in his firm grip on her shoulder as she sobs with each sting.

One day he asks her when she should bleed. She finds the question confusing because she bleeds all the time. Then she realizes that he is referring to her menstruation. She could not possibly remember when. 

"It should be soon anyway.”

When she ends up not bleeding, he lifts her nightgown to make sure, and she sits up on his bed, her legs spread, as he looks between them like a midwife, searching for dried blood on the dark, thin hairs of her parts, but he finds none, none of the rotten, coppery smell he knows from his sister. Before pulling down the cloth, he pats her thigh, still hot from fever, as if to say, "I'm proud of you.” He feels as if he is being exorcised of his fear at the thought that her body will not let her want, if it will not let her bleed. He will never have to feel her violating eyes tearing to shreds any linen he might use to protect his body from shameful nakedness.

So he becomes kinder. Deep down, he always imagined that it was not Mercy's will to rape him, but something bigger than her, something that controlled her, something that raped her as much as it raped him. A dragon he was slaying. And the lack of a red trail between her thighs meant the end of this beast under his sword. She did not resist, she asked him to free her, and he did. And she loved him, she said so all the time. It was never his virginity or his strangeness, she chose him as the Lord once did. And He works through her as well as through him.

It's the month of presents, so he gives her one, without any of the meanness that he once had at the birthday party. He buys it with his donation money. The present arrives just as her fever breaks, making it feel like a blessing decided from above. It’s a KJV Bible, an edition from that year, with a white hardcover. The cover is decorated with gold-embossed lettering, and the title is inscribed with smooth, flowing curves and delicate loops. It's beautiful, the kind a girl would like, perhaps intended for a wedding.

Mercy's face is half-covered by her bony fingers as she cries, overcome with emotions - half happy, half sad - thinking of him going to such lengths to get this for someone who had once poisoned him. 

"Why...I was content enough for you to read yours to me, the one you went over so many times, with all your underlining and annotations…”

"Because I want you to have one that you can highlight yourself. That you can go over even when I am away with mine and you are listening to my sermon recordings, so you can follow me better”.

The dam breaks again, and she bursts into louder tears.

He tries to comfort her. 

"Do you want to start by underlining all the verses I carved on you?”

She nods her head, a smile breaking through her tears.

Eli sweeps Mercy up in his arms, and she feels cradled in a warm haven, like she's found her way home. Closing her eyes, she catches a hint of something she's not yet sure she'll ever fully have. 

He grunts with effort as he lifts her.

"Ah! You've gotten so light, even an unmanly wimp like me can lift you.” 

"Please, it hurts to hear my saviour say such things about himself..." Mercy says earnestly.

"It's simply the truth, isn't it? I'm aware it's a fact, and it doesn't trouble me. Bodily strength won't deliver the wicked from the eternal worm.”

He puts her on his bed, as he did when he examined her, laying her on the sheets like a child putting down a doll to play with it, to take its clothes off and put them on again, to brush its hair.

A giggle escapes her lips as he wipes away her tears with his finger. He smiles in a way she rarely sees, and begins to remove her nightgown while hovering over her on the bed. Her world stops for a moment and she feels queasy with joy. She closes her eyes and opens them in slow motion to find herself already undressed.

He grabs her cold hips and turns her over. She lays her head in her arms, the Bible in front of her. He kneels over her naked back, puts on his reading glasses, and leans down so close that she can almost feel his breath lifting her delicate down. His fingertips touch the back of her neck, almost tickling her in a delightful way, as he brushes away her long, dirty hair. Then, he runs his fingers down her back and begins to read aloud, tracing her scarred cuts. His fingers touch everywhere like an angel's feathers. As she's torn all over, it feels like he's filling her scars with milk and honey from a syringe. She feels it; she simply feels it. 

Mercy tracks the words on the page, underlining them carefully, but can't help the soft whimper that threatens to escape. The way his nail lightly grazes her skin, without even a full touch, is making her tremble.

She's supposed to be clean now, he's told her so. But she can still feel the Beast pounding its fists inside of her. When he turns her over, presses his palm to her sunken stomach and down her thinning thighs, where more scars are, she feels like her hands might melt, causing the heavy book to slip from her grasp. The words on the page seem jumbled and confusing.

He gave that Bible to her, but she still can't hold back the Beast's last outbursts, because it's not about her red blood, but about her thoughts, about how she sees closeness. She's jealous of how he can make everything seem innocent, even when they're tangled up in bed and he's touching her under her nightgown.

She starts to giggle again, and he does too,  actually laughs, but their laughter is laced with nervousness.

"Don't touch me like that. It unhinges me. You bring out a monster in me when you do, you bring out the worst in me…” She quickly backtracks, "it's not your fault, I mean...it's not…It never was.”

"I'm not afraid of it," he whispers. "I've been through the worst, and I know the terror of being close to you. Didn't I fear more violation every night when you sleep under my bed? I can bear it. I can take your worst, and you don't scare me. I do not fear you, Mercy Miller. You made me strong, I only fear God.” 

Mercy can’t tell how true it is, but she understands his wish for it to be true. She wants to surrender to her saviour, despite her doubts. She's spent by her violent hunger. Now, looking at his round cheeks, she imagines sinking her teeth in. She wants to chew and swallow him, squeeze him, cover him with kisses, and suck his skin. He could bring her a litre of blood daily, yet she still has the feeling that the beast will crave more, even if her outer body is worn down to almost nothing.

"Isn't this a betrayal? You said you were proud of me.”

"A good sign doesn't mean all your problems are solved. It means you're making progress. Even if it's hard to believe, you're moving forward. You're on the narrow path, and that's why you're feeling this way. It's painful, it's tough. But that's exactly how you know you're on the right track.” He runs his fingers through her dirty, tangled hair, much like a parent would with a child who'd gotten their new clothes muddy, but with a loving mother's blindness to the mess. 

He grabs the box and ropes, presses her down onto the sheet, and ties her hands. Then, he takes her to the bathroom, sits her in a chair, and has her pour her hair into the sink, staring up at the ceiling. He places a white cloth over her face, shutting out the pale light. The cloth clings to her skin, feeling like a suffocating second layer, and it reminds her of getting a facial at the aestheticians. As he pulls her hair back into the sink, she feels the weight of the dirt lifting, if only for a moment.

The darkness sends her into a panic. She can't see him, and she feels like a leashed dog, abandoned forever outside of a store, like it imagines itself to be. She waves her arm around until he takes her hand, his thumb gently stroking her closed fist.

"This might feel like death, but you won't die. You have to trust God and trust me.”

In the darkness, his voice feels even more magnified than it does on the TV.

She can sense water moving in a bucket, then a muffled scream bursts from her swollen lips as the torrent pours over her face. But it's too late - the water is already seeping into her orifices, filling every pore, and she's so still it's as if she's already dead, being acted upon, yet somehow still feeling everything. 

The cycle of drowning and reviving becomes an indistinct nightmare of false awakenings. Each time the water recedes, she prays it would be the last. But, the bucket is bottomless. For a moment, she fears he has given up and let her sink. This is the lake of fire, and it's too late.

Her lungs feel fried, shrunk, and transformed into char, her respiratory system reduced to a crumbly, blackened husk, as if the very oxygen she needs to survive has turned toxic, burning her from the inside out. 

But his fair hand presses down on her forehead, and water drips down her grimy hair, tracing paths of purification. 

Just when she feels like giving up, thinking she's found peace by the dense water, the deluge stops, the cloth is whisked away for a brief moment, and she gasps for air like a real drowning victim. Her eyes, skin, and lips are swollen. Her throat had barely started to feel better from the fever, but now it seems like it will never fully recover. 

She doubles over, coughing and retching as water spews from her mouth and nose. She vomits into the sink, heaving hard, but only water comes up, not the lung or shredded throat tissue she felt like she was going to spit out.

When he unties her ropes, she throws herself into his arms, almost an attempt at ghostly possession or perhaps a desire to recreate the original lover form Aristophanes talked about in the Symposium, the one philosophy book she's read all the way through - a creature with two heads, four arms, and four legs, male and female both. Her wet, ephemeral body clinging desperately to him. 

She grips his shoulders so tightly she might tear his shirt, but then moves her hands to encircle his torso, seeking to merge with him, to become one with him. For the second time, she feels his palm on her naked back, warm and healing, as the water has almost washed away her covering. In this embrace, she hopes to erase the divide between them, to reunite the author of the crime and its victim, restoring balance - him to his purity, her to the retribution she deserves. 

Her voice is a painful whisper, as if she's breathing through a straw. "I was so terrified," Mercy pushes out. "For a moment, I thought I was already there. I was so scared, I thought you'd left me behind.” 

Eli lets her cling to him, even though his own clothes get damp too.

"I would never let that happen, nor would God. You're my penitent, and I won't let a truly repentant and humble sinner like you fall before you're ready to meet the Lord. Besides, you won't meet Him yet- you're still young and need to graduate, with me. Then He will come take us both to be with Him.”

Mercy's swollen, red eyes lock onto his face, and in that moment, she thinks he's delusional. The world outside would see the toll this farmhouse has taken on her. They'd never take her back. Nor would they spare him if they knew what had passed between them. 

At the same time, she has a need to believe it, can’t help but imagine herself returning, filled with light, joyful and whole, a living proof of the one who prepares the earth for His return. She'll stand by his side when the earth is soon to be tested, fearless because she knows they will be spared and risen. 

She starts whispering prayers, surrounded by the discoloured walls, rust, and cracked tiles, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world…”

She doesn't remember how long Eli lets her rest in his arms, recovering from the torment the water inflicted on her. All she knows is that he pulls her onto his knees as he sagged against the edge of the tub, exhausted from standing for so many minutes. She was almost dozing off, feeling more comfortable than she had in a long time, but the memory of the recent torture jolts her awake just as she is drifting off to sleep, like falling into a void. With a panicked expression, she looks up and asks, "Did you feel like this after drinking the cup I gave you?”

He fixes his gaze on the sink, his head jerking slightly, as if he wants to shake it but can't. He has no memory of what the rape was like. It's a gap in his past, a corrupted cassette that generates a terrifying noise.

Eli brings Mercy back beneath the bed. That night, she hears a loud explosion of pops and instinctively shuts her ears, curling up like a frightened animal on the Fourth of July. She clutches her thigh, even though the gunshot wound has long since healed. 

Chapter Text

Paradise Town, 1972.

In the auditorium's front rows, art club members sit with paint-stained hands, sketchpads in hand, discussing their latest projects. Eleanor, with her tall frame and long, wavy brown hair, stands under the stage by a canvas, wearing a flower-patterned shirt and loose jacket. She's explaining why she chose a theme that's all about breaking the rules of form for an upcoming mural contest. 

Mid-sentence, the heavy double doors at the back of the auditorium burst open with a loud bang. Heads whip around to see Andrew, fed up with her avoidance of him, standing there. "You think you can just walk away from this?”

Her gaze shifts from her canvas to meet his accusing green eyes. "What do you mean, Andrew? If you're still talking about that, I've already made my position clear. We can't pressure someone who’s been violated. It's up to them to decide whether to report what happened to the authorities, especially in a chaotic situation like this.” 

Andrew had convinced himself that if Eli told, they would quickly link him to Mercy's disappearance, and maybe, there would be progress. They would send people to the farmhouse. However, Eli acted like he was too ashamed to show his face. It would also mean lifting the secret from Andrew. And perhaps the end of Eli’s success on the TV show. Andrew found a cruel satisfaction in the thought that they wouldn’t want him around if they knew he was defiled. 

He rushes towards her, shouting, his knuckles turning white as he clenches his fists, while Eleanor doesn't budge and the other art club members gawk, dumfounded, at the footballer. They didn’t even know he and Eleanor talked. 

"WE CAN pressure him! We can and we should! If they start investigating, everyone will know what kind of person you're protecting. What is it, Eleanor? You are afraid. I thought you hated them. I thought you hated his kind. You always hated me for so much less. What is it, Eleanor? Is he fucking you? That doesn't seem wise. He'll regret it and then we'll see you end up like Mercy. And hell no...I won't lift a finger for you.”

The club president, noticing Eleanor's fury, jumps down from the stage and stands behind the pair, attempting to diffuse the situation. "Andrew, whatever this is about, it's not the time or place. We have a meeting going on. Take it outside, okay?”

Andrew's anger deflects from Eleanor, momentarily focusing on him. 

“This is exactly the place, damn it! EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT KIND OF PERSON ELIJAH SUNDAY IS. He is not some harmless weirdo.”

Tension thickens as Andrew and Eleanor stare at each other. Their raised voices bounce off the auditorium walls. Some club members whisper about his cryptic words. Others loudly say Andrew is the weirdo now, obsessed with Eli like Mercy used to be before she disappeared. Some edge towards the door, unsure if they will escalate into physical violence. The art teacher, a short, stocky woman in her late fifties, bursts in. 

"What's going on here?" Andrew and Eleanor know better than to say a word. The teacher crosses her arms, shaking her head. "Never mind, I don't want to know. Andrew, out. Eleanor, calm down. Otherwise, you'll have to answer to the principal.”

Andrew had considered going to someone himself. A teacher or a policeman. He knew the teachers had probably heard about the rape by now, but they thought it didn't concern them. It happened outside the walls of the school. He could go there as a witness, say what he knows, and it wouldn't look like an act of aggression against Eli, it would look like an act of misguided support, exposing the events against the victim's will. He could pretend that he didn't know that Eli didn't want it to get around. 

But he couldn't get the words out of his head, the ones Eli had spoken after arguing with Eleanor again at the end of Math period. He pulled him aside, out of Eleanor's earshot, and whispered, "I have the right to keep my shame private. Try to uncover my shame. Try if you want. Then I'll tell everyone it wasn't Mercy. It was you. And everyone would believe me. You're a big, strong boy...and I'm built like a girl, aren't I? You said that.”

Andrew, in that moment, freezes with terror, but at the same time, he feels a torrid sensation, like a blast of hot desert air over his body. In that moment, his eyes fixate on the words forming on his small, peach—coloured lips, calling him strong and big in a sickening, mocking tone that also has an underlying hint of something sexual.

He reflects on the consequences after those chilling words, but what truly haunts him is the vision of himself in Mercy's place, carrying his lifeless body up to the attic and using him in the same violent manner she had. In his mind, he rams Eli’s ass with a viciousness that matches the repetitive stabs of the knife still coated in blood, leaving stains on his cock like a murderer’s weapon. He covers Eli’s mouth, screams muffled as he pleads to a God who has turned His back to him in disgust, because he is a cocksucker freak. In his mind, he transforms into the protagonist of the violent story in the attic. His thoughts erase Mercy entirely, she isn’t even observing. Maybe it’s not even her party. At night Andrew is left tossing and turning, needy, succumbing to feverish masturbation while also feeling the urge to punch through walls. On Sunday, at 7 AM he is rudely awakened by a choir singing Rock of Ages, his mother is listening to gospel hymns on Flame of Pentecost and there’s a smell of bacon and eggs coming from the kitchen, Andrew feels consumed.  

He can't stand it anymore, he needs to meet Sandy. That morning, talking to Sandy at her house, the words come out of him like the vomit of a drunk man on the sidewalk, not even realizing how much of it there is, or how disgusting it is, or how it's all over her face. 

"I have to go to the farmhouse. I have to. Nobody but me will take it upon themselves to go there." 

"Please, Andrew, let me go with you. I don't want you to be alone. And if Mercy is really there... I want her to know. I haven't given up on her. Even if she acted like a monster." 

"If he really took her, and I know he did... He could be dangerous. His family could be." 

Sandy feels all the anger she has repressed toward Andrew come to her at that moment. A picture of Mercy in middle school flashes before her, with her short, frilly pastel skirts, against her parents' advice, and her ballet dancing, when she still did ballet. With the kiss she had stolen that one time in the courtyard. It was Sandy’s first. It was just a habit of Mercy. Sandy doesn’t know if she even meant it. 

"Mercy was my best friend before she was someone you fucked, Andrew."

"Whatever, if you want to come, come. But let me tell you, I am not looking forward to going. I just know I have to...I owe her. I owe her for not stopping her from messing with him. Even though I knew he wasn't a kid to mess with.”

A few hours later, they meet in the school parking lot. Sandy wears a yellow nylon jacket and an orange hat, her hair of a similar but lighter colour poking out from under it. Andrew has on a green jacket that resembles the Air Force’s. "I'm carrying, just in case," he tells Sandy.

Andrew has never been fond of guns. His father used to be, but after he pulled one on his mother, Andrew developed a horror of firearms. Still, it's a necessity.

The first time Andrew genuinely felt something beyond dislike for Eli was when pastors and Bible scholars answered questions about culture and society on the show. He spoke of his father Abel's only treasure: vintage rifles.

Now, they had only a few left. His brother sold them to get money to run away to San Francisco. Eli told that when Paul’s birth date was pulled early in the draft lottery the previous year, Abel had tried to set him on the proper path, insisting that Paul serve America, and God’s will, by answering the call. But Paul had slammed the door on the conversation, muttering about how he wasn’t going to die for a government that didn’t give “a damn” about poor farmers like them, a month later, word spread that he was dodging the draft, living in San Francisco. Eli went on about how he was an impious son and a heathen. And about how he never even cared for the farm in the first place. He had such venom towards someone he was related to. 

After that digression, he launched into a warning about the forces of darkness threatening the faithful. "These are the days when we must be ready," he said. "Did not Jesus himself command his disciples to carry swords? Not to seek violence, but to prepare, to stand firm against the trials to come. In times like these, we must not grow weak. We must be ready to defend His truth, for the enemy works in many ways."
And Andrew couldn't help but feel pure hatred, thinking of course Eli loved guns, they made him equal to strong boys like Andrew.

That afternoon, the air is damp with the threat of rain. The valley is bordered by rows of power lines cutting through the wide sky. The colours appear washed out, like a faded photograph, with pale yellow and chalky grey blending together. The small grass is a pallid green, sprinkled with darker and lighter brown patches. All they can see in the distance are low mounds and a lone tree with its gnarled branches. 

They can only make a guess about the right direction. Then, through the silent valley, they see a car pulled over - a yellow taxi waiting by a powerline. They tap on his foggy window. "You lost?" the driver asks, flicking cigarette ash onto the sticky ground. 

Andrew nods, stepping forward, his breathing coming out in clouds. “We’re looking for the Sunday farmhouse. We want to visit our classmate. Sunday Elijah. For sure you know him. It’s supposed to be out this way…Maybe a mile from here. But it’s easy to get lost here.”

The driver takes a long drag, a hint of amusement on his face, but his eyes look tired. "He's probably at church, it being Sunday. I recall where his farmhouse is, actually. I drove him home from Miller's party once, and he was so drunk he puked outside my cab.”

Andrew shoots Sandy a look, as if to say, "I told you.”

"It's more like two miles," he continues, "Just keep walking until you reach the oak tree up ahead where the road splits. Take the right path, not the left, or you'll end up in the marsh. That way will lead you there, eventually.”

Sandy steps forward, feeling it's the responsible thing to do. "Can you write down your number for us?”

"I don't think there are any phone booths around here.” 

"If you're worried, Sandy, you should've stayed home," Andrew barks.

After about an hour of walking in confusion, their gaze fixed on their muddy shoes, Sandy's voice rings out, breaking the silence. "Hey, look over there," Sandy says, pointing to a simple, boxy home that looks out of place in the open space. The house has a rickety wooden fence around it. "Could that be it?”

"Let's go check it out," Andrew replies, quickening his pace. "It's got to be their place. I mean, who else lives way out here?”

Andrew suddenly falls back onto the mud, blood oozing between his fingers and spreading into a large stain on his jeans. The sky above him seems to sway back and forth. He's stunned, and only later does the pain hit him, filling him like the mud fills his hair. 

"Andrew!" Sandy screams, collapsing to her knees beside him. "What the hell was that? Oh Jesus fuck…”

"Someone... Eli's shooting at us," Andrew gasps, his face pale and contorted in pain, for even someone as tough as him can't stay stoic after a leg wound. 

"Whoever it is, we've got to get out of here," Sandy says. 

“You…” 

“Fuck no, Andrew. Us.”

Sandy looks around with frantic eyes. No sign of the shooter. The air is thick with gunpowder and an eerie silence. A faint hum from distant trucks fills the void, until a black car stops. Then she sees him, Eli, from behind. His new trim haircut reveals his lithe neck. His shadow resembles a tall mushroom. It is awkward, in his too-large suit. The pants are short for his six-foot frame and too wide for his delicate weight. He carries his usual leather bag. He gets out of a car, shaking the hand of a white-haired man. He's the pastor of Paradise's church and the show's producer and presenter. It can't be Eli; he's just walking back past the fence. 

No matter who Sandy thought it might be, his father, mother, or even one of his younger sisters, including the little one, she wouldn't have suspected Mercy. But there stood Mercy, out of their sight, naked, barefoot and scarred, wearing only Eli's mother's old thirties nightgown for cover. She fired wildly into the valley, her eyes filled with a hallucination of thick, dark smoke and Sandy's finger pointed at her in judgment.

For a brief second, Eli turns around. He sees Andrew, bleeding in the mud, but Andrew's vacant eyes don't meet his. He runs forward to Mercy, who has fainted with his dad's rifle pressed against her chest. 

Andrew loses consciousness, and Sandy's face is wet with tears, but she's beyond noticing. The snow particles in the air makes her tears prickle her skin. With shaking hands, she desperately ties her shirt around the wound. After what feels like an hour of panic, Sandy chases after one of the trucks driving through the valley. One truck ignores her, but another one that passes fifteen minutes later takes pity on her tears and stops. The strong man lifts Andrew into his arms and drives them both to the hospital, four miles away.

Andrew went into a brief coma, two bullets, luckily not hitting an artery, almost as if his wound and Mercy’s healed one were communicating, but he lost a lot of blood in almost ninety minutes. When the police came to the hospital three days later to question him, he was almost back to normal. Sandy and his mother are with him. He manages to ask them to search the Sunday farmhouse.

"Is this just a childish fight between horny boys? There are communities where a woman's honor is deeply valued in a way that we don't quite understand anymore. Did you have a thing with his girlfriend? It’s ok. I remember what it was like, being your age but…his family is respected. They're not prone to violence. His father was very reasonable and compliant with the county sheriff. The point is, young man, they're not crazed zealots. They value their autonomy. To just make them feel like criminals…”

"They're crazed zealots, damn it. You don't know what he's like at school. He's always crying, scared of everyone and everything, like the walls are going to swallow him up." His voice is strained, hampered by the pain meds from the past few days. He's stuck in this hospital bed, unable to express the anger he feels about being abandoned.

"But it's not like that now. Not anymore. Ever since Mercy Miller went missing, you know, the girl you should be searching for…”

Sandy interrupts, "I don't think Eli shot. I saw him getting in, officers. Maybe it was his family or his little sister playing with the rifles. I've heard he's got sisters.”

Andrew's face loses its colour, just as it did when he was bleeding, as he faces the officers, whose presence feels jarringly out of place in the small town hospital room. "You saw him getting in?”

"I saw him open the fence, but he didn't shoot, Andrew.”

An officer sighs, looking down at the young man with his incapacitated leg under him, "Alright, we'll check out the farmhouse soon, if they're willing. He glances at his colleagues. "Abel's a fair guy, as long as you're respectful. We'll do a quick look-around, as long as he's okay with it. I don't want to have to get a search warrant for their property - it's not necessary."

Their words feel as insubstantial as the mold on the lilac and mint colored hospital walls, and yet, Andrew feels like screaming, like dying, like everything could suddenly get lighter. 

Chapter Text

Sunday Farmhouse, 1972.

Mercy and Eli have various, pleasant nightly rituals. Mercy likes the immodesty of the knife, rusted with her own blood, as it moves up her bare thigh, lifting her nightgown — her only covering since she wears nothing underneath — and the way he brings the knife closer to her sex, pressing against her groin, tickling the raven-haired exterior with the blade. "You wouldn't do that, you don't have the guts," she whispers and gets no response, only the pressure increasing, making the possibility of a final, permanent mutilation, the removal of her power. The possibility of being disarmed once and for all, more vivid and tangible. 

The way he does it is tender, like a barber in eighteenth-century Italy paid by a family to make their most handsome son a singer, as if castration were a game. What really makes this game so pleasurable for Mercy is the phallic symbolism, because for all her pretence of purity, she is still the same simple sinner who wants him to get inside her, open her up, and make her bleed. But she cannot say it. She knows he will never do it, not with his penis, not with any prosthesis. But when the blade presses against her womb, she begins to sweat as she did when she had a fever. One day he teases her clitoris with the tip of the knife and she doesn't notice that she has begun to cry, no sobs, no words of protest, just tears that come automatically from the release of cortisol and adrenaline at the prospect of such unspeakable agony in the area of her body with the most nerve endings. He slices the air with the tip of the blade, almost tickling her there and she shrieks. 

"You know, Mercy, some people say... castration is a benevolent punishment for the sexual criminal." He presses the point of the knife, finally making contact with the skin, and digs it into the pubic area just above her "female penis," drawing blood.

"I would let you do this to me anyway. I don't need it. It only made me sin." 

"If I could do it without risking your death, I would. I agree, you don't need it. I wonder why we even have these ugly things.”

There’s also the fire ritual, that one helps with the hunger, and it reminds Mercy of the times she used to burn the roof of her mouth with hot pizza. Nostalgia catches up with everyone, but all she wants is a hint of something familiar. She kneels by the bed, her personal altar, with her tongue out, as he absent-mindedly plays with the lighter's flame. The sound used to frighten her, but now it's almost like coming alive - when the spark ignites the metal, the sharp sound and sudden radiant light make her feel like she's waking up, if only for a second, before slipping back into a fevered twilight sleep. She edges her tongue forward, then pulls back, her face contorted in pain, as the heat rages in her mouth. But she comes closer again, seeking another taste. She rubs the roof of her mouth, which feels thickened and coarse, with her still burning tongue - it's addictive. When the heat cools, she takes more, like a professional circus fire swallower.

Sometimes Eli doesn't even glance at her, just letting her play with him, Mercy with the flame, him with the lighter. One arm, with its peaches-and-cream complexion, dangles off the bed, holding the lighter, while he reads with the other, worn paperbacks with titles like "Exposing the Devil's Playbook", "Becoming the Voice of God", and "A New Revelation”.

When she speaks, it's like someone who's just gotten braces - her tongue keeps hitting her sharp teeth, which hurts because it's tender from the white blisters. "You'll go back to school...I know you have to. I'll miss you. I'll hate seeing you rush out the door, still sleepy, on a cold morning…”

He simply nods. He doesn't look at Mercy. Everything feels heavy when she speaks. It reminds him of how afraid he still is. Of how much she seems to need. Everything, all the time. He could fill his tallest jars with blood and she would still be thirsty. She gets madder than him sometimes. Says things he thinks are too much to say on the air. Even when he agrees.

"I wish we could just wipe them all out. Send them straight to hell.”

"Have we forgotten? Vengeance is His, not ours. His wrath is a fearful thing. They will never know happiness. Just think of the joy that awaits us, and then think of them…”

Mercy's words tumble out in a pleading jumble. "I don't want you to be cold. Can I get knitting needles one day? I want to knit you a white hat.”

“Yes, but don't say such angry things all the time. I know they betrayed you and led you to perdition, they lied to you, and they won't be forgiven. But you mustn't wish for them to pay for your sins with their blood. I tell you…”

"It's not about me. That bruise... Abel didn't give it to you, did he?”

"That felt like nothing. Like nothing at all. Don't be afraid. I won't let them get you.”

"I don't want them to take me away…" She presses her sticky forehead against his arm.

"I won't let them take you away. Never, never…”

"When you leave tomorrow morning, hide me just in case. Somewhere in the barn. Where there's no light and no one can see. And lock it. Lock it well. I just have a feeling... I've been having visions. Like you do.”

With the open book still clutched in his hand, Eli lets his head fall back onto the pillow, his short golden strands splayed out around him. His chest rises and falls with a deep exhale, and his eyes wander upward to the ceiling, where the paint is peeling away in great, curling strips. The bubbles that have formed beneath the surface look like they might burst at any moment.

The morning after, he drags Mercy out from under the bed and picks her up. At first, she doesn't remember what she asked for, but she's not startled. Even when her bare feet hang in the cool outside air, she doesn't fully wake up. She crawls obediently into the small barn, cramped even for the goats, where there's barely enough room to shield them from the elements. Now she realizes how uncomfortable it must have been for him to huddle here, knees to chest, and cry, because this is the warmest spot, almost hot and humid, thanks to the animals, manure, and their musky smell. In the dimness, she crouches among the softly bleating goats, some of which nudge her gently. The air grows stale, but she feels safe, untroubled by the closeness, and without the sense of human superiority that can bring disgust. 

Their presence is constant, and her sleep is troubled, especially with her many physical aches. The goats' fur brushes against her, and they nudge her with their heads and hooves, sometimes stepping on her fragile legs as they move around. They're persistent, nuzzling and pawing, but she feels safe. In her mind, she imagines the faces of everyone she knows - her mother, father, Andrew, Sandy, her grandmother, her teachers, Grace that backstabbing bitch, and Eleanor. She dares them to judge her, and compared to them, she does feel a sense of superiority. See? Someone cared, someone cared…

She wishes she could tell them that. Eli thinks she is worth saving. She longs to spit on "self-respect" and "dignity," those empty platitudes. She is proud of how repulsive and pained she is. He thought she was worth saving. They left her to die. He can do whatever he wants to her. She imagines her mother's, twisted with fright. Her father, a stranger, looks at her as if to say: now he finally has proof, she couldn’t be his. She is alien to his seed. 

She wonders what it might be like for her and Eli to be goats. She muses that being made in the image and likeness of God and having fallen is a burden she wishes she could let go of. What she did in the attic would be unremarkable in a nature documentary. When two goats do it to each other, they don't call it “rape". They call it something else, not rape. But people have wills and minds and the ability to be good, the responsibility to be.

It's probably a sin to think this way, but she remembers a debate at her school from back when they could still have debates, before Eli showed up. This boy argued that God wasn't real because there's no proof, and we want to believe in Him so badly because who wouldn't want to live forever? But she always thought the opposite. She felt like she knew God was real, and it terrified her. If she had a choice, she wouldn't want God to exist. Some people, like her, are born with a tendency towards wickedness and can't understand why others are happy about God's existence. All they can do is tremble at His wrath and the certainty of hellfire. Denial only works for so long. That boy must have been a very good person to think, "Who wouldn't want God to exist?" - as if he couldn't even imagine someone like her, even though she was sitting right across from him. She wishes her soul could be destroyed like a goat's. Once it dies, its soul will be gone. 

She imagined it being crushed by some machinery. It must be blissful to not know of one's death or the chance of burning. She pretended it didn't scare her, but now, in this dark space, it's all catching up to her. She wishes he was here, so she could ask him again: how can he be so sure, one hundred percent sure, that he can save her before it's too late?

When she emerges, the evening sky is as dark as the early morning's, making it seem like time has stood still. He lets her sit by the bed and hands her a knitting kit. She's stunned. But he asks her not to mention it in the Penitence Diary. Most of her night is spent trying to knit a hat, even though she wishes she could do more – be useful for the Apocalypse, do what a strong wife would do to prepare. But she's not one, and this feels like an indulgence. Still, Mercy genuinely believes the hat she's knitting will be the only thing that keeps his pale head from freezing. 

Mercy feels happier than she ever has when she gets to put the hat on his head. The way he closes his eyes for a second and adjusts it to tuck all his hair in makes her want to kiss his forehead and run her hand over his full, flushed cheek. But she can't, so she just says, 

"Is it warm?”

"It's warm," he whispers gently. "You're good. Maybe one day you could teach Mary how to knit.”

She doesn't think she should get close to that sweet child, whose giggles and cries she can sometimes hear from the bedroom. It feels like it would change her. But the idea of being part of his world makes her pause, contemplating grace. It's undeserved by nature, and there's nothing she can do. Even if she feels like an animal, she knows she's not, and she can't change that - Jesus saves.

Her ecstasy, magnified by seeing him leave the house every day with the hat, was short-lived.

That morning she was calmer and stayed under the bed. He had stopped tying her hands when he went outside since the Drownings began. She took that as a sign of trust, not surrender. Or maybe it was a hope for freedom from her. It was probably a mixture of both, but she wouldn't admit it. She had come to the farmhouse for something unnamed, and he gave her a voice. He revealed her need to set things right before it was too late. He offered her a chance and a glimpse of hell. Now she can admit, she fears, as any other mortal, without hiding or ironizing. Mercy knows she is testing to people's patience. At fourteen, she understood that even parents can stop loving. Her father had stopped loving her. She had gone too far.

She emerges from under the bed, lying down beside it to study the bubbles on the ceiling. The ceiling appears to deteriorate daily, every time she looks at it. On the bed, a paper with messy cursive script lies scattered. Yesterday, he was working on a sermon, but she's unable to decipher his handwriting well enough to read all the words. 

Next to it is a thick book called "Nave's Topical Bible." She picks it up and feels an instant need to look up the word for her sin. She goes straight for the letter R, lifting up the large block of pages. As her eyes settle on "RAPE. Law imposes death penalty for, Deut. 22: 25-27," she feels something run across her back, as if a large centipede had formed from the dirt corners of the house and was now tickling her with it's limbs as thick as worms. She scrambles to her white Book. Half-hearted repentance is not enough, and when the time comes, she shouldn't be surprised to find herself far from His embrace. The rustling pages echo through the lonely room, making her already small world feel even smaller, reduced to the tiny circle where she kneels. “But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her; then the man only that lay with her shall die.” 

Eli couldn't have screamed that time. She led him that way, putting him to sleep, and even with everyone she knew around, he was in the field, not the city, because he couldn’t cry out. She took that from him. That makes her happy. Only she has to die. “For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.” Andrew didn't force his way in. He saw her holding him, completely limp. Lying there in the dark was his only way to cry out, but no one was listening.

Despite her relief that Eli wouldn't be punished, she begins to weep, torn between her loyalty to him and to God. She feels like the saving blood had not been enough, that now the world needed hers. She has seen it, she is sure. Should she question his plan for her, which said they'd graduate together before the soon-coming Rapture, when she clearly felt it deep down, that she had to die? Should she doubt him, implying he'd seen wrongly, or even go so far as to call him a false prophet? If he lied out of kindness, she couldn't blame him; she knew his nature. She knew how he always took pain with his head bowed, let the dogs devour him, took her in, and held her in his arms, promising she'd one day be clothed in light. He turned the other cheek, gave up his tunic, and she knew it. If he lied, it wasn't because he wanted to. But nonetheless, if he spoke falsely, she'd be faced with everything she would've faced if he'd never taken her in.

Should she remind him of his own words? The ones that left such an impression on her. His love letter to her. Now it is war, and it is not the time for those who are tender-hearted. Now it is war, and it is time for a third dispensation, she would have added. He could speak like that because he knew he was talking of himself, he knew himself tender hearted. 

She doesn’t stop crying, only breaking to catch her breath for a moment. Her crying is harsh, a scream-like wail that comes from some bleeding chasm inside her. Outside the door, Eli's oldest sister listens in, her ear pressed against the door, and asks Abel if Eli was at school on Saturdays, or at the pastor’s, assuming he must be punishing her to make her cry like that.

When Eli arrives home, his hat still on his head and his cheeks flushed from the cool air, he is still clutching his bag as Ruth inches towards him. "Mercy's been screaming for hours, Mary got scared" she says quietly. She knows she shouldn't interfere. But, that unfortunate girl might be dying.

There’s worry on Eli's face, his lip trembling open in a silent, understated gasp, as he gently pushes Ruth aside and hurries to the door. He pushes it open and enters the circle, where Mercy kneels with her white Bible. He kneels down beside her, finding her still in the grip of some desperate emotion. "Mercy?" He shakes her shoulder, “Mercy, stop screaming. I am here. Look at me. What’s going on?" Even in his voice, he has something of a caring mother, even more than a father. 

Overwhelmed, she presses her fists to his chest and sobs, her body racked with blistering tears. "This part…” 

Slowly, he wraps his lithe arms around her, his fingers wide apart, stroking her back with soft, gentle sweeps to calm the tremors beneath her skin.

His eyes drop to the page, and he gets it at once. "Oh no, no, Mercy…” 

“You have to come to me for these questions.” She remains hidden in his chest, as he strokes the paper, his fingertips tracing the printed words. 

"Listen..." He starts, "I'm not going to pretend this doesn't apply to us just because we're not from Ancient Israel or because it's in the Old Testament. Rape is a horrible crime. The whole Bible is true, and if I said some parts didn't matter, I'd be lying to you. Every word is true. These words are meant for someone, and they're still true even if they're not about us. But it’s not about us. And don’t forget there was a New Dispensation.” 

"What do you mean? I’ve seen a Third! Just tell me. I think my vision was clear! I want to be perfect, I won’t be forgiven so easily" She had never raised her voice at him before. Yet, he wasn't angry. It wasn't about disobedience. She was humble and unashamed of her fear.

"I think it's clear too. It's what it says.” He doesn’t ask about the vision. “Even if we’re to look at that law, I'm not a girl, and God spoke to me too, to me first, He told me it was ordained, that it was to save you, that I was supposed to endure, and if you doubt that, then... Then what about…Jesus? You doubt Him too?” 

She nestles her head, sweat dripping down her face and being absorbed by his sweater, as she breathes in the dusty scent of the old, blue wool. “I doubt, I doubt, oh Lord help me, I don’t know…I want to be good. If this is what He demands, then please, feel no fear, feel no fear and do what He demands…”

“Mercy? Are you even listening? Are you even listening? We've come so far and you're letting it get to you, the devil wants to confuse you with false visions...See, I know you know in your heart that Jesus saves. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save the world through Him... Trust that He knows all your filth and even that Scripture is not talking about us, because that verse is not about us…” While she cries, his eyes become moist and his words slightly shaky, he can't hold himself back, he can't stand firm.

He finds that he cannot comfort her, and he finds that he cannot comfort himself. His guilt grips his chest. "Besides, I am not blameless. I drank the poison you gave me. My body gave out. I came to your domain, knowing it to be a den of sin. But it was ordained. The Lord would have spoken to me and told me to stay away... But I felt a pull... A saving pull…" 

She hides her face, ashamed. His self-sacrifice only magnifies her unworthiness. The more he crucifies himself, the less worthy she feels. 

It hits him suddenly, like a jolt of fear: she's slipping away from him, right through his fingers. This tortured thing between them, which brought them to this point and haunts his house with her presence, is being thrown away. He sees her in his mind, in her soiled nightgown, starving, and it's all being wasted - the terror, everything. By uncovering his shameful nakedness, she was the first to gaze upon him, and this act no longer felt like a violation, but rather a union, as if they were conjoined twins, inseparable and inescapable. They had become one, two halves of a whole, embodying the entirety of human nature, with all its evil that's present from youth. She cannot recant. He doesn't want that. 

He digs his hand into her scalp, where lice infest, made to look almost wet from only being touched by water during the Drownings, and he presses his clean, closed mouth to her crown. He whispers in pain, as if it's his last resort, his voice filled with a mix of repulsion and a similarly intense, simultaneous fondness for the thought. 

"You know what else Deuteronomy 22 says about rape, if you want to invoke the law, to doubt the New Covenant, and the word of the Lord that goes through me, it says, the man who rapes a virgin, because he has violated her, he shall not put her away all his days... You are a woman, we don’t have to marry, but please Mercy, if you leave me, not only I can't be sure where you'll go, but I'll be finished, because I haven’t saved you, or myself, or anyone…” 

She clings to him, her overgrown nails digging into him as she grips him tightly, tearing through the wool. The phlegm stains it further, her eyes still shimmering. "I can still feel the scar under the skin of my forehead that marks my crime, we're in your hands, Eli, we're in your hands, please don't say that, all of America is, we're in your holy, healing hands, I won't doubt, I'll try not to, but please, don't make them tender if they don't have to be…"

He begins to recite, his face flushing and his moist eyes welling up like an overflowing vase. “And Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear!  Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.” And the Lord said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.”

Mercy tries to calm her restless chest, even as it pounds, dangerously close to collapse, she continues the recitation, in a breathy tone, as if to tell herself to pull herself together, to relinquish her control, and this fear of not knowing, and place herself in his hands, "Then Cain went forth from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, in the east of Eden…"

"Good, good. You are a good child, Mercy..." She sits there, holding Eli close and being held close by Eli, wet and sobbing uncontrollably, as ugly as a screaming baby. 

He tries to pull away for a moment, and with babyish hunger, she tries to pull him back. “I thought music could console you; I wanted to get the cassette player.”
Not everyone had those. The Sunday family chose to invest in it to preserve Eli’s words and like for the TV, the community would help sustain the expense. They didn’t have a record player or vinyls, just that, for Eli’s audio recordings. But sometimes Eli’s aunt from the city would send Ruth music cassettes as gifts. 

“But it’s not Sunday.” That’s when she was usually allowed to listen to the tapes of his singing. 

“It doesn’t matter what day it is.”

She sits, feeling abandoned, with a hollow ache in her chest as she gazes at the page, unable to look anywhere else even if she should. But when her eyes land right by the open Book, on the portable cassette deck placed by its side, that brings her a bit of calm. When she hears his singing, she is so glad to be there in the farmhouse with him. She loves to hear music on Flame of Pentecost recordings whenever the show isn’t airing, despite the quality, it’s a great luxury in her state.
She misses the record player she has at home sometimes, just because she had many vinyls of love songs. She had always loved He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss), her mother said it wasn’t a love song, she didn’t get it.

As she listens to the fuzzy sound, the hiss and crackle fade into the background, and she can clearly hear the words and happy melody. This is exactly the kind of song her mother would have adored, she thinks to herself. The lively rhythm seeps in, and the shadows of her fear begin to lift, like the warmth of sunlight, a soothing anaesthetic, or the relief that comes when the cutting stops.

“Pack up your troubles and just get happy 

Ya better chase all your cares away

Sing Hallelujah, c'mon get happy

Get ready for the judgment day

The sun is shinin', c'mon get happy

The Lord is waiting to take your hand

Shout Hallelujah, c'mon get happy

We're goin' to the Promised Land”

She slumps against him, her body relaxing as she yields to his embrace. He places her hands, claps, and locks eyes with her, trying to tease out a smile. As her facial muscles unwind, her lips begin to twitch, then rise, and soon she's laughing uncontrollably, her shoulders quaking with mirth. He rocks her gently, his movements smooth and soothing, like a soft dance. Her laughter swells, becoming more carefree, as if a long-held joy has suddenly been unleashed, flooding her with a feeling of complete freedom, like a rushing Alpine river that's poured into a waterfall. 

He tries to coax her to her feet. She softly protests that she is too weak. But, he tugs at her arm. She finds herself standing, feeling like she's levitating. He makes her sway while standing. She clings to him as a child does to their swimming instructor on the first lesson. Her eyes don't stray from his, as if they're the only couple at the prom, or something of that sort. Mercy mumbles words against his shoulder, "I feel like I could die, I love you to death, oh Elijah, I love you to my death, to my last gasp…” He leans in, his scalding breath dancing across her ear, and whispers, in an equally soft tone, “Do you trust my hands?”

"I trust your sacred hands, I trust your eyes, I trust your mouth, I trust your knife, I trust your rope, I trust your grace…” It has the repetitive sound of a formal prayer. Sometimes he tells her that prayer is not repetition. But if she is sure of something, it’s that these words are coming through her, not from her.

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and appears to be bracing himself against the words. 

She lifts her face. The freezing bridge of her nose pokes at his warm cheek. Her downcast, darkly hooded, but bright eyes seek his affirmation. Is this okay? “Tell me. Is it good for a boy to hold a girl so close?”

"It's good for us. We're not male or female. It wouldn’t be good for anyone else. Don’t mention it in your diary, or anywhere else.”

Mercy's head bobs up and down in a slow, sleepy motion, and he's hit with an sudden, teasing, urge to grab hold of her and twirl her around in a wild, laughing spin, the kind that leaves you breathless and disoriented, with Mercy's giggles echoing through the air as she clings to him for balance. He replays the song over and over until he hears his sister Ruth outside exclaim, "Oh no! You've got the TV already! Not the cassette player too!”

He tunes out Ruth's voice, lifting Mercy up and catching her as she falls back into his arms. Then he sets her down on the floor, and Mercy looks up at him with adoration, her eyes unblinking. “I love you to my last mortal gasp…And beyond…”

He reaches out to pat her cheek, first using his whole hand and then just his index and middle fingers. 

That night, Mercy sleeps worse than any other night. She has a nightmare. She's standing outside, deadlocked, knee—deep in mud, and a pair of eyes seems to be getting closer and closer to her, from somewhere in the silent, pitch-black valley, she wants to run away, but the mud is gluing her to the ground. There's a face around those eyes, it's white, a strawberry blond, almost orange head. Sandy, her eyes bug-like and her pupils shrunken as she tries to hold back a scream at the sight of Mercy. Mercy tries to hide, but her skin is beginning to consume and absorb her nightgown, and her arms are not enough to cover her, all the bones sticking out of the thin veil of her skin, all the cuts showing, but looking even worse than they are, as if they had never been disinfected, black and rotting, oozing pus. Sandy screams. "Mercy, what's that smell..."She gets closer, and Mercy tries to force herself to disappear, but Sandy’s steps are unrelenting, she can look between her thighs, even her sex seeming grotesque with her skin so consumed. 

“Mercy, what's happened here...It's been a long time, hasn't it? What's happened here?"

She shakes her head, her fingers clawing at her skin as if to tear away the words she's forced to speak. A blaze roars to life behind them, casting a yellow luminescence that brings Sandy’s blurry face into clearer sight, including the reflection of Mercy's body in her eyes - a sight she's going crazy to escape. Not the mirror.

"What's going on here? You can't run from this forever. They're coming for you, Mercy. What happened here?”

Someone snuffs out any faint light. 

She has a false awakening in a wide-open field. It is much greener than the valley. The space is clear, but it carries a sense of unimaginable pain from the torture of being stretched in infinite time and infinite space. It's like something from a children's show that is uncomfortable when you watch it at seventeen. She sees a blonde girl below her, that could be Eli, that is Eli. Mercy observes her own arms, covered with black cloth, which she immediately recognizes as the sleeves of Eli's TV suit. The girl below her is wearing a white lace dress and a silver cross in the same shape as Eli's gold cross. She is struggling, screaming and hitting her, "MERCY, NO!" the girl keeps screaming, and though she would like to stop, she cannot, the valley will not let her, "IS THERE ANYONE HERE? OH LORD, WHERE ARE YOU?" The girl who is Eli twists unimaginably to escape her grip while Mercy's hips thrust against air, and Mercy gasps, and the breeze of the valley seems false, filling her lungs with rubber gum, as she watches a flood of blood rip from between the blond girl’s thighs, as her "No! No! NO!" grows weaker and weaker, more like a whimper, more like a lament as she holds between her thighs, "Don't...don't let it all pour out…Mercy..."

By the time Mercy fully wakes up, Eli has already left for church.

Mercy crawls out, wrapping her arms around herself, and feels the cool wind from the window. She catches a whiff of something - burning plastic, she thinks - and wonders if Mrs. Sunday has made a mistake in the kitchen. But the door is locked, so she can't check. Mercy still feels like she's running out of air. She scrambles onto the bed, her hands gripping the rail, and sees black smoke seeping into the room, spreading everywhere. She clamps her hand over her mouth as the smoke takes over, turning everything black. He'll be so angry when he gets back. Eli will be enraged when they arrive to take her away before she's finished. But maybe this is a test. She must escape before the asphyxiating fog chokes her like a deadly cloud.

She launches herself off the bed rail like a mad dog and bolts for the window, her spindly limbs straining with all her might until she tumbles out. As she hits the ground, a crushing weight presses down on her. The rocks bruise her back, and she tries to rub away the pain, her movements stiff like a twisted doll.

She shields her face with one arm, trying to protect herself from the acrid breath of the scorched valley, the ash, and the burning grass. Above her, the fire marches forward, consuming everything in its way. Though it's far away, it feels close, and she lies helpless and achy. She can feel the distant heat pressing against her skin, and the cackle of burning vegetation fills her ears with the occasional snap of a branch, from the flaming, enormous oak tree.  

"Pull yourself up, Mercy, pull yourself up or they'll come for you. You can't do this to him, to yourself... oh, Mercy," she mutters to herself as she struggles to rise, like a corpse breaking free from the ground. 

With giant leaps, she runs barefoot, her weakness superseded in a sudden surge of strength. She reaches the shed and grabs one of the three rifles, perfectly aligned, that Eli and Abel own. The third rifle, possibly, was Paul’s. When she runs to the fence, the heat draws near. With her belly pressed against the fence, she aims the rifle into the fire, hoping the bullets will extinguish it. The effort to pull the trigger feels enormous, but after firing the first shot, she straightens up and fires again and again. 

Her vision grows blurry, as if a force is gripping her shoulders, trying to pull her away from the fence she's leaning on. She falls back onto the dry soil, the rifle pressed against her stomach, feeling like the force has covered her eyes with its hands. 

When Mercy opens them again, she thinks she must have hurt herself so badly she's paralyzed. But then she realizes she's tied up with ropes around her calves and hands. She looks up at the ceiling and tries to move, feeling like a shrimp trapped in a net.

Eli stands over her, straddling her, and she catches her breath, as if staring into the face of her Judge. It wouldn't surprise her if her Judge had his face. He grabs her nightgown collar and starts screaming, "You shot Andrew! Oh Lord, Mercy, you shot him! What were you doing... I... That's going to give us trouble, you know." His voice drops to a lower tone as he says the last sentence. 

The name is barely more than a faint echo to her, but she knows one thing—her beautiful boy is standing over her, angry, and it terrifies her. She begins to weep again, with her miserable wail.

"I saw the fire, Eli... I saw it... They were coming, Eli…"

"They were. They were coming. I saw Andrew and Sandy... But the Lord protects us, and you doubt Him…”

"Yes...", Mercy moves her body as if to hold his hands, but her bound wrists stop her. "I saw the fire, but that doesn't change anything. I disobeyed your word, and I keep doing it because I'm consumed by fear... I think I must be punished. Punish me. Punish me.”

"Don't talk like that! I’m not a murderer! Look at you… Haven't you humiliated me enough? You've already degraded me in every way, do you want to add blood to the shame you've already brought me?”

Mercy’s skin turns a sicker shade of pale, almost like chalk, and her facial muscles sag. Eli, to snap her out of it, gives her a gentle slap on the face, but it's like trying to stem a tidal ocean wave - gallons of sweat seem to be pouring out of her, soaking through her nightgown and dripping down her skin underneath. When he places his palm over her chest, the sound of her heart pounding is deafening, like it’s threatening to shatter her in pieces across the bed.

She pleads feverishly, "Punish me. Punish me. It is only by making me suffer that I can feel closer to Him, that I can begin to taste the sweet bliss of salvation... I want you to be happy with my pain. I have done such things...Perhaps I am just crying out for you to do your duty, don't be so blind to what is required of you...". 

Ignoring her, he quickly releases the ropes, sits her down on the bed and instructs, "I told you I am not a murderer! Look at your hair. Do you think I can't see that? God is a father to us sinners, and he who loves his child does not spare the rod, but he is not a brutal murderer. He only rejoices whenever a wayward son, or a daughter comes home to him…I'll get some milk. You need something stronger. I'm sorry, Mercy, I'm sorry. You need something more substantial. You have for a while. Stay awake, don't drift off.” 

His breathing slows for a moment as Mercy raises a hand to scratch her itchy head, then lowers it, giving him a glimpse of the white spreading across her scalp, along with its grey tips and thin strands, resembling aluminium filament. She flinches at the word "milk". "What are you talking about? No, no, no…" she protests, but she can't bring herself to say "You're nurturing evil in me". Instead, she slides off the bed, kneeling before him, and clutches at his jeans. "I beg of you, no milk. Not even water. Not bread. Let me feel His power, His wrath, Messenger.”

Her arms are just as thin as the strands of her hair. "No, Mercy, that's not God's will. That's the Devil's trickery, trying to take you away from me and lead you astray. He's cunning like that. Don't let your thoughts stray into darkness where I can't reach them. Just look at your arms - they're proof. You need milk.”

As he steps out of the room, Mercy's arms, wrapped around his leg, fall to the ground. When he returns with a tall glass filled with a liquid the colour of melted snow and blueish hues, she tries to lift her arms to her thighs and straighten up, looking up at him. He lowers himself, holding the glass like he's nursing a lamb, and places the rim by her lips. The liquid feels like eating snow on a spoon, just as she imagined as a child when she gazed at faraway, snowy kingdoms in illustrated fairytale books. This winter, the coldest she remembers, is the one where she finally realizes this dream. She gazes at his lily-white hand wrapped around the glass, the cold milk feeling like the best medicine for her tortured throat. Her eyes fix on the belt that holds up his jeans, unable to rise her gaze higher without spilling the milk over herself. It's not yellow like the one she stole from him back then, which had rotted from the time it spent in her sweltering bag. She imagines that the taste of this milk might be a better approximation of his sperm. It wouldn't be yellow, hot and burning, thick, it would be thin strings, sweet and nourishing.

The rest of the day she is quiet, if slightly nauseous. She likes to put a hand over her hollow belly, feel the juices moving around, as if they had just received something heavier than they're used to drinking, creamy, full and filling in itself, not like clear water. She imagines what it would have been like if she had made him impregnate her in the attic, but it's not a happy thought. She doesn't like to imagine him flinching, always on guard, with another version of her roaming around, perhaps carrying the same wrongness but in miniature.

Although she is not sick — she thinks — she begins to tremble madly under the bed that night from something inside her whose nature she is not sure of, and her teeth chatter. She tries to stop herself so as not to wake him, but it's as if she's being led around like a puppet. He quickly realizes this and reaches down with one hand as he did when he tied her to the chair and as he did under water, but even that is not enough, she grabs it and tries to stay tied, but her body continues to be moved.

She caresses it, feeling every line, every tiny vein. After a while, she sees his head peek out, looking down at her. He's wearing a white, buttoned-up sleeping shirt that's so big it looks like a dress on him. He whispers, like a secret, "You can come up…”

She feels like she is doing something criminal, if not sinful, as she doesn’t hesitate. A pale light creeps through the window, but all the other lights are out. The sweat from earlier makes her body almost visible through her clothes, and the bed is too small for them both. "I have no choice but to…”

“Climb up. It’s okay. You can.”  

"Are you afraid?" she whispers, her voice a gentle rustle above the wind and the soft murmur of fire that still lingers in her ears, smokeless though the air may be. His hand moves gently along the curve of her spine, his fingers passing over the protruding vertebrae. He shakes his head, his hair brushing against her cheek as he speaks. "You're free of that now," he says. "I can see it, I can feel it. You no longer want anything evil. Not even when I touch you like this.”

Now she's above him, with her legs one on each side of him, just like he was positioned above her earlier in the day. Her torso, including her breasts, pressed against his chest, transferring warmth. He lies there, placid, passive and soft. If they were unclothed, their sexes might be in contact with each other. A bittersweet smile tugs at her lips at his trust, she feels oh so grateful, and with trembling hands she guides one of his warmer palms to rest on her belly. He understands, somehow, and his touch, though chaste, becomes a tender caress that brings comfort without causing her pain. "I feel full. Achingly so...Your healing hands..." 

Glistening droplets form, then trickle along her cheeks.

"Thank you.”

"Does it feel nice?" he asks, the words brushing against her earlobe like butterfly wings.

Her eyes flutter shut as she nods, and she feels small shivers bursting along her gut and torso like small geysers where he's brushing slowly, his touch wandering with no particular pattern. "Yes, it does.”

"Good." His eyes closed, the lashes almost brushing together. 

His long, dainty fingers walk slowly between her shrunken breasts, and all that can be heard in the room is a tiny, rapid breath. 

"Yes, touch me, please...Oh, how I wish everyone else in the world right now..." She glances at him for a second.

"Can I say it? Even if it's unkind..." 

He nods.

"How I wish everyone else could just sink into hell right now. And it would be just you and me...When I think of all the people I've let touch me, I want to puke, I think that even after...after all this, I'll never get married or have sex. So I will belong to you forever...Even if you marry someone else. As you should. And I will always dress in a way that hides everything, nor will I want a drop of powder on my face...I need to know that after you, no one else will ever see me..." 

Her heart beats like a hummingbird's as she asks, "Promise me something.” 

"Yes?" he whispers back.

"Promise me you won’t let anyone touch me. If anything evil touches me again, it will ruin me, as it has since childhood. You can do any violence to prevent it. I'd welcome it. Promise to save us. Don't abandon America now or ever. And don't let them bring you down. Your duty to God and to us must always come first, above everything else.”

"I've got a feeling, Mercy, that I'll soon find out the timing of His coming, He will tell it only to me... I’ve seen on the newspapers, everyday one reads of suffering and disasters, how could anyone be so blind that that they do not see what is unfolding before us, how near they are to facing the tribulations if they don’t repent, and how they’re not worried to make themselves ready for the Rapture? It feels like the day I'll get the prophecy is just around the corner...it could be any day now...it has to be.”

Mercy's voice trembles as she asks, "Because they're coming?”

You shot Andrew. She remembers his earlier words. 

“No, no, it’s not about that…I can just tell.”

He grabs Mercy's chin and for a second she feels so childlike. A pout begins to form on her face as her eyes seek more words from his mouth. "It is not long before all the people who did nothing when you were in the clutches of the devil, or even encouraged you, will face His mighty power and vengeance. And it's not long before we go to be with Him forever…It is not long, my sweet girl…” 

He had never called her anything so tender. 

"Do I feel heavy on you?" she asks, her eyes wide with fear, hesitant. Eli senses her fear is of being a burden. "Suffocating...like that time…"

"Never," he assures her, his voice honeyed and unwavering. She thinks he sounds brave. "You're as light as an angel's feather that's fallen on me.” 

She circles her arms around his neck. Her empty cheek presses against his full one, like two puzzle pieces. “Eli, I’m cold.”

He pats her back, then strokes it gently, his caramel-smooth voice continuing, "You know, you remind me of a dream my mother used to talk about. She had it after we moved here and started our homestead. In the dream, a beautiful bride in white would come into her room - tall, with thick thighs. She'd place her knees on my mother's chest, and my mother would try to scream, but she couldn't. It's just the white that makes me remember that. You're so light, it's like you're floating.”

"Is it just the white? I’m not suffocating you, right? I’m not?”

"It's just the white, Mercy. I mentioned it because...it used to give me chills when I was a little boy. It still does, kinda. And I thought it was an interesting story to tell. I want to seem brave to you, I suppose. And hold you when you are afraid.”

She snuggles closer, "I feel safe when I'm with you.” 

Eli rarely smiles, so it’s strange that he shows his teeth. His smile is in the shape of a half—moon. It has the same effect as a moonbeam. It opens him up. Now that she thinks about it, his whole face is moonlike. A scattering of short, blond strands across his forehead, and his smile is subtly dimpled, pure, and radiant. A Christmas ad would feature him. Mercy smiles too, but hers is not as radiant or pure.

She cups her hands. Her hands form a secret chamber at his ear. Would you hide me if they came? She asks, "Even beneath the soil?”

Chapter Text

Paradise Town, 1972. Police interrogation at Paradise's High, about: The disappearance of Mercy Miller, 17. 

Sandy. 

The school library at Paradise High School has been converted into a temporary investigation room. A pair of detectives sit behind a desk, on the plastic blue chairs, a tape recorder running between them.

Sandy sits across from the officers in the  library, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her face looking as clean as Lily-of-the-Valley soap. Her nervous hands, pink as a newborn's, fiddle with her cheerleading uniform.

"Mercy and I were... close, best friends you could say. She was to me, since elementary school. I don't know if she saw me the same way anymore..." she begins carefully. "She was... unpredictable, though. You never knew what she was thinking. And she was mean. She could be so mean it could make you cry. I mean, she had these ideas in her head about Eli, the new Christian boy. She said he was, like, clean or something. That he had something she needed. She cried about him. Used to call me about it. One day she started screaming, "He's not like you, he's above all of you...” when we were making fun of her for being so... so crazy about him.” 

She hesitates, glancing nervously at the officer's notepad. He’s not writing. 

"I don't know what to believe. She was obsessed, honestly. In a scary way. It wasn't a crush. Or even her usual meanness. It's the kind of thing that gives you the wrong feeling."

The officer's eyebrows raise, as if he thinks all this talk is just gossip, unimportant, as if he wants to get to the real stuff, but Sandy goes on rambling, with her immature gossip. "Did she tell you anything about any plans to flee home? This story is no joke."

Sandy sighs, as if she doesn't think it matters, whether or not she was planning to run away. As if she can't believe she would ever leave, as if she was too free to need to. "No, there wasn't anything she had to run away from. She could get into trouble, but never trouble that would make you think “I need to run”. But she wasn't herself lately. Her obsession made her seem really distant. Mercy wasn't the type to chase boys, they usually chased her, and if they looked like enough fun, she'd pick them up. But she didn't... She never seemed to really like anyone, not even me, let alone boys. And religion-" She pauses. "She joked, you know. About converting. Her family may be a little more religious than mine, but she was usually the first to make fun of such things. I've read about... cults, you know. I mean, I just... That's what seems weird to me.”

When she realizes the officer is still not writing, she adds. “It's also very possible that she got into a car with the wrong guy, she could be damn reckless. All else might not mean much.” 

Sandy gives the officer a half-smile, with a hint of sourness. Only then does he begin to write.

Grace. 

Grace's posture is perfect, her appearance impeccable - blonde hair, puffy but brushed back neatly, a black blazer with gold buttons over a collared shirt, and a skirt that looks effortlessly expensive. She looks controlled, but there's a slight clench in her jaw. Andrew really insisted that Eli was a part of all this, but she barely knew him. In front of the officer, she wasn't sure what to say. She hung out with Mercy because she was never boring and because she exuded a different kind of power that complemented Grace's. It wasn't wealth, it was something primal, like a dominant tribesman. But she also saw her as someone who desperately wanted to be something she wasn't. She was wealthy, but not that wealthy, she was trying to fit in with her in a parasitic way. She was also disinhibited in a way that felt more like a cheap street girl than a sensitive woman eager to see what the world had to offer, as if she had never left the "scandalize your parents" stage of development, even though she was almost eighteen. 

“Thank you for speaking with us, Grace. We know Mercy was a close friend of yours.” 

They remembered the chaos in the mansion. 

“Close? That's... generous. She was a teammate. We hung out sometimes. Cheerleading takes up a lot of time.” 

“And yet you hosted parties she attended, right? Like the one where she was found... intoxicated?” 

Grace's lips tighten before she answers. The officer seems more engaged than he was with Sandy. 

“That was, like a year ago. And that party wasn’t for her. It got out of hand. I’ve already apologized to my parents.” 

“But Mercy was there, correct? Half-dressed, by your pool? Drinking your parent’s alcohol?” 

Grace tilts her chin upward, looking sophisticated even in her indignation. 

"Look, I didn't make her drink. I don’t even like drinking that much. Mercy did what she wanted. Always. You couldn't control her when she wanted to get wild. If you're saying it's my fault she disappeared -" 

The officers like that. You couldn't control her. Like an absolution. Maybe they should send Grace to speak to Mercy’s distraught mother. 

"No one is blaming you, Grace." The officer's tone is that of a sympathetic, perhaps overly indulgent father. 

“We’re just trying to understand what might have been going on with Mercy before she went missing. Any fights? Secrets she shared with you?” 

Grace's eyelashes flicker. She recalls a memory, something that made her feel like her reputation might have benefited from some distance from the cheer captain. 

"Secrets? One day we were hanging out. I don't know how it happened, I don't remember, but she asked me to take... some pictures of her. Undressed, in certain poses... It wasn't for Andrew. I'm sure of that. She didn't go above and beyond like that, for boys, and it wasn't to provoke me. She was really serious about it, the lighting, the angle. I think maybe she submitted them to magazines. She wanted to do advertising. Maybe she got involved in something like that. That would be my guess.” 

The officer nods his head, finding this information to be of great importance.

“Thank you for your time, Grace, you were helpful. If you think of anything else, give us a call.” 

Grace shakes their hands, grabs her bag and strides out. 

Eleanor. 

Eleanor is a splash of colour in the room, irreverent, with her stiff, serious posture, as if she were herself the prophet of something. Her gaze is cutting, framed by her wavy brown hair, today she is garbed green, a petroleum shade, like something from the forest. She is determined to anticipate Andrew's words, to contrast them before they reach the ears of the police, taking herself as seriously as she can as a sort of unofficial lawyer for her wayward, baby-faced protégé. She has no idea that Eli is not even on their minds, despite Sandy’s insistence, before she reveals what she does. 

They notice her stare. "I know this is hard. You are all just kids, good kids, most of you, and this is a quiet town. Let's start simple. How well did you know Mercy Miller?" 

“We were more like acquaintances than friends. I wouldn't say we traveled in the same circles. Mercy was... complicated. She had a bold personality, wasn't afraid to break norms, which rubbed some people the wrong way. And by some people, I mean boys. Who felt threatened that she wasn't one of those girls who got into premature pseudo-marriages. Andrew certainly was. Threatened. But she had a self-destructive streak. She had her own way of making herself respected, but there were times when she could be so demeaning to herself and others.” 

She seems scripted, confident, like she was just waiting to speak on the subject, but they understand. This was Eleanor's area of expertise. All the ways sex, in every sense of the word, could hurt. 

"Take Elijah Sunday, for example. I think he was unfairly targeted, especially by the boys, and Mercy went along with it. She scared him, touched him against his will, even put pictures in his books. My mother is a psychologist. He expresses signs...almost of trauma, because of how relentless everything was..." 

“Pictures of herself?”

The officer seems surprised. He didn't expect to find a connection between all of that Eli talk and Grace's earlier words. If there's anything to be gleaned from this, though, it's reckless, uncontrollable, self-destructive. That's the kind of stuff you hear about missing kids. 

Eleanor nods. 

The officer asks as if he must. "Eleanor, tell me something...what about Andrew? Andrew insists that there was an armed confrontation between him and Sunday, or something like that, on his family’s property. But then the other witness says Sunday wasn't the one who fired the gun. Was Andrew jealous of Mercy?” 

Eleanor smiles with a subtle satisfaction. "Andrew's jealousy, even entitlement, always clouded his judgment. He was jealous of the attention Eli was getting from Mercy, however unwanted. Jealous of Mercy's fixation on Eli before she disappeared. He lets his entitlement drive his actions, and that's dangerous. I guess he had that in common with Mercy. For example, even this... his stunt at the Sunday farm. That wasn't about finding Mercy-it's about Andrew trying to wrest control of something he's already lost." 

The second officer speaks, even though the man next to him was ready to dismiss her. "But tell me, Eleanor...between us. Why does Andrew think that a kid as... naive, as sheltered, as Sunday is involved in a case like this? Besides his jealousy."

Eleanor swallows her saliva and leans back in her chair. "Eli was the victim of sexual aggression at the hands of Mercy Miller. I won't go into the details because he doesn't want them shared, nor does he want to talk about it. Andrew knows as well. It involved him being incapacitated, that is all I will say. There is no room for ambiguity or gray areas.” 

One of the officers chuckles, trying to hide the fact he finds it funny. Eleanor's look isn't entirely angry, some sadness, discouragement seeps in. 

"So, to understand...Andrew thinks that Eli was trying to retaliate for this...intrusion, and that's why he thinks he's involved..." 

Eleanor nods sharply. "Yes. Yes, that is what he believes. But if there is one thing I know about Andrew, it is that he is a prevaricator, and he saw Mercy, regardless of his words after her disappearance, as someone who owed him something. And if there's one thing I know about Mercy Miller, it's that she didn't care that much about herself, even though she liked having power, she didn't like it as much as she liked having it taken away from her. So many upstanding members of this community...how many do you think would have an interest in hiding an affair with a high school girl? One already compromised. I don't think you can find the answers to something like this at Paradise High. You have to look outside. No one really knew her, let alone me.“ 

"That was a sharp remark, Miss. That will be all for today.” 

Andrew. 

Andrew's leg is still wrapped in bandages. He has a walker, but he insists on coming to school. The painkillers hadn't dulled his eyes, they made them sharper, he seems more focused. More bloodthirsty. This was what he had been waiting for. He feels like an explosive, the sound of a ticking clock behind him, he only has a few minutes to unleash it all. 

"Andrew," the older detective begins, his voice low, as if soothing a beast, "we know you've been through a lot, but we need to ask you some questions about Mercy Miller. Can you handle it?"

Andrew's face is already flaring. "It's about time you cared. She's been missing for months. It took me getting shot for you to show up, huh?" 

The officer was about to respond in kind, to tell the kid that it wasn't easy being on their side either, but his colleague gestured as if to say it wasn't time. 

"She was my girlfriend. Of course I can handle it. The question is, can you? I know who your man is. I have the answer. But you're not going to do anything about it, are you? You're too busy kissing Abel Sunday's ass because he's a "respected member of the community.” 

The officers look at each other. Eleanor had prepared them for Andrew’s single-minded focus. 

“Andrew, can’t you shift the focus to anything else…for a moment, at least” the older man interjects gently, “what makes you so sure Eli’s to blame?”

His mind flashes back to the party-the attic, the limp body that looked dead, and his inaction. Then it flashes to a shelf full of dusty audio tapes of sermons, and he imagines nestled among them, one kept clean, titled "PUNISHED WHORE," and the only sound it contains is Mercy’s screaming and squelching in the background.

He imagines Mercy's body torn apart, and he imagines the peach-lipped boy using his dancer-like limbs to rip the flesh off, shoving it into his mouth, devouring it, his complexion turning red like snow after a clumsy child drops a bottle of strawberry juice. 

"Because I got to know Eli," he says finally. "That little freak has hated her since the day they met. He's not some harmless preacher's kid. He's dangerous. And now she's trapped there with his psycho family covering for him at best. At best, he rapes her every day. At worst, she is dung by now. And it could be. It could very well be." 

The officer is trying to control the situation, he can see Andrew moving in a way that is causing pain in his leg. "You're saying very serious things that you cannot prove. We just wanted to know if you knew anything that could justify Mercy's disappearance, if she was having problems at home, at school, with you, or if she was hanging out with new people..."

“Are you deaf, old man? I'm saying he's got her there, alive or dead, and you're all too spineless to do anything about it," Andrew snaps, holding on to his walker but feeling the need to get up from his seat. "You're afraid of his daddy's guns or what the church will think." 

"Andrew, we want to search the farmhouse. You have already been informed at the hospital. If there is anything criminal going on there, you will be the first to know. Now please cooperate, son.” 

Andrew's face takes on a more vulnerable kind of anger, as if he's deeply ashamed to tell - he didn't know Mercy. He has nothing but the party to tell them about. He knew her from the football games, from her helping him with English Lit, the sex she got tired of as quickly as she usually did, the one-sided pining. "Everyone knew what she was like, how she acted, the trouble she got into. But no one knew what she had inside. I liked her because she didn't care if I could be brainless, but I also hated the fact that she just couldn't be serious, that she was playing with you. She was a slut, I used to tell people that, because she was. But she didn't deserve this. None of it. We all did. And now that she's gone, we pretend to care. Her parents? I never saw them once until these months. But it's too late. No one saved her. She's now material for stuff that you can only find at real shady places in San Francisco. He’d sell tapes of her screaming to perverts. He would, maybe even his brother, who even knows…” 

Andrew is so sure of her death that it troubles them. They remember Eleanor's words. Jealous. He could be. He looks like a hothead. "You've got a lot of anger, boy. If you're hiding something, it's going to come out eventually. She wasn't your girlfriend, was she? She slept with Eli. How did that make you feel?" 

His eyes narrow, but he doesn't explode. He wants a private place. To cry as soon as possible. Clutching something and imagining a day when he'll be listened to, when they'll want to read his notes about the disturbing rethoric broadcast on Flame of Pentecost. "I know what game you're playing, Officer, it doesn't work on me. She could get with anyone whenever she got wild. Didn't mean anything. Not to her. I didn't feel anything. Just scared, because I knew him. And I know guys like that. They're hypocrites. They regret it.  And all of a sudden... it's someone else's fault that they betray their God. I'm tired of bullshit, a guy can fight off a girl.“ 

Andrew's lie fizzes on his lips like bitter medicine or the drink Mercy spiked. 

"Andrew, we want to help her. If there's anything else you know - anything at all - you need to tell us. About her habit. Her behavioral problems. Who was she getting cocaine from?" 

“She only did it sometimes with Grace! You don't give Grace this same shit. She gave it to her, who else could have in a town like this?" 

Before leaving the library, Andrew pushes a chair to the ground. Even the officer flinches. “"Andrew, your eyes are glistening.” 

Eli. 

Eli Sunday sits across from the officers, legs crossed, his sylph-like frame well accommodated by the small chairs, unlike his classmates. There is something about him that captivates, and for a moment the officer who laughed at Eleanor's words stops in his tracks. For a moment he understands. How easy it could be for someone to become obsessed with him while he stands there, painted in cool tones, glacial, judgmental. He thinks he is the kind that truck drivers whistle at from behind because they think he is a girl, and the kind that the fairer sex worships rather than desires. The dark circles under his eyes betray his need to balance the roles of punisher, preacher, and high school student. His blue wool sweater has a discolored spot where it didn't before, as if he tried to clean it himself with bleach instead of handing it to Mrs. Sunday. He didn't want to be there, but he doesn't show it. There is an eerie sangfroid about him, a complete lack of affected responses. Here's one boy who's sure the angels are with him.

"Eli, you're not in trouble, but we need your help to understand what happened to Mercy Miller." They say it like, "How could that face ever be in trouble, boy?“ 

Eli's hands are folded tightly in his lap, half covered by the sweater’s long sleeve, his knuckles a flushed red. "I understand. I'll do my best to help you. Sir, I’ve been praying for her every day." 

Eli doesn't even let them ask the first question, he precedes the officer's speech with a slightly trembling voice that for a moment almost betrays something they don't expect from him. Something like emotion. There is silence in the room, except for the buzz of the white lights and the pattering of the rain outside the windows.

"Mercy… she had a troubled soul. She came to me looking for guidance, but I… I wasn’t always strong enough to give it to her. She was a lost lamb, she carried many burdens. Heavy burdens.” 

“People saw you and Mercy interacting a lot before she disappeared. She was following you, wasn't she? Witnesses say she was, uh... She had a thing for you. One that wasn't always welcome.” 

He knows which cards they will play, he sees their hand. He will play the game. He will play the game because it is the game he promised Mercy he will play. He will hide her if he has to. She has hammered it into his brain as hard as his father did in a lifetime, these last weeks. He has to save America. Spread the gospel. Prepare the way. Officers deal with many cases. They know how often tainted purity turns to violence. He has to make himself look normal enough. Red-blooded enough not to be able to do anything that requires cold blood. They must not think that he wanted Mercy's head on a silver platter, nor that he wanted to save her. Mercy will be so proud of him when he tells her he knows how to lie, when she’ll know he knows how to survive. 

“They said that, didn't they? They say a lot of things... I have a secret, Officer. I haven't shared it with anyone. Mercy didn't want me to. She is so kind. She is a saint. Almost a warrior. I don’t want to say was…I don’t want to imagine that." 

He lies, but with honesty. He sees Mercy almost as a warrior, with the way she wears her armor of burns and rejects any kindness, with how much she is willing to endure to dwell in eternity under the light of her Saviour. She is a sinning woman, but with something of the missionary in her, ready to face the creeping, ferocious beasts of these distant jungles. And she trusts him enough to believe that he will save America. And he finds it a cleaner truth than Abel's. It's different when a father says it. 

“A secret? Let's see. She embarrassed you. She got close to you in a way you didn't want. Maybe you snapped, huh? You wanted to teach her a lesson? And it got out of hand. This isn't an accusation. Just something that was said. We're asking you. We'll believe you if you say no." 

“"Oh Lord, no. I couldn't teach her anything. I'm the worst sinner of all... You must have heard about her birthday. It did not happen the way Eleanor said it did. But Mercy, before she left, told me to lie to everyone. And I did. I was so weak, but she was so kind..." 

He can bring himself from a stoic to a miserable, crying state by his own lie, because that is how he reconfigured the events, even though he knew their truth. His family believed him, but the uncleanness he felt clinging to his skin was something that had been there long before Mercy Miller. He knew there was something in him that drew people to behaviors they would otherwise find unimaginable. How else could he explain how many normal boys, and men, married ones, had exhibited sodomitic behavior in his presence, and how else could he explain the overly affectionate touches over his head, the wet kisses on his cheek from women long past the age of lustful desire, without acknowledging that it was something in him that drew souls to their deaths?

"I will tell it all. Mercy and I had been sinning together ever since I came to Paradise High. That is why Andrew tormented me and why he is still angry with me. And I started it, and if it hadn't been for Mercy, who indulged me, I would have been sent to the principal's office, because from the beginning I just wouldn't leave her alone, she was too beautiful, she made young men stumble, and I kept telling her that. That her skirts were too short, that I couldn't sleep at night thinking about her, and that I didn't mind sinning with her because sins of the flesh are not as bad for men as they are for women. And she said it was okay, that she would turn the story around if anyone found out, and she did, she hid it so well. I found out she was a virgin at the party, and I still didn't care about ruining her. She disappeared a few days later. I wonder if she was ashamed. Maybe that's what her boldness hid... I was in the grip of Satan for so long, and only now do I realize that I may have sent her to her death.” 

His eyes redden along with his face, and a tear slides down his cheek, salty and chilled. He doesn't know if he's forcing it out, if it's part of the performance of someone who can be understood, someone who no one would consider pathological, or if it's because he's imagining his lies in this moment, as the truth. That taking the drink was akin to sending Mercy to her spiritual death. That going to Paradise High was akin to sending Mercy to her spiritual death. That no matter how much he beats and burns, he cannot send her clean to her Father because everything about him teases. 

From the outside, he looks terrified, his pupils shrunken, and a single tear comes out, as if saline solution had been poured into the eyes of a stunned corpse. 

"Oh, Eli..." they cannot help but be affectionate, as if they would like to comfort him and hold him in their arms, but they know it would be inappropriate. "It was not your fault. It happens in high school. People fall in love sometimes.“ 

The single tear turns into an explosion of emotion, sobbing that can be heard in nearby classrooms. 

It doesn't seem theatrical because he is in grief, the real story is similar but less simple. 

She tells him to hide her. Hide her beneath the soil. Just as in his lie she tells him to bury her under a false accusation. He wishes that his lies had been the truth and that he had been a normal boy with sins of manageable proportions. 

"I miss her so much, officers. Please, I will pray...bring her back to me." 

I will miss her so much. I will miss her so much. She tells me to hide her beneath the soil. I don’t want to. Stop her. Stop us. I don’t want to save anyone. We need someone older, someone wiser. I don’t want to kill. But he cannot tell them that. 

"I didn't love her, if I did...if I did, I wouldn't have ruined her..." he screams, looking skyward, then hides his crying face behind his sleeve, looking like a Mater dolorosa. 

The officers exchange glances, their expressions affectionate. The one sitting on the chair at the right closes his notebook and leans forward. "Eli, thank you. I can't imagine how difficult this must be for you. Thank you for clearing this party matter up. Go home. Get some rest, you need it." 

"I can no longer sleep. I don't sleep anymore. Please, officers. I love you. Bring her back..." he says as he gets up from the chair, he looks vulnerable and they want this love he is talking about. 

There's a new urgency to find Mercy Miller. 

"Eli, we're coming to search your farmhouse this March, expect us on a Monday or Tuesday. We're sure Abel will agree, he's always been cooperative. We'll make it quick and easy. Getting a search warrant would be a hassle, so we're doing this as a precaution because of what happened with Andrew. You're not in trouble, don't worry. Just make sure to keep the guns out of your little sisters' way, okay?"

Chapter Text

From: Penitence Diary of Mercy Miller. (It is 1972. Everything is clearer. I DO NOT FEAR.) 

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” 

WHY WON’T HE LISTEN!! Why DOESN’T HE LISTEN!!! Why must he always be this soft? 

I think it has been revealed to me, the solution, a way to stop the infestation without betraying my soul.

I am no longer a Penitent. I am no longer a Rapist. I am Saved. I dream of being a dead woman walking, of the Salem witch trials, of receiving the death blow from him, but as usual his tenderness makes my soul thirsty and hungry, deprives me of my food. Now I understand why love could not be the whole story. Because this is it’s other side. He sins when he is this soft. His trembling hand brings me pain when he does not hold the knife. For if he does not hold the knife, he cannot caress me. I was Eli’s Penitent. God does not want me to remain on this earth. I am poised, I am something that is not finished. I am red paint dripping from a landscape that’s making a mess underneath. I am in free fall. I have two masters. My earthly master wants to leave me. He says to the light. But I see only two lights, that of his eyes and that of the Heavens. Beyond is only the void into which this ungodly age will push us. They will call him brutal. They will call him a cruel boy. The very one who in himself had none of the rawness that makes me and most people I used to know animals.

Don't believe them. 

I was the bitch, always me, forcing him into the most unspeakable and perverse amplexuses he never wanted, including the one with my death. But I believe I speak to Christ as much as he does. I believe that He speaks to His sinners, to His goats, as much as His lambs, who are often all the more blind. Oh Lord, I have plucked out the eyes of Your lamb, I believe he is in love with me because of that, because I’ve blinded him with lies. But the Lord saves, and reveals to me the plan, the path, that leads from the attic to my grave. I will force his hand for the last time, I will enslave my violence to His design for the last time. I will force my earthly saviour to take me down and then lift me up to heaven to join my Eternal Saviour. I want Eli to bend me over the executioner's stump, I want him to wring my neck, I desire him so fervently and I do not hide that this too is lust. Once again I will enslave my lust to His design, my sin as an instrument, my body as a vessel of His will. This is the end of Mercy Miller's games, I hope. I achieve eternal life by allowing Him to use me. I will proclaim, my body will be the rising flag of the millennial kingdom soon to come, my body will disappear from under the earth and the Devil’s children will never find Eli guilty and soon he will be raptured with me and we will be reunited after this short temporary separation, and then, we shall fight side by side with Him, me and my boy soldier of Christ’s army in pure white. This is His will and I will show it to him. 

Chapter Text

Sunday Farmhouse, 1972. 

Eli told Mrs. Sunday to give Mercy a bath while he's away at school. At first, Mercy resists, but the older woman still has a hint of her former farm girl strength, and she handles Mercy firmly, like sheep waiting to be sheared, overpowering her with little effort. Mercy struggles like a madwoman being restrained by a nurse, accusing Mrs. Sunday of lying about Eli's instructions, insisting he wouldn't want this. She has a feeling that something is wrong, unfinished. The small tub has metal patches showing, but when Mrs. Sunday lowers her into the warm, soapy water, Mercy stops fighting the tub's iron edge, which was hurting her, and lets Mrs. Sunday scrub off the layers of dirt. The water soon turns a murky grey. The way she combs her hair to get the lice out of it is also hurting her. 

Wet-haired, her visible ribs make her look like something stolen from a morgue. The older woman sighs, "Lord." He went too far.” 

"Shut up, shut up!" she screams, snatching the heavy white soapbar and throwing it at her with all her force, although the warm water had left her feeling limp and had calmed her cuts, and now she just wanted to sleep. The woman dodges, and the soapbar crashes into the wall. Mrs. Sunday calls Ruth to help her restrain Mercy and put her back in the same old nightgown, now clean for the first time, restored to its buttermilk yellow. 

Ruth says, trying to seem stern, "He says you need milk," as her mother nods behind her. 

"I don't want it, you little bitch, I don't want to drink a thing…”

"Now, now Mercy!" Ruth scolds, treating her like a mischievous puppy. Mercy senses Ruth is amused, playing mom to her like she's an interactive doll - one that coughs and needs feeding with tiny bottles of fake syrup. "Be good, or I'm going to tell Eli.” "No, no, no..." Mercy, like any other starved person, is closer to a seven-month-old than a seventeen-year-old. She easily gives in to Ruth's stern mothering, hungering for something good to fill her. The dirt has been lifted from her. It felt like a condemnation. But, her non-martyr side is wrestling with relief at feeling it. 

She ends up drinking not one, not two, but four large glasses. Alone, at the family table. Abel is at the farmers market. It’s incredibly sweet, especially when chilled. It's like the taste of delicious birthday cake after waiting for hours just to have a slice. Mercy used to have a weakness for cake, especially those loaded with whipped cream. After a hesitant start with the first one, the others seemed to disappear effortlessly. With a quivering sense of guilt, she asks for another, and then another. Ruth gives it. 

Upon his return, Eli feels a churning inside him. Ravenous vines are overgrowing his organs, squishing them. They'll search here, and he has no place to hide, neither for himself nor Mercy. Mercy won't take no for an answer, holding on to him tight since he's brought her to the brink of eternal life, as the clock ticks closer to Armageddon. She's never been good at taking no. And can he leave her to the wild? Leave her in the plain, naked under the nightgown. Leave her out for the ravens. He imagines their iron-like beaks as they start to skin her from the breasts. 

He feels like the raven when he crosses the threshold of his own room, which Mercy has made her own, as she has done with everything of his, sleeping over his bed, taking advantage of the indulgence he has allowed, and he can see the small mounds of her breasts peeking out of her nightgown, the fabric even more insubstantial after another wash since the thirties of this century, her nipples like two little candied raspberries. She lies like a sleeping, grey-haired Venus. He kneels by the bed, thinking these are his only sheets, and she is sweating all over them in her sleep. He wonders what torments her in her sleep that causes dew-like droplets to dot her forehead. He places his hand over it. She isn’t hot, but it’s wet. He thinks that he loves her. Loves the way she has always been true about the mud of the earth. Her mouth is the same colour as her nipples, a pinkish, washed-out red that's almost purple. She has used it for many shameless things, but what she has never done is hide her evil heart. She has lied to make it easier to do evil, but she has never lied to hide her soul. He is afraid of everyone, but he thinks that if he had to sleep next to someone, of all the people in the world, he'd be the least afraid of being hurt by her chapped mouth.

But his body remembers. He falls onto his backside from his knees when she grasps his hand and moves it. He wonders how she does it, that strength. What in him stimulates that strength of hers? Why doesn't it stop making him feel like God isn't enough? It made it slither down her face, her neck, stopping short of her stomach, despite his resistance.

“Look how beautiful you are. All clean. You look like a painting...you have such...pretty hair..." The voice flows from his vessel without his will, as is often the case around Mercy. 

"Eli..." Her voice is slurred, like she's fighting to get the words out. "The terrors have been bad. I thought you were gone for good, that it's been ages... You told your mother to bathe me, didn't you?”

"It's only eight hours, and yes, I have done so. I think we're getting there. You wouldn't want to appear before Him all dirty, right?”

She holds his hand firmly above her belly, guiding him to rub her, seeking a blessing. She always directs his hand there, to the womb, as if she were still in search of recognition of a fecund union of opposites that he cannot give her.

"You know, even just a few hours apart feels like centuries to me. I don't feel whole without you. Today, I had a bad feeling in my gut.” She turns onto her side, lets out a sigh, and struggles to open her sleepy eyes. "I drank four glasses of milk, I'm getting nowhere, Eli. I need you to take a firm hand with me.”

Eli looks like a lost doe, staring at her as if she's a prey too big to handle. His father's tall friend stands beside him, urging him to take control, to wrestle with this creature. "Mercy...The officers came to Paradise High today. They spoke to us. Maybe that's why the Lord is sending you these visions. But..." he tries to deflect, "isn't it good that He's speaking to His daughter?” 

Mercy's pupils shrink to dried-up plums, her breathing becomes altered and apoplectic. Eli realizes he was wrong to mention them. But Mercy was his only confidant, and he was hers. He tries to reassure her. He does not want to leave her alone, but he trusts her. Mercy's return to civilization, with light in her heart, could have saved them both. This could have been God's sign. He was waiting to release his Penitent. He wished to guide her, ready and tender, in her return to the world. It was not to suffer it, but to change it and leave her divine mark on it. There was a hunger for salvation, and time was running out and they could spread the Gospel, together. Who better than Mercy? "Mercy, I disagree. You're not going nowhere like you say. It's clear to me. You're saved. You’re ready.”

He sees the anger in her eyes. Perhaps he's still afraid of her, even if he doesn't want to admit it. "Mercy, you knew this was never going to last. It was meant to cleanse, not torture. Don't sink into misery like an animal. Open yourself to the light. I swear to you, it's not abandonment. We can do it together." He holds his arms out wide. 

It is as if he can see the steam escaping from her mouth and nostrils. It is as if a superhuman force is possessing her in that moment. “You're stupid.” She had never said that to her saviour. “What has been done cannot be undone. You can't undo what happened here. We can't. You're going to stab our nation in the back, is that it? Do you think they will let you go... like that? You're the greatest warrior against evil, and you think the beasts of Babylon will settle for just my words and let you go? No, it will take more. You must shed blood."  

Eli slowly backs away, trying to get away from the threat, just as he did months ago in the parking lot. He hears Mercy, the one made of blood and flesh, not spirit and bone, as she gets up. He sees her rise, and her hoarse voice, strained from throat pain, swells.

"He demands it! What are you but a man? You say that you are not a murderer. It wouldn't be murder. It would be killing, it is war, and if you say I am so ready, why don't you send me away, not to the world but to my Father, make an example of me...I could give the world so much more from underground…"

He places his hands in front of his chest, a defensive and surrendering gesture, his voice shaking with a desperate plea for mercy from a force he may never comprehend. He has harboured a monster in his home, a dog he once provided raw sinew for chewing, and yet she's not done. 

"He who lives by the sword will die by it." He doesn't want that fate, he has always feared bloodthirsty men, but his love for her is strong enough to make him see her as innocent, even now as she screams at him to act as one. And she once saw his rusty knife as harmless. 

"Mercy, are you listening to yourself? What are you saying? Do you realize this is nonsense, a distortion of His word?” 

"If I am so saved..." she cries, cornering him. He presses his back against the cracked wall and seems to lower himself before her. "Then how come you think I can't tell His word from the devil's lies?"” 

"Temptation can reach even the righteous, and you're aware of that. You owe a debt to God to serve Him in this world.”

"Do you want the truth, Eli, really?”

She claws at the nightgown's weak fabric with her fingernails, and the worn material, tired from years of use, easily submits to her brutal force, ripping open with a familiar sound, leaving her naked.

"Every single punishment you gave me, I felt in my flesh, it increased my lust, fueled it further, blackened my soul like you can't even imagine, because it must be easy to be you, because I could have had a TV show if I hadn't been held back all my life by the brutal desire to fuck. You cannot imagine. The things I've seen, what it's like out there. You should pray to have your face burned by a fire...and even then they would look at your cock, so you should castrate yourself...but you'd be caressed in many other ways, and maybe penetrated. I just want to tell you the truth about what I know. We killed our Saviour with our sins and you don't even want to fight. You can hardly tell sin from righteousness because there is not a drop of damn sin in you!”

He crosses his arms as he did as a child before the blows, first from Paul's fists and then from Abel's belt, almost forming a X, a prohibition on his body, but she grips his wrists so tightly that he is afraid her fingernail will puncture a vein. It’s happening again, she is naked, she is eager. She presses her cold, dry lips against his, and this time he could fight, he could scream and push her away like a feather with a light blow, given her condition, but his body stiffens and all he can do is cry. "Mercy, He forgives you... He knows this is violence you inflict on yourself because you don't feel worthy of Him..." Before she can penetrate him with her tongue, he clenches his hand between the tangled nest of his head and moves it away, continuing the plea: "He knows you are afraid of the light because you do not yet feel that you belong to Him and He forgives you...He forgives you and calls you back to live in his Glory and in His name and not to perish. Why do you want to die?” 

A string of saliva stretches between their mouths. The salty wounds around Mercy's mouth are pressed to his, and she makes him lick them. Her panting grows heavier with each reluctant but obedient lick. "What if I told you that I just want to swallow you again inside of me, that I don't care about the consequences, that I'm willing to do anything to swallow you again..." 

"I wouldn't believe you, Mercy. The games are over. I know you care, that you have always cared for your soul, more than many in my congregation. You cannot hide. I know you, I see everything, and He sees you too, for better or worse, that you are better than you want to be. Do you want to shock me with your nudity? I know it all. To me, you are more than even a sister. Not only are you from my rib, no, you are me. You are really me. Me in every moment when I was lost...I don't want to die and I don't want you to die either….” 

Her kisses grow less eager. They become faint puffs of breath, bitter from the milk, mixing with his. Mercy bows her head. When she raises it, her eyes are wet. Her grip on him is weak and uncertain. “If I am you... I am the part that needs to be removed. I want to be saved, but I see no other way. I feel that He is calling me... He wants me. Maybe that's what being saved means for me. It's not death, but my eternal life, and when the time comes I shall be the first to rise! Then we will always be together. You said that, no...The devil even tempts the righteous. Maybe...Maybe you're just afraid because you love me.”  

"I am not afraid. I just don't want to do it. I don't want to, I don't want to..."  His voice is a pathetic whimper to her, but she feels the need to caress his cheek, to brush it gently with her fingertips and nails, to feel the almost imperceptible peach fuzz underneath, and then to look him straight in the eye again and deliver the final hit.

 "I'm afraid it's already decided. You don't want me to make an idol of you, do you... I must answer the call of the Almighty... And if his Messenger will not do the deed, I will do it myself. I will find a way. Sooner or later." 

His eyes narrow as he realizes the full meaning of her words, darkened by the clouding veil of terror, "Is this where we've come? To undo all the progress we've made and have your soul forever damned by this act?"

"You know He sends me messages now too..." Tears now begin to stream down Mercy's face as he compulsively tries to wipe them away with his touch, like trying to halt an earthquake by stopping the earth from shaking with his hands, including the one brewing in his own eyes. "I see more clearly the whole plan, I have thought and interpreted. Oh, I fear death, and I miss the world, but it's all so clear..." 

Exhausted, Eli feels the need to admit a truth that has haunted him from the first moment he met her smouldering eyes, resting his arms on her gaunt, nude shoulders. "Mercy, stop, stop, I can't take it anymore...I can't take it anymore..." he loses control completely, crying in the same rough way Mercy had cried in front of the Book. 

"We can talk about this later. I could also talk to Abel about it..." 

This does not comfort him in any way, so Mercy feels the need to press him against her bare body, which cannot give him the warmth he needs, but only human contact with what is left of her skin. 

His face is pressed against her protruding collarbones and she can feel the salty drops, humid and hot, running down the cleft separating her breasts, she begins to caress his head, whose velvety locks give her an impression of the easily cracked head of infants, she can also feel the slimy sensation of his snot brushing against her skin, making it glisten. He wraps his arms around her waist, as if it were a pole to which he was holding on to keep from falling into the void, and his arms begin to slide down, stopping only at the small of her back, before her buttocks. His head also lowers, his breath laboured against her chests, and she cannot resist the need to press him against them. And he cannot resist the need to stretch his tongue to the delicate fruit, tasting her tiny nipple melding with his own tears.

Mercy drops her head back breathless. 

"Please kiss, bite..." 

He sucks her whole, small mound into his mouth, kissing it all over, his every qualm suppressed by the possibility that he would never be able to do it again if Mercy performed the act of which she had spoken.

He is not aroused by this, only wanting to consume her, to never forget the taste of the soap she had recently been washed with, mixed with her sweat and the slight hint of dirt that still remains on her. He growls against her flesh, enjoying the sensation of his teeth pressing against it, so vulnerable, under those blades, enjoying the possibility of cutting through it once more, of doing it in bites. He is not even disturbed by the indecent moans Mercy lets out, nor is she, who by this point had accepted the person she was as impossible to erase completely by any less extreme means than the one she had in mind. 

"Oh, you are angry...I can feel it...bite it off. How I wish you would..."

He sobs loudly, then clenches the cold flesh between his teeth, forcing the impression until the cold mutates into the warmth of blood. When he feels the blood pooling, entering his mouth, he immediately pulls his head away, disgusted with himself, and covers his lips, reddened by the liquid like he had just devoured a small basket of cherries, with his hand. As if he did not recognize his own actions. 

He could see the mark that almost completely covers Mercy's breast and the way she holds it with a weak arm, the accent of a smile on her face. 

"And you tell me you're afraid to act...look what you've done to me..." 

"I didn't mean... no, I didn't mean..." 

He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his sweater, now a museum of all their worst moments, and the red it absorbs turns a dark burgundy. 

"It's nothing..." 

Mercy says, her eyes a little closed, as if savouring the moment. 

"I'll get you some water...ice? Wait..." 

Mercy stops his arm. 

"No need. It's just a bite." 

"It's salty..." Eli comments on the taste of Mercy's blood. 

"Haven't you ever sucked your thumb after a cut?” 

"It's different when it's someone else's. Does it sting?” 

"It stings a little. It's an oddly pleasant sensation. Oh, but it’s hard to explain…” 

Eli takes her arm and sits her on the bed's edge. Then, he pulls a tissue from his pocket and wipes the blood from her chest. Mercy holds her head as if it hurts. The moment is intense and she has no answers. She is still naked, her nightgown on the floor in pieces; perhaps he will ask his mother to mend it. So Eli covers her with the long white shirt he wears for the night. It almost looks like a dress on her, too. She lifts her arm, bringing the sleeve to her nose to breathe in his scent. Then, she wraps her arms around her body, recalling his words: You are me.

He drops to one knee before her, holding her hand. "A lady from church hooked us up with a week's worth of meat from Paradise's butcher. Tonight, we're having roasted chicken with our potatoes. Why don't you join us for dinner? If you drank all that milk, it'll make you sick on an empty stomach with just white bread.” 

Mercy nods, not resisting. She likes the idea of sitting there too much, being introduced to his whole family, even his father, their bond so openly displayed, while wearing his shirt. The image captivates her. She doesn't notice that he holds her foot in his lap, covering it with cotton socks, small enough that they didn't fit loosely. They must have been his, since he had small feet for a boy. 

After a period of silence, during which neither of them spoke following the confrontation, he puts his arm around her and walks her outside, even though she's capable of walking on her own. The smell of cooked meat starts to fill the house, a novelty not just for her, but surprisingly for him as well, who normally only had it at dinner with the pastor and his wife.

Sitting by the table, next to Eli’s chair, she can hear the birds in this strangely warm night, their singing louder than it was in Eli's room, where she was always kept. She only came outside to use the restroom and “basic maintenance”, and he would always go with her when she did. He would brush her teeth. This morning was different, though - she had the bath and then sat down to gulp the milk. The table had been empty, unlike now. This evening, Abel is there, but the older, slight man isn’t paying attention. Instead, he is watching Mary, the little girl, as she sews a heart out of an old doily with the help of her older sister. They are all waiting for Mrs. Sunday to finish preparing the meal.

"Does it upset you, Mr. Sunday, if I dine with you all?" Mercy asks. Eli's hand closes possessively around hers. Abel looks at his son as if waiting for permission, and Eli gives him a stern glance. The man nods in response. Mercy understands that Abel's harsh discipline of Eli was a way to prepare him to lead the family in the future, since Abel, being a passive person, wanted to pass on the reins to someone younger and more forceful. While Eli may want to emulate his father's passive nature, he's too sensitive, too much of a firebrand, with a strong will that sometimes gets him into trouble. Eli's fear may not reflect reality at times. He fears Abel, and yet when you look at them from the outside, it is clear that Eli is no Isaac and Abel is no Abraham.

Since Mercy is his penitent and God's initial trial, Abel defers to Eli's wisdom on Mercy. The chaos she has unleashed is the battleground where his worth as Abel's true son will be proven.

“Oh, I don’t mind! You're welcome to dine with us, Miss Miller.”

Mercy's face lights up with a simple, excited smile.

"Just Mercy..." 

The man observes, “What a beautiful name. It's a reminder of God's benevolence towards us, unworthy sinners.’"

"I tell her all the time," Eli adds.

Ruth giggles, no doubt thinking of Mercy's tantrum that morning. She hopes the girl won't mention it to Abel. Maybe the situation just feels strange. It is strange, after all - dinner with a captive. Mary gets distracted from her sewing to remark, with the innocence of her age, "You're kind of... ugly." She had never seen a girl as young as that with hair so wispy and grizzled, cheeks so hollow, and fingers so long and bony. 

Mercy fakes another smile, but Eli can see that Mary's blunt comment hurts her. It's a change from the usual praise she's used to getting about her looks. Mercy recalls her mother's friends saying she could be a famous ballerina, model, or actress when she grew up. They'd often add that if their own daughter looked like Mercy, they'd try to get her into TV or movies.

He points a finger at his little sister, scolding her like an older brother. "You think you're prettier than her because of that nice white dress and funny ribbon Aunt sent you for Christmas, but it's not those things that make a girl pretty. It's good deeds, and Mercy is more beautiful than you.”

The little girl's face falls in shame, and she pulls away. Mercy sighs, feeling bad that she got scolded. "Mary, I love your blond hair," she says, trying to make her feel better. "I've always wanted to be blond." Eli whispers a warning: "Do not spoil her. She struggles enough with vanity at such a young age…"

Abel's fingers tap out a rhythm on the table as he asks, "So, are you and my son planning to get married? Eli no longer ties you up with ropes.”

It would have sounded like a joke, one that would have been in poor taste if it had come from anyone else, but the man was completely serious and almost solemn. Abel can probably see the patch under the shirt, pink instead of scarlet, filtered through the linen. He can imagine how far his son's sharp teeth have sunk. 

Mercy stiffens, but cuts him off before Eli can launch into another rant about her supposed future beyond the farmhouse. "Sir, I need to discuss something serious with you. I've been having visions from God - not just once or twice, but constantly. He speaks to me in a voice like thunder, loud and clear. As He does with your son. Maybe you should send Ruth and Mary away...it's not a pleasant thing to hear.” 

Abel gestures for Ruth and Mary to help their mother while the potatoes are cooking in the pot over the old stove and the chicken is roasting. 

“As you know, I’ve done a terrible thing to your son, but Eli said it was all part of the divine plan to save me. I can hear the angels now, telling me my time is up, I am the announcement, and the Second Coming is near, and oh, He won’t be gentle...He will be draped in blood and rule with iron, so why must your son be gentle? Eli must prepare! He is among the chosen ones! It's all been foretold, and my Father is calling me home. Oh Abel, if I may call you that, speak like a daughter, I know it's hard to accept, but I must obey, no matter how terrible it seems…I will obey. We mortals have many objections when God commands, but one thing I've learned is that it's often good for us to let Him lead and learn to listen to His will.” 

Eli interrupts, his eyes fixed on the neatly lined-up forks, as a surge of frustration tempts him to stab the wooden table. 

"If that's the case, Mercy, then why haven't I seen the same signs? Why have I only had radiant visions of your future work, showcasing you as a living example of grace?" 

Abel stares in confusion as they bicker like two kids.

Mercy's expression remains unchanged, her eyes shifting from the son to the father with an imploring look for each. "This is a test of faith for you too, Eli. Do you only believe in what you can see? Don't let your gift of prophecy make you forget your humility. I know you're not proud, but you're struggling with the idea of a young girl's life being taken. It's not what it seems, Eli. Look into your heart, and you'll understand. God will bring with Him first those who have fallen asleep, but in Him, following His law. Oh Abel, Our Father has promised me that He'll keep your son safe. No one will know what happened. Eli needs to do this with his bare hands, using only his rifle, because he's not a murderer. And I need someone to help me into God's arms - someone I trust, someone I love...your son.”

Abel is spellbound by Mercy. Her skeleton, wrapped in a long shirt, is a premonition of death. Her hair falls around her like a cloud of smoke. Her smile and eyes are gently, almost fiercely, loving, like a simpler creature that only knows adoration and trust. To her, there's no such thing as natural rights - they seem cold and bureaucratic. She believes our rights are a gift from above, given to us only through His mercy, and she bears its name. She has chosen to give up her mortal flesh, an example before him of the brave ones who who fearlessly leave their bodies for the celestial home. She has ascended to a higher realm, connecting with all that is above. She has opened a road from the farmhouse to the sky. A creature who has completely surrendered to her Creator, without a shred of ego left in her. Abel didn't trust the faith of Rome with it’s Lent and it’s rites of mortification and Mercy reminded him of it, it had stolen his sister. 

But, how different was his worldly sister in the city from this young girl? Mercy’s sins could make a convict flinch. Yet she fears neither the cork and the spikes, nor the flagellant nor the monk's life, she sleeps on stones and kisses the staff on her way to sanctity. That she chose his son flatters him.

"Eli, maybe you should listen... You and her should pray about it together," he says, unafraid of his son. Mrs. Sunday then places a large, juicy, golden-brown chicken at the table's centre. The two girls assist her, as if it's Thanksgiving. Eli has to choke down his bitterness.

"Enough talk you," the mother says sternly. "It's time to say grace.” 

Eli clasps his hands over the meal, and his sisters do the same. Soon, Mercy and Abel join in, reciting, "The eyes of all look to you, O Lord, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. Thank you for this meal. Amen." Mercy watches their mouths to make sure she gets it right. Her stomach feels queasy. After a long time, starting again - including eating - brings a kind of fear. When feeding someone who's been starving, you need to be careful.

Eli seizes a leg and yanks the meat off the bone with a distinct tearing sound. She assumes he'll devour it himself, a stark contrast to the refined manners he displayed when eating that burger, now a distant memory. But he offers it to her instead.

"Open your mouth," he instructs.

She obeys, and the juicy morsel lands on her tongue. Grease trickles down her chin as she savours it. The flavour is exquisite, she associates it’s richness with the crisp air of a mountain summit and it’s wooden landscapes below — a far cry from the arid nothinglands of this side of California — where flora and fauna is vibrant, varied and thirst is unknown. She devours everything and licks the bone, unable to control herself. She grabs Eli's wrist, pulling his hand to her mouth, where she licks the fatty residue from his skin, thinking it enhances the flavour. She almost kisses his fingers in ecstatic gratitude, her mouth half open. He's lost in her eyes, while the rest of the family is lost in a mix of disgust and warped need to stare. But to her, the joys of this world paled in comparison to the glorious fate that would soon be hers, bestowed upon her by the hand she adored.

That night, he begs her to run away. It’s as if he no longer cares about anything—not about penance, Flame of Pentecost, or even the graduation they were supposed to study for together. Mercy tried to remind him that she will be a year behind anyway. He usually insisted that she could still catch up if she returned in March. But not tonight. Tonight, he urges her to run away, as far and aimlessly as possible. 

"Abel's tractor goes a mile an hour," Mercy says with a laugh, but Eli doesn’t respond.  

"On foot, we can run. We’ll get a ride from someone driving a truck..."  

"No, Eli, no," Mercy brusquely stops him. "I know it’s tempting to imagine. But think of God. And think of what’s to come. How dangerous it would be.” 

"The Lord, I think of Him... But imagine... I could regret it all my life. And you'll never finish living yours."

"Even a life of regret can be beautiful, especially if we know we are fulfilling a will greater than our desires...And besides, you know we’ll soon be together. Or are you doubting? You saved me and you are doubting…"

"I can’t get over this, you... you will have no life at all. Seventeen...I'm sixteen, and I don't think I know as much as I always said I did. Maybe it's the same for you. Maybe I made a mistake...All of this was a mistake..."

Mercy's voice grows severe, pregnant with a holy purpose. 

"Resist. Resist temptation. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. If he succeeds with someone like you, we others will be like butter. Blessed is the man who resists. He shall receive the crown of life. Flee from youthful passions! I knew there would come a time when you would show your sixteen years. Good that it is a time when I am strong. That it is not the time when I was lost... Now I can guide you". 

She lifts his chin and strokes his cheek like a stern teacher momentarily touched by tenderness for a troublemaker. It's a distant tenderness, he needs her closer and he wishes she would just talk like she used to. She had a frankness to her. 

Eli wonders if this is how Andrew felt that time in the parking lot when he babbled at him while he was missing Mercy. 

Mercy wants to be "Eli", or at least the image of him that he has always projected to the outside world, but he already feels that he is too much for himself.

They are each other. They are the other when the other cannot be themselves. 

Or perhaps Mercy is simply stealing the words of protest from his mouth once again. Making him up as she goes along. In her fantasies of him as the pliant flesh of the attic and the brave executioner of the valley. 

He can't think that way about his Penitent. His girl. It's too late, but now he realizes he has a crush on Mercy Miller. Just like little girls have a crush on their father. That kind of terrible need that’s always a bit fear as well. As if he could scream if she went away for a second, and she is about to go to that happy place. But as happy and blissful as he imagines her with the Lord, he still has the urge to scream. As much as he tells himself this is all just temporary, he has the urge to break something. 

He runs out the door toward the light blue paper box where his mother keeps colored spools, measuring tapes, and the sharp sewing scissors. Then he rushes back into the room. Mercy gasps and instinctively puts her arms out in front of her—a fleeting moment of her feeling like prey that almost pleases him. But then she relaxes, letting her head rest languidly on the bed. 

"Don't run with scissors! It’s dangerous, Eli…”

Mercy giggles. She seems creepy to him now, but maybe it's just his perception, fueled by the adrenaline. 

He takes her throat in his hand, his fingers squeezing just enough to feel her pulse quicken beneath his grip. She doesn’t flinch or push her chin away; she doesn’t try to resist. Instead, she surrenders, her body still, her breath shallow. She doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t plead or demand. Yes, the scissors feel more brutal than a gun—less precise, more personal—but also strangely innocent, their violence belongs to another time and to the realm of domesticity. She imagines him as a jealous husband, cutting her hair out of possessiveness. She isn’t afraid of him. She likes the way his hand fits around her throat, the way it anchors her. 

He tilts her face upward, toward the ceiling as she feels the stainless steel of the scissors glide against her scalp, these were new, not the ones he used on himself. A Christmas gift for Mrs. Sunday. The first crude snip makes her flinch. He cuts her hair without finesse, the big blades sawing through strands that were once her pride—long, gleaming, scented—but had become her shame when the gray overtook it. The locks fall unevenly around her shoulders, tumbling onto the floor like raindrops. 

He cuts it all off, stripping her down as though she were a prisoner in some ancient crypt, preparing for execution. The room pulses with a ritualistic energy. Her eyes fill with a sweetness. When she finally turns her gaze to him, her face looks different—stripped of its former shadow, her neck fully exposed, her ears peeking out from beneath what remains of the tangled strands. 

Mercy sighs. "I can’t see myself, but I feel that short hair suits you better than it does me. Once when I tried to cut it as a child... I thought it had magically made me ugly."

"I wish it worked that way. I don't like having this face, you know, that people say is too pretty for a boy. Whatever that means." Eli tosses the scissors onto the bed.

"Girls love it. I don't mean it in a bad way...like I do, you know me, you don’t know many girls, but...some are wholesome. And they’d say you’re dreamy.” 

"That's why I don't like it. I... I don't think I'm going to get married. I don't want to. I wish there was a way out. If I had been Catholic...it would have been easier. I could have joined the priesthood. But the way things are, Pap is going to pressure me. The only thing I could have stood was to marry you, and I can hardly stand you. just because I know how good you are. Don't laugh. You are good. Better than most.” 

"You know what..." Mercy crosses her arms. Sighing again, almost as if admitting defeat. "I don't think you like girls very much."

"I don't think I like anyone very much. Paul always said I was too vain to ever love anyone seriously. But that's not the case. Love isn't too hard for me. But sex…is just so ugly, even when it’s not a sin. I imagine a house where I will have to do it every night. It would be like working in a slaughterhouse. I can’t stomach it." 

She can feel a dark knot forming in her stomach, a dense, twisting weight. It’s a kind of dread she can’t name, in the ribs and in the throat. 

"The devil plays such tricks. To give some so much lust and others not even the basic instinct to marry." 

"But you liked to bite me."

"Biting doesn't make babies,” he retorts. 

With two sisters, he knows how to make a braid. And one of his biggest secrets was that for some time in the summer of 1971, before he went to public school, prey to ennui, he would braid his blond hair and wear an old dress of Ruth's, run from home and wander around, no farther than the valley, hoping for the whistles and shouts of passing cars and trucks. Just as they were shouting obscenities, he would hand them flyers for Flame of Pentecost or the Paradise Church, and the sinful men would recognize the young evangelist and turn pale and guilty. 

He gathers the severed strands of Mercy’s, his fingers weaving them together with meticulous care, as though he were braiding the fragile stems of dry wheat into an intricate basket with each twist, each tuck. He places it reverently in his grim, beloved cross-covered box of punishment. The lid closes with a light click. He wants some ghostly echo of her, frozen as a seventeen year old prisoner of his home, preserved in the faded silk of her discarded head of hair. 

Tears rise unbidden to his eyes, pooling and trembling before they spill. His voice, when it comes, is deeper and shaky. "I’ll never forget you, you know.” 

She feels worse than before.

Mercy closes her eyes, her throat tightening against the avalanche of words, fragmented blurs, she can see only some letters, not all. How she wishes he could forget her clumsy hands, those butter-fingered, careless hands that seem to stain everything they touch. How she wishes he could feel, even for a moment, washed clean of all that clings to him, to both of them. But he can't, and neither can she. He deserves it. He deserves to feel washed. 

Now, she understands what Eleanor meant when she had read aloud to her from that boring French book: “the irreversible act of defloration…” 

He could go anywhere, of course. Though Mercy denies it to herself, fixated on the coming apocalypse. The world beyond Paradise sprawls before him like a map etched in gold leaf, his path unfolding to private jets and laurels earned through diligent virtue. Perhaps, in time, he will even trade in his Jesus for Freud, dissecting himself into manageable parts, framing his soul in accessible languages. “Tell me about that cheerleader.” Maybe one day he would pass for normal - a word so universally coveted. Or just the opposite. Maybe he is going to end up killing high school girls. That would be so American. TV minister lustmörder of homecoming queens. 

But none of that would matter, because she would still be there. Always. 

No one else could ever match her. He would scour the strangest corners of the world, seeking out grotesqueries to shock himself back into the sharp vitality of terror, but none of it—not the expected horrors of dark alleys nor the varied theater of deviant behavior, sexual or otherwise, sodomitic or otherwise—would compare. Nothing would recapture the palpitating ecstasy of freeing himself from her suffocating presence: the wet, slick, weight of her insides as he shoved her down against the attic floor, surrounded by old dolls and table games. And then, oh, the mirage of redemption! His drugged hands putting his cross back on around his neck. And then…the tortures and the... 

It would never leave him. She would never leave him. She was the irreversible act—the first wound and the first kill, the only one that mattered. 

Mercy has a picture in her mind. A cozy, slightly cluttered, dim office. It’s 7 PM, 1989. A bearded man, or maybe a woman, in a flower print shirt, and Eli on a black leather couch. They have a slow, dreamlike voice. 

“You see, the mind has its own little attic. All the dusty memories, the forbidden desires, the fears…we shove them up there to forget, but boy, they don't stay quiet, do they?” 

“That pale window in the attic, gazing out like an eye—that wasn’t the house, was it? That was her. You were seen, vulnerable, and you hated it. You hated her for it. But here’s the twist: that hate, Eli, that rage! It’s been burning inside you since way before highschool. You called it God’s wrath. Judgment. But maybe it was the anger of the powerless. Maybe it’s time to name it. Own it. And—dare I say—let it go. It only brings you down. It’s time to exorcise that rage.” 

“Then there’s this dream you had. The chaste caress, the soothing words you describe. One could call it sublimation, taking all those forbidden, messy desires and funneling them into something ‘pure.’ Or at least that could seem such. But it wasn’t really pure. You did, held her, touched her, and there was a…what’s the word? Intimacy. A sensual tension to that dream. Maybe even pleasure. Did you feel that, Eli?” 

“When she sat above you, guiding your hands, you were passive, almost childlike. But you held the power in her eyes, that’s how you dreamed it. And then there’s her wish: “hide me beneath the soil.” Eli, that’s pure psychoanalytic gold. The soil is death, rebirth, the womb. This girl in your dream was asking to be hidden, protected, perhaps even reborn through you. Did you feel a bit like a womb to her, like a mother?”

Eli on a psychoanalyst's couch is somehow easier for Mercy Miller to imagine than crystal waters and endless life-giving trees, a small room is easier to imagine than millennial reigns and the end of death. She hates that it is. 

It's easy to imagine the other story, too, despite his tenderness, which, by the way, is not entirely foreign to some psychopaths. It's easy to imagine him at thirty-three. His once boyish features have matured, but his gaunt frame and pale complexion make him look otherworldly, like a tired, aging top model. Girls the same age as his victims would write him letters in prison or fantasize about him as their pastor. 

Six bodies. All seventeen. All dark haired. All found buried beneath the same timeless symbol. A cross carved into their chests.  Psalm 51:7 under their shaved scalp before “delivering” them. 

"You’ve got a lot of people fooled, Eli. Folks who say you’re a kind man, a healer. A man of God. But the truth is, you’ve been running from something your whole life, haven’t you? What happened to Mercy Miller, back in 72?” 

Maybe he already is. Maybe she has already made him that. 

She runs into Eli’s arms, and he holds Mercy close, their foreheads touching, cheeks pressed together, skin to skin with no hair in the way, the box resting on his lap. “You are mine. You'll always be. I'm your girl.” 

Chapter Text

The Miller house, 1972. 

The living room is dark except for the soft hum of the Super 8mm projector, perched on the coffee table. The reel, carefully threaded through the machine’s metal arms, ticks as it begins to spin, casting flickering images onto a portable screen set up against the far wall. The living room is hazy with Mrs. Miller's cigarette smoke. Twelve-year-old Mercy, in a dusty pink leotard and tutu, taps like a butterfly on an unseen wooden floor that the woman still remembers. Her arms are fluid and delicate, and she seems weightless, her face etched with a look of recognition of her superiority over her peers, whose movements are still awkward. She started when she was four. Mercy loved to rewatch these because they made her stop. The excuse they gave was that it would distract her from her studies when she started high school, but she immediately began pouring everything she had into cheerleading with no less intensity.

Mrs. Miller’s eyes glisten. In the background, the quiet bubbling and hiss of a percolator coffee pot on the kitchen stove fills the silence. Mr. Miller moves carefully, spooning dark coffee grounds into the metal basket and setting it to brew.

The aroma of coffee mingles with the scent of nicotine lingering in the air, curling lazily in faint grey wisps toward the ceiling. There is no sound in the room, the absence of conversation making Mrs. Miller’s focus on Mercy’s form absolute. They remain silent, their gazes carefully avoiding each other, knowing that talking about Mercy will only lead to a fight.

Then Mr. Miller breaks the silence. "I don't like this. It's just her practice. Put up the one where she played Clara in The Nutcracker. She was so proud of that."

In truth, watching Mercy practice, whether alone or with others, could be unsettling; there was a stone-cold look in her eyes, something that reminded them that she was steel.

"I like this one," Mrs. Miller replies. She wanted to remember Mercy as she was: a vibrant girl, yes, but a difficult one, with secrets she kept hidden—secrets Mrs. Miller never dared to ask about. Now, she imagines that if she saw her again, she would beg her to reveal everything she had kept inside. Mr. Miller does not feel the need to make any more requests. 

She remembers the mornings, the first hint of a diamond light filtering through the kitchen window, hours before school, catching her daughter’s firm arms and legs as they moved in silent rehearsal. Her fingers bent and twisted almost mechanically, as if she were made of porcelain and wire, not human muscle and bone. “Again,” Mercy would whisper under her ragged breath, barely audible, her eyes a bit red, from strain or lack of sleep, while her pointed toes swept over the tiles. “It’s still not right.”

Mrs. Miller stood just outside the kitchen and watched her without being watched by her. And Mrs. Miller wasn't home very often. But even when she was, Mercy kept to herself, though she never seemed too unhappy. 

And this would happen the mornings after she would see her practicing endlessly in front of the mirror in her bedroom, giving her the hint that she might not have slept much.

She'd watch her daughter force herself through the motions of a pirouette until she was shaking, her toes red and raw in the satin slippers. It was not uncommon for blood to be found on her slippers.

Her jaw would clench, teeth gnashing in frustration as her reflection betrayed the slightest imperfection- too tight hips, hands not soft enough. Her reflection felt bestial in those moments, afraid of itself, as well as scary to Mrs. Miller. 

"Honey, you're going to hurt yourself," she had said once, standing in the doorway, but it was like trying to communicate with another planet. Mercy was in prayer. She whispered like a prayer. Extend. Stretch out. Softer fingers. More. Always more. There was something wrong with that, there always had been. 

In her mind, Mercy was eight again. Even then, every plié, every arabesque, every pirouette was done over and over again until she was trembling, until the sweat turned her baby hair into a dark crown, and she wouldn't stop even when her mom begged her to, even when her legs waved like branches, and her head would pound, she would get up again when the effort became too much and she toppled over. Mrs. Miller, who had never thought of her and Mercy's natures as similar, and who had always found the girl a bit of a mystery, thought back then that it was some kind of ritual of erasing the body, because it looked like that. 

Once the dance teacher told Mrs. Miller an anecdote. She had joked to Mercy that she would die if she continued, it was an exaggeration, but the little girl, she said, looked her death in the eye and asked: "Why is everybody so afraid of death when you only die once and it doesn't last very long?" 

Chapter Text

From: Penitence Diary of Mercy Miller. (March, 1972. I am happy.) 

Ever since I convinced him to give me up, he welcomes me every time I climb into bed with him. Even though everything is mild, (Eli told me it’s March!) and I feel a pleasant, light heat that warms my body in it's convalescence, I make myself look a little cold and his fear quickly turns into concern for me and he clings to me. We have to make ourselves really small, but I twist my body so that I can be just as a pillow is for him. I don't mind that my body is hard and cold after all that has happened. But ever since he cut my hair, I sometimes miss it. No, not the way I used to scratch my head like crazy, or the way it used to get tangled or heavy with sweat. I miss the way it used to be, when it was beautiful. It's a little vanity, I admit, but I never regret it for myself, no... It's because I had a dream this week. A woman's long hair is her honour, so he never cut mine, and even Mrs. Sunday preferred to wash out the lice rather than cut my hair. But now I'm someone awaiting execution. But I wish I could have done it. Wash his feet with my hair. 

Yes, I had a dream, we were near a pond, we were naked, my skin was light and without scars, neither was his, it glowed a peach colour in the morning light, the grass was wet and its coolness on our bodies was pleasant. The slight tingling of the coolness made my nipples hard, and our cheeks had turned a deep red. We chased each other like children. We played at catching each other, tag...And he was not afraid when I chased him. But his white feet had become muddy when I bowed to him. My hair was not like before, it was even better. It was even longer, almost to my ankles, and as soft and shiny as when I had just come from the hairdresser in the days before my penance. They were so long that I could use them to wash the mud off his feet as he lay on the bank of the stream. My hair was covered with mud when I was done, and my heart was full of joy. I was able to wash it all off and then I kissed his pale pink soles and his skin was soft and wet under my lips, it tasted like grass. Morning grass. Now I wish I had long hair to wash his feet after he has finished minding the goats, or playing with Mary. 

When I woke up in a happy daze, it turned to horror when I realized I was bleeding. It was 4 a.m., too early for school, and I was glued to him while overflowing with all that rancid stuff. I started to cry, I thought he would be angry, instead he comforted me, but he kept saying all these things that upset me, about spreading the Word together and how I should go back to the world and have a normal life. Get a degree and have kids and show people the power of prayer and repentance. And how this stuff was no longer rancid because I had been cleansed. I couldn't take it. I was between a heartbreaking crisis and a temper tantrum. I convinced him that something that hurts my heart and feels so wrong can't be the truth, that I cry when he tells me these things because it's like he's making me choose between making him happy and the Lord, who wants me there, not here. So he calms down and apologizes, but in the meantime I am still dirty. I get cleaned up and continue to cry. He holds me and we read the Bible. Together we bookmarked everything about eternal life and resurrection, about death being only the beginning. Oh Lord, I was happy, I can’t wait to be with you…

I am still happy. He never forgets to remind me how beautiful he thinks I am. We don't have mirrors, but if I were to listen to him, I'd think I was the most beautiful girl in the world. 

Chapter Text

Execution of Mercy Miller, beginning of spring, 1972.

It's Sunday, 5 am. Everyone in Paradise must be lost in a dream. Or, the sinners who come out at night have just started dreaming. Eli wakes up and feels a light weight on his chest. His schedule for the day is packed. Today, he will carry out God's plan, shared through a feeble, very mortal girl. He also has church and he has a sermon on the Flame of Pentecost, where they want him, as the most shining example of its youth, to discuss Mercy's disappearance. He had been working on it since before Mercy knit him a hat, making many revisions along the way. He knew he would have to talk about it sooner or later. He's to interpret these coming days of wrath, these latter days. Not even a town like this will be spared from it's long-awaited judgment. 

He had let Mercy crawl into bed with him, and now she often did so. As soon as spring arrives in California, it starts to get warmer. Everything blooms and Mercy did too. Although the cold isn't a problem anymore, she still says she needs his body. And Mercy's blood is back with the spring. How she cried when she first found out, when she woke up soiled against him. He told her not to worry. That this time it wasn't the Beast, it was life flowing through her again. Eli told her to think about returning to the world again. Have children. Be with him, always with him but have children with someone else. Mercy said He brought her back to life so she could have one last taste of Eli. 

Her lips, cool and smooth, brush against his cheek, stirring him from sleep, carrying him from a nightmare to another. 

She doesn't pause, her mouth finds his at his very first breath in a soft, urgent pressure that dispels the fog of slumber. She forgets modesty. They both do sometimes. But he does it because he wants to erase any division between them. Her acting like this is a sort of incest, which is more disturbing as it occurs between twins. As their lips meet, nothing exists, they’re floating somewhere else. But maybe sometimes twins kiss each other on the mouth. The warmth of his skin yields to the chill of her lips, a shock that escorts him quickly into full wakefulness. As he awakens, he sees the dark, strange world from his dreams blending with reality. Though raised wholesomely, he could imagine morbid things, but they weren't familiar to him. His dreams didn't care about his upbringing. In a hushed voice, he tries to explain to her, to warn her, "Death isn't the solution for everything. It's not a way out, not if you act like this…”

With her lips still against his, she whispers, “Don’t call my return to my Father, ‘death!’ He said to me... He promised I could! have a last taste…” The glint in her eyes makes him draw back, but not in revulsion. He's trying to convince himself that nothing's different, that it's all still the same. Yet he senses an echo of something else. Maybe this is meant to be. Maybe he's really just too proud to accept that God's plan isn't always clear to him. Sometimes, God's will can be as hard to grasp as a dark, scary dream. True devotion, he thinks, is about obedience and exaltation, not fully understanding. Embracing the mystery of His design allows faith to thrive in wonder and mystery. When he wakes up from those frightening dreams, which have grown more intense since the attic and Mercy's penitence under his bed, he feels, for a brief moment, that he has truly lived and been given a special insight.

“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” 

Such a strange thing it is. He had prayed for freedom from her. Her violent ways, her impositions, and her muck. But the need to save her transformed into a new desire, he wished to suffer her indignities. He had started to feel hot in his shame, almost abjection. She made him feel unworthy. It drew him closer to God, and made him more of a worm.

What is your face, oh Lord, that it would smite him just to look at it?  

It must be something like killing Mercy Miller. She says don't say "murder," but rather that he's delivering her. That's the word she uses. He remembers what test God commanded Abraham—to prove that he feared Him. He holds onto the hope that it's a similar test. He can't imagine his bed without her lying under it anymore. He's like a child who has befriended the big, awful monster in his closet, and is no longer afraid. But the monster is destined for a long journey, one that leads to Jesus, and he can't hold it back, even if it means he'll be lonely once again. But not for long, not for long…She reminds him. 

He finds himself saying sweet things while washing his face in the sink after brushing his teeth. She leans against the bathroom doorframe.

“They say…The pastor calls my sister, Ruth, ‘the flower of this desert.’ But I think you're the one who's really the flower of this desert. You didn't get to grow up in a garden or anything. You came from hard ground. And yet, I think, no, I know you're not dirt. I know you deserve heaven.” 

"This desert only has one flower," Mercy replies, brushing her hand against her neck, as if searching for a strand of hair to play with, but it's gone now. "It's you. Men's hearts are so black, but yours is all white. We're all like honeybees, sucking away the nectar, and it's not our fault. We need that. But it still hurts you, being pierced and sucked from, because you have all the sweetness and we have nothing.”

"But what can flowers do without bees? How can they multiply…” he chuckles at her with fondness, wiping his face dry. His face is still smooth when he touches it, with no visible signs of maturation, so he never needs to shave. 

"You're right. As long as men's hearts stay this black, you can keep growing. And we can save each other.”

"I don't think you knew me that well. There were times when I enjoyed hurting you. I really got a kick out of it. I scared myself. You remember Christmas night? It was disgusting, what I did.”

"You don't understand - it's just that I don't think it takes away from your purity. I always thought it added to it. I think the reason you were chosen is because deep down, you know how to hurt. And I was always glad. Always glad. You made something blossom inside me. It could never take root in someone like me. But, it flowed through me like vital lymph and made everything sweet for a while.” 

“That was Him, Mercy.” 

"No... No, if I may say so, it was something very carnal. But I don't think it blackened my soul like I told you that time I was angry. Now I think I see more clearly that it was in harmony with His will.” 

She grabs his face and he sees his reflection in her eyes, she realizes he is crying before he realizes it himself. There are no mirrors in the bathroom. Mrs. Sunday took them away. She says mirrors are bad in a house with two girls, one of whom is growing into a woman. It encourages vanity. So that's where he looks at himself. "Look at yourself. Just... I'm very proud of you. I love you, my brave, brave lord.” Sarah called Abraham “lord.” Not even Eli’s mother called Abel “lord.” Mercy’s not the cloying tone that once deified him, “a young God”, but something transparent. He finds it clean, despite everything. 

“I am scared…I don’t know what it’s like to kill…” 

"You're not your brother, who abandoned us and refused to fight. You don't have to be like him just because you resemble him.”

He had told her about Paul's story, how he fled because he was sick of the farmhouse and didn't want to go to Vietnam. He knew not all men were meant for war. However, Paul angered him. Paul was clearly made for it, yet he refused. He couldn't bring himself to tell Mercy that he felt like he wasn't suited for war — especially since she saw him with a knife in hand every day — unlike Paul, who was a natural at destroying things. 

She plants a whisper-soft kiss on the tip of his nose, while her hands weave a slow and deep path through his hair. “I know things about you that you don’t even know about yourself. I can sense your fear, but I also feel you're ready. Ready to start this new phase, to sound the trumpets for us all. I can sense your fear, yes. And I can sense your rage, too - always. You're ashamed of that rage, but I love it. Oh Lord, I'm so happy that it's going to be your rage that destroys me, and then lifts me up higher than I ever deserved.” 

"Mercy…" He caresses her bare neck, and she lets out a sigh, enjoying the feeling of being free from her hair's tangled mess and more naked for him. "What would you like to eat...this one last time? We don't have much. I'm guessing you'd want a big cake, like the one you had on your birthday. But we don’t have those things. I hate that that I can’t give you that. I can offer you all the fruit I can find, all the jam, and even the bacon – we did receive some gifts, after all. The ladies at church give me all sorts of things. Home fries?” 

His touch revives her. Her neck tingles, she sways. Heat surges through her veins, an incandescent current of red—blooded desire. Only lust can ease the fear of death. It’s still lust, however, He says He allowed it, the final taste. He only told Mercy it was fine. That it was fine that she found Him through Eli and that she wasn’t an idolater and that her lust had served a purpose. 

"Your spit," she whispers hoarsely. "I want your spit." Her eyes lock onto his, unyielding. He still feels the urge to tell her she's sick for what she's asking him to do, but she's made her choice. She's choosing this over the pleasure of sizzling meat.

"Why do you want my spit?" he asks.

"Because I love you," she replies. 

"I will give it to you. I'll give you my spit. And breakfast." He caresses her face, pressing her forehead down as she eagerly opens her cavernous mouth. 

The salty liquid collects on her tongue. It tastes like cheap mint mouthwash with it’s foamy texture. She craves more, wanting to taste his real flavour, she wished she had asked when he first woke. He spits again, thicker this time, sharper. She drinks it up like nectar. Then, she kisses him again, this time without asking. But he knows. She believes his lips are hers to take whenever she wants. But that's changed. He was always scared. Now, he's more afraid of losing that fear. It makes him feel real. He's felt a lack, a void others didn't have. He has always felt that he lacked something that others took for granted, a void that Mercy filled, however painfully, that is now being emptied. He empties his mouth into hers, to her great delight. 

"I want to serve you, I want to dress you," she sings softly, all ruby-faced and throaty voiced. "I want to put on your body the clothes you wear when you go on TV to talk about me…" 

"I haven't even been to the bathroom..."

Mercy pulls down his loose, cotton pants, and he looks embarrassed. "Let me hold your hand…"

She holds his hand. She stays behind him while he urinates. She watches the stream, she’d like to aim it but she knows it would make him feel even more uneasy. 

She goes to get the suit from his closet. Her fingers glide over his bare skin, a body she had once stripped down, and now dresses in the suit sitting folded next to him. She starts at his white legs covered in hints of a wheat-coloured down, knees red from praying, running her hand along every curve before covering them with black trousers that will forever hide them from her sight. She buckles his belt. The attic in reverse, in slow motion. Moving up to his chest, she finally notices how slim his waist is. She’s been wanting to lick his belly and suck on his rosy nipples that look like snow-covered rosebuds. A romantic image that makes her hungry. There was something about his body that always made her think of food. 

She even ties the shoelaces of his black lacquered shoes for him. 

"These are big for you..."

"Well, they're Abel's. Our only good shoes, except for my new boots, but I can't wear boots with my suit." 

She buttons up his shirt and adjusts his tie, grey with red and black stripes, just as a loving wife might do. The cut of the black coat is the kind that makes small men seem broad shouldered. She runs her hand through his hair, which has started to grow back to its former length. "Should we slick it back? You'd look real grown up. Like a real handsome, righteous man.” 

"I've got some hair gel in the bathroom cabinet.” 

She takes it and does her best to slick back his hair, even without mirrors. She's surprised by how much she likes the result - it gives him an air of authority. He no longer looks like a beautiful boy, but rather someone older with an androgynous quality to his face, like a real celebrity, like a dream, a good dream. 

She warns him, "Don't mess it up," as he reaches to put his hand in it. 

"Are you sure about that?" he says with some embarrassment. 

"More than anything. I wish we could make love. I've wished that for a long time. I've never stopped." 

They had. Once. Only now, when she feels she is about to atone, can she say it that she wants it again but she wants him to enjoy it too, to enjoy her. She had forcibly enjoyed him but she couldn’t force him to enjoy her. 

"You know we can't... Do you want to come to Him this way, filled with lustful sins?” 

"What about after He takes me?”

Eli's eyes glaze over; he can't make sense of what she's saying. He doesn't like her tone, not one bit. He's left speechless, with that same unsettling feeling of people talking about crude things he can't understand, and it's frightening. Her words belong to the rot, to all that decays. They are sickly. They are a side of being human. It is a side that will one day blacken in decomposition. He hasn't experienced it yet.  

"With my body. My body. For you, in the dirt and grass, after I'm cold.” 

He puts his hand to his forehead, a terrible mist in front of him that smells acrid. He sees the maggots. He sees them in himself, not in her. He sees them twisting inside his abdomen. You shouldn't do that, and it's ugly enough, but with someone who's become cold, like garbage made of flesh... There's this instinctive repulsion. It's there in all people to protect them, and it's especially there in him. 

"You can't mean-"

"Eli. I love you. I need to feel that you love me enough. That I do not disgust you. I want you to bring yourself to orgasm in me with what is left of me after He takes me. Like an offering, an offering that He leaves for you…A present from Him, for you, just for you…”

"Mercy! This is...This is...This is beyond the pale, an unthinkable abomination!” He is still gasping for breath.

"The Book doesn't say anything of it. I wouldn’t be horrifying yet, after only a little while has passed. It would just be me. You can have me, without worrying for my soul, because it would be already there, dwelling under His loving hand.”

"Mercy... Let's just go to breakfast. Pap and mom want to hold you, like their daughter. They'd miss you as much as me..." He enfolds her, secures her in his arms for a short while. “I’ll make you something. I will make it, with mom. Something really nice.” 

They walk from the bathroom to the dark kitchen, still empty and quiet. Only a little later do the goats start bleating, and Mrs. Sunday appears, her grey hair messy, in a plain white nightgown that's wider and longer than the one she wore when she was younger, the same one Mercy had used. She smiles faintly at Mercy, but it's clear she's not happy. "You're not going to tell Mary and Ruth, are you?" she says, her tone worried and slightly irritated.

"I couldn't possibly," Mercy says right away.

"Eli!" she scolds, "go cover her legs. I know she's bleeding again." She must have seen the sheets from the last few weeks, so she doesn't want her back at the table in just a shirt. She is “a woman” again. 

"I don't know what to give her -“

"Get the old Ruth thing. It'll fit her, she's so skinny.”

The old thing he wore in that truck back in the summer of last year. 

They return with Mercy in a dress. It has a floral pattern, a light brown colour, and a flowing skirt just above her knees. The sleeves are long and puffy. It's constricted, and the fact that it’s above her knees shows it’s made for a shorter girl, yet it doesn't give that impression. She has brushed her short hair. With Eli looking so elegant, they look like a young couple. They are good kids, dating, and haven't done anything yet but they're about to get married. Going to a Sunday service with the family. Upon their return, Mrs. Sunday has the meat on the kitchen counter and is slicing the potatoes. Eli rushes to help her, wanting to make the occasion feel extravagant. Soon after, Ruth and Mary, still a bit sleepy, arrive, followed by Abel a little later. 

Mercy is pacing around the room, palms sweaty. Mrs. Sunday doesn't seem as keen to bid her a maternal farewell, unlike what Eli suggested. To her, this might be barbaric, even if she doesn't say it out loud. It's hard to blame her. Abel pulls her in at once, his eyes wet, and holds her extremely tightly, tighter than her father ever had, as far as she can recall. 

For a moment, she wonders: what if she wasn't her father's daughter? What if she were Eli's sister instead? She would have been his most devoted, slavish sister. His servant and his practice for having a wife who loves him. And maybe he would stand to touch her, because they would be made of the same. 

He holds her shoulder with a light touch. "It's almost ready; can you smell it? It smells amazing…"

She giggles sweetly at her own fantasy. "I wish I could go to church with you.”

"I'd take you with me. I wouldn't care if anyone saw us. I'm not ashamed of saving you.”

"Don't talk nonsense. We can't risk it. If just one person saw me before the deliverance, you'd be in real danger afterward.”

His face fell as he thought about having to do it, and in his mind, he kept repeating, "He'll send the angel, He'll send the ram…” 

Abel suddenly takes her hand and she kneels down beside the man. He whispers, as if ashamed to ask, "Is there really no fear in your heart? Aren't you afraid it might hurt or lead nowhere? It's a sin to doubt the Lord, but we're all sinners. I was one for a long time when I was very young like you. I had to find my way back to Him.” 

She understands now why he used to be so brutal with Eli. Each blow was an attempt to erase the doubt in Abel, as if with each blow he could push a bit of mud out of himself. There's a clear recognition there. Eli is complementary to her, to them, to Abel, to Paradise. They give him their love and pain, so they don't have to look at it anymore. He accepts it, and for that, they call him a holy boy. 

"I don't. Your son is a wonderful guide. Protect him and love him tenderly, for I love him, consider him my lord, and consider myself as belonging to him as I do to God, in life and death.” 

It's true. Mercy isn't afraid. 

Eli gently takes her from his father, white Bible in hand, and they sit together on the kitchen floor, like children playing while their parents make breakfast. She can't help but giggle when he talks or looks her way. She is joyous and it makes him happy too to see her smile and redden. 

"I still feel the pain of the scars. I love you, I say it a lot, I'm all yours, I love that my body reminds me." 

"I am blessed, for your love and your trust. Thank you, Lord, for illuminating her heart with Your radiant light! I want to read to you…” 

He puts on his glasses, and as they lie on the floor, chests rising and falling, she takes his hand and brings it to her face. He strokes her, and their soft breathing reaches Abel and the girls, who sit at the kitchen table, too sleepy to talk.

"This is what you're about to experience. Where we’ve placed bookmarks on all the parts…” 

She remembers a night last week, lying close, doing this work, with his breathing against her cheek. 

They whisper in unison, tears streaming down their faces as they take deep breaths, their voices skipping from one verse to another. They read about Lazarus again. Eli seems to really need to read those parts, it's more for him than for Mercy, who just wants to hear his voice and be close to him. 

“Just reread to me again “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live…And whoever liveth in me shall never die…” 

Mercy says, before reminding him that they will soon be together and that this is no different from the many lonely mornings she spent waiting for him to return from school. 

He picks her up, her face wet, and sets her on the chair at the table, placing the Book on her lap. He showers her forehead and cheek with kisses. So many that it feels like a thousand. Their number makes it feel like a thousand butterflies fluttering against her skin. She hums happily, swinging her legs.

Mary tells her mother, "They're being a bit gross…"

Her mother scolds, "No, she's going on a long trip and he'll miss her so much. He's kissing her like that because he loves her, not because he's being bad. Because he loves her like a dear sister.” 

At the moment, while being kissed, she doesn't care. He had a way of making her feel like a garden. She wants to be his plant, something entirely his and so fragile that if he wanted to destroy it in a moment of anger, he could, and she would just wither away without being able to protest with her stem and petals. Created by him and all his to extinguish. 

Eli helps his mother serve the plates.  These are the good plates. Another set, one that had been gifted, with a yellow and orange floral pattern. Mercy smiles and Mrs. Sunday warms up, compared to her coldness earlier. The bacon and home fries are absolutely delicious, she can tell from the first taste. So are the strawberries. They are fresh. She takes one and sucks it into her mouth. Then she takes another one and brings it closer to Eli's mouth, who also sucks it, his lips red and sticky like the time he bit her.

She has to hold back because her whole body is agitated. She wants it. She needs it. She hopes that Eli will grant the request, because she imagines those lips opening slightly in an expression of slight pleasure at his use of her. He hopes the shape of her body, not just the softness of her still warm insides, will help him come. She still hopes that he will want her, that he will fill her, in the most selfish way, it would be all about him. She loves how selfish it would be to do it while the part of her that feels is gone. 

She pushes the strawberry into his mouth as far as it will go, but she quickly wipes his neck before the red liquid can stain his good suit, then tucks a tablecloth into his shirt to keep it from getting stained with the bacon juices and sauces. 

After a while, a deaf, metallic sound can be heard. Mrs. Sunday drops her fork on the table, and her eyes well up as she begins to sob. Mercy rushes to her and wraps her arms around her. Abel and Eli do the same. The sisters exchange worried glances. 

After breakfast, while Abel prepares the tractor, outside, on the brown grass Eli and Mercy play. Mercy is the one who instigates, she comes up to him from behind and he flinches in real fear, and she makes a gesture as if she is going to mess up his slicked back hair so he starts to chase her. Eli takes off after her, his fancy suit flapping as he runs. The chase resembles a kid playing in his father's oversized clothes, which is exactly what Eli is at this moment. Finally, he catches up to Mercy and grasps her around the waist, twirling her around in triumph. The sky overhead shines with a blue fresh like new paint straight out of the tube. A cerulean sea without a wave. As they run and jump, spin and twirl, their laughter blends together through the air that grows thick with their similar sounds. It builds up and gets louder, like a swelling river, until they can't catch their breath.

It doesn't seem like a pre-execution scene. Instead, they look like childhood best friends united by a blood pact. It’s that carefree joy kids have. They're laughing together at their school desk, trying to be quiet. Their laughter has no obvious reason. 

"What were you trying to do, you wicked girl?

"Nothing! I swear...nothing at all!" 

She is almost in tears with laughter.  

Mercy reminds Eli to grab the rifle and the shovel, he asks Abel to carry the shovel. With the big rifle in hand and dressed so formally, he resembles an action star.

The old tractor rattles along the dusty road, leaving a trail of golden clouds behind it. It's an unusual sight: Abel drives with his wife beside him, while Eli and Mercy are cramped together in the tractor's bed with the girls. Ruth holds Mary on her lap, and Eli does the same with Mercy - that's how they always went to church on Sundays, and everyone was used to seeing the Sunday family rusted red tractor arrive. Usually, Mercy wasn't with them and Eli didn’t bring the rifle. Or the shovel. 

Mercy asks worriedly if anyone will recognize her if they found her at her spot or looked too closely in the tractor, but he says no one will think that's the girl from the milk cartons, considering her short grey hair and thin frame, and these clothes. He says it with total conviction, and not even Abel seems to fear the police. They never have. They had a blind faith that God would keep them hidden as Mercy has prophesied. She has seen that no matter where Eli digs, they won't find her, because God will make her remains dissolve to protect him. 

Eli thinks it has to be done near the Paradise church. This church is special to Mercy because she used to go there with her mother when she was a little girl, on Sundays when her mother was still home sometimes. Her father always got upset about it, calling them crazy and saying the Paradise church wasn't a real church, just a bunch of insane old folks who believed in healings and that sort of thing, that made him feel ashamed of California and it’s strange cults. She hadn't gone since starting high school when her parents had become increasingly absent from her life. Whenever her grandmother tried to take her, she would say no.

She thinks everyone will show up, perhaps even her parents, and certainly Andrew's mother. She pictures them taking her away. Eli says he won't act until the service is over. Mercy is quivering. She doesn’t want to wait, sprawled on the grass while they sing and praise Him, allowing Him to touch their hearts. But she's forced to the edges, because in this world approaching the end of it’s decay, they don't think Mercy Miller has the right to choose her own execution at the hands of her lover/victim. They wouldn't let her sing alongside Eli or listen to him bellowing into the mic, and then consign her to him to die. She tries to pray quietly not to hate them. That was her real last wish: a morning of public prayer with him, her father coming to Mercy and telling her: You are not mine. You are Eli’s. He will make of you what he wants.

They drive the tractor in front of the church. There's no crowd yet. They need a place for her to wait, a kind of in-between space, like Purgatory. She looks on with longing. Eli holds her waist and Mercy puts her hands on the tractor bed. For Mercy Miller, The Captive, every colour in Paradise is a brand new invention. As they slowly pass through each building, it's as if her own eyes are painting it with colour. She's not just seeing the world unfold before her; she's creating it. Paradise, old Paradise, of fire and dust, of yellow, green and brown and little more is stunning. Twelve-year-old Mercy would have scoffed at this idea. 

The A-frame sanctuary, made of white wooden panels, appears to her as grand as a Catholic cathedral, its brown cross rising from the dewy asphalt that seems to yield like tender dirt. There's a sign, it just says the name of the pastor, the times of the services and the Flame of Pentecost show for the next week. And "ALL ARE WELCOME! Come as you are!". She knows it's a lie. They'd call the police to take her home if she came in just to pray with Eli. 

The pine trees stand still, bathed in sunlight, and she can hear a jaybird's song. But they drive past the parking lot, knowing they need to find a place for her first, and the tractor takes an unmarked path that leads to a hidden pond. She is not sure how far it is from the church. It barely feels real. Like Eli is inventing it for her as he tells his father where to go. 

She's never been there, hardly ever venturing near the church or in such isolated areas, but it feels like the pond from her dream. The pond lies untroubled and glasslike, reflecting the sky like a gate to heaven. She doesn’t think it’s real. Oh, Eli invented a place for her to die in safety and seclusion! 

Eli gets off the tractor with her, leaving the execution tools behind for now, and sets her down by the pond's edge. She's only wearing white socks since they didn't have any girls' shoes to fit her, and they're already getting a bit wet. He sits down beside her and sighs, holding her hand as she begins to speak, brushing his face with her fingers.

"You have church soon. Be quick. I'll wait here, I'll wait here eagerly as I always am for you. You'll get your nice black trousers dirty, sitting in the grass.”  

He looks like he's trying to say something, but the words are stuck in his throat. It's as if he has trapped the many minnows swimming in the pond in front of him inside his throat, too.

Mercy continues, "Sing and shout as loudly as you can, until your throat is raw, maybe then I'll hear the hymns from here…" 

He tries to steady himself and he picks her up and puts her on his lap, like in the tractor, and holds her so close that Mercy feels all hot and tender. He moves his legs to bring them both closer to the water, and finally, after months, Mercy sees herself in a mirror. And she thinks she is beautiful. She sees herself as his very own. She sees herself as his thing, his creature. Now she knows, where she’s from. On her body all the marks of what he has done to her, she sees herself changed by his vengeance and his love, through his will, and she feels possessed and at home. Mercy, of Eli. Finally at home! So it was true, there was a home out there…Every missing part of her, from her cropped hair to her slender cheeks, is as if it had been devoured by him, as if she had nourished him. How happy she is. 

"I told you you were beautiful..." he says as he sees her smiling. 

She takes his tie and brings his face closer to kiss him, suddenly overcome by the need to feel them, as if even this morning was not enough. She holds his face, feeling all the skin of his round cheeks under her hands, and she can smell the hair product, the typical scent of old clothes, and something of his sweat. She pushes her tongue into his mouth, feeling the slight resistance from his lips. But he gently gives in, allowing her to explore before pulling back when she becomes too frenzied.

He strokes her hair. "Mercy, Mercy..." He licks his wet lips for a moment, a heavy breath escaping him. "Please listen to me for a moment." He turns his head, hoping his family hasn't seen. 

"When I come to you with the rifle after the service, I'll do it quickly. I'll do it quickly, with my eyes closed. I won't wait for you to say anything. If you want to run, if you've changed your mind, do it now. Do it now and don't look back. Run fast when you see me coming closer..."  

Mercy laughs and puts her arms behind her back. "I'll stay right here, with my arms like this," she says. "Even tighter than if you tied me up.”

She kneels without moving her bent arms, the pond behind her. The water's sound fills his ears as he watches her with her arms so firmly behind her it looks like they have been cut off. "I won't move. Not until you return.” 

"Mercy..."
"Stop trying, Eli. Stop fighting it. You don't need to be afraid anymore. Go out there...then come back...then go out there again and don't think of me anymore, think of me only when you think of the light of heaven...but don't think of me alive on here anymore. You don't have to be afraid, you should never be afraid...Live. I love you. I'm happy to die for you. Do with me what I have asked, please..."  

Now, in addition to the sound of the water's gentle lapping against the soil, there is the sound of his tears.

"Eli, no, don't cry. They want to hear your singing, not your tears. I love you, you're an angel. Don't cry anymore. Live, be happy, and stay that way. Remember, I took nothing from you. You're still the same boy you were before. You're not dirtier now than when we started. Nothing can make you dirty, ever.” 

He wipes away his tears and steps back from the water.

Still on her knees, Mercy continues, "NOTHING can make you dirty! You're still the same boy you've always been. You haven't lost anything. I love you...I love you…Go get yourself back…”

He reaches out his hand, almost touching her head, before quickly pulling back and running towards the tractor.  

"Goodbye, Eli. I couldn't have found a boy as sweet as you anywhere else in the world." She catches one last glimpse of his pale hair and neck as he runs away fast, her arms straining, but she remains still like calm water for hours. 

Eli's eyes are red. He wants to curl up in the tractor and sleep forever. He wants to turn into a chrysalis and stay embalmed. He wants to sleep with that sick feeling in his stomach until the emptiness is gone, until there is no more light, no more voices or songs to wake up to, and he can be left in peace and silence, in a quiet, tender night. But he has to go to church and he has to kill Mercy Miller. He doesn't know how else to put it. She demands, He demands, he wants to curl up with his rifle and cry himself to death. 

Inside the church, everything feels like a memory from the past. He keeps quiet so as not to break the spell of being back. Before November 16th. But being in the pews won't make him the innocent boy he once was, the boy from before November 16th. Maybe he never was, and Mercy just showed him. 

Maybe nothing could make him dirty because he was already dirty.

They ask Abel if his son is all right. Abel doesn't know what to say to his son about those who knew him as a sunbeam, as gentle as the morning light itself filtering through the church windows. Eli is like a frightened dog. He doesn't want to look at the pastor now, or greet him, or even be with them as they worship and pray. He doesn't try to find Miller's parents in the crowd. He hardly knew her as someone with parents. They all look the same, like grey cardboard cutouts. This is a mockery. None of them are close to God at this moment. He makes his excuses and runs from the pew to the bathroom.

The sounds of clapping, stomping, and loud preaching and prayers echo off the bathroom walls. He used to love this; it always made him happy. As a child, when he was sick, he remembers he'd ask his mother to take him to church because it made him feel like he didn't have a body, he was that happy there. He'd count the days from Monday to Sunday with such anxiety. But he's still bleeding inside, and it doesn't hurt any less. He cries again. He wants to dance and sing, just like Mercy asked. But his voice only cries. He longs for that happy high again. People say smoking can bring that. Paul said it. Now, he wants to try a cigarette. Anything to get a happy high, he wonders if smoking is how they say. He can't stop crying. He knows they expect him to say something, he did every Sunday since he was thirteen, he was as much a part of the service as the pastor. He had written something, but he felt too sick. He would save his breath for the sermon on Flame of Pentecost. Now he wants to stay there. 

He stands before the mirror, his reflection staring back at him with a beet-red face, tears streaming down his cheeks like a toddler who's lost his favourite toy. He never realized how strange he looked in this suit. The suit looks to him like it hangs off his frame as a sack. He’s a comical, out-of-proportion doll of a child preacher. He can't help but despise the getup now, the way it feels like the black water of an abyssal trench pulling him down, with the way it swallows him. 

His finger shakes as he points at himself, his face turning from red to purple with rage and his teeth clenched. The veins in his forehead and neck thicken and throb like they're about to explode. He hisses: “Kill…Kill that whore…Kill that whore and let her rest in sperm.” 

He pulls back, scared, because he's disgusted by his own angry face. His voice sounds shrill and unnatural, all distorted.

“This is what you want, Mercy? This is what you want me to be like? Who do you think I am? Do I look like this?” 

His knees buckle and he collapses in front of the sink with his head in his hands. Kneeling on the tile floor, he prays, hears the service from there and doesn't raise his head. He prays to be freed from the horrible man in the mirror. The horrible man in the mirror who screams like some serpent with that shrill voice and orders him to do horrible things and to defile bodies. “SAVE ME FROM THE BLOODY MEN!" he doesn't try to raise his head. "THEY ARE COMING FOR MY SOUL!" 

He tells himself, this is why mom forbids mirrors. If he raises his head, he'll see the bloody man's terrifying eyes staring back, and he'll be covered in red, like the Devil, and he will hold a rifle in one hand and a shovel in the other. 

Abel bursts in the door, startling him from his kneeling position.

And when Eli ends up rising his head, when he is interrupted in his prayer, he finally sees himself again in the glass but as he thought, he is not him, this Other Eli looks at him, he keeps shouting,” kill that whore, kill that whore, kill that whore, YOU ARE THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. Do as she has commanded you!” 

Now he meets the Beast personally, the one Mercy spoke of. It had dominated her. So, this is how Mercy felt all the time. This is how hungry she felt. This is how she felt in the attic and for the months before. Suffering her was nothing compared to the pain she herself suffered from the Beast that now demanded bloodshed and awakened in him! She couldn't bear the way it had made a home in her since childhood. It was impossible to love Eli purely with that inside her. Now he understands! He wants to run to her and tell her, "I understand, now I understand what is chasing after you, what is chasing after both of us! It's still chasing us!”

But where is the Word of the Lord? Where is the thunder? Where's the part where something older and stronger stops the man in the mirror? Where it tells him not to lay a hand on her?

His family stays to talk at the church. He whispers to Abel that he wants to do this in total loneliness. Eli runs to the pond. He takes the Winchester Model 94 from the tractor's bed, next to the White Bible. Of course, Mercy wanted to be buried with the Bible he gave her and her black leather notebook, the Penitence Diary. 

She can hear his footsteps; she recognizes them by now. She doesn't feel her arms, which she has held behind her all this time. She keeps looking at herself in the pond and smiling. Oh, he is coming for her! He hasn't left her. He will be the one to put her down, his, his, his... She keeps thinking this word. It is he who will put her down, not her mother, father, Sandy, Andrew, or a disease. No, it is he who will send her to His hands. She has pleased God. She could have pleased her flesh by continuing to be with Eli, taking pleasure in him. Because she couldn't help it, that’s the only way she could be with him, he didn’t understand, or he made excuses for her. Nowhere else in the world would she have found such a sweet boy, oh, what had they done to send her such a sweet boy... When the Rapture came, she would have been left behind, far from him…

But he's come, he's coming behind her, she can hear his footsteps... So they'll be together…But in the meantime, he'll go back to be in his own innocence, like he used to do before public school and her. With her Beast banished, sweet dreams will flow back to his rivers like warm milk—comforting and pure. All the good things will come rushing home. His dreams won't be of slaughterhouses any longer.

She looks at herself in the pond.

Eli looks at her from behind and gasps when he sees that she hasn't moved. He steadies his hand, thinking that a saintly girl like Mercy, tormented by all manner of demons since childhood, would be especially dear to God, born and raised in a place as lost as Paradise, yet retaining a desire to be taken by the hand of His Son.

"You're the best girl I know, Mercy. Never again will you know thirst, hunger, or fear of dying. Go, embrace Him." 

She keeps smiling, in the pond.

Eli closes his eyes. Squeezes them tight. His hand is wet and shaking. He hasn't sent His angel. He must really want Mercy back. He hopes. "Gather not my soul with sinners, O Lord, nor my life with bloody men." He recites the psalm for himself and for Mercy.

He stands in a shadowed bush like some monster. His eyes remain closed and the barrel is aimed between her head and neck, his finger twitching spasmodically until he forces himself to pull the trigger. The blood rushes through his veins, he's never shot anything alive and he's not wearing earplugs, the sound is like the bullet lifting the water and emptying the pond. He's never been drunk and lost in the woods, but from the horrific stories he's imagined based on newspaper clippings of teenagers who died, he thinks it must feel like being intoxicated. There's a wound now that the devil could slip into and give him a taste of his own. GATHER NOT MY SOUL WITH SINNERS, O LORD, NOR MY LIFE WITH BLOODY MEN. He knows that Mercy would comfort him by telling him that in a shaded bush, aiming at the end of someone's skull, he is as Christ will appear at the Second Coming.

He struggles to open his eyes. The seconds it takes him to open them are the seconds it takes Mercy Miller to die. Even with his eyes closed, it's as precise as cutting a string. The only sound she made was a muffled splash as she fell face first into the water of the pond. He runs towards her, her head lolling unnaturally, bent at an angle that no living person could manage, it was so horrible to him at first, he had a weak stomach, but it was still his adored penitent. Blood seeps from a dark hole at the back of her neck, spreading in slow crimson tendrils beneath the surface. When he lifts her from the water, her dead eyes, like roadkill, and the tilt of her head no longer frighten him. He loves her even so. He wants to prove what she wanted him to prove, that she never disgusted him. Even with that jagged gash where the bullet had torn through, his bullet, cracking bone and shredding muscle, even with her neck sagging like that, he thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world.

“Mercy, can you hear me?” 

All of her was poured into the pond's water. Her soul had left only a simulacrum of her behind for him, as she had said. Yet, he talks to it, knowing she can somehow listen.

"I love you. You're pretty..." His voice and tears become childlike.

"Wait here a second," he says, as if the vessel could actually move. Not like it did before. He heads to the tractor, grabs the shovel, and starts digging, his crisp white shirt soon turning brown.

The shovel digs into the earth with each strike. Sweat drips from his brow, but he keeps going until the hole is deep enough. He knows she would have warned him about his good suit. But he doesn't care. He wants them to see him dirty, like this.

He carefully picks up Mercy like he has done so many times before and sets her down in the grave. He delicately adjusts her head, but it remains tilted to the side. He gathers smooth stones from the edge of the pond and slips one under the curve of her neck with great gentleness, like she might feel it if he is rough. After plugging up the fissure with grass and mud, she lies straight and still on her back, her brown dress and it’s printed flowers make her blend in seamlessly with all the other life forms that surround the pond like a large, strange-looking plant.

He kneels before the grave, clasping his hands and whispering under his breath: "My beloved sister, oh how I wish I were where you are, away from sin, it's almost as if I can see before me the nest He has prepared for your rest, worthy of a soul as bright as yours... I saw what persecuted you today at the mirror. I saw its terrible face. No more. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord!”

He enters the grave, his hands grasping onto the sides as he lowers himself down. His body lands on top of hers, and he carefully positions himself to straddle her without disturbing the head that he has placed with meticulous attention, as if it were an intricate rose garden.

He starts by caressing her cheek, it's no cooler than usual, but he doesn't feel the sense of fear he usually does, which wasn't fear of her, but fear of the man in the mirror who was chasing them both. He runs it down her neck and sighs, her eyes open, as if she had truly been frozen in a garden. He touches her breasts, massaging them over the dress for a few minutes as he continues in silent contemplation of her stunned, dead face.

He begins by pulling up her skirt and pulling down any covering she might have been wearing underneath for modesty, just because they were going outside, and the object of his caresses shifts to her legs and thighs, which he opens slightly like a blooming, trembling bud. He intertwines his fingers with hers with one hand, while the other begins to rub her underneath, he has no idea how to arouse someone, he just gets used to the feel of her under his fingers. That too, not completely stiff and cold, but completely dry. He runs his finger over the black hair before he tries to dig in.

He places many kisses on her knuckles, bringing them to his lips. He is like a gardener at this moment. Her limbs are all floppy, like a stem. He continues to play with her parts, they feel like the petals of a false flower, the way they lack moisture. 

He's sure it will hurt to make love to her, as much as it hurt when Paul stroked him roughly in his tight fist while forcing him to look at all those horrible publications, or forcing him to read those letters from afflicted women in the magazines that made him feel so scared and sick. But seeing her now, he couldn't betray her if she looked down and thought he found her disgusting... He couldn't bear that. He doesn't even find her disgusting. He would lie there in the grave and just caress her until the next day dawned and she rotted next to him.

He collapses against her, head on her chest, without a breath of life in it, and begins to unbuckle his belt. He spits on his hand and begins to to stroke himself, trying to prepare himself by continuing to touch her breasts, which he still won't uncover, he will lie with her modestly, only lifting her skirt.

He has to close his eyes to make it work. He gets this horrible vision. Scorched earth for as many miles as his mind allows him to see, masses of people melting into one, screaming in agonizing pain, as if they were all giving birth to each other. A bleeding sun above, pumping out dark rays with the same rhythm as a beating heart. All the walls begin to crack and crumble, turning the children playing below into paste. Women ravaged with swords and cut in two, beautiful young men much like himself giving in to the sodomitic desires of animals and other non-human creatures. He shakes his head and pumps himself harder into his fist. He brings Mercy's hand to his face and rubs it. The vision dissolves before his eyes, and Mercy is alive in his new one, cradling his head against her belly, and he can hear her laugh as she used to. 

He manages to erect, he gasps for clean air, trying to think about a beautiful verse, a grand thought, anything to push away the fear of the man in the mirror, so that he can stay that way for her and finish the job.

"Now, my beloved Sister Mercy...I will do everything I can. You are beautiful. I love you, see? And now we can make love as if you were my bride..." he tries to position himself and raises her legs, she seems to be much heavier than he remembered, pulling her closer and starting to push at her entrance. He kisses her nose. "You are so lovely, such a lovely girl..." It's the first time he's awake for this, and the first time he's the one who's penetrating instead of the one who's being swallowed. He still holds her hand —his grip tightening — and pushes her arm to the dirt.

He braces himself for the expected pain of entering her in this position, hunched over her like a demon defiling a coffin. The tightness within him intensifies as he imagines her slicing him with her sharp edges, but strangely enough, he welcomes the thought. He glances at her, looking so surrendered and gone, and forces his hips forward while grimacing, causing her to scrape against the dirt beneath them. His next movement is more cautious and controlled. “I’m sorry, Sister…I didn’t mean to startle you…It’s…uncomfortable but you’re so lovely…”

She wanted him to experience pleasure, he would hate it if she thought he wasn't pleased. He struggles, his face beginning to turn crimson from both the bizarre sensation and the burning shame. As he holds on to her legs to keep them up, he feels the warm, syrupy texture of her thighs, as if they're full of honey. The discomfort is there, but the heat of her inner walls keeps him painfully aroused. Sweat begins to break out on his forehead. 

“You were right…You’re still warm, you’re my girl, you’re the only woman I ever want to know this way…Prettiest girl, sweet blossom…”

The words are tumbling out of his mouth, hushed and whispered as he continues to sweat profusely. His voice is strained and high-pitched, adding to the sense of shame emanating from him as he lets out stifled, feminine cries.

He needs to hold her as he moves inside her, no longer caring if he ruins her still pose and desecrates the rose garden he has tended, he takes her in his arms, her damaged neck slumping against him as she is lifted from the dirt. Her head dangles like a poppy's or a sleepy child's nod.

"Dear merciful Lord, forgive me...Only Your grace can save me now...Heavenly Father...I'll put her back in her place…"

She can't wrap her arms around him, she's just sagging, but he doesn't care, he can hear the voice of angels not far away, comforting him and wiping away his tears as he continues to thrust his hips forward, feasting on her carcass. He wishes it would hurt like it did in the beginning, because when it starts to feel good, he feels so sinful.

Now his nose is flaring, almost touching her ear and the tips of her short hair.

“You really are wicked, even like this, you make a man sin carnally…”

He continues pumping into her, as he had done with his hand before, but this is unprecedented, this sensation, something new and vibrant inside of something so inert. Life itself, condensed in the vigour of a young man who is about to flood a girl with what she needs to make a human child grow inside her, in covenant with death itself, represented by that girl, barren in the truest sense of the word, just waiting for her worms.

Soon he realizes what he's said, and it's as if the angels stop singing and comforting him, leaving him to sound as pitiful as anyone can sound, crying and weeping through his moans. "I don't know why I said that, sister... Oh no, I do, I do, it was the man in the mirror... Oh no, you're not evil, you're His favourite child... And my most adored sister…"

He wants to place his cross on her lips, their dusty pink almost completely white now that she has been poured into this pond, but he realizes: He is not wearing a cross. He recoils in horror and grabs her back, like he wants her to console him, burying himself so deep inside her that for a split second he fears what she said long ago will happen, that he will break her and her legs will snap and she will split in two in that grave and she won't be intact.

"What have I done...Oh what have I done...Ah!" He twitches, life spews into her, not knowing she's like the ground Onan wasted himself on, life surrenders to love, the worth of life appears so obscured alongside love. What Abel accused him of so long ago, he’s earned it now.

With his belt still unbuckled, he tries his best to get her back to the way she was, but her limbs seem all awkward and out of place. The head is now tilted in a way that makes it look like Mercy is staring up at heaven, where she is, so despite that, he is happy with the job he has done. He takes a handkerchief from the bottom of his pocket and begins to wipe her between her thighs, picking up any trace of semen. "Thank you, my darling.”

He lays the White Bible across her belly, tucking the handkerchief into the Penitence Diary, which he places at her feet. For the last time, he kneels beside the grave, kisses her forehead, and then takes up the shovel to cover her.

Once he's finished, he draws a cross on the spongy ground mounds with the shovel tip. He's covered in dirt, every inch of him, with some of it tangled in his hair. His collar is stained with blood from her neck wound. Looking down, he can see that his suit is unsalvageable. 

As he walks from the grave, a sickly sweet romantic song is stuck in his head. It seems to be coming from the radio of a passing car, but it isn't. He can't remember where he first heard it.

He feels smitten, an ache that keeps grinding him up like raw meat.

Chapter Text

FLAME OF PENTECOST,  Paradise Channel 5. Sunday Broadcast, 5 March 1972, 16:11: Eli Sunday’s sermon on the disappearance of Mercy Miller. 

The "Flame of Pentecost" logo is a pale, milky blue that glows from every grainy, both black and white and colour, TV in Paradise. It's a familiar sight, accompanied by a familiar tune. The T is shaped like a cross, and the letters are thin and cursive. The channel uses a single camera, its heavy body perched on a tripod at the back of the room, capturing every word from the pulpit. A second, shoulder-mounted camera focuses on the emotional reactions of the congregation, which were always heightened with Eli. The walls are a faded beige color, and the cross on the wall is illuminated by a fire-shaped light and a glowing dove. A thick coaxial cable links the cameras and equipment in this room to the mobile production van parked outside, where technicians manually adjust the feed for broadcast.

Before the broadcast, the pastor had pulled him aside, looking at him like he was a stranger in Eli's skin. “Why are you so weepy, why did you run off during the service earlier? And what's going on with your suit? Did you hurt yourself? That's blood!”

“No, Reverend. I swear, after I left the church, I was covered in dirt and blood. Isn't that a sign?" Eli's eyes took on a haunted, far-off look. He covered his face with his hand, and the pastor sensed that something was terribly wrong since the morning service.

The pastor didn't push the issue. Eli seemed on the edge of a hysterical breakdown, his eyes red and swollen. It was hard to fathom why Eli would be in such a state, but the pastor couldn't shake the feeling that something was seriously amiss. 

On the pulpit, a metal-framed picture of Mercy shows her in her cheering jersey. Her head is slightly tilted back, and her long black hair looks wavier than he remembered it. The picture was taken in early 1970, almost two years before they met. She wears a slight, melancholic smile. 

The broadcast starts, and Eli goes behind the mic. The congregation's faces are already shaken, their eyes wide like owls', as they stare at his dirty face and clothes.

He gazes directly into the camera. The dirt surrounding him makes his face appear even paler, and his lips seem more pink by contrast. "I'm grateful for your attention, my Brethren, whether you're with us here in the sanctuary or watching from home. I'm just a boy, but I'm humbled that Our Lord and Saviour has given me the opportunity to speak on these grave matters, and that you've allowed me to do so.”

He places his hand possessively over the frame. "Mercy was my classmate." 

There is something in his eyes that no one likes. Something shifts, something cracks in his demeanour. 

He quickly brushes a tear from his eyes before it's seen. "My classmate," he says, his voice trembling, "the one you killed." Mercy's mother, in the crowd, doesn't catch his eye. Instead, she seeks comfort from her husband. He glares at Eli for speaking like this without acknowledging her parents in the crowd.

"Before I start, I need to tell you this," he says, his voice rising. "When she was possessed by demons, forced to do evil things to innocent people and herself, who did she run to? With eyes blazing like blue fire, seeking forgiveness, guidance, and a path of righteousness, who did she turn to for help? Who did she bring her shame to? She came to me! I took her in, made her confess to God, and repent so she'd be spared from the wrath that's coming. She didn't come to you, not to any of you. There was no one older she trusted, and those her age were consumed by sin, wanting to exploit her body and affliction. You're nothing but murderers, bloodthirsty men!”

He slams his fists, not noticing how her father is holding back in the crowd or how revolted the others look. "Satan had taken her over completely, and you just stood by! But she fought like a true warrior. If she were here, she'd tell you herself about the joys she's experiencing and the terrible things that will happen to you, who condemned her!”

His eyes blaze wildly. The pastor wants to reach out to the crowd, to apologize for the boy's ramblings and remind them that he's just a poor farmer's son. But they tremble because they believe he's the voice of God.

"DO YOU SEE ME NOW? Covered in dirt and blood?" He spits into the microphone. "This is how God will come to you! This is how He came to Mercy Miller, but she humbled herself, while you stand proud and arrogant. You will face vengeance and be purified in agony! KNEEL. KNEEL LIKE SHE DID. Instead of pitying her, she's now by God's side, pitying YOU WORMS.”

In the crowd, some kneel down while others, like Andrew's mother, cover their faces and cry. Back at home, Andrew watches him on TV, shouting, "Oh fuck, I told you, I told everyone it was him…”

"YOU'RE THE WORMS EATING AWAY AT HER FLESH RIGHT NOW! GET YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK, like Mercy's, in surrender to the Lord!" He points to the congregation, his finger jabbing the air like a general’s.

And some do so. They put their arms behind their backs.

"Look at me, covered in blood, and you'll see God's judgment approaching. This is the face Mercy saw, and she accepted her suffering with courage and righteousness. She knew it was meant for her and was grateful for the experience. I want you to look at her picture and make a promise to the Lord to be as brave and faithful as she was when Paradise is judged.” 

The screaming, amplified by the microphones terrifies them like an earthquake of the highest possible magnitude. More loud weeping can be heard, but this time it's from those who are finally realizing, perhaps after lying to themselves, that they're staring at a murderer - one who is beautiful, young, and pale.

His arms are outstretched, and with every word, he slowly sways. His eyes gaze into the distance as he screams in a tear-choked voice, bawling uncontrollably while reciting Isaiah 13.

“Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.  Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it…PARADISE IS A MODERN BABYLON AND THIS SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU AND IF IT DOES, NO, WHEN IT WILL, YOU SHOULD REJOICE AS MERCY MILLER, for He gives you death rather than a life in sin!”

He slaps the mic with his hand, making a loud noise. "Rejoice! The day of the Lord is near, so rejoice loudly! I see that few of you will escape the sufferings, but Mercy is already safe, and I will be with her. Rejoice, because your daughter, whom you hated and abandoned to a life of filth, is loved by me - my dear former penitent and sister!”

Mrs. Miller feels frail as she kneels, hand braced on her back. She wishes to express her gratitude. Meanwhile, her husband kneels beside her, imploring her to rise again.

"Get ready for years of pain, dark days with no light in sight. If anyone tries to tempt you, if they aren't on their knees right now, they will be gone in an instant, as if they never lived. ATONE! ATONE! Mercy fought against all softness towards sin, including that in my heart, never asking for my grace, only the Lord's! For you she should be like a Messiah, SHE DIED FOR YOU to stop her beast that preyed on you, and you never thanked her, pray to Mercy! Ask her for strength at least equal to half of her good deeds of expiation!”

And Mrs. Miller remains on her knees, praying to her little girl in the picture on the pulpit. "My baby died for me, I killed my baby, my baby died for me!”

“She feared you, and at night she'd cry on my shoulder, begging me to hide her from you. Despite this, she wanted you to be saved and prepared for the Rapture. She controlled her anger when talking about you, softening her tone. But did any of you even bother to look for her?” 

Andrew's face turned as white as a corpse as he sat back in the armchair, trying to breathe deeply and resist the urge to punch the television in a futile attempt to destroy his girlfriend's murderer.

Eli's screaming, bawling howl returns to the soft voice of a boy. "I don't usually speak so harshly, I don't. But today, on a day when we're talking about her, my dear sister, I must use the tone she thought was best to share the word of the Lord. But you must know that Mercy died for you only because she loved you and wanted you to know: The time to repent is now. There's no later. No tomorrow. And sorry is not just a word or a prayer. It never was for her.”

The pastor hurries towards Eli, attempting to remove him from the pulpit. Eli responds by slapping the older man across the face. Gasps fill the room, but no one among those kneeling stands up. With his hands pressed against his face, Eli scrubs the dirt across his cheeks, the tears mixing with the dirt to create a liquid mess. His eyes are tightly shut as he cries. 

Andrew switches off the television, and the silence reveals the sounds of his sister's record player and her dancing to "I'm a Believer" upstairs. 

He snatches the car keys and speeds away from Paradise.

Chapter Text

Sunday Farmhouse, 1981. 

Eli Sunday was Abel Sunday's pride and joy. Though he had two sons he no longer spoke to, watching Eli on national TV was like he never left. He constantly celebrated his dear father in Paradise. The tough upbringing on the farmhouse had made him the man he was. His words were nothing like Paul's betrayal after he had clothed and fed him. It was even years before Eli, when they couldn't afford a child. But they still welcomed him as a gift from God. He had heard somewhere that his other son, whom he had not even acknowledged as a son since his early days of draft-dodging, atheism, and illegality, had become a journalist in San Francisco, but he had no patience for his satanic rants in his rag, Fog & Fire. Everyone in Paradise knew that bringing up "the Other" son was a sure way to anger even the meek Abel. Ruth had married respectably. Mary had followed Eli's path, educated at home until the last years of high school. She is now finishing at Paradise High, like her brother did when he graduated in 73-74. He's often alone, but one thing that remains is his 1969 Zenith colour TV, a gift from the year his son's voice was first heard on Channel 5. It's enough. 

As Mary pushes open the old farmhouse door, it creaks loudly. She shakes her long blonde hair out of her face and rummages through her oversized school bag. She finally pulls out the day's newspaper and carefully sets it on the kitchen table, spreading the page open. There is an article about Eli; Mary still looks like him, except for the lighter hair. Even now, at twenty-five, her brother's face, with its baby fat, gentle expression, pink and pale colours, and tender eyes, could be her face. If anything, he has put on a little weight since his days of half-starvation on the farm, despite still being slender, adding to his youthful appearance. 

"Hey Pa, look! It's an article about Eli!" Mary calls out excitedly, causing Abel to turn and head straight to the table. He eagerly snatches up the newspaper in his hand to read it.

“Separating the Men from the Boys: Paradise Pastor Steps Down from the Flame of Pentecost, A Changing of the Guard.” It's a long section, Abel holds the paper up to his eyes to read some parts aloud. 

"At the centre of this transformation is 25-year-old Eli Sunday, the baby-faced preacher whose apocalyptic sermons and healing demonstrations have drawn both fascination and controversy since he began delivering the fire and brimstone as a child. First appearing on the show in 1969 as a 13-year-old child prodigy, Sunday quickly became the show's main attraction, his fiery speeches often overshadowing Reverend Sexton's quieter, more subdued style, that of a "moderate, older man…”

"Over the past decade, Sunday's influence has only grown, with many in the Paradise congregation - and beyond - considering him a modern-day Isaiah. Sunday's following grew further after he moved to Angel City in 1976 — thanks to the financial aid of Paradise’s generous community — where he studied theology and communications, excelled in both, and began overseeing the production of Flame of Pentecost from a state-of-the-art studio, leaving the Paradise congregation increasingly in the background. Sexton's resignation has fuelled speculation that Sunday's growing prominence played a role in his decision to step down. While Sexton continues to publicly support Sunday, some in the congregation feel the pastor was pushed out to make way for the younger preacher's more ambitious vision...Sexton insists it's just the natural order. "It is God's will that the fathers grow weak and be replaced by the sons, and I am weak now. All I can do is encourage him like King David encouraged Solomon, hoping for better results."  

Abel doesn't like the idea of Sexton positioning himself as his boy's father. Eli was not an orphan. He had a father. "That old man was no King David," he scoffs as he reads this part of the article with Mary. 

"As Sunday continues to expand its reach from Angel City, some in Paradise wonder if the community that nurtured Flame of Pentecost will be left behind. The show's relocation has already had practical consequences, with fewer resources directed to the church and its local initiatives. Reverend Sexton has expressed his intention to remain in Paradise and focus on serving the local community. "The people of Paradise have always been my priority," he said in a brief interview. "I will continue to serve them in any way I can while Elijah takes this ministry to the world. This is exactly what I envisioned when I founded Flame of Pentecost in late 1968. To have discovered this Spirit-filled young man will always be one of the greatest accomplishments of my life..." 

Mary's face lights up with a smile as she looks up at her father, thrilled by the praise her older brother is getting. She doesn't see why Ruth has doubts. According to Ruth, Eli has become "a man of the world." Ruth also keeps in touch with Paul, but Mary thinks it's best not to mention this to Abel, given his age. 

Abel smiles back at her, but his expression turns tense as he gives the paper a final glance. He recalls the evenings Eli and Sexton shared, the countless hours and effort invested with this man rather than his own father. His heart is swelling with both pride and rage, making this a confusing ache. He wishes he were the one who could say, "I created him," not just in the sense of having passed down his surname. He wishes he were the one who could say, "I made him," and not just in the sense of having made him from the quiver of his hips on a night in '54. "He was always too familiar, wasn't he?” 

Mary shrugs, unfazed. She's always found Sexton to be a kind man. But in both her and her father's opinion, his decision to step down is a God-honouring one. 

"Ma, Eli's in the papers again..." Mary shouts, running towards the bedroom where her mother, now plagued by all sorts of pains, spends most of her time.

Angel City, 1982.

Eli is stretched out on the padded beige sofa in his new apartment, a modest place that seems palatial compared to the farmhouse. It's efficient, with a small office area, and he's managed to squeeze in a decently sized personal library and a prayer kneeler. On the wall is a photo of his 1974 high school graduation, a reminder of how far he's come and how little he misses his hometown. He looks even thinner in the picture than he did as a kid. He wants to put the picture away because it reminds him of the long nights he spent trying to ignore the damp feel of blood on his sheets, along with the many tiny fingers and chubby, dirt-dwelling creatures that wriggled grotesquely before disappearing when he turned to look again. The apartment is in a great location, close to the media studios and his university. Now that he can afford it, he's happy to be living on his own. College was almost as tough as Paradise High, but he earned respect. With Reagan in the White House, the new decade looks to be a good one for him. Still, he's not one to share his space with others. He's always wanted enough to be alone.

And yet he doesn't feel alone, he rubs his throbbing head, he hates this moment of the day when there is nothing left to do but pray. He has a hard time praying alone, whenever he does, his head gets heavy with the sound of the crowds. On the small oak table, lit by a flower-shaped brass desk lamp in the corner of the same room, he has a row of disorganized papers. Audience demographics, letters from supporters that he never wants to read himself, always afraid of reading something disturbing. Now there are too many to read them all, so he personally reads only those from the most generous donors. He doesn't forget that when he used to read them by hand, one lady had written him a deeply degrading ramble about her dreams of sexual slavery and subjection to his person. He knows he shouldn't have hated her, even though she had outraged him, because who could need more help than that? But he hated her anyway.

His broadcasts are now reaching small Midwest towns, East Coast cable viewers, and remote Texas oil fields. Viewership among working-class families in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana is at a peak. 

He's now successfully pitching his platform to an oil magnate he met at a large revival meeting in Beach City, where he was with his teenage daughter. In the back of the tent, he started flattering the man, showcasing his talent in pleasing men in general. He remembers a talk show where a lady said, "If liberals create a sex-neutral world, you girls will have to make sure your men don’t start looking up Eli’s skirts!” The audience loved it, even if it was almost indecent, and there was some truth to it. If only she knew how many men had tried it and how much it disgusted him. “What can I say, I’m a real country beauty! And blond!”

He shared his needs with him: expanding broadcasts, reaching new areas, and funding larger events. In his next televised sermon, he made sure to highlight the oil industry's role in providing jobs for hard-working Americans. He reminded everyone that he grew up in an oil town, where he claimed to have glimpsed the mighty power of the Lord in the oil rigs as a child, although in reality, he'd seen his visions in thunderstorms. While he felt sharper back then, he wouldn't want to go back to those years. Now his head feels heavier. He began to hint at something, tantalizing, like any true seductress, without going too far before seeing what he could get out of it, saying, "There's a growing temptation for governments to take the place of God in people's lives — promising solutions, controlling resources, dictating the way for communities…But true provision doesn't come from bureaucracies. That’s pagan stateism. Freedom, true freedom, not whatever depravity this Satanic age calls “freedom” and “liberation”, is one of the greatest gifts God has given us. We offend Him when we spit on the strength of its workers, the visions of its pushing leaders…"

It worked, and they entered a secret partnership. 

He doesn't want to think or be himself right now. His head is pounding and he needs a distraction. He really needs to replace that graduation picture - it's poisoning everything. This could be a good place, but he's not sure why he doesn't just get up and take the high school picture off the wall. He grabs a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, pours himself a shot, adds some ice, and swallows it down. He does the same thing again. And again. He's getting hot and needs to cool off. He knows where to find some air.

He drags himself along, lightheaded and struggling to stay upright. It's not just the drinking; he's been running on empty for days. There's a certain comfort in being a little dizzy, in forgetting his own name for a few moments. But then the dreams come, and everything rushes back. He's always thought those dreams were born in hell. As a kid, he believed God was giving him a glimpse of the darkness, a warning to seek salvation and avoid the terrors that haunted his sleep.

Now he's convinced there's a presence behind them, but he can't tell if it's a divine or satanic force. The uncertainty drives him mad. Sometimes he's in a garden full of corpse flowers in their rare bloom, their blade-like spikes and bleeding flesh colour and putrid stench. And there they speak to him. They talk to him, again and again, they want him carnally, they tell him they need his pollen, they deceive him with the illusion of a human corpse, as they do with beetles. He can really feel the attraction of these stinking harlots, as if he were a flesh fly. A strange metallic buzzing fills these dreams, as if their landscapes are being ripped open and rebuilt each time, the phallus, the spadix, growing larger with each sound. The grass is cold and the colour of coal, and he wanders through it, trying to feel it all, and the smell is never so pungent as he needs it to be completely satisfied. 

He keeps checking to see if he left any meat rotting in the fridge to make sense of the sickly purple, but the garden of corpse flowers seems to come from somewhere immaterial. He wakes up aroused, writhing against the sheets, needing more of this dream. If it's not the devil, why would God send him such dreams? He keeps trying to figure out what they're omens of.

In his closet, he pulls out a charming white McClintock dress, the kind rich girls wore when he was a kid and his sisters coveted but could never buy. Surprisingly, it fits him well, although you wouldn't guess it from seeing him on TV in his suits with shoulder pads. The fit is a bit snug, but his narrow waist and shoulders make it work. The dress hits just above his knee. He pairs it with white ankle boots and stockings. It's very much like the undergarments of a 19th century whore, he guesses. He adjusts his hair. He slicked it back in public to keep it from looking too long, but with a bit of mussing, it frames his face in a lovely way. He paints his lips. Bright red.

He heads for that place, tucked between a dry cleaner and a run-down bookstore, the kind of mystical place Paradise could never have imagined - "The Electric Eden," they called it. He had been going there for a few months. He liked the idea that the strongest, tallest girls, or the older ones, would find him out and give him a beating for all the things he said on the air. He closes his eyes and imagines it, the sound of his bones cracking. Then he wouldn't have to be much of a person in the hospital, he'd be taken care of. He steps through the plain green door, marked only by a plaque with a vine etched into it. Inside, it glows with warm fairy lights. 

The place could be anything or nothing at all. To him, it's nothing at all. It's less real than his dreams. He still recalls the first time he discovered this sin. As a teenager, he searched Scripture from cover to cover, but couldn't find a single mention of it. There is Romans 1:26-27, but it’s vague enough that it could mean anything. He convinced himself it wasn't real, much like he doesn't feel real at this moment. Since he never gets discovered, that must be proof that he's not what he normally appears to be, if he's anything at all. He sometimes buys magazines, things with names like "Girl on Girl", "Girls Without Boys", "Woman to Woman Sex!", but he feels that none of them are made for him, they just make him dizzy with self-disgust, Paul's hands all over him, Mercy's Polaroids... There are no girls like Nora in them. 

You didn't pry too much into someone's private life at Electric Eden. Many eyes had been fixed on him when he first walked in with the address scribbled on a crumpled piece of paper. A pretty little girl, smoking alone at her table, too shy to even order. That day he wore a silver cross, he had been too careless. All night long he was spoiled by this handsome dyke, her name was Nora, thirty nine, from what she told him. He was taller than her, but she was much bigger and wider. He thought she would be bored or irritated by his mysterious face, he hardly spoke, he thought he had an unmistakable voice for most Americans at this point, but he had assumed too much, deluded by the fact that large crowds seem infinite to a country boy like him. Of course he felt more popular than he was. But she wasn't irritated, she played with his necklace, told him more than once that he was beautiful, that his hands were soft, that she would like to show him the ropes, and he let her caress his knee, just a little. "You're not from around here, are you?” 

He said he was Elizabeth, a recent transplant from Bakersfield, here for college. The bartender had this down by now.

"Are you drinking tonight, Liz?" 

He pressed his hand to his cheek, which always burned when he was there. They were kind to him, he was being pursued, he hadn't given in to any of them yet, but they were slow and patient and chivalrous. Not like how he imagined. Even though Nora had joked the first time, "Stay away from the pool table, if they saw a little lady like you…"

"Oh no, I drank too much at home…"

"I can see. You're all flushed." 

“Is Nora here”, he says quickly, almost too quickly for the bartender to hear, but they’re used to Liz by now, it intrigues them. Liz is a challenge.

"She's standing over there by the jukebox with a newcomer. She's a journalist, writes for Sisterhood of Angels." 

Must be some satanic feminist rag. He fantasizes for a moment that they're talking about him, his campaign against the ERA and abortion, when he talks about women's issues, the public finds him credible. It's hard to paint him as an oppressive husband with a belt and a scowl. Those kinds of attacks just don't stick to someone with his face. If tried, it would sound so absurd that it would probably backfire. He helps himself, you could say he's never screamed "baby killer" outside of clinics, for him it's always about little girls being conscripted, men convincing innocent women to kill their unborn children, fooling them into the worst of sins for the sake of sexual gratification, this dirty word, sexual gratification. He always makes it clear that they will burn first. And it works because he has the right face of someone whose bleeding heart couldn't possibly tolerate the low tricks of the lower members of his sex. They wouldn't need any of that if they were with him. He is a good salesman, it works.

He imagines Nora and the new girl saying all kinds of violent things about him…

As he walks over to her, he thinks about how far he's willing to let her go tonight, how much he's willing to let her touch before she realizes the truth. He wonders if she'll be bothered, and if she'll make fun of him again in her low voice for his choice of song. He feels lightheaded, so maybe he'll even try to dance.

His blood grows cold when he sees her - Eleanor from Paradise High. She's taller now, her gaze sharper, gripping her gin and tonic. Her hair is longer, falling just short of her knees, and it's the same solid brown colour. She wears stylish aviator-style glasses, and her wrist is encircled by many bright green and purple bracelets that stand out under the loose white sleeve of her flowing shirt.

For the first time since he stumbled into Electric Eden, he feels completely like prey, surrounded by hunger and teeth, feeling hot breath against his neck. He longs for someone to hold him, and yet he wants to savour the fear, a real, virgin fear that he hasn't fully exhausted yet. 

"Is she another newbie?" she says, and the sound of her voice brings back a memory. He looks away, squeezing his thighs together, as her eyes travel up and down his body.

“She doesn’t even look real, does she? You could paint her” Nora adds.

"I'm a virgin sacrifice," he says, biting his red lower lip. He recalls Eleanor's paintings from that time. He can't remember why she liked him so much. Mercy Miller? He remembers her, of course. But what else? He's not sure.

Nora interrupts, "You're a model." He gives a coy little giggle.

Eleanor adds with a laugh, "A little Catholic girl was killed on her First Communion day…”

"You're so familiar! You can't be from Paradise, can you?" He knows he's been caught. He should get out of there. He probably should get out of there. But he's having too much fun now. Her boldness is getting to him, and he's wondering what they'll do to him… 

"Bakersfield, isn't it? Liz said she's from there." Nora lifts an eyebrow. Eleanor, on the other hand, lifts her chin. It's as if she's taking in every shape of him. 

"I went to high school in Paradise, but it's a complicated story," he says, knowing it's risky, but he has a bit of a crush on Nora and would hate for her to think he's a liar.  

Eleanor tilts her head, and he catches her eye, his feet shuffling bashfully across the floor as he keeps his hands behind his back. “Oh, I remember this girl. Come with me," she says, "I'll steal you for a moment…”

He sinks into terror like a stranded beast, drowning in the sweetness of it. He doesn't resist, he just raises his hand to let Nora know he'll be right back.

They pass a table of girls with buzz cuts, four or five of them, all wearing leather jackets and boots. He struggles to avoid staring, to avoid thinking about it, which isn’t a challenge given his current state. She sits him at the edge of the room, where even the music is muffled by the sound of wild laughter and kissing. His reflection stares back at him from her glasses. This isn't him. He is fine, he hopes. Eli is safe at home. He tells himself he is fine.  

She takes one last sip from her glass, then sets it down. The glass clinking against the table makes him jump. It's clear to her that Eli is here and he is drowning.

"Eleanor, from the Art club - I'm sure you remember me. We hung out a bit around the time of the Mercy case. I got into journalism, but now I'm doing what I've always loved: art. I'm trying out new mediums, showing my work in galleries, but still working for this Women's Liberation paper for now. And aren't you a full-time lobbyist now?”

"I'm not," he says, his voice rising in defence. "I'm a servant of God." Though his words are slightly slurred, he presses on. "I have a duty to speak out against the world as I see it. It's my responsibility to condemn sin and save this country from those under swayed by the Antichrist to do his nasty work who seek to destroy it. If that means standing against laws that threaten our very existence and preventing an era of despair, then I must take that stand. I have no choice. You can try to ruin me if you dare…”

"Look at you, poor thing…" Eleanor sighs, her eyes fixed on his glossy cherry lips shimmering under these low lights as he says "ruin me", the words almost playful, but not intended to be. "You're in a rough spot. Mercy has really done a number on you. Why are you even here? Places like this one are a home for many girls like me. You’re disturbing the peace with your hatred. I can feel its weight. It's ruining the mood. You carry something so dark that I can't even name it. It's like someone dumped a dead child on the dance floor. That's why I recognized you. Otherwise, you just looked like any blond femme.”

“Now why bring her up? Yes, I'm here, I'm here, but aren't we all sinners? We've all done things we're ashamed of...And there's no one to help me because I'm the one who's supposed to help everyone else, and I can't confess that to a brother, I cannot sin like any other man...” He begins to pout and sulk, like a child, now that he's found someone familiar to turn to for his need to be mothered.

"Spare me, you want people like me dead...But don't worry, I'm not going to cause a riot here. I'm calm. I'm just invested in this. It doesn't surprise me, though, I can see it…”

"I have nothing against you girls. I don't understand why you have to walk hand in hand with sinners and defend their interests. I understand why you do this, however. Go with other women. The men of our nation have been ruined by pornography. If we don't take action, the next generation will suffer the same fate. Just look at what has been made of me.”

“Don’t worry, I know well enough porn is evil. And I know why it’s evil. But you've always been this way. In high school, I thought you were pretty, Liz. I didn't want to make things worse for you, since everyone else was already giving you a hard time about something you couldn't help. I know how horrible that is.” Eleanor's tone softens when she remembers that in high school, she had displayed her early works to many people, back in the early 70s when she could clearly see the direction taken by this new freedom: girls being split in consumable parts by mechanical monsters and devoured on the plate of rabid human beasts. They acted like they didn't understand. It’s morbid, a shaved leg being cut up and put in a box. "You need to work on your anatomy, Eleanor," the kind of things the teacher said, but she knew the teacher was barely hiding the fact that she found it distasteful. Eli understood, and told her, "These are our end days, Eleanor, you are the painter of our end days!” 

"I just…believe wolves are trying to fool lambs into thinking that letting them into the shed to eat them is freedom, but it is not, and it's a shame so many lambs are misled into opening the gate.”

"I'm tempted to pick a fight with you over why lambs are in sheds in the first place, but this is not the time and place and I don't think I need to add to your troubles," Eleanor says with a snicker, her tone more sorry than spiteful. She's recalling their high school years all too clearly to fully support Paul's latest work in Fog & Fire. "Your brother's already given you a hard time. Have you seen his latest…”

The mention of Paul makes him almost heave. He scrunches his face, as if he had tasted something disgusting. He's been building up a lot of work lately, with so many things piling up. And now, to make matters worse, he finds out that Paul, of all people, has been talking about him. He's on the verge of breaking down in tears in front of her. "No! I haven't... What…"

"This is a very recent piece, it was just released today.”

He grits his teeth, saying, 'It's not like anyone reads his rag, just a few communists.” His eyes hone in on the saliva-slicked embrace of two girls, their tongues entwined like flames breathing life into each other. 

"He's gone back to Paradise to dig up some dirt for this one, and let me tell you, it's bad news, it’s going to spread, Reverend” she says in a nonchalant manner and pulls a cigarette out of the pocket of her jeans. "One last smoke?”  

He's still fixed on the display in front of him, not her face, but he takes the cigarette and she lights it. He doesn't even thank her, just shifts the chair and walks away, his eyes empty as he returns to Nora. You can think about this tomorrow, he tells himself. Tomorrow, that's what he'll do. Tomorrow is soon enough.

He brushes his hand weakly against hers, catching her attention. Nora's hand is rough. His voice cracks, like a teenager's, with the cigarette still in his mouth, as he says, "I've never danced here before. Will you teach me? I want to try. I need someone to hold me.” 

They dance by the Blue Tree, a strange structure of metal branches twisted upward like frozen lightning, the neon tubes of a soft, ghostly blue like the text of the name of his show shining from many televisions across the nation. It was as if these metal branches had captured many stars from the sky in the form of small light bulbs. He had never seen anything like the Blue Tree before, like many strange things in this place. How could a place with the Blue Tree by the dance floor be a real place? The Blue Tree was not a real tree.

Eli lies in his bed, lost in thought. He doesn't remember how he got here. The sheets are clean, but they blur in his vision. The room is dark, yet he feels a rhythm, as if he's still dancing. The bed sways gently beneath him. Suddenly, the TV flickers on, he starts to get up, his eyes still closed. A sweet, inviting voice, like heavy cream, fills the room. It nudges him awake with its warmth and soft humming of a 71’ ad, “I’d Like to Buy The World a Coke.” The colours through the flashing static are of a bygone summer, the colours of an old picture, and there is a young girl, probably a teenager, facing the camera and singing as her red dress, with a delicate bow at the height of her chest and a sailor-like white trim, flows in the breeze; she is standing by a white kiosk with a large Coca-Cola sign, holding up an open glass bottle. Her long black ponytail is tied up with a white lace bow. He is unsettled, not by the strange phenomenon or the fact that the TV just won't turn off, but by the shortness of her dress, the sultry tone of her voice, which is as familiar as a sister calling him to dinner. It all feels intentional and seductive, more so than ads from when he was in high school.

He thinks it must be one of those dreams, but they weren't his usual kind, his only sensual dreams were about flowers, but maybe the depravity of that place had influenced him, or maybe it was the dance, or the Blue Tree.

He crawls even closer to the TV, studying her. He remembers something, but he doesn’t remember what. 

"Do you remember me, Mr Sunday?” She speaks in a whisper, her words soft as she reaches out, her touch making the screen vibrate.

Eli shakes his head under the light. “I don’t, who are you? Why can’t I turn the TV off? Can you leave my screen? I don’t want to look at you.” 

She smiles, a faintly disappointed smile, and clicks her tongue. "I was sure you did…”

Her eyes cross. "You're a liar, mister?” 

“I don’t lie. It’s a sin.” 

She lets out an impish giggle with her red mouth, the same shade that was still a little bit on his lips from not washing it off properly when he, somehow, arrived stumbling at his apartment. She removes her hands from the screen and encircles the glass bottle. Even her nails match their red hue. She starts to stroke it, then begins to gently shake it, mimicking a lewd gesture.

“How long has it been…Do you want to jack off?”

His pupils constrict, and he leans in closer to examine this absurdity, shaking his head more vigorously. "What? What even! No!”

Her red lips part as her tongue darts out to play with the rim of the glass, causing some of the liquid to spill onto her tongue and trickle down her neck.

"This is a lie! I know it's a lie. I need some cream with my Coke. I can strip for you. I can fuck myself for you with this bottle. I can fuck myself to death." 

Her bright, dissonant smile, and the metallic buzz of his garden of corpse flowers dreams beginning to play in place of the song, make him tremble before he knows it. But just like that, the fear turns into a throbbing hard-on, the kind he gets all the time when he is frightened into a cold sweat. He's learned that dreams are not just shadows; they're stages to be conquered on the divine path the Almighty has laid out for him. If this is his dream, he thinks, why not steer the ship? He can master the moment and ace the test before him and make God happy.

Through his fear, he forces out a big, stern voice to the TV. "No. You will fold your hands, you will sink to your knees, you will now recite Psalm 51.” 

The girl’s blue eyes on the screen turn to frost. “I won’t! You can’t say no to me. You can’t! You’ll soil yourself—you will!”

The girl screams, squeezing the glass bottle in her hand until it threatens to crack. In a moment of primeval terror, he clutches his throbbing erection, and feels a libidinous agony throughout his body like a spreading nausea, the analog noise on the TV merging with his increasingly disoriented vision.

He wants to scream too, but all he can do is stroke himself convulsively, it hurts more than it feels good. His voice loses all strength, his face twists up. The voice coming from him becomes the usual, sibilant, spitting sound of his feral rage. "You will do as I say, or I will kill you. I have a holy knife, a sanctified stake. I will drive it through you. Repent or perish, repent or perish…”

As the camera zooms in on her face, growing ecstatic, filling the entire screen, he can’t see what she is doing with the bottle, she starts to hyperventilate and sway back and forth as if being pulled by a demonic force. Her moans come out in quick bursts, escaping from her lips without pause. "Each push from your holy knife feels like that, yes, like a part of me is cracking, like it's opening holes in me and I'm full of tears bleeding from the inside. You’re murdering me, I love you, God, I love you…" She lays her head back. The whole screen is now just her neck. "If you go on stroking, you will break my neck, yes, I will loll like a poppy in the rain-soaked fields…"

He's starting to cry from masturbating so dry and furious, and he's always been sensitive. ”Tell me, what's your name? What's your name? I can almost remember it…" 

"Yours..." Her eyes, once blue, now roll back and are completely white. Her moans transform into wails of sorrow. 

As her breathing slows and rattles, her neck suddenly snaps with a stomach-churning squelch. He hears the sound of a broken bottle shattering within her, but he can't see the blood gushing out from between her legs. The fleshy, wet crunching noise is followed by her ponytail drooping down and her head hanging low, like a loose baby tooth about to fall out.

White seed spurts out from him, staining his fingers as he tries to do everything he can to turn away, but he feels a cold hand around his throat, and that's almost enough to make him go again. "You didn't tell me…"

The mechanic buzz ceases. The TV's pixel snow cuts in, replacing the ugly sight, but he tries to angle the rabbit ears and a man's voice announces, "This concludes our sponsors' message. We'll now return to The Flame Of Pentecost.” 

He looks at himself at thirteen, struggling to reach the height of the microphone. With narrowed eyes, he tries to capture the long lost baby blue cotton innocence. At twenty-six, too much has slipped through his fingers.

The angel-voiced boy recites, initially reading from his Bible, but as he gains confidence, from heart. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me… ”

Eli falls asleep at the edge of the bed, his body tilted precariously close to rolling off near the dresser feet, as he softly sings a lullaby to himself in the light. 

The morning after, Eli asked his assistant Matthew to bring him the newspapers he had requested. Matthew, a young man in his early thirties and four years older than Eli, complied. Eli was aware that Matthew resented being older than his boss, and he could see the envy in his eyes - a feeling Eli couldn't tolerate, and one that might soon lead him to replace Matthew. At his studio desk, Eli sips a cup of light, sugary coffee with whipped cream; he has a weakness for sweet treats and finds black, bitter coffee repulsive. The room is quiet, except for the sound of the choir practicing in the adjacent room. 

"Brother Sunday?", the assistant bursts in without knocking. Eli sets down his coffee cup, his deliberate movement conveying his annoyance at the lack of courtesy. Matthew looks pale, mopping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief while clutching a folder in his other hand. As the cup hits the table with an irritated clang, the man defensively shouts "I'm sorry!", causing Eli's eyes to widen in complete confusion. 

Eli's voice falters, low and coaxing, "Brother Matthew, what's wrong? You seem really on edge.”

He slaps the folder on the desk and runs out the door. Eli leaps up. "Matthew! What's going on here? That's the last straw! I'm firing you!" But by the time he's pointing, the door has already slammed shut. Eli chases after him, but Matthew's face has turned red with fear; even his eyes are bloodshot. "I quit, Brother," he says, "I can't do this. Don't call me, don't ever call me again. My mind is made up.”

Eli's mouth hangs open as he walks back to his leather seat, struggling to comprehend the situation, the folder still untouched. "Has everyone gone crazy?” 

He finally grabs the red folder and pulls away the string to retrieve the newspaper. After taking another sip of his coffee, he scoops up some whipped cream with his finger and sucks on it. His teal blue eyes, usually giving a doe-eyed impression of naivety, turn sad, and his expression falls. His lips droop downward, looking petulant, as if pouting at the newspaper could change something. 

“FOG & FIRE, 

San Francisco, September 1982.

Paradise’s Darkest Sunday: My Brother’s Forgotten Sermon.

By Paul Sunday, 15 September, 1982.

"Let me tell you about a Sunday in Paradise, not the heavenly one, but one with milk cartons showing the faces of missing girls and my brother's uncanny ability to whip up mass hysteria, a talent he still possesses. In 1972, the world was in turmoil. Vietnam was consuming young lives, and Nixon was leading us into a constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, my brother was preaching to a fearful congregation, after all, these were the years of "The Late Great Planet Earth" book and the flick “A Thief In the Night.” They saw the end everywhere but where it really was. That was the year Mercy Miller disappeared. Her case wasn't well known outside of Paradise, my hometown. She was a seventeen-year-old cheerleader who disappeared days after her birthday. I got the news from the few friends I still had in Paradise, but by then I was living in San Francisco, young and broke, with the police on my tail, trying to unlearn all the religious poison. 

My brother's sermons have gone national, moving beyond his small, struggling town. He's now serving the interests of big business, dividing workers on a massive scale. You've probably come across his culture war rhetoric on TV, radio, or the press. But there's one thing you might not know about. I didn't know about it either, until a young man, who also grew up in Paradise, I'll call him A, told me. I went back to Paradise to look into it and even got a hold of a recording, just in case someone says it didn't happen. 

There's a legendary story in Paradise that's hard to ignore. Despite being deeply disturbing, Paradise’s Pentecostal church sees it as a prophetic awakening for my brother. The story goes like this. In March 1972, my brother Elijah, aged sixteen, ascended the pulpit steps in his Sunday best: a dusty, blood-streaked black suit that hung loosely on his boyish frame. The event was broadcast live on Paradise Channel 5, a small-town station whose reach was so limited that it remained unknown to most of California.

Until now. Back then, no one thought to record it. Video was too expensive. But an audio recording survived, and I managed to get it. Through this recording and the witnesses who saw it live, I came to understand my brother better. They described how he went from a backwoods "prophet" to a nationally recognized figure in just ten years. This story isn't about miracles. It's about mud. The mud that made him.

The Boy Wonder of Paradise.

Eli wasn't always the man you see on your TV screens today. Before the cameras and the stadium crowds and the packed tents, before the money, Eli was just a boy. My little brother. He had a bright, honest face, fat cheeks for such a thin body, and a head full of golden hair. People called him the holy boy because his voice, when raised in a gospel song, was pure enough to make grown men weep. In those days he spoke in tongues and moved in strange ways, as did the rest of our Pentecostal family, before it became inconvenient when he wanted to gain the support of the Baptists. It is said that he still practices it in less public services. 

But Eli wasn't holy, he was hungry, starving for attention, for validation, for anything. This hunger didn't come from God, but from our struggles as poor farmers' sons, oppressed by the capitalist system. Maybe it even came from me, who couldn't stand the person he was becoming, and who left him to escape a brutal, criminal, imperialist war that I didn't want to die in. 

Eli's hunger made him powerful. When he preached from the pulpit, people thought they saw God's light in him. But I heard something different - the same anger in his voice that our father had when he whipped us for being "impure." Eli learned young that fear makes people obey.

The Forgotten Sermon and What Eli Didn’t Say. 

That morning, Eli's sermon felt different. The Eli I knew? A master manipulator since childhood. He balanced fire with honey. But not this time. This time, it was all fire, all dirt and blood. He clutched the frame of the missing girl's picture. People who knew her remember her as troubled in more ways than one. "Troubled" is a nice word some people use when they want to call a woman a slut. Eli said that Mercy had come to him for salvation. He said she had demons within her and that she fought them bravely. He called her a warrior and a saint. And then he turned on the congregation, which included her parents, and accused them of abandoning her, of driving her to sin. "You killed her!" he told her parents, saying they had killed their missing daughter.

Eli left some things out of that sermon. He didn't mention why his suit was covered in dirt and blood. He didn't explain how he knew so much about Mercy's personal struggles, her demons, and her death. Even now, the truth about Mercy Miller's fate remains a mystery. The town has moved on, as small towns often do. Mercy's father died in a car accident, and her mother declines to be interviewed. When I listen to that tape, I still find myself wondering. Have you seen her? Have you seen Mercy Miller?

He shouted, "DO YOU SEE ME NOW? Covered in dirt and blood? This is how God will come to you! This is how He came to Mercy Miller!” Eli never explained why God came to Mercy in blood. He just told them to get down on their knees, and they did, her mother did, they wept, and they believed. Millions of Americans continue to do the same thing at his ridiculous shows, only now they give him their money. What hits me hardest about that sermon, listening to it now, isn't Eli calling the town a modern Babylon, that's just his usual rhetoric. It's not even how he took control of the room or how people fell to their knees like God was right there. What really stands out is the quiet moments: when his voice wavers, his breathing gets shallow, and it sounds like he's struggling to hold back what he’s not saying.

Paradise’s Dried Flower, Devoured by the fire.

In 1972, we didn't panic over missing kids like we do now. We didn't realize, or maybe we just ignored, how danger could be hiding in plain sight, even in the most unexpected places, especially for the vulnerable. The town acknowledges that not enough was done back then. It's possible that missing children are being used to serve powerful interests today, but in the past, they were often forgotten, especially when the truth was inconvenient for everyone. It's estimated that every year, 1.5 million children in America go missing.

I'm not saying Eli killed Mercy, and I don't think someone else did either. The truth is, we still don't know what happened to her. The authorities didn't look hard enough, and the town has moved on. It's just like life to simply push the past aside. But I've got this nagging feeling, as an older brother, I can tell when my younger sibling is hiding something.

When I see my brother on TV now, preaching to millions about redemption and righteousness, I'm reminded of the voice of the boy from 1972 who stood in the pulpit, they say shaking with fear and fury. I see something there that’s off. I see the danger of blind faith. 

That day, Paradise bowed down to Eli not because he made sense, but because he made them feel something. He gave them a scapegoat, themselves, a narrative, sweet, sweet, guilt and a way to explain the unexplainable. And now, all these years later, millions bow down to him for the same reasons.

I'm not writing this to destroy Eli, even though I’d like to. I'm writing this because the truth matters, and we've gone too long without holding accountable those who serve Capital and terrorize us with false fears. Americans all need to ask ourselves who we're following and why.

You, middle-aged bourgeois woman who blames scapegoats for the problem of missing children—Godless communists, Satan, porn, homosexuals—maybe turn off the TV, close your wallet, and listen. Say a prayer for Mercy Miller. If you dare.”

Eli's face goes from sour to bright crimson as he lets out a loud scream and pounds his fist on the desk."MATTHEW!!! Come back, Matthew! You're turning your back on God and our nation!" He slumps forward, his elbows on the table, and bursts into tears, only now aware that Matthew has been gone for minutes. As he read the article, time had seemed to stop. 

He could barely make out the words, an ancient curse that didn't need to be understood to take hold of him somehow, to sink inside. He sits at his desk, overcome with emotion, and cries like a sad schoolchild for ten minutes. Then, he raises his head, pretending he hadn't read the article. This tactic always works. The article is fake, but he needs to take charge. He's still caught up in the dream, and it feels uncannily real. He realizes he doesn’t remember as much about Mercy Miller as he should. When has he lost a piece? When has it happened? He gets a sense of wrongness whenever he thinks of her, something almost human but not quite. It's like the feeling he had when he used to convulse and his father would yell, "Praise Him!" He wonders when he stopped having those convulsions. Did he teach himself to stop them to win over the Baptists, as Paul suggested? And did Jesus start appearing in his dreams after he lost the ability to hear Him during those fits?

Now, he must serve Him. Still crying, he dials a number from memory, not bothering to stifle his sad whimpers. He can't help it. When he breaks down, he has never learned to hold back tears because no one has ever expected him to. His family has always been comforted by his tears because they consider him too holy. "Abigail," he almost sobs when the voice on the other end answers, already anticipating the call. It's unprecedented for an article from that publication to have such an impact, not even in San Francisco, let alone beyond, in Angel City. "Come to my office as soon as you can, and bring the communications team," he blubbers, struggling to make himself understood. He repeats the message in a clearer manner, making an effort to compose himself. "Matthew turned his back on me and chose the Devil, do you understand? He just walked away, believing that red demon over me. I knew he wasn't of God, I knew it. He's a sinner, full of envy and rage!" he snivels. 

When Abigail arrives, she asks him what he wants to do. He nearly explodes at her. He needs someone to give him answers. He wants someone who knows what Paul is up to. How could he possibly remember what he was doing in spring 1972? Those were the days of the fits. He didn't own himself. There was God and the others. He was a puppet, and glad to be. He felt outside the world, not its pitiful creature. How could Paul demand he keep a schedule in that blissful, agonizing torpor?

He wipes away his tears. 'We'll do what we've always done,' he says. 'We'll tell the truth. What's the point of being someone if I don't tell the truth? Remind them, they crucified Jesus, who was sinless. So why would they spare a messenger like me? I've come at a time when the Antichrist's kingdom is waging war against us, I knew even back then. Paul is doing the same thing his Soviet bosses want him to do. He's not just happy to see us prosecuted over there - he wants to prosecute us here as well.”

Abigail writes and then asks, “Are we explicitly accusing him of Soviet ties?” 

He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know.” 

She lets out a harsh laugh. “If you don’t know, who will…”

"It's not necessary, it's self-evident. He's a Communist. I want to make it clear this goes beyond that. When I was a boy, I didn't know much about politics beyond what my father told me, but I knew about demons. They're real. Paul is one. I knew it as a boy, and I know it now. He used to... " His dried eyes well up again, and Abigail struggles not to let out an audible sigh. 

"Are we accusing him of being a Satanist? Yes or no, please. We can talk more about this later, over coffee, but for now, what should I include in the press statement?" Abigail was a small woman with a slightly squeaky voice, yet she was loyal, a faithful Christian, and good at her job.

“You know what? Yeah. I don't care. I would have kept it to myself, I am ashamed, it is not something I am happy to pollute the ears of those who believe in me with, but I see the connection. When I was a child he corrupted me. He hurt me on the outside, on the inside, I don't know how he got them, he always had such terrible…magazines, at hand. At first it was just your run of the mill godless pornography, but then pictures of... ropes, cuts, burns, and testimonies of lost souls saying that they wished, they wished for such horrible things, and he would hurt me! Not by doing them to me, no. He wanted me to be like him. He wanted me to become him. He still does. Write that he corrupted me, that I know his character.” 

Abigail is slightly shaken, especially since the tears haven’t stopped fully streaming down Eli’s cheeks.

"He called it freedom. He said I was the one imprisoned, because of my love for God. Abigail, I have these... gaps in my memory. Don't put that in writing. I do remember Mercy Miller, though - a poor, lost child. I knew her well, but everything else is a blur. It's odd, because I'm certain I knew her like a sister. Write this down: men like Paul are responsible for her death, and they're still killing women like her. They hypnotize them, convincing them that bleeding out is freedom.” 

Abigail glances away, not wanting to meet his pained eyes. "This gets very personal. Paul's a self-declared Communist, so you've got the advantage. I doubt he'd deny admiring the USSR or wanting similar tyranny in America. He dodged the draft in the 70s and has disrespected our religion and country. Must we bring up the personal?”

"Abigail, the key to his attack lies in the personal. We've seen it, we know now - Satan feeds on children, on white innocence. Paul fed on me. He's not done yet..." Eli places a hand on his face, letting out a soft, strained sound. 

By mid-afternoon, Eli is on the phone with his attorneys, the article spread out in front of him as they discuss their next move. "This is slander," Eli says. "He's not just making a suggestion - he's almost directly accusing me of killing that poor, lost lamb when I was sixteen! And he has no proof, just some claim of divine inspiration. I don't recall that sermon, but if I did say those things, it must have been a vision from God - the angels must have revealed her troubles to me and Paradise must have deserved its chastisement. I'm not concerned about how he obtained the recording, because I stand by the word of God that guided me. But this slander and what he's done with it is unacceptable. I'll take legal action to shut down the paper - this is libel.”

The lawyer's voice on the other end is much calmer. "You need to be careful and prepare yourself. If this ends up in court, it will draw more attention. Address it through your platform. Since his claims are baseless, it might not matter unless there is a lawsuit, so, if I were you, Brother Sunday, I would refrain from taking such aggressive action against him or the publication. He can say whatever he wants, but speculation isn't a credible accusation. If he does produce the audio tape, though, we'll have to assess how damaging your words are. If they're very damaging…" 

“But people will read that garbage and think it’s true!” 

“Fog & Fire is niche—it’s not The New York Times. Maybe say it. Paul is using your name for renown. If we move quietly, we can isolate the story before it spreads. I’ll have our team reach out to their editors and legal counsel. A letter—not aggressive, but firm—reminding them of their responsibility to substantiate claims could be enough to make them think twice about running follow-ups. Please, Brother, no emotionalisms. You’re no longer a child. Most small outlets don’t want the financial burden of even a potential legal fight.”

Eli couldn’t tell when the floodgates opened so wide. Once, he held his feelings tight enough; now, there’s a leak, they spill unchecked everywhere. It feels like he’s wandered backward through his own growth, stumbling into the marsh where progress gets stuck. He hopes the lawyer is right, that Paul is happy enough to have this out there to give him nightmares. He wrote it, Paul said he wished he could destroy him, but he can't, he can’t.

Eli exhales. "Fine. Send them a letter. Keep it from becoming a circus. But they need to know I won't accept more lies.” 

He spends the remainder of the day contacting his major donors. He retrieves the list of names and numbers written in Matthew's now-vacant handwriting. Some of them are wealthy widows, and he hates talking to them, or the senator, or the oil magnate. He is terrified that he's just managed to win the oil magnate's favour, despite being seen by some as a bizarre upstart who shares little in common with most of white America's Baptist faith. Paul was right about that, and that part of the article hurt more than any other. The oil magnate views him as a lobbyist, not a miracle worker or healer. He knows he ignores the Holy Spirit's power, but he needs him anyway. 

Conversing with the widows is one of the most difficult tasks for him. Despite his experience communicating with women, he must suppress his disgust and play a specific role for them. It feels degrading to lower his voice and listen to the women's voices tremble while talking to a young man. Others would judge him as a cynic for being able to see through to the true intentions hidden behind their outwardly flawless behaviours. But that's because they can't hear it like he can - the breathy tones and suggestive undertones poorly masked beneath their seemingly sincere joy and support. When they say he is a cynic they don't understand. They don't know what it's like to be innocent and eager, fresh to the business of saving souls. He wanted to help. He used to answer every letter, trying to offer patient counsel. But then he is made to read about injury, torture, and filth. To read of bleeding and bruises, black and blue. Black and Blue. At the age of nineteen or twenty, he came across a billboard with the words "I'm "Black and Blue" by the Rolling Stones, and I love it!" The image displayed was of a girl contorted in a way that only Paul had made him see before. It resembled someone being tortured in hell, with a fierce darkness burning in her eyes. What disturbed him most was the phrase "I love it," which seemed to make a mockery of the natural order. It was as if it was celebrating God's wrath with reckless abandon from the perspective of someone fearless, from lack of feeling rather than courage, entirely consumed by disobedience, so numb, so anesthetized that they felt nothing, lacking sentience in body and soul. It’s below beastly, animals may have no fear of God, but even they have a fear of pain and a desire for happiness. That year, he wrote in his newsletter, encouraging his followers to get baptized in the Holy Ghost at his tent, with the title "I'm Slain by the Holy Ghost — and I love it!”

That letter, those letters, felt like that billboard. Someone tells him they want to see his innocence consumed by mindless sin, to reduce him to a dumb machine that dispenses violence heartlessly and efficiently, something that pierces and doesn't remember. They want him, inexplicably, to hurt them and bring them closer to Satan. It's as if every part of him is turned upside down, perverting him into his opposite. Admiration from others never feels the same again. It's always there, lurking. He closes his eyes, but it creeps back. Someone wants to make him an acolyte of a sect. This sect strangely glorifies ugliness. It finds ecstasy in blistering, arid fantasies of ravaged meadows, where it imagines itself as the meadow.

He thinks that among those who confess their lust to him, he's never been tested with a confession of someone's dreams of mutual indulgence. It always goes down like this: people think he'll chow down on flesh like Paul, even though he's crying because he can't keep it down and is scared of getting sick or his brain turning to mush. And they think he'll say, like some disgusting creature, "Thanks for the sacrifice. I love to eat myself sick, I love to eat you into nothingness, and I'll cram it all in before puking it back up.” He can understand why some men cry on their wedding night, praising and thanking the Lord for creating them men, but he thinks it's foolish, because the woman only has to die down there, but the man has to taste the flesh, he's being force-fed something that's already rotten and unfeeling, something that's already up there in cleanliness, that's abandoned the vessel that she left him, and he's obligated to consume the leftovers of that vessel.

All in all, this makes the oil tycoon a more tolerable interlocutor. 

Eli tries to sound warm and confident, "Mr. Allen, it's Brother Sunday. I hope I'm catching you at a good time.”

"Eli, I've been waiting for your call. I'm sure you've read that article, 'Trouble in Paradise!’, or something along those lines? This is exactly what I was worried about when I told you to tone down your dramatics in the pulpit. Now, with your Communist brother opposing your message, it's easy to see how people might misinterpret your intentions.”

"I was sixteen years old...my style was unpolished, I wanted to speak strongly, as much as I could, despite my tiny throat. What I said then had to be said. The blood...was goat's blood, unless I'm misremembering. Yes. The truth is, I don't even remember that sermon. I must have given a thousand since then. That tells you a lot. If Paul feels the need to attack me now, it means my message, it's taking hold in consciences. I wanted to call you personally to make sure you know this won't affect anything - certainly not the work we've done together.”

"Ah, you're still the same," he says, a hint of mockery in his voice. "Soft, whispered voice, smooth cheeks. You can understand why I'm more worried than you. You promised me discretion. If this gets bigger, it's not just your problem, it's mine too. And I can't afford that, Eli, not with something like this, you know how people lose all rationality when they have something like this... I have a daughter who is that girl’s age when she disappeared.”

"I wouldn't let it come to that. The publication is small, and my legal team is already handling it. We're making sure there's no follow-up, and I've got my people working on strengthening the public image of the ministry as we speak. This ministry reaches millions of people, hardworking Americans who believe in the values on which we've built this nation: faith, freedom and opportunity. That message has not changed, and it will not change.” Eli glances around the room as if looking for Abigail's approval for speaking so soberly, but she had left an hour earlier.

"Good, for now, son, I’ll pray for your situation, my daughter too. That's what I need to hear. But let's be clear - if this article gets picked up by the bigger outlets, I'll have to reassess. I can't risk being tied to anything unstable.”

He wished he could have said clearly, "I'm not your son," but the businessman had already hung up. 

He feels desperate and alone. He realizes he doesn't know anyone, he would need Nora so much, but going to Electric Eden the night before had opened a portal and he didn't want to invite any more demons. He remembers Eleanor. Eleanor knew about Mercy. She could have helped him with this confusion. He looks her up in the yellow pages and remembers the name of the paper, Sisterhood of Angels. 

He flips through the pages nervously, tracing the listing when he finds it, taking a deep breath of relief that it was listed at all. He dials the number, not caring that he is calling her on the studio's number when she and the paper were technically a dangerous enemy. But unknown enough.

When her voice is the one he hears on the other end of the phone, he lights up with a smile amidst his tears. 

"Sisterhood of Angels, this is Eleanor. Who am I speaking with?"

"Sunday Eli from the Flame of Pentecost.”

Eleanor glances around the small, cramped room, taking in the disarray of papers and typewriter on the desk. Her face reflects her disbelief. "What's this about? You're calling me here?" she says, her tone incredulous. "It's ridiculous.”

He's struggling to find the right words. There's something he needs, but he doesn't know how to get it, and it's driving him crazy. He hates feeling frustrated, and right now, it's overwhelming him. "I had a nightmare last night, just like one of your paintings... I need to see you, I'm scared. I don't want to be alone, and you're the only person in this city who's been around long enough to know what really happened in Paradise…”

She hesitates, trying to keep her voice down, mortified that the other girls might still be around and discover she's been in contact with someone who threatened their rights. "Wait, you're calling me because of a bad dream? Are you out of your goddamn mind?" If they really knew what a miserable, pitiful person he was, it would only be worse.

"Don't curse the Lord!" he says, urgency in his voice. "This isn't just a nightmare. It's a warning, a prophecy. I need to talk to you about it. I swear, no politics. Just a minute, and we'll get some coffee…" 

"Why single me out? I'm not a collaborator, and I don't know what's behind this idea of yours, after just a few minutes of conversation..." She was sure he couldn't be serious about asking her to confront Paul in the press through her small, tailored feminist publication when he had plenty of other, less controversial options. And judging by his behaviour the night before, she knew it wasn't strategy - it was sheer madness.

"Because you've always seen what others overlook, you always knew what I was getting at... Our end times painter…” He tries flattery, his voice wobbling to a squeaky pitch. It quivers like water in a glass during an earthquake, barely contained.

"You're completely shameless," she shoots back. "Now I get how you can do all this stuff with a clear conscience.” 

"Condemn me if you want. I just want to meet my old friend again - the one who got me through Paradise after they left me in pieces.” A memory flashes, but it's not about what happened - it's about how it's left him. His eyes are heavy, his temperature is up, and he's cried so much already that day he’s dry, yet he can't stop crying.

"I'm not your friend, old or new, back then I was just being decent... Well, I'll see, if I can find some time later today, there's a coffee shop right across the street from the old bookstore, where you can also find that place you know so well.” She wanted to grab it right next to that spot, a reminder to him that she also knew Liz - that this was no collaboration or friendship, but rather her fascination with watching him implode. But had it been anyone else of his kind, no matter how curious she was, she would have hung up the moment she heard the voice.

"That's more than I could ask for. Yes, yes, thank you…”

When the call is done, he starts working out a schedule for the next few days. He needs to plan his next televised sermon, addressing this, but he's struggling to think about preaching when he's so confused. Maybe he'll even schedule a local prayer meeting - if someone touches his hands, he might figure out if he still has his outer layer of skin, given how raw he's felt since giving in to those "emotionalisms" he was always warned about. In his newsletter, The Dove, he needs to address the controversy in a careful and tactful way.

Most importantly, he needs to find a replacement for Matthew as soon as possible; without him, there's a notable deficit but he can't even imagine where to start looking for a new assistant.

At his apartment, he changes into a simple cream-coloured sweater and high-waisted pleated trousers, glad to be rid of the suit that was stained with sweat and tears. The wet sleeves were a mess, and he'd have to take it to the cleaner soon. In his casual clothes, he looks more like a college student, with an age that seems closer to nineteen than thirty. Cooling off didn't change his mind about meeting Eleanor. He is still barely holding it together, and he almost wishes he could grab someone on the street and tell them everything, just to see the discomfort in their expression and find some sense of balance. The coffee place's door is marked by a glowing white sign that reads "Angel's Diner". The booths are worn, with a few small tears in their cushions, and a chalkboard on the wall highlighting the daily specials. He feels like a lost child as he steps up to the counter to order the Short Stack Pancakes and more coffee with whipped cream. This feeling of being alone, like a kid who'd wandered off, was something he experienced every time he went out by himself. He couldn't seem to get comfortable in Angel City, especially in this neighbourhood, and whenever he thought he was adjusting, he realized it was just a false sense of security.

As the door jingles, he lifts his gaze from his pancake to see Eleanor, recognizable in her brown hair and large glasses. She's dressed in a grey jacket, olive green trousers, and scuffed leather boots, with a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. She looks around the room, her eyes darting from table to table, as if trying to avoid being noticed. He toys with his fork, pushing the blueberries around his plate, as she makes her way to his booth. Setting her bag down, she grips the table and asks, "What's so urgent that you needed to call me from the studio where you're commanding the production of a show that's always questioning my civil and political rights, eh, lunatic?”

"Sit down," he instructs with the friendliness of a charming, smiling talk show host.

“You’re not taking anything...?" He brings another piece of pancake to his mouth, takes a sip of coffee, and suddenly feels nervous now that they're actually talking. Earlier, when he'd gone to his apartment to change, he'd been running around the bedroom like he had to get out of there as fast as possible, as if he was being chased. He's a bundle of nerves.

Eleanor shakes her head, her gaze alone conveying that she's only interested in watching him unravel. It's obvious they're not close friends meeting for coffee, and now his syrupy pancakes and oversized cup make him look silly. He takes a deep breath, clears his throat, and goes for it.

"Do you remember, a year after Mercy Miller disappeared, you created that painting called Coca-Cola Girl?” 

"It was a mistake, I admit. It was crass and exploitative, but I kept thinking about how she wanted to do ads. She even tried to be in a Coke ad, which was a big deal for a small-town girl in 1970. The TV still felt like it was changing the world back then...But then you see stuff like that Love's Baby Soft commercial and it's like, this is the culture that destroyed her.” 

"You're right, and... uh..." He takes a deep breath, his eyes closed tight, like the memory hurts. "I had this dream, but it felt real. Not like a dream at all. It was last night, after I came back from... you know. I didn't drink that much, I even turned down drinks because I'd had some before. Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night, and the TV was on. There was this girl with black hair. She wouldn't give me her name, just said 'yours'. Like, we were the same or something. I didn't get it. She had a glass bottle, and... and she cut herself. From the inside, I don't know how. There was blood everywhere, and then... her neck just came off. And she kept telling me things, like I shouldn't look away, and other stuff I don't want to say out loud.” 

Eleanor's gaze shifts, a self-satisfied smile spreading across her face. "That's high praise for an artist. A painting from my senior year can still disturb and shake people's consciences to this extent.”

He grabs her arm, his pupils shrinking, his face scrunched up. "DON'T smile. Oh my sweet, dear Lord, I am terrified. Paul says there was a time when I was covered in blood and mud and spoke about Mercy on television. But I can't remember. Please, tell me about high school, Eleanor. I don't know why I've forgotten so much..." His eyes heat up again. Fat tears start to run down his face. He might dirty the sleeves of his sweater. 

"Just because my mom works in that field doesn't mean I'm a free psychologist on call. But I can give you her number - just don't go telling everyone you're going to see her.”

"No, Eleanor, no, you're the only one who can tell me... I know you remember everything, and I need to know right now…" 

"But really? You don't remember that broadcast? Paul’s right to say it’s legendary and controversial for Paradise residents. It exists, I saw it live back then. I’ll tell you something. It was great, now you're a corporate shill and a right-wing agitator, but that day, that day you went up there and you condemned a whole town for their negligence towards her, you asked them to pray to her like that, not for, to, it was pretty rad, because everyone was still talking behind her back even after she was gone. Of course I despised the apocalyptic rhetoric, but it wasn't like Paul makes it seem, it was the most sincere you’ve ever been, I’ll be honest. Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Anyway, it's strange and concerning that you can't remember something like that.”

Eleanor had a feud with Paul not long ago, Paul insisted that her vision of feminism was bourgeois and undermined class struggle, that it was un-Marxist to focus so much on identity, and it still burns, she sees him as the worst the left has to offer, and in her eyes not much better than his much-hated brother. His article is nothing more than another man using a girl's sensational, violent story to serve his own stupid pissing contest, she thinks. She can see the rhetorical tricks he uses, how he weaves it together with the latest fears to distract people from the real source of evil, just like his brother's millenarian anxieties serve as a distraction.

He gapes, "I must be abnormal... I'm terrified of these moments when my memory fails me. I need to tell you now, because I'm scared I'll forget this vision by tomorrow. I mean, it was a vision, not a dream.”

"Go see a doctor.”

"Tell me about Paradise when we had Mercy. How close were we, really? I have this feeling we were very close. I've had nightmares where I'm alone in the farmhouse, and Mercy's hiding under my bed. But when I look, there are just these weird bugs wriggling around. It frightens me so much I can barely pray. But He must be sending these to me for a reason...A doctor wouldn't understand, this is not of the world. Sorry, not even your mother.”

Eleanor finds it too heavy because it stirs up things she'd rather forget. She believes she has forgiven Mercy, having finally discovered enough love in her heart to move past her youthful dogmatism. Mercy was a complex girl, capable of being a monster. However, the wound resurfaces, a human-shaped wound, Eli is a gash that begs her to rip out its own stitches.

"Do you remember why I bothered with you in the first place? She was really cruel to you, and I don't think this is the right place to talk about it. It's not something I can talk about safely here. If I talk about it, I'm afraid it will be like opening a mysterious door with a security seal. A pack of huge, poisonous rats will swarm into your brain. You won't be able to get rid of them because I'm not an exterminator. You really should see a doctor. To be honest, I don't know much about it myself. You didn't really know her, did you? Just that she was cruel to you. That's all I know.”

"She was lost, I know that. I remember her pictures. Who did this to her? Why did she do it? It's already poisoned. I'm poisoned too. I didn't save her, did I?"

“That’s your rotten burden to bear. I'm sorry, Sunday. I have enough of mine.”  

He buries his hands in his hair, as if he's trying to squeeze out the memories, like you'd squeeze juice from a citrus fruit. 

"Oh, I almost forgot - I have a book for you before I leave, you must read it all if you ever, ever want me to help you with your dreams again..." Her voice has a tone that reminds him of how children are bribed. 

He lifts his eyes for a second.

She pulls a hardcover book with a brown cover out of her canvas bag. It says "PORNOGRAPHY" in large, bold letters, a slightly darker brown, and in smaller, red letters, "Men Possessing Women. The author is Andrea Dworkin - he only knows that she's a feminist, but her name doesn't come up as often as Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem. His hands tremble a bit as he clutches it.

Eleanor's voice is tinged with a dry laugh. "I'm giving you a catalogue of horrors, a recipe for nightmares and daily tears. I don't know why I do this to myself... unless it's because I don't dislike talking to my sweet little Liz as much as I thought."

"Eleanor, please don't bring that up, not that…"

"Anyway," she says, leaning forward with her arms crossed. "Use it to fuel your sense of doom. I'm the end times' painter, and she's the writer.” 

He's reluctant to go back to his apartment after the encounter, sensing that something undefined is waiting to pounce on him the moment he steps inside. It feels like it's been lying in wait all day, ready to get him. So he stays put in the diner booth, feeling like touching the book would burn his hand, yet it's also radiating an energy he can't resist. He thinks to himself, this is it. The Lord has always pushed him to confront the worst in people, and he's guilty of resenting it. He begins to read. 

He discovers that Eleanor's "catalogue of horrors" was an understatement. The writings of the "end times writer" have revealed to him that certain parts of his subconscious were encrypted in Morse code, but he doesn't know Morse. Now, however, he has stumbled upon the decryption key. “The power of sex, in male terms, is also funereal. Death permeates it. The male erotic trinity - sex , violence , and death - reigns supreme. She will be or is dead. They did or will kill her.” The Coca Cola girl with her neck broken and all the blood gushing out from her thighs. Maybe she came to save him. To show him that he is always close to becoming a butcher if he doesn't watch out. That they will demand it of him until he dies too. 

He was used to it. Sexton always told him that sex could be redeemed by a pure, godly marriage when he told him that for him, that kingdom wasn't of God. It never convinced him. In his interpretation Corinthians made it clear that marriage was the bone thrown to those who were closer to the beasts than to Him. It was good for Sexton, of course, and yet even that was often not enough for him. But Eli was perfect, Eli thought. Abel knew there was something Catholic about him that he despised, and that was the only reason he had strongly pushed for marriage before Eli finally left the town and his demands behind him, but now he had another crutch, someone else praising him for not being a butcher, he would never be butcher and they couldn't make him. No, he was closer to Him than to men. The entire book was about Paul, the chaos he created, and the deadly water that he had contaminated, which American women drank from and died from, just like he did. He realizes why there are no girls like Nora in those magazines. In a way, he sees her more as a nun than a sinner. She is surely better than his widows, it stings. And by the time he reaches the chapter “Men and Boys”, he is crying, his swollen eyes ready to explode from all the tears he has shed that day, because he is still the child Abel hit and his mother did not defend. Older men hate boys because boys still have the smell of women on them. War purifies. What was on him then, was it the blood of life or the blood of death? If Mercy is the only one who knows, he never will. “Sperm, for instance, is seen as an agent of death, the woman's death, even when it is viewed as the originator of life, male life.” He thinks he's said it before, there's something familiar about it, because it's related to something he sometimes hears dreaming.”KILL THE WHORE AND LET HER REST IN SPERM.” Continuing his mother's tradition, he doesn't have any mirrors in his modern apartment, only pocket mirrors. He uses them to check his hair before his show, just as his mother would have wanted him to. Because when he dreams, whenever he goes to see the mirror, it is always himself saying that. He cries because it is sickening and unexplainable. But others have to hear it, too, for it to be in a book. It has a meaning, a kind of meaning, and that takes away the horror for a brief moment. 

He knows who Paul is now, he can name him: De Sade. Eli was Jeanne Testard, punished for his faith. He was the defiled chalice, the crushed, semen and shit-soiled crucifixes. And Paul is Sade. 

He finds out about Story of the Eye. “Religious rebellion — for instance, the torture and rape of a priest — also heralds a class act. The priest as the man in skirts, feminized because he has turned away from masculine sexual action as a way of life, is easily viewed as a symbol of the repression caused by religion, whereas it would be more realistic — but less comfortable — to see him as a substitute woman. His true sexual nature is revealed by his erection and he is punished for having denied it — for his downward sexual mobility as it were.” He remembers that he is not a priest. He wishes he were, and he despises Catholicism, which is why he dresses himself in skirts instead of succumbing to Rome like his aunt, because if there's anything he respects about them, it's their downward sexual mobility. 

It is impossible for him to understand how this Dworkin, or Eleanor herself, could so blindly subscribe to the base, communistic materialism; they are something like prophetesses, even as they’re inexplicably blind to the cosmic battle, in the way they do not sweeten their divine warnings, and if you come to their church you will not be comforted. He used to prophesy with a power that could terrify others, but now he's the one who feels that same fear, and instead of spreading terror, he's forced to be the comforter, painkiller, and nursemaid to a dying nation. Under this all-consuming dread, he is hard again. 

He has to rush out of the diner and his erection hurts with shame. It pulses with fear as he starts to make his way, envisioning walking into his home only to find it overtaken by monstrous Amorphophallus titanum, the rigid peaks jutting from the inflorescence, blooming so large they would have broken through the walls, that he would have to fight his way through them just to reach the bathtub. There would be the sound of a ticking clock in the background, and they would have bloomed, so swollen and so hot, that he'll be squashed between the dangling towers, piled up like so many corpses. The overwhelming smell of death would cause him to vomit until it ultimately ended his life. The swarms would then come to lay their eggs, the only thing they care to do. 

He enters his apartment and fumbles through the darkness, not bothering to turn on the light. He makes his way to the bathroom and sinks into the porcelain tub, unable to shake the dull pain in his groin. With a deep breath, he releases his erection and begins to pinch at it with his fingertips, digging in as if they were thorns around it. He moans and whimpers in pain, but continues to inflict more pain on himself, stopping only to keep himself from passing out. His body sometimes gives short, sharp shakes and he pauses before plunging in again. He hits his cock with force, each blow against his stomach, and he closes his eyes to let the wave of pain lash him. In a feverish state, he remains there until morning, until his eyes are heavy and he is confused. Finally he falls into an uncomfortable sleep, especially for his head and neck, right there in the bathtub. In the morning, he is sore and he regrets it.

He calls Abigail and tells her he wants to compare Paul to De Sade, Sade from his earliest childhood, who relished in defiling innocence and spreading all kinds of wickedness that would harm women and children. Death was always the end goal with him, it brought Paul to a state of ecstasy. He couldn't say whose death or for what purpose, just that death itself was his orgasm. Maiming unto death. Abigail asks him when he started talking like that. 

The aftermath wasn't as disastrous as he initially thought. Many popular Christian outlets published statements in his defence, and he was invited to appear on other programs to defend his ministry. Abigail had reservations about Eli's disturbingly personal rhetoric and bizarre comparisons, rather than taking a political stance, but it was effective nonetheless. He plainly stated that he wanted the Mercy cold case reopening. And it was true - he hoped that if they did, he would finally get some answers. It was also likely. Missing children were becoming an increasing problem. For eleven years Satan had been wading in the waters of Paradise, but only now was he so openly, almost mockingly, preying. His work was plain for all to see, but he still felt that not much had been done. “Paul wants to confuse you, to sow seeds of doubt about the beautiful ideas that are the foundation of our nation. Now that we have evidence and proof, they can't hide the truth anymore. A great evil has been hiding since before the Fall. Many brave voices speak out against its modern forms: pornography, prostitution, human trafficking, and the terrible loss of children's innocence. This innocence deeply offends Satan. Read Michelle Remembers, and then tell me I'm just looking for scapegoats when I condemn sin. We’ve turned our backs on that lost lamb, yet I remain unafraid. I’m ready to bring Paradise to its knees again, just to witness justice served. The town’s fragile peace holds no concern for me, especially if it shelters human beasts. I will stand firm in my beliefs, for as long as I draw breath. Paradise turned a blind eye, washed it’s hands off like Pilate, and so did the world, as he snatched her away.”

His lawyers had advised against using strong language against Paul personally and the law enforcement of Paradise, but he didn't feel he had any reason to hold back now that some days had passed and he was clearer-headed. He felt that this was the only way to go, the only way for the truth.

The studio feels emptier since Matthew left. Without him taking care of small tasks like picking up the morning newspapers, things feel off. It's like the air is quieter, with fewer footsteps. No one leaves a neatly clipped stack of headlines on Eli's desk anymore. He never thought about these things before; the papers would just appear, marked and summarized, ready for his attention. This small inconvenience annoys him more than he admits. Eli steps out of the office into the hallway, not wanting to look like he's running errands, but also not wanting to seem impolite by asking someone to do something outside their job. 

Back in his office, Eli drops the papers onto his desk and sits back down. There are some unopened envelopes, probably letters from donors, politicians, or other preachers. He sees The Angel City Times, some financial papers, and Christianity Today lying there. But there's something else - the Sisterhood of Angels. He hopes she is not twisting the knife, not that she has any real influence, he tries to reassure himself, even though the words of a former Paradise resident might take on a different weight in this context. He takes and reads that one first, before the rest. 

“SISTERHOOD OF ANGELS, 

September/October 1982. 

Paradise’s Brightest Sunday? 

By Eleanor Kelley, 22 September 1982.

“I am a former resident of Paradise. I need to talk about this.

Paul Sunday called his "exposé" "Paradise's Darkest Sunday". This implies that if his brother, the "backwoods prophet", represents the darkest aspect of my hometown, then Paul is the rare, suppressed, and heavily persecuted beacon of light. It's convenient for a man to view patriarchy in such simple terms - good men versus bad men. The bad men are supposedly repressed puritans with dirty secrets, while the good men, with their open and "liberated" (liberated for whom, exactly?) sexual freedom and porn consumption, will supposedly save us. I'm not buying it.

I remember the broadcast, I may shock you, I remember what Paradise was like in 1972 and why I can say what I am saying now. I saw it live at the age of seventeen. It was the first and last time Eli Sunday did anything real. Not the high-production-value demagogue, but a kid, a kid spitting anger at a city that had already written off Mercy. His sermon that day? It wasn't an act. It wasn't calculated. And it certainly wasn't what Paul paints it as in Fog & Fire.

Paul, ever the opportunist, wants to present that moment as the origin story of a villain, a young fundamentalist drunk on power. But it wasn't like that. What I saw that day was something much simpler: a boy telling the truth. He called them murderers because that is what they were. He told them to get on their knees because they should have. He didn't use Mercy's name to launch his career then - he used it to punish them because, frankly, they deserved it. I remember the dismissive attitude of male police officers, or how I had to watch them laugh under their breath when I mentioned the systematic, homophobic (ironic, given what he has become, but I will not let him forget how little the very beliefs he so proudly espouses used to serve him) sexual harassment Eli was systematically subjected to.

And yet, because Paul can only see history as a stage for his own ideological purity tests, he rewrites it to fit his latest agenda. Now Mercy's story has to be turned into a parable about capital, about American decline, about the manufacture of obedience under empire - and let's face it, Paul, that's a hell of a lot easier than looking at what actually happened to her, isn't it? He wrote the article in simple enough language to sound like a voice for the people, but he is not, Mercy and missing girls in general are nothing more than a rhetorical tool for Paul. She wasn't a "flower devoured by fire," whatever that means, she was a girl who disappeared.

Paul always turns this into a fight between men, and that's why I don't trust him - and neither should you. He can't discuss this topic without framing it as a massive battle of opposing (male) ideologies. His goal is to discredit his brother, portraying him as a dangerous, corporate-backed, right-wing activist, and that’s fine and good, he is. But Paul does this by using the same tactics as his brother, exploiting fears about missing children to make his case. He doesn't show any real concern for Mercy Miller as a person, as a victimized woman. Surprise! Paul and Eli actually agree on more than they care to admit. Their feud has always been about style, not substance. Eli wants to sell you women as private property; Paul wants to sell you women as public property. Both want to tell us what to do with us, our bodies, our stories. Paul, with his oh-so-theoretical libertarian socialism, thinks he's better because he wraps his ideas in radicalism. But his brand of sexual liberation has always been pathetically centred on male pleasure, and I refuse to pretend otherwise, and ironically, but it’s not funny, is probably what killed Mercy Miller. Eli said that men like Paul hypnotize women into thinking that bleeding out is freedom. And as a leftist, I am ashamed, ashamed for my male leftists, that he is not wrong.

When Eli, in his usual theatrical provocation, compared Paul to Marquis de Sade, I laughed—because for once in his rotten life, Eli wasn’t completely off the mark. Paul is exactly the kind of man who would defend De Sade’s intellectual value while ignoring that the man tortured women to death. Paul is exactly the kind of leftist who fetishizes transgression over real liberation, who believes that freedom means freedom to exploit, and who scoffs at anyone who dares suggest that maybe, just maybe, revolution means more than men getting to fuck however they like.

Paul calls me a bourgeois feminist because I insist that women’s oppression cannot be reduced to class struggle. He calls me reactionary because I refuse to sacrifice feminism at the altar of male sexual entitlement. The left’s worst tendencies manifest in Paul: a man who refuses to engage with the material reality of violence against women, who sees gender as a footnote in the class struggle. He is frankly not the right person to talk about the Mercy case and what it meant, what it still means to the women of Paradise.

Let me be clear here: Eli Sunday is a liar and a fraud. He is a corporate-funded, right-wing reactionary, and Paul is right about that. But you have to wonder if that's what Paul really despises about him. Eli, for all his "sins", called for the case to be reopened, he did what you didn't have the courage to do in your article full of half-truths designed to serve your narcissistic, never-ending pissing contest with your brother. It hurts more because you are supposed to be a comrade.”

Eli claps his hands with excitement, lets out a childish giggle, and indulges in another cup of sweet coffee, complete with a generous helping of airy whipped cream. 

The next day there is an answer in Fog & Fire. Eleanor and Paul must be pretty close, more at each other's throats than he imagined. Of course, Eleanor despises Paul more than she likes him, but Eli feels that if it weren't for how pretty he was as Liz, for his downward sexual mobility, she wouldn't have bothered, and he doesn't mind. He is an apostate of the penis, a true lover of God, no one can help but see that he is what Sexton was not, what even his father Abel was not, truly perfect! Eli is perfect. He often tells himself this. She wouldn’t have bothered if it wasn’t for the fact that when on that talk show that lady said, "Can you imagine? Women at war, men having to play nurturer in this inversion of the natural order. Who, what kind of woman would promote depriving babies of maternal warmth? I'm pretty sure none of the ladies in our audience would ever feel comfortable leaving their husband alone with a baby for more than a few hours, it goes against a mother's natural instinct, she knows it's dangerous..." he had quietly added, "Well, I'm pretty good with babies," while his own cheeks were baby and apple red. "Of course, our saintly Mr. Sunday is always the exception," she had replied caustically with some irritation at being interrupted. Or if it weren't for the fact that before this case exploded, the only time he had to call Abigail and his communications team was to fend off accusations from rivals that he was a sodomite, just because he was perfect and they couldn't be. He doesn't mind that much either, just the lingering resentment from when Eleanor refused to debate him on his show about the sexual revolution in high school. He knows, however, that these unfounded accusations could once again become a problem for him, for anyone who finds it convenient to claim that he is tainted with Mercy's blood, as homosexuals often taint themselves with the blood of the young. He has to strategize, Eleanor's comment about the "homophobic sexual harassment" he's been subjected to may not be appropriate at this time, Eli recognizes that he cannot take advantage of the sympathy of individuals who might be inclined to feel sorry for him for that.

Paul's answer is venomous - a bitter bite at Eleanor, in fact. But Eli notices something strange; he's not as afraid as he was before. It's as if this reopening of the Mercy case is filling his sad sack with blood again. He feels a vibration, a surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins, a plastic doll made human again. Maybe he can finally fill that tormenting vacuum that keeps prodding at him, asking, "What was in here before you forgot? Can you find it again?" He remembers Andrew when Paul brings him up, A, of course, A was him! As if he had been asleep for ten years, Paul tells him more about high school. 

“FOG & FIRE, 

September, 1982. 

By Paul Sunday, September 25, 1982. 

“The Sisterhood of Collaborationism, or a Response to Mrs. Kelley.

Eleanor Kelley, a feminist journalist and aspiring artist, has written about me. Since she's a former Paradise resident, I'll respond. Although I'd left town by 1971-72, I want to remind you, Eleanor, that I wasn't there. But you seem to have forgotten someone who was: A. Eleanor's piece is infused with the moral certainty typical of a particular brand of identity-focused feminism. She claims to be above the ideological battle between men, but conveniently overlooks the fact that she has been a part of it for the past ten years and has taken a side.

What Eleanor will never tell you in her paper is that if Eli is now too big to fall, it is because she helped create him. Eleanor, you are the architect of the reaction, and yet, like any good, respectable, liberal, you care more about how things are said than what is said. Let’s make something clear: Eleanor has been soft on Elijah Sunday since 1971. It’s not an accident, it’s not some abstract intellectual mistake. It’s a pattern, one that should call into question her credibility and her supposed feminist principles. There's something almost impressive about the mental gymnastics Eleanor can pull off when it comes to my brother and making sure no one ever has an orgasm, which is apparently more important than figuring out how blood got on an unstable teenager's suit after the disappearance of a girl who was emblematic of everything he despised.

The Early Days of Collaborationism: Paradise High, 1971-1972.

I'd just let the facts speak for themselves, the way “A" told them to me, and not sensationalize the 11th grade handmaiden's outrageous behaviour.

Eleanor intervened to protect Eli from scrutiny: In 1972, she actively dismissed any notion that Eli should be questioned in connection to Mercy Miller’s disappearance, arguing that focusing on him shifted the burden onto the "victim of a crime".

She framed Eli as a victim to shield him from accountability: Eleanor told police that Eli was unfairly targeted by boys at school and positioned him as the real victim in his interactions with Mercy, despite Mercy being the one who disappeared.

She sabotaged attempts to expose Eli’s possible involvement: When A tried to push for Eli to be investigated, Eleanor blocked his efforts, publicly defending Eli and questioning A’s motives.

She spoke about Eli’s “trauma” to manipulate the narrative: Eleanor positioned Eli’s past interactions with Mercy as traumatic, using this to justify his erratic behaviour and discourage further questioning.

She took on a mentorship role, reinforcing his self-image: Eleanor taught Eli about concepts like sexual violence and showed him feminist art, reinforcing the idea that he was a misunderstood victim rather than someone who needed to be questioned about a missing girl.

She almost appeared on Flame of Pentecost: Eli asked her to appear on his show to discuss the dangers of the sexual revolution, demonstrating an early attempt at integrating her intellectual influence into his media platform even if she declined.

She made Eli untouchable in school: After Eli publicly accused the town of negligence in Mercy's case, Eleanor's vocal support solidified his status as someone who couldn't be directly challenged without facing pushback.

She helped him craft a public image that set the stage for his rise: Eleanor’s framing of Eli as a victim-turned-prophet was a crucial early element of his ability to control narratives around him, a skill he perfected when he took over Flame of Pentecost.

This woman's outlook on sex is extremely reactionary, leading her to think that anyone offended by someone else's sexual behaviour deserves protection, even if it means ignoring reason and logic.

Eleanor may think she's different from the other women who surround men like Eli- the dutiful church wives, the female televangelists who smile and nod as their husbands preach fire and brimstone. But what is she, really, if not his most sophisticated enabler? She could have joined those of us who saw through him from the beginning. She didn't. And now, instead of admitting that she was duped, she chooses to lash out at the people who are actually doing the work of exposing him. Want to talk hypocrisy? Start here.”

“The victim of a crime.” Was Eleanor right? Had he been "the victim of a crime"? It wasn't just the pictures. That's why she didn't tell everything, because it was too heavy. Something happened to him. This is the only thing Eli knows for sure about himself, going through life as he does in a half stupor. When Eleanor turns her flaming pen once more on Paradise's Brightest Sunday, she rips him apart for his euphemism, of course. "Offensive sexual behaviour?” she writes. Her pen, when furious, is decidedly unjournalistic. "Paul, it was drugging and rape. That’s what happened at that party. Mercy doesn't have to have been a good person, or to have excused all the harm she did, to fight for justice for her. Of course, for a man like you, a woman is either a saint or a sinner, you have that blood, that family name, you can't wash it away. Make her a saint, of course, you need her now..." 

Opening segment, bolted, at long last. 

One week later. 

The street lies quiet, murmuring from far-off restaurants and bars. Laughter and light banter drift through the late evening air, vivid threads just out of reach. It's a different world. The World as the Book speaks of it. His shoes thud against the pavement as he makes his way home. He has a nagging sense that a car crash must have happened somewhere, as if he can almost hear the crunch of metal and smell the burning, and the desperate cries of someone trying to hold on to a life that's slipping away, but it's all muffled and far away. At this hour, the city is like a dark cave, its tiny lights shining like gems of every colour. He didn't grow up with urban lights, but they still give him a nostalgic feeling in a strange way. Looking at them, he sometimes feels like a space traveler visiting new planets. As a kid, he'd dream of having a picnic on the moon. In Paradise, the Mercy cold case is reopened, and he's the one who made it happen. The Angel City Times ran an article with a neutral tone, but its title was provocative: "Renewed Scrutiny in 1972 Cold Case Raises Questions About Prominent Californian Religious Leader.” The air is faintly scented with gasoline, garbage, and wet concrete. He wraps his coat around himself, not liking the feeling of walking alone late. When he was younger, he used to spend hours wandering through the valley, but being there by himself made him uneasy. He would often hear strange whistles and hollers that would startle him, he started to enjoy it after a while, he realized he could shame back. He learned how to overcome it and make those men feel as if draped in fetid, slick skin before Jesus. He turned his fear into aristocratic disdain for those who possessed strong, earthly power, which he felt he lacked, like the Roman fauns.

In his mind, these urban landscapes swarmed with many Satans, many caprine men, as Dworkin speaks of them, many pornographers and pimps, let loose like in the pagan forests of old, and at twenty-six he was still only a beautiful boy-nymph, but one with a heart that can still beat with violence against anyone who is profane, a boy-nymph that burns with mad wrath with a similar intensity as a satyr burns with lust. He knows he still is. A silhouette waits at the end of the road. It’s shrouded in darkness. It doesn’t seem alive; it’s a shadow. As the man approaches, he sees it’s not just a shadow. It’s a living being. The figure's outfit is blindingly vibrant against the dark. He wears a blood-red suit, a matching tie, and a coat. His eyes look like they were crudely painted on, like a cheap advertisement or a plastic toy soldier. His stance is aggressive, legs spread wide and fists tightly clenched.

The man points at him, his hair as white as goat wool. It no longer brings him the comfort it did back home. He has grown bitter toward his goats, realizing now that they were Paul's creatures. "YOU!" the man barks.

“Me-?” 

With each step, the man's skin sloughs off in a sickeningly sweet mix of goo and gasoline. The stench of burnt flesh and motor oil fills the air, as if he has been caught in a fiery crash on a tar-black highway. The car crash he heard in the distance. 

“Yes, you! YOU CANNOT MARRY MY DAUGHTER!”

"Get back, you wretched son of Satan!" Eli's roar erupts like thunder. The new investigation has awakened something deep within him. His senses sharpen as he sees the man's half-melted face. A fierce eagerness, powerful. It unfolds like a flower and hatches like an egg. An energy surges through his veins, yet he feels degraded and instinctual, like a scavenger, it's a dark kind of energy, the kind of men that lurk in the alleys of the unsavoury parts of town. He struggles to distinguish holy rage from primal bloodlust, he feels unclean. "You dare not order me!"

"YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED A LONG TIME AGO. YOU ARE SOMEONE WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED A LONG TIME AGO. YOU ARE A SACRILEGE. THE STINK OF A CEMETERY BROTHEL WILL ALWAYS BE ON YOU.” 

Suddenly, he pounces on the man with feral grace, like a golden jackal of the savannas. He straddles him and lets out a guttural snarl, plunging his elongated fingers into the mushy flesh that is melting off of the man's body. His hands are coated in a slimy mixture of blood, putrid, creamy skin, and tar as he digs deeper, causing even more skin to peel away like layers of cake. The bone of the man's skull becomes visible as his nails sink in further. The man shouts: It burns, it burns, it burns. Until he stops shouting. 

In the bathroom at home, he flips on the lights and runs the faucet. His hands feel disgustingly dirty and slimy, but when he tries to wash them, he doesn't find anything unusual. As he glances down, he's surprised to see that his hands look perfectly clean - no visible stains or suspicious residue. He's heard that you can wake up from a dream by noticing something out of place on your own face when looking in the mirror, but he doesn't have a mirror. He is tired and wants to sleep. Can he dream of something better, even if it's just in a dream within a dream?

He reaches the bedroom, and the TV is already on. "No, no, no…" he starts to mumble. Now there's no adrenaline, only the usual fear of that mechanical buzzing. 

The Coca-Cola girl squats on the parched, fissured lawn next to the pristine kiosk. Her skull, previously fractured, is now wrapped in a bandage, concealing the dried gore beneath, akin to a doll stitched and pasted hastily back into shape.

She is completely exposed, her skin translucent like fragile glass, with only the vibrant red of her lips and pale pink of her nipples providing any hint of colour. The white ribbon holding up her hair matches the pallid shade of her skin. The black richness of it reminding him of the thick layer of tar he had seen smeared across the man's face that he had torn like a tiger. Beside her, in a white vase, there is a corpse flower, but not like the ones in his dreams, the undulating edges of this one are taut, red like flesh leading to a greenish hue, the creamy yellow spadix rises proudly but still inoffensive in size, smooth and firm, almost waxy. It's at the youthful peak of its days of whoring. In his dreams, the spadix of these flowers are as tall as mountains, leathery and spectral.

Now he looks at the girl. "How did you make it bloom?" he suddenly becomes curious.

She doesn't answer. "You've met my father. He's stuck in that car, dying over and over. He told you we can't be married, because he's unsure if I'm his daughter. But he can't bring himself to let me go, to admit I might not be his.”

"Is the man in the red suit your father?”

"Yes, he is. You've freed him from his misery, and now I'll be your bride..." Her hands clap together, and a radiant smile spreads across her face.

"You will not be my bride. You want to transform me into a butcher. You didn't recite Psalm 51, so the Lord cut off your head.” 

"But I'm back! I'm back, and I made the corpse flower bloom! I could build my husband a garden." 

"That's certainly an impressive feat. How?”

She takes the vase and places it on her knees, her fingers sliding up the stiff, protruding axis that emerges from the leaves. Her insatiable gaze is fixed on it.

On the verge of naturally sobbing from the fetor, she devours the bloated, pulsating spadix with her mouth, her tongue writhing against its fleshy texture. Her cheeks caved in as she greedily sucks, her eager lips moving down the throbbing shaft. Possessed by an unnamable force, she starts to thrust her head in a carnal manner, her hands clutching the vase for stability while the tears keep flowing and she weeps in disgust around it. Eli's nausea makes his face nearly green. 

He strikes the TV screen in anger. It thuds dully, then erupts in sparks and fizzles loudly. The flickering images seem to mock him. Still, he pounds it, knowing it's useless. "You don't have to do this!" he screams. "You're a child of God, just like me! YOURS. YOUR NAME IS MY NAME. We’re siblings in Christ! I killed your father, the Devil. Come back to Him! COME BACK!” 

As she suckles on the youthful floral phallus, the Coca-Cola girl moans. Her dark hair falls forward, obscuring her face, but her puffy, wet eyes betray that she is suffering, despite Eli's pleas for her to end her torment.

With each movement of her head, her breasts press against the cool ceramic vase, contrasting the heat of the flower. Eli can feel both of their torments - the girl’s and the despised flower's. Its petals quiver pathetically like butterfly wings.

The girl's torso spasms uncontrollably as she clutches her now dark mouth in horror, feeling the slimy spadix slide out with a nauseating pop. The petals slowly close in on themselves and the once firm spadix shrinks and deflates. No longer standing with confident assurance, it hangs weakly, oozing black oil.

Eli runs to the living room, yanks the wooden cross off the wall, and returns to the bedroom. He begins smashing the television with the cross, overcome with wails and shrieks. "I BEG OF THEE, LORD, SAVE THIS POOR, WRETCHED SOUL, SAVE THIS POOR CHILD.”

"It's too late," she says through spits, her skin turning anaemic as she pours black liquid from her lips. "I'm already poisoned." She wilts, her body slowly slumping to the ground alongside the plant. The static grows louder, and the television screen fractures under the cross's blows.

Eli wakes up with a start, sweaty and hopeful, but his hope is short-lived as he's met with the cross at the foot of the TV and the cracked screen. He hears a scream from outside, sending him scurrying under his sheets like a frightened kid. The clock on his bedside table shows 07:27. 

It hits him: a crowd of screams, not just one. A chant. He rushes to the curtains, flings them open, and looks out the window. 

He's too dizzy and faint to make out the people outside, just a blur of dots, some with signs. They're shouting at him through a megaphone, in unison, "HAVE YOU SEEN HER? HAVE YOU SEEN MERCY MILLER?"

The place he has called home for years, but which has always felt so strange to him, is haunted, and he will have to move soon.

Chapter Text

Outskirts of Beach City, 1982.  

The white Cadillac Calais, a lavish gift from Paradise's former mayor, glides through the iron gates of Mr. Allen’s property. It was from 1966, it was once the mayor’s, his first luxury car, but he had no problem with that fact, it was like being someone else entirely.

The Victorian style property, with its pale sage-green shingles slightly weathered by years of sun and salt-laden breeze, stands in the quiet outskirts of Beach City. The stained glass windows cast a rainbow glow all around it, catching the light of an October afternoon, he can hear the light creak of an unseen wooden swing stopping somewhere there. 

A lush, half-tamed garden surrounds the house, giving the impression that someone once tended it diligently but now only bothers with half-hearted maintenance. Maybe it was Mr. Allen’s ex-wife who used to care for it. Although a Baptist, Mr. Allen was divorced - Eli didn't know the reason why. He can't help but stare wide-eyed at the citrus trees, their branches sagging under the weight of their fruit. He imagines a glass of orange juice, sweetened with more than one sugar cube, coming from these three trees. The lavender bushes spill over onto the brick pathway leading to the wraparound porch, filling the air with the scent of warm earth and blossoms. He's going to enjoy his stay here. To the public, he framed his visit as a spiritual retreat for a period of deep prayer. But in reality, unless he's called to testify in the reopened Mercy case, he fled his Angel City condo in terror after some unhinged individuals, armed with signs and megaphone, discovered his address. 

Mr. Allen’s daughter, Bertha, the one who had almost fallen asleep at his Beach City revival despite the deafening tears of repented sinners, the noisy outpourings of the Spirit, the loud hymnals, it had to be three years ago now, stood at the front door, smoothing the ruffles of her floral blouse. She had waited, watching the street, her polished black flats tapping lightly on the porch as his Cadillac rumbled up the driveway. She always felt so alone. Her brother, whom she didn't like, also went to college in Angel City, she didn't want to follow him after she graduated this year, she thought it had made him boring. She was looking for something more. She steps forward happily, her indigo skirt swirling around her white tights. She puts on a serious, all-business air as she greets him, even though she is only seventeen. 

“Reverend!”

"Oh no, please, no titles," he says. "I'm not Sexton. You'll make me feel old. Just call me Eli." As he removes his black hat, his blond hair peeks out, giving him the look of a silent movie starlet in men's clothing. "Besides, it's not Reverend. It's Prophet or Brother Eli.” 

Bertha's expression is unreadable as she looks up, her lips red with bold, flaming lipstick, Revlon's 740 Certainly Red, he'd guess from his evenings as Liz, in stark contrast to her modest, almost too childlike attire, an act of youthful rebellion. "So, like. Spill it out. How bad is it. You can really be honest.” 

Eli closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "It's bad enough that I can't even be in my own house. It's strange. They're the ones who should be hiding. This world is strange. I miss being your age, maybe even younger, I feel so old, and I’m only nine years older than you… I found that out early. But there was a time when I didn't realize how strange it was going to get. There has to be.” 

She rolls her eyes, mimicking her father. “A mob outside your apartment. Liberal reporters are sniffing around. There’s a reopened investigation you pushed for. They can’t wait to get you. Do you understand what a liability that is? My father didn’t back you so you could crumble the first time someone dug up old dirt.” 

Eli's voice drops. "The dirt isn't on me. I pushed to reopen the investigation because there was nothing else to do. A girl your age was murdered. Doesn't it bother you that a girl your age was killed? And maybe sacrificed to the Antichrist?” 

She looks down at their black shoes. “I am nothing like her.”

That wasn’t true. Perhaps it was the long dark hair. Mercy had raven black hair, while Bertha’s was a lighter chestnut brown. They did share a resemblance. Still, Bertha's eyes were dark like her hair, unlike his and Mercy's blue eyes.

He feels an instant liking for Bertha and her garden. Since she must be the one nurturing it, with her careless teenage hands, though it's struggling in some spots. He can't imagine Allen being a gardener.

"She was a good kid, I think...Despite what I've been hearing from this woman I went to school with, that she wronged me, I only remember she was sad. She was your age, and she was sad. What would you do if you were in her shoes?”

Bertha felt often blue as well. "I think I would come ask you. I should have come and asked you when we first met. I’ve been sad for a while.”

Eli smiles softly, touched, which is rare for him. "I think that's what she did too. She was a good kid. I'm sorry you are sad, Bertha. I was sad too as a boy.”  

"But..." Eli adds, cutting her off. "You have a garden, so what's there to be sad about? I've always had a thing for flowers and plants. As a kid, I lived in this ugly, dry place where nothing would grow. Whenever a flower finally bloomed, my brother would make fun of it just to get to me. He knew how much it meant to me to have something growing. Later, when I moved into my apartment, I tried to grow some plants in pots from the grocery store, but they'd always shrivel up from lack of sunlight."

"I really only take care of it for Mamma. She comes to visit once every six months, for a week. Every time, she reminds me to tend the garden. Dad asked her if she wanted to hire a gardener, someone to help. She said no. This garden is mine. Mamma left it to me, and I have to keep it up.”

“You’re a Christlike daughter.” 

"We also have a greenhouse," says Bertha, fidgeting with her cross necklace. Eli feels a strange twinge; he hardly wears his these days. But soon, he can't think of anything else. For the next month, he might have a greenhouse to use. 

"A greenhouse!" he exclaims.

Bertha giggles. “I’ve never seen a grown man so excited about plants.” 

Eli shakes his head, his eyes bright with excitement for his greenhouse project. This project is spiritual for him. “What grown man isn’t excited about plants? They are the most beautiful creations of God. We may be important, but plants are surely the most beautiful and mysterious. How often have you prayed hard, yet felt unsure of what God is saying to you? Maybe you feel there’s no cure for your sadness. A plant is different from an animal; it doesn’t even try to communicate with sounds. There’s a mystery in that, isn’t there? I believe He speaks to us through plants, as strange as it sounds.”

She flashes another full smile, her face still pink from her giggling. “It’s not that strange. Want to see the greenhouse? I'm the only one maintaining it, so it's not as well-kept as the garden.” 

He nods and follows her. The greenhouse's dusty, slightly obscured by the patina, glass panes have vines crawling up them, echoing the pattern on the Electric Eden door plaque. As she opens the door, its loose hinges let out a soft groan. "It's a bit of a mess," she says.

It’s alive with green things struggling to survive. A row of tomatoes stretches toward the sunlit glass. They stubbornly bear small, sour fruits. On the workbench, a radio rests. She likely listened to it while tending the garden. Maybe she even listened to him.

She picks up a sad-looking clay pot, where young violets, the same blueish colour as the skirt she is wearing, are already wilting. "I'm trying to keep it alive, but it's hard when I have schoolwork." A faint hint of shame crosses her face as she shows it to her admired guest.

He feels strangely moved by her melancholy. His black leather shoes tap against the silent greenhouse’s floor. The dust and soil are slightly stifling, but he barely notices it. "I think this is the most beautiful garden I've ever seen. It's like you've let me into your heart. The soft sunlight coming through the windows, that's God trying to get to you, growing what it can. But the world keeps you away from Him, you don't pray like you used to, maybe like many at your age, as they move from innocent childhood into the world. It’s struggling, but it’s far from lost. You know...in Corinthians there is a verse about my work. Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow. One day we'll both cry out for joy like little children.”

She has an evil thought - she'd like to let this handsome guest into her garden, not in the naive way he intends. She wonders what her father would think if he knew she had this thought. 

He examines some other struggling pots, containing hardy geraniums, typical herbs like basil, mint, and rosemary, as well as aloe and hanging pothos. He breaks the silence, saying, "Bertha, what's your favourite flower?” 

She had never thought about it. “I’m simple, I like red roses. I want to grow them, I always tell myself, I’ll try to grow some roses in the greenhouse, and then I never get around to.” 

He gives her a teasing glare. "Not mentioned in the Bible, such a passionate flower. And red? Like that horrible stuff on your lips? Careful.” 

She knows he's not being completely serious, but she still wants to remove her lipstick and does, rather clumsily with her blouse sleeve. He finds this unbelievable, still having the instincts of a child who carefully protected hand-me-downs from getting stained. The lipstick smears, leaving only a slight pink colour. She experiences a warmth and pleasure in following his directions. It's all new for her to feel this intensely, even though she is really not that sheltered, conversing with someone who is neither a gross young boy nor an elderly man, but a handsome, almost pretty young man. 

He shakes his head. 'You never had to worry about money.' I have a favourite flower I'd like to show you. It's not that I like it, but it scares me. It reminds me how foolish unbelievers are.” 

She runs over to him, and he opens his wallet, taking out three small pictures of something that looks really strange - to Bertha, it's like something from a sci-fi book. He starts pointing at them, explaining, and she thinks his voice is tender, soft like that. She grasps his arm, actually the fabric of his coat, and he's too absorbed to notice. Besides, he doesn't find her presence as offensive as many others. 

"This flower is called the corpse flower. Yes, the name is scary. When it blooms, it smells like rotting flesh, like a dead animal or person. These three images show its growth stages. In the first one, the flower is just starting to open. The tall, pale spike in the middle is called the spadix. The dark purple part that looks like a giant petal is the spathe. At first, the spathe is tightly wrapped. As the bloom progresses, it peels back. In the second picture, the flower is fully open. Now, the spathe spreads wide, revealing deep folds and ridges. It looks purple, like decaying skin, to attract flies and beetles for pollination. This is when the awful smell is strongest…”

To her, it feels like he is describing something obscene, a towering, reeking spike, widening petals, pollination…She clenches her lower lip, torn between his bright, saucer-eyes and the images he is showing. It's like sinking into a scalding bath, this intense heat washing over her skin. She likes it so much. 

“The last picture shows the flower collapsing. The spathe has wilted and is folding inward, and the spadix has lost its rigidity. This indicates that the flower has finished pollinating. What's astonishing about this plant is that it can take years, even a decade, to bloom. And when it finally does, the bloom is fleeting, lasting only a day or two before it collapses, as we see here. It's a wonder that anyone can be an atheist, knowing that such a remarkable creature exists. I receive messages from the Lord in the form of these flowers in my dreams, but I've never been able to decipher their meaning.” 

Bertha, almost out of breath, grasps the picture of the flower when it's spadix is at its most rigid. "I'll keep this, sorry, I'm too fascinated now. In exchange, I could help you decipher these dreams. I read my Bible every Wednesday and go to church every Sunday." 

He doesn’t mind her keeping it. ‘That’s all right, keep it. Now, if you could, please take me to your dad?’ 

The dining room reminds Eli of a large dollhouse. It's probably just one of the man's properties. Though the place shows its age, it exudes a certain traditional American opulence, which is probably why it was acquired and why it's his family home. Mr. Allen comes from a line of self-made men, much like himself. His maternal grandfather, for example, rose from mule driver to general store owner, eventually becoming a multimillionaire during the California oil boom.

Mr. Allen, he learns from talking to his daughter when she took him to see the man, named her Bertha after his mother, Alberta, she had been swindled out of much of her inheritance and her brother had been a socialist. Nevertheless, her son had managed to build himself into an even greater man than his grandfather had been. The high ceiling is crowned with elegant plasterwork, yet it reveals some flaws in its floral pattern to a keen observer. The grand fireplace, located at the far end of the dining room, has a mantel featuring carvings of oil derricks. There are more pictures on the walls. They show California when it was a sea of derricks, standing like little soldiers as far as you could see. 

It seems strange to him that he's still an outsider in their world. The house feels too large for just three people, even though his car parked outside suggests he shouldn't be surprised by their wealth. It reminds him of when he was a kid and would marvel at how Reverend Sexton and his wife could afford to eat meat anytime they wanted, which seemed lavish and almost sinful, yet he envied them for it. They converse a bit.

Allen shakes his head and pours the amber liquid into his glass. "You were foolish to pursue this morbid business. They won't find anything. If they didn't find anything before, what's going to be different now? You're just giving them an excuse to ruin you. I told you Sunday, I'll only be with you as long as it does me more good than harm, and if something strange comes out of this investigation, you'll have to rely on the Holy Spirit. You're lucky that people believe your pretty face no matter what it tries to sell them. It's a wonder you haven't fallen a lot harder already, considering how your brother made you look.”

"Mr. Allen, I am a man of the Lord. I cannot allow the devil to play with the blood of our youth. I don't care if it hurts me, I want to do right by Him." 

"He has already played. I'm afraid you're too late. You should save yourself now, son." 

Eli wants to correct him on the “son” but Bertha cuts in, asking if she can get him a drink. He shakes his head.

The man says with a smile, "So young and so principled." He's probably joking, but it's the gentle, almost fatherly way he says it that gets under his skin. He would have preferred scorn.  

He looks at his daughter. “He is handsome, right? Not like those ugly little rats from high school you sometimes bring home.”

“He is very handsome…” she says. He looks down at his empty glass, trying to keep his nerve. He sighs and replies, “Oh, you know what? I could use a drink.” He needs it to avoid panicking. 

"He's a bit girly though, don't you think?”

Bertha rolls her eyes at her father as she pours it. "Dad, all good-looking young men seem girly to older guys. That's just being young and in shape.”

Dinner is steak, but when it arrives, he loses his appetite. The medium rare looks overcooked to him, and it's as if it's holding back the bloody flavour he wants. He grimaces, like a child forced to eat his greens. "You always take your steak this well done, Mr. Allen?” 

Allen feigns shock at the insolence. "Oh, the nerve! I should've let the bloodthirsty mob have you. You're an ungrateful boy, complaining about my fine cut of meat when you were raised on nothing but tubers and despair. I've a mind to take you across my knee and give you a good spanking. I’ve seen your car outside, just who do you think you are?” 

He forces himself to take a bite from his fork, not wanting to cross a line. After he's chewed and swallowed, he says, "Oh, but it used to belong to the mayor of Paradise. He gave it to me when he got a new model.”

"Always the leech, aren’t you?" Mr. Allen lifts an eyebrow, smirking.

Bertha is now settled in her chair and eating too, its classic burgundy velvet upholstery shines out when the room is this dim. Now that she's removed her lipstick, and the steak isn't bloody, the chairs are the reddest thing in the room, like in a movie theatre. "You have to let me ride with you sometime!" 

Mr. Allen turns to her. "Don't be so taken with that old car. I've raised you to have higher standards. That model was affordable to anyone, even a goat farmer's son sucking up to older rich men and trying to ingratiate himself with the wealthy, apparently…”

She chuckles. "It's not the car." 

Her father sighs. "It's a shame I've lost my faith in women. You could use a mother figure. You can't just go around saying things like that. And about a man of God like him! Don’t pretend I don't know you've been riding in every boy's car in Beach City and beyond." 

She locks eyes with Eli, her eyes wide open, her hands clasped together. "I swear, I'm trying to change!", she says, holding out her blouse to show her father the red stain on the sleeve. "I want to get rid of my red lipstick.”

Eli wags his finger. "She told me red roses are her favourite flowers. That means she's got a fiery heart, no question. And you know who else had a fiery heart back in high school?”

Bertha pauses, chews with her mouth closed, and then asks, “Who?"

"Sister Aimee, one of the holiest women America has ever seen. She was wild in her youth, loving dancing and all sorts of worldly amusements. When she was your age, she fell under the power of the Holy Ghost and burned her dancing slippers. She loved an evangelist, Robert Semple, and they married and went to preach in China, but he died. Your eyes and hair are a rich brown, just like hers, and I can feel that your heart is extremely conductive for the power of the Holy Spirit to manifest.” 

Mr. Allen massages his temples. "Oh no, not this Holy Roller stuff! I don't need Bertha babbling in tongues. And let's be real, holy women don't have three husbands and lovers on the side.”

Eli can't help but laugh. "You're divorced as well, Mr. Allen!”

Bertha's face has reddened, and she's stopped paying attention to her father. "You think I'm conductive, then?” 

“What do you think,” he says excitedly, “about preaching the Word one day? We need more young people, like us, not people like Sexton or, well…” He stops short of mentioning Allen; to be fair, he wasn’t in church leadership.

“More Holy Roller nonsense," Allen says, his voice laced with scorn. "Women shouldn't be preachers, and this one's barely capable of tying her shoes, for crying out loud. It's also good that most of the men of God are older and serious, otherwise you see what we get? Chaos and scandal like you've caused, son.” 

“But Dad! Brother Eli’s being attacked by the devil's army," Bertha reprimands her father. 

"Mr. Allen, it seems you think you know better than the Lord! The Lord says that in the last days, our sons and daughters will prophesy, our young will see visions, and I will pour out the Spirit on men and women. If Bertha receives the call, would you really stand in her way? That would be a great wrong.”

The man's voice rises at him, 'I'm so close to sending you back, filling her head with such ideas!' He adds, 'Finish your plate.' But Bertha's gaze doesn't waver for a second. Normally, he'd be scared. Yet, somehow, he feels a sense that he knows her. It's as if she couldn't scare him like others do when they stare at him even if she wanted to. 

She pulls out the picture of the corpse flower from her pocket to lighten the mood. "Dad, you know our Brother is really into botany, right? He told me all about this flower. It looks like it's from another planet!" 

"I'm not going to even try and describe what this horrid thing looks like, Bertha, it would be uncouth. Can we talk about this later? I'm still eating.” 

She mouths "thank you for the picture" to him, whispering so softly at Eli it's almost inaudible.

He can't help but smile. "Yes, Mr. Allen. I'll certainly make extensive use of your greenhouse during my stay." He doesn't ask if he'll allow it.

Mr. Allen tells Bertha to take Eli up the curved white stairs to his room on the second floor, at the far end of the hallway. The room is pretty bare, probably set up ahead of time. The mattress on the large walnut bed feels firm, which Eli predicts will be uncomfortable - he's become quite particular about that. On the other hand, he likes the Persian-style rug, which has a soft, gentle green colour with hints of peach and pink in the daisies and poppies woven through the leaves. It adds a splash of colour to the otherwise plain room. A heavy writing desk, with a sleek new Olivetti model resting on it and a phone, sits by the large windows, which open onto the driveway and have a crystal ashtray next to them. 

Across from the bed, a TV set sits on the cabinet, and he's afraid it will bring his visions into the room. His fear is justified, because at night they do appear, and the bright light wakes him up, as if he's sleepwalking. On the TV, a girl's hand with purple nail polish is placed on a white wooden box, carved with many crosses. The sound of scissors cutting is unsettling. It reminds him of a similar box he had at the farmhouse, where he kept cheap carving knives and rope, probably for small household tasks. The girl opens the lid. Above the small carving knives, disturbingly slightly red, lies a frayed hair locket, a slightly dark grey with some black spots. A distorted voice seems to say, “Where did you hide it? Where did you hide it when they came? You forgot where you hid it when they came!” 

He suddenly feels sad. Before he realizes it, he is kneeling before it and crying, crying like a little child. He wants his box. He misses his box. He misses it.  

He hears a ghostly voice he recognizes, and the sound of scissors cutting stops, replaced by a crying baby. But no one comforts him. "I'm sorry I couldn’t become who you wanted me to be. I'm sorry I lied to you. You're no longer innocent. How can we live with this? How can we live with this?" Praise be to the Lord who will bring us back to our filth…”

"That's cruel of you. You won't even tell me who you are. Are you hurting too? Why are we both in pain? What do you know that makes Him ignore our cries? Has he turned His back on us?” 

"I don't know any more than you do." 

"I know. I'm Eli." 

"I am Eli,” she repeats. 

"You are not Eli."  

"ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? YOU'RE NOT! YOU ARE NOT! YOU ARE MERCY! YOU MUST BE MERCY!” 

He yells at the top of his lungs, causing Bertha, who's up late studying by herself downstairs, to come and knock on the door. 

But there's no response, so she goes back downstairs. 

When she gets home from school the next day, she looks for him right away. She wants to know what happened last night and why he screamed. She worries for him, and her heart feels heavy all day. But when she runs up the stairs and knocks on his door, he doesn’t answer. Then, she has an idea: the greenhouse. 

She sees him, dressed in black as usual, crouched among the plants, only his blond head visible. As she reaches him, her school shoes pattering against the floor. But first, she looks around the greenhouse, feeling a strange sensation. She's never been fond of the greenhouse because of the stagnant smell, but that afternoon it's different. The glass panes are clean, and the sun shines in freely. She notices the violets are in full bloom, resembling amethysts. The tomatoes are still green but larger now, with thicker stems. The herbs are spilling over their pots. When she sees him, he's wearing white gardening gloves, probably found in the small sheds beside the greenhouse. He's gently lifting the roots of geraniums, carefully repotting them. His eyes are singularly focused, and he doesn't even notice her standing behind him.

He doesn't notice her until she speaks up. "This can't be right. It's only been eight hours at most.”

He suddenly turns to look at her, a well-rehearsed smile on his handsome face. "Bertha, I think your violets like me. When I touched them, their buds swelled and they opened up so gently. It was as if they were waking up from a decades-old slumber. And I have some good news - I feel more clear-headed now that I'm here. I just had a moment of clarity, and I realized the girl in my dream is Mercy Miller. It was so obvious. She looks just like the pictures I remember, and those in the newspapers, and the painting, Coca-Cola girl, it was about her…”

Bertha's fingers intertwine as she looks down at her long black pleated skirt. "You're really strange," she says, but her red cheeks and happy smile give away her excitement about the violets. She thinks back to his words: "When I touched them, their buds swelled and they opened up so gently…” 

When he finishes with the geraniums, he returns to the violets, gently pressing down a petal for Bertha to examine with his finger. "I love how these violets have a faint white halo at their centre," he says, "as if the angels have touched them.” 

"'An angel has touched them!' she says with a coy tease. 

He raises an eyebrow and laughs. "Oh, I know it sounds a bit self-important, but... Are you going to tell everyone that Prophet Sunday's holy hands can not only heal people, but also make a beautiful flower rise from the ground? I’m sure you can learn how, too.” 

Her face turns more serious for a second and there is care in her voice, “Were you screaming during the night because of your dream?” 

"I think I might've started sleepwalking and having these really vivid dreams. I've always had them, but what happened at my apartment was strange. I broke my TV while I was asleep - I hit it hard with the cross on my wall. It was like I had a feeling, even beyond the mob, that something demonic was taking over that condo…Sometimes I might scream in the night. But you shouldn’t worry. I’m familiar with these dark forces.” 

"You really think everything that was true back in Bible times is still true today, don't you?”

"I do. Christ hasn't changed. He still casts out demons from people's bodies. I don't think the girl in my dream is a demon, though. Maybe she's an angel being attacked by a demon. Just like Mercy was. I'm still trying to figure out what all the signs mean. I wonder if it's possible to set her free.”

Bertha sighs and finds the courage to pull something out of the pocket of her white short-sleeved shirt, tucked tightly into her black skirt. It's a cross made from a strip of pale beige fabric, with some blood-red stitches, uneven, and a red X sewn at the intersection. It's a bit crude in the way it evokes sacrifice without shying away from blood, he's immediately fascinated by it. 

“I was bored during Home Economics, so I made something…” 

His eyes light up and his gaze shifts from the violets to her. "I find it very powerful and somewhat painful, like you get it. You can feel, more than most, how it must have felt for Jesus to sweat blood in Gethsemane and all the agony that came after…” 

"We both must feel forsaken sometimes, I may not scream at night, but sometimes I feel like my insides are screaming and yet I can't say it, like I'm carrying the pain of someone long before me. Do you want to keep it?" she asks, "after all, you gave me the flower picture.” 

He grasped it, his voice slightly broken with genuine emotion and almost reverence. He certainly wants to include this work in the symbols of the Flame of Pentecost. He could have copies made and send them to his most faithful members along with the newsletter. 

"I'll sew it into my coat and wear it always. This is the most beautiful gift I've ever received.”

As she hears him say this, tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and she breathes in the sweet, powdery scent of the healed violets.

He asks Bertha to show him where she keeps the needle and thread. He feels a little less naked with the cross stitched into the dark fabric, even though he doesn't wear one around his neck.

"I didn't think you'd like it so much, it's a little rushed and unpolished..."

He places a comforting hand on her shoulder, noticing her emotion and appreciating how freely it flows from her as it does from him. He has felt more and more alone among those who don’t pour out as easily as he does. He read somewhere, a newspaper, he thinks, that women cry on average five times a month and men only once. Whereas he always cries with his head in his hands, like a young lover whose first love is full of grief. Except that his beloved is God, and he is not sure if He can bear to look at him any longer. He goes from feeling perfect to feeling like this as quickly as the weather changes in the days of autumn.

"I like it so much that I want to make copies of it to send out with my newsletter, reminding my followers that I am close to them even in this moment of retreat. But I will have to ask your permission, and of course I will say that they were designed by a young, talented friend.“ 

"Oh, of course you have my permission!" she beams, and he is pleased too, though he wonders if his current service is worthy of such a strong, honest symbol. He feels he has lost the divine touch that once guided his every move in Paradise, but perhaps this symbol could be the sign of a new beginning, parallel to the announcement of the reopened investigation. 

"I'll draft a short message for the newsletter, then call the communications team back in Angel City, and...do you have a Polaroid nearby? I'll send my team a picture of your work so they can start ordering copies." 

"In my room! I love to take pictures. I want to show them to you... And of course, we can use my Polaroid. I want to take a picture of you. I've never met anyone who looks like you." Suddenly, she forgets her melancholy and seems rather excited. She grabs his hand and they rush to the room. Bertha dumps her school bag on the floor, and then she turns on the light, illuminating the dark room behind the white door.

He finds this room more charming than his own, which is natural since he's only a guest. Bertha has collected many charming objects over the years. There are crosses of different kinds, made of metal, silver, and dark wood, and varying in size - from the large wooden one to the small silver one above her bed. The bed is decorated with neatly stacked, embroidered plush pillows in white, yellow, and blue. Botanical prints hang on the wall, possibly put there by her mother when Bertha was younger. A small angel figurine stands in prayer on the wooden side table. Dolls are aligned over her closet. There’s the sound of a wheel spinning and rattling noises, all coming from the overlooked hamster in a plastic cage under her bed, as he gnaws on the bars and loses his mind.

She crouches down and reaches into the drawer of the wooden side table, pulling out the Polaroid. "Smile!" she says, pointing the camera at him, and he flashes one of his practiced friendly smiles. "You're pretty," she mutters, "like a doll. You have a face like one.”

As the picture emerges from the Polaroid, he lets out a chuckle, saying "Really? I'm like a doll?”

"My mother had a lot of bisque dolls when she was a child. She got them from my grandma Alberta when she married my dad, and they came from France." Bertha takes off her shoes, climbs onto the bed, and reaches for a beautiful doll above her closet. "I've held onto them because they're not just toys for kids anymore - they're collector's items now."

"This is Catherine, she could be your daughter. Our daughter. Because her eyes are a pale hazel and her hair is a dark blond, like a mixture between the colours of our eyes and our hair," Bertha holds up the doll, her porcelain face framed by wisps of curls. Her expression is deep and thoughtful, lifelike, and she's draped in a tiny ivory dress. She looks a little like him, because it is true. His face is round. He finds Catherine charming. 

He speaks in a honeyed tone, his voice low and soothing, as he gently takes Catherine's tiny, porcelain hand. He's careful not to move it, knowing how precious it is, as Bertha has told him. "Hello, Catherine. I'm Brother Eli. Your dress is beautiful. Is today your wedding day? Are you getting married in the eyes of God? May I have the honour of officiating your ceremony?”

Bertha giggles immediately. "Wait, that's a wonderful idea. Let me-" She grabs another pale doll with deeply black hair and eyes so pale blue they seem like diamonds. "She'll be the husband because she has black hair, and Catherine's is almost blond." He's amused by her reasoning. It makes sense to him.

Bertha places the black-haired doll beside Catherine, and Eli arranges them together. Bertha retrieves her Bible and hands it to him, positioning him above the dolls as if he were really performing their wedding ceremony. As he stands there, the Polaroid camera flashes twice. Bertha then places the two new photos beside the one she already took of him, capturing this scene.  

They dissolve into giggles like little children, but then Bertha collects herself and takes a picture of the cross stitched on his coat, slipping it into his pocket. "This should serve as a reference for your team. It's just simple cotton and a basic red thread. You shouldn't have any trouble.”

"Thank you, kind child." He sits beside the two dolls, idly playing with Catherine's curl. "What about those pictures you wanted to show me?”

Bertha looks uncertain. "There are some notes on the back. Some of them might seem a bit odd. They're just things that come to me, and I hope you won't mind.”

He shakes his head. "I'm not going to judge you. I'm a grown man who loves flowers and dolls and gets scared at night. I'm not exactly one to criticize “odd”.”

She pulls the Polaroids out of the drawer and hands them to him, letting them fall onto his lap.

Bertha's photographs feel like glimpses of her much like the greenhouse - they're places she's familiar with, and they remind him of home in ways he didn't anticipate. It's surprising how much Bertha's known world has in common with the sights of his own childhood, wether sights of his eyes or his soul he is not sure, despite their vastly different lives. The first picture has something barren to it, with a desert field dotted by many small crosses that could be mistaken for crows in the distance or tiny, forgotten graves. A narrow dirt path disappears into the distance. The second image haunts differently, is a ghost town, even more so than what he remembers of Paradise, with cracked asphalt and a deep, almost ultramarine sky whose light seems like it’s the cause of those cracks because it’s so piercing and blinding. The third picture shows the ocean, its blue waters matching the sky of the second image, as foamy waves crash against a cliffside. A thick, corroded yellow cross towers above it. Each image, in its own way, resembles a memorial to the dead. 

Each of the three pictures has a Bible verse written on the white Polaroid border in red marker. 

The first one says “ECCLESIASTES, 3:1-8”, the second “ISAIAH 27:10” and the third “ISAIAH 27:1”. 

He feels wetness on his cheeks. He doesn’t mind if he’s crying. These days, a strong blow could make him tear up. "These are wonderful. They feel like home. California is a strange land, but it's beautiful.”

"California has plenty of spots that make for great photos, many that I've seen with my dad but didn't really connect with," Bertha adds, not yet noticing his eyes are wet. "Who takes pictures of places like those, anyway? Only I do, so they're mine, like I've staked a claim. You can find a picture of the Hollywood sign in any magazine. But sometimes I stumble upon a landscape that really grabs me. That's why I always carry my camera with me." 

Then she notices it. "We're both weepers, aren't we?" 

He brushes his thumb against the film of the ocean photo. "I hope one day we'll fill rivers with tears of joy, not sadness. I know we will. I have faith.”

"Oh wait, I have one more, my favourite," she says. She digs in the back of the drawer. Then, she finds a dusty Polaroid. She wipes it clean and hands it to him. The sight hits him with the force of a brutal knife wound. It's just a pond, but the overgrown reeds and grasses seem to loom over it, menacing, as if warning him to keep his distance from the dark, oil-black water. The trees on the far side of the pond look strangely out of place, like they've been superimposed on the scene, but their reflection in the water is unmistakable. The foggy surroundings give the stones around the pond a soft, mushy look. 

The verse under it, “LUKE: 24:7.” He quickly turns it over, as if to soothe the wound it's opening in him, a wound he can't quite identify, and finds a written composition. 

“I see the girl in the mirror, her neck twisted to the side, a cavity beneath her like a blackened tooth or a worm-eaten apple. She’s gone grey in skin and hair, and she's grinning at me as if from the depths of a body of water. She fills me, and I feel her. Yet, she's gone. Death only marks the beginning for us. Mors solum principium est. The girl with the crown of thorns barely clinging to her flooded head is not alive. My eyes recoil at the sight of her, saturated with death, teeming with our wriggling maggots and swollen with all of our filth. But I feel her stirring inside me, moving, a parasite, like something from this swamp that has found new warmth in me. Her bones were meant to remain undiscovered, consumed by the swamp's voracious maw, like an insatiable infant. But now, she's gushed out, wandered off, into every nook.” 

His eyes shrink and he grips Bertha's hand, his own cold and damp. "You see her too, don't you? The girl with the broken neck?”

"It's just a silly fantasy," she says defensively, still afraid of his opinion.

"I see her all the time. My Mercy, when she appears in my dreams, her neck is broken.”

"But the girl I saw," Bertha sighs, contemplating the sights that follow her in her half-awake early morning or daydreaming states, much as it is the darkness of the night that beckons said sights to Eli, "doesn't have that beautiful long hair like Mercy's in the papers. She's a skinny girl with short grey hair."

He squeezes his head enough to hurt, a habit of his when trying to push the knowledge out whether to retrieve it or cast it away, and when he feels like himself again, he looks up at Bertha. "I'm going to my room to work on the newsletter and later go out to send the fax at the copy shop. If you need me until then, just knock." 

"I have cheer practice with friends soon. If I work hard this year, I might get to be co-captain.”

He gives another smile. "I wish you the best of luck, my child." Despite feeling like he should be afraid, he isn't.

It's six in the morning, and Bertha lies restless in bed. She opens her eyes slowly, but they feel heavy, as if sealed with cobwebs. Under her doll's glassy stare, she pulls herself out of bed, wearing her salmon nightgown, her brown hair all tangled. A deep longing, a melancholy, washes over her, as if someone had stolen something from her while she slept. She goes up the stairs, her feet feeling the cold wood beneath her, and she's careless enough to almost fall between the steps. All the rooms are locked, except for the one at the very end. Eli’s guest room. 

That night, no one screamed. Everything felt calm. She pries it open and stumbles into the dark. By his bed, she notices a worn Bible with a cross necklace on top. Next to it is a research paper titled “The Cultivation of the Titan Arum” from Beach City University. He must have picked it up at the library when he visited the copy shop.

His sleeping pose is childlike, with his blond hair fanned out against the pillow. He clutches it like a young girl holding her doll, his pink mouth slightly wet with drool. His eyelashes are long and light-coloured. One leg is delicately crossed over the other. Graceful like a sleeping Endymion and she feels like Diana must have felt. His ivory nightshirt is slightly rumpled, revealing his pale stomach. It's lean but lacks the firm definition typical of men's abdomens; instead, it has a softness reminiscent of Hermaphroditus. Bertha wonders if he realizes that everything he does has a flirtatious edge. When he talks to her, her father, or on TV, she asks herself if this comes from him or from the world around him. If it's from him, why has the world led him to believe that flirting is the way to get what he wants?

Her hands are on fire. She feels torment and a strong urge, along with dread. There’s a tightness inside her, knowing that even if she gives in, she'll feel empty afterward. It will be like eating too much McDonald's when she's hungry, only to end up feeling sick. What would her father say if he saw her standing like a ravenous wolf over a helpless, dreaming lamb? Would he call her evil, or would he say, "Well done, Bertha, we were born to be beasts; might makes right"? Or is it only the might of men that makes right, and it's different for women, who are supposed to be a light for humanity? She feels that's not true. She feels that they got it right back in the days when they thought women were dirty. That is the nature of sex. A woman's filth comes into contact with a man's spotless virtue; the woman absorbs it, she poisons the well, and then she is punished. But the earth continues to fill, it continues to teem with living creatures, because a woman really only feels at home in the filth to which she belongs, and therefore a punishment is never a punishment.

Maybe she knows what her father would say. Maybe he finally realizes. That she is responsible for infecting the world with violence and that it is a great honour. That is why he told her to take him to his room. Why he gave him none of the warnings he gave all the other boys she dated. “I'll kill you if you touch my daughter.” No, not even playfully. Maybe her daddy expects that. Save me the PR trouble, correct the faggot, and she is tempted. Like Eve and a long line of women after her who infected the world. To put her hands over his mouth and push. It would be easy. It would be so easy. He might not even make a sound. He might think it was a dream.

The girl in the mirror sometimes reassures her. She says it’s a cycle. She tells her not to worry about pure things. They must dip into the dirt on their way to heaven. This happens to everyone. Obsessing over saving pure things from their cycles won’t help. Her eyes hold something far beyond mere lust, a human urge to fix what seems wrong and put it where it belongs. He’s not where he should be. She wants to interfere, to press her lips to his, to explore with her tongue, while her hand travels down his belly and further, slipping into his pants to touch his warm, pulsating member, which he vehemently resists. Is this a need to make things normal, or is there a longing growing within her to become as unusual as he is?

She can see it, his nocturnal erection pressing against his silk pants, and she cannot even imagine that there is a connection between the beautiful dreams of the beautiful youth and the paper on the Titan Arum by the bed. Of course he sleeps in silk. She thinks, "What is a pure thing?” If it is something without desires, then this beautiful youth is not a pure thing like the girl in the mirror talks about. Then she suspects, like all people, that they can't be so different after all, that she is no better or worse than him in her wanting, and then she can begin to see that if she put her hands over his mouth, he would cry with the universal silent lament of Abel in the field, that the Bible doesn't tell of this, but that Bertha is sure that if there had been an Abel, he would have lamented, "We are brothers, we are brothers, why are you doing this to me?” 

They are friends. In this sense, she is his keeper. She kisses the cross on the bedside table, closes the door and leaves the beautiful youth to dream his beautiful dreams.  

For most of the week, Bertha had stayed away from the greenhouse. Eli kept her updated on the mass production of the cross design she had created, and he sought her opinion on the message he wrote for the Dove newsletter. She was glad to have his friendship, and he seemed even gladder. Despite spending most of his time holed up in his room, where the sound of his typewriter or phone calls filled the quiet air of the big, mostly empty house as he tried to remotely manage the situation in Angel City, he thought it a miracle, to have found a friend. Sometimes, Bertha brought him whipped cream coffee and sat beside him, enjoying the freedom to eat donuts and sweets without her father's disapproving looks. Even though Eli rarely spoke while working, she liked sitting with him, watching the sunlight reflect off his glasses. One time, she asked if it was really true that those blessed by the Spirit could handle snakes and drink poison fearlessly. He said he believed it, but confessed it only to her, admitting he had never tried because he was a coward. 

Some time later, she reenters the greenhouse, and for a moment, she's convinced she hates him.

She had no idea all that was going on. It had been a few days since she last stepped inside. The condensed glass panes are sweating, just like her brow does before she realizes it, and they blur the outline of the dense jungle that's creeping in. The sun struggles to pierce the mist clinging to the interior. The thick, humid air feels like the breath of some sleeping, tropical beast. She feels suffocated, as if in a sauna. Now, she notices small streams running down the glass panes. It’s not raining outside; it’s much hotter than she thought her greenhouse could be in October. The other flowers are tucked away in a corner, exiled for their sake. This includes the violets he cared for, touching them the way she wished he would touch her. Makeshift irrigation lines wind across the ground. They’re made from garden hoses, with joints tightly wrapped in electrical tape to prevent leaks. She spots a homemade misting system sending out vapour.

She can hear an unnerving drip-drip-drip and the sound of a big fan, several fans. The instant he, standing by a pot enclosed within a sort of weird tent, faces her, a sharp slap strikes his face. He clutches his reddened cheek. "Bertha, have you lost your mind? What-“ 

She lets out a scream. "Have YOU lost your mind? This greenhouse is suffocating me! What will I tell Mom when she visits?”

He gently guides her down with his hand. “Bertha, I am following His word. The word of the Lord. He has commanded me. I believe this is the only way to understand my dreams.”

“It’s so hot in here I could die!” she cries. She feels childish but doesn’t understand why. The disruption in the greenhouse makes her feel like a child whose block tower has been knocked down by an older kid.

"You're overreacting, dear child. We can always put up another greenhouse for the rest of the plants.”

"What's with 'the rest of the plants'? You're talking about them like they're intruders. This was their home, their greenhouse! MY greenhouse!”

She's red and sobbing uncontrollably. He holds her shoulders firmly. "I have a deep affection for your plants, and I won't abandon them. But if I can make the Titan Arum bloom, it will be a remarkable feat, and a way to obey the Lord's will. Your greenhouse has transformed into a thriving, living ecosystem, designed to awaken a giant. If I succeed, it will be a true divine blessing. Are we not waiting for the day when we can cry tears of joy?”

“You said this could take YEARS! How would you feel if someone messed with your stuff?” She rarely loses her cool, but now she is barking at him, trying to grab his shirt collar. 

"Bertha, no…" He reaches out to gently pat her hair, but she clutches his collar, says "we'll see" and dashes out of the greenhouse in a fury. He hurries after her as she runs towards his room.

In his room, she wails and sobs uncontrollably, wreaking havoc like a pest let loose to destroy crops. She slashes his half-written papers on the desk, crushes his cross necklace under her heel until it fractures in two, and smashes the typewriter and phone her father had left for him, causing a loud crash that echoes even to the lower floor. By the time he arrives, he finds her on the ground, her rage so intense she's almost foaming at the mouth, ripping pages from his old Bible, the one he's always carried with him, and even digging her nails into the leather cover.

He forcibly unlatches her from the Bible she is destroying. He holds her steady in his arms and runs his hand over her head. She is desperate to continue her revenge and nearly bites his shoulder. He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he quietly prays, unable to hold back tears for the loss of pages from his childhood Bible. Those pages held his annotations, shaped his life, it had formed in its creased spine. He tries to comfort both her and himself. He reminds himself that this represents something. He is no longer that boy, and he never will be again. Maybe that’s a good thing. A jeweller might still be able to fix the cross. But it won’t ever be the same. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Bertha's angry sobs turn to regretful ones. "I'm so sorry, I've broken your cross, I stepped on it, Jesus will hate me. I'll go to hell for sure, I'll go to hell, you can take mine if you want, you can take mine…” 

"Oh, sweet girl…" he says, though he can't explain why the words feel so familiar, "if you keep crying like this, you'll make yourself sick. You're breaking your own heart. I'm not mad at you, I forgive you. He does too.”

"But I broke your cross..." her sobbing is punctuated by cries of anguish.

"I have other necklaces like that. Do you notice that there is never blood on any of them? But look, sewn on my coat, I have a much more beautiful one, and the Lord won't care that you broke that one when you made one like this.” 

That evening, they pick out a smaller greenhouse from a catalogue for the displaced violets and other plants. When they set it up, Bertha hopes her dad won't be too angry about Eli taking over the garden.

Bertha had been telling everyone at her high school that she and Reverend Sunday were engaged. This came about when she asked him why he was still unmarried at twenty-six, and he responded that marriage wasn't something to rush into - it was a commitment before God. He said that he wouldn't make a good husband. Bertha then asked him to describe his ideal wife, and he said it would be someone who could support his mission and bring insight to his life, pointing out truths he couldn't see. Bertha felt he was describing her, and to her surprise, Eli thought so too. They agreed to a chaste engagement, with the condition that they would get married only when the Titan Arum in the greenhouse bloomed for its brief 48 hours. After the bloom faded, they would have finished consummating their marriage, spent alongside it. Bertha had her concerns, though - the flower's bloom could take up to a decade, that’s what Eli said, and she was growing restless. Mr. Allen had given his reluctant blessing, not failing to remind Bertha that she was marrying far below her station, though they hadn't really brought up the Titan Arum matter with him, just the idea of waiting until Bertha was older. Perhaps Mr. Allen didn't think they were really getting married, but was hoping for a distraction for his daughter to keep her legs closed for a while. Eli thought his opposition would be stronger. Marriage between a Pentecostal and a Baptist was a touchy subject, but perhaps he had already given up the fight and didn't care enough about religion to really put his foot down, but the class difference really got to him. 

Word spread quickly. One day, while Eli was checking the greenhouse temperature and humidity, adjusting the heaters and oscillating fans, a young man appeared instead of Bertha. He seemed like a boy, around Bertha's age, with a light beard and wispy moustache starting to grow. Although he was bigger than Eli had been at that age, he still looked gaunt for a footballer. 

Eli turns, looking down at the younger man with a slight tilt of his head. "Hello, my young friend. Are you a friend of Bertha's? Can I help you with something?”

"I am, actually. We used to date, but she broke things off. She says she can't see me anymore because she's engaged. Is that true? To be honest, I always thought she was full of it. But she told me to come ask you about it.”

Eli sighs. "Oh, dear. Yes, it's true. We're getting married.”

The young man cannot help but glance around the peculiar, obsessive setup of the greenhouse, or resist the suffocating heat. He is already soaked in sweat, but somehow the blond man before him seems impervious to it, his face looking fresh even in a black coat in this sweltering environment. It’s odd and unsettling.

"What does her father think about it? You're much older. And frankly, well...You're not like us.”

"Money isn't everything, my young friend," Eli says with a smile, "Mr. Allen likes me, and to be honest, he's relieved these news will put some awkward rumours to rest.”

The young man wastes no time. "Bertha's not even a virgin anymore, I think you should know...and oh, I'm losing my mind in this...whatever this is." He sprints outside and Eli follows, carefully locking the greenhouse.

As he locks up, he keeps talking, not wanting to ignore the boy rudely. "Well, I'm not one either anymore." He thinks about what Eleanor had written in that paper, how Mercy had defiled him. "It would be unfair to expect it from her.” 

"Your brother says..." and Eli's reaction is immediate at the word "brother", always the last to find out. "According to your commie brother, Bertha's going to become the new Mercy. I don't get why Mr. Allen is fine with his daughter dating someone who's been linked to a damn murder in the press. Not that I'm saying you're guilty or anything, Commies lie, all the time, but… it's some heavy stuff, and I doubt he'd want that kind of baggage.” Eli flinches at his curse. 

The kid is spewing venom, but he couldn't fault him. Eli smiles faintly at him. "Paul says a lot of things, like you said, Communists are liars like their father the Devil, but Mr. Allen is a wise person. Have you seen Bertha's beautiful cross, the new symbol of the Flame of Pentecost? Our faith is strong, and it won't be shaken by that demon's lies. That man has been in Satan's grasp since youth, and he's pure evil. We must drive him out. We stand together against him, and he can't touch us. It's a blessing to have Abigail back in Angel City, along with the whole team. The battle is tough, and the Lord has instructed me to rest and meditate, but I just can't seem to do it. I'm always drafting statements and sending faxes from here to Angel City. I don't regret saying we need to drive Paul out - we must. Even here, I receive many letters, and it touches my heart to know so many people are crying for me.”

The young man's face appears more unsettled than before. Suddenly, Bertha's voice rings out in the distance, her words hurried as she clutches her bag and struggles to catch her breath. "Elliot! What are you doing here?”

He stares at her flushed face, asking again, “So, this really is true?”

Bertha's response is firm. "Yes, Elliot, I told you. Now please leave - the adults need to discuss some serious matters.”

“Bertha!” Eli lightly scolds her, “no need to be unkind. Elliot, would you like a drink? You're welcome to come in if you'd like.”

Bertha grits her teeth. “Eli, this is important. I've just found out something and we need to talk about it in private.”

Eli looks around, then puts a hand on the young man's shoulder, in his usual fashion, "Don't mind her - you know how girls can be. One of these days we'll go for a ride, just the two of us, get something to eat or go to the gun range." Elliot is affected, he doesn't know why, but it reminds him of the time his father had that beautiful twenty-five year old actress over and she was all smiles with him. He thinks he could never compete, his hair, his skin, his eyes, the blonde prophet was beautiful and Elliot was just a rich guy’s son like any other. 

He makes his way out. Bertha drags Eli into his room, her face painted with worry. As soon as Eli hears the news - 'They found Mercy's bones!' - he thinks of what Bertha wrote on that Polaroid.

“Her bones were meant to remain undiscovered, consumed by the swamp's voracious maw, like an insatiable infant. But now, she's gushed out, wandered off, into every nook.”

He's overcome with elation, a prophecy is unfolding and his memories will return, helping him finally bolt together the latter segment of the Mercy haunting in his mind. But then Bertha drops a newspaper on his desk, saying "They will call you to Paradise now..." As he reads the headline, he realizes it's today's paper, which will likely arrive in the mail later. Bertha must have picked it up on her way home. His initial excitement starts to give way to growing concern, but the concern is not unmitigated by that elation.

“3 November, 1982.

MERCY MILLER CASE: New Developments, Remains Unearthed in Paradise” always shows that same image of the sullen girl with her tar-black hair flowing like waves in a deep, mysterious ocean. There’s also a pond. It looks similar, but not exactly like the one in Bertha's picture. 

“The investigation into the reopened cold case of the seventeen-year-old cheerleader who disappeared in the days following her birthday in late 1971 has reached a new phase after an anonymous tip led investigators to a shallow grave site at the edge of a pond near the Paradise Pentecostal Church. The pond has been unknown to most of Paradise until now, and the officers even describe it as strange, since they were not aware of such a place being located so close to the church grounds. Although forensic identification is still pending, early reports indicate that the remains, mostly teeth and a few, unfortunately decomposed bones, match Miller's dental records. Investigators believe that decomposition and water exposure may make it difficult to determine the exact cause of death, but evidence at the scene points to foul play. The new development will lead law enforcement officials to recall key witnesses from the original 1972 investigation, including former classmates, teachers and members of the local religious community. Among those expected to be questioned is Elijah Sunday, now a nationally recognized religious leader and “televangelist” — a term coined last year by Hadden and Swann in the survey “Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Power of Televangelism”— who was one of the last people seen with Mercy Miller before her disappearance.

As part of the renewed investigation, law enforcement officials have recovered archived tapes from the original 1972 interrogations of Paradise High students, tapes that had been largely forgotten. The recordings reveal a town divided between those who dismissed Mercy as reckless and those who believed her obsession with one boy in particular -Sunday- had a deeper meaning. According to sources familiar with the original investigation, students painted conflicting pictures of Mercy: Some described her as reckless and self-destructive, suggesting that she may have left town with the wrong person. Others spoke of a fixation on Sunday, with one friend recalling how she spoke of him as "above all of you" and insisted that he had something she "needed."Another former student, Eleanor Kelley, an outspoken feminist activist and journalist, alleged in her 1972 deposition that Mercy had sexually assaulted him, which she continues to sustain in her publication as having happened. Eli's own testimony in the archived tapes seems to contradict this, but now experts claim that analysis of his language, intonation, and emotional responses in this tape “could indicate that he might have wanted to protect her”. Perhaps most unsettling are the statements from Andrew Jones, Miller’s boyfriend at the time, whose testimony in 1972—dismissed then as unfounded jealousy—is now receiving renewed attention. According to Jones’s interview, obtained from the tapes: “That little freak has hated her since the day they met. He’s dangerous. If she’s still alive, she’s trapped there. If not, she’s dung by now.” When the Sunday property was searched, however, nothing was found.

Jones, who was hospitalized after a violent altercation on the Sunday family property just weeks after Mercy’s disappearance, claimed for years that Eli Sunday was involved. But at the time, investigators dismissed his allegations as personal vendetta rather than viable evidence. Now, with Miller’s likely remains recovered, detectives are reviewing whether Sunday’s proximity to her disappearance warrants further scrutiny.

Elijah Sunday, then a precocious teenage preacher, was not and has not been charged with any crime. However, given his prominence in Miller’s final weeks, investigators have confirmed that he will be questioned as part of the renewed inquiry. Sunday has recently drawn attention for his fervent calls to reopen the Mercy Miller case himself in response to his brother’s exposé on a contraversial 1972 sermon dedicated to the case. In 1972, Sunday’s original police interview stood out for its unusual intensity. Investigators at the time noted his distress and religious framing of the case, with one officer recalling how the boy preacher had wept and spoken of ‘sins committed against Mercy’ and his own ‘weakness before the Lord.” His testimony also included a dramatic confession: "I miss her so much, officers. Please, bring her back to me. I will pray… bring her back.” While Sunday was never considered a suspect, his deep involvement in Miller’s personal struggles and his proximity to her last known whereabouts have led authorities to take a closer look at his 1972 statements in light of the bones discovery near church grounds. One former student, who asked to remain anonymous, stated: "There was something about Mercy, and Eli. We could say that despite how little we knew him back in high school, both of them felt off. Like they were barely human. Almost but not quite. They weren't like us.”

Sunday’s Followers See Journalist Brother as an Agent of the Devil.

Sunday has used many harsh words in response to his brother's exposé, and some followers of Sunday's ministry have reportedly taken things to a dangerous extreme, calling Paul an incarnation of the Antichrist and tainted with the blood of the innocent. In prayer circles, some claim to have received visions of Paul engulfed in flames, while others warn that he will "face judgment" for trying to bring down a man of God, and the journalist says he has received threatening packages, often containing gruesome images or animal remains, coupled with these ominous messages. For his part, Paul has become increasingly preoccupied by the disturbing nature of the backlash. In an interview, he admitted that he no longer feels safe, citing a growing number of threatening phone calls, letters and warnings from strangers: "I sleep with one eye open.””

No longer does the first segment seem certain. Eli dives into his work, the new typewriter's frantic clacking resonating throughout the room. Bertha takes a seat beside him, her fingers intertwined against her skirt, "I feel like something in my mirrors is chasing us.” 

Eli's response is a nervous repetition: "I'm happy, I'm happy... I just want to know. I want to know.”

“Knowing is a very dangerous thing, isn't it? It's in the very start of the Book. You'll likely be contacted soon for questioning.”

"Maybe I'll enjoy being home. It's been a long time since I've seen them. Dad, Mom, my sisters…”

”What's going to happen to the Titan Arum? Who's going to care for it?”

Eli takes a deep breath, and it's clear this concerns him. "We need to win Elliot over. I want you to come with me to Paradise - your insights have been for me like a guiding compass.” 

Bertha feels like she’s a beloved wife. "What about Dad?”

"I'll convince him. Nothing will get in the way of the path He's laid out for us.” They didn't even know where this path was leading, who had started it, or what it was called. 

Elliot declined Eli's invitation to visit the gun range alone Saturday, but Bertha convinced him to join them both in his Cadillac, followed by a trip to a new local fast food spot. Eli overlooked his distaste for the unhygienic habits of boys his age, such as masking body odour with cologne, and eventually won Elliot over completely. In Eli's car, Elliot was allowed to vent it out, smoke Nat Shermans and confide in Bertha about his heartbreak, Eli comforted him more than Bertha could bring herself to. Eli lavishly praised Elliot's marksmanship and flattered him about his football triumphs. By the end of that Saturday, Elliot felt that despite the minister being engaged to Bertha, Eli might as well have been his wife. Moreover, he now believed that Eli's prosecution was a shame for conservative America, and driven by a sense of chivalry towards this oppressed man, Elliot ultimately decided: he would care for the Titan Arum in his absence. Elliot’s father wasn’t a very attentive man nor was his mother very loving, Eli learned. 

The second to fall was Mr. Allen, whom Eli persuaded by arguing that Bertha's presence in Paradise would be beneficial to both of them. Eli suggested that Bertha would be considered a saint, and Mr. Allen would earn praise for raising a responsible and chaste daughter who could stand by her husband during hard times, displaying maturity beyond her years. Initially, Mr. Allen had his doubts. He worried about how it would look if Eli was guilty and he allowed him to get close to Bertha. However, he soon realized that this was the best way to deflect any accusations that he had ever doubted Eli's innocence while showing him his support.

They negotiated: He would let Bertha come if Eli would soften his frightening words about Paul while still making his point. "Just stop talking like a loon. I know you're a loon, but I don't want them to find out just how much of one you are," the man said.

One Friday morning, the letter finally arrives in Angel City and is forwarded to him by his lawyers at his retreat. Bertha stands beside him, her hands resting on his shoulders to support her head, as he reads it. It was only a matter of time, anyway.

“To: Elijah Sunday
Flame of Pentecost Ministries
Angel City, CA

Dear Elijah Sunday,

In light of recent developments in the reopened investigation of the disappearance and suspected homicide of seventeen year-old Mercy Miller (1971-72), the Paradise Police Department is currently conducting interviews with individuals who may have relevant information regarding the case.

As you were a resident of Paradise at the time of Miss Miller’s disappearance and previously provided statements to investigators, we formally request your presence for an interview at Paradise Police Headquarters at your earliest availability, no later than December 15, 1982.

This interview is not a formal accusation but rather part of our comprehensive effort to establish a factual record. You are not currently under arrest or facing charges in this matter. However, should you choose not to comply with this request, we may be required to take additional legal measures to secure your testimony.

We are prepared to accommodate reasonable scheduling requests and allow your legal representation to be present during questioning. 

We appreciate your cooperation in this ongoing investigation and trust that your insight will contribute to a just and thorough resolution.

Sincerely,

Detective Verdon.”

Bertha giggles. "Passive aggressive much?"

Eli's pumped, feeling the same rush he got when Paul mentioned Andrew in his paper and Eli remembered something from high school.

"Time to pack our bags. I want us to be there in two weeks, max. That way, I'll have time to see my family and get some alone time before the lawyers and Abigail show up."

"Will we meet Sexton?" 

"Abigail says he's refusing to comment on the case. What a backstabber. You know, he once compared me to Solomon in the papers, trying to be subtle. Something like, 'I encouraged him the way King David encouraged Solomon...' When people whispered that I forced him to step down, but no one took it seriously."

"Snake!" Bertha exclaims, surprised that Eli's relationship with Sexton was so rocky. She only knew that Sexton had been like a father figure and mentor to Eli.

That same Friday, a mysterious package appears on the doorstep. Eli notices it when he is heading out to restock supplies for his makeshift little home office. The unmarked box has a message written in red marker and sealed with packing tape: "Listen to this with the new Mercy. Show yourself to her. FROM: A.J”

Andrew Jones, of course. He figures the Beach City home isn't a secret anymore and hasn’t been for a while. He blames himself, since his friendship with Bertha and Mr. Allen is now out in the open, someone must have found out the address of the Beach City property. 

With scissors, he tears open the box on the kitchen table, and inside, he finds polyester stuffing and a white audio cassette from 1972. The cassette has "The Truth According To Elijah, 05/03/72" written on it in the same red marker. 

Eli wants to know. He waits for Bertha to get back from the Beach City High Friday night football game, where she'd been cheering. She knew Eli was too busy with the Mercy case to attend, and not a sports fan anyway, but she still looked for him in the crowd, searching for that gaze of his that always made him seem like he was trying to escape something, like he was being chased by priapic creatures that needed him to yield, needed him to quench their restlessness but he didn’t want to give himself to them. 

Even Elliot asked about him.

After dinner, when she's kissed goodnight to her dad, she brings a cassette player to his room. "This is probably that one sermon," Eli says. "The one I don't remember that Paul's obsessed about. This guy, Andrew Jones, he's his friend."  

Bertha longs to wrap her arms around his dainty waist and sob against his back. "He tells you to make me listen to it to discredit you in my eyes, and you do it without hesitation. You trust me that much?” 

He looks at her again and again in her cheerleading uniform. It’s white with red trims and has “BCHS” embroidered on it. The fitted bodice and mid-thigh skirt remind him of Mercy and the Coca-Girl. He feels subjection and constraint, along with a certain uneasiness. This feeling brings a sense of reverence, all fear does. He trusts her to speak prophecies and carry out retribution if necessary. She will know exactly when it’s needed.

The tape rolls, his breath stops. A live TV broadcast from ten years ago, at the first words he finds his memory as a pit, not a void, something is being dug up, it will be littered with bodies the closer you get to the intimate depths of the hole, because no one wants to find this abyssal thing that sleeps in the belly of the ground. This is his voice, this is his style, but it doesn't feel like him, the most terrifying thing he finds is not that it feels foreign to him, but that it feels familiar like Bertha’s breathing right beside him. Snippets, embryonic ideas flitting like elusive radiant flickers along with the cassette hiss, through his mind where it appears that darkness has lingered for ages, yet he can't hold onto them to conjure a consistent illumination. These are half-thoughts, almost thoughts, like he has always been almost a human man and like Mercy was almost alive. 

Bertha's breath comes out in a sharp gasp, like she's choking. He slams the stop button. "This is too intense," he says, his voice softening. "If it's too much, we can stop. I don't want to scare you.”

"No, it's not that...I just can't catch my breath. I love you.”

"You're a loyal soul, Bertha.” 

They’re sitting like lovesick kids viewing a scary VHS. Eli remembers slapping Sexton, and that Sexton saw him rant. It makes sense to him now - all those times Sexton looked at him a little off. 

Bertha's face turns cross, as if she's fighting to keep something at bay. "My adored penitent and sister...Oh, you must have loved her.”

Her voice takes on a little girl's quality, but it's laced with a chill that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Eli…"

“Y-yes?” 

“Fuck me. Prove that you love me more than you loved her.” 

It’s stronger than him, a raw instinct like a creature losing it’s mind with fright, and mauling. He slaps her, giving her the same slap she gave at the greenhouse. This makes her feel slightly off balance. The colour on her face is the same as her uniform’s trim.

She hunches over, almost like a contortionist. Her nails sink into her scalp, and he worries she could bruise herself. “SEE? YOU DON’T LOVE ME. YOU ONLY LOVE ME BECAUSE SHE’S GOTTEN INSIDE ME SOMEHOW. ONLY BECAUSE I’M INFECTED.”  

He tries to break her coiled position, but it's as if she's calcified. "Don't touch me! I know you don't love me. Otherwise you would take me. Even if I lost my gifts, even if I lost the insights, you would want me and desire me.”

He tries to hold her close, like that time she searched his room, but it's like grasping a tangled ball of rusty metal wires, cutting into his fingertips. "I never said I loved you just for your insights... Bertha, you're the only genuine friend I've ever had, aside from God, in my entire miserable life.” 

“NO I AM NOT. MERCY WAS. MERCY WAS, NOT ME.”

He kisses her cheek again and again, where it's turned cherry red and wet from tears. It's only now that he notices she's crying, tears flowing from her eyes silently. "I was afraid of her. I was afraid - that's all I remember. Today, I was scared of you a little because you're a cheerleader, just like her. But now I see I'm not really scared of you, even though you remind me of her.”

"I'll never have as much as she had from you. You're all used up. We'll never be happy. It's too late now.”

"No, Bertha, it's not like that...We just need to hang in there. This year, we'll finally put an end to this bad story. Something didn't go right.”

Bertha's eyes cloud, her pupils shrinking as she tries to warm her cold, shaking hands against his chest. "She hasn't made it to God," she says.

Eli pulls back, feeling like he knows this, since when he saw the Coca-Cola girl on TV.

"If you love me, don't let me sleep alone, she crawls into my bed, Eli, she does... Not out of malice, she just smothers me, she lays herself on my chest…"

He's all too familiar with that feeling. He can't bring himself to leave her be. Still, something bothers him, and he despises himself for being a bit afraid of her. "What would Mr. Allen think that you’re sleeping in my bed?” 

“I don’t care what Dad would think! Sometimes, I feel like she’s killing my soul! She makes me write… Oh no, I can’t tell you that…” She sinks to the floor. Her Friday night makeup is smeared, and she sweats, still curled into herself.

"Fine, Bertha, sleep here..." He starts caressing her hair and back. "Go shower and come back, okay? I think Mercy wasn't as bad as you think. She's not out to destroy your soul; she's probably trying to break free herself.”

"You think that because you loved her more than me, that's why.”

"Stop this childish fantasy. You're going to be my wife, not her, and that's that!”

Bertha returns with her hair straightened, her face clean, and her salmon nightgown on, walking barefoot. He's wearing his ivory and cerulean silk. As soon as he sees her, he knows he has nothing to fear, because she clings to him like a child to its mother, in a completely chaste way. Even though she’s close to him, she can’t sleep. Her heartbeat races with anxiety. He takes Vicks VapoRub from his drawer and rubs it on her chest. The cold ointment and the movement of his hand soothes her. His mother used to do this for his night terrors, and sometimes it helps him when he feels crushed inside. They stay up late playing guessing games and giggling loudly enough to wake Mr. Allen.

Bertha raises her head from his chest, looking at the two books scattered across the bed. "Dad, he's incredible - he knows everything about Biblical genealogies. I thought he was cheating, but that's impossible.”  

"What stupid fucking kids," Mr. Allen just snarls and slams the door shut. 

Eli had taken on the responsibility of feeding and cleaning Bertha's hamster, a tiny Russian boy she had named Elliot after her ex-boyfriend. Sadly, by the time Eli tried to help the hamster, it was already too late. The little creature was lethargic, the usual rattling noise in the room had ceased, and Elliot showed no interest in playing or even eating. The first time Eli discovered the cage in a deplorable state, he was amazed the stench hadn't overpowered the entire room. However, when he pulled the cage out from under Bertha's bed, the smell nearly made him gag, and the scant bedding was completely soiled. The poor hamster had a grainy, brownish-grey substance coming from its mouth, and a few days later, he passed away.

On the day of his death, Eli almost throws up. It looks like something from his nightmares. He finds that Bertha's room has an almost cloying, unpleasant undercurrent, though it doesn't quite smell foul. Elliot lays reduced to a swollen black orb. His normally soft, white and grey body is bloated beyond recognition, darkened and misshapen, as if someone had blown him up like a balloon. Tiny, fuzzy white worms with black tips wriggle out of his distended, bloody belly. A cloud of large buzzing flies is already swarming over it. He touches his cross on his coat to find the strength to grab his gloves, throw away the cage, and dig a small grave for Elliot by the garden, he grabs the little angel figurine from Bertha's bedside table to mark the grave site, he feels like he has to do something, anything, to make sure that the little creature and his intestines, taken over by the eggs and spilling opaque vomit, don't haunt his worst visions, therefore he supplicates on his behalf, with the expectation of God's kindness for even his littlest creatures in his heart.

After he finishes, he returns to clean under the bed. Dust has collected there, and the smell of animals lingers. While he cleans, he spots a green leather notebook. He feels tempted to open it. Bertha had mentioned that Mercy makes her write, then caught herself. He’s never opened Mercy’s Penitence Diary. The name comes to him suddenly. There used to be a black journal that belonged to Mercy. In his dreams, she hides under his bed and says, “You have never once opened my Penitence Diary.”

When he opens it, a drawing inside catches his attention. The drawing features a knife with a wooden handle shaped like a cross, standing upright and pointing towards an open lily, all enclosed in a detailed frame of flowers. 

The first page was dated August of that summer. The diary isn't very thick. 

“Story of My Marriage.

I'm Bertha Allen. At seventeen, a houseguest arrived at my father's house. He was a man in his twenties, but his youthful looks made him seem even younger. His hair was blond and his eyes were blue. His voice was a striking combination of gravity and tenderness. Although he was pale, his complexion didn't look unhealthy - it was more as if he hadn't spent much time in the sun. His blond hair was reminiscent of wheat, and his features were girlishly pretty. He spoke the Word of the Lord to me with great authority. I did everything I could to make him notice me, I wore my shortest skirts, and whenever I found him reading alone from Scripture or the papers, or writing his speeches, I'd sit on his lap and feel him getting hard in his pants. He would grab my waist and move me, using me to stimulate himself, and I would get red with need, and I couldn't stop behaving in such a shameless way, and once I tried to do it at breakfast, in front of my father, and he pulled my hair really hard and humiliated me, and told my father that he had raised a filthy harlot, and my father told him he could punish me however he wanted, and I was thrilled. At night he dragged me into the garden, it was a dark night, the moon was hidden by clouds, he made me kneel over the stones until they turned red with blood, he slapped my face repeatedly until I cried like a little girl and was so scared I could piss myself. He made me kiss his hand, he had a signet ring. It showed the Archangel Michael with his cross spear, driving it into the beast under his feet. He had me kiss the ring, and as my lips touched the metal, my head was reminded of how much pain the blow of the ring had caused me. He forced me to press my lips against his hardened member, aroused by the sight of me writhing in discomfort as my knees dug into the rocks. He pushed it deep into my throat until I felt on the verge of blacking out, my tears mingling with the sweat brought on by the August night's heat in the garden. The scent of lavender was replaced by his own musk as my nose was buried in his blond pubic hair but it smelled so good. Another day I replaced his Bible and stole it and put the Story of O in its place. He shook me and told me that he knew why I had such a dirty book, because I was at the right age to get married, and that this perversion was a way to satisfy my natural desire to give myself to my husband ceaselessly as the Book commands. He lifted my skirt and bent me over the desk. I was already aroused when his belt first struck my skin. Then he inserted his fingers and explored me deeply until I felt as though I was closer to death, of soul and body, than life. I wanted to marry him, every day when I sat down I was in worse pain than the day before, he always found an excuse to beat me, it seemed like everything I did, every little thing was a terrible sin and I loved him because he was so sharp and so righteous with his staff. My father opposed the marriage. So he forced his hand. I left my door unlocked and shivered with anticipation, hiding my face in the pillow, feeling pursued. Every creak and noise made me anxious, knowing he could enter at any moment and find me in my blue babydoll. Half-asleep, it was like a nightmare when he placed his hand over my mouth; yet, I felt weak and didn’t resist when he took me. His thrusts were more fierce than Elliot’s, his pretty lips slightly parted in pleasure as he claimed my body, each movement so forceful it seemed as if an army of men was marching through my room. When I felt his warm seed flooding me, I thought I loved him, knowing he held the power to end me. If I died in childbirth, it would be as if he had destroyed me with a mere touch, as if he were God. I can't even imagine how brutal, how cruel the punishment would be if he were to find out about this blasphemy that I have written but idolatry is such a sweet sin. When the signs of my pregnancy became visible, my father confronted him, and he attacked him and snuffed out his life, and then he violently fucked me next to his corpse, even though I was pregnant. And I cried all night, remembering the man who soothed my tears as a little girl, and how he was no more. I wondered if such a man as the Reverend could be called a man of God, then perhaps the devil had been slandered. And yet, I helped bury my father and realized that I didn't mind very much. I am so afraid of him, anytime he could consume me, reduce me to nothing, make me feel unimaginable agony, put me on the ground right next to my father and that is why I worship him and adore him, I am now about to give birth to his holy child and I hope he has his blue eyes. All the members at his church can see there is something clutching me, something that makes me look undesirable beyond my years, and it’s not merely the toil of serving his every need, when he is exhausted from shaking with intensity and having the message flow through him and conveying it, it is the delight of being pulverized to powder, feeling barren in my thoughts and brimming in my being.”

He covers his mouth with his hand, his face contorting in disgust, even more so than when he saw the pitiful creature. The words Bertha vomited out on this page, bored on some torrid summer day make him feel angry and full of shame. He wants to flee to the bathroom, hide with himself, and sob against his knees. He wonders why no one can love him without turning him into a monster in their dreams. 

He wonders why, despite his weakness, no one ever writes about loving him for his kindness, his meekness, the virtue he believes sets him apart from other men who contribute to the world's earned reputation as a "vale of tears." The only answer he can find is that everyone else sees him as God does, and he's afraid that everything he thinks is good about himself is as fake as his bright, sunny smiles. 

He wants to scream at her that she betrayed their friendship. But then he remembers - in August, they weren't friends yet. And she had no idea he was going to show up at her house. His anger turns to horror as he recalls the truth. Mercy had forced her to write that, a coded message that likely left Bertha feeling just as ashamed for being the messenger. He had never worn that signet ring in public. It was a lavish gift from a wealthy donor. He would wear it only when meeting the Senator. There was no way Bertha could know about it. 

Now this makes him wonder - were all those letters from the widows he had maligned for so long similar too? Could Mercy have written them as well? What if she was also forced to write in this language, just like she was forced to do those things to the flower, but wanted to convey a different message altogether? And, as always, would he have to choke down the unsweetened syrup to help someone held captive by the Enemy?

He feels grimy and unclean, with a thick layer of black muck covering him, which obscures his vision. He really needs a shower.

When Bertha returns, he rushes to her, throwing his arms around her and bursting into tears against her shoulder, like a child who's just discovered that everything can die. "The little boy under your bed, the sweet one, is dead…” Bertha runs her hand over his head, just as he has comforted her so many times. "We can get another one," she says. "I'll take better care of him this time, not like Elliot. I have you to help.” He draws back from her, quickly wiping away his tears and collecting himself with a hint of cool reserve. "I don't think that's a good idea, Bertha," he says, his tone calm but suddenly distant.

Every morning, the memory of the diary surfaces, seeping through his serenity and weighing heavily on his mind like a soaked rag all day. As a result, he can't be as carefree and playful with Bertha as he once was. When he sees her eyes fill with tears after another aloof response, he realizes it's equally painful for her to see him retreat. To Bertha, his retreating starts to feel like an open, bleeding sore in the middle of her heart. One afternoon after school, he spots her looking out the window. She stands alone by Elliot’s little gravesite in the garden. He recalls what happened to Elliot because of callous neglect. He doesn’t want to forsake Bertha. He should be closer to her when it's scary. He doesn't understand why he's such a coward, why fear has been his guide since he was a kid. When he can't find an answer, all he's left with is the silence of home, and he knows he forgives Bertha Allen because his fear doesn't come from her. 

Eli's room shines in a glaucous blue. In the background, Bertha's backpack zipper struggles to close. She has stuffed her bag too full. She’s cramming in everything as if she’s off to a luxurious getaway, not a subpoena. 

She has been excitable lately. She and Eli had reconciled, but they hadn't really quarrelled. There had only been passive tension. That Sunday, Eli helped prepare a veritable sermon for Bertha to preach at the Baptist church — his way to say sorry. Her fervour surprised many members. They thought it was inappropriate for a young girl, and unusual for how she usually saw herself. This stirred up a lot of gossip. People talked about his influence on her. She gripped the microphone tightly with her sweaty palms. Her chestnut hair clung to her forehead like her head was dipped in liquid glue, and her face was vermillion. She was so much like him that one wondered if she might collapse, like Eli did in his private gatherings. Still, it had been moving to many. It was not a common sight in someone of that age, such devotion. Mr. Allen had to realize: she was growing, no longer a standard girl of any girl's scale; she was becoming a clairvoyant woman, touched by something hermetic, distant from him, beyond repair. 

She stands in the room wearing only a white cotton shirt and her socks, as if she were standing in front of her mother, because she has found such a symbiosis with him. It frustrates her, but in a way, it is comforting. She does not know many either. Elliot doesn't like her as a person, she thought, maybe as a girl. 

"No, no...what's the point? It'll just get dusty," Eli says, sliding the elegant antique pink, silk dress with lace embroidery out of her hands.

"I want to make a good impression on your family!”

He stifles a bitter sort of chuckle. "Just your last name is enough. Or even just that you're human. That would be enough for them.” 

She emphasizes, “I don’t just want to be enough, I want to impress them.” 

”They're not impressed by fancy dresses, but by farm skills and openness to divine guidance. You might not be a great farmer, oh I wasn’t either, but you're exceptional at receiving messages. You don't need to worry about that. They would have been deeply moved by your speech on Sunday; just like everyone else was, including the naysayers.”  

Bertha’s mind is running in all sorts of directions, "Let's get out of here before my father wakes up, please. I'm worried he'll change his mind after yesterday's sermon. You know how he feels about women preaching, and especially about our way of doing it, with people talking. Yesterday, he didn't even speak to me after morning service. I don't want to see him. Your stuff is already in the car…"

"You know he doesn't get up until eleven unless he has to.”

Bertha’s wiry, girlish frame is weighed down by her backpack. But when she steps outside, the garden's early morning scent makes her feel light and free. She seldom dons jeans, but she does that morning and she feels like she has slipped back to childhood: all that she can ponder is that she’s glad she’s avoiding school, and even though she understands it’s not one, she feels like it’s a road trip. All is silver grey at that hour, the flowers unfold just for her it truly seems, like they do for Eli, just to leave her with a farewell in the chilly breeze of almost-winter. Eli follows behind her, his eyes fixed on the twin greenhouses, the large one shrouded in fog and the smaller one standing beside it. Bertha can tell he's anxious about the Titan Arum and doesn't entirely trust Elliot, because when it comes to what's most precious, no one completely trusts others.

When he opens the car door, the smell of cigarettes hits her, leftover from the ones he gave Elliot. She thinks they might be tucked away somewhere, and she's curious to try one - she's always loved the smell of smoke, whether it's from cigars, like her father used to smoke with his friends and business partners, or anything else. But she doesn't want to ask, because she doesn't want him to think she's the type of person who smokes. There’s a hint of perfume, different from Elliot’s cologne. She doesn’t think it’s a women’s scent, but it’s still floral. It clings to the slightly crinkled leather seats. With the car moving, she tucks her backpack under her feet and watches the glittery cross swinging in the rearview mirror. The soft rumble of the tires creates a soothing background noise, and she notices her fears as they escape from her like vermin when a pebble is turned. 

She watches him as the silver grey develops into California golden, shining off the white and pink and blue and yellow of his face, making him seem like a rosy pearl. And something weird - at stops he looks at her too, pale as she is, with her big eyes of the same earthy tint as her hair, that streams long and straight, not curled like she sometimes prefers, her colours are not as vibrant, not as striking, not without her lip colour, but he believes, she is his little one, his cherished lamb. In the middle of her white shirt tucked into her jeans, is a daisy patch. That's how she appears to him.

The trip would last all day, eight hours. They decided not to bring food to avoid heavy bags. But by 12 PM, Bertha is hungry and wants to stop at the diner. She had dozed off a bit while the instrumental gospel played on the AM stations and is still half-sleepy. She hadn’t slept much that night. 

In the diner, Eli identifies her, he could recognize her anywhere, with a mauve striped white pullover, her hair tied, large eyewear and her trousers turned up like a fisherman, Eleanor Kelley. She sits sipping black coffee, a book in hand, not noticing him. She must be going to the same place, they must have called her too. What a horrible coincidence that she ran into him. He didn't want her to start disliking him, and he thought his thing with Bertha would make her dislike him even more, since she's so young. 

Bertha can tell he's looking at her as she puts a BLT for herself and a chicken salad for him on the tray along with some donuts and coffee with whipped cream for both of them, she feels envious for a moment, she knows he's fascinated by those who seem far away. ”Do you know her?" 

"Yes, Kelley from the Sisterhood of Angels, the article mentioned her remember? I know her since high school.” 

"The feminist?" 

"She's not so bad. She knows me. She defended me from Paul.”

Bertha doesn't like the sound of that. "A good feminist is like a good atheist…”

“Better than a pervert like Paul,” he retorts. “I think she knows that without people like me and you, men like Paul would be unleashed on womankind.” 

He catches Bertha’s arm, “Bertha please don’t gawk at her, I can’t stand this, not this morning…” 

Bertha tears her attention away from Eleanor, still absorbed in her bent book, and looks up at Eli. "Let's eat in the car. It might be messy, but I don't feel like dealing with her right now either. If she says anything, I just know I'll get mad and argue.” 

Eli nods his head, but something nearly falls off the edge of his tongue, just about spills out, he wishes he could ask Eleanor how night is at Electric Eden without him, if there are new girls, on the run from men, joining this secret incestuous sisterhood. He wishes he could ask her how Nora is.

With the care and a touch of grit of a mother, after they’re done eating he swipes away any remnants of the sauce from Bertha’s mouth with a handkerchief, before brushing away the seats from any crumbs that could have landed on them. Yet she unexpectedly seems somewhat irritated, just like when they played the cassette.

"You and her... Did you love her in high school?”

His features break into a grin, as if she were chattering nonsense. 

"Oh, you don't have to worry about her, she... she... Greek. You do Greek in school, you read, uh, Sappho?”

“I…”, looking at his face, this did not tone down her jealous annoyance, “I asked to know if you were in love with her.”

"No, that’s ridiculous. I just feel a certain kinship…for our shared disdain for the sexual depravity of this age.” 

"She's not our friend," Bertha raises her voice. 

"She's not Bertha, of course not, I know better than you," he raises his voice with her. 

The moment she perceives his nervous hand lift a little, along with his tone, she is rapidly engulfed by a wild sort of zeal, a seething warmth throughout a hushed flame, that gradually grips her in every part, and her look of irritation changes to that of some lost being yearning for a caress even if it’s slaughter.

"I...I've had enough of this doubt, this uncertainty. I just want to be kissed...once. A gentle, weightless kiss." She inches closer, her face tilted up to his, her eyes locked on his, her body swaying slightly, as if drunk, her neck straining forward. Her voice is like a melody from a night terror.

He seems ensnared and starts to get soaked with sweat, he can sense the subtle, almost imperceptible tinkle of the cross as it gently strikes against the rearview mirror and the air begins to feel thick. “You know, our pact…”

"Nothing says we cannot kiss chastely. Give me the kind of kiss you wouldn't be ashamed to give your sister.”

His hands are jittery and slick, but he seizes her face with both hands, as if he is cradling a circular fruit plucked from the garden, like she is one of the oranges, and his thumb brushes her cheek. She giggles; she loves this feeling; no one can tell her anything here; she can be more Bertha than Allen. He remains in this state of contemplation for a while, his heart feels whole, what a wandering friend he’s got, and how hard it is to share her company and yet, he loves her as she is, troubled by all sorts of strange daydreams and melancholies. Much like himself at that age. Much like himself still now.

His neck stretches forward and he elevates her chin, their icy noses pressed together and before he can inhale, he brushes his lips against hers, genuinely almost as if both of their mouths were locked down, and then presses, bursting a kiss that is so short-lived it feels like they’ve just invented a quirky way to say hello.

Satisfied, Bertha falls back into her seat with a big grin on her face as she giggles to herself. "What stupid fucking kids!" she can almost hear Mr. Allen say. 

First Day, Paradise, 1982. 

The deeper they go into the nightfall, the more the teal of the sky changes, shifting to an abyssal tone, blending with deeper blues until it becomes almost lilac, fleetingly appearing to redden, as if slowly absorbing blood or pomegranate drink. The wooden sign that greets them in Paradise reads, "May you find PARADISE to be all its name implies." Eli chuckles, thinking that if there were Paradises on earth, his little hometown wouldn’t qualify. But it has its charm in the shrubs and cacti. The wildflowers, which Paul used to scoff at, seem more lovely in Paradise than anywhere else. The oak trees, like the one by his home, are also part of it. Bertha feels enchanted by this town's spell as she gazes around while they pass, as if she witnesses a ground that has heaved forth like a woman in travail something bloody and wrinkled that appears to her now as God to men, something that’s sitting beside her. Eli stops at a phone booth and calls home, telling them to fix dinner for him and Bertha. When he says her name, she is happy.

When Eli arrives at the farmhouse, he realizes that things have changed since he left in 1976. The grass has grown, and maybe some flowers have too, as if they were waiting for him. He used to have a strange fantasy that the farmhouse wasn't really real, that any growth was God's hand tearing through a barren dimension to remind him, "I am still your zealous God." But now, the green grass surrounds the farmhouse, and the oak leaves are swaying gently, like the cross on his rearview mirror when he drives. The windmill, which he had never seen move, is now turning, like a broken clock fixed in his absence. To Bertha, the scene looks picturesque, like she can't believe someone actually lived here and still does.

Mary opens the door for them, “You’ve grown so tall!”, he says in his older brother voice, she resembles him, so she’s turning out like him, lithe, butter-coloured hair and azure eyes, face as round as a fruit on a stick, lovely and kind looking.

“Ruth won’t come to meet Bertha?”, he asks her.

"No, we phoned her, she doesn't want to come, leave her be." Mary has put on the good navy blue dress with flowers, bodice, and lace cuffs - the one he sent her from Angel City. She's always happy to receive the dresses he chooses, because he selects them as carefully as if they were for a doll. Mary can't imagine another brother knowing so well the dresses she longs for, or at least, not getting some things wrong. For a moment, Bertha feels awkward in her jeans. She's irked because he said they didn’t care for beautiful dresses, but that wasn’t true. When she comes in, the only sounds are the cooker boiling and the birds outside. Her leather shoes get dusty right away, and she notices the furniture's colours are not homogenous because of the wear. The wooden walls give the feeling of being shrunk and trapped in a box, and she understands. The Cadillac outside feels distinctly odd, as if he has materialized from a different reality, together with his usually elegant preacher getup and gleaming jewelry, in stark contrast to his father’s work clothes, his yellow locks compared to his father’s nearly bald head and messy short white beard.  

Mrs. Sunday appears almost ghostly in the armchair, the only new piece of furniture in the house, which Eli had bought for her to sit in beside the little window. He wanted her to be able to leave her bedroom occasionally and avoid the hard chair. Despite this, she's still too tired to get up often. Her appearance is elderly, that of a much older woman, and her hair, though not white like Abel's, is grey, not even one strand blond, Bertha can tell she has been old for a very long time. 

She sets her backpack down on one of the hard chairs as Eli greets his mother, asking about her health and holding her hand while saying a quick prayer. Abel is giving Bertha a piercing stare, and she needs to do something to break the tension. So she says, "It's a real pleasure to meet your family, Mr. Sunday. God bless you, you've raised the greatest man I know.”

He doesn't flinch, just keeps staring daggers at her. "You remind me of that girl...the one he used to keep here...what was her name?”

Eli jumps with a start, getting up from his knees in front of his mother’s armchair to grab Abel’s shoulder. "Who? What?”

"That one!" The old man’s voice is almost frustrated, as if it's obvious. "The sinner you saved and delivered. Remember when she ate with us and we gave her chicken? The one they want to put you in jail for. Oh, she was brave, to follow His word, and lucky that she doesn't see all this...all this…" 

Bertha’s voice breaks. “You know her? You know Mercy Miller? What happened to her?” 

The room drops to a temperature as low as a cave's floor. "The Lord called for her sacrifice; His will was carried out." The old man's pale blue eyes, glassy and unblinking, insect-like and veined with red, stare fixedly. "But men judge, they condemn, they don't understand His designs. They comfort themselves, having forgotten how He can consume…”

"YOU REMEMBER!", Eli's face contorts, and he starts shaking, turning red, and huffing. "Oh, father, father, tell me... was I the one who put her out? She hasn't reached Him. I messed up, I messed up…”

Mrs. Sunday levels a caustic glare towards the window, a look Bertha senses in a foggy but painful confusion, her heart quickening with a feeling that lacks a name.

"I must have messed up somewhere..." Eli begins to cry like a baby, showing all of his to a mother who wants to throw him away. “I’m ugly inside.”  

Bertha looks straight into the old man’s gaze. “We have found out she hasn’t made it to God.” She listens to the words, but it doesn’t seem like she is saying them. But Abel's words haven’t shaken Bertha, not like she should have been shaken by them, she has a feeling that she has known since Mercy first came into her. She can't remember when.

Before he can respond, Eli runs to his childhood bedroom to search desperately, but it's been taken over by Mary's belongings. Her schoolbag and schoolbooks are scattered around a small bedside table they've acquired. A hair elastic with some blond hairs stuck to it lies on top along with a brush and her hairpins. Under the bed, he finds his old books, and Mary’s new romance novels and notebooks. In the drawers, he discovers lightly worn makeup carefully concealed beneath cotton balls. 

He starts screaming, "Where's my box? WHERE IS MY BOX? I left it here!”

Mary hurls open the door, frantic, to spot her brother on the edge of collapsing into a void, his hands vibrating slightly and his body splayed across the bed, jumpy and sparkling like a fish, soaked in sweat and wriggling around like when she was five and he’d have his creepy signs.

"Eli, what's going on? What box are you talking about? I haven't touched your stuff, I swear. I just added mine. If I saw something important, I wouldn't have moved it.”  

Bertha has fled to the goat barn, she needs some quiet time, something is throbbing inside her, and it isn’t the hatred one should hold for a murderer, she begins to dash in the grass, and nearly senses the impulse to swing her torso back and forth to uncoil all the tension that’s bottled up. "How can we set you free?" she screams. "I was mean, Mercy. I'm sorry. You just wanted to be free, like Eli said." The barn's heat surrounds her, and suddenly she feels like she's reliving a memory - but it's Mercy's memory, not her own.

The goats are old now, they don't push their soft heads towards her, they snooze peacefully in the hay, she sees a black spot and comes closer, a black leather notebook, covered with cool damp dirt, its pages wet, she checks if it's still legible, she takes it without squeamishness even if it soils her fingertips. 

The soaked pages make the words seem as if they were produced by the pulp of the paper, she finds it is still decipherable. 

“The Penitence Diary of Mercy Miller, November 16, 1982. (ARE YOU READING, BERTHA?)

It's been eleven years since the day I raped him in my attic. I haven't had a day's rest since then. I cannot leave. Now I know that something did not go the way it was supposed to. I should not be writing this. I should be with my Father, but He has turned His face away from me and from Eli. Maybe he was right. Maybe Eli was right. I shouldn't have told him to defile the grave. My resting place, that marsh, bubbled up and spat me out. My bones were found. But maybe it wasn't even that, maybe it was that I wasn't delivered whole. A part was missing. A tension that binds me to the mortal world. It has to be given back to me to set me free, it's not mine, it's me. But I don't know what it is or how it can be given back to this half-me. 

NOW 

SHE’S GUSHED 

OUT 

WANDERED 

OFF

INTO 

EVERY 

NOOK. 

My words have been found. In these pages is the true account of Mercy Miller's penance as it happened from November 1971 to the day of my death in March 1972.”

Bertha manages to drag Eli out of his room, a deadweight, with Mary's help, and bring him back to the car. They need to get out of that house, and she apologizes for the dinner they had prepared. But when Bertha mentions to him, as he lies there with his face lined and shrouded by his arm in mortification, that she's uncovered the diary with the facts, he sets aside the thoughts of his box for a moment and starts to weep like not even he has ever done before, “Now I know what I've done. I killed Mercy Miller and desecrated her grave. A machine of suffering and despair. That’s all I'm good for. You don't survive something like that. Someone like me, I'm already dead.” 

She supports his head in her hand and brings it close to her, on the daisy on her chest, slicing through the grain of his hair like a scythe through wheat, her chest rising against his cheek in deep breaths, "Can you really believe He's turned away from us? Is there something that can't be forgiven? I won't accept that. What's the purpose of it all if that's the case?”

"Why do you say us? Why do you say that word, it was me, it was me, I did something that cannot be spoken, that not even that diary says I bet. I went down to a grave and I lay on a corpse and I defiled it and I've condemned my girl to a never-ending filth! Because I've made her unclean and He won't take her... But because I'm so dirty, I'm so dirty... That everything I touch is filth. Stand back. Move away. You'll get soaked in dirt.” He is wailing so stridently in the car that it almost feels like he is flooding all over her chest from a hole in the brain.

"Oh no. No, I won't move." Bertha grips his head, her fingers digging in like they did when she heard the tape. It's a tight, painful grasp, like cracking open a juicy fruit, and it hurts his scalp. 

He goes on like this until his throat is raw, sobs punctuated by screams, until he's hoarse. Then Bertha begins to read to him from the damp diary. She recognizes now that Mercy's love for him matched his for her. Yet, in the end, that understanding feels almost insignificant. 

"She often says that she loved you.”

"Even when I was cutting her to shreds…"

Bertha hesitates to nod, her finger poised on the page. 

Suddenly the engine starts. "I have to put myself to sleep. I have to put myself to sleep.”

She puts her hands over his on the wheel and tries to pull them away. "Don't do anything crazy! Lord, I beg you!" 

He tries to calm his voice, not wanting to scare her any more, "I meant... I meant with a drink. I need to put myself to sleep. I do not need to feel this, I... I cannot bear this. I hope you understand. I..."  

Bertha sits silent, gazing at Paradise through the car window on this dark night. She expects to feel different, to be tired, but she's not. What she truly longs for is a kinder world, a God more gentle than the one Eli imagines.

There is only one night bar in Paradise town, it is not marked by neon lights like Angel City, it has no Blue Tree and the light is only inside, a marigold orange and you could look everywhere and see only the same kind of people you could have seen on the street. The walls are covered with old advertisements, not just for alcohol, but for any kind of drink. There is a framed picture, a pale girl with black curls and a red bathing suit carrying a carton of Coke, her skin almost the same colour as the background and as her ribbon, stark white, making the red and black and blue of her eyes pop - the one on the TV. And he's not afraid, he just lowers his head in shame before the picture, as if it were accusing him. "Things go better with Coke.”

He can't register the music, only that the heavy mist of cigarette smoke he inhales intoxicates him, but it sounds like an old country ballad. Bertha follows him into the unfamiliar world and begins to undulate slowly to the music, she can already feel some looks at her, the kind he never gives her, she can't smile at all the eyes, so she smiles into the void. 

He strides to the stool and orders something strong. Then, he freezes. The girl at the counter has long curls tied with a white ribbon. Her blue eyes are wide, her lips red, and her pale skin stands out. She looks just like the girl in the ad and on TV. He voices again he craves something strong, expecting it’s brought to him in no time, and he’ll face reality again and not this haze.

The girl shakes her head, her eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. She moves with robotic slowness, speaking in a voice that lacks a quality it should have. Her words come in an even cadence, without a pulse.

"Cherry Coke. A new flavour." She intones. "Ephesians 5:18. Try cherry coke instead.”

"But I don't want it." He says, disarmed, his lips half open. She keeps repeating those words like a loop, and it's as if no one around him is alive. He feels that same dread you often feel in dreams, where all you want to do is escape.

Then she gestures towards a chilled bottle of this new flavour - a glossy, red-tinted concoction that seems to glow unnaturally under its chilled veil. He grips the icy bottle tightly. The cold burns his hand. As he pours into his mouth, thick crimson paint spills out. It smells and tastes like paint. He dumps it all on the ground. No one seems to notice him throwing up, except for Bertha. She stops dancing, her eyes bulging as she watches him. 

His lips appear as if they’ve been painted, and he is gasping for air, the synthetic taste searing his tongue and throat while making his head whirl from breathing it in. The girl who served it approaches, stepping away from the stool. She gently lifts his chin with her hand, redirecting his gaze from the floor to her expressionless face, and then she presses her lips against his, now sharing the paint on her lips as well. Bertha remains completely still.

She lowers her hand behind his neck and he buries his face in her shoulder. They begin to rock very, very slowly, like a baby being rocked to sleep, and his eyelids begin to droop, the soles of his black shoes leaving a red trail from the paint he had also ejected on his feet. He whispers, “Like this, I meant sleep. Thank you.”  

After what seems like two nights and days of profound sleep, he feels Bertha tugging at his arm. He follows her, feeling disoriented, to a pair of small blue leather couches in the bar near a tiny table. His head hangs, as if his neck is completely limp and deflated, and finally rests entirely on her shoulder. She looks at the men and women older than her, dancing subtly on the floor, their movements reserved, rather cautious under the marigold shine and the many more smoking and drinking and murmuring softly, secrets or something else. 

A pair of green eyes watches her and him all night, and she can't help but wonder who the clean-shaven, strong-looking brown-haired man is. He looks sad, but not as heartbreaking as her beautiful boy lolling on her shoulder. But the new song on the jukebox is sad, so his emerald eyes might be wistful. 

“On a Sunday mornin' sidewalk

I'm wishin', Lord, that I was stoned

'Cause there's somethin' in a Sunday

That makes a body feel alone

And there's nothin' short a' dyin’

That's half as lonesome as the sound

Of the sleepin' city sidewalk

And Sunday mornin' comin' down…” 

Except for Johnny Cash's voice on the jukebox, the murmurs, and the clinking glasses, the loudest, most piercing sound is the babylike wailing against her shoulder. The green-eyed man approaches her, and Bertha looks up at him, holding her beautiful boy's head closer. He offers her a cigarette, lights it for her, and Bertha coughs a little before finally taking her first drag. 

They’d have thought it would be dawn when they stepped out of the bar, but it was still the dead of the night; Eli’s face had changed from the dark red caused by his crying for so long to a lifeless hue, and the paint was still on his lips, no matter how much Bertha, from the passenger seat, tried to wipe it off like misapplied lipstick.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I kissed that strange woman..." he mumbles, cupping Bertha's face and kissing her with a hunger so different from the awkward, nervous peck outside the diner. She's happy, hoping he won't notice the smoke on her lips as he devours her mouth, eating - him, hungry, it's strange to think, and his lips taste of cherries, sweet and tart, and she traces the red with her tongue, blurring the line between his taste and that of the soda, that cherry cola that somehow turned his stomach.

"Gosh, you're the first person I've ever seen get drunk on Coca Cola," she says, giggling as she tries to catch her breath from the kiss.

"They must have put something in it, I'm sure.”

“I like this new flavour,” she says with a tease, but his surprised look doesn't waver. “It tastes like paint!” he exclaims, making a face. 'Don't remind me, I'm sick…” 

She pulls him in for a smooth kiss, his fingers, cold like always, wrapping around her waist like hoarfrost drops, touching the heat of her skin as she arches back slightly, her white shirt riding up just a bit, revealing the still firm, almost boyish stomach. She’s burning up with the hot shivers, and he’s lifting her shirt, tugging down that white sports bra that isn’t really doing much because she’s the slender type, and his fingers are tracing her skin, her new curves, and they’re hardening, like they’re being brushed by tiny ice crystals, but it’s so gentle, she wonders if she’s dreaming it all, and in the back of her mind, she knows she might wake up soon with that familiar ache deep inside, just like it’s been happening for the past seven years.

She's gasping for air, and suddenly the buttons of her jeans burst open, and he's kissing, a sound like he's drawing life from her, starting at her neck, moving down to her torso, across her chest, down to her belly, and he's kissing just above the ribbon on her panties, where the light brown down begins.

He grabs the elastic of her underwear with his teeth, pulling it down, a mix of air and fire washing over. His finger dances teasingly above her, just like before on her nipples, but now it's maddening, not pleasant. It stirs something violent and urgent deep within, an unending frustration as his middle finger taps rhythmically against her clit. 

“Please, please, please…”

He begins to massage the spot, her eyes unwavering even though they're cloudy with bliss, because there's something about his pliant form, the way his fingers dance in circles, as if tracing forgotten steps from a memory not quite his own. The violets return in her mind, those flowers he would touch with those same pretty, slender fingers, and she remembers thinking how the petals seemed to sway of their own accord, like they were alive in exactly the same way people are.

He parts the valley of her thighs, descending, almost burrowing beneath her, with a tender, almost naive eagerness, his lips finding their place, drawing in with his eyes shut, reminiscent of a lamb seeking warmth, sucking up milk. His mouth moves sucking her clit, kissing, licking her folds, while she looks sometimes at him and sometimes out the window, a slight but obvious parting of her lips, the street outside deserted, an in-between time when the bar remains silent, neither too late nor too early. Her cheeks flush a fiery blush, eyes swimming in the stillness of that street.

Bertha comes, drenched and fiercely, not just once but repeatedly, because his tongue, unlike Elliot’s used to, never seems to tire. And when it finally does, he takes that as a sign, a cue to trail his kisses along her thighs and make the hair on them raise. She comes with her hips arching, spilling onto his lips, all while the reel of her thoughts spins, replaying that tale Mercy made her pen, over and over, as if he were helping her paint it in vivid detail with his fingers, his lips, his tongue. She comes with the lilac dawn and the few night people drifting outside.  

Second Day, Paradise, 1982.

They fritter away that day in sleep, laziness, and poor eating. On a bulky television set sitting on a metal cart, they watch old movies on HBO, despite the fuzzy reception. In the drawer, they discover an old Gideon Bible with notes scribbled in the margins. It's amusing for them to try to make out what someone wrote in faded pencil, in a handwriting all their own. 

They’re staying in a motel at the edge of the highway. Eli hadn't planned to spend the days leading up to his meeting with his lawyers and PR team, who would likely arrive within a week, holed up there. However, the farmhouse was out of the question - there was no room, not like he would have wanted to stay there anyway, and the place was irresistibly cheap. His original plan was to crash at a follower's house, but that had changed now that a big chunk of his bad memories had come back. He wants to leave behind much of his past work. He now aims to focus on glorifying and sanctifying Mercy Miller using the Penitence Diary. But who would understand? It is now clear to him that this is God's truth, and his task is to return to her the piece that was missing - the flower he had been holding onto as a torment and a revelation, his sole means of redemption. He has seen it again in his dream that night. Yet, he knows he can only accomplish this from a prison cell. He has no clue how to break the news to Bertha, who is still sleeping, taking after her father in that she wouldn’t wake up at 05:49 despite having already spent the past day in indolence — even though you couldn’t catch him on a stiff mattress, covered in polyester bedspread and patterned in faded flowers, smelling of ash and cleaning spray — he's not destined to be a free man for long, and that's not what he's after. The Titan Arum doesn't symbolize her or their engagement, but rather the bond between Mercy and God. He's had a dream, an inspiration, like in the old times, in which Elliot takes to the road, frightened by the plant's breathtaking energy, reverberating through the whirring of metal, and hushes commands to him in a whisper that none who catch it shall outlive.  

He goes through it alone at night, just like he did with that Bible Bertha shredded, when he was a sick boy, and he finds the resonance of the words. The diary condemns him, yet he wishes everyone could read it, that it was added to every Bible, for all denominations. Oh, she understood what a terrifying thing it was, the fear God puts upon you. And he knows it too. If they should curse him, so be it, as long as they know, not just how they must repent, but how they shall fear. You can't sleep at night and love God, he feels. And fear like her and him. Nothing is ever guaranteed. Would you trust a sign? There's only your immortal soul to lose. And maybe he's lost it, or maybe he hasn't yet, and it depends on the flower. 

He goes to the bathroom, washing his face in the sink, which drips slowly into a porcelain basin. The mirror above it is clouded with tiny bubbles. The water pressure is too weak to make him feel clean, probably because last night's shower used it up. He heads to a 24-hour diner down the road. The whipped cream on his coffee doesn't hit the spot, but the colourful glazed donuts are satisfying enough. The sugary fullness makes him feel a little queasy, adding to the other burdens he's carrying. 

When he returns to the parking lot, the sky still indigo, dark clouds and no stars, he sees a man leaning against his car. The man looks young, but his hair has an almost synthetic sheen, an ugly kind of plastic doll’s, and his face is hidden as he clutches it with his hands, coughing worriedly against the car's windows. His legs tremble, and he clings to the car, praying in a strange language similar to his own when the Spirit takes over, but it's a desperate prayer due to his cough. Eli gently presses a hand against the man's shoulder, not wanting to scare him. He dislikes the way he's spitting on his Cadillac.

“Are you okay?” he says in a firm yet calm tone.

But when he turns, Eli flinches at the sight of him; his dark circles have turned almost purple, and his small, sunken black eyes are set in a waxen face that looks powdered. A chain with a small mirror encased in it hangs around his neck, reflecting Eli's own face, shocked by the sight of this visage.

The man's eyes flash open, and he shakes his head.

"Should I call someone?" 

"I don't have the money, Mr. Sunday. I can't pay for treatment. Oh God, what's wrong with me? You think I'm sick? You, a healer, are telling me that?”

His legs, visible again, are painfully thin, like Eli as a child's. 

"It's possible," Eli says. "The Lord will heal you, I can tell a man like you loves Him. I'll pray for you. There's something unhealthy in this town.”

“The brother... he's coming... he's here..." the man starts to moan deliriously, his voice strained by pain, before a violent coughing fit makes him jerk.

"No!" Eli grabs him. "You need to rest. It's too early. What's your room number?”

"Room 16.”

"I'll take you back," Eli says, supporting the unknown man.

As they walk by the reception, a tired-looking young clerk slouches in the chair at the front desk, listening to a small radio tuned to the local Paradise night station. It's still nighttime for them. Behind the desk, a pegboard with numbered plastic keys hangs, accompanied by signs in black marker that read, "CHECK-OUT TIME: 11 AM - NO EXCEPTIONS" and "NO REFUNDS AFTER 15 MINUTES." The clerk removes the cigarette from her mouth to ask loudly, in her youthful twang, "Is that druggie bothering you, Reverend?”

With his typically wholesome demeanour brightening the fair face that, like Helen's, could launch a thousand ships, he gestures and cheerfully says, “Good morning, dear! No, he's a kind man, a true lover of God, aren't you?" The man coughs and sputters again, though less wildly, as he's carried along, and gives a weak nod, his eyelids fluttering.

When he reenters his room, he finds Bertha awake, sitting on the edge of the bed in her cotton shirt, staring down at her socked feet. Her messed-up hair makes her look younger than her age. He sits beside her. "You're awake at 6 am?”

"I had a bad dream. I want to go to the pond the newspapers have been talking about, and pray for Mercy.”

"I was thinking the same thing. Do you think the missing piece she talks about is the Titan Arum? That it'll free her when it blooms?”

Bertha has a feeling that's the wrong answer, that her dream of a kinder God isn't coming together, that He's demanding something terrible again, and that the blooming of the flower – which she had tied her love to – will only be the first sign of a dawn of blood. But she doesn't want to tell him that. "It might," she says. "My dream wasn't that clear, or that hopeful. But it might. I just want to go to the pond.”

"You have to tell me about your dreams, Bertha. They can be really important." He takes hold of her shoulder, pulling her close, so her bare thigh touches his clothed one.

"Okay, fine," she sighs. "I had this dream where I woke up and went to the bathroom. It felt so real that I didn't even realize it was a dream until I let out a sigh of relief when I opened my eyes. But when I looked around, you weren't there…"

"I'm sorry. I was hungry and got up.”

"Yeah, it scared me. In the dream, I looked in the mirror and my hair was this deep, dark black, like Mercy Miller's in that picture. And my eyes were blue, just like hers. I was her, wearing this white wedding dress. It didn't seem weird to me at all. Then I went back to bed, and you were there, but you had a hole in your chest, like you'd been shot. You were beautiful, but you were bleeding all over the bed. I started crying, held you, and lay down with you. The odd part was that I felt both frightened and joyful, as if I was simply glad we were wed at last.” 

The church is as silent as his old Book now, when it was silenced by its scars. As they reached the swamp, the reminiscent drone of his childhood tractor seems to echo in his ears. Relics. The pale trees, more stark than they must have been that ancient March, seem to fade before his and Bertha's inquiring gaze, their green whitening in shame. This pond was not the one she had visited, but it shared a certain sameness with all others. 

Murky water, yet mirror-like despite its opacity, with a green mouth hidden beneath, coated in fallen leaves. Golden, brittle grass surrounds it. Above, skin on the grass seems to rustle softly, whispering. Bertha kneels beside the pond, which remains still, not wetting her knees. The trees are silent, and it's not a windy day.

As Eli's hand rests on her shoulder, she prays over the hidden hollow where Mercy's bones once lay. Her eyes glitter with tears as she reads from Psalm 130. Despite not having the same history with the town as he does, she seems like she already has a strong affection for it, untainted by the cynicism that comes with age. But even back in 1972, he had no doubts about the town's future despair. "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord…” 

He looks up at the sky, still a dull white. A fresh, earthy smell clings to the old trees, but it's tainted by the stagnant stink of the pond.

A cold, wet sensation, like octopus tentacles, wraps around his hand. He tears his gaze away from the sky to look down at Mercy, who's kneeling before him. She's just as she was in 1972, not 71, with short, wispy hair. Her face is worn, but not distorted, and her neck is unharmed. The evidence of the Penitence Diary's truth, however, is clear on her body - the blisters, the scars, even the fleshy wrinkles under her nails. Her hand, the one that's grasping him, also holds a knife with a cross-shaped handle, just like the one in Bertha's drawing. And yet she smiles, a serene and saintly smile. It could be the image of a martyr. Saint Mercy of the Pond.

Eli's eyes have the warmth of a person who unexpectedly runs into a childhood friend in a grocery store line and fondly remembers their skinned knees. He thinks they might have been friends, had sex not existed, or had it not been done to them. Does she believe it? No, she mustn't, for she kneels before him as if the great wrong belonged to her alone, as if her diary didn't tell the other half, the blasphemous, angry retribution, the piece of the puzzle that Eleanor had shielded his eyes from, that Andrew had beaten him over the head with, she knows both, but still doesn't rise to meet him as a companion of sin and strife, he can't bear it. If she did, he might be forgiven.

"I think you know what's missing.”

He tries to think of anything except the flower. "I've lost that box. What am I supposed to do now?”

"It's not that," she says, holding his hand tighter and bringing it to her mouth. Her wet lips tickle his skin, a sensation that doesn't feel like his usual visions. She kisses his hand.

"I don't know, Mercy. I don't know.”

"Can you choose, for me?”

He nods.

She lets go of his hand, showing one empty hand and holding a knife in the other.

"Your choice is to take the knife and stab me, or to use it on yourself. Or, you can put the knife down and do nothing, but you must promise to come back to me here at daybreak tomorrow, on the Third Day, by yourself and without her.”

He has killed, and the memory of it clings to him like a bad stench. He daydreamed to be rid of it, to feel pure again. He wonders if this is why his face still looks boyish, why his thoughts are different from those of other men when he's alone, why he's drawn to innocent things like a sunny sky or a blooming flower. But no matter how innocent he looks, the memory of what he's done stays with him, the innocent things go bad as soon as he dreams them up. He tries to wash it away, but it can’t go. He doesn't want to use that knife again, but Mercy is giving him a choice. She's not forcing his hand.

"I choose to come back on the Third Day and not take the knife.”

Laughter erupts from Mercy, a natural, joyous sound, as her hands clasp together and the knife slips from her grasp into the marsh below. The earth gapes open, releasing a bubbling sigh as it consumes the blade, and she continues to laugh freely. A sliver of sunlight pierces through the tightly knit clouds, shining a subtle shine on her blue pupils, she is of this world, the sun can touch her, as she lifts her face skyward, radiant with bliss. In that moment, she is not, but she seems so alive in every fibre. He is swept up in the moment, as he joins her in a transcendent joy.

He drops to the ground behind Bertha, his arms tangling around her waist as she kneels, holding her steady. His lips graze her cheek with a series of soft kisses. Tears of relief, which he can't fully understand, line down his face. Her low, husky laughter contrasts with his ragged breathing. He feels his heart rate slow and his muscles relax. "Oh, I feel so much better now," she says. "What did I tell you, eh? About crying out like little children?" he replies. 

"And what did I tell you, Eli? That there would be no point to it all if He'd forsake us? Prayer is the only medicine that can truly heal the soul.”

"You're such a good girl, Bertha...No, He hasn't turned His face away from me, or I wouldn't have had the chance to be your friend.”

Now she's the one kissing him all over his face, hot from tears and as soft as a wet leaf. 

Watching the greenhouse had been a dull task for Elliot, but not an unpleasant one. He had the radio to keep him company, and it was a good excuse to relax without feeling guilty about it. Brother Eli had set everything up so meticulously that Elliot's job was easy. He only had to make minor adjustments to the fans and ensure the mist was at its normal level, as instructed, and that was about it, for the still unsuspecting plant. 

That morning, the greenhouse feels different. He is used to the heat. The usual warmth clings to his skin. Yet, something else seeped in overnight. The corpse flower unnerves him, as if it has grown eyes. It stands taller, almost too swollen. 

At first, it looks the same as the day before, but then he notices the details. With the "spathe," which was once tightly wrapped around the “spadix” — Eli had written these terms alongside a drawing in black pen on the note he left him — the edges are starting to loosen. There's a faint curl of dark crimson where the green used to be. The spike seems to shake a little.

There's a sweetness in the air, almost as if old perfume could go bad like overripe fruit. He wouldn't have dared touch the heating controls, and yet it feels warmer in there. When he checks again later that day, the spathe has loosened even more, and maroon folds begin to show, like a big, yawning mouth. 

By the following day, the greenhouse would attract great, curious, gatherings. 

Third Day, Paradise, 1982.

That evening, as they returned to the motel, Bertha admitted she was jealous of him, because he had called him a good girl and she didn’t feel like she was. She would often look at him, and wonder why she didn't glow like that, like she was made of angel’s tears, why she looked and sounded so dull at such a young age. This jealousy made her seem sycophantic. She said she directs her feelings inward. That beneath her need to kneel lies a hidden aggression. 

"You're not dull. I'm just a chubby-cheeked, awkward overgrown boy, I don’t fill my suits, and you're a beautiful girl who can speak of God with confidence and draw people in...if you just give it time.”

She dismisses his words, knowing they were just the kind of comforting lies he liked to tell. "You were a star at my age," she said.

"I was still convinced I’d die in that farmhouse at your age. These things take time.”

She didn’t recognize that being stalked by the same unchanged face had never been anything but a curse. And yet, he hadn't been impatient to melt it and mold it into something else. 

“You were born for it, Bertha. The Lord’s been telling you. But it’s not always a happy fate. They don’t look kindly upon the failings of a human man in our world, let alone those of a human woman. And yet I do not believe it is something we choose. It’s like being a kidnapped bride.” 

She peers at her shoes, still stained with that mud. 

“Is this the way it always feels? Those gaps, impossibly wide in my mind, stretching on for so long... Like being nine and ninety at once." 

"Oh yes, you've put it into words.”

He wakes to her breath on his throat. They fell asleep with the TV on. It’s talking about gas prices, but he hears nothing. The coolness of the night lingers. At first, he feels terror about missing Mercy’s promise to come at dawn. But that fear eases when he pulls the thin curtains. Outside, there’s no light. He washes his face and pulls his hair back, but a thin layer of sweat clings to it. He can’t shower because he doesn’t want to wake Bertha. He kisses the top of her head. “Sweet dreams, dear child.” 

He shifts over the parking lot, starting the car with a jolt, thinking about how desperately it needs a wash, that man really went wild on it, spit probably dried crusty on the glass, but who even has time to notice that mess that morning?

He parks by a familiar spot where Abel used to leave the red tractor when he was a kid. The white car door shuts with a smooth click. He's worn boots for the marsh and a brown flannel shirt that's a bit loose on him. It's been a while since he's dressed in anything other than elegant black or white clothes with colourful ties and designer shoes. Now he looks like Paul, who always dressed in earthy tones, like a hardworking man from an old dictionary picture under "proletarian". But he thinks Paul's outfits were just as carefully put together. He doesn't feel, cinching the belt tight around his waist, any less in costume than those days when blue hues danced over his hair, whether braided or curled, even if it wasn't particularly long, as the drawls of strong girls spoke the name Liz and made him warm more than any drink could. Nora probably dresses like this in her day to day life. 

The trail's barely visible in the mist, and he feels himself slipping into the skin of an animal. A thought he can’t shake, it's like that scene from Story of My Marriage where Bertha lies in that tense, dreadful waiting, except now he's both Bertha and the warped image of him she conjured (if it was even her, maybe it wasn’t) haunting the corridors of the Beach City property. The last gasp of the night arrives in the shape of heavy and wet air, weighing down the world and clinging to his clothes.

He moves closer to the pond’s edge, and doesn’t even tremble at the single ripple of the water or the sound of a frog starting to croak, or a feeling, of being observed he has had since he made his quick walk in the parking lot, like he typically would, he pats against his pants, shoves his hands into his pockets, as the aroma of the pond drifts up to him. This confident stride is all Paul. He wonders when he'll crack. 

The smell, musty, damp, gets to him again, and he hopes Mercy is near. He really needs her to be. He sits down in the mud, not minding that his pants will get dirty - that's what they're for. He's glad he didn't shower; maybe Mercy wants to see him like this. He's okay with it, no longer feeling too good for this. 

He turns slightly in the grass and slime. He struggles to keep his head up, but a sudden tiredness overwhelms him. It's as if the mist is drugging him. He feels hot, as if he has a fever, and his limbs feel heavy like wet sacks.

He stirs awake, feeling a dewy hand tangled in his hair, and in that instant, he knows she's here, his head nestled on her thighs, absorbing the dampness even more. "I think I'm falling ill...this smell...I can't handle it...it turns my stomach…"

"But you're here again, back to me, so maybe you don't hate it, right? How did you know you needed to return? Maybe no choice was even necessary, maybe I simply wished to see you again. Do I really deserve this? You caring about my lost part?" Her voice doesn’t feel in any way abnormal or fake to be speaking even though she shouldn’t be speaking.

"Yes, of course. I was the one who took your life.”

She settles in beside him, her mossy hair falling across his chest. "Do you remember what you did next?”

"Oh, Lord, it's like my stomach's doing flips..."  

"Thump thump thump... Your heart's racing, galloping like a wild horse!” She giggles.

He drapes his arm over her cold, exposed shoulders and lets out a deep sigh, words tumbling out as if she's drawing them from the depths of him. "It's just... you're still so incredibly beautiful, I can't even control it. It's like this horrible energy bubbling up inside me, making me feel uneasy, almost like I'm sick of my own skin, sick of myself.”

She tangles her fingers with his, and he craves it, the coldness of them drawing the heat from his skin. “It's always been you, always. A part of me, deep down, wishes you had gone for the knife, but—no, not all of me. That's selfish, isn't it? Awfully selfish, like I always was. You could’ve had a life.”

"No." He feels it in his gut. "This isn't a life. I'm afraid of myself, of being in the wrong place.” 

"I don't think I need to tell you," her thumb brushes over his lips, her touch gliding from his cheek, "please let me make you catch my sickness, let my illness into you. Get tired, get weary, feel me in your bones, until you can’t recognize yourself. We are on fire, we are on fire, we need to douse it, we need to…”

As he catches another waft of that stench, his hands instinctively find her waist, and he hoists her whole effortlessly, pulling her upward as his own head dips toward the brown below.

He can't help laughing. "What a whore. I should have stoned you, yes, not shot you in the neck, I should have stoned you…"

She laughs back at him, the words feeling like an old term of endearment when he says them with such tenderness in his eyes. Ten years of rotting and leaking haven't made him flinch, just as the broken neck hadn't all those years ago. It's tender because she knows he remembers her favourite words. 

He presses her against his need, down with an urgency that borders on heartbreaking desperation. With a heavy, resigned breath, he fumbles with his belt. A slippery, unwelcome sensation engulfs him, like being dragged under here. It's repulsive, yet he's caught in an euphoria he can't deny. The initial thrusts are brutal and it feels and sounds like releasing a stubborn blockage in a water pipe. It’s cold and it’s wet.

"We're whole! Oh, we made it, we're whole..." she wails, a wild delirium in her voice, her head diving, pressing, seeking, taking and taking.

"I love you, I hope you know, you just know, I. love. you. I am you…” He keeps driving deeper, the words tumbling out in a loop, ad nauseam, his head lifting, flushed and dripping sweat, chin tucked tight against his neck, gasping, fighting, for breath in this swamp where there isn't any pure air left to breathe.

Just a few yards back, tangled in a mess of dry winter branches, there was a cough, one Eli couldn't hear, but the figure of the sick man was still as stone. His eyes could barely trust what they saw, even though it made all too much sense—Paul Sunday, the Brother, caught in some Satanic, frenzied moan, a demon had taken hold. The sick man, he'd followed him all the way from the parking lot, trailing the skin-walker to this pond, and he was exactly as the Prophet had said on air, a worm twisting in itself, eating himself up. 

The sick man doesn't have much to live for anyway. He fixes on the blond head, a perfect twin of the prophet's, but unkempt as Paul's, and waits for the dawn to lift the gloom and perfectly reveal his target. When it does, a hiss, like a hornet's sting, then a sharp, meaty smack. And the Red Devil is no more. 

Epilogue, 1989.

Elijah Sunday had been dead for seven years, murdered in a bizarre case of mistaken identity. He was found by the swamp, half undressed, with a bullet hole in his head, higher up than Mercy's had been. The killer, a sick man, died in police custody of natural causes after collapsing, before he could explain his actions, but in his word salad, the word “Paul” was repeatedly discerned. Since the sick man wasn't registered at birth, the police published his photo in the papers, searching for surviving relatives who might know his motives. Only the Paradise police confirmed he was the anonymous tip that led them to the Paradise pond, where Mercy's bones were found. 

The strange details of the events of Paradise made it widely accepted, but it couldn't be stated with absolute certainty, that Elijah had killed Mercy Miller, in 1972, in a case just as bizarre as his own death, but by then it was widely understood as a violent act of revenge for her forcing him. Eleanor Kelley didn't comment further on the case. Paul Sunday didn't attend his brother’s funeral, which was officiated by Reverend Sexton. On that day, the reverend broke his silence on the case, saying that regardless of the truth, Eli's love of God was genuine, and surely the Lord would take that into account.

Bertha Allen, known as "The White Widow", permanently left her father's home when she came of age and could not be persuaded to return. Over five years, she renounced her wealth and built a small but dedicated community of followers for her unusual cult, which she presented as a continuation of Eli's ministry. Although most his former followers viewed her as an impostor, she established a small but loyal crowd. “Radical sect spreads through California — Followers of slain preacher Elijah Sunday (1955 — 1982) fracture into extremist factions. Former allies denounce movement.” A headline from 1987. The Penitence Diary of Mercy Miller served as their secret scripture, that only Bertha, the Prophet, could consult in full. But everyone was allowed to listen to The Truth According to Elijah, tape of the 1972 sermon sent to her former home by Andrew Jones. Her followers relied on her to interpret the messages she drew from it. Bertha emphasized that the diary was merely a supplement to the Bible's wisdom, but unlike the Good Book, it was written specifically for her and Elijah. 

By 1989 the scattered cult had a base, Bertha had remodelled an old chapel in the town of Santa Ynez, the vacant church had once been ordinary, a simple white clapboard building with a modest bell tower — even though it’s stained glasses were extraordinary for a building of such size — but Bertha's hand had made some changes. The wooden cross on the doors was painted red, not bright, the faded colour of dried roses, and Bertha reminded everyone that Eli had made the cross she had sewn a symbol because she had used red thread, and because they were to always remember the Blood of Christ, and by extension, the Blood of Mercy. 

The stained glass windows depicting the life of Christ had been preserved, but she made sure to add one - Mercy with short grey hair, dressed in the nightgown she spoke of in The Penitence Diary, a flame behind her to commemorate both the now defunct Flame of Pentecost Ministries and the burning wounds of the girl. 

Inside, the air was always thick with candle smoke. The wooden pews were gone. Her church, the Church of Expiation, could hardly fill them, and she resented this. A row of chairs took their place. The altar was plain except for one picture, the same 1970 photo that had graced the Paradise Pentecostal Church’s pulpit during that notorious sermon in 72. 

Prophet Bertha "Sunday" Allen, twenty-four, stands before her small congregation, wearing a large white robe streaked with a blood-red print of poppies. On the stand before her lay a green leather book and a knife with a cross-shaped handle. In the Church of Expiation's canon, "The Story of My Marriage" was reserved for female followers, as Bertha thought men would misinterpret it - unless they were exceptional, like Eli. The story's image of a lily and a knife was known to everyone, however. For Bertha, the soul of her message was that, to make oneself yielding before the dagger of your neighbour, to bend as petals would do to the sharp edge, like Eli did bend to Mercy and Mercy did to him seven times over. She wanted them to understand that it was truly the same, to be loved and to be slain, and to love and to slay. This is how it is with everything. She thinks that is why her chairs are often empty. Who wants to hear that? 

With arms outstretched, clad in loose candid sleeves, and palms upturned towards the ceiling, she asks, "Do you feel her presence, brothers and sisters? Today, I feel her strongly, like a baby growing inside me. It's as if I can feel her kick." 

A soft, serene laughter ripples through the congregation at her words. A few are clutching wooden tokens with cryptic quotes taken from the diary at the discretion of Bertha. 

"They say a lot of things about us, don't they? They call us mad, as Mercy saw in her visions, called mad, looked at and reviled, her wounds despised rather than admired. They even call us sinners. And they called her that, you can be sure. They must have thought Mercy an idolater, to love her neighbour enough to crawl at his feet, to seek deliverance from him, instead of lazing around, misunderstanding the meaning of "vengeance is His". We can all be the blade of our neighbour! And we can all be the flesh. We know the truth of her Third Dispensation.”

Bertha steps down, caressing a few of the overjoyed heads of her audience, moving with the blade amidst them, as if she is selecting a victim, but they know she wouldn’t harm them. 

“Come, take the mark of her love. Share in her suffering. You! Start the chain…”, she is now kneeling beside a young woman, her head resting on the shoulder of her mother, a plump and gentle-looking lady. Bertha places the knife in the girl's hand and watches as the girl cuts, kisses, and the woman does the same to her. 

END. 

^”For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
    and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Hosea, 6:6.