coat, and for a moment she thought of how silly this was, a woman like Claudia undone by a winter storm. She’d lived on this road her whole life; how could she possibly fail to get home? The wind sang in her ears, rising and falling, and a stand of trees outside her sight moaned along in time.
“Hello?” Her voice seemed to stop in her mouth. The wind had blown it back at her.
There, then: a set of eyes caught green in the halogen light. Claudia took a step backward, saw another set, a third, the vague impression of fur. Three dogs, she thought, long-muzzled, gray. She imagined more than she saw. Three dogs lying on the frozen ground, snow blown up against their sides, the brutal wind. Before she could decide what to do, all three animals rose and ran away from her, deep into the pounding whiteness, the black ground of the field on which they could run all night.
The snow was blinding by the time Rebekah drove home, leaning close to the steering wheel, as if that would help. When she finally reached her house, she parked the car in the general vicinity of other car-shaped, snow-covered mounds, hoping she wasn’t actually on the sidewalk, or in somebody’s yard. She’d left the porch light on by accident that morning, and now it was the only guide to her door—the too bright bulb her father insisted on and that she usually found distressing.
It was Friday, so Vernon would be at the Governance Council Meeting until it was over, snowstorm or not. Rebekah didn’t worry about him driving or becoming stranded; to do so would have been a betrayal of who he was to her, and who he believed himself to be. He had, Rebekah knew, thrived in storms far worse than this, once traveling seven miles on horseback in a blizzard because he’d intended to propose to her mother and would not wait.
Constance Ruth Harrison, called Ruthie, had been seventeen years old in 1958, had known nothing of the world when Vernon set his cap for her. They’d met when Vernon responded to a call from the pulpit to help get a neighbor’s crops in; Ruthie’s father, Elder Harrison, had fallen to pneumonia, and his family was in trouble. They weren’t Prophetic, the Harrisons, but belonged to a radical Holiness sect that had broken away from the larger body and set up worship in a barn on Elder Harrison’s land. At first they called themselves Children of the Blood of the Lamb, and then Children of the Blood, and finally, just The Blood. That was where the truth lay, they believed, in the old story. For some groups it was in Christ’s miracles, for some it was the Resurrection. (The Mission preached that demonic sects like the Catholics worshiped only Mary and a group of Mafia-connected cardinals in Italy who carried submachine guns under their red robes, and who communicated with the Underworld through a code involving sunglasses.) But the Harrisons and their little ragtag army, which had remained isolated as long as Elder Harrison lived, believed that the divine message of Jesus was in His Blood, the blood He shared with the Master Creator Father God, and the blood He spilled on the cross to redeem humanity. In them, the Blood rose up and spoke; it told them of the End Times, it said there would be a worldwide slaughter of the unconverted Jews. As the Children of the Blood married and mingled with the Prophetic Mission, and as the secular world slouched toward them, they realized there would need to be a worldwide slaughter of other groups as well. No hope of conversion would be offered to Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Muslims, Hindoos, the Godless Buddhists. A special trampling under the hooves of the Four Horsemen was reserved for Unitarians, and a spectacle of Holy Execution for the mortal enemies of The Blood, the Mormons. The old peace churches, the Quakers, Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Brethren, would be mown down, but gently, like wheat, as the members of The Blood respected their work ethic. Jesus would smite the
“Hello?” Her voice seemed to stop in her mouth. The wind had blown it back at her.
There, then: a set of eyes caught green in the halogen light. Claudia took a step backward, saw another set, a third, the vague impression of fur. Three dogs, she thought, long-muzzled, gray. She imagined more than she saw. Three dogs lying on the frozen ground, snow blown up against their sides, the brutal wind. Before she could decide what to do, all three animals rose and ran away from her, deep into the pounding whiteness, the black ground of the field on which they could run all night.
The snow was blinding by the time Rebekah drove home, leaning close to the steering wheel, as if that would help. When she finally reached her house, she parked the car in the general vicinity of other car-shaped, snow-covered mounds, hoping she wasn’t actually on the sidewalk, or in somebody’s yard. She’d left the porch light on by accident that morning, and now it was the only guide to her door—the too bright bulb her father insisted on and that she usually found distressing.
It was Friday, so Vernon would be at the Governance Council Meeting until it was over, snowstorm or not. Rebekah didn’t worry about him driving or becoming stranded; to do so would have been a betrayal of who he was to her, and who he believed himself to be. He had, Rebekah knew, thrived in storms far worse than this, once traveling seven miles on horseback in a blizzard because he’d intended to propose to her mother and would not wait.
Constance Ruth Harrison, called Ruthie, had been seventeen years old in 1958, had known nothing of the world when Vernon set his cap for her. They’d met when Vernon responded to a call from the pulpit to help get a neighbor’s crops in; Ruthie’s father, Elder Harrison, had fallen to pneumonia, and his family was in trouble. They weren’t Prophetic, the Harrisons, but belonged to a radical Holiness sect that had broken away from the larger body and set up worship in a barn on Elder Harrison’s land. At first they called themselves Children of the Blood of the Lamb, and then Children of the Blood, and finally, just The Blood. That was where the truth lay, they believed, in the old story. For some groups it was in Christ’s miracles, for some it was the Resurrection. (The Mission preached that demonic sects like the Catholics worshiped only Mary and a group of Mafia-connected cardinals in Italy who carried submachine guns under their red robes, and who communicated with the Underworld through a code involving sunglasses.) But the Harrisons and their little ragtag army, which had remained isolated as long as Elder Harrison lived, believed that the divine message of Jesus was in His Blood, the blood He shared with the Master Creator Father God, and the blood He spilled on the cross to redeem humanity. In them, the Blood rose up and spoke; it told them of the End Times, it said there would be a worldwide slaughter of the unconverted Jews. As the Children of the Blood married and mingled with the Prophetic Mission, and as the secular world slouched toward them, they realized there would need to be a worldwide slaughter of other groups as well. No hope of conversion would be offered to Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Muslims, Hindoos, the Godless Buddhists. A special trampling under the hooves of the Four Horsemen was reserved for Unitarians, and a spectacle of Holy Execution for the mortal enemies of The Blood, the Mormons. The old peace churches, the Quakers, Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Brethren, would be mown down, but gently, like wheat, as the members of The Blood respected their work ethic. Jesus would smite the
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