How They Were Found (5 page)

Franklin stands beside Spear on the hill, while in the shed behind them the work continues. Spear has the next two stages detailed on paper, locked in the box beneath his desk, and he is no longer concerned about their specifics. Instead, he asks Franklin about this other person, the opposite of himself. He asks Franklin, Who is the New Mary? How am I supposed to know who she will be?

Franklin waves his hand over the whole of High Rock, says, She has already been delivered unto us. You need only to claim her, to take her into your protection.

He says, When the time is right, you will know who to choose.

But the time is now, Spear says. If her pregnancy is to coincide with the creation of the motor, it must start soon.

Franklin nods. Then you must choose, and choose wisely.

On the Sabbath, Franklin stands beside Spear at the pulpit, whispering into Spear's ears, sending his words out Spear's mouth. There are tears in Spear's eyes, brought on by the great hope the Electricizers have given him. The reborn America the New Motor will bring, it is the most beautiful thing Spear has ever imagined. The abolition of slavery, the suffrage of women and negros, the institution of free love and free sex and free everything, the destruction of capitalism, of war and greed. Spear tells his congregation that, with their support, the New Motor will make all these advancements possible.

Franklin whispers something else, something meant for Spear alone. The medium nods, looks out at the congregation. One of these women must be the New Mary, and so Spear waits for Franklin to say a name, hesitating too long when the specter fails to reveal the correct choice. He considers the women in the audience, searches his heart for their qualifications. He thinks of the first Mary, of what he understands as her beauty, her innocence, her virginity. The girl he selects to replace her must be young, and she must be unmarried.

Spear does not know the women of his congregation well.

He can recognize them by sight, but remembers their names only when he sees them beside their husbands or fathers or brothers.

There is only one he has known for a long time, one he has watched grow from a child into a young woman, all under the tutelage of the spiritualist movement. He has always felt discomfited by the attention he paid her, but at last he sees the reasons for his lingering gazes, his wanting thoughts. From the pulpit, he says her name: Abigail Dermot.

He says, Abigail Dermot, please step forward.

He doesn't watch her stand, confused, doesn't watch her walk up the aisle. He averts his eyes, both from her and from the front pew, where his wife and children sit.

The thoughts in his head, he does not want to share them with his wife.

He turns to Franklin, but the specter is gone. What he does next, he does on his own.

THE SEVENTEETH REVEALMENT

Among you there will be a NEW MARY, one who has inherited at the outset an unusually sensitive nature, refined by suffering. To her will be revealed the true meaning of the CROSS, as the intersection of heaven and earth, as positive and negative, as both male and female. She will become a MOTHER, but in a new sense: the MARY OF A NEW DISPENSATION. She will feel a maternal feeling toward not just the NEW MOTOR but also to all individuals, who, through her instrumentality, will one day be instructed in the truth of the new philosophy.

After the services are over, Spear takes Abigail into his office in the meetinghouse and motions for her to sit down before taking his own seat behind the desk. He believes she is sixteen or seventeen, but when he asks, she says, Fifteen, Reverend. She has not looked at him once since he called her up to the front of the congregation, since he told the others that she was the chosen one who would give birth to the revelation they all awaited.

Spear says, Abigail, you are marked, by God and by his agents and by me. You are special, set apart from the others.

He says, Abigail. Look at me.

She raises her eyes, and he can see how scared she is of what she's been called to do. He stands and walks around the desk to kneel before her. She smells of lavender, jasmine, the first dust off a fresh blossom. His hands clasped in front of himself, he says, Can you accept what's being offered to you?

He rises, touches her shoulder, then lifts her chin so that their faces are aligned, so that her blonde hair falls away from her eyes.

He says, It is God that calls you, not me, and it is him you must answer.

But Spear wonders. It is only he and her, alone, and without the Electricizers he can only trust what he himself feels in the hollows of his own imperfect heart.

THE THIRTY-SECOND REVEALMENT

The MEDIUM is rough, coarse, lacking culture and hospitality, but with the elements deemed essential for the engineering of the NEW MOTOR, for this important branch of labor. At times he must be in the objective position [not in a TRANCE] while at other times he must be erratic, must ignore his family and friends so that he might hear our many voices. Acting upon impulse, this person will be made to say and do things of an extraordinary character. He will not be held accountable for his actions during the MONTHS OF CREATION. Treading on ground so delicate, he cannot be expected to comprehend the purposes aimed at. Do not hold him as a sinner during this time, for all will be forgiven, every secret action necessarily enjoined.

The services of many persons must be secured to the carrying forth of a work so novel, so important. The NEW MOTOR will be the BEACON-FIRE, the BLOOD-RED CROSS, the GENERAL ORDER OF THE NEW DAY. Whatever must be sacrificed must be sacrificed, whatever must be cast aside must be cast aside. Trust the MEDIUM, for through him we speak great speech.

That night, Rush shows Spear the next stages of the New Motor, detailing the flywheel that will have to be cast at great cost. Spear is given ideas, designs, structures, scientific laws and principles, all of which he writes as quickly as he can, his hand moving faster than his mind can follow. When he reads over what he has written, he recognizes that the blueprint is something that could not have originated from within him. He can barely comprehend it as it is now, fully formed upon the paper, much less conceive how he would have arrived at this grand design without the help of the Electricizers.

Rush says, The motor will cause great floods of spiritual light to descend from the heavens. It will reveal the earth to be a limitless trove of motion, life, and freedom.

Spear dutifully inks the diagram and annotates each of its intricacies, then asks, Did I choose the right girl?

Rush points to the diagram and says, That should be copper, not zinc.

Spear makes the correction, then presses his issue. She's only fifteen, from a good family. Surely she's a virgin.

He says, I have seen her pray, and I believe she is as pure of heart as any in the congregation.

Rush says, We want to reveal more, but only if you can concentrate. It isn't easy for us to be here. Don't waste our time.

Spear apologizes, swallows his doubts. He silences his heart and opens his ears. He writes what he needs to write, draws what he needs to draw.

A week later, Spear sends Randall down into the village to fetch Abigail. When the boy returns with the girl, her mother and father also walk beside her. Spear tries to ignore the parents as he takes the girl by the arm, but her father steps around him, blocking the path to the shed.

The father says, Reverend, if God needs my daughter, then so be it. But I want to see where you're taking her.

Spear shakes his head, keeps his hand on the girl. Says, Mr. Dermot, I assure you that your daughter is safe with me. We go with God.

What is in there that a child needs to see but a man cannot?

You will see it, Mr. Dermot. Everyone will, when the time comes. When my task—your daughter's task—is complete, then you will see it. But not before.

Spear holds the father's gaze for a long time. He wants to look at Abigail, to assure her that there is nothing to be afraid of, but he knows it is the father he must convince. Behind them, her mother is crying quietly, her sobs barely louder than the slight wind blowing across the hill. Spear waits with a prayer on his lips, with a call for help reserved farther down his throat. Randall is nearby, and the Russians and the metalworker will come if he calls.

Eventually the father steps aside. Spear breaks his gaze but says nothing as he moves forward with the girl in tow. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the curtain of his cabin parted, sees his wife's face obscured by the cheap glass of the window. He does not look more closely, does not acknowledge the expression he knows is there.

Inside the work shed, construction continues as Spear shows Abigail what has been done, what the New Motor is becoming. He explains her role as the New Mary, that she has been chosen to give life to the machine.

He says, I am the architect, but I am no more the father than Joseph was. This is your child, and God's child.

He says, Do you understand what I am telling you?

The Electricizers are gathered in the shed, watching him. He looks to them for approval, but their focus is on the machine itself. Inside the shed, the words he says to them never have any effect, never move them to response or reaction.

Work stalls while they wait for supplies to come by train to Randolph, and then overland to High Rock by wagon. For two weeks, Spear has nothing to do but return to the ordinary business of running his congregation, which includes acting as a medium for congregation members who wish to contact their deceased, or to seek advice from the spirit world. A woman crosses his palm with coin and he offers her comforting words from her passed husband, then he helps a businessman get advice from an old partner. Normally, Spear has no trouble crossing the veil and coming back with the words the spirits offer him, but something has changed with the arrival of the Electricizers, a condition aggravated since the beginning of construction on the Motor. He hears the other spirits as if his ears are filled with cotton or wax, as if there is something in the way of true communication, and the real world seems just as distant, just as difficult to navigate.

By the time the spinster Maud Trenton comes to see him, he can barely see her, can barely hear her when she says, I'm hearing voices, Reverend. Receiving visitations.

She says, Angels have come to me in the night.

Spear shakes his head, sure he has misunderstood the woman. He feels like a child trapped in a curtain, unable to jerk himself free. He hasn't crossed the veil, merely caught himself up in it.

He says, What did you say?

Maud Trenton, in her fifties, with a face pocked by acne scars and a mouth full of the mere memories of teeth, she says, I told the angels I was afraid, and the angels told me to come to see you.

Jefferson appears behind her, with his sleeves rolled up, wig set aside. His glow is so bright it is hard for Spear to look directly at the specter, who says, Tell her that God loves her.

Spear's eyes roll and blink and try to right themselves. He can feel his pupils dilating, letting more light come streaking in as wide bands of colors splay across his field of vision. He's firmly on the other side, closer to what comes next than what is.

Jefferson says, Tell her we're thankful. Tell her we venerate her and protect her and watch over her. Tell her the whole host is at her service.

Spear is so confused that when he opens his mouth to say Jefferson's words, nothing comes out. And then the specter is gone, and Spear is freed from his vision, returned to the more substantial world, where Maud sits across from him, her eyes cast downward into her lap, her hands busy worrying a handkerchief to tatters. Suddenly Spear feels tired, too tired to talk to this woman anymore, or to concern himself with her problems.

Spear opens his mouth to say Jefferson's words, but they won't come out, and although he knows why he blames her instead. He says, Woman, I have nothing to say to you. If you feel what you're doing is wrong—if you've come to me for absolution—then go home and pray for yourself, for I have not been granted it to give you.

At dinner that night, Spear's forehead throbs while his wife and daughters chatter around him, desperate for his attention after his day spent down in the village. He continues to nod and smile, hoping his reaction is appropriate to the conversation. He can't hear his family's words, cannot comprehend their facial expressions no matter how hard he tries.

He does not try that hard.

What is in the way is the New Motor. The revealments are coming faster now, and Spear understands that there are many more to come. It will take eight more months to finish the machine, an interminable time to wait, but there is so much to do that Spear is grateful for every remaining second.

The New Motor is ready to be mounted on a special table commissioned specifically for the project, and so Spear brings two carpenters into his expanding crew, each once again hand-selected from the men of High Rock. The table is sturdy oak, its thick top carved with several deep, concentric circles designed to surround the growing machine. When the carpenters ask him what the grooves mean, or what they do, Spear shakes his head. Their purpose has not been revealed, only their need.

Abigail becomes a fixture in the shed, spending every day with the men and the Motor. Spear sets aside part of every morning for her instruction, relating scriptures he finds applicable. The girl is an attentive student, listening carefully and asking insightful questions. Spear finds himself wishing his own children were so worthy, and more than once he finds the slow linger of a smile burnt across his cheeks long after he and Abigail have finished speaking.

In the afternoons, he joins the others in the day-to-day work of constructing the machine, but even then he continues to watch her, to notice her. This is how he observes the way she sees Randall, the talented young worker who will have his pick of trades when the time comes. Metalworking, carpentry, even the doing of figures and interpretation of the diagrams come easy to Randall, the boy's aptitudes speaking well of his deeper, better qualities. Spear has often been impressed with the boy, but now, watching the quick glances and quicker smiles that pass between Randall and Abigail, he knows he will have to study him even closer.