But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t help it.

“He wears sweatpants and drinks beer all day,” I said. “He watches your mom whip you, and he laughs, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he, Byron?”

I thought the guy was going to strangle me. I thought he was going to pin me to the ground and bust my teeth out. He drew his fist back, and I waited for the blow to land, for him to knock me senseless.

But Byron flung his arms around me and collapsed onto my shoulder, weeping.

“No one wants me,” he said. “No one wants anything to do with me, not at all.”

“I do,” I said, and I meant it, I really did. “I want you here. You belong here with us. With all of us. You’re part of our family now.”

“Thank you,” he said.

And he wept and wept.

Well done, Lee, whispered Jeremiah. Well done indeed.

I wanted to tell Murphy what had happened with Byron, but she wouldn’t hardly speak to me. I guess she was still freaked out about the whole painting thing. I wondered if I showed her Mom’s art, whether she would be more excited about what the Spirit was doing in her, how it was changing her.

I knocked on her door.

“Murphy?” I said. “I got something to show you.”

She opened the door and glared at me.

“If it involves this spooky goddamn religion of yours,” she said, “I want nothing to do with it.”

I stepped inside and shushed her a little bit.

“You got to stop insulting this Farm,” I said. “It’s bad for people to hear you do it. It hurts our cause.”

“If I had my way,” she said, “I would stomp your cause into the fucking ground.”

“You don’t mean that,” I said. “You can’t.”

“Oh, I mean it,” said Murphy. “I hate this place. I hate what it’s doing to you.”

“It’s making me great,” I said. “It’s making me into a leader.”

“Is that what you think you are?” she said, a mean little smirk on her face. “Lee, the great leader of the people? Or are you just Grandma’s little puppet?”

I was so angry I could have spat. I wanted to scream at Murphy, to slap that grin right off her face. But then I felt something different, a stirring inside me.

“It’s okay to be jealous of me, Murphy,” I told her, my voice placid, calm, not quite my own. “Though I can say it’s not a very becoming look for you. Jealousy makes you small, Murphy. It makes you pathetic.”

“How about you get the hell out of my room right now?” she snarled.

“Okay,” I said. “If you wish.”

I stepped backward, and she slammed the door in my face.