“Yes, Lee. To burn and to glow. That is freedom. To become pure light. The violence of collision. The violence that leads to beauty. There is no other pathway to freedom. Not in this world nor the next.”

I lay there in the darkness, holding my breath.

Chapter 43

The day before our first gathering, I spent all morning sitting in supplication in the Hummingbird Grove, talking to Jeremiah.

“I have something to show you,” he said, and he placed a cold hand on my forehead.

Suddenly I was by the pond, but I wasn’t in my body. I was some floating hazy spirit that didn’t exist, that could watch everything from far away, and I knew I was in the past somehow, I knew I was seeing something very old and forgotten.

There were two teenagers at the pond, a girl and a boy. The girl had long brown hair, and she swam confident and alone while the boy lay on the bank, napping, sunning himself.

I knew the boy immediately. That pale hair, the long thin body. It was Jeremiah. He lay back, his eyes shut, arms behind his head for a pillow, a great smile on his face. I wondered what he was dreaming of, if he was having visions, if he was seeing his whole beautiful future stretched before him, the Farm and all it could be, his people, his congregation. The sun shone down on him like a spotlight, like the whole world existed just to draw attention to him.

I saw Carl Urquhart standing a little ways off from the bank, peeking through the trees. He was much younger, and his beard and clothes weren’t so ragged yet.

The girl—my mother—hollered at Carl.

“Get away, you creep,” she said in a voice that sounded exactly like Murphy’s. “Give us some privacy for once.”

“Oh, let him be,” said Jeremiah, from the bank.

“No,” said Mom. “I’m sick of him following you around all the time like your creepy goddamn shadow.” She motioned to Carl. “I said to get!”

Carl Urquhart took a few steps back into the woods.

“Not far enough!” hollered Mom. “Keep on going! Don’t stop until you get to the house!”

And Carl Urquhart slunk off, looking over his shoulder every few steps. Mom watched until he was gone.

“I hate that guy,” she said and dove underwater.