“I tell you, I am so fucking sick of that fucking Hobo,” she said. “I used to have nightmares about him every night. I used to imagine I saw him all the time in our backyard, hiding in the shadows or whatever. He was the number-one terror of my entire childhood. Christ, a couple of times I even thought I saw him myself. Your visions have really fucked me up, you know that?”

“I know,” I said, slumping back in my bed. “And I’m damn sorry about it. I’m sorry I’ve been such a horrible burden to you and Mom. I’m sorry you’re stuck having to deal with me all by yourself.”

“Hey,” said Murphy, “come on, I didn’t mean it like that. I know it’s not your fault.”

“Good night, Murphy,” I said, and I rolled over to face the wall.

Murphy didn’t say anything else. I heard her get back in her bunk, and pretty soon she was snoring.

But I couldn’t sleep. I could hear the rabble of the cicadas and tree frogs and everything else that makes up the loud southern night. It was just the same as back home with Mom. The moment I shut my eyes, my mind went racing. Who was this Jeremiah person? And who were the other people on the tape, Jeremiah’s congregation? Where was his church? I still remembered Jeremiah’s voice like a song stuck in my head that would never go away unless I listened to it again.

I took the tape player out from under my covers and turned the volume about as low as it would go. I laid it on my pillow and put my ear against the speaker, and I pressed play. When I heard Jeremiah’s voice, it was as if he were whispering secrets right into my ear.

“Humankind was not meant to live alone,” he said. “Yes, I know y’all know that, or you wouldn’t be here today. No, man was not meant to live alone, nor woman either. We were meant to live together in community.”

Clapping, shouting, applause.

“I was granted a vision last night, friends. It came upon me like a whirlwind, a raging of winds and smoke and flames. The sky vanished, and I stood in a dark place, only a campfire to guide me. Three men sat around the campfire, three lonely wretched men. ‘What you seek,’ the three men said together, ‘lies yonder.’ And they pointed as one into the darkness.”

I couldn’t believe it. Jeremiah had a vision of the same people as I had. I felt bonded to him, drawn even closer into his world, into his sermon and voice.