Thrower looked into the Visitor’s eyes and despaired. For there was neither love, nor forgiveness, nor anger, nor contempt. The eyes were utterly empty. The scales dazzled, scattering the light of an inner fire. But that fire did not shine through the eyes. They were not even black. They simply were not there at all, a terrible emptiness that trembled, that would not hold still, and Thrower knew that this was his own reflection, that he was nothing, that for him to continue to exist was a cruel waste of precious space, that the only choice left to him was to be annihilated, uncreated, to restore the world to the greater glory it would have had if Philadelphia Thrower had never been born.

It was Thrower’s praying that woke Armor up. He was curled up by the Franklin stove. Maybe he stoked that stove a mite too hot, but that’s what it took to beat back the cold. Why, by the time he got to the church his shirt was solid ice. He’d get more charcoal to pay back the parson.

Armor meant to speak right up and let Thrower know he was there, but when he heard the words that Thrower was praying, he couldn’t find no words to say. Thrower was talking about knives and arteries, and how he should’ve cut up the enemies of God. After a minute it came clear: Thrower hadn’t gone up there to save that boy, he’d gone up to kill him! What’s wrong around here, thought Armor, when a Christian man beats his wife, and a Christian wife witches her husband, and a Christian minister plots murder and prays for forgiveness cause he failed to commit the crime!

All of a sudden, though, Thrower stopped praying. He was so hoarse and his face so red that Armor thought he might have had the apoplexy. But no. Thrower lifted his head like he was listening to somebody. Armor listened, too, and he could hear something, like people talking in a windstorm, so you couldn’t never hear what they were saying.

I know what this is, thought Armor. Reverend Thrower’s having himself a vision.

Sure enough, Thrower talked, and the faint voice answered, and pretty soon Thrower started turning around and around, faster and faster, like he was watching something on the walls. Armor tried to see what it was he was watching, but he couldn’t never make it out. It was like a shadow passing across the sun—you couldn’t see it coming and you couldn’t see it go, but for a second it was darker and colder. That’s what Armor saw.