“You and your scriptures. You and your angels.”

“You tell me why else he had those fourteen accidents and not one of them so much as gave him a scrape on his arm. How many other boys get to six years old without no injury?”

Papa’s face looked strange then, twisted up a little, as if it was hard for him to speak at all. “I tell you that there’s something wants him dead. I know it.”

“You don’t know any such thing.”

Papa spoke even slower, biting out the words as if each one caused him pain. “I know. “

He had such a hard time talking that Mama just went on and talked right over him. “If there’s some devil plot to kill him—which I ain’t saying, Alvin—then there’s an even stronger heavenly plan to preserve him.”

Then, suddenly, Papa didn’t have no trouble talking at all. Papa just gave up saying the hard thing, and Alvin Junior felt let down, like when somebody said uncle before they even got throwed. But he knew, the minute he thought about it, that his papa wouldn’t give up like that lessen it was some terrible force stopping him from speaking up. Papa was a strong man, not a bit cowardly. And seeing Papa beat down like that, well, it made the boy afraid. Little Alvin knew that Mama and Papa were talking about him, and even though he didn’t understand half what they said, he knew that Papa was saying somebody wanted Alvin Junior dead, and when Papa tried to tell his real proof, the thing that made him know, something stopped his mouth and kept him still.

Alvin Junior knew without a word being said that whatever it was stopped Papa’s mouth, it was the plain opposite of the shining light that had filled Alvin and the Shining Man tonight. There was something that wanted Alvin to be strong and good. And there was something else that wanted Alvin dead. Whatever the good thing was, it could bring visions, it could show him his terrible sin and teach him how to be shut of it forever. But the bad thing, it had the power to shut Papa’s mouth, to beat down the strongest, best man Al Junior ever knew or heard of. And that made Al afraid.

When Papa went on with his arguments, his seventh son knew that he wasn’t using the proof that counted. “Not devils, not angels,” said Papa, “it’s the elements of the universe, don’t you see that he’s an offense against nature? There’s power in him like you nor I can’t even guess. So much power that one part of nature itself can’t bear it—so much power that he protects hisself even when he don’t know he’s doing it.”