My older brother, Jamie, fidgeted to my left. The small, decaying building that housed Holy Family Church needed a new air-conditioning unit the congregation couldn’t afford, so the windows had been opened. But without a morning breeze, the sanctuary felt like a sauna, slowly cooking the faithful as if extracting punishment for hidden sins—a helpful reminder of the hell to come for all who did not adhere to the dictates of a holy God.

It was the tenth Sunday since the flock of Holy Family had received the prophecy of the destruction that would soon visit the earth. We all accepted the word given to Rose Pierce as truth. She was a devout woman who loved Jesus and his church, a dedicated servant of Christianity. We had repeated the prophecy until it was etched first in our brains, then on our hearts, which is why none of us could be still that Sunday.

In three years’ time, a great scourge would cleanse the earth.

We were a small community of the purest faith, the bride of Christ, the elect, ever diligent to obey the teachings of righteousness from the word and always on guard against the sinful ways of the world. Only seventy-two in that day, the Holy Family was seen as radical and fringe to many in our small town. Fringe, a word I only understood because my mother had explained it to me and my brother after we’d overheard her arguing again with our father.

Arguing because my dad didn’t buy into all the fear-mongering, as he liked to call it. Billy Carter, a redheaded boy my age, called him faithless to my face, and it was clear the whole church thought the same. Half of me thought so too. Either way, my dad had stopped attending the services, so he wasn’t there that hot August Sunday. If he had been, he would have become an instant believer in the prophecy Rose had delivered.

Because in the space of five terrifying minutes, everything about all of our lives was forever and irreversibly changed.

Our shepherd, Harrison Pierce, husband to Rose, had prefaced his sermon with a few remarks that I don’t recall before pausing and holding the congregation in silence, eyeing us each with care. Then, in a gentle but gripping voice, he repeated the prophecy.

“In three years’ time, because the world has turned away from holiness, the world’s sin will rise up against them in monstrous form and destroy the wicked. But those with true sight will be shown what is to come and delivered from the great fury. The chosen remnant shall seek refuge away from the world and wait until the ground has been cleansed of sin. For then those with eyes to see and vigilant of faith will be spared from destruction and inherit the earth as the pure bride under the law of a holy God. So be it.”

“So be it,” we all repeated.