All but one of the houses in Wellspring were empty, but not for war, or famine, or conquest. Death had brought in a new preacher, and Easter had cemented his place.
He stood just past the open face of a hand-painted kitchen window, clean-cut and composed in his brand new suit. His voice was deep, richer than coffee, sweeter than honey, smoother than the finest of velvet. Perhaps that explained why the house was packed, filled to its brim with a sea of people breathlessly awaiting the preacher’s sermon. The heat gave his face the kind of grainy distortion that might only be found on television. Finally, he spoke.
“My friends,” he said, “Your time is coming. Say it for me again.”
A hundred voices scrambled to answer. He raised a finger to his lips and hushed them in an instant. “I say again that your time is coming. What must you do to prepare?”
Sleeves missing buttons made their way to the air. Pray, they recited, Pray for rain. Pray for victory. Pray for constancy. Pray for chari —
This drew something quite like a growl from him. “Charity? Charity is for the idle, the indolent, the faithless. That’s not you, is it?”
The house was furnished with the few comforts their money could buy and little else. It shook with the town’s harmonious agreement.
“Good,” he said. His smile returned. He straightened his tie and looked down to check his golden watch. The late morning sun poured in so heavy through the window that you couldn’t look right at him for long. He could not be called handsome. “I would worry for you if it were.”
Here he began to pace, laying bare the wash of green behind him. A breeze blew in to kiss their faces. The peaches on Mrs. Mabry’s tree were overripe.
Soon after, he broke for offering. A dinner plate was piled high with hope and passed through the window, where its contents then lined his breastpocket. In went heirlooms, went savings, went cries out to God. In a heartbeat, he was off with them all.
Then came silence. Mrs. Mabry stood and closed the kitchen window, cut on the lights overhead. Wellspring blinked in the absence of something it had lost the word for. Odd now was the instinct to weep.
The town left in handfuls, neat skirts and pressed slacks dividing them each by the household. Cars drove them back to driveways where prayer had yet to bring white picket fences. At something like home, they settled into shop-window vignettes of modernity: Ms. Davis’ yams on her own counter. Mrs. Carter’s peach cobbler in her own fridge. Next Sunday would approach like molasses. Until then, this.
Another breeze yawned over the town’s green carpeting, bringing with it the citrusy scent of clean upholstery. It was spring and the world felt new again, like Noah’s flood had still yet to claim it.
