Jimmy—James stood there, his body composed of the awkward lumpy shapes of a boy, sheathed in fat, on the verge of puberty. And here Margaret lay dying.

  “Go on, James. Give your mother a kiss,” her father said. The words boomed more loudly than ever. The cancer stripped the fat from her body. There wasn’t a centimeter of her flesh that was spared. Even her ear canals, wider now, let it more sound than she wished. Margaret heard everything with sharp clarity. But she couldn’t see herself. Not anymore. She hadn’t seen herself since the last time the nurse had guided her into the bathroom for a shower. Now, weeks of sponge baths later, Margaret felt mortified as her son looked down on her skeletal form.

  He showed no hesitation, no expression. There was a resoluteness. She didn’t see a shred of grief. He had the last year and a half to distribute his mourning. Holding hands here, a silent breakfast there.

  , she thought.

  On the cusp of adulthood now, he stood next to her bed. He took her hand, stiff and formal. Benny leaned over and touched his forehead to hers, then gave her a small kiss on the cheek. He paused there, close. His breath felt ghostly on her skin.

  “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time,” he whispered, a smile creeping into the corners of his voice, “how grateful I am that you joined my congregation at Weaver Springs.”

  Any emotions Margaret felt slammed into a wall of painkillers. After she returned to Houston, she said nothing about her time away. It had been three years since she had spoken to them. Three years at Weaver Springs. The look on their faces said everything. They thought she had died somewhere. That the cancer took her from them. Her mom probed in her cautious way. Dad took one long look at her and hugged her, no questions.

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  Its resurgence—the cancer—had eviscerated her body. Left her too small of a vessel. She glanced at him as he rose. . He couldn’t have. He was delusional, tainted by the water, bowing under the same hallucinations as the rest of them. The ritual. The murders. Her heart pounded, and her mind raced, burning through the small store of energy in her body. Then she felt it. Death crept into her right at that moment, clawing its way up her feet and tingling in her fingers.

  Little Jimmy couldn’t be. She got rid of the book. He was too young. He was inquisitive. The summer he read the Bible, the real Bible, straight through. Boyles wasn’t as mysterious as he thought. He wasn’t a charlatan—they had seen the miracles. They didn’t just see the miracles; they were the miracles. But what Boyles wanted was too much. It went beyond healing. What he wanted was an affront. To suck the land dry. Steal the weaver’s power.

  Margaret’s mother stepped up behind the boy and rested her hands on his shoulders. The secret smile etched on Benjamin’s face vanished, replaced by the mask of grief he was supposed to be wearing.

  Her mother clasped Margaret’s hand between her own. Margaret’s stoic father sat on the bed, touching her arm, her hair. When the man wore so few expressions, it was even more obvious when he did. The faintest shadows under his eyes, eyelashes wet and sticking together in clumps.

  By the time they left, heads down and solemn, death had climbed up to her knees. Nerves fired out of cadence, their messages garbled and foreboding.

  “I’m so proud of you James. You’re so brave.”