“In my Father’s house there are many mansions,” Obie said with great force, “and it is time now to bring together the mansions under one roof and join together those who fear God and know His way and prepare to meet the strangers who will return. The Lord said to me, ‘They will return!’ and I say to you, we must prepare now. We must make ready our house here on Earth. We must overcome the atheists and the agnostics and the faint-hearted who would deliver us and our children to the strangers. We must purify our own house before the stranger returns. We must deliver the Star Child from the hands of the godless and show him the way to the Lord, and only then will we be ready to meet the strangers when they return.”
There was more of it, two hours more of it, but the gist without the histrionics, and the verbosities, and the playing on fear, striking points and counterpoints over and over, was simply that: the stranger would return; the Star Child must be wrenched from the hands of the godless and taught the true word; the Lord, a vengeful, wrathful, terrifyingly just Lord was judging man now and would continue to judge him through the coming years. The gentle ones, the meek, the cheek-turners had had their day, and had failed this God of vengeance. There had been a fair lasting trial two thousand years, and now the day of judgment, long promised and postponed, was indeed at hand, and the judging was even then taking place. And the dichotomy was the simplest one to be dreamed of by man; those who believed in the Lord and followed. His word, opposed to those who did not believe who were doomed to be smitten. There was still time, but not for the timid, not for the fearful, not for the compromisers.
Then came the prophecies. Obie predicted floods and anguish on a scale never seen before since the days of The Flood. He predicted riots on the East Coast of the United States. He predicted a major airplane crash within the next two weeks in which over two hundred lives would be lost, and he added that he would pray for the Lord’s intervention on behalf of the people involved here.
He demanded that the non-believers examine their hearts and their consciences and accept God’s word as revealed by His spokesman. He demanded, exhorted, pleaded, wept with them to accept and be saved. And many did. Not counting the original two hundred converts, there were three hundred forty-two who came forward and received Obie’s and God’s blessing. And very soon afterward it was all over.
That was Saturday. On Sunday Winifred was planning to visit the ship once more. It was still an impenetrable mystery to all who worked on it. She had been there half a dozen times already, each time with no purpose in mind, hoping to find something that would give her an insight into the Star Child.
Sunday was bright and clear and cool, with heat expected later in the day. Winifred, in a sleeveless cotton dress that cost over one hundred dollars, straw hat and sandals, prepared to leave for her visit to the ship. Blake stared at her with a thoughtful expression and said, “I’ve been there. To look at the ship. The Christmas we came to this house.”
“But you were only eighteen months old,” Winifred said. “You still remember?”
He nodded. And looking at him Winifred believed him. “Well, if you think Obie will draw a crowd again this morning, I’d better be on my way,” she said to Matt. “Hard to think of him as a drawing card, isn’t it?”
Matt shrugged. “I’ll take you over and drop you. You’ll have to get a cab back, or have one of the official cars bring you.”
Matt talked about the reason for the heavy traffic as he drove, stopping and starting in a line that was blocks long. The traffic was worse as they approached the bridge. “This is the semi-official Memorial Day service this morning,” Matt said. “It doesn’t matter when the thirtieth falls, they have this service on the first Sunday in June. All over this part of the country today is Decoratin’ Day. The women decorate the graves, and there’s a service in the open. They all bring lunches: hams, salads, beef roasts, pies. It’s quite a spread, enough food to last the day. Old Mr. MacLeish will drone on and on for a couple of hours, and the kids will whisper and giggle and try to sneak punch-fruit punch, a specialty of Dom Winters, full of floating oranges and cherries, and really good. Then they will have the procession to the graves, just to the right of the tables incidentally. Most of the women make the flowers, or buy them from Mollie Doan or Sarah Tatum; they take a year to make the things, plastic, organdy, bits of feathers, quite pretty too, and durable. Another prayer over the graves, and the women cry a bit and the men shuffle their feet, then dinner. And afterward gossip. And the kids take to the bushes.”
Winifred looked at him sharply and he grinned. “No one knows it, of course. All very unofficial and unacknowledged. but there it is. All the rites of spring.”
They were silent then, crossing the Ohio River on the new bridge that soared gracefully, ten lanes wide, over the river. Matt turned from the highway on the other side. “I’ll drive past the old church, not out of the way, just by back roads instead of this.”
The congregation was gathered already; tables were laden with bowls, meat platters, flowers. Kids were playing tag, running in and out of the cemetery carelessly.
Winifred caught Matt’s arm and motioned for him to slow down more. “Pretty little golden boy himself,” she murmured. Obie was standing with his head bowed in the cemetery. Winifred noticed that his stage sense had directed him to a spot where the morning sun’s rays slanting through the leaves of an old oak tree lighted up his silver blond head dramatically.
“His father’s grave,” Matt said. “Died a couple of years ago. Mother’s in a home somewhere, half crazed, calls herself the Mother of God.”
Winifred shivered. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. The more people I see the less kooky I think aliens, any aliens, are.”
Obie was meditating on the problems presented by the kid and the Daniels. And the mutt. It was sure to bark, raise a rumpus. Could poison it… He shook his head. Nothing ugly. A simple gathering-in of what was his, nothing ugly to look bad in court, if it came to that. Merton had the signature on the fake license, so—as far as the law was concerned, he was safe. A wedding had been performed six years ago by Reverend MacLeish. If it hadn’t been recorded properly, that wasn’t Obie’s fault. Florence wouldn’t talk, not with ten thousand bucks in her jeans, a husband and two brats of her own now. That just left the actual possession of the kid.
He turned back toward the church grounds and his eye caught Wanda Smith as she fed her mouth. His eyes narrowed. Wanda was fat, looked maternal as hell, and liked kids. Other people’s kids. She and Billy had none of their own. She’d be the one to make the snatch. It didn’t occur to him that Wanda might object. In his entourage no one objected. Oh, they bitched now and then, but they all went along with what he said. They knew where the shekels came from, Wanda knew. So while Reverend MacLeish preached that Sunday morning Obie planned. Two days later Wanda drove up to the corner of the subdivision where Blake was playing with three other small boys. She leaned out the window and called faintly. “Hey, boy, where is a doctor? I don’t feel well. I think I’m having an attack.”
Blake approached the car and studied her. He pointed silently but she shook her head. “Get in, tell me where to stop, will you?” Blake hesitated and she made a gasping noise. He got in the car and Wanda drove him straight to the airport, where the private plane belonging to the Voice of God Church was warmed up and ready. Meeting the car was Everett, who was a pharmacist after all; he held a capsule under Blake’s nose for a second and Blake drooped, half asleep, and they carried him aboard the plane.