“Pentecostal? Religion? Churches? Yes? No? Did you stop understanding English?”
“You expect me to remember one religion? Maggie, I’ve been around since the dawn of creation.”
“What, are you bragging? Chill the fuck out. I’m Pentecostal. Well, no. I’m not Pentecostal. I was raised one. We do this thing. Speak in tongues. Know what that is? It’s where the Holy Spirit…or God…speaks through you. People shake, shout out inarticulate nonsense. Mom was always good at it. She’d drop faster than any of them.”
She pressed the glass to her lips and took a drink.
“When you’re little, that kind of shit makes sense. I guess it makes sense to adults, too. Everyone loved it. Loved her. She would do it all the time, and she was convincing. I mean, some people do it, and it looks like an act. Like they just want attention. Others, you’re like, something’s going on there. My mom was one of those where it really looked like something was going on. When it happened, she wasn’t my mom. She was speaking for something else—something bigger, more powerful. I’m not saying I bought it. I’m just saying how it looked, okay?”
Something about the way she said that last part made Kinzer think that she had bought it.
“I used to fall down, too. I’d work up a fit. Copy her. I wasn’t very believable. At least, I didn’t think so. I never felt the Holy Spirit. But I prayed. I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed, because she told me that’s all I needed to do. Never felt anything, but I just kept praying anyway. I thought, He’ll come. He’ll let me know He’s there. Bible was filled with stories about people He’d spoken through—stories about people who’d witnessed His power. I wanted to be one of them. I believed in them. Hell, my mom did it, so it had to be true, right? And she would have been so proud. I remember thinking, ‘If I could just walk on water, she’d be so happy. She’d really love me.’
“Walk on water. Did that even happen? Don’t answer that. Don’t ruin Jesus for me. Anyway, one time I fell down in church, and I was doing what I normally did—what everyone else did. Shaking. Tossing my head around. Arching my back. You pretty much just make it look like a seizure. Mom snatched me by the arm, yanked me up, and said, ‘No one likes a fake.’ Oh, I could have died. And I knew I’d never be able to fool her, and she’d never be okay with her unrighteous daughter. This empty thing that God wanted no part of.”
“She sounds like a nut job,” Kinzer said.
“Maybe. Just funny now. To think what she’d say if I told her I was having the devil’s baby. That’d send her over the edge. Probably even make sense to her. Her daughter, who was so incapable of feeling the Holy Spirit, would totally be the mother of the Antichrist.”
Kinzer glanced around nervously. “Can you keep it down?”
Her eyebrows pulled close together. “Are you kidding? Hey everyone, I’m the mother of the Antichrist!”
“Shut up, bitch!” one of the flannel and denim guys shouted from the corner booth.
“You wanna die, asshole?” she replied. “Listen, Kinz-ar, or whatever, no one believes any of the bullshit you’re talking about. I could hold up a sign on the side of the road and spit on and on about this crap and no one would give any fucks. You think you’re the first person to start talking about God and Satan being up to something?”
She had a good point, but there still wasn’t any reason to be making a scene.
“What am I supposed to think about this?” she asked. “My mind isn’t even letting me think about it. I think it’s some sort of defense mechanism to keep me from losing my shit. Doesn’t feel real. That doesn’t mean much. Some things just don’t. Had a lot of things happen that never felt real. Keep telling myself that it’s just a hallucination…or a dream. But it’s not.”
She took another sip of her drink.
“So why don’t you want to talk about your boyfriend? What’s that about?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Unlike everything else?”
Kinzer didn’t respond.
Maggie whirled her finger around the rim of her glass.
She giggled. “Mom really was full of crap, wasn’t she?” A sad look in her eyes made her seem as if she was a kid that had just discovered Santa wasn’t real. “So what happens?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“This kid? What happens to it?” Her voice had lost its harshness. It was soft, soothing to Kinzer’s ears.
“We take care of it.”
“We as in…”
“The Leader’s Allies.”
“You gonna take my kid from me?” She stroked a hand against her stomach.
Kinzer hadn’t really thought any of this through. Everything was happening so fast. Too fast. He didn’t know how the Leader would want to handle the Antichrist or if he’d want Maggie to be involved in its life.
