Chapter 13 - Lowyn

"It's Saturday." I'm looking at Collin when I say this. He's brushing his teeth in my little McBooms bathroom using one of the new toothbrushes I keep stashed here. "There is no Revival on opening Saturday. There has never, in the history of this town, been a Revival on opening Saturday."

Collin shrugs, spits, rinses his mouth, and turns the water off. I hand him a towel to wipe his face. He does that grin at me. "How should I know, Lowyn? I just got here."

"I know. I'm just thinking out loud. It's just weird."

"You know what else is weird? My daddy's voice coming out of those speakers. Why the hell are they using my daddy's sermon when he's not even the preacher no more?"

"Well, they never stopped using that one. Even after he was fired. It's the call to Revival now. That little snippet of his Easter Day Revelation sermon has been playing non-stop, in some fashion or another, for thirty-five years. I guess it was just too much tradition to part with."

I can't tell how he feels about this. He looks a little bit annoyed. But then again, he looks a little bit composed. Is he pissed, but trying not to show it? I can't tell.

"Is that what you're wearing on your feet?" He's pointing to my shoes.

Which are Fifties saddle shoes that came from Sears. I just pulled them off the McBooms sale rack. It's not authorized apparel and I think it's cute that Collin noticed. "I'm not putting those pumps back on. My feet were sore yesterday. So this will have to do."

"You little rebel." Then he slips his hand around my waist, pulls me close, and kisses me with his minty-fresh breath.

But just as our lips touch, the bells start ringing.

Collin pulls back. "What in God's name is that?"

"The bells."

"I can hear the ringing, Lowyn. Why the hell are they doing it now? There are no churches in Disciple."

"True. There aren't. But when Simon came on board to replace your daddy, he took offense to the Easter Day Revelation sermon being the call to Revival, so he insisted on adding in bells as last call. So this is last call. It's about to start. Should we get going?"

Collin's in a pretty good mood. He did get laid last night. And it was me he was getting laid by. Maybe I'm not anything special in the wider world, but I am to Collin Creed. Even I know this. So his mood has been good. Up until this point.

He sighs. "Maybe we should just skip it."

"I can't. You can, if you want. But I have the booth. The teenagers will run it during Revival—I am playing Fainting Woman with Fan for week one, so I gotta be at the service to collapse at the proper time—but after that, Bonnie and Lydia are wrangling the children's choir between performances and Mark and Matthew are running the rides. So it's just me in the booth today. Bryn can't take off two days in a row at the inn. Guests would shit a vintage brick if they had to eat pre-made sandwiches and chips two days in a row."

His smile starts small but it grows pretty quick. "Do you even realize how weird this place is? Or have you just grown immune to the insanity?"

I bob my head a little, thinking. "Little bit of both, I guess. I do know we're special. And I do know I like it." I grin back at him.

"OK." He offers me his hand, resigned to the fact that he's part of this again. "Let's go then."

As soon as we turn the corner and start heading up Main Street, the cry of newsie boys catches our attention. There are a lot of people on Main, all of them heading up the hill to the tent. The kids hawking the Revival News, boys and girls, are dressed up in their proper costumes, including the trademark cap.

"Prodigal son returns! One dollar! Get it now, people! Don't miss this edition! Get it now!"

That's what they're all crying.

Which makes Collin grumble. "Prodigal son. It doesn't even make sense."

"It's a show, Collin. It doesn't need to make sense. You're just playing a part like everyone else." I steer us over to the nearest newsie—a little girl called Amy. She's got her long, brown hair tied back, and her sweet face looks very, very cute under that newsboy hat. "I'll take one, Amy."

She makes a face at me. One of those wide-eyed, all-teeth-smile faces.

"What? What's wrong with you?"

"Ummm. Miss McBride, I hope you don't hold it against me. I'm just a delivery girl." And she holds up the paper. It features Collin, of course. Someone snapped a picture of him yesterday because he's in his costume and he's looking angry about something. That was expected.

What we didn't expect is a picture of me—Fainting Woman with Fan.

Only I'm not Fainting Woman with Fan. I've been recast as Widow Cries as Murderer Returns Home. They're using a picture of me from Season Four, when my character was called Distraught Woman in Stockings and I was crying because my fictional sister was rounded up and put in the paddy wagon with a dozen other young ladies for prostitution in Revenant.

Collins grabs the paper. I open my little purse and give Amy a dollar so she can scuttle out of the way and avoid the meltdown that's about to happen. Collin shakes the paper at me. "What the actual fuck?"

And just as he says that, someone yells, "There he is! That's him!" And when I say ‘someone' I mean Rosie Harlow. "That's him! The murderer! Collin Creed, the murderer!"

I make a face of what the hell are you doing, Rosie?

She makes a face back. Hers says, Sorry, but Jim Bob told me to.

Suddenly, the crowd of people who just a moment ago were peacefully heading up the hill to the call for Revival all turn and look at us.

"What are you doing with him?" Lettie Gainer accuses, pointing her finger at me. "He killed your husband!"

"Oh, my God." Collin sighs. "This is crazy."

I pull his arm. "Don't say anything. Let's just keep walking."

We don't really have a choice, so Collin leads me up the hill and the crowd of people—who are mostly not townspeople, and therefore almost as confused as we are—simply part for us. Like we're Moses stepping through the Red Sea.

The bells stop ringing when we're about a hundred yards from the tent. And then the children's choir starts up with ‘Amazing Grace.' I sigh a little as I listen.

Collin nudges me. "Taking ya back?"

I chuckle. "We sang this song when I was in the choir."

"I know. I used to watch you sing this song. You were right across the stage from me."

"I used to look at you with awe."

"And now look at us. I've murdered your husband and corrupted your honor."

"Who says you corrupted my honor?"

"No one. But that's where this is going. I can see it coming. But it's interesting."

"What is?"

"You didn't object to the part where I killed your husband."

He's right I didn't. Because, in a way, he did kill my husband. My future husband, which was supposed to be him. I lost him that night. But now he's back, so I'm never gonna think about that night again.

I can't tell him this, though. We talked it out last night. It's over. And I'm just about to turn and say this when the choir stops and Simon starts preaching.

"There is nothing more wicked than the wayward son!" Simon is really putting on the theatrics this morning because his voice is booming, and his arms are stretched out wide, and his face is already beet red and the sermon just started. "The son who disrespects! The son who courts evil! The son who lies, and cheats, and steals for nothing more than instantaneous pleasure. Gratification is a sin!"

Less than a minute into his sermon and I'm starting to panic. Because this is the sermon that got Mr. Creed fired from the Revival.

And it's all about Collin.

"Oh, God." Collin looks down at me. "What the actual fuck is this shit?"

"Your… daddy's final sermon?"

"Are you fuckin' kidding me?" He just stares at me for a moment. Like he always knew his daddy was an asshole, especially after Collin joined the Marines, but this has taken things to a whole new level.

But actually, Collin has no idea just how much of a son of a bitch his daddy really was. There was a lot of anger in that man. This sermon was just the tip of the iceberg.

"Sons who disobey the will of their fathers will live a life of hell on earth!" Simon is practically screaming now. It's not like him. Not like him at all. He's a very soft-spoken man. I didn't even know he had it in him to sound like Billy Sunday threatening us all with an eternal sentence in Hell.

We stop just short of the tent, standing at the beginning of the sawdust aisle that leads right up to the stage where our normally low-key preacher stands behind the pulpit, roaring about Satan.

Collin and I both sigh. Him because it's a completely unfair accusation, and me because I thought we had put these dark sermons to rest nearly a decade back. If this whole season is nothing but a replay of Preacher Creed's unhinged sermons about his son, I might have to step away until after Fourth of July.

I already lived through it once, I don't want to do it again.

Suddenly Jameson Grimm steps into the aisle in front of us and there is a moment here. A moment when time kinda stops and scenarios start running through my head.

What is he gonna say?

What fresh hell is about to start now?

I tilt my head at Grimm and I see his eyes narrow a little. But I can't tell if he's narrowing them because of malice or because he's cringing at what comes next.

And just as I have that thought, Grimm points at Collin. "There he is!" He yells this. Roars this. "That's him! Collin Creed! The murderer!"

The audience gasps, the actors—my fellow townspeople—gasping the loudest, of course. I wonder, vaguely, if this was a cue for me to faint. Because several women in the audience actually do that now.

Then my fellow townspeople take it one step further. One step too far, actually. And they all point to Collin. And they all start chanting.

"Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!"

Then there is bedlam.

Collin has my hand, and he is tugging me away. But the chant follows us. Rosie appears screaming, "He's hypnotized her! He's hypnotized her!" Pointing at me.

Hypnotism was a kind of a big scare back in the Twenties. It pops up a lot in the Revival story as a red herring for the Devil. And now I'm the poor woman who had her soul captured by a murderer using hypnotism.

It's so ridiculous. I've always thought that the hypnotism thing was an unnecessary exaggeration, but the people eat it up. We draw big crowds for that side story.

Collin is still pulling me. He's about to head out of the tent grounds, but I pull back. "I can't leave, Collin. I can't. I have the booth!"

"Fuck." He pauses to run his hand through his hair, and all the while, Simon is still preaching in a loud and shriek-y way that is so not like him, I get chills. It's even coming through the loudspeakers set up around town. I can hear his over-excited words echoing through the hills and off the far river bank.

"It's just a story. You know this, Collin. It's just a fiction. You grew up in it. Don't let any of this get to you."

"How do I not? I murdered a man. Right here in this town. Right here in your house. And now the story's about me being a murderer? What the fuck, ya know? What did I ever do to these people?"

I grab both his shoulders and shake him a little. "It's not real."

"I know that. But… what the hell? Why do they have to do this? Why can't they just leave me alone?"

"Why?" I mean, is he really asking me that question?

"Yeah, why?"

"OK." I pause here. But then I hear people coming and a lot of whispers behind us, so I drag him through the aisles of tents until I find mine, sitting high on the special platform that allows me to see the whole tent grounds, and tug him up the stairs. Once we get there, I take one last look over my shoulder—most of the crowd is still in the tent listening to Simon—and then pull Collin inside, startling the teenagers.

"Miss McBride!" Bonnie says this like I've walked in on something.

"Sorry to startle you, girls."

But just as I say that, Mark says, "Mr. Creed! So nice to meet you." He walks towards us and extends his hand towards Collin.

Collin looks a little confused, so I quickly explain. "Collin, meet teenagers. Teenagers, meet Collin."

Collins allows Mark to shake his hand, which Mark does enthusiastically as he speaks. "I was talking to Mr. Parrish last night at the bowling alley, and he says you're looking for a few new men." He nudges Matthew. "We're gonna join up with Edge Security." Both boys smile at Collin, like they are awestruck.

Collin blows out a breath and withdraws his hand from the shake. "OK." But that's all he's got.

So I take over. "You all are dismissed. Go on. I've got it now."

Lydia and Bonnie both give me a little curtsey, a customary response when talking to adults on a show day, then dart out of the tent. And Mark and Matthew give Collin a little salute.

I pull the flap closed and turn to Collin. "Listen, you're taking this way too personal. It's a production. And you… well, I hate to say this, but you asked. Why are they fucking with you? Why are they giving you a leading role? It's because you walked out, Collin. And for nearly four years, things fell apart around here. Your daddy went nuts. Started preaching shit like that." I nod my head in the direction of the Revival tent. "It almost ruined everything. And now things are good. Real good. You saw the contracts. We're making millions here. Tens upon tens of millions each year."

"So why the hell are they bringing it back? Why would they do that? Why fuck with a good thing?"

"Because they want to punish you." I shrug. "It's as simple as that. And you can either freak out like this every weekend until Fourth of July when the story turns, or you can play along and let it go."

Just as I say that, the tent flaps open and Amon comes in, grinnin' like a fool. "Wow. That was amazing."

Collin is still pissed. "What the hell was so amazing, Amon? They're calling me a murderer. How is this not fucked up on an epic level?"

Amon is still laughing. "Oh, it's so fucked up. But it's gold, man. They printed up these new story programs, twenty-five bucks a pop. They are selling like fuckin' hotcakes out there right now. They can't get enough of you two."

I take a step forward. "What are you talking about?"

Amon pulls a rolled-up program out of his back pocket and hands it to me. "Prodigal son comes back to town, has to face the widow—you"—he points to me—"after killing her husband twelve years ago. He's looking for redemption and has to prove himself to the town."

I look at Collin, who is already looking at me, and I give him a smug I-told-you-so smile. "What did I tell you?"

"This is fucked up."

"Collin." Amon puts a hand on his friend's shoulder. "It's fake, dude. No matter how much you feel this is personal, it's not. This town loves you."

"Then why would they do this to me?"

"I told you why, Collin." I'm still giving him that smug I-told-you-so smile when he glances over at me.

"Just play along, Col." Amon is sure taking this in stride. "It's actually a cool role. I'll round up a script for you so you know what to expect tomorrow. That one you got yesterday? Throw it out. The whole thing's been rewritten." And with that, Amon Parrish blows out of my tent, just as quick as he blew in.