CHAPTER 30
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Nickie and the Prophet
Nothing was moving around the house on Grackle Street except for a bird that fluttered around the empty feeder and then flew away, disappointed. Nickie tried the front door and found it open. She stepped into the silent house. No one was in the living room, so she went down the hallway, looking into all the rooms. A kitchen. A study. A bathroom. No one was in any of them. At the back of the hall was a flight of stairs, and she went up them. At the top, she found herself facing two doors. She hesitated a moment. Then she chose one of the doors and pushed it open.
She saw a room full of books. Shelves to the ceiling, books on every shelf, and at the end a big soft armchair by a window. Books on the floor, books on a desk. The chilly light coming in through the glass. Outside the window, another empty bird feeder. But no one there.
So she backed out and tried the other door, and when it opened, she saw that she had found the Prophet’s room.
What had she expected? A dark den? Something like a church, with holy paintings and statues of angels? It wasn’t like either of those. It was an ordinary room, with a bed beside a tall window. The window was closed; the air was stale. In the bed was a woman with ripply light brown hair spread out against a pile of white pillows. Her face was small and pale, and her huge frightened-looking gray eyes seemed to be staring past Nickie, or through her. Her mouth was partly open, but she didn’t speak.
Nickie stepped in. Her heart was pounding like a drum. She hadn’t thought about what she would say when she saw the Prophet, and now her mind went blank for a moment.
“Ms. Prophet?” she said. “I have to ask you…,” she began. The Prophet didn’t move. Was she listening to her? Did she even see her? Nickie started again, louder this time. “Ms. Prophet! I’m Nickie! I have to talk to you!”
The Prophet’s hands fluttered on the covers, but she said nothing.
So Nickie hurried on. “It’s about the dogs,” she said. “Why did you say ‘No dogs’? I have to know.”
The Prophet’s eyebrows came together in a puzzled frown, as if she were hearing a foreign language. She gazed down at her hands. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
Nickie spoke more loudly. “They took the dogs!” she said. “Did you know it? It was because of you! They took Otis—he’s up in the mountains, he’s gone—and they took Grover’s snakes! Why? I have to know why!”
The Prophet’s mouth opened. She looked confused, or afraid. Strands of hair fell across her face, but she didn’t brush them aside.
Suddenly Nickie couldn’t bear it. All her grief and anger rushed up in her like hot steam, and she took three fast steps toward the Prophet and grabbed her by the arm and shouted right into her face: “Talk! Talk! You have to tell me why they took the dogs! You have to!”
At that, the Prophet finally spoke. “Dogs?” she said in a feeble voice. “Dogs?”
“Yes!” cried Nickie, shaking the Prophet’s arm. “Mrs. Beeson told us the dogs had to go! She said we shouldn’t love dogs, we should love only God. I don’t understand it. I want you to explain it!”
For a second the Prophet gazed at her with burning eyes. Then she sank back onto her pillows and went silent again.
Nickie let go of her arm. It was hopeless. Maybe the Prophet’s mind had been vaporized by her vision. Maybe she couldn’t communicate with human beings anymore, only God.
So Nickie turned away. She went to the window and looked down. There was the backyard where, she’d heard, the Prophet had had her vision. It was such an ordinary backyard—a small brownish lawn, a chair, some trees, a few birds fluttering around. Nickie pushed the window open, and a draft of cool air flowed in, along with a few notes of birdsong. She stood there staring down, breathing the fresh air, feeling sort of empty, like a sack that everything’s been spilled out of.
Behind her, the bed creaked.
Nickie spun around. The Prophet was sitting up. Her hair fell over her white nightgown, tangled and long. She pushed her covers away, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and stood next to it, trembling all over. She was hardly taller than Nickie. When she spoke, her voice was soft and raspy, as if she hadn’t used it much for a long time, but her words were clear. “I forgot to fill the bird feeders,” she said. “When did I last fill them?”
“I don’t know,” Nickie said. “Months ago.”
“Months?” The Prophet passed a hand over her eyes. “How could it be months?”
“It was,” said Nickie.
The Prophet just shook her head. “You were saying something to me,” she said. “I didn’t understand. Tell me again.”
So Nickie explained again about how they’d taken the dogs.
“And what else?”
“They stopped the church choir, and radios, and movie musicals, because you said, ‘No singing.’ It was God’s orders, Mrs. Beeson told us.”
“God’s orders?” said the Prophet.
“Yes,” Nickie said. “And you said, ‘No lights,’ so people turned all the lights off.”
The Prophet swept tangles of hair away from her face, stared at the floor, wrapped her arms around herself, and shivered. She stood without speaking, and Nickie thought maybe she had gone back into silence. But abruptly she raised her head again, and this time when she spoke her voice was stronger. “Listen,” she said. “I’ve been ill. I have been ill and heartbroken and drowned in my vision. It’s time for me to come back. Will you help me get dressed?”
So Nickie did. She brought clothes from the dresser and the closet, gray pants and a thick white sweater, and she helped the Prophet put them on. When she was dressed, the Prophet sat back down on the edge of her bed, tired. “Explain it again,” she said. “Brenda Beeson—what has she been saying?”
Nickie explained again about Mrs. Beeson figuring out what the Prophet meant, and looking for anything that was wrong or evil, and how people were supposed to love only God, not singing or snakes or dogs….
And while she was talking, the Prophet’s great gray eyes filled with tears, and the tears rolled down her pale cheeks. “I understand now,” she said. “She made a mistake. It was what I was seeing, that’s what I was talking about. The vision—I couldn’t stop seeing it. It was dreadful beyond words. A world burned and ruined. A world with no cities. Everything gone! All gone, all gone.”
“You said ‘sinnies.’ Mrs. Beeson thought you meant ‘sinners.’ But you meant cities?”
“Yes, yes. The cities all destroyed. People gone. No singing or dancing. No lights. No animals. No dogs, even. All gone! It was what I saw. It wasn’t orders from God.”
Nickie was so astonished that her mouth fell open and she forgot to close it for a second. “It wasn’t?” she said when she could find her voice.
The Prophet shook her head. “It was just me.”
“Oh!” Nickie stood still, feeling stunned, to let this sink in. She thought of something else. “Why did you say, ‘No words, no words’? That was one Mrs. Beeson couldn’t figure out.”
“No words?” The Prophet put a hand to her forehead. “I don’t know. Why would I say that?” She murmured, “No words, no words.” Then she looked up, and tears sprang to her eyes again. “Oh!” she cried. “It must have been ‘no birds’! No birds! Think of a world without birds! It’s not bearable.” She picked up the nightgown lying next to her and wiped her eyes.
“Maybe your vision wasn’t true,” Nickie said. She felt sorry for the Prophet, who seemed so frail and sad. She wanted to comfort her. “Maybe it won’t happen.”
“Maybe not,” said the Prophet. “I don’t know. I keep having these terrible dreams where my vision starts up all over again. I see the leaders about to begin the war, and I cry out, ‘Don’t do it!’ but they don’t hear me.” She shuddered.
Nickie came and stood close to her. “I just want to make sure,” she said. “You didn’t say we shouldn’t love dogs?”
“No,” said the Prophet. She reached out and took both of Nickie’s hands in hers. “Oh, no,” she said, softly but very clearly. “No, I would never say that. I love dogs. I love the whole world—all of it.” For the first time, she smiled.
“Well, good,” Nickie said. “I guess I’ll go, then. If you’re all right, Ms. Prophet.”
“Oh, please,” said the Prophet. “Call me Althea. I don’t want to be a prophet. And what shall I call you?”
Nickie said her name.
“Thank you, Nickie,” said Althea. “I believe you’ve wakened me up.” She stood up rather unsteadily and immediately sat back down again. “Maybe if I got some fresh air,” she said.
Nickie walked with her to the window, and Althea took a long, deep breath. “It feels so good,” she said. “And listen—birds.”
But Nickie was listening to something else. It was a faint sound, off in the distance, but clear. It was the sound of barking.