The Brandywine Prophet

4.8 Setting the Stage

Kayla wasn’t sick. Hyde knew she wasn’t sick. Heck, William probably knew she wasn’t sick. Hyde wanted her to see a doctor. He said she lost too much weight. He said she cried in her sleep. But that wasn’t true. She was as calm and clear-headed as she had ever been in her life. 

She just hated the lie.

William Carmel didn’t know God’s intentions, and in any other circumstance, she wouldn’t claim to either. But now she did. She knew God didn’t approve of William’s so-called faith. God didn’t want that man creating stories and songs or building monuments in his honor. God was not in attendance at the theater tonight because God had no part in that monstrosity. There would be no sign of divine approval, no covenant between him and Will.

It was a horrible feeling to be one of two people who knew the truth.

Kayla watched the theater, so small way up there that she could hold her hand out, position the stage between her fingers, pluck it from the Earth, and stifle it like a candle flame. The grand opening was about to start and she heard the preliminary applause through the crack in the living-room window where she stood; where this all began. She watched a thick beam of light twirl in the sky; a signal to the world that William had succeeded.

Hyde was up there too, selling his soul, hiding things, keeping them quiet to make money to expand his own enterprise. He came home every day with new plans for the new store and he would touch her and she would shy away or placate him with a cheek-kiss but she would not make love to a liar. She would not make love to a man who pursued passion at work but not in marriage (but her body screamed for his touch and she woke nights wet and ready but her mind couldn’t move past what they did. They talked about it. Once. He told her that he needed her “in that way” and she asked him to tell the Carmels about the prank. He refused. So did she.)

Every time things seemed better--every time she found a vine out of the quicksand--something would come along and cut that rope and deeper she would sink. The stakes in the validity of their lie multiplied exponentially. Six months ago it was William who would have been hurt by the truth. Then it was William and Sarah. Then William and Sarah and Janie and an architect. Then all those people plus a contractor and construction crew and half the Brandywine subdivision. And now if Kay told the truth, she would invalidate the beliefs and prayers of hundreds of people who left a rainbow of souvenirs at that godless alter. That first article hit the papers and now if the lie was discovered, it would be a public matter. Her parents would know. Her dancers would know. Her business would be ruined. She would be called out and Hyde would be called out and Sarah would crawl into a hole and die.

Kayla didn’t give a darn about William anymore. He would survive. If she spilled the beans, or if that fourth speaker was discovered hiding behind a dust-bunny or box of cigars, the world would explode in a hellfire mushroom-cloud and William Carmel would still be scuttling around, reigning over the shell-shocked remains of his sad little Brandywine.

The deeper Kayla went, the more she hated that man. It was his fault she couldn’t let Hyde please her. It was his fault for believing her voice. What if she told him to sacrifice his child? He would have nailed Janie to a cross! It was his fault for believing the voice the first time, and ignoring the voice of God when she demanded he stop production on that stage. If Will didn’t want to play by the rules, Kayla wouldn’t either. The waiting would end. The twining madness of sleepless, sexless nights would finally stop. 

She should tell him. She should sacrifice herself for the greater good and accept the public humiliation by simply telling someone her story! Her story about a stupid, meaningless, carefree act that turned her world upside down.

Fireworks erupted in a display that lit the sky with red and gold droplets, leaving trails of smoke so thick that they muted the heavens and dampened the next display. The pops and booms shook the house, and when the last firework trailed to the stars, exploded, and signaled the start of the show, the stage became Revelations. The fifteen-hundred spectators became locusts with heads like horses and teeth like a lions, so loud that their cheers became buzzing and their buzzing could be heard for miles. The locusts were his horde of chirping minions, little devils dressed in their armored Sunday-best. Kayla’s dancers would perform soon; not little girls, but angels with trumpets heralding the destruction of the world. Big toothy smiles with blood lipstick; wide, lifeless shark-eyes, and anorexic bodies performing in robotic unison for the legion. The man at the controls--the man Kayla loved--was once a white knight on horseback in a blood-dipped robe. His name meant “faithful and true,” but now he was different. Now he was the beast from the Earth; the creature that commanded the world to worship the false prophet. With his technology, he created great and miraculous signs; lights that performed his bidding like fire from the sky; sound that made the world tremble. Hyde deceived the inhabitance of Earth. Sarah would be backstage, arms crossed, an idol made of gold; a sexual being worshiped for her beauty, standing on the sidelines so proud of her husband without any knowledge or power in the world, twisting her gold neck to search with gold eyes that man she married. And she would see it in the shadows behind the seats it’s form rising above the myriad--from the myriad--so long and horrible that she wanted to vomit because of what her man had become, but her throat was gold too. He--it--was taller and wider than the theater, watching from the rear; that red dragon with seven heads and each head was William and it’s tail wound and curled through the seats among the locusts’ flapping. It smelled like gasoline and opium. The crowns on his heads were obsidian and its only movement came from its expanding and contracting chest; copper scales scraping together with every massive breath. Janie, dancing like the wind for the host, dipping and turning and thrusting her hands to the sky in a sacrificial ritual; she would be devoured by the dragon, not in one bite, but slowly--over years--he would infect her and she would die. William was the dragon who would devour his child. William was the dragon who would lead the world astray.

Kayla realized she was hyperventilating, then fell to the couch face-first and pressed the green accent pillow into her cheeks to create a vacuum of her own carbon. As her heart slowed and breathing calmed, she devised a plan.

William wanted his daughter to dance? Kayla would make sure Janie was the best dang dancer that stage would ever see. Janie would place first in every competition, just like Kayla promised. She would win the bet, and after she proved her worth to William by making Janie a dancing god, she would tell him the truth. She would tell him that his work was for nothing. She would tell him that his ‘two-point-whatever million dollars’ was not invested with some divine guarantee. He could--probably would--lose it all. Kayla would pull herself together, put on a show (what dancers do best!) then expose Will’s record-breaking narcissism and it would destroy him. Sarah would stand by her husband because--bless her soul--that’s just what Sarah did. Hyde would open his second store and he would forgive Kayla... he and William would never be friends again.

Kayla stood. She wiped her runny nose on her arm. She opened her eyes wide and pressed out the remaining tears. She knew that her idea would work. It would take time, but it was the only way to bring down the dragon: teach Janie to dance, then destroy William Carmel. 

It’s what God wanted.