Chapter 24: Prophecy

Breakfast was quiet. Neither Mary nor Miz Gryder said a word. The kitchen clock and the sighs of the old house provided somber background level, punctuated at odd times by Miz Gryder's strangely muted banging of pots and pans and dinnerware.
Mary's thoughts returned to the vicious circle of the night before. She felt like a rat on a treadmill; mind spinning madly, going nowhere. Trapped. Miz Gryder kept her thoughts a secret.
The meal proceeded in silence. Mary was not aware of what was on her plate.
Cleaning up afterwards occurred without a word being spoken. Finally, there was nothing more to do.
“You better hurry, you'll be late.” Miz Gryder's words, finally breaking the silence, startled Mary out of her mental rat race.
“What?”
“You'll be late for work. What's the matter with you?”
“Nothing, ma'am.”
Mary stood up and excused herself.
Miz Gryder, still looking at her plate, said, “I heard you come in this morning. I know you were with that boy. It better not happen again; I won't allow such carryin' on in this house.”
Mary went out. She turned right onto the sidewalk, up Banes Street, then left to Three Notch, then right into town. As she walked she thought. “Go to Jim's? Don't go to Jim's? If not, then what? Jobs are not that easy to find. How would I live?” She walked right up to Hungry Jim's and put her hand on the doorknob. Then she turned and kept walking.
She didn't know where she was headed. She strolled aimlessly through town, past Slim's gas station. She crested the hill and looked down. Beneath her, the rich farmland of Clayton County spread across a wide valley. The river twisted and turned its lazy way through plowed fields, woods and swamps. She turned around and looked back at the town, hazy and miniature like a town around a toy train set.
Suddenly, Mary had the feeling she was not alone. A quick, cold shock ran down the back of her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, an apparition. Mary whirled and flushed. A thin, shriveled black man with snow white hair sat on a log, his bright eyes boring into her.
“Wh-wh- who are you?” she stammered.
The little man did not give any sign that he heard her. “Make the paths straight,” he croaked. “Make the mountains level. I am come to bear witness of Him.”
Mary was recovering from her shock, but something about the old man unnerved her. “Who are you?” she repeated.
“Make His paths straight! He must be born again!”
“Isn't it, ‘Ye must be born again?’” Mary asked.
“HE must be born again!” the old man fairly shouted, angrily, his eyes flashing. He rose from the log and took a few steps toward Mary. “I am come to bear witness of Him!” The old man reached out a long, sun-dried, leathery hand toward Mary. “Beware the Evil One!” he muttered. “The plunderer! He reaps where he did not sow. He tramples the vintage of the grapes of mercy.”
The old man grabbed Mary’s arm. At first she shrank away, but when she looked into his warm, tender eyes, her fear subsided. She relaxed in his grasp. “Who are you?” she repeated.
“I am a voice crying in the wilderness,” he said; although by now, his shriveled lips were so close to Mary’s ear that he almost whispered. “You will bear a son. He will be the Savior of all who believe! You must protect Him from those who seek to do Him harm!”
The old man’s eyes burned into Mary. He seemed to be reading her soul. “Don't flee now. The time is not right. You will be told when the time is right.”
Just as quickly and silently as he appeared, the old man melted back into the woods. For a few moments, Mary was incapable of motion. She stood rooted to the spot. “Go, or turn back? Go on, or turn back?”
Slowly she turned and retraced her steps back to town.