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a factory whistle and it cut through the roaring of the choir. Heads in the back of the room turned to look at me.
    The girl said, ‘‘She’s from the funeral, the one who heckled Pastor Pete. She’s one of the AIDS people.’’
    A bubble of empty space dilated around me, congregants shuffling away uneasily. The girl climbed off the chair and stepped forward. ‘‘What do you think you’re doing, like, coming in here? We don’t want your AIDS and voodoo.’’
    Remembering the invitation on the Remnant’s flyer, I said, ‘‘Being here is my postprotest testimony.’’
    Her mouth pursed. ‘‘As if. You’re not saved, I can tell.’’
    ‘‘You can?’’ I inspected my sleeves and boots. ‘‘It shows? Where?’’
    Flippancy with proselytizers is ingrained in me. The smallest irritant will set me off, because I grew up in a household that did not suffer faith peddlers. The Delaneys did not buy vacuum cleaners from door-to-door salesmen, my mother always said, and we sure as hell were not buying God from them. When the Jehovah’s Witnesses rang our bell my father would answer the door wearing boxer shorts, or whistle to the dog, calling, ‘‘Here, Lucifer!’’
    And after everything I had heard that day, this young woman, with her gerbil-colored ponytail and eyes like greenish copper, was not a small irritant. She was a thumb jammed in my eye.
    She said, ‘‘You’re polluting our sanctuary. You’ll have to leave.’’
    ‘‘But the kids’ show hasn’t started yet.’’ I pointed at the service sheet. ‘‘Look, ‘Small Fry Squad, explaining the Whore of Babylon through hand puppets.’ ’’
    She stared at me as if I were a gargoyle. ‘‘The Bible warns us about people like you. ‘Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.’ ’’
    I crossed my arms. ‘‘Smite me.’’
    Her Kewpie-doll lips parted. I didn’t move, though my heart was pounding.
    A male voice spoke from behind me, low and sharp. ‘‘What’s going on here?’’
    The girl smirked. The joke’s on you. ‘‘Unbeliever, Mr. Paxton.’’
    He was in his mid-forties, lean, tall, with the de rigueur crew cut, dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and jeans. He stood relaxed but his eyes were stony. He said, ‘‘This meeting is for glorifying the Lord, not heaping abuse on Him.’’
    ‘‘No abuse heaped,’’ I said. He was strongly built, quite imposing.
    ‘‘Ain’t no other reason you could be upsetting Shiloh, ’’ he said, ‘‘except by spreading lies and—’’
    ‘‘I know, the venom of asps is under my lips.’’ His eyes flared briefly—a muzzle flash—before withdrawing into a squint. I said, ‘‘I’m looking for a family member.’’
    Wrong answer. This was apparently the tip-off that a cult deprogrammer had infiltrated the service. Paxton grabbed my collar and said, ‘‘You’re trespassing on private property. Come on. Out.’’
    I resisted his grip, but a second man appeared and caught my arm. He was the crew-cut, acned protester who had called Nikki Vincent ‘‘witch girl.’’
    Paxton said, ‘‘How many more a’ you are outside?’’
    ‘‘Let go.’’
    His grip tightened. ‘‘How many?’’
    ‘‘Nine. They’re an all-nun softball team and they’re carrying baseball bats.’’
    Crew-cut jerked my arm. ‘‘Don’t get cute with us.’’
    His rough shove, his bully’s sense of presumption, signaled the crowd that tonight we were playing full-contact denunciation. The bubble around me collapsed and people pressed forward, Shiloh foremost. Fingers poked me and I heard, ‘‘people like you’’ and ‘‘make me sick.’’ A palm popped the back of my head. Crewcut’s mouth slid open in an unflattering smile of gappy yellow teeth.
    My anger went spinning over the top. Partly at myself, because damn if I hadn’t asked for a smiting. I twisted toward the stage and called, ‘‘Pastor Pete!’’
    Up front,