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through the floor. There was no pain, but I remember the heat from his hands, how it traveled all the way down my body. Then suddenly he tilted my head back so I was looking directly into his eyes. They were the strangest color I had ever seen—a sort of milky gray with little specks of gold and green. ‘Be still,’ he said, gazing at me with those eyes. ‘Be still.’”
    I don’t know if I believe anymore that Emmanuel has magical healing powers the way I used to think he did when I heard this part of the story. But after that night—and to this day—Christine got her body back again. The foot stamping, theclicking noises, the hair pulling, all of it, just disappeared after Emmanuel prayed over her that night. Lately I’ve been thinking that maybe she wanted so badly to be healed that her body did it for her. Or maybe her belief in Emmanuel was stronger than the wacky way her brain was wired, and once she had something to replace that part of it, it withered and died. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Whatever the case, it was enough for Christine to pack her bags when Emmanuel moved East, kiss her mother good-bye, and follow him. Twenty-five years later, she has never looked back.
    Now, back at the East House, Christine clears her throat and adjusts the rope of braid along her shoulder, all business again. “Well, then you’re just in time. We’re about to start making the banners for the Ascension March.”
    I bite my lip, stifling a scream. There’s no way I can sit around now and start making banners . My head is pounding and it feels as if it has been stuffed with cotton. I’ve got to get down to the butterfly garden or I’m going to freak out. “Did you know Nana Pete’s here?” I ask, thinking quickly.
    Christine blinks. “Yes, I know. Agnes’s mother came down a little while ago and told me.”
    I look up with my best pleading stare. There is no need to explain to Christine the special relationship I have with Nana Pete—it was Christine who let me tag along whenever Nana Pete took Agnes out of the nursery for a visit. But she winces now, as if reading my mind.
    “And … you want me to let you go visit with her?” she asks. “ Now? ”
    I nod my head vigorously.
    Christine puts a hand on her hip. “Honey, you just missed the whole afternoon prayer service. During Ascension Week!” She lowers her voice. “I can’t keep giving you special treatment all the time. Emmanuel is going to find out about it.”
    “Just this once,” I beg. “Please, Christine. It’s a surprise visit, which means she’s probably not even going to be staying very long. I just want to go down and see what the story is. Please let me go.” Unlike Agnes, I’ll lie until I’m blue in the face if I have to. Anything to get out of here. Christine takes a deep breath and looks uneasily around the room. Peter and the boys are in deep conversation again about the new Mercedes. Amanda Woodward is sitting in the opposite corner of the room, reading a book.
    “All right,” she whispers finally. “I guess it is sort of a special circumstance.” I quell the urge to jump up and down. Christine grimaces and lowers her voice. “And find your shoes before dinner, got it?”
    I nod. “Got it.”
    Cresting atop the wide hill behind the back door, I glimpse the slanted roof of the Milk House, where I have lived with Winky Martin for the past seven years. Unlike the other houses on the compound, which are set in a kind of semicircle around the Great House, the Milk House sits alone in an opposite field, an island adrift in a grassy sea. Its name originated years earlier, when Emmanuel founded Mount Blessing with his first ten followers, and they used the house for storing milk from the community’s three cows. As the community grew, the cows were sold off and the house was left empty. The Milk House itself is tiny, with just a first floor and side steps leadingup to an open loft. The original shelves used to store the milk