Lair of Dreams - Page 189/221

We have to keep vigilant against these threats to our flock. We must be suspicious of the wolf among us. We have to strike at the wolf, to turn him out like Jesus turned the moneylenders from the temple!

(Calls of “Amen!”)

SARAH SNOW

Now, I hear some people say, “But Sarah, if we do that, aren’t we giving up our freedoms? Aren’t we betraying the very ideals we claim to be defending?”

Freedom demands sacrifices, brothers and sisters.

Do you allow your children to do whatever they like? Of course not. You want to keep them safe. And so you say to them, “You may not play in that yard. Stay away from those children down the block; they aren’t the sort you want to associate with.” And what do you do when your children disobey? You punish them. You do it out of love and a desire to keep them safe. But you have to do it; you have to do it if you love your children.

Well, we love America. And just like our precious children, we want to shepherd America. To keep her safe.

But there are the wrong sort of children down the street, brothers and sisters. Anarchists who hate our freedoms and want to destroy it with bombs and bloodshed and unions. Bootleggers and gamblers who pollute our morals with sin. And so-called soothsayers who claim they can do what only God Almighty Himself can do, who put themselves above democracy, above God. Listen now to the word of the Lord!

(She holds up a Bible, opening it to the page she needs, reading aloud.)

SARAH SNOW

“There shall not be found among you anyone who… practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.”

(Sarah Snow closes the Bible and clutches it to her chest with her left hand, raising her right hand high.)

SARAH SNOW

Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us be the Lord’s faithful shepherd and drive the wolf out before us! Drive him out! Expose him for what he is—a wolf who would eat us from within. Only then can we be safe and sound. Only then can America shine a light on the rest of the world like a true shepherd of democracy, like a missionary of Manifest Destiny. Hallelujah!

(This time, the radio audience erupts into a rousing, full chorus of “Hallelujah!” without prompting. Sarah Snow smiles, then raises a hand to quiet the people.)

SARAH SNOW

God bless you, God bless all true Americans, and God bless the United States of America. Now please join me in singing “Christian, Dost Thou See Them?”

(An organ hums. The choir takes up the hymn.)

SARAH SNOW

Christian! dost thou see them

on the holy ground,

How the powers of darkness

Rage thy steps around?

Christian, up and smite them,

Counting gain but loss,

Smite them by the merit

of the Holy Cross!

The radio played in the parlors of the Foursquares in Minneapolis and in the kitchens on the South Side of Chicago. The sermon reached the ears of senators and congressmen, of preachers tending congregations and reformers attending meetings on Prohibition. It crackled along wires strung through the ether and was reborn in the office of the boss overseeing the migrant workers, the farmer worrying about a crop in the frost, and the factory foreman preparing his production quotas for the next morning’s shift.

The hymn’s marchlike strains played in the small home in Lake George, New York, where Will spoke with a little girl who’d seen from her attic window one cold night a dozen flickering wraiths coming across the winter-frozen lake as the sky churned and flashed above them. Will sat perfectly still as the little girl told him how these ragged spirits seemed to be heading somewhere, drawn by some invisible thread, but that when they came upon a fawn, they surrounded it and fell upon it, feasting with such a frightening ferocity that the poor animal scarcely had time to cry out, and the girl sank down to her floor away from the window, well out of sight, afraid they’d come next for her.

In the studio, the hymn ended.

Sarah Snow pronounced her balm of a benediction, soothing the weary hearts of a skittish nation on the verge of change.

It was followed by a cheery appeal for Arrow shirts, the shirt that makes the man.

A terrible uneasiness weighed on Ling as she made her way to see Uncle Eddie at the opera house. She shouldn’t have let Henry go like that. She should’ve made him stay and drink some tea until he’d sobered up a bit. Maybe if he’d stayed, they could’ve talked about what was really happening inside that dream world and what they needed to do to stop the veiled woman before it was too late.