The Plague Of Doves

Billy and Marn travel together and have two kids as Billy’s visions grow stronger. Marn wants to go home because she can’t travel into her pictures anymore as she needs to keep her children safe. Marn pleads with Billy to go home. At first he refuses, arguing he just got new members, but she suggests he buy reservation land somewhere near her parents’ farm. A few days later, he tells his flock they’re leaving, assuring Marn that he’ll talk to her parents. Marn assures him that they’ll end the latest drought. After Billy’s failed first prediction of the apocalypse, he has started new calculations based on the Bible and the business pages.

Marn’s parents are happy at her return and accepting of Billy. Billy puts on his best face, exclaiming over Marn’s mother’s glass figurines before convincing her father to give them the farm, as Marn’s uncle should be in a home and her brothers have no interest or talent for farming. Marn feels old even though she is only 19. She feels a bird that she believes is the Holy Spirit enter her and fill her with power. She decides to hide this experience from Billy.

The next morning, Marn weeds and her mother comes out to plant crops, forcing Marn to realize how old her mother has become. Her father is glad to finally have help on the farm, and every night Billy helps him put everything in order, although Marn worries about what plans Billy hides below his calm surface. Billy stops sleeping and takes up eating instead, growing fat “as the heat withers everything else” (153). Billy fawns over Marn’s parents; he never had ones of his own, and Marn’s mother happily bakes him cake after cake. Billy incorporates the farm into his church to evade taxes, and they all pray together every night, as Billy becomes expansive in white suits compared to Marn’s father shrinkage. When they have sex, Marn is on top, embarrassed at her husband’s girth and ecstasy. Her once calm house now crawls with people furiously cleaning. Marn believes Billy has become supernatural, tirelessly exhausting everyone else around him. 

Marn’s mother crawls onto the couch and refuses to move, watching the picnic area outside as storm clouds gather above Billy preaching and drinking wine. Marn watches with her, and her father comes to watch as well. The congregation prays amidst the gathering rain. Lightening hits Billy, shocking Marn and her mother. He becomes bigger than before “swollen with unearthly power” (156), screaming at the sky. Marn says that they must stop him, but her mother argues no one will.

Warren tells Marn she will kill, and Marn tells him to shut up. They put Warren in a state hospital and Marn stays with her dying parents while Billy travels and preaches. Billy alters his sermons to make them more marketable, forgoing mention of the devil. He preaches the importance of groupthink and community, which appeals to a wide variety of people. On one of the travels, Marn meets a woman who keeps snakes and gives her a copperhead and a diamondback. “After I began to handle them in circle, the kindred stayed clear of me, and that was also a relief” (160). Marn only feels special when she handles her snakes. Under Billy’s urging, Marn uses the pictures in her head to show Billy Milwaukee before his parents died, although she does not let him see the physical abuse they subjected him to, just the crumbs of memory.

Billy preaches at Marn and the children all night, slapping them to keep them awake. He talks of the apocalypse and how he owns the children and Marn. Eventually, he and the children fall asleep, so Marn gets the serpents out to pray. They slither over her body but then she jolts in fear from the howls of wolf-dogs and her copperhead strikes her close to her heart. She feels her heart stop and when it starts up again, she feels stronger than ever. The snakes tell her to take the children and leave Billy.

Marn convinces Billy to allow her to travel to Seattle under the auspices of raising money for the kindred, and she takes the snakes with her. Marn fears her own decisions and sees a bear on the train ride west. When she returns, she convinces Frenchie, a member of the kindred who picks her up, to go to breakfast at the 4-B’s, a local diner where Marn occasionally works. Marn and Frenchie both know that they should go straight home, but Marn wants to feel normal, and is afraid that when she goes back Billy will change her mind. Marn uses Frenchie as a litmus test to see if anyone will notice how she’s changed, but he’s too terrified to notice anyone else, itching to leave. Marn decides that once everything is finished she will return to the 4-B’s with her children, promising to waste nothing until that happens.

Marn reflects on how she is Billy’s only true wife and the only one blessed with his name. She itches to hold her children but worries she will cave under Billy’s powerful presence. Marn reflects on how Billy’s secretary probably performed fellatio on him and kept him company until Marn’s return. Billy comes out to greet her and surrounds her, but then Marn turns her attention to her children and forgets Billy is even there.

All day and night, people phone into the house/church’s call center to give money for miracles like the ones Billy’s broadcast preaching has performed. Billy looks into Marn’s eyes, asking about the trip, but only sees his own reflection. Marn answers simply, and Billy informs her that if she leaves, he will keep the children. They have sex, and Billy doesn’t take off his pants so the zipper cuts into Marn. Marn gives Billy the money to bless before handing it over to Bliss, the diabetic treasurer who gives up her pain as an offering. Bliss reads the financial report and everyone prays. “I looked up, a thing I’d never done in circle […] I looked straight into the eyes of Bliss […] I knew better than to meet those eyes […] If she knew what I was thinking, what I wanted to do, it would be over before it started” (171). Marn smiles emptily and pictures gold with the rest of the group, who know they will begin digging the backyard soon.

Marn keeps a diary of the alternately loving and abusive things that Billy does, including tattooing an infinity symbol on her inner thigh. Marn brings her serpents to bed, which Billy hates because he’s afraid of them. They don’t like his cold sweat. Billy makes her put them away, but he enjoys having sex with her when she smells like them.

Marn and the others, including Billy on occasion, work on the farm and are careful about what they eat because food is scarce. Most of the kindred know nothing about farming. They lose a lot of animals, and occasionally Marn must kill a hog or steer purchased for meat, which she hates. In the afternoons, Marn retrieves her children (from the bunker where they are kept) and cooks. Marn thinks about her escape with her children. Marn’s son, Judah, forgot his teaching, and Billy puts him on schedule for tomorrow. Marn secretly steals a bottle of soy sauce for him to drink and get sick so she can stand in for him tomorrow. When that time comes, Marn must stand still for a full day, so she runs beforehand, thinking about the pain Billy’s religion requires from all of them while reveling in the freedom of running in nature. While standing still, Marn has a vision in which her serpents explain what she must do: milk her snakes and steal one of Bliss’s syringes to carry around with her after letting the snakes go.

Marn collapses and pretends to have a vision about having sex with Billy, whispering in his ear. Marn waits for the right time, then has sex with Billy all night before injecting his heart with poison. As he dies, Marn sees herself stringing him up by a tie to the rafters, exposing him to his followers who are mad with grief. She plans to run away with her children and the money, stopping at the 4-B’s to eat eggs.