THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

She spoke in Esperanto affected heavily by a backwoods Georgia accent. Her name was Blessed Croomes, and she wanted to go on the boat as far as it would go. Then she’d go on foot to the headwaters.

“That’s where my mother Agatha Croomes went. I’m looking for her. I think she must have found the Lord and is now living at His right hand, waiting for me! Hallelujah!”

41

IT WAS DIFFICULT TO STOP HER FLOW OF TALK, BUT BURTON finally said, loudly and sternly, that she had to answer his questions.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll listen to the wise. Are you wise?”

“Wise enough,” he said, “and mighty experienced, which is the same thing if you’re not stupid. Let’s start at the beginning. Where were you born and what were you on Earth?”

Blessed told him that she was born a slave in Georgia in 1734 in the house of her master. Come early, caught her mother in the kitchen while she was helping prepare the evening meal. She’d been raised as a house slave and baptized into the faith of her father and mother. After her father had died, her mother had become a preacher. She was a very devout and very strong woman who scared her flock, though they also loved her. Her mother had died in 1783 and she in 1821. But both had been resurrected near the same grailstone.

“Of course, she wasn’t an old woman anymore. It was strange seeing my old momma a young woman. That didn’t make no difference to her, though. She was as holy and righteous and filled with the spirit as when she’d lived on Earth. Why, I tell you, when she preached in church there she had white folks come for miles around to listen to her. Most of them were white trash, but she converted them, and then they got in trouble…”

“You’re wandering again, Burton said. “That’s enough of your background. Why do you want to go with me?”

“Because you got that boat that can travel faster than a bird.”

“But why do you want to go to the end of The River?”

“I would have told you if you hadn’t interrupted me, man. You see, my mother being here didn’t shake her faith at all. She said that we were here, all of us, because we were sinners on Earth. Some worse than others. This was really Heaven, the outskirts of it anyway. What sweet Jesus wanted was that the real believers should go up The River, the sweet Jordan, and find Him at the end. He was up there, waiting to embrace those who truly believed, those who’d go to the trouble of seeking Him out. So she went.

“She wanted me to come with her, but I was scared. I wasn’t sure anyway that she knew what she was talking about. I didn’t tell her that. It would’ve been like hitting her in the face, and nobody has guts enough to do that. Anyway, it wasn’t just that that kept me from going with her. I had a mighty sweet man, and he wouldn’t go with her. He said he liked things fine as they were. So I let my pussy do the thinking for me, and I stayed with him.

“But things went bad with me and my old man. He started chasing other women, and I got to thinking that maybe this was judgment on me for not obeying my momma. Maybe she was right, maybe Jesus was waiting for the truly faithful. Besides, I really missed my momma even if we do go around and around like wildcats sometimes. So I lived with another man for a while, but he wasn’t any better than the first. Then, one night while I was praying, I saw a vision. It was Jesus Himself, sitting on His diamond and pearl throne with the angels singing back of Him, all in a blaze of glorious light. He told me to quit sinning and to follow my mother’s footsteps and I’d get to Heaven.

“So I went. And here I am. It’s been many years, brother, and I’ve suffered like one of God’s own martyrs. I’ve gotten bone-weary and flesh-sick, but here I am! Last night I prayed again, and I saw my mother, only for a second, and she told me to come with you. She said you weren’t a good man but you weren’t bad either. You were in between. But I would be the one to bring you to the light, save you, and we’d go together to Kingdom Come and sweet Jesus would wrap His arms around us and welcome us to the glory throne. Hallelujah!”