Thrown-away Child

unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”
    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
     A POCKET STAR Book published by
    POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
    1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
     
    Copyright © 1996 by Thomas Adcock
    All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
    ISBN 0-671-51984-0
    First Pocket Books paperback printing September 1997
    10 9 8 7 6  5 4 3 2 1
    POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
    Cover design by Tom McKeveny
    Printed in the U.S.A.
     

For my mother in-law, Violet Sykes, née Converse ... who hears the sweet notes where she is
     
     
     

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    I am indebted to my late mother-in-law for at least a hundred things, among them: coffee she made on early mornings we spent together in her kitchen in New Orleans—“coffee so strong it’ll make you want to get up and go slap your grandma,” as Violet Sykes declared it; stories that were stronger yet, which like a thief I stashed away in my notebooks; and the spirit and title of this novel. Of course, I would never have got to that wonderful kitchen if not for my wife, Kim Sykes. Nor would I have got much of anywhere else lately without her support and sufferance. Encouragement and critical guidance from Gloria Loomis, my urbane literary agent, are continuing treasures. So are the past fifteen years of Saturday-morning breakfasts at various Manhattan greasy spoons with my pal Thomas Gifford, novelist and raconteur. Somebody new to this cast of characters has likewise aided the cause: my fine and caring editor, Peter Wolverton.
     
     

A dog starv’d at his master’s gate
    Predicts the ruin of the state.
     
    -William Blake
     
     
     
     

 

PROLOGUE

    Sister sat alone on a bench at one side of the altar, opposite the choir loft and baptismal pool. She was dressed in white satin, something Miss Hassie or some other old fat church lady might wear. Underneath, though, Sister was as slender as any teenage girl, not so much bigger around the hips and bust than a clutch of bayou reeds. Her long skinny fingers were laced together, settled atop a spray of yellow calla lilies resting in her lap like a floral wreath draped over a crypt.
    Sister’s eyes were closed. Her delicate face, strong coffee colored, was uptilted to an oval window picturing a stained glass Jesus. Circled doves formed a plumed halo around the head of the Son of God.
    Despite the commotion all around her—the junior preacher’s bug-eyed harangue, finally ended; the stamping feet and impromptu All rights and Tell it nows and Amens of the assembled; the tambourines and rhythmic songs of the praise-sayers, which was what Minister Tilton called his choir; the caterwauls
    of God-terrorized children; the passion flower aroma of Sabbath body oils escaping through the pores of overheated souls—Sister betrayed not the slightest expression. Sunlight streaked through the windowed eyes of Jesus and shone down upon her, as if the Son of the Holy Father had eyes only for this skinny girl sitting in a plump cloud of church-lady satin.
    She had been like this for two hours: back straight, face to the heavenly sun, hands folded and still, her lanky form motionless. But Sister knew no discomfort. She was in a beatific trance, gone to visit Glory for a while, and listening for ancient voices across the divides of time and tide, life and death.
    But quite suddenly, she was...
    Possessed?
    How was it he had explained this duty? You do your part right, girl. You make them all know you are purely seized by the Almighty spirit!
    Sister trembled, and swooned for them all. And this so strongly resembled something not necessarily divine. That first time, what had he called it? You just met up with the sweet-assed tremble, my lady-child.
    Then as suddenly, Sister collapsed into a kind of serenity. The serenity of someone in a casket set out for viewing.
    Minutes passed.