Free How They Were Found by Matt Bell

the grand revolver. It is not much, and certainly it is less than he hoped for, but it is something.
    Spear hopes—Spear prays—that this is only the beginning, that this infant energy will mature into the great savior he has been promised, that he has promised himself.
    Her pregnancy ended, Maud Trenton is light, her body barely skin, barely bones, her cries producing so little water they are barely tears. He lifts her in his arms, carries her gently from the shed into the cabin, where he lays her down on the bed he once shared with his own wife. He waits with her until she falls asleep. It takes a long time, and it takes even longer for Spear to realize she was not crying in pain, but in frustration. A lifetime of waiting and a near-year of effort, and still she is without a child to call her own. Now Spear understands the terror that is the Virgin, the horror that is the name Mary, the new awfulness that he and the Electricizers have made of this woman.
    Whatever this thing is she has given birth to, it will never be hers alone.
    He whispers apologies, pleas for penance into her dreaming ears, and then he gets up to leave her. He will go down into the village and fetch the doctor, but only after he attends to the Motor.
    First, he must lock the shed's doors and be sure that no man crosses that threshold until he is ready, until he can explain what exactly it is that has happened to his machine.
     
    The next morning, he invites the other leaders of the congregation to view the Motor, to see the slight pulsation that grows inside it. They listen attentively, but Spear sees the horror on their faces as he tries to point out the movement of the magnets again and again, as he grows frustrated at their inability to see what he sees. They leave at once, and Spear stands at the top of the hill, listening to their voices arguing on the way down the crooked path. By evening, their deliberations are complete, and when the messenger arrives at the cabin with a letter, Spear knows what it says before he reads it: He has been stripped of his position in the church, and of the church's material support.
    Spear locks himself in the shed with the Motor, where he watches it pulsate through the night until morning, when there is a knock at the door. He opens the door to find Maud waiting for him. She is beautiful, transformed by her pregnancy, and she takes him by the hand, saying, This machine is ours to believe in, ours to take to the people.
    She says, I have listened to your sermons, and I have heard the words you've spoken.
    She says, You cannot give up. I won't allow it.
    Spear nods, straightens himself and looks back at the machine he's built. There is life in it, he knows. He looks at Maud's hand in his. It is but a spark, but one day it will be a fire, if only he nurtures it.
     
    There is no more money to pay for what Spear needs—wagons and assistants, supplies for the great journey ahead—and so Spear splits his time between the shed and his desk, between preparing for the disassembly of the Motor and writing letters begging for financial support. He writes to New York and Boston and Philadelphia and Washington, asking their spiritualist congregations to trust him, to help fund this new age that is coming.
    He writes, The Glory of God is at hand, and soon I will bring it to each and every one of you, if only you will help me in these darkest of hours.
    The words he writes, they are his alone, and he finds himself at a loss to explain the New Motor without the help of the Electricizers. He calls out to them, begs them for assistance.
    In his empty office, he cries out, All that you helped me create is crumbling. Why won't you tell me what to write?
    His words are met with silence, as they have been since the birth of the Motor. The Electricizers are no longer distinct to him, just blurred specters at the periphery of his vision, fading more every day. Their abandonment is near complete when Maud begins to help him instead,