Plot summary

Cavil Planter owns a plantation where slaves – Afroamerican people – work for him. On the other bank of the Hio river the slaves are free. Planter lives with his wife, Dolores, a disabled woman and they can’t have children. Despite that, Cavil really loves her and they are admired among neighbors. However, one day he starts to desire a female slave who feeds his wife. He calls her Hagar in his thoughts and expects an order from God that would empower him to inseminate his female slaves. The aim is to have them bear half-white children whom Planter then sells as slaves to continue his mission on other plantations. In Planter’s mystical thoughts, God is named Supervisor. The story of Planter and his wife opens and closes the volume. In the second chapter, the reader is introduced to the Guesters’ inn ran by old Peg and Horatio in Hatrack, a couple whose daughter, 16-years old Peggy is a so-called Torch. This means that she is able to foresee future of other people, even being distant from them, searching for the flame of one’s heart. Peggy anxiously awaits the return of Alvin, who is a kind of the Messiah boy and who was born in her house and his destiny is to build a Crystal City. She fell in love with him from the day he was born (under epic circumstances; the boy’s elder brother, Vigor, died and was buried there)  but she waits for the day when he will be grown up and she is pretty unsure if she will attract him, maybe being too old for that. The boy is five years younger than her. The family takes a runaway Afroamerican girl under their roof. Although the newcomer is very young, she has a newborn baby, Planter is the father. The girl made a voodoo doll of herself in order to escape and get free; the common belief is that she flied like a raven on the second side of the river. Being exhausted with the rampage, she is close to death and actually dies besided of Peggy’s effort to save her life with a piece of Alvin’s caul. She leaves a mulatto newborn son which causes trouble. The Guesters consider to give him to the Afroamerican Berries’ family in the neighborhood but then decide it would be better if old Peg took care of the boy’s bringing up as his own mother. To avoid suspicions, the Guesters tell everybody that the boy is Mrs. Berry’s natural son and that she is too poor to bring him up herself. They name his Arthur Stuart, mocking the king’s name. The Guesters are Emantipationists – quite liberal views, contrary to their neighbors who are highly puritan, conservative and restrictive. In the area, the religion is very important; there are many kinds of creeds: Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and so on; each religion charged with the others’ stereotypical superstitions. Peggy manages to save Arthur Stuart from father Thrower’s hateful eye. The priest is just leaving their inn and does not find the child fortunately – he would tell the sheriff. Some years ago, Thrower wanted to kill Alvin. Then, Peggy decides to leave her family house in secret, in the dawn. She does it although her parents fall in a very depressed mood because of her unexplained rampage. Her father is said to really love her – so much that her mother feels jealous about it! She leaves to her father’s friend, Mrs. Modesty who lives in Dekane and teaches her good manners and beauty of a lady. Peggy ran away because of Alvin’s coming to town and because she was tired enough of foresseing future for people and being burdened with their anger or frustration. She wants to become a lady in order to deserve Alvin’s love. However, the motif of a young woman escaping from home in spite (or BECAUSE ) of her father’s love, resembles strongly  a folktale motif of Catskin’s rampage from house following incestuous paternal desire towards the daughter. On the other hand, 11-years old Alvin just arrives in Hatrack. He runs through the woods like a native American, listening to the Green Song and getting naked in order to be united with nature. He spares his belongings with people he meets on his way which is a condemnable behavior in Hatrack. He is sent to train as a smith in Makepeace Smith’s workshop. Alvin decides to hide his secret of possessing special powers from the people he is going to get acquainted with in Hatrack; and he succeeds seven years to keep it secret. Although he uses only his natural strength and manual abilities to work as a smith trainee, he appears to be a great worker and a source of big benefits for his master. However, Makepeace is jealous of him and treats him unfairly, keeping him as a trainee due to the contract for seven years in spite of Alvin being quite ready to work on his own. Alvin is conscious of Peggy’s visionary knowledge about his future as the Maker. It was put down in the Teller’s  book where Alvin’s future acts are compared to Byblical facts such as destroying of Babylon’s power (the words Mene tekel fares are mentioned) or building a Crystal City where all humans would speak in Angels’ language à the myth of Babel. Alvin’s special power – besides his unhuman strength (and patience?) – is his ability to see through anything, discovering the structure beneath surfaces. He is able to find and create so called hexes which provide charms and/or safety for a person or place sealed with them. Hex is a kind of an ideal geometrical shape. Alvin knows a  lot about life, experienced by many tragic events and adventures that he has witnessed or participated in. There are only two issues he feels new to: becoming the Maker and understanding women and their actual will to be strong and socially free. He is handsome and attractive but women make him feel embarrassed. He craves becoming a real man, then – the Maker. Just as Peggy wants to become a real woman for him. He is also able to perform wonders exactly how  Jesus  did. He heals wounded or even dead people. He walked on water with the Prophet. And he made friends with Indians, Takum-Sa among them. They saved his life some day. Alvin’s tough life with Smith resembles a folktale motif of a devil’s apprentice. In such tales, young boys train (often as smiths) with a very bad guy or even the devil as their master – to become a man. Makepeace is far less harmful than such folktale masters but still malicious and unfair. He does not respect the boy’s hard work and makes him to work all day à Herculean myth. His wife is more kind for the boy. 

Alvin is not able yet to control his emotions and powers. When confronted with the hatred of Hank Dowser who professionally looks for water sources with a wand (and Alvin performs it better than him),  Alvin is really angry and does something against nature. Dowser found water in a place where it runs really deep beneath a rock and Makepeace orders Alvin to dig the ground – informing him that he will not get food or water until the source will be found and a bucket of first clear water prepared for Dowser. Alvin digs the ground and destroys the rock with his special powers. Doing that with anger and destructive will, he faces the Unmaker. Peggy sees that from distance with her Torch’s gift. A few years later Peggy comes home disguised as a middle-aged teacher, Mrs. Larner. She agrees to teach Arthur Smith (who is not allowed to go to the state school with white children) as well as to give private lessons to Alvin. She helps Alvin to understand how to become the Maker, teaching him the rules or the world, some philosophy and physics. Alvin saves Mrs. Larner's dignity when she is offended by rude men - the river rats on her way to Hatrack. He gets in a fight with the strongest of the bullies and wins after discovering the tattooed hex that has given the man his invincibility. Alvin uses his special powers to destroy the charms of the hex and is sure to gain the respect in the eyes of the damsel in distress. However, Mrs. Larner is quite repulsive towards him and he believes that she looks down on him because of his low social status. The woman starts to live in a small hut near the Guesters' inn where she was supposed to live as their daughter before she escaped. She does not reveal her true identity to their parents or anyone but Alvin finds that she is not the person that she pretends to be and that her looks is only a magical trick. The hut was restored by him and old Peg asks the teacher to give there private lessons to Arthur Stuart in secret. However, Cavil Planter finds out that the boy lives free nearby and sends his people, so called seekers, for the child that he wants to sell for slavery, believing in his mission from God. Arthur Stuart is taken away from the Guesters and Smith is ordered to prepare handcuffs for the small boy. He refuses but Alvin makes a pair for the child. Then, Alvin leaves Hatrack in the night with two helpers from the town to find the boy and free him easily from his handcuffs while Planter's people are set asleep. All together, they manage to escape, crossing the Hio river where Alvin decides to try and change Arthur's DNA code. He succeeds, so the boy will never be found again by his seekers. The only thing that changes because of the act is the loss of Arthur's ability to mimick other people's voices. The child hides in the teacher's hut guarded by magic. Still, the seekers are on their way to get him back and come back to the Guesters' inn where they attack old Peg. The woman shoots one of the invaders but herself is murdered by the second one. At the same time, Alvin has just finished preparing his prentice's mastership: an iron plowshare changed into gold and animated. Peggy comes to see the results of his work and reveal to him her identity, as he has become the Maker finally. However, they have to follow the inn where they find old Peg's dead body. Alvin manages to take revenge on her killer, beating life out of him. Peggy sobs over her dead mother's body and reveals her identity to her father who joins her mourning. Alvin has to leave the town and he travels back to his family town, saying his goodbye to the Guesters who are going to miss him. At home, he welcomes his parents and siblings. Alvin's younger brother, Cal, hates him because of jealousy - he wants to ne the Maker too. Alvin decides to move to his elder brother, Measure's house. Measure asks him about his beloved and Alvin misses Peggy. In the last part of the novel, Cavil finds his wife Dolores cheating on him with his favourite slave. Dolores explains that she had discovered the awful deeds of Cavil and demasks the false, sinful reality that covers his 'missionary' acts of regular rapes to Afroamerican women. Full of anger, he kills the woman and then the man, bidding him to make love with her dead body. When the sheriff and other men of authority come to Planter's house, they bid him to leave the state. Although given a bliss tocontinue his mission by Thrower, Cavil Planter faces a total defeat and decides to kill Alvin, the one who keeps his last slave under protection...

