Earthquake Christians
- Liz
- Aug 4
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 6
To date, the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 are the most powerful and violent to be recorded in North America. This story is inspired by them.
“My father wanted to name me after a biblical woman, but he named all my brothers, so my mother insisted they name me Ivy.”
“No kidding? My dad wanted to name me Sarah Elizabeth, but after witnessing the hell of labor and childbirth, he caved to my mom’s wishes.” Jo Lynn replied. She was walking the river trail — her favorite place in New Madrid county — when she spotted Ivy sitting on a quilt in the grass. Parallel to the Mississippi River, the trail was equal parts forest, swamp, and field, and Jo Lynn spent most of her free time exploring it and the land around it. Especially when her dad was home. As much as Jo Lynn loved her father, his general pessimism and longtime obsession with doomsday prepping drove her to spend most of her time outdoors.
“Doesn’t your dad mind that you’re not over there?” Jo Lynn asked. Her eyes and ears on the tent revival taking place a few hundred feet away.
“He knows I need a break now and then.”
“What’s he preaching about anyhow?” All Jo Lynn could hear was lots of yelling.
“He’s preaching Revelation to the ‘Earthquake Christians’ — survivors who want to get right with God before another big one hits.” Ivy replied, braiding blades of grass as she spoke. She was the chattiest ghost Jo Lynn had come across, and she’d come across many.
Ghost sightings weren’t uncommon in New Madrid county, but they were unpredictable. The quakes reshaped the region so completely — in some areas disappearing entire towns — that the spirits couldn’t seem to anchor themselves to one spot for very long. When she was in the fourth grade, Jo Lynn was haunted by the ghost of a horse and rider who were swallowed by the Earth. They walked her to and from school for a couple of days, and she hadn’t seen them since. When she was baptized in the Mississippi, Jo Lynn emerged to the vision of a flat-bottomed boat carrying several young men — all of whom had sunk to their deaths. She caught a glimpse of them again a few years later during an Independence Day fireworks show.
Jo Lynn wasn’t the only person spirits appeared to. Nearly everyone in New Madrid county had seen a ghost at some point. Her soccer coach was haunted by a bloodhound for a week last autumn, and her grandma had grown so accustomed to the occasional visitor in her flower garden that she’d put a little bench out there.
“I’ve never met anyone more eager for the end of the world than my pa,” Ivy said, still braiding.
“Sounds like my dad. He’s been bracing for the next big quake for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I think he wants it to come.”
“Fools,” Ivy said, placing a grass crown on Jo Lynn’s head as she spoke. “I think men seek out doom and danger because they aren’t born to it the way we are. None of my brothers were taught to fear their own bodies the way I was.”
“I know what you mean. My parents won’t let me leave the house without mace, and I’ve been on birth control since I was thirteen.”
“Good.”
An owl hooted nearby. The sun was setting.
“Can I ask you something?” Jo Lynn said.
“Go ahead,” Ivy replied, lying down as she spoke.
“If y’all survived the quakes, why are you still here?”
Roaring cicadas and distant banjo filled the silence while Ivy chose her words.
“We’re just doing what we did in life. Yesterday, I chatted with a boy in a field in Arkansas; tomorrow, I might chat with a girl in a field in Tennessee or Louisiana.”
Jo Lynn nodded, then lied down next to Ivy on the quilt. She wanted to know how Ivy had died, but it felt like such a rude question.
“What’s it like moving around all the time?”
“You get used to it, but I must confess I’ve always longed for roots. You should be glad you have that.”
Jo Lynn had never really thought of her family as rooted — her dad wasn’t exactly the most stable person in the world, and they had to move every time her mom sold a house — but her people had been in New Madrid county for over two hundred years now, since before the quakes, and it was the only county Jo Lynn had ever lived in. She even planned to return after college and teach at the high school she was currently attending.
“Life on the road must be fun, though?”
“It can be. There’s always new people to meet and new foods to try. But it’s tiring, and I’ve grown weary of goodbyes.”
Jo Lynn nodded silently. The only serious goodbye she’d ever said was at her great-grandpa’s funeral. She’d had the same best friend since the first grade, the same pet cat since she was ten.
“The sky is my only constant,” Ivy said, her arm raised perpendicular to the rest of her body, her index finger pointing up. “And even the moon and stars go through phases.”
“We’re all looking at the same moon, though. That’s a fact.”
“I suppose it is,” Ivy smiled.
“And I’ll keep this grass crown until it disintegrates.”
“I appreciate that,” Ivy giggled.
Jo Lynn lay stargazing next to Ivy for what felt like an hour, happily listening to bugs and birds. She knew the river walk’s lampposts would guide her home, and her parents would calm down when they didn’t smell alcohol on her breath or see bruises on her skin.
When she was sure Ivy was sleeping, Jo Lynn slowly rose from the quilt and slipped her sneakers on.
“I hope we meet again.” Jo Lynn whispered. Then she blew the girl a kiss.
