Excerpt from The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Dill stifled a bitter laugh. "Yeah . . . but not music about picking up snakes and stuff. That kind of music isn't that popular."

"The Spirit will move in them the way it moved in our congregation when you sang and played. And when I get out, our congregation will have grown tenfold."

How about I just try to survive the school year? How about I don't do anything to add to the ridicule? "Look, Dad, your— our . . . situation . . . makes it hard for me to talk to my classmates about stuff like this. They don't really want to hear it, you know?"

His father snorted. "So we surrender to Lucifer's device to ruin our signs ministry? We hand him victory without argument?"

"No, I— I don't— " The surrealness of being made to feel unworthy by a prison inmate set in, preventing Dill from finishing his thought.

"Remember how you would write psalms and sing them with the praise band? Remember that?"

"Yeah. I guess. Yeah."

Dill's father sat back in his seat, looking off, shaking his head slightly. "Those songs were beautiful." He stared back at Dill. "Sing one for me."

"You mean— like right here? Now?" Dill looked for any sign that his father was joking. That would be an exceedingly rare occurrence, but still.

"Yes. The one you wrote. 'And Christ Will Make Us Free.' "

"I don't have my guitar or anything. Plus, wouldn't it be . . . weird?" Dill nodded at the bored- looking guards talking among themselves.

His father turned and glanced at the guards. He turned back with a gleam in his eye. "Do you think they think we're not weird?"

That's a fair point. Dill blushed. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid. He quickly and quietly sang the requested number a capella. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guards stop conversing to listen.

"More," his father said, applauding. "A new one."

"I . . . haven't really written any new ones for a while."

"You've given up music?"

"Not exactly. I just write . . . different stuff now."

His father's face darkened. "Different stuff. God did not pour out music on your tongue so that you could sing the praises of men and whoredom."

"I don't write songs about whoredom. I don't have even one song about whoredom."

His father pointed at him. "Remember this. Christ is the way. The only way. Your path to salvation. And your music is your path to Christ. My path to Christ was the manifesta-tion of faith signs. We lose our path to Christ; we lose our path to salvation. We lose our eternal reward. Got it?"

"Yeah. I got it." Talking to his father made Dill feel like he was talking to a sentient brick wall that somehow knew about Jesus. "Okay, well, I have to go."

His father's face darkened further. "You just got here. Surely you didn't come all this way just to spend a few minutes and go back home."

"No. I hitched a ride with some friends who had to do some school shopping. They're waiting out in the parking lot and it's really hot. They were nice to let me come here for a few minutes."

Dill's father exhaled through his nose and stood. "Well, I guess you'd better go to them, then. Goodbye, Junior. Give your mother my love and tell her I'll write soon."

Dill stood. "I will."

"Tell her I've been getting her letters."

"Okay."

"When will I see you again?"

"I don't know exactly."

"Then I'll see you when God wills it. Go with Jesus, son." Dill's father raised his two fists and put them together side by side. Mark 16:18. Then he turned and walked away.

•••

Dill released a long exhale as he left the building, as though he'd held his breath for the entire time he was inside to keep from inhaling whatever virulence the men impris-oned there harbored. He felt only slightly better without the dread of visiting his father. Now he just carried the original dread from that morning.

Excerpted from The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner. Copyright © 2016 by Jeff Zentner. Excerpted by permission of Crown. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.