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Elijah Ray

Elijah Ray is the bigamist prophet who leads the Covenant, a religious community occupying the ghost town of Auraria, Georgia, and the last person known to have seen the missing Willow Greengrass.
Type NPC (minor; never met on screen)
Aliases The Reverend; the prophet
Affiliation The Covenant
Status Alive (as of Appalachia 04)
First appearance Appalachia 02 (mentioned)

Description

The team never speaks to Elijah Ray in the recorded sessions; he is described only by others. Primenthol Greengrass calls him "genuinely a pretty nice guy. For a bigamist," and says she never heard of him being inappropriate with anyone he was not married to (Appalachia 02). In Appalachia 04, a Covenant woman tells the team he used to teach at Harvard and now teaches a comparative religions course in the community's one-room schoolhouse (Appalachia 04).

History

Appalachia 02

Prim tells the team the story of the Covenant. Ray had a prophetic dream, then a shooting star was seen over the area and he heard about it on TV, and a few days later he moved the whole congregation to Auraria, bought cheap land and tried to grow potatoes. The community believes a holy meteor struck there and that the clay is infused with divine energy. Ray's youngest wife, Angie, is about 25 now; she was 20 and he was 38 when they married (Appalachia 02).

Appalachia 04

At the Covenant, a young woman tells the team that Ray, the last person to see Willow Greengrass, handles the community's official liaising. A member named River says Ray sent Willow out to scout peach orchards, that she was on her way back with samples when she vanished, and that she was upset after a fight with her sister. River adds that Ray encourages members not to spend too much time with family (Appalachia 04).

River and Mother Dahlia Riversand also explain that "corporate goons" showed up about a year earlier with paperwork claiming the land and threatening eviction. Ray says the claim is bullshit. The community sells preserves and quilts and has an orchard deal in the works to pay for a lawyer, and members call Auraria the promised land and the Garden of Eden (Appalachia 04).

Rita (as Andrew) tells the group she has "an idea" for meeting Ray, "but not for today", and the team leaves without speaking to him; Dante (as Kurt) later calls him "the Reverend guy" (Appalachia 04).

Unresolved

The cold open of Appalachia 04 shows an older man with high cheekbones and striking features baptizing a door-to-door salesman in red clay by the river, chanting in Latin; the salesman vanishes beneath the mud. The episode never says whether this man is Ray. Ray is not mentioned again in the recorded sessions.

Appearances