Mother Dahlia Riversand¶
Mother Dahlia Riversand is a big, imposing elder of the Covenant who receives the task force in the ghost town of Auraria, Georgia.
| Type | NPC |
| Aliases | Dahlia; Mother Riversand |
| Affiliation | The Covenant |
| Status | Alive (as of Appalachia 04) |
| First appearance | Appalachia 04 |
Description¶
Dahlia is big and imposing, disapproving and bossy, with stiff speech. She runs the Covenant's one-room schoolhouse, where the children learn Latin and their times tables, and Elijah Ray teaches comparative religion (Appalachia 04).
History¶
As the team walks toward the tents in Auraria, Dahlia intercepts them and tells them to introduce themselves "instead of just skulking around like thieves in the night". She offers a member named River, who knew the missing Willow Greengrass, and sets the team up in the community center, the only other building in town, staying in the room to prevent "funny business". She hands out brochures and invites them to "the baptism this evening" for a door salesman, Jeremy, whom the Covenant "managed to talk into it". She refuses Andrew access to him until Rita rolls an 8 to Manipulate Someone and Andrew plays lost and haunted. Dahlia then says Andrew has "the devil standing right behind" him, and allows him to speak to Jeremy through a tent wall.
She explains the Covenant's land dispute with "corporate goons" who arrived about a year earlier with eviction paperwork (see The Land Dispute). The orchard deal and the sale of preserves are meant to fund a lawyer, and she fetches copies of the letters, which name only a law firm, Jackson and Lee's. She says river water is boiled and treated with chlorine tablets, after a stretch of intestinal and GI trouble, and that one member lost two toes to an infected toenail. The Covenant keeps promising a boiler, and she says it would already be built if they had not had to save for the lawyer.
When a stray remark that she "watched my husband explode" confuses the table, Ezra's Biz asks her to explain. She says her husband, drunk on newly discovered sake in Japan, stepped in front of a 320-mph bullet train and "turned into a paste". She then came to Georgia to stay with family, met Elijah Ray, and he changed her life (Appalachia 04).
Memorable quotes¶
Quote
"He turned into a paste. At least he didn't feel a thing." Andre (as Mother Dahlia Riversand) (Appalachia 04)
Quote
"You've got the devil standing right behind you. Do you know that?" Andre (as Mother Dahlia Riversand) (Appalachia 04)