“Something has happened,” he begins once he reaches the stage, his gaze directed at the front row where Turk’s wife, Marisol, is seated, as if he is speaking only to her. But Marisol’s back is rigid, dark thick hair braided loosely over one shoulder, and I wonder if she knows Turk tried to leave, if he told her before he stole away into the dark? Or maybe he did it in secret so she wouldn’t worry.
Several members shift in their chairs, an uneasy unified motion. This is our second emergency gathering in only a few days, and they can feel that something is off—something’s wrong.
Levi clears his throat, eyes lifting to the whole of the community now—addressing us all. “Two of our members have slipped outside our borders into the place they shouldn’t cross.”
The stirring of the group stops.
“We need to be certain they haven’t brought the pox back with them.” Levi’s tone is grave, and his eyes sweep to his left where Ash and Turk stand just below the small stage, their hands bound in front of them with rope. Parker stands behind them, his own hands planted on his hips. It occurs to me that Parker isn’t at the gate for his shift. Perhaps Levi thought the gathering was important enough that we should all be in attendance—we all need to witness what’s about to happen.
“We will perform the ritual, just like the early settlers did. The old ways have often proved the most effective, and if these men do have the rot inside them, this is their best chance of being cured. Our best chance of knowing if the pox is already within our walls.”
Levi nods solemnly, and Parker leads the two men to the Mabon tree—the broad oak that was planted when the first settlers built this place, long before Cooper and the members of Pastoral arrived.
Turk is still limping, and I doubt anyone has tended to his ankle—it’s not worth the risk of treating his wound, spreading the pox, if he’s going to die anyway. I glance at Calla seated beside me, hands folded in her lap, and I know what she keeps cupped between her palms—the silver charm she found in the garden. She has it with her always now, even when she sleeps, just like I keep the photograph of Maggie St. James.
Parker is careful not to touch the two men, but he urges them forward to the Mabon tree, until they’re each standing over a hole. Someone in the group makes a strange, sputtering wheeze, like they’re holding back tears, then Parker prods the two men forward with the barrel of his gun. Obediently, without a word—as if they’ve resigned themselves to what will happen next—they climb down into their holes, their feet standing at the bottom, only their heads sticking up above the ground. “Lift your hands,” Parker instructs, and both men do as he says. I wonder what Levi has told them—this morning before the gathering—if he implored them that this is the only way they might be saved. And now they raise their bound arms above their heads without protest.
If the pox is inside them, this old way might actually rid it from their flesh—the mineral-rich soil said to leech the illness from the bones, draw it clean out, like a sponge to water.
Parker loops one end of a rope around their wrists and the other up around the lowest limb of the Mabon tree. This will ensure they can’t dig themselves free from the ground.
Now Parker and one of the other younger boys, Orion, begin filling in the holes around Ash and Turk, packing it in good so the men won’t be able to move or shift or wriggle loose.
“I know these next few days will be difficult for many of you, but I ask that you don’t try to free these two men,” Levi says over the sound of dirt being slumped into the holes. “The early settlers knew this was the only way to draw the pox from the skin. If Ash and Turk are infected, the ground will rid it from their bodies—this is our only hope of saving them.”
Turk’s eyes are pinched closed and from the front of the gathering circle, I can hear the whimpering of Turk’s wife. Someone helps her to stand, and she’s led away before the dirt has reached her husband’s chest. I think of Colette, Ash’s wife, and I wonder if she knows what he’s done. If she’s been told. These last few days, she has stayed inside the birthing hut where she and her child can be cared for, but does she know the unrest her recent delivery has caused? That her husband is being buried beneath the Mabon tree in the ritual of the old way?
“We will let three days and nights pass, and then we will pull them from the earth to see if they are infected.” Levi clears his throat and looks away from the men. He seems a little unsteady on his feet, like maybe he’s been drinking again. “We must protect our community; we must have devotion for one another, for this land.” His eyes blink rhythmically, his breathing heavy as he continues. “We must be certain that Ash and Turk have returned without illness inside them—a disease that will infiltrate our walls and destroy us.” The group is silent, watching as the last of the dirt is shoveled into the ground around Ash and Turk’s chests. “We cannot allow darkness into our community.”