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.”
Levi sways and I think he’s going to tumble off the front of the stage into the dirt. He’s definitely drunk.
I stand up, feeling the sudden instinct to go help him, but Calla reaches for me, taking hold of my hand. I sit back down. Levi staggers to the side of the stage without saying another word and clomps down the steps. We watch as he stumbles across the uneven grass, then wanders down the center of Pastoral, away from the circle. When my eyes swing back to the Mabon tree, Parker and Orion have finished filling in the holes.
Both Ash and Turk have been buried up to their necks, arms strung above them. Turk’s eyes are still closed but Ash’s are open. He finds me among the group, his pupils like needles, staring me down. I could help them if I wanted to: I could walk to the Mabon tree and push Parker aside; I could cut down their ropes and pull them from the ground. I could announce to the community that this is inhumane, that Levi has taken it too far.
Because it could just as easily be me in the ground—I have crossed our boundary hundreds of times and gone unnoticed, unpunished. It could be Bee buried in the ground too, it could be any of us.
But I don’t do this, because I’m afraid what will happen if I do. So I stare at Ash like a coward.
And when I turn to look at my wife, she’s stood up and is walking away from the gathering, back toward home.
CALLA
My thumb catches on a thorn and it tears the flesh back, blood dripping into the soil beneath the rosebush. I’ve dug away a good two feet of earth, well beneath the roots of the plant. And now I’m digging a wide arc away from the roses, out into the path that winds back into the garden. The night sky is clear and sharp overhead, a carpet of black with little holes punched at random where the starlight peeks through.
I can’t help Ash and Turk—they’re already in the ground. But I need to find Travis Wren and Maggie St. James; I need to know what happened to them—I need to set something right.
I claw at the soil, the desperation inside me like a wild roaring panic in my ears, in my chest. I unearthed two books in the garden, maybe there are more—hidden clues left by Travis Wren, things he wanted us to find. I draw back another pocket of earth, pushing it aside. The chickens scurry close, pecking at the fresh ground where they pluck fat earthworms from the soil before scuttling away. My fingers feel down into the hole, hoping for something manmade, but there is only more dirt. Small rocks. Old roots from long dead plants that grew here many seasons ago.
The garden offers me up nothing else.
I slump onto my side, knees bent, and although for a moment I feel like I might cry, only heat pushes against my eyes, no wetness. Is this what my husband felt each night when he left his post at the gate and walked down the road? Is this the desperation that wore at his thoughts, urging him farther and farther away? Was it this same need? Intangible. Nameless.
That vague longing for something.
Back inside the house, I wash my hands in the sink, picking out the dirt from under my nails. But I feel worse than I did before I started digging up the garden—the throb at the back of my throat is heavier. I leave the kitchen and walk down the back hall, turn the metal knob on the old door, and push into the sunroom. It smells of decaying wood and damp, moldy earth. I’m certain moths and beetles and other critters have made their home in this abandoned part of the house, but in the dim light, at least I can’t see them. I know Theo has searched the room, but I slide my palms beneath the mattress; I check every broken seam in the wallpaper; I open each bedside drawer and shake out the curtains, hoping to find more missing pages from the notebook. But the room is bare.