The house was cold, the fire out.
He peeled back the covers, threw his legs over the side of the bed, and pulled on his pants. His bad foot hung there like a hoof till he shoved it into the special boot fashioned for him by the cobbler in Montpelier. The soles were worn through, and he’d stuffed the bottoms of both boots with dry grass and cattail fluff, all layered over scraps of leather, in a futile attempt to keep the dampness out. There was no money for new custom-made boots now.
Blight had ruined most of last fall’s potato crop, and they relied on the money they got from selling the potatoes to the starch factory to get through the winter. It was only January, and the root cellar was nearly bare: a few spongy potatoes and carrots, some Hubbard squash, half a dozen jars of string beans and tomatoes Sara had put up last summer, a little salt pork from the hog they’d butchered in November (they’d traded most of the meat for dry goods at the general store). Martin would have to get a deer soon if they were going to have enough to eat. Sara had a talent for stretching what little food they had, for making milk gravy and biscuits with a bit of salt pork into a meal, but she couldn’t create something from nothing.
“Have some more, Martin,” she would always say, smiling as she spooned more gravy onto biscuits. “There’s plenty.” And he would nod and have a second helping, going along with this myth of abundance Sara had created.
“I love biscuits and gravy,” Gertie would say.
“That’s why I make them so often, my darling,” Sara told her.
Once a month, Sara and Gertie would hitch up the wagon and ride into town to pick up what they needed at the general store. They didn’t get extravagant things, just the basics for getting by: sugar, molasses, flour, coffee, and tea. Abe Cushing let them buy on credit, but last week he’d pulled Martin aside to tell him the bill was getting up there—they’d need to pay it down some before buying anything more. Martin had felt the sour creep of failure work its way from his empty stomach up into his chest.
He jerked his bootlaces tight and tied them with careful knots. His bad foot ached already, and he wasn’t even out of bed. It was the storm.
He reached into the right pocket of his patched and tattered work pants and felt for the ring, making sure it was there. He carried it everywhere he went, a good-luck charm. It warmed in his fingers, seemed to radiate a heat all its own. Sometimes, when he was out working in the fields or woods and he knew Sara wouldn’t see, he slipped the ring onto his pinkie.
Every spring, Martin plowed up enough rocks to build a silo. But it wasn’t only the rocks that came up—he’d found other things, strange things, out in the north field, just below the Devil’s Hand.
Broken teacups and dinner plates. A child’s rag doll. Scraps of cloth. Charred wood. Teeth.
“An old settlement? A dumping ground of some sort?” he’d guessed when he showed Sara the artifacts.
Her eyes darkened, and she shook her head. “Nothing’s ever been out there, Martin.” Then she urged him to bury everything back in the ground. “Don’t plow so close to the Devil’s Hand. Let that back field lie fallow.”
And he did.
Until two months ago, when he found the ring out there, glowing like the halo he sometimes saw around the moon.
It was an odd ring, hand-carved from bone. And old, very old. There were designs scored into it, a strange writing Martin didn’t recognize. But when he held it in his hand, it seemed to speak to him almost, to grow warm and pulsate. Martin took it as a sign that his luck was about to change.
He brought the ring home, cleaned it up, and put it in a little velvet bag. He left it on top of Sara’s pillow on Christmas morning, nearly beside himself with anticipation. There had never been money for a proper gift, a gift she might truly deserve, and he couldn’t wait for her to see the ring. He knew she was going to love it. It was so ornate, so delicate and somehow … magical—a perfect gift for his wife.
Sara’s eyes lit up when she saw the bag, but when she opened it and looked inside, she dropped it instantly, horrified, hands trembling. It was as if he’d given her a severed finger.
“Where did you find it?” she asked.
“At the edge of the field, near the woods. For God’s sake, Sara, what’s the matter?”
“You must take it back and bury it again,” she told him.
“But why?” he asked.
“Promise me you will,” she demanded, placing her hand on his chest, gripping his shirt in her fingers. “Right away.”
She looked so frightened. So strangely desperate.
“I promise,” he said, taking the ring in its bag and slipping it into his trouser pocket.