Our ancestors made terrible sacrifices because that was what was demanded of them. God’s will be done. Remember that this life is fleeting. The pain suffered here? The barest of shadows on the face of eternal salvation. How do I know? Because God accepted their sacrifice.
James Swann was given unto the Lord on the winter solstice, a thumb in the eye of the beast who so thrives during winter’s darkest days. The thaw began no later than the next day. The winds died down, and the forest became silent for the first time in memory. A holy calm spread across the valley. From the Crofts, the men spied deer on the Drop. Our people ate well that night for first time in many weeks.
We returned to the burned remains of the village to see that the Iroquois had gone. Our valley was restored to us by the grace of God and our mighty faith in him. In praise of him, the Winter Families formed a covenant. Swannhaven would ever be God’s country. No matter what hardships he asked us to endure, we would endure them happily.
Our ancestors pledged on behalf of their progeny to carry out God’s will if called upon. We have been promised to keep up the light. A sacrifice, if demanded, was to come from the Swann family, for it is right for the greatest of us to offer the most. They pledged forevermore their eldest son. A most worthy offering. Something for which they would suffer greatly—but if they did not, it would not count for anything.
And tested again we were. Do you remember the pictures in my cellar, Ben? This was what I tried to tell you. James Swann’s portrait hangs there to be remembered forever for his sacrifice during the Winter Siege. Recession and fire were the enemy’s next weapons. You know of the Great Fire of 1878, and you’ve seen Philip Swann’s portrait next to James’s. It was dear Philip who delivered us from ruins of the Great Fire.
You’ve seen how the Swannhaven Trust administers to the village. During a year in which we are tested, the heads of the Winter Families fast through December. Each day we eat a cup of rough wheat flour and no more. Our ancestors’ suffering and hunger brought them close to God, close enough to hear his voice. And so it is for us. Your wife’s cooking smelled of heaven’s own banquet table, but it was another of the beast’s temptations. We are used to them. Their seduction is swept aside as easily as food into a pocketed napkin.
It was once a rare thing for God to demand a great sacrifice, but the pace has quickened with the foulness of the world around us. We have grown so much more important to him. We must be ever ready to do his will.
James was first, and Philip was second. They were good boys, their sacrifices given gladly and accepted gratefully. Yes, Mark Swann would have been an offering, too. Mark would have saved us all from the fuel shortages and the sickness that plagued our herds. But that big foolish boy ruined it. Our offering could not be made after Mark was killed in the fire that JoJo set. JoJo had meant to take him away from us, but he only succeeded in killing both Mark and his brother in the blaze. We believed then that the line of Swanns had finally come to an end and that our village was doomed.
And yet some of us continued in our faith. And have we not been mightily rewarded for it?
But I must tell the story right. That was my mistake with you in the first place, and for that I am sorry.
Our third trial was during the Depression, when we were again tested by hunger and also by the Black Water. So many of us had died. Perhaps no test was more difficult than the Winter Siege itself, but this time the Swann family had no male heir to offer. But God does not offer a problem that faith cannot solve. A daughter of the Swanns had married into one of the families in the valley. A Winter Family itself, as providence would have it. You shake your head, but you already know what I’m going to say. You’ve seen his portrait in my cellar with all the other brave boys who gave their lives for our village, for this one flame of light in all the darkness of this bleak earth.
Your great-grandmother was Emily Swann before she was Emily Lowell. Her son, your great-uncle, Owen, was given unto the Lord in 1933. You’re as much a Swann as you are a Lowell, Ben.
I told you before that names are nice, but it’s the blood that matters.
51
The forest shifted in the night. The moonlight wove shadows of skeletal branches onto the icy ground.
In front of Caroline, Charlie disappeared in a puff of snow. She hoisted him out of the drift by his waistband, and they continued their silent escape through the frozen trees.
Charlie had not had the words to explain, but he hadn’t needed them. Her son was not a liar, and the look on his face told Caroline what she needed to know. In a strange way, this wasn’t news so much as it was confirmation. Their strange religion, their self-contained valley, their intractable attachment to their grim history, the unsettled feeling she’d get in her gut when one of their stares lingered upon her: Caroline had known for a while that something was wrong with the people of Swannhaven. What exactly it was, she didn’t know, and at present it didn’t much matter. What she knew was that Charlie and she had to get away from the Crofts.
They’d taken the steps down from the north tower. Once outside, they’d ducked along the rear veranda to hide themselves from anyone watching from the windows. It had not been the perfect escape: She’d forgotten her phone and wallet, but she did have her car keys.
Not that they would help her. When she and Charlie got to the cars, Caroline saw that the villagers’ vehicles had boxed her Escape in. This was not an accident, she realized. Maybe there were no accidents here between the mountains.
There were villagers in the woods, she knew. They had been there to find JoJo, but now she was sure that they hunted Charlie and her, as well. What they needed to do was get to the county road and stop Ben before he returned to the Crofts. Once in the car, they’d be fine, they just—