Tawny and dim was the sky on that cursed day, when the land boiled and bubbled like the outward signs of disease and the meaty roots crept out across the hills like giant's fingers fumbling for a handhold somewhere to lift some vile abhorrence from deep within the churning soil. Then the earth swallowed the grass and trees, and all that was natural tumbled into the great widening chasms. From the broken earth rose one long branching limb – then from a further pit, another – again and again until through the billowing clouds of dirt, a dark and horrible figure towered, blocking from us the fading sun with a great mass of limbs, each reaching out in a new direction, until the dusty sky was all but disappeared by its shadow. Eclipsed by the dirt-blackened sun, this monolithic creature, anathema of everything good, seemed to grow even still; taller, wider, and spreading across the firmament like a malnourished sapling's twisting roots looking for water.

In one distinct moment within the chaos, I felt an unexplainable pull, and I likened it to falling sideways in all directions; being drawn and quartered yet whole, dismembered, but alive, and the clouded light above grew further and further away as I was dragged downward through the sandy bowels of the hill.

Certain as the seasons’ shift, my world was once again reaped to feed the cyclical machine, from which there is no solace or escape. We are merely borrowed from the field we all return to.

CHAPTER ONE

I AWOKE WITH A START to taps on my cottage door followed by the voice of my neighbor Anna pleading for me to venture outside. From the timbre of the dainty knock, I could envision her delicate hands – deft instruments of sewing and weaving – in stark contrast to my own, riddled with callouses and roughened from years of fieldwork and crafting.

A stronger knock, this time in the center of the wooden door of my single-room cottage, brought me back again to wakefulness. Yesterday’s work was hard and its subsequent ache permeated my body. It was midsummer. There was more work to be done in the fields than in my workshop, so I toiled alongside the planters.

It appeared fate would not suffer me to sleep any longer. Determined to keep me from the rest I felt I deserved, Anna pushed the door open. Her plan proved a success- in a second I was fully awake and scrambling to keep covered. The Elder would frown on this- though he frowns on everything it seems like. Her amber hair, darkened under my thatch roof, glowed despite the dim lighting of my house. I pulled my blankets higher and despite my sleepiness managed to stammer, “A-Anna, you shouldn’t be in here.”

“Well someone has to gather the lazy farmhands! Elder says we must plow the fields early today. The air feels heavy. I think that if we hurry, we will beat the storm.” The Elder of the village was a withered but somehow sturdy man who guided us through the seasons, himself led to lead by closely following the ancient stone tucked away in his house.

“Yes, but so early? It’s still dark out. And I’m still exhausted from yesterday!” With a playful huff, she located a small bauble from my workbench and chucked it at me, which by some miracle didn’t strike my head. Her ammunition was only one of many from a workbench covered in half-finished tools and I knew she could easily continue her pestering. “Yes, alright! I’m getting up,” though I still did not move.

For as long as I can remember, Anna had a marked fondness for me, maybe even affection. But for whatever reason, despite her friendly advances, I never felt the motivation to reciprocate what she felt for me. She did not yield.

“Efrit, you know what he’ll do if you’re late,” Anna pleaded. This time, her threat carried. It had been years since I’d been flogged, and I intended to forget the feeling.

“You’re right, I know…” I grumbled, trailing off as I pulled my blanket around me.

Anna smiled and closed my door, allowing me the privacy to get dressed. She actually weaved this shirt with finer wool than what she would others. It was comforting. I was putting my boots on when, with a look between the wooden shutter and trim, I noticed a distinct strangeness in the sky. The light from behind the cumulus clouds illuminated their edges as though it was nearly midday despite the remnants of night’s dark, but even through my sleep-filled eyes, I knew the morning sunrise would not have done so this early.

When I stepped outside I saw the dregs of night unraveling into the blue morning’s sky, but it seemed much later than early morning.

Anna lived with her mother in the cottage beside mine, connected by the well-worn dirt path which also connected every building in the village. If I could fly as the feathered beasts do, I would say it’s in the shape of a stretched circle, all surrounding the huge central cooking pit. In addition to the central firepit, Helini’s brick oven was by the southern side beside the storehouse. The red meat from the hunted treecats, while delicious, was not enough to get by.

Helini, a stout man, was our baker. When he wasn’t baking, he was grinding the wheat brought from the fields into flour. Decades of baking left his forearms hairless, as proof he could craft the finest bread. He always said he knew when the fire was hot enough when he could hold his hand in the kiln for only ten seconds. Sometimes I wondered if he could feel any heat at all.

Beside the baker’s was the storehouse, and the children were tasked with mouse removal. While they could not move the heavy sacks of supplies, they could reach between them and frighten the creatures from their hiding places. Their constant mischief was well-appropriated for the task. Most children in the village were ratcatchers and assistants for the weavers: holding string for the weavers, running tasks, sending messages, and the like. When they reached the age their bodies grew strength, they were then taught to seed the soil and reap the crop.

I was no different except in one aspect. My father, before he returned to the field, was a woodcrafter, so when I came of age, his tasks became mine. I spent my childhood dragging heavy logs – at least at that time felt like heavy logs – for him to process and carve into furniture and tools. My hands were firm and accurate, each whittling mark precise, though dotted with small scars from the constant barrage of splinters and misaligned tools.

Gerdi tended the woolbeasts and protected them from the forest beasts in addition to upkeeping the fence that kept them close. When their coats grew too large to be comfortable, he was the one to shear and collect it. His accuracy left their hidden skin uncut.

Anna and her mother were both weavers of the cloth. They somehow turned the woolbeast coats into blankets and clothing. How they did so was a mystery; the Elder was stern about not peeking into their house while they worked. I was never one to question the Elder, same as anyone. Without his guidance, our village would certainly have collapsed by now. Disputes were settled in his house, as were debates about the state of our crop, and how we were to dress and act.

Occasionally, around harvest season, he would draft everyone with capable hands go reap the crops. We had a small window to collect before the stalks were to be threshed and used for next spring’s fertilizer. Despite living in a farming village, the concept of actual farming always fascinated me. Not enough to pry the Elder’s knowledge, but enough to wonder what made certain stalks grow taller than others, what conditions produced the fattest fruit. Even the Elder in his wisdom might not know that, though the assumption brought me guilt. The intricacies of the field were a mystery.

The Elder relayed to us all the information given to him through the holy stone confined within his walls. Nobody was allowed to see it, though, so I sometimes entertained the idea that he had no idea what he was saying. His posture betrayed the aches of time and in the wetter months he retained a cough; other than those obvious troubles, he was unfazed by the passage of time. In my twenty-odd years of breath, I never noticed his age change more than it had already.

I joined the gathering by the main firepit for the Elder’s instruction. A general sense of unease pervaded the crowd; we all stayed especially quiet, even the children, and mothers held their children close. Something was different today.

Suddenly I felt a tremble in the earth and my footing was lost; my legs fell out from below me, and I sank between rocky walls deep into the shaking ground and then all became dark.

The chatter of my fellow villagers slowly faded into intelligible language. They had gathered into small huddles around me and near the cracked clay walls of our buildings, bumbling about like the blind, and I realized much more time had passed than mere moments. It was nearly sunset, or so I assumed. The clouded sky blocked what sun came from the east. My usually untroubled people were caked in dirt and their colorful patterned clothing now muted colors and filthy, filthy everywhere on each person except for clean lines from their eyes to their chins. The dust storm left none untouched. Some were unmoving with blank eyes, others rocking in place and grasping at their sleeves. My head was still ringing with language that had meaning but no sound in a way I couldn't explain. The murmuring of those around me in addition to my own scrabbled thoughts only made me more exhausted. Some were speaking and gesturing but I couldn’t bring my mind to focus on anything. A distant rumbling caught my attention. Head turning of its own will, I found myself gazing slack-jawed at a mountain of squirming vines in the distance.

Dark, pulsing, and writhing upon itself, it seemed to grow forever upward. The crown, obscured by the dusty air, pierced the sky with thousands of individual branches which rose above the clouds out of my sight.

I wanted to look more, to understand, but for the time being I just lay there on a pile of dirty blankets, confused and immensely tired. However, the ache of my tormented body brought me closer to full awareness. Anna offered a half-gourd with water. I instinctively reached out and my gaze turned from the water to my sore hands. With a worried look in her eyes, she pushed the gourd at me and I had to take it or risk spillage. The texture in my mouth reminded me of tilling dry fields on a windy morning. I sipped the dust-tinged water, then drank, then gulped mouthfuls. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was. I was starving as well. I hadn’t gotten breakfast this morning but my body believed it’d been days.

I turned to look at everyone who was gathered, though most had fled to their homes. I saw my friends huddled, holding one another and mumbling fearfully, and from somewhere I heard a woman wailing among the general chorus. I heard my people, normally eager, now mournful. Surveying those still gathered, some partners stood alone, sobbing. Even the inseparable families seemed smaller, and those with missing members’ names wailed into the chests of those who remained. I had no one but Anna, but she was fine.

I ignored the stones in my throat and turned to the Elder, asking only one of the hundreds of questions running rampant in my thoughts, “Why does it feel like the village has only just reappeared? Like I’ve been asleep for weeks on end and only now roused from a nightmare.”

His grey eyes became somehow colder than I’d ever seen them. I just knew something larger than I had any concept of had occurred while I was locked in a dream. His tone was intense, and I was intimidated by his words, “Why are you still here? Never mind, what do you remember before you awoke?”

I was still for a moment. I remembered nothing at first. It felt like time had forgotten me. But when I found the strength to focus, half-formed images emerged from some dark recession in my mind. If I hadn’t taken the time to recall, they would have been totally lost.

I relayed what small fragments were reasonably coherent, fragmented as they were, though I myself could make no sense of them. With each word I spoke, the previous faded into nonsense. It was then I knew I could not speak of the horror I had witnessed, I was disallowed by some driving force deep within me erasing the memory of every syllable.

I started with the sensation of darkness through and around me, the heavy smell of unbroken dirt, and then a flash of light.

The Elder sighed a long sigh, its length forced, its message unsympathetic. Its timbre perpetuated the gravity of the situation. He cleared his throat with a phlegmy grumble and raised his voice to announce, “It appears the time has come.” Most people turned to see him, but looked through him. Some cried. “Gaze eastward, and let it be known that the earth has been Tilled in preparation! The harvest shrine rises in the eastern hill.”

He motioned toward the gargantuan being of roots and branches still covering the bulk of the sunset sky. His steely glare slowly turned to meet my own and under his breath I heard him say, “Though I did not expect any to survive.” He returned his stare to the opaque cloud and the figure within as though boring a tunnel through the sky, avoiding the shared look with my widened eyes.

Of the hundreds of questions, another stood out, and I unwillingly asked aloud, “What made me so special to be chosen to be spared? Why was I returned when so many of my people were lost in the earth? Why not Helini? He’s handsome, and on top of that, a skilled baker. Or Marc, who can lift three bags of grain at once? Even Gerdi is better at planting seeds than me. All I do is sit around and whittle away and daydream, and I’m hardly good at that! So why me?” Despite my increasing panic, the Elder was silent, and my pleas fell on deaf ears. “It can’t be me!” My heart froze in place as a new fear surfaced in my mind, “…am I still going to die?”

His face softened to the loose wrinkles so familiar to me and then spoke, “Son, this is the cost of the gift we have been given. The Harvest always accompanies the Tilling of the Earth. We are bound to it, not only by the sacred stone, but also in the call of the early morning’s feathered beast, and in the first raindrops that grant life to the plants, and for the replenishing of our fertile soil. The Harvest provides the land, provides the crop, the tools we require to live. It keeps the waters clean. It supplies good game. All creatures will die if we fail to complete the bargain. It’s a natural, yet unforgiving process. I am sorry that you are one who must bear the greatest burden of the renewal,” and after giving a small nod, continued, “We will try to avoid lingering on it.”

I panicked. My heart had never pounded harder, and although it wasn’t explicitly stated, I knew I was going to die a martyr so my people could continue living. The Elder had never revealed what details the stone read about the world’s renewal, and I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to believe it. Nobody knew exactly what awful demise was laid out for those unfortunate ones taken every cycle.

A handful of times before my father rejoined the earth, I had with childish stubbornness prodded him to hear more; with each attempt I was privy to a threatening glare, and the day’s work became long and laborious. I returned to the present with a jolt, and a rush of clarity overtook my fear, and I could only think of escape. I decided to gather my things and take what bread I could carry, maybe steal an axe from the toolshed…

The men of the village were talking some distance away with the occasional guilty glance in my direction. Whatever I did, it had to be soon. I bolstered my resolve and asked the Elder if I could rest at home until preparations were done. He nodded, but didn’t help me get to my feet. I was dizzy, empty like how starvation saps one’s energy. With trembling hands and wavering knees, I hobbled toward my cottage in the company of the Elder. Soothed by the repeated crunch of gravel amid the torrent of fear, hazy half-formed questions began to slip into my mind and my motions became automatic.

I knew the legends. Everybody did. But they seemed unreal, just stories and explanations you’d tell a child who asked too many questions. Sometimes I even doubted the god of the fields’ existence. I never told anyone out of fear. According to the Elder, the ancient stone demanded complete faith in the goodness of the fields, but it was just a marked stone. I never imagined the day the words became truth and the Tilling of the Earth began. The god’s cyclical rebirth which allegedly brings renewal of the world, fueled by sacrifice.

I steadied myself against the wood-framed entrance of my home. “Rest for now. We will come for you once we gather provisions for the hill journey,” the Elder said, turning from me. I hurried behind the old wooden door as best I could, pausing to light the candle on my desk. Dust had blown in through my open window on the other side of my dwelling but did not get far into my home. The window opposite the entrance opened to a sparsely wooded ravine at the base of the hill. I knew the near forest well, and I hoped that would be well enough. My bed was untouched by dirt, and though not made, was clean enough for me to take a seat without getting dirty. My home was cluttered with faded trinkets and worn wood-handled tools. Whether or not I had tidied up seemed irrelevant now.

Leaning toward my small wooden table as much as possible without pain, I shuffled through its drawer for my father’s graverock. “Father, I miss you today,” I said, clutching the small carved stone to my chest. My eyes watered and tears began to roll down my cheeks. “I n- need your help. I- I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared,” I stammered between sniffles. Spiraling in sadness, I slumped onto my side as tears rolled across my face, and between soft sobs, I held the graverock to my chest, hoping to somehow incorporate my father’s strength into my own heart.

My mother traded her life for my own when I was brought to this realm in this form. My father carried me until I could walk and caught me when I fell. He was a strong-willed man. He taught me how to swing the scythe and knead the soil, and what color clay was best for building. When I was caught in the current of the nearby river, just when I thought myself dead, his hands lifted me out.

Lost somewhere between memories, the final image of him when I was a child came into view. I was young and struggling to lift the soil from the pile beside his burial pit. I wished so strongly I could see him without dirt framing his face one last time. Using the shovel he built I tossed the soil that would reunite him with the earth, in the field we all return to, before we planted the seed for his sapling to grow.

Drifting, I lay there suspended outside the normal flow of time, lost in thought. The light had disappeared behind the giant figure and night descended, hastened by the hidden sun. No moonlight shone. My face had dried but the darkened spots on my pillow remained. As I lay there, my mind shifted between the far past to recent memory.

I was always told to keep to my work, and for the most part, I did. My body was well-conditioned to shape furniture and carve, so I was pigeonholed into that role. However, that did nothing to stop my nightly stargazing and early morning wanderings.

I shifted slightly and felt a piercing pain behind my eyes that made me cry out, and I was brought back to full attention. I waited for the burning ache to fade, and after some time, it all but disappeared into a hot simmer and I was able to put it out of my mind. Alone in the stillness of my cottage, and cognizant enough to think, The Elder’s words never quite left me, and echoed over and over with ever-greater intensity:

“A natural, yet unforgiving process.”

A sinking part of me wanted to succumb and accept my predestiny. It would be easier for everyone, especially the escorts, but the thought of giving up twisted my stomach. I tied the graverock to a string of sinew and wore it as a necklace. As I contemplated, a small but growing inkling seemed to scream and wriggle ever louder. My forehead burned like I’d been struck, and what began as a whisper grew and brought with it sensations of a grand injustice. I couldn’t help but feel energized; I was a powerful visitor, a stranger, controlling my own body. Pacing in my room, I spat the words.

“Natural? Sending me to my death was natural?” The flight of the birds was natural, and the treecat’s stealthy hunting was natural, but not this. I felt an unfamiliar warmth flow through me and my voice became louder. “And what will they do once I die? They’ll eat the meals from meats I gave them; they’ll drink water from streams I renewed, their crops will grow large and plentiful because of me, and I will be sent to perish in some terrible way far from my home?”

My breath came faster and my thoughts raced. The more I focused on their betrayal, the more heat replaced the fear in my heart, and the more capable I felt. I balled my hands into fists, and within their grip I squeezed the graverock with white knuckles. “Who are they to decide my fate for me?” I scoffed at the thought. It now seemed ridiculous that I should sacrifice myself for these people.

Flickering shadows under my door revealed three figures approaching outside with a torch. It was time. With visions of rage clouding my sight, I asked aloud, “Am I really to die for their benefit? To be a pawn for powers unknown?”

A fire burned in my chest, reinvigorating my will. I was no longer exhausted, but uplifted, energy plentiful despite what my destiny was to be. A solid knock on the door made me think it was Marc on the other side, and he spoke words muddled by the throbbing in my ears. All of my focus was held captive by this new feeling. The blood was pounding through my head louder and louder while my heart and fingertips grew hot and for the first time in my life I knew what they meant by power.

I won’t let them take me to my death. I will not die for their sake!

“I will not die for you!”

The words burst from my mouth with a massive bang as sparks flew in from the now blown-open door. A gigantic ball of white fire brighter than the uncovered sun appeared from the air. In an instant, its heat permeated every grain on the door and frame and the rapid expansion blew the wood to splinters, and the men outside could do nothing in time. Helini’s once-handsome face bubbled, burst, and sloughed from his skull, his eyes already gone and his breath from his lungs ignited before he could scream. The black-marked flesh of the terrified man behind him sagged and fell to the ground, and he died grabbing his own head as the muscles steamed and disintegrated. The third man was nowhere to be seen, though there was a shadow on the ground.

That same instant, the thatch roof exploded into flame, billowing out in rounded waves, and I remember hearing frantic screaming over the crackling roar. It smelled like the smoky bonfire air following a good hunt, overpowering, and the two scorched corpses outside my burning home left my mind as I leapt through the open window and sprinted down into the bramble-riddled ravine.

My head was empty and my body buzzed. I became some primal animal guided by only instinct. With each bountiful stride, thorns grabbed at my leggings and rocks threatened to shatter my legs at any misstep. It was a black night with no moon, but even through the darkness I could navigate. I ran until my legs strained with each step and I knew I could go no further without rest. I slowed my pace. The shadows of the young trees danced as if backlit from a fire, and I wondered how that were possible while draped in night’s cloak. It was only then I fully realized I could see because the light from the towering wall of flames illuminated far out into the darkness.

I stared into the distant glow and half-believed I heard shouting, but the deep roar and crackle of the fire masked all sound save the quickened beating of my heart and gasping breath. Each pulse made my head and hands throb, and it quickly became distracting enough that I fell against a large oak and held my body up with my hands on my knees. Everything ached, especially my forehead. Feeling only the rise and fall of my chest, I again turned to watch my village burn. The only place I’ve lived, the only people I really knew were consumed in flame.

My flame.

I had cheated fate.

I gave a tired half-laugh to no one, enjoying my victory, but something wasn’t right. I felt my breath become heavy and my heart ached. A growing agony formed in my stomach and worked its way into my chest and shoulders, the thick agony of regret, and I dropped to my hands and knees and vomited onto the leaf-covered ground. Now as my body quivered, empty and tired, my open palms smashed handprints and sank into the soil and my work-blistered fingers clawed grooves in the into the forest floor. I had just won the fight to breathe normally when reality caught up to me.

I actually burned down my village. I burned them before they could do it to me. Oh, fields above, I’ve killed them! Then something dripped from my nose unlike the aftermath of sickness and the immediate air smelt of metal. It dripped again, and a third time, faster until several small streams formed. I grew dizzier with each group of droplets. What is this? Rain? No, it’s far too hot for rain…

Wiping the blood from my face, I was immediately entranced. I discovered a faint reflection across my blood-smeared, grimy skin, and at first thought it moonlight, but there was no moon tonight. Anxiety fluttered when a hint of light danced from somewhere deep in my skin, and while I was briefly startled, familiarity reassured me. In the blood on my palm and equally beneath my skin, a swirling shone vaguely, then it slowed and the ethereal lines gradually enmeshed themselves closer. As I began to study their movements closer, the glow simmered brighter ever so slightly, and then some innate recognition clicked.

Much like the gold-lined clouds making way for the midday sun- with increasing clarity I could decipher a single feeling coming from deep within the faint light under my skin:

GOOD

It was understandable but for a second, lasting seemingly until I understood, then retreated, fading darker in my skin. The light receded further until darkness covered it and appeared to snuff it out. For a moment I thought I smelt faint smoke. The throbbing slowed, and with the sickness and hunger, I felt far too weak to stay upright. I collapsed onto my side, and I saw embers rising above me as the world spun into blackness.

__________________________________________________________________

I am floating, cradled in steady flame, smothering blackness around me as far as I can see. Then there is another figure, some distance away, also in flame, and then another, and another, and our collective light reveals above us a dark and swirling maelstrom. Thunder rings out, and water begins to fall, and we cry out in fear, and one by one the lights are dampened, and I am once more alone in the darkness, just as before.