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The morning of June 27th was dark and still, as it had been on the 26th, and would be on the 28th. The air hung heavy over the untended field beside the post office, where thick patches of mountain laurel, stinging nettle, and pokeweed choked out lesser plants. In some towns, attempts were made, from time to time, to tame the field, but in this village where there were just three hundred people, there never seemed to be labor for such a fruitless task. Indeed, though it was in plain sight, most days the villagers’ eyes slid across the field without noticing the tangled, twisted growth.

At around ten, something began to change. A light wind stirred the leaves and the drone of insects faded. Figures began to pick their way out of the field and towards the square where the children were gathering stones. Linda Summers came first, blinking and turning her head to and fro, a look of wonder on her eyes. She was as beautiful as she had been a year ago, wearing a pallid blue dress that showed her youthful figure. John Watson followed, still dressed for a day of work. He hurried to the square, looking this way and that. “Jack,” he said. “Has anyone seen my young Jack?”

Soon, others arrived. Little Robert Summers, wearing knickers and a dirty shirt, his pockets bulging with rocks, raced into the square. He almost bumped into Ruth Warner, her belly round with her unborn. Jenny Baxter, who was walking with Ruth, said, “Go to your sister, Robby. She’s doesn’t know.” Robert Summers frowned at her, but he went to Linda Summer’s side and Linda’s eyes widened in astonishment as he took her hand. Henrietta Dunbar came with old Wilson Dellacroix. Widow Hutchinson wandered around the edges, calling out to her long dead husband, Roy, who never came. Then came the Cheeseboroughs and Boggusts, the Gridleys and Royses. Wearing homespun, or old-fashioned black and white plain dress, they kept to themselves.

The frith would be conducted, as it had been for some decades now, by wild-eyed Drew Warner. Drew Warner, who had grown into adulthood as a strange, distracted man that women had found frightening, had been the last hope for the Warner name. He scurried into the square, carrying the scythe of his office and there was a murmur among the gathered. They moved away to form a loose circle. He was followed by an old Indian man, carrying the box. Even among the odd gathering, the old Indian man was an oddity, and no one’s eyes settled on him for long.

Linda Summers, who clung to her brother’s hand, said to him, “What’s wrong with the Injun? If I look at him too long, it makes me all dizzy.”

Robert Summers looked up at his sister. “He was the first,” he said.

“First?” said Linda Summers.

Chastity Wilbore, who wore a bonnet that only somewhat contained her curly grey hair, looked down at Robert. “He is not the first, you fool boy. There used to be many more savages.”

“Where’d they go then?” Robert asked.

Chastity Wilbore pulled her shawl around her shoulders glared at Robert, her face set and hard. “Mind your manners,” she admonished.

The other world was visible around them. Jack Watson towered over his mother near the edge of the crowd. John Watson went to stand next to them. “Oh Jackie,” he said to his son. “Look at how big you are! I am so proud of you.”

Little Davy Hutchinson toddled by Linda Summers. She dropped down on one knee and reached for the boy. “Davy!” she cried. “Come here!” but the boy continued on by, passing through her arms. “Look, Robby,” she said to her brother. “Davy has grown so much!”

Robert Summers put his hand on Linda’s shoulder. “Ignore them,” he said. But then Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix ran by and Robert Summers sprinted off after them. “Get back here, Robby Summers,” called out Chastity Wilbore. “You know better!”

Mr. Summers, who was standing in the middle of the gathering in this world, as well as in his own, had his hand deep in the box as he stirred the papers.

The old Indian let out an eerie cry, and all of the gathered looked towards him.

Robert Summers came back to his sister. “Papa!” Linda Summers whispered as she stared at Mr. Summers. “Why? Why did you let them?” Robert Summers tried to take her hand, but she snatched it away. “Why?” she demanded of her brother. “Both of us! How could he?”

Drew Warner came to a stop in front of Linda Summers. He towered over her and the scythe in his right hand made him seem even taller. She let out a small cry and took a step back. She had never met Drew Warner, but that he was Old Man Warner’s kin, there could be no mistake. Old Man Warner’s face was wizened and Drew Warner’s face was smooth, but it was the same face, with the same thin lips, the same aquiline nose, the same green eyes.

Drew Warner looked down at her for a moment, and then he turned away and took a half a dozen long strides back to the center of the circle. Raising his voice, he addressed the crowd of ragged souls. “The neophyte Linda Summers asked a question! Who would answer her?”

The crowd murmured and shifted. Drew Summers turned, meeting the gaze of one person, and then the next. Makepeace Royse, a giant of a man in plain dress, called out, “For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. Exodus, 9:14.”

“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon,” called out David Hutchinson.

“Hell is empty,” shouted out Widow Dellacroix. “All the devils are here.”

A smile twitched on Drew Warner’s face as he looked back at Linda Summers. “Do you understand now?”

Linda looked from Drew Warner, to John Watson, to her brother and around the circle. She looked back to Drew Warner and shook her head. The mocking smile on Drew’s face softened. He looked around the gathering. “Where’s baby Bentham?” he asked.

Mathilda Bentham, who had been the baby’s great great grandmother, shook her head. “I don’t think there was anything left,” she said.

There was a soft sound as the gathered took a breath. Drew Warner dipped his head. “Long is the way and hard, find the light, Bentham,” he said.

The crowded echoed Drew Warner, speaking as one, “Long is the way and hard, find the light Bentham.” There was a moment of silence, and then Drew Warner said, “Let’s begin. Come, Tatoson.”

The old Indian man followed Drew Warner, carrying the box. They walked towards Linda Summers. Linda Summers tried to shrink back into the crowd but Robert put his arm around her waist. “It doesn’t have to hurt,” he said under his breath. “Think of something. Something you won’t miss. Something bad.”

“What do you mean?” Linda Summers asked her brother.

Tatoson sat the box in front of Linda Summers, between her and Drew Warner. Drew Warner met Linda Summers’s eyes, and this time she was unable to look away. “Stone by stone, we build a wall,” Drew Warner said as he lifted the scythe. Locked in his gaze, she found herself…she found herself…

***

It was summer, six years ago, a few months after her twin brother had been taken. She still woke up screaming some nights, remembering what that chip of wood with the black dot had looked like in Robby’s small hand, remembering what the smooth, round stone that her father had given her had felt like. She had never thrown it. When all was done, she had still been clinging to the stone.

It was a hot summer day, but she did not feel like going swimming with the other kids, or laying in the shade of the maple tree. She was curled up on her bed, not reading the book that lay open next to her. “Linda!” her mother called. “It’s dinner time. Go get your father!”

There was little call for coal at this time of year, but yet her father was working long hours in the office. Reluctantly, Linda got out of bed, fixed her ponytail, and walked downstairs. “Okay, mama,” she said.

She walked across the town, taking the long way by the library and general store, behind the post office, to her father’s office. The town was still with the heat. A few limp dogs lay panting in what patches of shade they had found. Steve Adams sat on his front stoop with John Watson, talking about the price of corn. In the distance, she could hear the shouts of the kids, as they splashed and jumped off the rope swing at the river’s bend.

The coal office was a neat white storefront with a glass window. “Hutchinson Coal” was painted on the window in big red letters. In smaller white letters underneath it said “Joe Hutchinson, proprietor.” The door had “Closed” sign hanging in the window, but she pushed on it and it opened, causing the bell to ding. “We’re closed!” her father called from the back.

“Papa?” she said. “Mama wants you to come home for dinner.”

Her father grunted. “I’ll be home later.”

The front counter was at about her shoulder height. There were two places for people to sit on stools behind the counter, and a neat stack of order forms in a basket between them. There was a spot, off to the side, where she could duck under the counter and go through to the back where her father’s office was.

She found him at his desk with several ledgers open. He was working on a sheet of scrap paper, tallying numbers. “Seven plus four is eleven,” he muttered. “Carry the one. That makes $71.63.” He made a note of the number and then started another calculation.

“Papa,” Linda said, after waiting for him to finish. “Mama says to come home for dinner.”

“I’m in the middle of something,” he said.

Linda looked at her father. The top of his round, balding head glistened with sweat and his white shirt was soaked through. She took a step forward. “Can I help?” she said. “Mrs. Dellacroix said I was really good at arithmetic.”

Joe Summers looked at her. “Did she?” he asked, after a moment.

Linda nodded.

Linda saw her father open his mouth and then shut it. “Come here,” he said, pushing his chair back a bit. “Can you fit on my knee?”

She was too big to fit on his knee, but she stood in front of him, looking across his desk as he looked over her shoulder. His arms came around hers as he pointed at the ledgers. “See, here is where I record the inventory. Bituminous…anthracite. We get deliveries every two weeks in the winter, once a month in the summer. Here is where we record the accounts. See, here’re the Martins, they get 200 pounds per week delivered in the winter. They haven’t had a delivery since March, but just the other day he came by and asked for a hundredweight. Here is the Dunbars, and the Graves,” he said as he flipped the pages.

“But what are you doing?”

“Well,” he said. “According to my records, we should have 2264 lbs of anthracite. I had young Kenny Harburt do an inventory yesterday and there were 2278 lbs in the yard. I am trying to figure out who did not get what they ordered.”

Linda frowned. “How do you do that?”

Joe Summers pushed the chair back to make a bit more space. He leaned back and looked up at an empty space on the shelf for a moment. Then he looked back at Linda. “Everything has to balance,” he said at last. “Coal comes in, coal goes out. Money comes in, money goes out. Everything is like that. You just have to keep track, match it up.”

Linda blinked at her father. “Oh,” she said.

He sighed and glanced back at his books. “I’ll figure it out tomorrow. Come on, let’s not keep Mrs. Summers waiting, huh?”

“Okay!” she said.

****

…she found herself staring into Drew Warner’s eyes, her own eyes full of tears. The blade of the scythe was down near Drew Warner’s ankles. The old Indian man stood next to him, struggling under the weight of the box. The box was not empty any more. It was full of stones, each about the size of her fist. Each stone gave off a faint light. “Makepeace, please come help Tatoson,” Drew Warner called out. Makepeace Royse came forward and took the other side of the box. Together, they carried the box to one side of the square and dumped the stones on the ground.

Robert Summers pushed Drew Warner. “How dare you!” he shouted. “How dare you take so much!”

David Hutchinson, who looked to be about the same age as Linda, grabbed Robert’s shoulders, pulled him back.

“Careful,” Drew Warner warned the boy.

“Don’t sully it,” David Hutchinson said.

Robert looked from one to the other and then said, “Let me go,” as he pulled free of David Hutchinson’s grasp.

Linda Summers looked at her brother. “What just happened?” she asked him.

Robert turned away. It was Widow Dellacroix, the school teacher, who answered. “Nathan Hale had it easy. He died but once. For us, we die over and over, piece by piece.” She looked back at Drew Warner. “Come on, boy. Get the firth done! Time’s a-passing. They are about to start drawing names.”

Drew Warner turned to John Watson. John Watson drew himself up straight as Tatoson set the box down in front of him. He closed his eyes for a second, and then opened them, looking straight into Drew Warner’s eyes. “I’m ready,” he said.

“Stone by stone, we build a wall,” Drew Warner said as he lifted the scythe.

***

And ready he was. He walked up the path to Old Man Warner’s house, his toolbox in hand. He probably only needed a hammer for this job, but he liked to be prepared, even if it meant lugging the whole kit and caboodle along.

Mr. Warner had asked for his help repairing a board on his porch that had rotted. “It’s not so easy, getting down on my knees no more,” he had said. John, who had been raised to help others, had readily agreed. He felt sorry for the old man with no kin.

When he got to Warner’s house, it did not seem like anyone was there. An ancient horse with a sway back stood under a tree, idly flicking its tail. A battered truck sat in the driveway. The horse apparently kept the grass well trimmed, but house itself was in some disrepair. A shutter had fallen from a window and was propped against the side of the house. There was a tangled rose bush, almost as large as the truck, that blocked the front windows and draped out into the yard.

He walked up the steps onto the porch. The porch was littered with forgotten things. A yellowed newspaper lay on the ground next to a rocking chair. Two or three empty coffee mugs had been forgotten, and they were now full of something green and unwholesome. A crumpled blanket that had been left on one of the chairs had been turned into a nest by some animal. The boards of the porch itself seemed sound enough, but the grey paint was peeling. He knocked lightly on the door. There was no answer. He called out as he knocked again, “Mr. Warner? It’s John. John Watson. I’ve come to help, like you asked.” There was no answer.

Wondering if the old man was all right, he left his toolbox on the porch walked down the steps and around the house. He tried to peer in the windows as he went. Around the side of the house he found a weedy flowerbed with a rusty trowel and a spade lying forgotten in the grass nearby. The first window he could peer in revealed a tidy, dusty sitting room with many framed photographs covering the walls and propped on every surface. There was no one in the room. He kept walking. As he got around to the back, he heard Warner’s voice. He couldn’t make out what the old man was saying, nor who he was talking to, but he heard the voice, and then there was a pause, like Warner was listening to a reply, and then he heard the voice again.

That, at least, was a relief. John Watson had been worrying that he was going to find the old man dead on the floor.

He could see Mr. Warner’s back through the window in the kitchen door, but not whom he was talking to. He knocked on the kitchen door and Mr. Warner jumped and turned around. When he saw who it was, he came over to the door and opened it. “John Watson!” he said. “Come in, come in! I was just waiting for you.”

John Watson stepped into the kitchen. There was no one else in the room.

***

And John Watson stood in the square, and broke the gaze with Drew Warner. Drew Warner put his hand on John’s shoulder and held it for a second, before shaking his head. “Papa must be lonely,” he said softly. “Talking to Edwin during the day.” Abruptly, he let John Watson go and looked down at the box. There were half a dozen luminescent rocks. “Well done, John Watson.”

Tatoson and Makepeace Royse again lifted the box and took it over to the other rocks.

Linda Summers, who was still standing nearby, said to her brother, “What does he mean? Well done? And where did the rocks come from?”

It was John Watson that answered. “The rocks are…pieces of us. Our memories of what we had been. What we did. We loose them, bit by bit, until there is nothing left. Do you notice how most of the folks in old-fashioned clothes are all old? It’s because they have a lifetime to parcel out, stone by stone. There were kids lotteried back then, same as now. The kids don’t last.” Linda Summers looked around, her eyes wide. John Watson continued. “Last year was my first year, like this year is yours. I lost something important. I don’t know what it was, but it was something about my boy, about Jack. I didn’t know any better. This year I think I did better.”

“Oh.” Linda Summers looked at her brother. “That’s why you said think of something bad.”

Robert Summers nodded. “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Hopefully you did, cause it’s gone now.”

Linda Summers looked at the rock pile. John Watson’s had been added to hers. “Why?” she asked, as she stared at the rocks. “What is the reason for all this?”

John Watson interrupted her. “Can you tell me about Jack?” he asked. “How is he doing?”

Linda Summers looked at John Watson. “What?” she said.

“I know you weren’t really friends and all, but I was wondering if you could tell me about him. Boys change a lot in a few years.”

Linda Summers blushed. “Actually,” she said. “We were friends, for a bit. He took me to some of the dances. The Mayday dance, before…” her voice trailed off for a moment, but then she looked back at John Watson. “The Mayday dance. He brought me a huge bunch of daffodils.” She smiled at the memory. “It was fun,” she said.

John Watson smiled back. “Good boy,” he said. “He treated you right?”

Linda Summers nodded. “He was a real gentleman.”

John Watson beamed.

Meanwhile, Drew Warner and Tatoson were setting up with Widow Dellacroix. “Hello, Drew,” she said quietly.

Drew Warner raised an eyebrow.

Widow Dellacroix looked him in the eye. “Stone by stone, we build a wall,” Drew Warner said as he lifted the scythe.

***

Mrs. Dellacroix had a desk in the back of her neat classroom. Every day, thirty-eight village children came to her room for primary school, where she taught them to read and write, figure and think. Some left for apprenticeships, others went to work in their family business. Rarely, a child would go on to the secondary in the next town over.

Her husband had died last winter of pneumonia. Now, she had divided her time between her classroom, and her grandson, Dickie, spending long hours with both. Dickie was a rascal, like his father had been, but she loved him.

She was working her way through a pile of stories the children had written. The youngest children had dictated their short sentences to an older child, and then they had illustrated then. The older children wrote their stories themselves. It was a delight to see the progression of the children’s skills.

When the door banged open, she looked up. Mr. Summers walked in, followed by his wife. She put her pen down and stood. “Thank you for coming,” she said.

Mr. Summers bobbed his head. “Of course,” he said.

Mrs. Delacroix gestured at a small grouping of student desks that she had arranged to face each other. “Please,” she said. She picked up a folder from her desk and perched herself onto a student-sized seat.

“Is everything okay?” Mrs. Summers asked as she sat on the small chair, her knees folded to the side.

“We were so worried when we got your message,” Mr. Summers said as he sat down.

Mrs. Delacroix shook her head. “No, no,” she said. “Everything is fine. I wanted to show you this.”

Mrs. Delacroix offered the folder to Mr. Summers. Mr. Summers opened it. Inside were several papers that Linda had written.

“What is this?” Mr. Summers asked, handing the folder to Mrs. Summers.

“Linda is finishing 6th grade this year,” she said. “Those papers, I reckon, they are at least 9th grade level work. I have taught her about all I know and she keeps looking for more. She should go to another school next year.”

Mrs. Summers shook her head. “Why?” she said. “What does she need that for?”

“She has questions,” Mrs. Delacroix said. “Interesting questions. About a year ago, she got a book from the travelling library. It talks about supply and demand and why things have the prices they have. I don’t think she understands it all, but she wants to. She is a smart girl.”

Mr. Summers frowned. “You want her to go to the regional?”

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Delacroix said, “but I have another option.” She held out a folded pamphlet. “The Miss Jane Hall school is a private boarding school for girls. I know the headmaster there and I sent him some of Linda’s work. He thinks that Linda would do well there. There is a scholarship.”

Mr. Summers eyes widened. “She would leave? Not live here?”

Mrs. Summers shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

Mrs. Delacroix pushed the pamphlet at them. “Please, look at it. This really is an extraordinary opportunity. She’d learn so much. Literature, the arts, music, culture. She’d have a chance to meet people from all over. She is so smart. She’d be with smart girls.”

Mr. Summers twisted his head from side to side. “No,” he said decisively. “This is where she belongs.”

Mrs. Summers said, “She wouldn’t know anyone. She’d be lonely.”

Mr. Summers said, “I need her help with the business. There is so much to do. She is learning to keep the books.”

Mrs. Summers said, “She knows enough for what she has to do. She doesn’t need any more books, or culture.”

Mrs. Delacroix looked from one to the other, “But what does she want?” she asked, quietly.

Mr. Summers stood up. “She is a child,” he said. “She does not know what she wants.” Mrs. Summers also stood. Mr. Summers put his arm around her waist.

Mrs. Delacroix looked up at them and said softly, “But don’t you want her to get away from here? Have a chance?”

Mr. Summers pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, pulling himself up straight. “She has a chance here. Same as anybody. Things happen for a reason,” he said. “Things account. There is a price to be paid. You can’t mess with the laws of nature.” He shook his head. “No, she’s not going. She can continue to study with you, if you’ll have her, but that’s enough.”

Mrs. Delacroix sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Mrs. Summers snapped, “You should be. It’s been more’n a generation since a Delacroix was chosen. You have a lot of nerve.”

Mr. Summers tugged at his wife. “Please, be quiet.” He looked at Mrs. Delacroix, “I’m really sorry for her behavior,” he said. “Please excuse us.”

***

And Drew Warner dropped the scythe and Widow Delacroix looked down at her feet to see the stones that had come. “Thank you,” Drew Warner said to her. Tatoson took the box away and Widow Delacroix nodded at Drew Warner. “Certainly, son,” she said, and they both laughed at that.

Linda Summers looked at her brother. “Why are they laughing?” she asked, but Robert was not paying attention. His fists were balled and he was staring into the distance. “Are you okay?” she asked her brother.

David Hutchinson answered, “He’s next. He’s focusing on his memory.” He nodded at Widow Delacroix and Drew Warner who were still laughing at something. “It was before my time, but I heard they dated when they were teenagers. It was apparently quite scandalous.”

Linda Summers looked at the teenaged figure of Drew Warner and old Widow Delacroix. “This is so confusing,” she said.

David Hutchinson half-laughed. “You’ll get a hang of it, once you get to know everyone and how they are related.”

Linda Summers looked up at him for a moment. “You are related to Mr. Hutchinson?”

David Hutchinson nodded. “He’s my brother. Named his youngest for me.”

“Little Davy!” Linda Summers said. “I babysat for him, before he was big enough to leave with his sister.”

“What’s he like?” David Hutchinson asked.

Linda smiled, looking off in the distance. “Aw, he was a good baby. Biddable. He took long naps.”

David Hutchinson smiled wistfully. “I wish I could have met him.”

Drew Warner approached Robert Summers. “Are you ready, Robert?” he asked.

White-faced and tense, Robert Summers nodded. Drew Warner bent down to adjust the box, and then when he stood he met Robert Summers’s eyes. “Stone by stone, we build a wall,” Drew Warner said as he lifted the scythe.

***

Robby Summers sat on a log, looking across the crackling campfire at Horace Dunbar and Baxter Martin. Two days ago, school had let out. They were done with fourth grade. Weeks of glorious summer lay ahead.

“Come on, Robby,” Horace said. “Your turn to tell a story.”

“Tell the one about Bloody Mary,” Baxter said.

Robby shook his head. “We don’t got a mirror,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Horace said. “We can pretend.”

“I tell you, it’s no good without a mirror,” Robby insisted.

“Then tell a different one,” Baxter said.

Robby looked at his friends’ faces through the flickering fire and then leaned back and looked up at the dark sky. He couldn’t make out the stars, but embers drifted up with the smoke.

He looked down, his face scrunched up and his eyes narrowed. “Fine,” he rasped. The other two boys hooted with delight.

“One night,” Robby said, speaking in a whisper, “I was walking through the square, by the post office. It was a dark and there was no moon. Mommy had sent me over to the Adams’s to return some shears she had borrowed. As I was walking home, the wind picked up a bit, and it was cold. Suddenly, I realized I was standing right on the spot where Mr. Hutchinson’s brother had been standing last year.”

“Oooh,” said Horace, his eyes wide.

“I got him good,” said Baxter. “Right in the arm.”

“I heard a sound behind me, kind of like a moan, like this,” Robby groaned, leaning into the fire so that a huge shadow was cast behind him. “I turned around, and there was a man standing there, looking at me. He was dressed in overalls, and his face was covered in blood.

“Then I realized it was David Hutchinson. He was dressed just the way he had been, in that yellow shirt we had laughed at ‘cause it looked like pee. He looked right at me. All the hairs on my arm stood up. He raised his hand and pointed at me. My heart was pounding so hard in my ears and I was shaking. Then I saw his mouth move but I couldn’t hear him. I shook my head and he spoke again and this time I heard him, but not with my ears. The way his voice happened sort of was inside my head. He said to me…

Another voice, a deep voice, interrupted Robby. “You’re next,” it said. “You’re next Robby Summers.”

All three boys screamed. They scrambled off the logs and rocks they had been sitting on and spun around, looking for the intruder.

Old Man Warner stepped out of the woods.

All three boys knew Mr. Warner. He was the second oldest person in the village, only Baxter’s grandma was older, and he lived by himself. At various times, each of the boys had been to his house, sent by their mothers to bring him a loaf of fresh bread or a small pot of stew. On those errands, they reluctantly crept up the winding dirt road to the house that was set off by itself. The plantings around the house were overgrown. They tangled in the clothes of a passerby. Sometimes, when they got there, Mr. Warner would be sitting on his step, talking like he was talking to someone, but there was never anyone there. Other times, he didn’t answer the door. On those occasions, they left the food on the porch and pelted back down the road.

“I heard you all was camping out here. Came to check on you. Did you know, this bit of land is next to mine?” The three boys stared at him. “Connects in the back. I used to come out this way when I was your age.” He looked around the clearing for a moment, pausing to touch the branches of a tree. Then he turned back to them. “Want a chocolate bar?” He held a wrapped bar out to the kids.

The boys looked at each other, and then at Mr. Warner. “Go on,” he said, extending the chocolate bar closer to Robby. Hesitantly, Robby took it.

Mr. Warner sat down on a rock by the fire. “You got a nice blaze going here. Feels good. Even though it is June, still can be a bit chilled at night. Telling ghost stories?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Horace said.

“I got one,” he said looking at each of them. “Wanna hear it?

Robby looked at Horace and then Baxter. The warm crackling of the fire was familiar. Old Man Warner had just startled them. They settled back into their seats. “Sure,” Robby said. He unwrapped the candy bar. “Thank you for the chocolate.” He broke off a piece and handed the bar to Horace.

Old Man Warner looked at the other boys. Horace and Baxter nodded. Mr. Warner smiled.

“Okay,” he said. “You know that field that’s next to the post office, in the town square?” The boys frowned at him. “Oh, for the love of St. Pete,” he said. “It’s next to the post office. It’s full of brambles and nettles.”

Baxter, said, speaking slowly, “The field where they bury the lotteries?”

Robby and Horace looked at him, their eyes wide.

“They bury the lotteries?” Robby said.

“I never thought about that,” said Horace.

“I heard, after last time,” Baxter said. “Mr. Summers came over to our house and was talking to my dad. They said they had to go in a bit, to find a place where they could dig. There were so many bones.”

Old Man Warner looked at each of them, “tis a bad place, that field. When my parents were little, when people still did it right, people respected that land. Respected its power. By the time I was your age, people had begun to forget.

“Back in those days, I had a brother, Edwin, and a sister, Grace. Edwin and I were twins, and Grace was younger. When Edwin and I were ten, our mom was taken in the lottery. After that, my dad went strange. He drank a lot. We stayed away from him. Edwin and I, we were big enough, but little Gracie, she was too young to loose her mama.

“One day, Edwin and I had been working for Mr. Adams, not the Mr. Adams, you know, his father. He had us splitting wood, and we came back to the house, little Gracie was not home. We went looking for her. For hours and hours we searched. It got dark. In the end, we found her. She was wandering by the post office, her dress ripped and scratches all over her arms and face. She had lost one of her shoes and that foot was all bloody. When we asked her what she was doing, she said she went to see mama.

“We took her home and got her cleaned up. At first, she seemed right enough, but after that she took to wandering in the woods, alone. We’d get up in the morning and she’d be gone. Or, we’d walk with her back from the river and she’d be right beside us, and then we’d turn and she’d be gone. She’d turn up, hours later, her ponytails in disarray, and tell us about the stories mama had told her.

“One day she just stopped coming back. Edwin and I, we searched for her for days. We found her sweater, actually tangled up in that tree.” Mr. Warner pointed at the tree across the clearing, the one he had paused to touch, “but that’s all we ever found. I figured that a mountain lion got her. Or a coyote. But Edwin, Edwin had a different idea. He went to that field by himself one night. He went to demand answers.” Old Man Warner shook his head, looking very old indeed.

“What happened?” asked Baxter.

Old Man Warner looked right at him. “Never saw him again. One day, though, walking by that field, something caught my eye and I stopped.” He paused and looked at each of the boys, “I swear, god as my witness. There in the dirt at my feet, two words were being written, like a finger was being dragged through the dust. It said, ‘help me’.”

Old Man Warner took a breath and looked at them. “Well, you boys have a good night,” he said cheerfully, standing up. “Say hi to Gracie for me, if she comes by.” And with that, he left.

It was a long time before the boys said anything. Finally, Robby said, “Do you think it’s true?”

***

And Drew Warner dropped the scythe and Robert Summers looked down at his feet to see the stones that had come. “Thank you,” Drew Warner said to him. Robert Summers looked at Drew Warner, holding his eyes for a moment, before turning away with a shiver.

One by one, in the other world, the heads of families were making their way up to the box to draw a slip of paper. It had once been chips of wood, and in those days, the men had held their chips tight in their fists, not peeking, until the drawing was done.

Linda Summers turned to her brother. “Are you alright?” she asked.

Robert Summers did not meet her eyes. Instead, he turned away and stalked over to the growing pile of luminescent rocks and kicked it. “I hate this,” he said. He gestured at where Mr. Summers was presiding over the box. “I hate him.” And then he spun around and found Old Man Warner in the crowd. He stalked over and punched at the shadowy shape, his fists passing through, ineffectively. “And, you. You know. You know everything.”

Drew Warner glanced at Robert Summers, his lips pressed tightly together. Lifting his chin, he nodded at Chastity Wilbore. Chastity met his eye, and then followed his gaze over to Robert Summers. She left her place, where she was standing with other Wilbores, and went over to the boy.

Meanwhile, Drew Warner approached David Hutchinson. “Are you ready, David?” he asked.

David Hutchinson threw open his arms. “Take it,” he said. “Let’s get this done.”

“Stone by stone, we build a wall,” Drew Warner said as he lifted the scythe.

***

Town Meeting happened the first Saturday in March, when there was still snow on the ground. Aside from lambing, there was not much work to be done on the farms in March. Early morning, hours before the meeting was due to start, David crunched his way through the snow to the Congregational church where the meeting would take place. They used to hold the meeting in the town hall, but since suffrage, they had needed a bigger space.

David had offered to help Mr. Summers set up. Mr. Summers, who would be moderating for the first time, found the whole process a little overwhelming. David, who was finally old enough to vote, was attending for the first time and, frankly, he felt much the same.

David charged up the stairs to the church, taking them two at a time, and pushed the door open. “Hello?” he called as he stepped into the nave.

Mr. Summers, who was standing on the side, sorting through a box of supplies, looked up. “Ah!” he said. “David, thank you for coming.”

David nodded, “Glad to help out, Mr. Summers.”

Mr. Summers looked ruefully at the pile. “I’m going to need it,” he said.

“What can I do?”

“Well,” said Mr. Summers. “I figure we’ll leave the pews same as usual. I don’t really like using the reverend’s pulpit to run this meeting, being a secular affair and all, but it’s how we’ve done it since we’ve held the meeting here.”

David looked around the space. “Right,” he said, trying to imagine the pews in any other configuration.

“Here,” Mr. Summers said, holding out a stack of paper. “These are the voting cards. Sort them so there is one for each voter. Here’s the voting list. You assign each voter a number. I’m going to get back to…get back to the agenda.”

David started sorting through the voting cards, laying them out on a pew and sorting them in numerical order. Then he looked at the list of registered voters. After a moment, he said, “Uh, Mr. Summers?”

Mr. Summers looked up from the paper he was studying. “Yes?”

“Uh. Alice Adams is on the list.”

Mr. Summers put the paper down. “Ah,” he said.

“What should I do?”

Mr. Summers shrugged. “Cross her out, I guess.”

David picked up a pencil and held it posed over the list, but he hesitated before he put it to the paper. “She was my aunt. Did you know that?”

Mr. Summers looked at David, quiet for a moment. “I suppose she was,” he said after a moment.

Gripping the pencil David started to cross her name out, but he stopped himself again. “Last year, when it was so wet and cold in July. The corn,” David stopped and looked at Mr. Summers. He did not finish his sentence. He did not have to. They both knew what had happened to the corn harvest, and, indeed, most of the rest of the plantings.

Mr. Summers turned back to his paper. “’tis a terrible thing,” he whispered.

David looked back at the list and crossed out the name, a single, black, decisive line going through Alice Adams’s name.

“It’s not precise like accounting,” Mr. Summers said. “Where things come out of one column and go into another. Exact, right down to the decimal. But it’s not unlike accounting either. There’s always a price.”

“A price for what?” David asked.

Mr. Summers shook his head. “Damned if I know.”

***

Drew Warner dropped the scythe and David Hutchinson straightened himself and turned away without looking at the stones, and before Drew could thank him. Drew Warner watched David Hutchinson return to the neophyte’s side, and then he turned back to his task.

Tatoson returned with the empty box. Drew Warner nodded at him. “How is the wall coming?” he asked Tatoson, speaking Tatoson’s own tongue.

Tatoson glanced over at the pile of stones, which was waist high. “We are just getting started,” he said. Makepeace Royse, who had been something of a stonemason in life, was starting to sort the stones. The luminescence lit his face a faint blue.

Drew Warner glanced around at the gathering. “Well, let’s keep going,” he said.

Drew Warner and Tatoson systematically worked their way through the crowd, working backwards to those who had been chosen in the lottery longer and longer ago.

Alice Adams lost her father’s 50th birthday party.

Mathilda Bentham lost combing her daughter’s long, blond hair on a sunlit morning.

Henrietta Dunbar lost an apple pie she had once baked, where the crust had been perfectly browned and the apples inside had been cooked to perfection – soft but not applesauce – and the juice had been buttery and sweet and thick, but not gluey. And, she lost the very next pie she baked where she had done it all exactly the same, but the crust had burned and the juice had bubbled over and the apples had deflated to an undistinguished ooze.

Old Wilson Dellacroix lost an afternoon of fishing with his grandson.

Jenny Baxter lost the day when the lottery had taken her best friend, eight year old Becky Boggust. She and Becky had been inseparable since kindergarten.

Mark Gridley, who had been the last Gridley, lost the afternoon when his only daughter had married a boy from out of state, and had left him on the Gridley farm alone.

Widow Hutchinson screamed when Drew Warner and Tatoson approached her. She tried to run away, but the others, Henrietta Dunbar and Mathilda Bentham and even young David Hutchinson, grabbed her and held her firm. She squeezed her eyes tight and twisted her head to the side when Drew Warner stood in front of her. “No,” she said. “No, I am not going to loose my Roy.” But Drew Warner put his fingers on her chin and gently turned her head to face him. “You must,” he said in a tone that was like velvet wrapped around steel. Her eyes opened and she met his terrible gaze. And when Drew Warner dropped the scythe and thanked her, Widow Hutchinson blinked blankly at him.

Ruth Warner was next. She stood tall, facing Drew Warner, her hands wrapped protectively around her pregnant belly. “Are you ready, Ruth?” he asked.

“Do you ever wonder?” she asked Drew Warner as she rubbed her belly.

“What?” he said.

“If I had given birth before that day. The midwife said I was past due to drop. You might’ve had a brother, growing up.”

“Or papa may have never remarried and I would not have been born at all. He never remarried after Mama died.”

“When did she die?” Ruth Warner asked.

“I was, maybe two? She died giving birth to my brother.” Drew Warner shrugged. “Figure that means papa was only destined to have one son.”

Ruth Warner smiled at him. “You are a lot like him,” she said. “Reminds me of the man I fell in love with.”

Drew Warner lifted the scythe. “Are you ready?” he asked her.

“Do you remember who threw the first stone?”

Drew Warner frowned at her. “What?”

“When you were chosen. Who threw the first stone?”

Drew Warner shook his head, slowly at first, and then more quickly. “No,” he said. “I,” he frowned, “don’t remember.”

“Sure you do,” Ruth Warner said. Ruth Warner lifted her chin. “Edgar threw the first stone at me. Right at my head,” she said.

Drew Warner jerked upright, his eyes wide.

Ruth Warner smiled at him. “Let’s get this done,” she said.

His voice shaking, Drew Warner said, “Stone by stone, we build a wall.”

***

It was a little after noon on a bright June 27th. Ruth was walking home, hand-in-hand with her husband, Edgar. His warm, calloused hand was grounding, and from time to time she gave it a little squeeze. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he smiled a bit each time she did it.

Ruth looked up at the scattered clouds that dotted the blue sky as she walked. Blue and white. The tops of green trees. The road towards home was gravel, so she steered Edgar to walk aside the road, on the grass, where each step made a soft, gentle sound.

She thought about the tasks for the afternoon. The bedding needed airing. Her housedress and Edgar’s shirts needed a-washing. And she’d have to find something for their dinner. Maybe eggs-in-a-nest.

“Went quick this year,” Edgar said. “There being so few Gridleys in town these days.”

Ruth stiffened as she walked, her eyes fixed on the puffy clouds. She thought they looked soft, but she had read in a book once about someone who had climbed a mountain, right up into a cloud, and it had just been wet.

“I suppose, that’s the way it goes,” Edgar said. “Families come and families go, but the town goes on.”

Edgar’s hand was no longer comforting and Ruth pulled her hand free. “Could you stop talking about it?” she asked.

Edgar paused and Ruth got a step ahead of him. She turned back to face him. “Why?” Edgar asked.

Ruth turned back toward home and walked purposefully away. Edgar trotted to catch up. He put his arm around her waist. “It’s okay, Ruthie. You know, it’s for the best. You know how important it is.”

“No,” Ruth said, pulling free. “I don’t. It’s horrid. It’s over for another year. Just, let it go.”

Edgar looked at her for several strides, and then he stuffed his hands in his pockets and marched along next to her, looking straight ahead. “The firth is horrid,” he said quietly. “Mama told Gracie about it. But we need it, to keep the world safe. We need it,” Edgar said again.

Ruth clenched her teeth and balled her fist. Edgar was talking nonsense. She did not know that word he had used. Grace had been his sister who had died decades ago. He was talking nonsense. “Edgar Warner,” she said, her voice warning. “I don’t want to hear another word.”

Edgar looked at her, his lips pressed together into a tight, ironic smile. Then he nodded. “Yes, mam,” he said.

***

And Drew Warner dropped the scythe. Ruth Warner stood there trembling, her hands wrapped around her round belly. Drew Warner put a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

And it went on. Drew Warner went to Anne Gridley next, and then to the others including his own grandmother who he had never met in life.

In the other world, the gathered saw Mr. Hutchinson open his slip of paper and they saw the color drain from his face when he saw the black dot. David Hutchinson went to stand by his brother’s side and Linda Summers went to stand by little Davy.

And it went on, and on. Drew Warner went to the Wilbores, the Royses, the Cheeseboroughs and Boggusts. After each person, stones were added. Makepeace Royse, now joined by Mark Gridley and Wilson Dellacroix and John Watson and many others, shaped the stones into a rambling wall that stretched clear from one side of the square to the other, separating the square from the unruly wild of the untended field.

And finally, Drew Warner and Tatoson faced each other, locking eyes. They each put a hand on the scythe and lifted the blade. They spoke to each other, Drew Warner speaking in a language none but Tatoson knew, and Tatoson speaking in English, “Stone by stone, we build the wall.”

A moment later, the blade fell and the box between them was full to the brim.

Makepeace Royse put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. And he hefted the box and carried it to the wall.

In the other world, the Hutchinson family stood together, each clutching their folded slip of paper. The rest of the village stood around them in a ragged circle.

“It’s time,” said Drew Warner.

They joined hands. Robert Summers offered one hand to Linda Summers and the other to Chastity Wilbore. John Watson took Linda Summers’s other hand and Widow Dellacroix came to stand on John Watson’s other side. Hand-in-hand, they made a chain that stretched across the square, facing the wall, facing the wild lot.

Tessie Hutchinson stood alone, behind them, pleading.

The change on the far side of the wall was subtle at first, a single small creature, darting through the grass. It was so small, so fast, Linda Summers only caught the movement. But then there were two, and then three, and then more than could be counted. And as Tessie fell to the ground, the entire beast came roaring into existence. The beast was so enormous, so horrid, Linda Summers squeezed her eyes shut and screamed. She tried to pull away, Robert Summers and John Watson held onto her fast. The beast, which seemed to be made of thousands of millions of the tiny creatures, crawling and clawing over each other, shedding away and reforming, opened its terrible mouth and advanced, only to be stopped by the luminescent wall, and the chain of ragged souls willing it back into the darkness from whence it came.