Empty Heaven, page 5
“After thirty-five years, we’re here again, for another Great Harvest Hallow,” Birdie said, and she was met with a great swell of applause from the gathered crowd. The musicians played on, their pipes and flutes not drowning her out, but adding a perfectly surreal backing to the surreal scene.
“In this lonely and frightening world, spinning through a vast and unknowable cosmos,” Birdie said, “nothing is guaranteed. People die alone. People die in poverty. People live—and die—in fear and misery. But… in all of this fear and emptiness, there is one place—one enclave—where you can have exactly what you need.”
“To Kesuquosh!” someone shouted from closer to the center of the green. There was a little bit of whooping. Scattered laughter. Birdie Plum allowed herself a small smile.
“And you all know why,” Birdie said. She turned toward the sunflower-enshrouded gazebo and the dark shape within. “Because we live by His grace. On His good earth. His voice in our thoughts—”
“His voice in our thoughts,” said the assembled crowd. The speech was turning into a call-and-response.
“His heart in our skin,” Birdie said.
“His heart in our skin,” everyone echoed.
“In our weakness and smallness and loneliness and nothingness, He loves us still,” Birdie said, her sweet voice taking on added volume and import. “He has loved us since that October twenty-eighth two hundred and forty-five years ago, when He first came to Kesuquosh.”
Birdie gestured to her left, and an old and wizened-looking man sitting with the other members of the town council got up and took the mic from her hand. He cleared his throat and then started speaking in a measured grandpa voice.
“In Kesuquosh, back in those early days, adherence to religion still very much shaped the values of the town,” Old Council Guy said. “The townspeople valued godliness and conformity, things that were valued by a people who could not see the values of true love and peace. A people who, sixty years before, had been executing blameless women accused of witchcraft. A people who lived on stolen land and understood only domination and suspicion and false piety. A people who decried the ethics and intellect of all those not like them.”
This might sound like a surprisingly liberal sentiment, coming from an old man in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. But it was par for the course when it came to Kesuquosh. Part of the reason that it was slightly more diverse than the towns around it. Part of why someone like KJ could be herself relatively safely, when the rest of the world was scary as fuck. Part of the reason I’d often fantasized about the prospect of living there full-time.
“And when people could not or would not conform, they were driven away. So it was with the mother of Junie Apostle-Root.”
I had heard of this originating myth of the local religion before, but never so concisely or in a setting with such an awesome atmosphere. That didn’t stop KJ from being bored out of her mind. She swirled the dregs of her mead and stared into the distance with the look of a person who had been told this story a thousand times.
Councilman Grandpa made an all-encompassing gesture with his arms, nearly flinging the mic away in the process.
“Elisabel Apostle-Root was different from the other people in town. She was a strange girl and a strange young woman, and she seemed to disdain the church. She had a voice, it was said, that could call animals and bend the wills of men. She had little tricks for building things, fixing things—bodies, gardens, sick livestock—that, a few decades earlier, would have likely gotten her murdered. These people called themselves Congregationalists instead of Puritans, but they still carried many of their old prejudices. The narrow-minded villagers whispered that she was a witch. And she was forced to live in the woods, in a small black house on the edge of town, shunned by the villagers until they needed something.
“Though it seemed that not all of the villagers shunned her. Elisabel fell pregnant. She was with child, but whoever had fathered the child would not come forward… and Elisabel was too honorable to name him. She carried her daughter in solitude, with no one to help her or care for her, birthed her alone, raised her alone.
“And her daughter, Junie, was even more talented than her mother at working within the wild and forgotten rules of the world. Elisabel taught her the secret ways of hands that could do more than ordinary hands, and the unknown paths through the pathless forests. Junie’s education was rich and strange.
“But Junie was always lonely, with no one to keep her company but her mother. She was fascinated by the Kesuquoshians. She grew up watching them, wishing to be accepted by them. To be one with the many hearts of the village. Always terribly lonely.”
KJ looked over at me and mouthed “terribly lonely” with a big exaggerated expression of sorrow. But most people were hooked. Enraptured. Rita was misty-eyed.
“And then, when Junie was a young woman, her mother became ill. So ill that none of the secret remedies could help her. And Junie was afraid. For her whole life her mother had been her only companion, the only soul who acknowledged her existence. Desperate to save her, Junie went into the village and beseeched the people of Kesuquosh, begged for mercy, for aid.
“But the villagers cared not for Junie, or for her mother’s suffering. To them, the Apostle-Root women were barely human beings. The town’s minister himself, along with several of the men, drove her off, sent her back to the black house outside of town. And then, one cold October morning,” Old Council Guy continued, “Elisabel Apostle-Root died.”
“Definitely died of syphilis,” KJ whispered into my ear. I covered my mouth so that nobody could see me laughing. KJ’s older sister, Isabella, who always seemed like she was weighed down by the burden of seriousness that gets put on eldest daughters, glared at us from across the table.
“Show some respect,” she hissed at KJ.
“Shhhhh,” KJ said, holding a finger to her lips, which made Isabella glare at her even harder.
I was actually kind of invested in the story at this point. It would have sucked to live in the 1700s was my main takeaway.
“And Junie was finally and truly alone. Alone, she buried her mother. Alone, she went to the woods that grew thick around the Swift River. Alone, she sat down on the mossy bank and wept. She did not believe in the god of her people, but she prayed to the beautiful world and the secret things within it for a companion in her loneliness. And then, as she sat there in sorrow, she saw a shimmer. A crack in the very air around her. A flash of brighter green in a world of autumn colors.”
Everyone was quiet, even KJ. I had this sharp mental image in my mind of the painting in the town hall. The woman and the scarecrow. And a thought about my mom, dying.
Councilman Grandpa had us all in the iron grip of his story. He lowered his voice.
“And she was unafraid. She called out to ask who had followed her into the woods. And Good Arcturus—who has no mouth—replied in her mind.
“‘I am a traveler,’ He said. ‘I have torn my traveling cloak and lost my way. The doors between the worlds are closed to me. I am a stranger in a strange land. Can you help me, little one?’”
Even Jasper was listening now. I could make him out at his family’s table, his body language intent and focused.
“Junie went to Him, and when she saw that He was not a human being, she told Him: ‘I don’t know how to help you, strange traveler.’ But she saw that His beautiful green cloak was torn in three pieces. So she brought Him to the black house, took a needle and thread, and tried to sew His cloak together. But the material was not of our world. It was scarcely a cloak as much as it was a door. A way to walk through worlds. Junie’s needle bent and her thread frayed to nothing. And she looked upon the traveler with despair. ‘I want to help you,’ she told Him. ‘But in my smallness, and my nothingness, I cannot.’
“‘Your kindness has helped already,’ Good Arcturus said. ‘I am much restored. But tell me, little one—why were you crying all alone, far from the others of your kind?’
“‘Because they despise me,’ Junie said. ‘For being different from them.’
“Good Arcturus could not understand. In the place that He had come from, differences were prized. But that sentiment was as alien to Junie Apostle-Root as Good Arcturus Himself.
“‘Show me the place of your people, little one,’ Good Arcturus said. ‘Perhaps we can find help there.’
“So Junie walked, with Good Arcturus tall behind her, into the village of Kesuquosh. She knew that she would be met with derision and hatred, but she braved those things to help the lost traveler. She had no idea, however, how afraid the villagers would be when they saw Him.
“When they got into the village, people screamed at the sight of the creature behind Junie. She raised her hands and tried to explain that He was a kind soul, lost, and with His traveling cloak torn in three pieces. But there was a great panic. Everybody thought that the devil had come to Kesuquosh. And the men grabbed their rifles and muskets and whatever weapons they could lay hands upon. In the center of town they waited in a line, too afraid to approach Him. And when Junie and Good Arcturus met the men of the town there, one of them—the minister himself—raised his rifle, screaming for his God to help him, and shot at the strange visitor.
“Junie threw herself bodily in front of Good Arcturus, who did not understand that they were being threatened. And the rifle shot meant for Him struck her instead, and killed her where she stood. Right there,” Old Council Guy said, gesturing to the gazebo. “In that very spot.”
There was a collective sigh from everyone around me.
“It took Good Arcturus a few moments to understand what had happened—that His only friend in this new world had been killed. Human beings were still very much a mystery to Him. But as He stood over her body, caressing her face with His many sinews—”
“His many sinews?” I asked KJ. She shrugged.
“—He felt a great sorrow overtake him. And a great wrath. And He spoke to every last villager within their minds: What makes you cruel? He asked them. What makes you afraid?
“And they could not answer Him, of course. But He saw in their hearts and minds the idea of their god. Their pitiless god. Their fear of hellfire and damnation. The beliefs that harmed them. He saw that, within each of them, they had the ability to be as kind and loving as Junie Apostle-Root. But they were constrained by the prejudices of their beliefs. And do you know what He did next?”
“He tore the church down!” someone yelled, and Old Guy nodded.
I traded a glance with KJ, smiling. She smiled back, although I don’t think she knew what I was so delighted by. This was normal to her, but to me it was so strange. I loved this story. The savior-slash-monster from another world. The insane Kesuquoshian attitude toward Abrahamic faiths. The subversiveness of it, cloaked in normalcy. I was absolutely all in.
“He tore the church to its foundations,” he agreed. “He reached into the mind of every last human being in Kesuquosh and made them see. See the love and harmony and goodness of which they were capable. The ways to exist with the natural world, instead of against it. To care for the earth as it cared for them. That their lives could be different.
“The villagers were changed by His love. They finally understood.
“But this world was not His world. Good Arcturus could not survive for long without His traveling cloak. He was weakened by the act of changing everyone. And He was lost. Unable to return to His home and heal. Even as He transformed this place, He was dying.
“So the minister of Kesuquosh stepped forward. ‘I am sorry for my cruelty,’ he told Good Arcturus. ‘For hurting a good woman. I wish to repay your kindness. With my very heart.’
“Then he reached forward and embraced Good Arcturus.
“‘I will keep you warm,’ the minister said. ‘If you cannot have a cloak, then you shall have a shield. We two shall be Incorporated into one being. And when I can shield you no more, I will stand beside you, as your right hand, and help you take away the cruelties of our kind.’
“Good Arcturus, healed by the love around Him, returned it in equal measure.
“‘And I will never leave you,’ He said. ‘You will have peace and prosperity until the very end of this world. You are safe, my children. You are loved. You are one with the good earth. This harvest season is now a hallowed time, a time to remember our love for each other. And I will live in the black house out in the fields, always, and watch over you, always.’
“And He has. And when the minister’s time as His shield was done, a new Incorporation was selected, and the old Incorporation joined our Lord in the black house beyond the fields.
“Together, they—and the five Incorporations who have served since—take the sin of this town, which is not Biblical sin, but cruelty and prejudice and tyranny and hate, and transform it into love and goodness.
“And, like Junie, we all became His Apostles. And the fields grew lushly and well from His presence. And Kesuquosh was always prosperous, and always safe, even when the other towns of the Swift River Valley were flooded to make the Reservoir. We will be safe in our love forever.”
I felt like clapping, but everyone else was silent.
“That was great,” I told KJ, who shrugged with the noncommittal boredom that familiarity brings. She couldn’t see the excellence of the legend. But Rita smiled at me when I said it, her sweet face communicating joy.
“Our town is founded on something wonderful,” Rita said. “True acceptance. For always.”
I nodded, trying to look serious. Rita didn’t understand that I was approaching all of this like… like it was really good genre fiction. A story. A movie.
Old Council Guy put the mic back on its stand and sat down. For a moment there was an almost reverent silence from everyone assembled. Then Birdie Plum stood back up.
“Now. If you’ll join me in a toast,” Birdie said.
There was a clamor as more than a thousand people got to their feet. The torchlight gleamed off hundreds of different kinds of glasses.
“To the Great Harvest Hallow, culmination of three and a half decades of prosperity. Of safety. Of love. Of the rhythms that make up our lives, and the abiding connections to our fellow townspeople. To Kesuquosh.”
“To Kesuquosh,” the crowd echoed.
Jasper was the only person who hadn’t gotten to his feet. I had a clear view of him from where I stood: Mr. Plum was grabbing him by the upper arm, like he was trying to forcibly lift Jasper out of his seat.
Jasper shrugged off his father’s grasp with force, and said something in response. I didn’t know what he said, but his stubborn expression was clear. Mr. Plum gave him a last look, full of a kind of withering dislike that I didn’t think a parent should ever direct at a child. Then he and Mrs. Plum proceeded to completely ignore their son, who kept his seat, defiantly, in the face of all the earnestness around him.
I was torn. I saw Jasper’s pain and frustration, and I wanted to empathize with him… but I couldn’t determine the cause. All of this seemed… so… harmless. A little creepy, but essentially harmless. I was secure in my enjoyment, especially after having seen Good Arcturus. Just a scarecrow, nothing more.
I was so focused on Jasper that I missed most of Birdie’s toast. I caught the end:
“—so we honor each other. We censure all that is cruel and evil. And we honor our Lord of the Field.”
“To the Lord of the Field!” a few people near the front shouted, prompting a small round of cheers.
“Tonight we gift Him with a new shield to adore for decades hence!” Birdie Plum said. “Tonight we set the last thirty-five years to rest and begin anew. A toast to Good Arcturus, and to Kesuquosh, our heaven on earth!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Saturday, October 28, 2000
The air of solemnity was broken. People raised their glasses, the musicians took up their flutes again, and the First Selectwoman started issuing orders through her microphone:
“We’re going to start at the centermost table and move out! This year we’ve tried to simplify the cake-cutting process… I don’t know how many of you remember 1965, but there was a long wait as they organized. We’ve got numbers on your tables and we’re going to call you up a few at a time…”
“You said you thought it was great?” KJ asked.
I had been so engrossed in the story and spectacle that I kind of felt like I was surfacing from somewhere deep down in my brain. Like Bradbury, but untainted. Something about the woods and the magic of the world had really hooked me. I fumbled for some kind of coherent answer under her gaze—which always felt intense to me, even when it wasn’t.
“Yes. I wasn’t kidding. These council people should be stage actors. It was so well done—I think it’s all very charming,” I said, and then cringed inwardly at how condescending that sounded. I hoped KJ wouldn’t call me on it—but KJ always called me on stuff like that.
“Oh yeah? You think our wittle bitty customs are charming, D?” KJ teased. “You feel happy about coming to the tiny town and seeing us do our silly stuff?”
“Shut up,” I said. “I just meant that it was interesting, like a good movie or something. Or not a movie, but a play—”
“Oooohhh, I like watching them cavort on the stage of their belief,” KJ said, making her voice all breathy and high-pitched in a (kind of) passable imitation of me. “I’m Darian, fresh from Manhattan. Yes, these are real pearl earrings, and I loooove seeing the simple countryfolk practice their darling Harvest Hallow—”
“You are profoundly annoying, do you know that?” I asked.
