by Thomas Tryon
Then, without apparent signal, the moving circle bulged outward toward me. Hands parted, arms lifted over my head, and I was swept up into the line by two incredible straw-and-rag men, who seized my hands in an iron clasp, drawing me along with them. Their effigy heads nodded at me as I, too, was forced to participate, moving faster and faster, the great blaze spinning past my vision. Another circle appeared before me, countering my own circle, and dark heads passed before the flickering light like figures in a silent movie. I was pulled along; the circles broke and re-formed into a serpentine braid, human ropes weaving themselves together, while the fire mounted.
Within the labyrinth of movement, distinguishable faces appeared: Robert’s, Kate’s, Beth’s; and faceless details: Mr. Buxley’s clerical collar, his wife’s hat, the Widow’s bonnet, whirling, kaleidoscopic; another face, rubicund, choleric. “That’s him,” cried Irene Tatum, “that’s the one let the hogs out! Debbie seen him! He let the hogs out deliberate!” I could feel her hands snatching at me from behind, tugging at my clothes, trying to yank me from the circle, but still the straw hands held me fast and willy-nilly I was dragged away.
The line swept out again and, like a giant amoeba, divided itself from the larger circle to form a smaller one. Someone shoved me and I was propelled into the center; wheeling, I saw fire-washed faces, peripheral and with the sheen of exertion on their brows, now bright, now dim in the leaping light, all somehow sinister. They closed in on me with menace; I could feel the press of bodies, feel their hot breath, the air being pushed from my lungs by the sheer force of their weight.
Quickly they moved toward me and as quickly withdrew, as if I were the butt of some enormous joke, and all was merriment once more as they rejoined the larger circle, bringing me with them, a swirl of leaping forms, my scarecrow cronies gripping my hands as they circled the flaming heap. The rancorous hag-cry sounded again—“…let my hogs out!”—as I passed, the voice fading, becoming lost; and pull as I might I could not free myself. I gave up all resistance. They took me where they might, and the scarecrow men were laughing and nodding at me as though I were not in thrall to them, their jester faces wild, looking upward at the whirlwind of fire and smoke—See! See!—their eyes glittering with ardor as they reflected the blaze.
I looked up, too. Saw a picture. A picture no man could paint, or scarcely dream. Saw a hell of burning scarecrows; straw and sacking and button eyes, cross-poles and uprights, hats and coats all lost in flame, a holocaust of straw men, saw in the picture one higher than the rest, arms outstretched in cruciform supplication, leaning backward into the fire that licked the tattered war tunic, the tarnished epaulettes, the cocked hat, saw the wind enfold the flames around the face as though in a caress.
“Worthy!”
The scarecrow in the field. The pigs gone mad with the scent…!
I shouted and struggled, but they held me and pulled me back as in the picture the giant structure seemed visibly to swell, to belch and heave in its last convulsive throes. Shouting with all my might, I saw it lean away from the wind, totter, tremble, and with a thunderous crash of flame and charred timber the hideous pile tumbled to earth. Still I shouted, saw people fleeing past me to safety, saw hot sparks spiraling upward in a fiery shower, saw the ashes borne like feathers on the breeze, sifting in a gray spectral snow among the tombstones in the churchyard, saw a hand raised over me, brought down on my head in a savage blow, saw the picture crack, break into fragments, saw…
Nothing.
FIVE
Harvest Home
27
I AWOKE FROM NIGHTMARE to see the fragments pieced together, then realized they were the cracks and seams of a ceiling. I was in a strange bed, in a room unfamiliar to me. My jacket was on the back of a chair, my shoes beside it. A blanket had been drawn over me. The window shades were down. My head throbbed, and when I put my hand to the back of my skull I felt pain. I looked at my watch: it had stopped at ten minutes past five—a.m. or p.m.? I leaned from the bed and pulled the shade up: the sun was high.
I had come to in a bedroom at Penance House. I was looking out at an oblique angle toward the church. The hands of the church clock read twenty minutes to twelve. Men were working on the Common, some using rakes while others shoveled burned debris onto a giant chicken-wire frame. The sifted ashes were being scooped into burlap sacks and loaded onto the back of a truck. Soon all that was left to mark the night’s events was a giant scorched circle on the grass.
I fell weakly back against the pillow, my stomach churning as the picture of the previous night reformed itself in my memory, the carnage of the fire, the scarecrow that had not been a scarecrow. I squeezed my eyes shut, grimaced. It wasn’t possible; I had imagined it. There had been no face, only a straw head. I could make myself believe it if I tried. I tried. Could not. The face remained a face—Worthy Pettinger’s face. A conspiracy of cremation.
I looked through the window again. Men were taking down the harvest symbols from the chimneys and eaves. Others had appeared at points around the Common, casually loitering. I saw no women, no children, no animals. No cars went by. The men appeared to be waiting, smoking their pipes and looking at the burned circle.
I heard the sound of a motor, and Justin Hooke’s El Camino passed below the window, went around the Common, and pulled up at the curb in front of the church. Justin helped Sophie out, and she threw a furtive glance up at the clock on the steeple. When they came close to the circle, they halted. Justin released her arm and he looked up at the clock. It was five minutes to twelve.
More men had appeared, solitary, silent, stationing themselves beside the trees or the lampposts. Mr. Buxley came out on the church steps. He looked around, went back inside. Justin was talking to Sophie. Listening, she lowered her brow and leaned it against his chest. He shook his head, made an angry gesture, and raised her chin to him. She tried to leave, and he seized her hand, forcing her to listen. She drew away and flung herself down on the ground.
Justin glanced at a group of men, then quickly knelt and brought her to her feet. He lifted her face again, gently, and spoke some more words. She seemed acquiescent as he reached for her hand and began to lead her toward the circle. She halted once more, staring at the blackened earth, glancing indecisively at the clock and back again. Finally, she snatched her hand away and began to run. Justin took three or four steps after her, then stopped. The lounging men became more attentive, watching the departing figure as it disappeared up Main Street.
The steeple bell began striking the hour. When the final stroke rang, Justin stepped into the circle, under trees whose autumn leaves seemed to have hemorrhaged, seeping blood. The men watched him, never speaking but closely observant as he moved toward the center. Amys Penrose came through the vestibule doors and down the steps. He did not look at the figure in the ring, but rounded the Common, crossed the roadway, and disappeared beneath my window.
I pulled the blanket off, swung my feet to the floor, and went into the adjoining bathroom to wash my face. I looked dirty and disheveled, and in need of a shave. My head hurt worse than before as I bent over the basin. I soaked the washcloth and laid it against the swelling. The bedroom door opened and Amys’s face appeared behind me in the mirror.
“Some bump.”
Holding the cloth to the back of my head, I went and sat on the edge of the bed.
“How did I get here?”
“They brought you. Merle Penrose and Morgan Thomas.”
They had slugged me, then carried me to bed. “Just goes to show you, nobody’s all bad.”
Amys eyed me. “Nice bed?”
“Comfortable enough. Were you there last night?”
“Hell, no. For that damn foolishness? Was over t’the picture show. When I came back, they was just lugging you up on the church steps. I told ’em to bring you here.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“They had their Kindlin’ Night.”
“And tonight they’ll have their Harvest Ho
me. Amys, listen to me—” He turned away; he knew what I was going to say. I told him about Jack’s discovery in the hollow tree, about his finding and taking Roger’s ring. Irene Tatum had never found a body in the river; the coffin had been weighted with a sack of corn and a fake marker put up over her grave.
“She wasn’t pretty, Amys. Not when she came back.”
He nodded dumbly. “I know. I seen her.”
“You—?”
“I seen her. The night Roger rode her back across the bridge on his horse. I’d been hidin’ in Irene’s orchard every night, waitin’. I knew one of ’em was bound to cross the river. He rode her into the orchard. Her face was done up in some sort of scarf—he took it off. When he saw what had happened to her, he left her there. She swore she’d come to Harvest Home. Roger told the Widow, and she rode out and ordered Gracie not to come. But I knew she would. She was bound to. Bound to—even though she knew they’d kill her.”
“You knew.”
He shrugged simply. “Everybody knew. Gracie’s tragedy was that she fell in love with Roger. No girl ought to do that when she’s Corn Maiden—not with the Harvest Lord.”
“Then that must be Sophie Hooke’s tragedy, too. Why did you lie to me and say that Mrs. Zalmon had driven Worthy Pettinger away?”
“They told me to. Old Deming and the elders, they—” Tears came to his eyes. “They knew we was friends—”
“Are we friends?”
“Yes, sir.” He turned to me, squinting against the light, his eyes streaming. “I know what you’re thinkin’, but listen to me. I’ve prett’ near lived my life out now, and I done just about what I wanted to, but when you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn one thing—to keep your nose out of what don’t concern you. I don’t meddle with folks’ doin’s, and they don’t meddle with mine. I don’t know what happened last night. And if you do—or if you think you do—I wouldn’t go around spoutin’ off about it. Folks can get mighty cranky hereabouts.”
I glanced out the window at the watchers: the farmers watching Justin standing immobile in the circle. Not a woman in sight, except for Missy Penrose.
“What will she do?” I asked, indicating Missy, “now that the sheep are put to fold?”
“She’ll wait. Everyone will wait.”
“For what?”
“Hoping Jim Minerva will choose a—”
“Corn Maiden.”
“Ayuh.”
“Who will it be?”
“Someone—young.”
He was sounding a warning; my wits, dulled from the night before, were slow to take it in. I stared at him.
Then: “Kate?”
“The Widow wants new blood. That’s why she got you the house. Villagers didn’t want outsiders here. They had a meetin’. The Widow says yes, they should let you come. She saw you the first day you came here.”
I remembered the Polaroid photograph of Kate that I had written our number on, the Widow’s immediate interest. More conspiracy. I seized Amys’s wrist, held him. “Amys, what’s going to happen at Harvest Home?”
“What no man may know nor woman tell.”
“You tell me.” He tried to pull away; I tightened my grip. Amys looked down at Justin, the focus of all eyes.
“He won’t tell, neither. Not before he goes, not when he comes back.” With his free hand, he released my fingers from his wrist and stepped away. I remained at the window, staring down at the figure on the Common, waiting at the center of the ring.
The enigma. The baffling mystery that still eluded me. Amys was lying; he knew. They all knew; all but me. And though the Harvest Lord stood at the exact center of the circle, he did not stand alone; there was another with him, and though I did not know Her, I knew now who She was.
I vowed war on Her. I vowed death and destruction. New blood—for Her? If it came to that, I would set a torch to every barn in the village, to every field that grew a single stalk of corn. I would pollute the earth with some poisonous substance that would kill Her. I would rust the blade of the plowshare, I would break the handles. I would make a wilderness of briars and weeds. No matter how fair it flowered, no furrow or hill or meadow would not feel my hand, to lay low the spirit of the holy Mother—Earth. I cursed and damned Her, and I swore that She would not win against me.
Amys was looking at me. Had he read my thoughts? “Son, there’s only two ringin’s today. I just done the first. The second’s at moonrise. That’s a special ringin’—curfew, you might call it. When you hear that bell, you make sure you’re to home.” He touched his fingers to my arm. “And son,” he added, almost an afterthought, “make sure you stay there.”
I intended nothing of the kind. “Well,” I said, “pray for rain.”
“Why’s that?”
“The farmers need it.”
I paced the rug in Robert Dodd’s sun porch, my hand trembling as I drank a Scotch-and-soda. Though he had asked me several times to sit, I could not. The talking-book machine remained silent, the arm lifted from the record. Immobile in his chair, head slumped, the Professor listened to me, his dark glasses shielding his sightlessness.
I had come home to find my house empty. The station wagon was gone, so were Beth and Kate. There was no note, no communication of any kind. None of Beth’s clothes were missing, or Kate’s either. I was out of my mind with worry. Robert had told me that Maggie had driven down to the city, and that perhaps Beth and Kate had gone with her. Still, this didn’t explain the station wagon’s not being in the garage.
In my agitated state, I found it difficult to collect my thoughts. As coherently as I was able, I repeated the story of last night’s events, going back to the afternoon, to the Hookes’ farm, then to the river, meeting Tamar—I had got to that part of the story before I realized it, tried to explain my way out again: “It’s not what you think. I didn’t—She wanted it—she—” I stopped, then went on. The field had been empty, the scarecrow was taken down; then there was another scarecrow. The Widow had long before showed us the things in her parlor, the Spanish-American War tunic Jack Stump had sold her, the cocked hat, the boots. A scarecrow where there had been none. The pigs going berserk at the smell of blood. They had taken Worthy from the post office, and killed him. Then the scarecrow was put on the bonfire.
“They murdered him. And they cut off Jack Stump’s tongue.”
Robert shook his head. “It’s not possible.”
“No? I’m telling you! And they killed Gracie Everdeen!”
“Calm down, my boy. You’re in an overwrought state. Grace Everdeen killed herself. It’s why she was not permitted burial in our churchyard.”
“She was murdered, and they wouldn’t bury her because of whatever it was she did. At Harvest Home. Out there—in Soakes’s Lonesome. Fourteen years ago tonight!”
“Yes. Tonight. I’ve been sitting here this morning thinking, Tonight is Harvest Home.”
“I’m going.”
“Going where?”
“There. To the woods. For Harvest Home.” Angrily I put my glass down and started from the room.
“Ned—wait!” Robert’s voice rose sharply. “If you won’t sit down, stand there and let me tell you one or two things that might interest you. Are you familiar with what are commonly referred to as the Greek Mysteries? The Eleusinian Mysteries, for example?”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Back in the old days there was a cult of women who worshiped a goddess called Demeter. She was the earth goddess.”
“The Mother—?”
“In one of her varying forms. But these so-called mysteries were celebrated annually, and the secret of what occurred when those Greek women got together to worship in their grove was so well guarded that to this day scholars don’t really know what went on. But the important thing is that in each case where the secret was breached, it resulted in death.
“Those women didn’t want anyone watching them while they were doing what they deemed necessary, or what they believed in. This
is a very serious thing, as it is with any sort of fanaticism. And their fanaticism stemmed from their belief in a deity of grain. And the god—or, in this instance, goddess—who provided it was revered.”
“Worshiped.”
He nodded. “Agricultural societies in certain periods of history have been known to be especially primitive and savage, and also particularly secretive. And our agricultural ladies here in Cornwall who happen to believe as they do don’t want any men knowing what their particular ‘mysteries’ are all about. So no one’s ever seen ’em. That’s about all I can tell you.”
“I’m going to find out.” The conviction in my voice produced a long silence in Robert.
“If you go,” he said finally, “you’ll live to regret it—if you live.”
“But I’ll go!”
“You’ll never get there. They’ll have guards posted. Along the road—the bridge, by the river. No one goes to the woods tonight, except the women. No Soakeses, no one.”
“I go!”
He sighed wearily. “Let me tell you one more thing. Fourteen years ago, there was another man. He was curious, too. He tried to find out.”
“Did he?”
“Before the mystery had ever begun, he was discovered—and he suffered grievously. I beg you, don’t go!”
“If this ‘he’ you’re talking about got caught, he was a fool.”
“You are the fool.”
“Everybody seems to think so. Why do you?”
I waited for him to continue, sensed that he had more to say. Sensed, also that in some way he, too, was afraid, was constrained not to go further. The room had fallen silent, and I suddenly knew I was waiting for something. Something that had nothing to do with what we were talking about; something from outside, beyond us. Something had happened—or was about to, I couldn’t tell which. In a second more, I knew what it was.