Greenhouse

by Stephanie Mylchreest

  GREENHOUSE

  INSULARITY BOOK 1

  © 2019, Stephanie Mylchreest

  steph@stephaniemylchreest.com

  www.stephaniemylchreest.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without permission in writing from the author.

  Cover art by Grady Earls

  To my readers:

  Thank you for reading.

  You are the reason for this book!

  Steph

  Chapter One

  Decaying leaf matter muffles our footfall as we pick our way through the overgrown path, thick with knotweed and woody bamboo. Blue light from the bright crescent moon trickles through the forest canopy above us, lighting the way to West Tisbury and tonight’s spring revel.

  I turn to Marissa, “Abigail was right. We don’t need clay lamps tonight.”

  “It’s an unusually clear evening,” she agrees.

  The frequent storm clouds we see this time of the year have abated and the stars are sprinkled liberally through the eternal space above. I wonder, for a moment, what it would be like to live up there, surrounded by nothing but the celestial bodies.

  “Come on you two,” shouts Abigail from up ahead, her voice amplified in the quiet of the soaring oaks. “We don’t want to miss the sacrifice.”

  We arrive at West Tisbury to the primitive sounds of a drumming circle. There’s riotous banter and singing, layer upon layer of merriment. People are descending on the village from all over Martha’s Vineyard, the island we call home, for the annual spring revel. Marissa titters as a young couple staggers past us, laughing uproariously, cider in hand.

  We enter the vast village hall together. It’s a log construction with small windows evenly spaced the length of the building and a high, pitched roof.

  “It’s almost large enough to fit everyone,” says Abigail.

  “There must be several hundred of us here,” says Marissa. “Look, some tables are outside.” She’s right; the revel swells out of the village hall and into the warm night.

  Large candles on tall but sturdy stands of timber and stone run the length of the hall, casting their long twitching shadows over us. I follow Abigail and Marissa through the room and we sit at a wooden table with seven other men and women from the island. I absentmindedly run my finger back and forth over the smooth joinery of the bench seat. It’s expertly crafted.

  The formalities of the night begin with a long shrill blast from the horn blower. He wears a traditional feathered vest and his black silhouette flutters as we look on. Into the silence that follows walk the village elders. One by one they weave through the room, each taking a different path to a raised table towards the front. We observe them reverently, worshipfully, until they each take their place before us.

  This is my first revel and I drink in the atmosphere greedily. The odor of spilt cider and cooked meat seems to congeal the air. There’s something else too; the smell of nervous sweat and burning candle wax waft on the wind as though a prelude to the main event. I delight in the sensory excesses. I want to see the springtime sacrifice.

  The revel has occurred every spring for as long as anyone can remember. In hushed whispers, I’ve learned just about anything goes at the revel. I know there will be fine food and dozens of barrels of wine and cider. I also know no one will work the fields or go fishing the next day.

  My father sits at the head table with the elders from other villages on the island, his eyes ceremonially darkened with charcoal and his face made as pale as the full moon. The kaolin clay used to make the white pigment in their face paint is abundant on the island. My mother, a healer, also uses it in some of her remedies.

  As is custom whenever the elders gather, the most senior elder from each village drinks a full draft of cider from a long glass, each refilling the glass before passing it to the next. The men at the table represent the collective power on the island.

  “Glory hallelujah!” my father cries as he drains the last of the cider.

  “Glory hallelujah,” we all shout.

  With the first glasses of cider consumed by the elders, the revel has officially commenced. A woman in a short dress, her cloak black and flowing, walks to the stage behind them. Two men accompany the woman, one with a guitar and the other a drum. The trio plays music. No one is dancing yet, but some tap their shoes on the wood floor and people sway in time with the music.

  The melody is upbeat and loud. I find my body moving side to side as the music flows through the hall. The woman’s voice is sweet but gritty. The guitar twangs rhythmically. The drumbeat is loud, hedonic.

  As the host, West Tisbury has supplied the wine and cider. I drink mouthfuls of the amber drink and pull at my tunic, which has pasted itself to my body. The air is unseasonably warm, made even warmer still by the bodies packed side by side in the hall. We help ourselves to food. We have all brought a dish; a “potluck” my parents called it, although no one can remember how it got that name.

  My friends, Abigail and Marissa, sit on either side of me at the table. We’ve been pals for a long time. I take a greasy rabbit leg off Abigail’s plate and she gives me a playful shove.

  “Leave it alone you mongrel. Didn’t your father teach you any respect?”

  I take a slow and deliberate bite of the rabbit leg, sigh appreciatively, and then smile widely with my mouth full. Abigail rolls her eyes and leans in conspiratorially.

  “I hear some others have got rum. It’s supposed to be from the mainland. Did you both want to come outside?”

  “I will,” says Marissa.

  “Who’s drinking?” I ask.

  “Some boys from our Village,” Abigail replies. She pauses. I know there’s more. “And Carl Spool.”

  The rabbit meat sours in my mouth. “No thanks,” I say. Carl Spool is the youngest son of the senior elder of West Tisbury. Considering my father is the senior elder of Edgartown, we should be friends. Unfortunately, he’s an arrogant bully.

  Abigail hovers her face next to mine, wild tendrils of black hair tickling my cheek. “Suit yourself,” she whispers. She gives me a dismissive wave of her hand and pushes herself away from the table. I watch her weave her way through the revel. I would have joined her if it weren’t for Carl.

  “Are you sure you won’t come?” asks Marissa. Her eyes shine green and her smile is sweet. I shake my head and she follows Abigail with a shrug.

  I take another long gulp of my cider. It has a fruity fizz that bubbles in the back of my throat but there’s no hearty punch. In the old days, my grandfather used to leave open cider barrels outside on a winter’s night and then remove the frozen water floating in the barrel the next morning. We haven’t had cold winters like that for decades.

  The music has picked up in tempo and someone has put some candles out. The darkness lends a surreal, mysterious quality to the night. Men and women clap and twirl in the space that has been cleared between tables. There is a young woman across the table from me with long blonde hair and dark eyes. She looks to be my age. She sits quietly, looking at the people dancing. I catch her eye and smile, which she returns with an almost imperceptible upturn of her lips.

  After observing her for a while, I lean over the table and take a strand of her hair in my hand. It is forward of me, but I am emboldened by the cider. I pull the strand through my fingers, tugging gently, and can sense something surge between us.

  “Chris,” I say, touching my hand to my chest. She leans in closer and I think she has just caught my name over the noise of the revel. She pulls her hair from my hand and laughs, her mouth open and her head held back. I have never seen anything so enticing in my life.

  We dance then. At first my legs are stiff, my mind conscious of do
ing the steps correctly. The music has a fast beat, and the dance is one I learned a long time ago as a boy. I link arms with her and we spin faster and faster. She looks at me and laughs again, joyfully, and I melt into the moment.

  Most people are on the dance floor now and the musicians start a new song that requires us to switch partners every few beats. I stare at the young woman’s blonde hair flying around her head a few steps away. I can’t take my eyes off her. She is mesmerizing.

  The music builds to a crescendo and I finally catch up to her again. We are both hot from dancing and loose from the cider. I hold both her hands in mine and for a few seconds we stop and look at each other. The other couples swirl around us like the incoming tide. Everything is moving so quickly. But in this moment, we stand still.

  Then it passes and we are on the move again, swept along by the wave of dancers. We whirl around the room, tapping our heels in unison and laughing. We dance to a few more songs until I finally pull her from the dance floor and to the side of the village hall where there is darkness. It seems private and ripe with promise. Secrets whisper between the others pressed together around the edges of the room.

  “What’s your name?” I ask breathlessly.

  She shakes her head and her smile falters.

  “Please,” I say again, “your name.”

  She pulls a leather-bound notepad from her pocket and writes. She holds it up. I take her hand and tilt the page so it is illuminated by the flickering candle overhead.

  “Delphine,” I say out loud.

  She nods and writes again: I can’t hear.

  I start to speak but stop myself.

  She shakes her head and writes: It’s okay. I can read the words on your lips.

  She smiles at me then, ruefully—apologetically—and I am overwhelmed with the desire to hold her face in my hands. I reach up and stroke her cheek, feeling her hot skin under my fingers.

  “Where are you from?” I ask, still holding my hand up to her face. I speak slowly and hesitantly but she has no trouble picking up my words, even in the dim light.

  Just outside of Vineyard Haven, I live below the old West Chop Light.

  “I know the lighthouse. I’m from Edgartown.” I let my words hang in the air for a moment. It is strange to be the only one speaking out loud and I am acutely aware of how banal and boring I am. Surely this exotic creature deserves more than my trite small talk. But she is smiling at me encouragingly so I stumble on. “This is my first revel. What about you? Are you having a good time?”

  She takes mercy on me and with a wink she pulls me back to the dance floor before I can embarrass myself any further. As we dance, I hold her delicate hands in my own and gaze at her beautiful face. Her face! She sways and spins to the music and I imagine her silent world. I want to put my hands out and keep the other dancers from touching her, yet she moves with grace and rhythm. It’s like the music is inside her. I can’t explain it.

  The sudden stilling of the music interrupts my thoughts. The crowd is disappointed and there are loud calls to the musicians to keep playing. The woman who had been singing shakes her head once and then helps the guitar player and drummer to collect their things as they move off the stage. I look enquiringly at Delphine.

  It’s speech time. It was the same last year. They do it every year apparently, right before the sacrifice.

  I suspect she may have rolled her eyes, but it was too quick for me to tell for sure. We move back to our seats and—taking my cues from everyone around me—I turn expectantly to the table where the elders sit.

  The elders wait quietly for the last of us to take our places. The row of white faces and black eyes are impassive as they look around the room. The table before them is draped in intricately woven tapestries. Small crystals sewn into the fabric that covers the table shine and twinkle like stars. The effect is not unlike a row of moons nestling high in the night sky and I am unsettled by the drama of the moment.

  Carl’s father, Mason Spool—the senior elder from West Tisbury—stands up and walks to the center of the hall. He has long, black hair like Carl, which is pulled back and tied in a smooth bun at the top of his head in the style favored by his generation of islanders.

  The space where we had been dancing moments before is now clear except for a solitary redwood table. “What is that?” I ask Abigail. She has returned from her rum drinking.

  “It’s the altar, for the sacrifice,” she replies.

  The room becomes quiet as we wait for Elder Spool to speak. He paces the empty space around the altar, picking out individuals and holding their gaze, as the tension rises inexorably. His eyes rest on me for a moment and I feel cold despite the heat in the room.

  Finally, Elder Spool speaks: “As you all appreciate, the waters surrounding Martha’s Vineyard have remained steady for the last hundred years. Praise to the Gods!” Spool’s voice is loud and resonates around the room.

  “Praise to the Gods,” we all shout.

  “They spared us from the devastation of the hellish droughts, fires and the Great Floods through their divine intervention. By their grace, we established our community—a community where no individual is greater than its sum—and we have prospered while the rest of the world has continued its suicide march towards complete destruction. But we must not take our safety for granted,” he cries out, raising his hands above his head.

  “We must not rest! The Gods are mighty and vengeful. But they also see all; they know all. They see our good sacrifice, they see our adherence to the divine prescriptions, and they reward us by keeping us safe. For hundreds of years we have known safety. We have flourished on the island while immoral criminals rule the rest of the ruined, hopeless world. So we must not rest, or we too will live to see the Gods’ wrath.”

  As Elder Spool’s voice lulls, there are loud footfalls and we all turn towards the noise. A tall, well-muscled man in a black leather vest walks into the hall. He is balancing something above his head. As he draws closer, I see it is a thin wooden pallet covered by a red woven rug. I recognize the hue of the rug; someone from my village wove it. I see the red rug shift almost indiscernibly as the man passes me.

  “Put it on the altar,” commands Elder Spool. The man does Spool’s bidding then backs away and takes his seat.

  Spool walks three times around the altar while looking at us. His face is solemn. His darkened eyes seem to search the crowd for something. Then, without warning, he leans forward and pulls the heavy rug into the air with a grunt. We all crane forward at the same time.

  On the altar—its legs bound and with a leather muzzle wrapped around its head—is a small, pitiful lamb. The lamb twitches but cannot move. Its eyes are wet and dark, fearful. The white of the elders’ faces is mirrored in the lamb’s soft fleece.

  Every child on the island knows the villagers of Dukes County keep a small flock of sheep for the annual revel. My younger brother Rich and I had made a game of trying to sneak past the shepherd and his vicious dogs when we were kids.

  Now I stare intently at the scene before me, determined to commit every detail to memory to relate to Rich later.

  Earlier today, in the small log home that Rich and I share, I had been preparing for the revel. Eager to share in my excitement, Rich had sat on my bed and regarded me as I bathed and oiled my skin. Rich is nineteen and has the same dark hair and dark eyes as me but he is already taller, his shoulders broadening with each passing season.

  “What do you think the revel will be like?” he had asked me. “Tell me everything that happens.”

  “You know we aren’t supposed to talk about it, Rich,” I said, teasingly.

  “You can’t do this to me,” he said in mock disappointment. We had both laughed. As I distractedly rubbed the rest of the warm oil onto my chest, we had exchanged conspiratorial grins. We keep nothing from each other.

  The sight of my father now moving towards Elder Spool brings me out of my reverie. Spool has stepped to the center of the dance floor and shakes hand
s with my father. The two men bend forward and gently touch foreheads, Spool’s hand curled around my father’s neck. I am surprised by the intimacy of such a public embrace.

  Elder Spool releases his grip on my father’s neck and I see that my father holds a long wooden case by his side. The box is intricately carved from rosewood. The sides are inlaid with shells collected from the island that have been polished and the light from the candles makes the box appear to ripple and twist.

  Elder Spool takes the box from my father and they embrace again, touching foreheads and lingering like that for a moment. They pull apart and my father returns to the table of elders.

  Elder Spool lays the box next to the lamb and places a reassuring hand on the animal’s quivering body. The animal seems to calm under his touch. He unlatches the box and I can see a silver dagger lying within its interior. Spool pulls the dagger out of the box and holds it high above his head. It is as long as his forearm and the sharp blade glints.

  From where I sit, I can see my father’s pale face amongst the table of elders. He is watching Elder Spool, transfixed like everyone else. I seek my mother’s face but cannot find her in the crowd. Everyone stares at Spool and his knife. I turn to Abigail; she smiles at me, and motions back towards Spool with a subtle nod of her head.

  Elder Spool turns in a slow circle, the whites of his eyes bulging against the black rings painted on his face. He stands over the lamb, the dagger high, and chants. I think he is reciting The Book. My father often recites passages to us from memory. I listen to the faint whisper and realize others have joined the chanting. The collective voices grow louder and louder.

  My father approaches again, this time with a red bundle held gently in his hands. He kneels at Elder Spool’s feet and bows his head. He slowly unwraps the bundle; it is The Book. My father, his head still bowed, holds The Book up high. Spool kisses the pages and reads directly from The Book while my father kneels before him. Spool continues to read and his voice grows fuller and deeper, carried through the room as he raises his face, eyes now closed, to the heavens.