“The day is almost upon us, the houses and trees...

“The day is almost upon us, the houses and trees silhouetted by a faint blue light in the east. The burned croft is a smoking wreck, embers steaming in the dawn.

The wind blows a hard gust. There is a simmering argument in the crowd. When the harvest failed and the belts tightened in this starving season of ours, most were left too weak to search for food outside the village. How can any of us take a journey now?

……

As the light bleeds into the sky, the feeling of the crowd shifts with it. The hunger for this journey jumps back and forth between the villagers, like the heat of a flame passing between them.

For the spirit moves the men, just as it moves the wing’d creatures and rough beasts. I think of our first parents—Adam and Eve—as they staggered away from their paradise, thrust out of the garden by an avenging angel.

We are at the edge of the village commons now. After this point, we cannot turn back. We must find out who did this.”

— from the novel SINFUL FOLK

 

PHOTOS: Seasons (by Erik Witsoe)