As if locked in time pre-Industrial-Revolution, the noble Barnes Clan lives to preserve a simple, righteous way of life. Considering most technological ‘advancement’ to actually be a regression constituting a distraction at best, an invitation to evil at worst, their small, albeit fast- growing community looks much as an American frontier settlement might have in the eighteenth century. Rather than lionizing the titans of industry, or the insights and innovations of the scholastic and scientific communities, they prize their artisans, engineers, builders, farmers, and especially their episcopal teachers and preachers.

Guilds supporting these spiritual and practical pursuits have sprung up throughout their hidden tract of forest-shrouded woodland tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, with the focus on religious studies and the leadership of Church elders guiding the projects of community specialists in disciplines long taken for granted by the machine-and-computer-dependent, unholy nation they’ve left behind.

It's been almost two generations since The Barnes Clan decided that American Society was headed for a fall, and that the only thing to do was not to fall along with it. Just over a century ago, it had been declared by the leader of the small town congregation of Salem, VA, that the wrath of God was imminent, and shall consume the iniquitous spreading the seeds of Satanism throughout the lustful land housing the progeny and purveyors of every manner of unforgivable sin.

“We must make the boldest move that we can,” declared their leader, Pastor Elliott Barnes, a week before their flight. “It is incumbent upon us to make the clearest declaration of righteous intention of which we’re capable, and assure God through our decisive action that we want nothing more to do with this evil.”

Destined to become one of the inspirations for the film The Village, the entire congregation took up, cut ties and disappeared into the Blue Ridge Mountains, a part of the Appalachian Mountain chain, leaving nary a clue in their wake. It became quite the scandal in their little mountain town. Where did Elliott Barnes lead his flock? How did he convince them to uproot and leave everything behind, including dismayed family and employers scrambling to fill the void? Stories were rampant; everything from the congregation, known to be particularly fervent in their zeal for Christ, being called up to Heaven by some supernatural means, to a story of mass suicide spread by one furious, abandoned family member who regarded Elliott as an egomaniacal cult leader. Their departure, however, was peaceful. For a while, at least.

The happy harmony sitting on the surface of their little wooded slice of heaven hidden in the mountains belied the coming conflict. Schisms within insular religious societies are inevitable, for not everyone can be convinced that doubt is the same as a lack of faith, and inviting of the Devil. Alex started developing suspicions regarding such myopic prejudices at an earlier age than most. He loved his adopted family, and the members of his community at large, and yet he realized that their perspective on right and wrong was too narrow in scope to capture the truth, and that he wouldn’t be able to follow Father Andrew, the current leader and onetime protégé of Elliott Barnes, forever.

The conflict started innocently enough. Alex became an avid reader by the age of fifteen, and was soon dissatisfied with what most of the other villagers and the elders handed him to read. He entertained himself by becoming a sort of investigator, doing everything he could to provoke those around him to reveal truths which might not be acceptable to the flock as a whole. This search soon led to the seeking of ‘unorthodox’ books, with the few he found becoming his most prized possessions, spurring within him not only a desire for more secular knowledge and works of literature, but a desire to write as well.

For nearly a decade-and-a-half now he’s written compulsively, having consumed every page of countless journals. One higher up within The Barnes Clan, Father Jacob, encourages his search and development as a reader, writer and open-minded scholar. Where others will simply condemn his interests as being that which invites moral impurity at best, seduction by demonic forces at worst, he gradually teased out of Jacob the propensity to dive deeper, and often into waters which most of the others would consider dark and filled with danger.

Encouraging Alex’s quest for knowledge, within limits, Jacob is one of the few that Alex approaches with honesty, having developed a protective guise he feels compelled to wear around most of the villagers. Jacob shares some of the books that he smuggles in from Salem with Alex, being the procurer of supplies for the community, a man who’s garnered the requisite trust and respect to handle the trip and not be tempted into the sin prevalent within western society, or to tactlessly reveal their location. He also facilitates long discourses on all matter of subjects whenever the two of them are left ‘unsupervised.’ At the same time, however, he consistently admonishes Alex as to the danger of his path. He won’t be accepted by most of The Barnes Clan if he stays this course of intellectual curiosity; of the fervent quest for knowledge, rather than being completely satisfied by the love of Christ.

“Why not both?,” Alex would ask.

Jacob would smile at such remarks, seeing their truth and yet remaining unable to endorse them, for many an example has been made during Father Andrew’s sermons of the evil begot by exposing oneself to ‘the wrong ideas,’ especially when lacking the maturity to healthfully process them, properly placing them within the lessons of Christianity.

“One day you’ll be forced to make a decision, Alex,” Jacob had recently told him. “Either you’ll have to keep this search of yours to yourself, and make it a quiet passion indulged in the candlelit dark, else you’ll be forced to flee this place, and return to a world forever in jeopardy of consuming itself.”

Jacob had, in fact, been the one to discover Alex, who was born an outsider under mysterious circumstances which much of the village looked upon with suspicion, as if being born outside of their sanctified ground was akin to being born outside of God’s grace. The story was that Jacob and his wife, Evangeline, had found him while out gathering berries in the forest not far from the village. An infant, he’d been swaddled in a blanket with a gold cross sewn into it, then set upon a large stump. Both Jacob and Evangeline attest that the stump upon which he’d been placed had been repeatedly marked along all sides by a dully pointed instrument of some kind, such as a roughly-carved spear, or the antlers of a stag or bull elk, crisscrossing and circling to the extent where it seemed as if patterns were being purposefully drawn. Some in the community joke, others half-joke, that it had actually been the horns of the Devil or some of his demonic minions that made the marks.

Alex’s discovery created quite the commotion for a time, with a mix of intrigue and suspicion eventually giving way to his official, ceremonially-celebrated acceptance, and being passed around as a sort of communally-adopted son until he was twenty five, and thereby old enough to secure his own lodging. Certainly the cross sewn into the blanket was a sign that he was born of a ‘God-fearing woman,’ went one popular thought. But then, why had he been given up, and from where? The closest known outsiders lived in Salem, miles away. There was even a rumor that someone had recognized the blanket as having come from the community itself, creating more of the gossip upon which the community seemed to thrive, or to degenerate, at least from the perspective of the few like Alex whom tended to be in its crosshairs.

If he came from someone in the community, who, and why? Who had been pregnant, and done such a good job of concealing it? And why conceal it in the first place? Something scandalous, no doubt, like an out-of-wedlock affair. Alex always thought: if, indeed, this is the case, that he came from an iniquitous union, and considering the manner in which such ‘offenses’ are spoken, no wonder it was hidden.

While growing up and trying to ‘find himself,’ a mission which was more challenging for him than for most, Alex had bounced from station to station, as if sampling the community sects, never feeling a true fit, as though he’d be forced to stuff himself into a mold that would cut away the truest part of himself. Pushed to make a decision on his dedicated specialty in life as he approached his thirtieth birthday, he believed that his knowledge of his heart, of his truest self, came through his pen, and so he dared to dream of penning his own literature. Perhaps he could serve the community in this manner, perhaps not.

Feeling the pressure, it seemed ever more unlikely that he could fit a niche that the church elders would endorse, especially considering his own spiritual thoughts and experiences were diverging from the dominant orthodox beliefs more and more. Because of this mounting sense that a ‘proper fit’ could never be found, he feared Jacob was right, and that he’d soon have to make that most difficult decision: to leave the only world he’s ever known behind, fleeing for ‘the heathenland.’

Having planned to depart and bringing himself to the brink count- less times, he could never quite summon the strength to go through with it. On innumerable occasions he’d followed his compass towards civilization, it and a crude map having been reluctantly gifted by Jacob, only to turn around. For despite the overwhelming sense that he doesn’t belong, and that the community might, upon further investigation, be comprised more of enemies than of friends, something keeps him here, in the pious Barnes Clan. He senses that he has a mission here; a role to play that’s not supposed to be immediately accepted. Moreover, and more importantly, he’s falling in love.

Nineteen-year-old Miranda does something to him that none of the other young women working for Father Andrew do. Jacob, wanting to protect him and being a well-respected church elder, compelled Alex to take an active role in supporting Father Andrew and the congregation, which drew him into proximity with the mostly young, attractive women whom Andrew seemed to favor when calling upon community members to serve the congregation. They were, by and large, a good-looking lot. But Miranda feels like much more than that, her appeal going well beyond the physical in his eyes, and by her invocation of his aching heart, its taught strings so easily tugged by her.

Their flirtatious fun has come naturally for some time, and he’s now finding himself seeking her attention, sneaking into the church at all hours despite his growing aversion to the sense of its mind-narrowing misleading of its susceptible flock. Alex finds Miranda’s presence exciting, she being that rarest of entities that makes him happy to be alive. He wants to be near her as much as possible, his love for her growing side by side with his distrust of the Church and his developing resistance to its authority. As a further element of attraction, Miranda, like her friend Sophie, possesses an interest in becoming a writer as well, and through the motive of developing their skills the three of them have become secret pen pals, exchanging a series of letters and often discussing the content of their literary creations during their time in the church. This bodes well for Alex, making him appear far more committed to the church than he actually is, affording him an added layer of protection against prying eyes ever passing judgment.

Father Andrew is pleased by Alex’s emerging presence in the church, believing that Jacob and the others have finally worn down Alex’s unholy resistance to the word of God. Jacob and several others are pleased with this as well, and though, unlike Andrew, Jacob knows of Alex’s distaste for Church doctrine and suspects that it’s the beautiful young women serving the Church that have Alex constantly coming back for more, he yet regards this draw as a necessary evil. Anything that may eventually lead to Alex’s acceptance by The Church and its leadership under Father Andrew is an ends justifying such means.

Thus, while he maintains serious reservations, Jacob yet hopes that Alex can find a way to coexist with the community; that he might yet grow into a role which balances the growing taste for ‘secular pleasures’ demonstrated by many a member of the congregation, especially amongst the younger members, with the Christian teachings at the foundation of The Barnes Clan. Being one of the few open to such an adaptation, believing that the community can’t survive if remaining stagnant and entirely closed off to ‘outside influences,’ and that young men like Alex thus have a valuable role to play in the growth of their church, Jacob allows himself to believe that a peaceful balancing point might be reached, even as doom draws towards the doorstep.

For, in every den, as goodness grows, a commensurate evil tends to emerge, like an equal and opposite reaction, as if evil is a force naturally fomented by goodness, in the need for a relative response. And in the Barnes den, Miranda isn’t the only one with eyes for Alex.

Andrew’s daughter, Libby, is coiling around Alex’s feet, having already taken possession of Andrew himself. Andrew’s only child, Libby realized at a young age that she could easily sway her father, whom has many a blind spot, none of them greater than for Libby herself. A darkness has long been brewing within her which she’s always found all too easy to conceal, and which she’s only now beginning to truly explore, the power and off-limits nature of it being too seductive for her to resist. There’s something so splendidly satisfying about cultivating the very force which her father lives to fight.

Being the crafty child of the head of the community, and thus readily able to appear angelic when covered by the concealing cloak which that relationship lends, she’s adept at making light appear dark, and dark appear light. This makes Libby naturally skilled in the political art of shrouding her own darkness in the face of those whom she regards as being mostly incapable of seeing beneath any surface which she chooses to present. Having become an attractive young woman with a cleverness exceeding all others, and taking full advantage of the wing under which her fledgling capacities developed, Libby’s in a prime position to wield great authority within the Church community, especially after the death of her mother, shortly following Libby’s sixteenth birthday.

It was rumored at that time, now near a decade past, that though she put on a happy face in public, Libby’s mother, Natalie, was severely depressed, and that most of her depression was due to constantly being at odds with her daughter. As yet another rumor said to have come from some unnamed source in whom she’d once confided, it was said that Natalie believed that Libby wasn’ther actual daughter, but had been taken over by some sinister spirit while still in the womb. For this unholy possession, Natalie had blamed herself.

She’d reported to her husband that she’d had a dream in which she was commanded to name her daughter Emily, but had refused, having distrusted the power which had levied the command. Libby was the result. Sixteen years later her daughter found her hanging from an oddly shaped, twisted tree not far from the perimeter of the community. Father Andrew kept this horrible discovery to himself, having convinced the doctor at the time to proclaim her death an accident so as to avoid communal disruption, including being forced to deal with the common Christian belief that suicide is an unpardonable sin condemning those committing it to the eternal flames of Hell. So crestfallen was he by his wife’s succumbing to her sorrows that he hasn’t pursued any woman since, despite continuous encouragement by the community. This left Libby as the only woman, and most important person, in his life.

Gently stroking her father’s ego and able to play any role which might enable her to more tightly constrict herself around his heart and mind, Libby employs her considerable intelligence in subtly exposing and manipulating every chink in his armor, turning him towards the service of her whims. She believes men to be her playthings, and that all it takes is a little flirtation, flattery and trickery, and she can possess them as easily as the preacher possesses the God-fearing flock. She encourages Andrew’s taste for the young, attractive women of the growing community, knowing the power that they have over him, and that she can easily turn them into allies, those whom she euphemistically refers to as ‘friends,’ with whom she will, as their leader, cement her control of The Barnes Clan, a clan in which the men only appear to be in control, blindly becoming her entourage of duped and deployed ‘useful idiots.’

Amongst her congregational friends, Libby’s playthings, are Miranda, whom has become her ‘best friend,’ some years younger and someone that looks up to Libby, both seeing the other as a powerful ally going forward, Sophie, the precocious seventeen-year-old who, though intelligent, suffers from serious insecurities that make her easy for Libby to control, as she so badly needs acceptance, Morgaine, an efficient, beautiful young woman who sets herself apart with her slightly masculine attire, and who is secretly only interested in the other young women working in the church, making her a more zealous ‘friend’ to Libby and all the other pretty young woman than most, her taboo secret also making her easier to control, Elizabeth, arguably the most striking of them all, also seventeen and already engaged to a rising star in the Engineering and Construction Guild, and, finally, Taylor and Nathan, the two young men active in the commanding Church Guild, both of whom follow the young women around like lost puppies.

Both Taylor and Nathan are in love with Miranda, and while Taylor is kind and generous, Nathan, with his violently intense stare, is more of a loose cannon, having once slandered Miranda for her rejections of him, complaining to Church elders that she spends too much time in the church flirting with the other guys; not spending enough time flirting with him, in other, unspoken words. Miranda’s gentle rebuffing of Taylor’s entreaties and platonically telling him that she loves him, on the other hand, has resulted in Taylor consistently claiming, achingly, that she’s “like a sister to me.” But of all the younger members of the clan, Alex is most impressed by, and very much interested in, Delaney.

In her mid-twenties like Libby, Delaney’s not only beautiful and sultrily curvaceous, but may be the most capable of all the young women, qualities which have captured the eye of all the men, granting her the power to match. She and Libby maintain a type of mutual respect permitting their coexistence and sometime collaboration, even as it’s clear from the perspective of the more observant that they’re essentially incompatible.

Whereas both she and Libby are sly, Delaney has long distrusted Libby, suspecting in her a deep-seated deviousness. Yet she stays out of Libby’s way, believing the conflict that would arise, should she speak of her suspicions, to be too costly to their respective pursuits. For Delaney cultivates interests that aren’t exactly conventional by Barnes Clan standards, and knows that challenging Libby would only turn her into a nemesis who would inevitably fight to expose those interests. Thus, despite their young ages, their abilities and commanding presence has made them the unofficial heads of the ‘community youth.’ Libby, however, is ultimately unwilling to share leadership.

Many an older woman near the same age as Andrew considers herself a maven; a leading female member of their religious society. Jennifer and Anita are two such individuals. Jennifer is quietly competent; the unflappable one, as Alex considers her. She often says that having survived breast cancer put everything into perspective, having been accompanied into Salem for treatments by Jacob, and insinuates that her stoicism is based upon the fact that such a life-threatening ordeal makes all other challenges seem innocuous and unimportant by comparison, including heartbreak. She’d divorced a man, Jonathan, a carpenter, years ago, owing to the ambiguous reasoning of ‘irreconcilable differences.’ This was quite the controversy in and of itself, as everything is done to prevent divorce in the ‘family is next to God’ community.

Post-split Jonathan left the village, promising to safeguard its location. Jennifer spent most of the subsequent year to herself, wrestling with low spirits and other afflictions. Since then some have whispered that she shows signs of being involved with someone else, but no one knows who this might be. Yet, despite these relatively minor community concerns, and the slight sullying that came from the suspicion that it might have been her own affair that led to the divorce, most treat her as if she’s beyond reproach, considering her to be integral to the elders; the cool, calm, compassionate one often sought out for guidance, being the one most likely to lend levelheaded advice.

Anita is much the opposite. Loud and opinionated, many refer to her, semi-affectionately, semi-critically, as ‘the bulldog,’ as her rather aggressive demeanor has been harnessed by Church leadership. She’s often ‘let off the leash’ by Andrew to ‘bird dog’ the younger women when their frequent gossiping gets out of hand, or whenever it seems like they aren’t giving their Church duties the attention God demands.

‘The wayward won’t stray far when she’s got their scent,’ it's sometimes said. Anita was once considered Father Andrew’s ‘number two,’ but rumor has it that the stress had gotten to her, as wrangling the brash youth back onto the godly track is demanding, and that she’d thereby ‘settled’ for a less strenuous position. She suffers from depression paired with some sort of mystery ailment afflicting her with constant gastrointestinal distress. Alex fantasizes that he’ll someday find a cure for both the depression and the mystery affliction, suspecting that the two are linked, the gastrointestinal disorder being a somatic manifestation of the depression. Healing her would be a boon for Alex, for not only have the healing arts always been an interest of his, but she’s taken a liking to him, and he can use all the goodwill that he can get.

Then there’s Janessa, longtime leader of the Church community and mother to Zander, the young man who, in his mid-twenties like Libby and Delaney, has become Father Andrew’s protégé, and the man most likely to take his place upon his retirement or death. More of a hands-off leader, Janessa’s influence is nevertheless potent whenever she chooses to wield it, which tends to be when someone has violated a vow or covenant considered inviolably sacred. To most of the adult women of the clan, Jennifer, Anita and Janessa appear almost matriarchal. Libby, ever the cunning strategist, permits these delusions, knowing, like a politician, that power best persists when sufficiently concealed, and that she can turn her father and the rest of the male population on a whim, and thereby win whichever contest she chooses to engage in, even whilst typically hiding that engagement.

Perhaps the only elder to be relatively invulnerable to Libby’s manipulations is David, the man whom many say would have been a philosophy professor ‘back in the world.’ Fond of Alex, he indulges his curiosities more than most, being similar to Jacob in this way, though he’s far more reserved, content to live a peaceful, churchgoing life with his wife, Claire, and keep most of his qualms with Church doctrine to himself. He’s convinced of the virtues of the village’s ‘throwback existence,’ even as he holds some serious reservations as to many of their ’less than rational beliefs.’ There are also a number of young women on the periphery of Libby’s little power cluster, resistant to her machinations, yet generally not to the point of provoking her ire, with perhaps one exception.

Caitlin, of whom Alex is fond for her kindness and willingness to entertain his rants and tongue-in-cheek facetiousness, is the only other member of the community not to have been born on community grounds, having escaped an abusive relationship in Arizona that landed her in the hospital a number of times. Pregnant by the same abuser, she lives in fear that, despite the remoteness of their community, and its geographical distance from her past, her dangerously obsessive ex might yet find her. She also seems more apt to detect and reject Libby’s plots than most, which may represent a greater danger. Alex has also developed a liking for Madilyn, the gifted young artist whose portraits of every member of the community are displayed in the Community Hall where all the group meals are served.

Much like Morgaine, Madilyn expresses herself through her attire, to an extent that rubs much of the village the wrong way, many labeling her dark clothes and constantly changing style and color of caps as ‘rebellious,’ it being the sometime catalyst for arguments about self-expression in a community that believes in its restriction. Father Andrew permits it from her to a point, believing it a part of her ‘artistic personality.’ Alex, however, sees it more as a stress-coping mechanism.

Madilyn had once confided in him that she suffered from sometime crippling anxiety, and that drawing had saved her, giving her an outlet and something else to focus on during those times when it seemed her skin may well crawl off of her body. Alex strongly identifies with this sentiment, seeing writing as his primary mode of self-therapy; the ‘pressure release valve’ by which he keeps his often overactive mind from cracking. Alex likes to imagine that he’ll be able to convince her to illustrate some of his writing projects someday. Finally, there’s Bella, a jovial young woman who describes herself as being ‘easily amused,’ her gregarious nature and infectious laugh bringing with it oft-needed levity.

Like Caitlin, Alex appreciates the fact that Bella encourages his bud- ding relationship with Miranda, teasing them both by saying things like “Watch these two when they’re together” to Caitlin when the four of them are in the same vicinity. Caitlin makes similar contributions to their union, having teased them on a number of occasions, saying things like “I’m going to make you two hug,” and “You two love each other,” to which neither Alex nor Miranda had objected. Like Caitlin and Madilyn, Bella tends to steer clear of any and all drama which arises, for which Libby’s gossiping group is notorious for spreading, always, of course, in a manner conducive to Libby’s power-consolidating aims, assuring that no rumor may lead to a disparaging light being shown upon her or her coterie of ‘friends,’ including her ‘bestie.’

Of all her amiable qualities, it’s Miranda’s indulgence of gossip, and being its sometimes source and prime promoter of its perpetuation and amplification, that irritates Alex. He senses danger there, though this danger isn’t nearly enough to dissuade him from avoiding her manifold charms, especially considering his loneliness and need for an outlet for his often overpowering romanticism. Miranda was targeted by Libby as the best option to cultivate as a ‘best friend’ for those same charms, for Miranda is playful by nature, and is thus one of the rare individuals whom Libby can actually stand to be around without being compelled to seek out and exploit some vulnerability. Like most of Andrew’s assistants, Miranda is beautiful, and accomplished at garnering the attention of the men around her, young and old alike, which only grants more power to her and the secret cult of young women whom really run The Barnes Clan. Father Andrew and most of the other Church elders, including Father Jacob, remain mostly ignorant of this fact.

Despite being more intelligent than most, Jacob is under Libby’s thumb. The two of them are regularly engaged in a type of subtle, almost subversive flirtation beneath her father’s nose. Libby knows that Jacob requires more attention to keep in line than most of the men. They constantly chide one another whilst reading scripture, and she’ll often linger about, allowing the others engaged in these Bible reading sessions to disperse in order to grant her one-on-one time with him, so as to better sink in her fangs. And yet it's Zander, the most likely candidate to take over the leadership of their society upon the retirement or death of her father, whom has become Libby’s primary tool in the fine-tuning of her power position.

As soon as she identified Zander as being a rising star, Libby targeted him for acquisition and control. Here was someone steady, reliable and hardworking, with an unblemished reputation, and clearly on the track towards possessing considerable control over The Barnes Clan. While she gained a liking for him, or at least an appreciation for what he granted her in terms of the broader acceptability and command of the congregation, if she were being honest she isn’t sure that she’s truly capable of love, only that she wants things, badly, and feels no compunction about doing what’s necessary in order to attain them.

Libby conquered Zander easily, whilst he, of course, remains exceedingly jealous of the time and attention Libby spends with, and heaps upon, Miranda. Zander treats Miranda with an ongoing level of inconsideration and sometimes even borderline cruelty based upon this jealousy, like a child on the playground targeting those he envies. This only makes it all the more easy for both Libby and, with Libby’s tutelage, Miranda, to manipulate him, turning their subtle confrontations into a tool to guilt and trick him into unwitting obedience.

To Libby’s father, Andrew, it appears that Zander is courting his daughter, and Zander does everything to follow the proper protocol in doing so, playing deferential future-son-in-law to Andrew, bringing them both great satisfaction in the perceived honorability of the exchange. In truth, however, Libby is courting Zander, mostly out of a type of Machiavellian practicality. Her actual desires are pointed elsewhere, towards her best friend, Miranda’s, crush, as Alex is the one seeming to see all the way through the propaganda peddled by her father and his self-righteous minions. To Libby, this grants him an air of attraction which no other young man can touch, both owing to the attraction of intelligence and the fact that, because of his relationship with her best friend and the general regard of his being a less-than-pious clan member, he’s off-limits by orthodox ethical standards, engendering in her a type of irresistible challenge to obtain the brainy black sheep representing the forbidden fruit that would be oh so sweet to bite into.

Like Alex, Libby knows that not only does the Church not have all the answers, but that the actual answers are often the opposite of what’s being peddled, and notices through Alex’s reactions to her father’s preachings, and his conversations with Jacob and David, and other little clues, that he possesses a latent force which no level of Christian zeal can forever stifle or contain. It’s a power that she soon hopes to harvest.

Gradually, Alex has been spending more and more time with Miranda, which means spending more and more time with Libby, of whom he’s always suspicious. There’s something inside of her that frightens him, yet he can’t identify it with any clarity. On the surface, he sees in Libby a beautiful, intelligent young woman and future leader of society. But there’s something more, and it makes him uncomfortable. He sees how easily she can get others to do her bidding, and the cold, callous nature of her response to the success of these subtle manipulations. And though she’s good at hiding it, when she doesn’t get her way he feels a type of mounting menace emanating from her, as though there’s no way she can do anything but pretend to accept being thwarted for only as long as necessary before turning the tide. These observations in and of themselves, however, aren’t enough for him to enact any resistance towards her, as communal control is of no value to him. But when he starts to sense the ease and extent of Libby’s control over the young woman he’s falling in love with, this begins to change.

Alex starts having nightmares centered around the young women in the congregation, sometimes filled with Satanic imagery, with Libby always right in the middle of it all. In his fiendish dreams he sees her use every manner of maneuvering to grow her power over the community, coercing, lying, spreading rumors and, finally, casting dark spells. Many a nightmare ends with Libby handing Miranda a knife, and forcing her to choose between Alex and herself, with Miranda almost always ending up attacking Alex, often joined in doing so by the other young women held under Libby’s spell. It’s as if he’s receiving visions of impending doom at the hands of Miranda, but his huge soft spot for her keeps him coming back for more, even when, out of self-defensive fear, he sometimes tries to avoid her. It’s in this ongoing internal strife that Alex discovers what will become core to their collective transformation.

He’d gathered a number of books from Jacob, including the collected poems of Rumi, the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, Plato’s Republic and a book on healing plants, and had taken to sneaking into the woods whenever the completion of his chores permitted him time to himself. The forest calling to him, as if being specially privy to its secret language spoken through all of its manifestations, he goes deeper and deeper into the mountainous wilds, moving in concentric rings around their community, during which he’s discovered various locales well suited to reading in peace. Expanding his mind with these great, albeit forbidden works, and pondering his inability to leave Miranda and the community despite the sense of danger, he has a thought one restless night while tossing and turning in bed:

‘What if someone were compelled to search my place, and uncovered these books, and my notebooks, my whole collection of blasphemous thoughts? Why not find a place to hide them out there, in the forest, where no one can find them?’

The next morning, after the community meal and having rushed through his wood chopping chores, Alex sneaks into his cabin, grabs his journals and literary treasure trove and the letters that he’s been exchanging with Miranda and Sophie, wraps them all in a large red cloth, tied into a bag, and, taking every precaution, slips into the woods. As soon as he crosses into the untamed territory he hears a hawk screeching high overhead and decides to follow its trajectory, feeling like its presence is auspicious. He’d long developed a sense of receiving messages from God, with the movements of the creatures of the wild being one of the primary mechanisms by which these messages are conveyed. On this particular morning the hawk, followed by a pair of Steller’s Jays, lead him deep in a direction he’s yet to explore. The community elders have always warned against veering too far from the village, as many a peril might be accidentally stumbled upon.

Approximately a half mile or so from the rim of the community, Alex uncovers a brook bubbling up from the earth, flowing further away from the direction in which he’d come. The brook soon takes a rather sharp downhill turn, through a forest of overgrown ferns. Passing through the ferns, something comes over him. The forest feels more alive than ever, and the sounds he hears are not only greater in number and variety, the land laden with life, but are more mellifluously pleasing to his ears than any he’s ever before heard. It’s as if the forest creatures are singing in collaborative tune, with a backdrop of the most subtle chiming sound that fades away as soon as he stops walking and attempts to focus on it. But it’s not only this; he also feels as though a force is now pulling him along, and that, furthermore, someone, or something, is observing him from the concealment of the forest. It’s not a malevolent being. Rather, he feels like an ancient friend is inviting him.

It isn’t long before he finds himself walking briskly, almost jogging, propelled by the deep sense of being welcomed by the forest and pulled along by its invisible guardian. A good two miles from the community he left behind, he hears it, quiet at first, then ever louder. Crashing water. A waterfall! He’s never actually seen one before, only read and seen pictures of them. A few minutes later, he’s standing above it, though it remains hidden by the most magnificent tree he’s ever seen.

The splendid old growth fir straddles the now fast-coursing creek at the pinnacle of a cliff, having grown up and around the creek right at the point where it spills over the edge, falling nearly thirty feet into a perfectly circular crystal blue pool below. The gnarled roots of the giant are impressively broad, thick and tall, a gap of nearly six feet set between the creek and the underside of the lowest-lying roots. It’s as if the tree is the sacred mother of this magical realm, and gave birth to the falls.

It’s in this moment that Alex recalls reading about how, especially in forests receiving a large amount of annual rainfall, fallen trees will sprout new saplings out of their upwards-facing side, and as the new sprouts are fed by the decomposing parent the base of the root system will develop above the surface of the earth, as if set upon stilts, the space once occupied by the old parental tree remaining, becoming a hollow gap making the descendant appear raised. This particular parental tree must have been both ancient and majestic in order to have given birth to such an otherworldly offspring, itself soaring hundreds of feet into the air. Standing proudly at the head of the falls, the fir overlooks the pool and canyon below, the fast coursing creek running down its center.

Making his way around the tree, stepping carefully from raised root to raised root while clinging to the trunk for support, Alex peers over the edge for a better look. The pool below isn’t just gorgeously crystalline, he now sees, but has a slight luminescent glow about it, as if the water itself is enchanted. Clamoring carefully down the rocky cliff on one side, the rich, biodiverse magnificence of this section of the forest subsumes him. He feels at one with it. It’s as if it’s a part of him, that it’s already in his blood, and that he was always destined to discover it, or to rediscover it, and pay homage to this ancient familial link.

The rock walls are, thanks to the mist given off by the constant fall of water, covered with green; with moss, lichen and fern species beyond counting. But it isn’t just the mist from the falls supplying them with more water than they can drink. The walls themselves trickle, exuding water through manifold crevices seemingly sourced from a network of underground springs connected to the creek passing over them. This place is more alive than anything he’s ever had the privilege to come across. Of course, this isn’t necessarily difficult, considering that he’s essentially prohibited from seeing anything outside the bubble which the elders of the church blew around them.

Standing at the base of the pool, books in hand, absorbing the mystical power of the place for the first time, he knows: this is God! ‘I feel more lifeforce, more Spirit, here, than in any place I’ve ever before been,’ he thinks. ‘This shall be my Church. For where life and love is most present, so is God.’ He thinks of Miranda swimming in the pool here with him, far from prying eyes and the controls of her ‘best friend’ and her clucking crew of obsequious cronies, his infatuation becoming love. Then he sees it: behind the waterfall is a cave carved into the rock, an eerie blue glow emanating from within, beckoning him to enter.