The Wood

Part 1, Entry 16

Day Six, Second Moon, Hunting Year Five Hundred and Four

I was right. Aunt Martha didn't come in today, so me and some of the other older students had to help the younger kids get through piles of busy work. I'm lucky that most of them have stopped avoiding me now that my feud with Jacob is on hiatus. If they were still avoiding me, it would have been much harder to try to teach them. Uncle Matthias poked his head through the doorway every hour or so to make sure we were behaving, but he didn't actually teach us anything. I can't help but feel a little bit relieved because now Michael won't miss as many lessons.

Grandfather Seth has sent his uncles door-to-door to ask everyone to meet at the Common tonight. Everyone knows why the meeting was called even though no one will say. Several aunts and uncles have gotten sick, so now things are getting serious. I'm starting to worry that a witch hunt is coming. What if they come for Mama?

Mama and Dad and Grandpa went to the meeting and made me stay home to take care of Michael. I don't mind taking care of him, I'm just curious about what happened at the meeting tonight -- especially because they've been whispering ever since they returned. It was really dark by the time they got home, and nobody was singing or being silly. Many times, after meetings on the Common, we laugh and play games, but those meetings usually start earlier in the day and are meant to celebrate something, a birth, a union, a good harvest, sometimes even to welcome guests traveling from far away. This meeting was about the sickness, and everyone is feeling anxious and on edge. I couldn't hear much of what Mama and Dad and Grandpa were talking about, but the timbre of their voices has gotten me creeped out. The only word I heard keeps reverberating around the inside of my skull.

Plague.

*****

Happy New Year!