Josiah Chowning held the cabin door for Mother and Father as they emerged into the mist-shrouded dawn. One could barely see the great tree-tall sharpened stakes that girded their home; the hundred squat cabins and lone towering Patriarchy of Samara. He looked out over the fields—over the walls that hid the unseen fields—in mindless yearning to know what should not be known, to know the future. Samara was swelled to the gates with folk and this worried Mother. Father though assured her that as soon as the Forty Souls were, once and for all, blessed by old bald Patriarch Peter, that the Fifth Pilgrimage could begin, and that Samara would be free of fear: fear of starvation; fear of plague; fear of wickedness.

Father was tall, so tall and lean that he was visibly not Josiah’s birth father. Father’s black trousers, white shirt, and black jacket made a neat appearance. The brass buckles upon his broad black belt and his narrow black congregation hat would have shined under the sun had the sun shone this morning. The absence of the sun saddened Josiah, as he had polished those buckles for Father for an hour in the wee hours of this morning as Mother stoked the stove against the chill of the mountain air. He recalled vividly that the First Pilgrims had told tales of the great heat in the Pagan Lands they had journeyed out of before founding Samara, Bethany, Nazareth and Galilee. They were ‘blessed with the mountain cold’ he had always been told.

Even Mother was taller than Josiah. Josiah was strong of body though; stout, able to work long hours at the wells, behind the plough, at the woodshop with Carpenter Sawyer. Mother smiled into his eyes, that same pained smile he ever remembered. He knew she feared his Pilgrimage. It was assumed by all that he, ‘bastard issue of fornication’ as broad thick-haired Patriarch Paul ever reminded him at the whipping post each Flagellation Eve*, would be among those chosen for the Fifth Pilgrimage, fated to settle a new village in ‘the Eye of The Lord’. Mother would miss him.

Father was altogether a different matter. Father was severe and seemed to have never liked Josiah. Although mirrors were forbidden as crutches of vanity and tools of the lustful Devil, Josiah had often peered into the clear water of the sand-bottomed eddy above the bridge at Perch Bottom Creek. He had seen nothing in the unholy reflection to suggest Father. Father’s long beak of a nose was not in evidence in Josiah’s broad flatish face. Father’s thin straight black hair contrasted starkly with Josiah’s curly blonde locks. Father walked sternly by him, without even a glance, as Josiah muttered, “Good morning Father, in the Light of The Lord.”

He followed behind Mother who followed Father, forming a procession of three in order of importance to The Lord. Their wooden Sabbath Day shoes sucked at the mud of the track. For none were permitted to defile the common grass and must stay to the muddy churn of the paths and common grounds. The common grass, of the sacred blue variety, was the Hope of the People, the symbol of The Lord’s Benevolence, and must not be trod upon.

It was sinful to speak one’s thoughts unbidden. One was also admonished, mostly at Service, and upon the whipping post, that one’s thoughts could be as wayward and evil as words. Indeed, one’s thoughts were the root of all evil, and were merely reflected in unbidden words.

But Josiah could keep himself from thinking for only so long, I so want to walk on that fine grass, to do so barefoot even, to feel it part between my boxed in toes!

They approached the Church Ground, paved with sawed black oak blocks; blocks that Josiah had helped replace as the eldest of them rotted. The rotted blocks he had hauled with Joshua Hound to the Patriarchy to be burned in the smoker. The Patriarchs, all three of them, savored their smoked pork.

Mother had ever worried about Josiah, him being held in a state of abatement and forbidden pork due to his birth mother’s sin, and the sin of his father unnamed. To make up for this she had ever sneaked him an extra helping of venison and also forced oats and lentils upon him to the point of gagging. This had made him quite broad for a child, the strongest among those who were not yet men.

Father had ever been careful to arrive at Service in ‘midstream’ as he called it, when the vast bulk of Samara’s four hundred souls assembled for service on the wooden flags of the Church Ground outside of the Patriarchy, beneath its towering steeple of red-stained pine. ‘Neither proud nor slovenly good wife,’ he had once said when Mother had asked if they could arrive early in hopes that Patriarch Daniel would notice Josiah in the front row and confer a blessing.

To be first was to be proud. Pride, a wicked sin, was to be avoided. The Furrows, with their presumptions and many rows of corn could afford their pride, could pay for it tomorrow on Congregation Eve, with a fitting donation to the common crib.

To be last would be slovenly. Sloth, being a wicked sin, was likewise to be avoided. The Swills, with their many daughters and far more numerous swine, could afford to show up last, assured that their sloth would be forgiven as night came down on Craft Day; and a gutted porker delivered by two plump girls to Patriarch Daniel would doubtless earn not only a dispensation but a blessing. Indeed, one always knew—or so Joshua Hound always said—when the Swills were short on pig, if they showed up ‘midstream’ like ordinary souls.

The Congregation of Samara only gathered within the hall of the Patriarchy for Service in rain or snow. The men must ever be at hand to rush to the catwalk and take up their pikes and muskets in case of a pack raid. During Service only the Dispensed, those men who received the blessings of Patriarch Daniel, were released from worship to man the walls as lookouts.

The entire Congregation was neatly gathered in family circles—half-circles facing the three patriarchs standing on the Worship Deck—on the well-cut deep-set flags of black oak that he was so proud of, having polished, hauled and set a few with good friend Joshua over this last year. He looked up as Patriarch Daniel cleared his throat, and felt that same sinking feeling he ever had when he gazed upon the First Patriarch's broad face and curly blonde hair, How much easier life would be if I were son to the one who looked most like me, the one with the breath of The Lord in his lungs.

You know Josiah, Joshua has always whispered to you about how you look more like Patriarch Daniel than his five red-headed daughters and two prideful boys: ‘Big’ and ‘Bigger’, by red-headed Matriarch Deborah.

High above the distant hills that were the forest-greened mountaintops, which loomed high above the mist-shrouded palisade walked by the Dispensed, flared a light in the sky, a falling star from heaven! Josiah’s thoughts flared likewise in his mind. The mass of the Congregation—women and children mostly—murmured. The men held their tongues as did the Patriarchs. One voice called out loud and sharp, cracking as it became shrill and choked, “Lord Above, look!”

It had been the voice of his one and only friend, Joshua Hound, just coming into manhood ahead of Josiah, and sinning thrice with three words. Josiah had taken The Lord’s name in common, had spoken during Service unbidden, and, to the horror of all, stood wooden shoes and all upon the Sacred Grass of Hope, crushing God’s Gift and Man’s Hope beneath his painted birch wood soles!

Father looked meaningfully down at Josiah, accusing him of friendship to the impious and bad judgment all in one fell look. Mother just looked down, wanting to weep it seemed. Joshua Hound’s mother Micalla had served her as Josiah’s nurse. Mother had been dry and barren, and Father had afflicted her with his unspoken harshness for this sin with as much silent vehemence as he ever directed at Josiah for being the product of sin—forever fouling the sanctity of David Chowning’s home by his mere presence.

1. First Day of Toil: Congregation Eve

2. Second Day of Toil

3. Third Day of Toil

4. Fourth Day of Toil: Flagellation Eve

5. Fifth Day of Toil

6. Day of Craft: Forgiveness Eve

7. Sabbath Day