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 HIDDEN RIVER ACADEMY

BOOK 1 IN THE HIDDEN RIVER ACADEMY SERIES

KT STRANGE
Copyright © 2019 by KT Strange
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical
means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and
incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover by CJ Strange.
Heartcandies Publishing

Heartcandies.com
To Jamie Lee Cruz and Jenica Saren.
Filthy enablers that you are.
 CONTENTS

Stay in touch!

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20

Awwww yissss Bully Romaaaance

Stay in touch!
About the Author
 STAY IN TOUCH!

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 ONE

Storm clouds gathered above the Park as I sat outside, pushing

myself back and forth on the swing-chair. Mom and the Jackass were
inside, going at each other again with raised voices and curse words,
making the trailer unliveable. I was trying to get a summer paper
written that was due the first week of class for extra credit, but I
knew I would have to head inside soon if the rain clouds that were
threatening actually gave up the ghost and let loose on me.
I didn’t want to be forced back into the tin-can with my mom and
her junkie asshole boyfriend who’d been trying to call me his
stepdaughter for the last however-the-hell-long. September couldn’t
come fast enough. I was dying to get back to class, my friends, and
the teachers who’d been so good to me since I’d started high school.
I was finally going to be starting my junior year, and I had plans to
get on the honor roll and get a scholarship so I could go to college.
As much as leaving my mom behind would hurt, I had to get out or
I’d end up just like her: broken, used, and using.
“No, no! You go fuck yourself, Brandt-“ my mother was
screaming at the top of her lungs. I winced, hunching down in my
seat and wishing I was anywhere but there. They’d been at it for at
least an hour, and from the way my stomach was growling, it was
gonna be another night of scraping cold, burnt canned spaghetti out
of a pot for dinner. I scratched out a few more words in my
notebook for my essay; school was pretty much the only thing I had
to look forward to for the last few years. With a slow shove, I set the
swinging chair off on an easy rock again, and let its swaying motion
comfort me.
The screen door on the side of the trailer slammed, and Brandt
stormed out, cursing at my mom. I watched him go from under my
lashes. I was mostly hidden behind the old shed. As he kicked the
ground, puffs of dirt exploded around his filthy sneakers. He was
rail-thin (the drugs’d do that to you if you did them as much as he
did) and his ratty shirt was stained under the armpits. I cringed
when he turned back. I caught myself on the swing and went still so
he wouldn’t notice me.
“You fucking bitch!” he hollered at the trailer, shaking his fists
alongside his body. His shoulders trembled as he rolled his chest
forward and spat at the ground. Then with a flail of one arm in the
air, he stormed off down the gravel road. I felt eyes on me, eyes on
him, knowing that the close-kept neighbors in the Park would be
watching as he made his way towards the main road, cursing and
swearing. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding in, and my
heart settled a bit in my chest. Brandt scared the crap out of me on
a good day. With drugs in his system he was unpredictable and
volatile. He was the worst of my mom’s men. Usually he left me
alone, and when he didn’t, I’d scoot out of the trailer and go hang
out in the strip of cottonwood trees next to the Park until he and
Mom had calmed down.
The fights had been getting worse lately too. I lifted my head I
noticed Miss Mimi, the old woman next door, looking at me through
her curtains. There was a flash of lace and she disappeared. Mimi
was nice enough. She’d had me over for stale cookies and tea when
we’d first rented the trailer, but my mom had knocked over and
broken one of Mimi’s weird gnome statues a few weeks later. I
hadn’t been asked after that. I didn’t hold it against her.
“Baby girl,” my mom was out of the trailer now, her flip flops
slipping on the gravel as she walked into the dust-square that was
our ‘yard’. “Mia, baby girl, it’s dinner, c’mon now, you can get that
done later,” she cooed at me. I wondered what the hell she’d
cooked, and how she’d done it what with her and Brandt circling and
spitting like a pair of alley cats, but I got up anyway.
 “That’s my girl,” she said, holding out her arms for me. She was
in the old robe I’d gotten for her two Christmases back. I’d worked a
month at the Park’s canteen to afford it. It’d been nice when it was
new, plush green terry cloth, but now it was old and stained and
worn out. I went to her anyway, tucking my notebook under my arm
and she wrapped me up in her embrace. She was too thin. She’d
been wasting away the last few months ‘cause she and Brandt were
using again. I swallowed as I hugged her back - I hated the feel of
her elbows so sharp under her skin. She’d get clean for a few days
and then fall back off the wagon, and it’d been getting worse as the
months wore on. My high school had a food program, so I got
breakfast and lunch there at least, enough that I wasn’t all bone like
she was even after a summer of inconsistent meals.
“What was all that about? Brandt coming back tonight?” I asked
carefully as she led me into the trailer. The door slammed behind us
and she blew out a deep breath.
“That asshole,” she growled, “if he comes back I’ll kick his ass.
Just you and me, baby girl, you know, like it’s always been huh? He’s
gone, and good fucking riddance. You sit down now.” She pressed
on my shoulders and I pulled out one of the folding chairs that sat
around the card table. On good days, she and Brandt had invited
over some of the other Park residents for poker and other card
games, but that hadn’t happened in awhile because they were both
too busy scoring to have guests. Even Park residents had limits, and
no few of them were bothered by my mom using with a ‘kid’ at
home. Never mind that I hadn’t felt like a child since I’d been legally
allowed to work and gotten a part-time job after school to help with
things around the house.
When I sat down, my mom brought me a bowl of instant ramen
and a soda to drink. My stomach turned over looking at it. I’d had
enough of boil-in-a-bag rice and twenty cent noodles that looking at
the bowl made me miss the hot lunch program at school even more,
but she looked so hopeful that I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by
not eating it.
“Thanks Mom,” I said quietly and spooned up some broth. It was
salty on my tongue, burning the roof of my mouth with its heat.
 “Oh darlin’, I know it’s not been easy for you,” she said, voice
hushed. She clasped my cheeks in her fingers, her skin paper-thin
and rough.
“It’s ‘kay, school’s gonna be good and stuff. So, uh… Brandt? He’s
gonna move out?” I pulled my face away from her grip to eat some
noodles. She nodded and let me go.
“I’m gonna pack his crap up and leave it out on the road. If he’s
not by to take it, they’ll trash it and that’s better than he deserves.”
I didn’t ask what he’d done, I didn’t want to know. Brandt had
been a surprise in that he’d lasted longer than a year. All of Mom’s
men were the same: druggies, or drunks, only interested in her for
the money she pulled in through her disability benefits and the tricks
she turned sometimes. She thought I didn’t know about her “dates,”
but I wasn’t stupid. She’d be gone at night, sometimes a bit of the
next morning. Then she’d be flush with cash for a day or so, and
she’d go on a bender and buy me something nice to make up for all
the times she didn’t have two bucks to give me.
That was our existence, although I tried not to blame her for it.
It’d made me damn good at thrifting for clothes. Hell, the only
reason I ever had new clothes to wear for the start of school each
September was because my uncle would send me a pre-loaded VISA
card with a couple hundred bucks, even though I hadn’t seen him in
years. He didn’t know that more than half that money he gave me
usually got spent on food, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt
him. It wasn’t like he was banging down our trailer door to see my
wardrobe. Mom and him had it out when I was eleven or so, and
other than the a card at Christmas, a present at my birthday, and
the gift of cash every year for clothes, I hadn’t heard from him.
Mom patted me on the shoulder and left me to finish my dinner. I
knew my gut would hurt later from all the salt and the taste would
be repeating on me for hours, but I drank down the last of the
broth, grateful for something warm and filling… even if the full
feeling wouldn’t stick. Instant noodles were like that, temporarily
satisfying but you wanted more thirty minutes after you were done
eating.
 I washed up the mess from dinner and went to my room to finish
off the essay. My space was thoroughly mine, the peeling wallpaper
painted over with a batch of pink paint I’d scored from leftovers at
the hardware store, and I’d pasted up paper flowers, hearts, and
butterflies cut out of magazines and newspapers that other Park
residents had thrown out. It wasn’t much, only room for my twin
bed and the closet door to open, but it was my haven. Mom’s men
knew it was off limits, and even she was timid about venturing into
what she saw as my “sanctuary.” Somewhere, under all the bad
decisions she wore on her skin, she was still my mom and she was
trying the best she knew how.
I was writing my closing statement for my paper when I heard
the front door bang, and then my mom started yelling her head off.
Brandt had returned.
“Don’t think you can fuckin’ walk in back here, like you have any
right at all, you asshole-“ she was snarling, like she did when she
was a few bottles deep into a rage, not at all the soft spoken woman
who still tried to tuck me in at night even though I was sixteen
already and didn’t need it.
He was yelling back at her, screaming something about money
being missing, and what’d she done with it. My heart picked up
speed, hammering away in my chest. I liked Brandt the least out of
the last batch; he was older than my mom by about ten years, and
rough in a way that made me nervous. He’d grabbed her a few times
in the past, by the arm, and once snagged his fingers in her hair.
Part of me had known he’d be back this time around, because she’d
always forgiven him every time before, no matter how bad it got or
how much I begged her not to.
I got off my sagging bed and slid the pocket door to my room
open. The hallway was shadowed, and they couldn’t see me clearly,
although they were fully lit up to me by the glow of the kitchen
lights.
Not for the first time, I wished I had money for a cell phone -
even a shitty little flip-thing so that I could call the cops. Brandt
looked pissed, his muscles tensing and flexing, the wiry veins in his
arms bulging out along his forearms. I clung to the door frame as he
lunged for my mom. I could barely breathe. She shrieked and batted
at him with her hands, beating him around the head as he grabbed
at her shoulder.
“Fuckin’ cunt,” he snarled, “you think they won’t know what went
down? You’re fucked in the head, woman.”
I felt frozen, so still and unable to move. She hissed and lunged
at him, fingers out to claw at his eyeballs. He shoved her away with
a curse. I wanted to cry out, tell them to stop, as he pulled back his
arm and punched her in the face. His knuckles cracked against her
skin and her head snapped back with as she cried out.
Something kept me glued to the wall, to the floor, as everything
went grey in my peripheral vision. You never know how you’ll act in
those moments, you always say you’ll be brave, you’ll step up, but I
couldn’t. I was stuck, skin damp from sweat and fear as she recoiled
and then hit him back. Obscenities were flying between them when
my mom whirled and grabbed something out of the sink. There was
a flash of light on metal and she swiped out.
That’s when a noise finally drew from my throat, a sort of
cracked and broken gasp. Brandt shrieked when she knife his
shoulder and then sliced downwards, digging into the muscle of his
chest. Blood bloomed on his dirty white shirt as time dropped to a
low crawl. He was screaming at her, calling her names as she
stabbed him again, a streak of red spattering across the floor.
“Mom, no...” I swear I was shouting too, but my voice was only a
low whisper in my ears. Neither of them paid attention to me. Brandt
staggered back, staring at my mom like she was the devil come too
soon, and then sank to his knees.
“Oh, baby, baby no, I-“ She followed him down, knife going to
the floor in a clatter as he moaned like he was damn well dying. He
shuddered and slumped over. She bent over him and screamed,
hoarse and raw. I dropped to the floor like the muscles of my legs
had been cut at the sound of it, at the sound of her screaming her
head off like she was the one who’d been stabbed.
All I could think was I had to hide the knife before the cops got
there. I tried to move, willed my legs to shake off the invisible hands
that held me back, but couldn’t. Long minutes passed.
 Red and blue lights flickered through the faded curtains, and
Mom’s screaming turned into the wail of sirens. I hadn’t gotten to
the knife, my arms curled around my shoulders as I clung to myself.
Brandt was moaning like a dying animal, tossing his head back and
forth as he pressed his hands to his wounds, and my mom was
looming over him, sobbing and making these hysterical choking
noises like she was going to vomit.
The trailer’s door banged open and a uniformed police officer
stepped in, gun trained on my mom. I whimpered and his eyes
flicked over to look at me, gun still pointed right at my mom as she
wailed.
“Child in the trailer,” he called over his shoulder, and stepped in. I
felt my cheeks flush in anger, but the feeling was distant,
somewhere in the back of my mind. I wasn’t a child.
“Ma’am, where’s the weapon? Are you still armed?” Another
officer, a tall blond man, shouldered in behind him and then kicked
the knife out of my mom’s reach. It skittered across floor and
wedged itself against the wall. My mom was holding out her hands
to them, trying to stave them off or show them she wasn’t a danger,
and they quickly were on her, securing her with plastic zip cuffs
behind her back. She was still sobbing hysterically, and on top of the
noises Brandt was making, I wanted to be sick.
There was another loud siren, white and red lights this time, and
I knew it had to be an ambulance. A female officer stepped into the
trailer and looked right at me as EMS attendants called from outside
that they were bringing a stretcher to the trailer door.
“Call CPS,” the female officer said into her shoulder comm unit.
“We’ve got a teen girl, about fifteen.” I held my breath as she
seemed to look right through me and then shake her head. She was
calling Child Protective Services. My heart dropped as I realized I’d
be leaving here in a CPS car or police cruiser. I’d never been taken
before, no matter how bad it got, because Mom was always so good
at talking herself up when the social workers got involved, and she’d
never beat on me. But I knew there was no way Mom would talk her
way out of this one.
 The officer approached me slowly and I scrambled up to my feet,
feeling like I wanted to vomit more than ever.
“Hey there, sweetie, I’m Officer Lang,” she said, reaching out a
hand to stop me from running. She was tall, taller than Brandt even,
and my tongue choked me. “Is that your mom?” She gestured
behind her where my mom was slumped over, letting the two
officers handle her as they got her to her feet. Mom let out a slow
moan like a broken thing and I nodded once. “What’s your name,
sweetie?”
I stared at her, not sure if I trusted my voice to speak. I could’ve
stopped it, maybe, if I’d put the damn knives away after I’d washed
up, but I didn’t… I’d forgotten. I’d said to myself I’d put the dry
dishes away later. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes, and my
nose burnt as I felt the urge to cry. Kids that went into the system
never got out. They’d transfer me to a different school, depending
on whatever foster home I was put in, and Mom would probably lose
custody of me even if she didn’t go to jail. I’d seen it happen to
some of my friends in the Park.
In a heartbeat everything had changed, impossibly for worse.
Fuck. I swallowed hard to fight off the tears.
“Mia Quinn, I’m not fifteen, I’m sixteen,” I said, wanting her to
know she’d been wrong about my age. I hated how soft and small
my voice sounded. She nodded and looked at her watch.
“Is there someone I can call for you? A family member or relative
who lives nearby?” The officer was looking at me with a mix of pity
and comfort, but I didn’t want it. I didn’t need it. I needed my mom,
not some misplaced guidance counsellor in a uniform. I shook my
head before hesitating.
“My uncle. He lives upstate though, and I don’t have his number.”
My shoulders hunched and I wrapped an arm around myself, fingers
digging into the skin of my upper arm as I hung on. Behind Lang,
my mom was being read her rights, and I shivered as they walked
her out. She didn’t even look at me, instead she stumbled along in
her bare feet and the robe I’d given her. A hot tear tracked down my
cheek and I wiped it away furiously, feeling confused and angry.
 “I’m going to need you to pack a bag for the night, Mia, alright?
I’ll get your uncle’s number from your mom, and we’ll call him. Until
then, Child Protective Services is going to take you, and you’ll be
placed in care for a few days. The social worker will explain
everything to you when she gets here.”
My mouth went dry and I nodded despite not quite
understanding her, feeling a numbness creeping up my spine and
settling in my chest. It was a relief, to not feel so much, and it
pushed back the hysterical edge of pain and anger that had been
making a home in my heart. It was all happening so fast… I was
being tugged along in the wake of my mom’s actions and there was
nothing I could do about it.
“What’s gonna happen to me? If he doesn’t… if you can’t get
ahold of him?” I asked, grateful for the ice growing in my stomach
that was stopping the bad feelings, the scared feelings. It was like
someone else was asking the officer, not really me, and I was
floating outside of my own body when she answered.
“CPS will talk to you about your options, Mia, but it depends on if
your mother is going to be prosecuted or not-“
“It was self-defense,” I blurted out, knowing that wasn’t true,
she’d attacked first, and Officer Lang surveyed me for a long
moment before sighing. I felt like she could see the lie on my face.
I’d never been really good at being dishonest.
“Pack your bag for a few days just in case, Mia. We’ll get your
statement once things are cleared up here, then you’ll go with CPS.”
 TWO

“Alright there, Mia?” My uncle, Matt, was looking at me, eyes wide
behind his round glasses. It’d been a shitty fucking few weeks since
the Incident. Matt had put in for an emergency temporary custody
application through the court system, but I’d still had to stay at a
CPS foster home for a bit until the judge would hear my uncle’s
case. It’d been years, almost five years, since I’d last seen my Uncle.
His dark brown hair had gone more to silver, streaked with it, and he
was wearing glasses all the time instead of just to read. He was still
trim, his job as a high school football coach saw to that. I didn’t
have much to say to him. What did you say to someone who’d
pulled you out of hell? Even if he was family, I felt like I owed him
for it.
I hated owing people, especially when I had no way of paying
them back. I didn’t want to think about how much he’d spent on the
court fees, or the lawyer he’d used, or the new clothes he’d brought
me when I was staying at the CPS house. That’d had felt weird, him
walking up to the front door with a little bright pink roll-along
suitcase in his hand, and a worried pinched expression on his face. I
was wearing one of the new t-shirts he’d gotten me, a minty green
v-neck that was softer than I was used to. I wasn’t sure how the
thin material would hold up in the wash, given that it was so light.
The laundromat at the Park had eaten through a number of my
shirts during the time I’d lived there, and they’d all been made of
thicker cotton.
 “Yeah, I’m okay,” I said finally, looking out the window as we
roared down the highway away from the city. Away from my mom,
from Brandt, who’d survived for all his whining and screaming at the
EMS attendants, and the trailer I’d lived in since I was ten. My few
meagre possessions were in the back of the SUV, in another pink
suitcase, larger this time and matching the first one. I wondered
who he knew that owned a pair of pink, matching suitcases to
borrow from. He was taking me back to his house in Hidden River,
the town where he and my mom had grown up. Mom had told me a
few stories about it and him when she was sober, and quite a few
more stories when she was drunk. Looking at my uncle now out of
the corner of my eyes, I wondered how many of them were true.
Back in his day, according to my mother, he’d been quite the ladies
man and a bit of a troublemaker. Now he was everything like a
proper upstanding citizen, not a boy who nearly burned down a barn
when he was fifteen.
“You understand everything that is going to happen in the next
few weeks, don't you Mia? Do you have any questions?“ He asked,
his voice low and somber. The judge had explained everything to me
before I left the courtroom with my uncle I would be in his
temporary custody until my mother's case went to trial and she was
either convicted or found not guilty. I’d had a straight a choice
between living with my uncle or going to live in foster care. It hadn't
been much of a choice for me even if I barely knew my uncle
anymore. I was being transferred to my uncle’s high school in
Hidden River. It was a private school but thankfully non-religious. My
mom and I hadn't really been the churchgoing kind of people.
The temporary custody order gave my uncle the right to transfer
me, and I appreciated that he was doing everything to make the
change simple. I didn't really understand what it would be like to go
to a private school, and I was already missing my friends. At a public
school I knew my grades were good enough to get a full ride at a
decent college, but private schools were way more competitive and I
had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t be able to keep my grades up.
Plus I wasn’t exactly rich-kid material. I had no idea if they were
like the people from my high school, but in nicer clothes, or if they
were on a whole different level entirely. The few vacations I’d had
when I was younger had consisted me going to visit my
grandparents and uncle in Hidden River, at least until my
grandparents had died… and I didn’t remember them well because
I’d been so young. Visits after that had been few and far between,
although from what I remembered, having access to constant
sources of entertainment, food, and more at the family farm house
had been… overwhelming to say the least. How exactly was I going
to fit in with a bunch of kids who probably didn't even know what
the trailer looked like? Their idea of a trailer was probably something
you hitched to the back of a Ford 350 and went camping in for the
weekend. Eating stale crackers with Miss Mimi next door probably
wasn't even on the radar for them. My stomach turned over
uncomfortably and I let out slow breaths to calm myself.
The public defender that was taking care of mom’s case seemed
somewhat confident that she could get my mom off given that
Brandt hasn't died and he was high on drugs when he was taken to
hospital. As much as life with her had been hard, I’d known what I
was doing. I’d known what was expected of me. Now everything
would be different and I didn't know how to cope. I toyed with the
new smartphone in my lap idly. It’d been the second gift my uncle
had given me when he’d shown up at the CPS house, programmed
with his number in it so we could keep in touch. Before, my internet
use had been limited to the computers at school or the library, and
I’d never had a cellphone of my own. My mom had called it a
‘natural child upbringing’ once, when she’d gone on a hippie kick and
tried to grow vegetables in the sad dirt plot outside our trailer. I
called it being broke-ass-poor, but I’d never really felt like I was
missing out. Now, looking at the fancy expensive electronic device in
my lap, which had probably cost more than two months of our pad
rental at the Park, I wasn’t comfortable using it. The only thing I’d
been researching on it had been the court system, and how likely it
was that my mom was going to go to jail or be freed.
We turned off the main highway and started down a two lane
rural rural road. The open farmland between the city and Hidden
River had turned into a forest, the tall dark pine trees reaching
towards the sky ominously. I had to get through the next two
months until mom’s case was over, and then I could go back home
and when she was let off.
“I’m going to stop here for gas,” my uncle said as he pulled into a
station off the highway. "Do you want anything to drink before we
get to the house?"
I shook my head and cracked open my door to the outside air. It
was fresher here than at the Park, which for its name was still stuck
in the middle of a busy city, with trucks and cars rolling past it all
day and night. There was a light cool breeze here despite it being
summer still, and I appreciated the new hoodie my uncle had
purchased for me. I grabbed it off the back of the seat.
“Do you mind if I go to the bathroom?" I asked as I slipped out
of the car. My feet hit gravel over pavement. Yep, we were really in
the country now. I did my best not to skid over the cement. My
uncle waved me off towards the gas station’s building. The
bathrooms were surprisingly clean, but from the looks of things the
station serviced semi-trucks and other kinds of big rigs. Mom had
dated a trucker for awhile, and he’d told me that drivers were
notorious princesses and divas - they wouldn’t shit just anywhere.
When I returned to the SUV, there was a tall red-headed guy
leaning against it and talking to my uncle. I eyed him warily, too
many years with Mom bringing home the wrong kind of man made
me uncomfortable around strangers until I knew them.
“There she is.” My uncle smiled broadly as he pulled the nozzle
out and set it back on the pump. “Shawn, this is my niece, Mia.”
I appreciated that he remembered to call me Mia. Only my
grandparents had called me Amelia, a name too much like oatmeal
and prune juice for my liking. The tall red-head turned and I could
see he was my age, or thereabouts, but he’d clearly been eating his
breakfast of champions for years, as he towered over my own short
five foot three inches. He had shoulders to match, broad and firm,
and when he reached out to grab my hand to shake it, his hand was
calloused and more of a mitt enclosing my fingers than
anything else.
 “Shawn Riordan,” he said, hitching his shoulder and letting my
hand go with an easy, open smile. Some people looked like they’d
walked off the set of a beachy clothing commercial, and he was one
of them. Although I could see freckles under his light tan, and he
looked a little pink across the nose and on the tips of his ear. Shawn
clearly burnt better than he browned. “Coach Quinn, uh, your uncle?
He was saying you’re gonna be starting at HRA tomorrow with us.”
My uncle, very innocent expression on his face, was putting the
gas cap back on with a studious look, giving the whole operation far
more attention than it warranted.
“Yeah,” I said, at a bit of a loss as to what sort of small talk the
situation called for, “I’m guessing you play… football there?”
If anything, Shawn grinned wider, showing off perfect white
teeth.
“What gave it away?” he asked, a playful gleam in his eyes, “The
shoulders, right?”
He leaned in a little, and I had to bite back on my automatic
instinct to pull away. Behind him, my uncle cleared his throat and
then opened up the driver’s side door. Shawn seemed harmless
enough though, as far as I could read him, more cheerful and
enthusiastic than threatening.
“No, more like the whole Coach Quinn thing. Unless everyone
calls him that? I thought he taught Phys Ed too.” I had to fight back
the smile as Shawn winced dramatically and put a hand over his
heart, giving out a little groan like I’d hurt him. No, I decided, Shawn
was definitely not threatening, ridiculous, a bit like an overgrown
retriever.
“You’re cold, so cold. The shoulders not doing it for you then?
That was like, one of my best lines.”
“Riordan-“ my uncle was back, around the corner of the SUV,
with a tolerant but firm look on his face. Shawn held up his hands in
the air, as if to say I’m not doing anything to her I swear, and my
uncle shook his head before glancing down at me. “Riordan is my
best wide receiver," my uncle said with a grin. I shrugged my
shoulders. I had no idea what a wide receiver was.
 We hadn’t even had TV for most of my time growing up, so I’d
never seen a game, and going to my old school’s football games had
been at the bottom of my priority list. Even now, my focus was going
to be on my grades. I had to do well, get a scholarship, and get out.
And to be honest, my mind went in a different direction when my
uncle said receiver. Like, inappropriate-the-two-guys-down-the-road-
at-the-Park-who-were-living-together different direction. I hoped my
thoughts weren’t showing on my face, because looking at what a
broad-shouldered beef of a guy Shawn was, I had a feeling he
wouldn’t appreciate it being hinted at that he ‘received’ from other
guys. This wasn’t the big city.
“Right, if you come to the games this season, you’ll see me and
Buck playing. I mean, you’ll see Buck anyway, since he’s living with
you and all.” Shawn looked over at my uncle as his voice trailed off,
like he wasn’t sure if he should have said anything.
I already knew- my uncle was currently hosting the team’s
quarterback, another high school student whose parents were
abroad. He’d wanted me to know before I made my decision. Even
though we hadn’t seen each other in years, my uncle was
surprisingly sensitive to the fact I might not want to be moving in
with a strange young man, given what I’d gone through with my
mom’s boyfriends. Personally I didn’t think my feelings on in it
mattered. it’s not like I’d have much of a say if I went into the foster
system on who I ended up with or who my foster ‘siblings’ would be.
If Buck was anything like the jocks at my high school, he’d ignore
me and I’d ignore him. Shawn was oddly chatty for an athlete, but I
chalked that up to my uncle introducing us. He’d feel obligated to
be nice to the coach’s niece. It probably wouldn’t last past-
“Shawn’s offered to show you around school, so you won’t get
too overwhelmed,” my uncle said, and Shawn shot me another
earnest smile. Oh. Maybe he was feeling really obligated to my
uncle. I couldn’t quite figure him out. Maybe he’d been hit in the
head one too many times on the field. I assumed that’s what
happened to a lot of football players, head injuries, right?
“Uh, that’d be nice,” I managed not to stammer, and Shawn
grinned again, clapping me on the shoulder so hard it smarted.
 “Well it was great meeting you Mia, nice to see you Coach,” he
saluted my uncle with two fingers and stepped backwards, to where
a sleek midnight-blue SUV was waiting. It was then I noticed the
keys dangling from his fingers, and I wondered if it was his car, or if
it belonged to his parents. I’d never done much driving. I hadn’t
expected to need to, since me and my mom took the bus
everywhere, or walked. I gave Shawn a little half-wave and then
ducked around the side of my uncle’s car and climbed in. The skin
on the back of my neck prickled. I looked out the window. Shawn
was in his SUV, watching me, a smirk on his face. When he caught
me staring, his smirk widened. My cheeks went hot and I turned
quickly, to look ahead.
Uncle Matt started the engine and did up his seat-belt. He didn’t
say anything for a few minutes as we hit the road again, driving into
the woods that surrounded Hidden River, and its namesake, the
actual Hidden River.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said gently after we’d ridden in silence
for about ten minutes. “It’s a private school, but there’s good kids
there. You might make some friends, be a little less lonely.”
I fingered the outline of where my phone was crammed into my
jean’s pocket. I had the numbers of my friends back home, the ones
who did have phones. I was missing Cay and Sam already, and I
wondered how their first week of school was going.
Even though it was disrupting my education, my case worker
thought it was better for me to start the second week of school in
Hidden River than to spend the first few days of a new year at my
old school and then transfer. I hadn’t bothered finishing the essay I’d
been working on, there’d been no point once I’d realized I was
probably going to be pulled out of my school and put
somewhere else.
The trees enveloped us and the car, throwing the road into green
shadow, and I tried to put thoughts of my friends and my old school
behind me. It’d only be that much harder to deal with being away
for a few months if I was moping about them every minute.
“Shawn seems nice, did he really offer to show me around or was
that your doing?” I shot a sly look at my uncle and he smiled, but
kept his eye on the road.
“He’s a good kid, one of the best. He’ll look out for you. His mom
is a fine lady, single mom working with two twin boys, and she still
manages to cook them dinner when they go home on the weekends.
You could do worse than to make friends with Shawn, sweetheart.”
He flicked the turn signal on and slowed. I tried not to think too
deeply on the endearment he’d just used, but it made my stomach
clench. Was I really his sweetheart? He’d been generous, more than
kind, more than he owed me as a relative, for sure, but his
sweetheart? We turned onto a gravel road, and I watched as the old
farm house my mom had been raised in came into view once we
were past the tree and shrub cover.
It was in the heart of the clearing, rising proud, its cream-painted
clapboard siding bright and clean. Beyond it lay a plowed field,
although my uncle had sold off the acres he’d inherited it with, so
the back fence was the property line. I’d been allowed to run out
there when I was a kid, but it belonged to someone else now.
There was a light burning in the second floor-window, and the
porch lamp was also on in the dusk as evening fell around us. Uncle
Matt cut the engine and then paused as I took it all in, the neat-
trimmed yard where grass ran right up to the trees, and the
flagstone steps that led to a wrap-around porch. There were two
other cars, one a large black and red Range Rover, while the other a
smaller, much older faded blue Toyota sedan. The Toyota looked out
of place next to its surroundings, although it’d been recently washed
and waxed to bring out the most shine in its paint job.
“Welcome home, Mia,” he said, voice soft. He reached over and
wrapped a hand around my shoulder, squeezing it gently. Home. For
now, maybe.
 THREE

Uncle Matt carried my suitcases up to the porch for me, and

returned for the few boxes of the rest of my things while I
shouldered my backpack. The air was crisp, and I could hear honest-
to-god crickets singing and chirping away. I looked up at the sky
where the first blush of stars was starting to peek out through the
haze of the setting sun.
“You’ll get a real good view of them tonight, Mia, but it’s probably
best if you settle and get ready for tomorrow,” Uncle Matt grunted as
he set down a box of books on the top step. “Jesus, Mia, did you
bring half the library with you?” His tone was light, teasing, and my
heart fluttered in my chest as I couldn’t help but smile.
“It’s your fault I have most of those,” I shot back, and he flashed
me a quick grin. “All that school money every year, had to spend it
on something.”
I crunched up the driveway and he clapped a gentle hand on the
middle of my back in a familiar gesture that felt oddly foreign. I froze
for a moment, staring up at him, and guilt crossed his face.
“Sorry, kid, I’m still thinking I can treat you the same as when
you were little…” He pulled back his hand, but I missed the warmth
of it, the feeling of family that came with it. As lost as my mom had
been for so long, she’d never stopped hugging me. The time away
from her had me hungry for the comfort of her hand on my cheek,
or her arm around my shoulders. It just wasn’t my usual to be
touched by a man. I’d get used to it.
 “No, it’s nothing, just startled me, that’s all.”
“Right, your room is upstairs, the one you used to stay in when
you visited,” my uncle cleared his throat and hollered out, “Buck!
Get up here!”
He stomped up the stairs, gravel spitting off his boots as he
went, and opened the front door. It wasn’t even locked, and I
followed in his footsteps. The entry opened up right into the
comfortable living room that had been remodeled since I’d last
visited, although the dark wood floors were still there and so was
the great brick fireplace in the north most wall even though the
brickwork had been painted a creamy white.
“Buck has the room downstairs. He’ll be up in a minute to help
you with your things. I’m going to get you something to eat.” The
wall separating the main living space from the kitchen had been
knocked down since I’d been gone, and Uncle Matt set about pulling
some things out of the fridge and muttering.
I heard a creak, and then footsteps from the door that led to the
basement. It swung open, and there stood over six feet of giant
football player, dressed in a pair of low-slung black sweats and a
clinging white t-shirt, looking a little sleepy and more than a little
grumpy. He flicked a glance at me for a second, and then ran his
hand through thick dark brown hair, making it stick up at odd angles.
He had a sharply defined jaw, with the barest hint of a shadow along
it, and high cheekbones set under clear blue eyes. Shawn had been
good looking, with his winner’s smile and good nature, and Buck was
made from the same heartbreaking mould.
“Hey Coach,” he said, without a second look towards where I
stood, and padded over to where my Uncle was grumbling in the
kitchen about the carrots going bad. I swallowed hard and suddenly
knew what it was like to feel completely invisible and unimportant.
“Buck, meet Mia, my niece. Mia, this is Buck Barron.” Uncle Matt
had his back to us both, more casual than he’d been at the gas
station with Shawn, and I saw him reach out to clap Buck hard on
the back before passing him a beer. My eyes widened at that. Even
my mom never let me drink.
 Buck turned around and took a good long look at me with an
impassive expression, cracking the cap off and taking a slow swig
without taking his eyes off of me. Far from ignoring me like he’d
done at first, his blue eyes pinned me in place. His gaze lit my skin
on fire, and I wanted to bolt right back out the door and hide in my
uncle’s truck. Finally, the corner of his mouth quirked up and he
looked back at my uncle. I could breathe again now that I wasn’t
under the microscope of his stare.
“Nice to meet you, Buck,” I murmured more to myself, since
other than a half-smirk he’d not even acknowledged me. I bent
down to untie my shoes and stash them in the entry-closet, and saw
his eyes flicker over to me again for a moment before he focused on
my uncle.
“I’m just gonna take my stuff upstairs,” I said to no one, as Buck
was talking to my uncle about an upcoming practice. I adjusted my
backpack and headed up the stairs.
My room was obvious, if I hadn’t been there before I’d have
known it because my new school uniform was hanging over the
door. I set my backpack down on the double bed and pulled my
uniform down, running my fingers over the pleated plaid skirt in HRA
colors, red and black with a shot of gold. It came with slim fitting
white polo shirt, and a deep red v-necked sweater.
“No one will know you came from a trailer park, unless you tell
‘em,” a strange voice interrupted my thoughts and I jerked my head
up. Buck was standing in the doorway with one of my boxes in his
arms. How he’d been so quiet I had no idea, unless I’d really been
focused on the uniform. I swallowed, my throat dry at the look in his
eyes, a smug, sly expression I didn’t like.
“I didn’t think that far forward, honestly,” I said and he stepped
in, shouldering through the doorway like it was too small for him. If
I’d thought Shawn had broad shoulders…
Buck thumped the box down on the bed and left without another
word, thudding down the stairs. I walked over to the closet, pulling
back its double doors. More white polo shirts were hanging up, along
with a few white long-sleeve button downs, and a second skirt and
sweater still wrapped in the dry-cleaning plastic cover.
 I hung up my uniform, and turned to look at my home-for-now.
The walls were painted a light lilac, and I could tell from the scent
that it had been recently done in the last few days. The bed frame
was an old sleigh-style, made of solid dark wood and heavy, with
one of my grandmother’s hand-pieced quilts over the footboard.
There was a tall bookcase with a stack of books on it, textbooks by
the look of them, and a dresser with a white-painted ironwork mirror
hanging over it. The room was pretty, prettier than I’d ever seen,
like something out of one of the magazines I’d filched from my Park
neighbors. There was a slim white box on the desk, with a banded
red ribbon on it, and a pencil case next to it.
Behind me, Buck set down the second and last box on the
dresser by the door. I could feel him watching me and I turned. He
crossed his arms over his chest, surveying me for a long moment.
“I have to drive you into school tomorrow, Coach goes in late on
Mondays,” he said, like he was put out at having me tag along for a
drive he had to make anyway. I wanted to swallow again, but I felt
like he’d notice, see it as a weakness or a nervous habit, and
pounce. I nodded. “It’ll be like that until you get your license, Coach
said your mom let your learning permit expire.”
I flushed red. She hadn’t let it expire. We hadn’t had the money
to renew it. Also I hadn’t seen the point given that we didn’t even
have a car and I walked almost everywhere. I didn’t want to correct
him though. Standing closer to him, I could see even his sweatpants
were name brand, and his t-shirt was too, something that probably
cost more than I made working at the Park canteen in a few weeks.
I’d never felt bad before for not having the right things; my friends
back home had as little as me and we got along fine.
All I’d wanted was to get a scholarship, and go to college. Fancy
clothes that would fall out of fashion after a few months seemed like
a ridiculous luxury to me, and my wardrobe was made up almost
entirely of thrifted and second-hand store finds. The Range Rover
outside was probably his, and those kind of cars meant one thing
where I came from: drug dealers or slum lords. People who had
enough money that they could afford to waste it on a fancy car that
got you from one place to another the same as a junker. They
weren’t cheap, and he was obviously a private school brat, used to
getting everything handed to him. He’d probably never had snow
blow in through his window casing, or had to dig in the sofa cushion
for quarters to buy a box of spaghetti at the dollar store
I felt a sense of resentment blossom in my chest, which he must
have seen in my face because his jaw went tense.
“I leave here at seven thirty AM, so you better be downstairs or
you’re walking.” He left the room and stomped back down the stairs.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, my heart hammering angrily in
my chest. I fished out my new cellphone and swiped it open, only to
see I had one bar of service that flickered in and out. Brand new
phone and I couldn’t even text Sam or Cay. A sense of hopelessness
and loneliness welled up in me and I took a deep breath to tamp it
back down. I’d lived through hell, especially since Brandt had moved
in with my mom. I could handle one uppity football player who’d
never make out of my part of town with his wallet still on his person.
Stupidly, I’d gotten my hopes up after meeting Shawn, but now I
was certain that most of the other HRA students would probably be
like Buck, no matter what my uncle said. And it wasn’t like I could
choose to go to public school either. The town of Hidden River had
one school, and that was the private school, with both boarding and
day-students. The nearest public school was an hour by bus, after a
thirty minute walk to the bus stop itself near the highway. Hidden
River Academy was so prestigious that students drove from thirty
minutes or more away to go there; the school didn’t need to provide
a bus service to their students.
With a feeling of dread hot in my stomach, I flipped the box on
the dresser and began pulling out my collection of books, stacking
them on the shelf. It was getting late, and I could organize
tomorrow after school was out, but for now I wanted to make my
mark on the pretty room and see some of my own self in it. The
worn edges of my books were familiar, old friends who’d kept me
company when things had been real bad, and they fit neatly on the
painted wood shelves.
“So, seven thirty AM sharp, alright?” Buck was back, large
suitcase in his hand, the smaller one tucked under his arm like it was
nothing. “And don’t use all the hot water in the morning when you
get ready,” he said with a grunt as he set down my bags. “This old
farm house has a small hot water tank, and you’re not the only one
who needs a shower.” He eyed me up then, and bit his lower lip.
I felt heat rising in my cheeks at the hint that I was dirty and
wasteful of water. My heart was in my throat, and I didn’t have
anything to throw back at him. He’d slashed me to ribbons with a
few words, and damn it all but it hurt. It wasn’t like having a shitty
person living with me was a new thing, but I hadn’t expected it right
out the gate on my arrival at the farmhouse. I should’ve expected it.
The likes of me and my mom never mixed well with the likes of Buck
Barron, it was half the reason my mom had cut out from Hidden
River when she was in her late teens and never looked back.
Just a few months, I reassured myself, just a few months and
then you can go home again. Maybe home wasn’t fancy, and maybe
home downright sucked shit sometimes, but at least I knew where I
stood there, and didn’t have to feel like I didn’t belong.
“What, got nothing to say?” Buck asked, a soft dangerous hint to
his voice, and he stepped into my room. I met him, stare for stare
before I licked my lips and gathered my courage.
“Seven thirty AM,” was all I said. His eyes flashed with animosity
I didn’t understand and he turned, disappearing as fast as he’d
arrived. I heard him thump down the stairs for the last time and the
air ran out of my lungs.
It didn’t make sense, the guy didn’t know me from Adam, and
yet he was either sneering at me and making a snide comment, or
smirking like he knew something bad about me. He’d likely have told
all his friends that the Coach’s poor niece was coming to school, and
I trembled to think what school would be like with people who had
never had to go without and thought people who’d done it were
lesser. I took another long, slow breath and moved to open my
window, letting the night air into my room.
As the cool air calmed me, and the sound of the outdoor’s night-
secrets filled the air, I unpacked my last box and then got to
emptying the two pink suitcases so they could go back to whomever
had loaned them to my uncle. It was then that I unpacked my
notebooks for school, putting them on the desk next to the white
box. Curious, I picked it up, and slid off the red ribbon that banded
around it. I lifted the lid and my breath caught in my throat.
Inside was an Apple Macbook, and my fingers shook a little when
I slammed the lid back on the box. It was my uncle’s, or maybe
Buck’s. It’d been left in my room as a mistake.
“That’s for you,” my uncle walked in with a plated sandwich in
one hand, and a mug of milk in the other. He set them down on the
dresser, a warm smile on his face as he nodded to the box that I’d
shut so quickly. I stared at him blankly. The lawyer, the custody, the
clothes, the phone, it was all too much…
“I can’t accept it,” I said softly, hoping he wouldn’t be too mad. It
was one thing when he used to send me a couple hundred dollars a
year for new clothes, it was something else to buy me an expensive
computer. He shook his head.
“All the kids at school have them for homework. You’re going to
need it for your classes, and you’re going to want it. There’s no
computer lab and the library only has a few desktops. Trust me, Mia.
Just say thank you, or not even. You don’t have to say thank you.
Just use it. It’s my pleasure.”
He picked up the box and put it gently in my hands. I had to take
it from him, or risk dropping it. I closed my eyes to shut out the
sight of his smiling face. He looked… proud. I didn’t understand.
“I don’t get it,” I finally said, my voice rough in the quiet of
the room.
“Mia, look at me, please,” he urged, and his hands wrapped
around the tops of my shoulders. I opened my eyes slowly. He was
gazing intently into my face. “You’ve had every barrier put in your
way, and you’ve managed to find a way around them all. I spoke
with your old teachers, your principal. For a kid who came from
nothing, you’re at the top of your class. I see students every day
who have the world just given to them, and they don’t do half as
well as you’ve done. I can only imagine what you’ll accomplish if
you’re actually given a fighting chance.” His warm palms squeezed
me with tenderness and I gulped in a lungful of air before he pulled
me against his chest for an unexpected hug. I pressed my face into
the solid bulk of him and nodded.
“Thank you, for the laptop, and for well, everything,” I whispered
and he gave me one more firm hug before letting me go. I teetered
on my socked feet and set the laptop box down on the desk
carefully.
“Thank me by proving that a Quinn can succeed no matter how
bad their situation looks from the outside,” he said, sounding every
bit the inspiring football coach. I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help the
smile that spread across my lips. He tousled my hair and pointed to
the sandwich on the dresser. “Now you eat, brush your teeth, and go
to bed.”
I didn’t have to be told twice, and when he pulled the door shut
behind him, I scooped up half the sandwich and bit into it with a low
moan of happiness.
The food at the CPS house hadn’t been much better than what
I’d been eating at my mom’s. The flavors of crisp lettuce and tomato
practically made my tongue sing. I finished unpacking one-handed
so I could eat, and pulled out a pair of the knee-high white socks
that would go with my uniform the next day.
A low flutter of excitement ran through my belly as I filled up my
backpack with supplies and then sat on the bed. I pushed away
wondering what my mom was doing, and how she was feeling,
locked up and waiting for trial. The last time I’d seen her, she’d
made me promise not to worry, and I was going to do my best to
keep that promise. No matter what the other kids were like, I’d show
them and my uncle that I was a Quinn just like him, and I could
succeed beyond what anyone thought I was capable of.
 FOUR

I was downstairs at seven ten, not wanting to give Buck any reason
to turn his nose up at me again. I’d braided my hair, still wet from
the shower, so it would dry with a minimum of frizz and settled down
to a breakfast of cereal in the dark because I didn’t want to use too
much electricity. The old farmhouse had been remodeled, but there
was no real way to properly insulate an older building, and God only
knew how much my uncle’s heating bill was each month.
Somehow I’d woken up before my alarm, maybe because of the
unusual quiet of a dawn out in the country, maybe because I was
nervous that Buck might leave early just to be rude. I even checked
to see if all the cars were still there, since I hadn’t heard any noise
from the basement yet, and Buck definitely hadn’t been upstairs
using the farmhouse’s only bathroom with a shower.
Uncle Matt had the good cereal, the top shelf kind that didn’t
come in bulk bags and wasn’t called some ridiculous knock-off name
like Happy-Ohs or Commander Crunchie. I was almost done
munching through my bowl when the screen door creaked open with
an unhappy screeeee. I froze, feeling caught with the spoon half-
way through to my mouth, like I was doing something I shouldn’t
be. The front door swung open, and none other than Buck Barron
sauntered in, shirtless, sweaty, and wearing joggers that barely
clung to sharp angles of his hips.
An unexpected flush ran up the back of my neck, and I looked
back down at my bowl of cereal, taking great interest in the shapes
the leftovers were making in the milk.
It was easy enough to be invisible back home, since most of the
Park residents were either over thirty or under twelve. Guys that
looked like Buck were usually running with gangs and were the kind
of people I’d actively avoided. My days had been spent with my face
planted in books, or working at the canteen. Dating, checking out
guys, both those activities had been at the very bottom of my list of
‘shit I need to do’. Sure I’d had crushes on the occasion, or lusted
after a movie star the few times Mom and I would actually go out to
see a film, but I’d never felt instantly attracted to someone like I was
to Buck. It didn’t make any sense, especially since from our first
meeting I had the idea he didn’t like me, or didn’t want me around,
period.
He flicked on the light by the bottom of the stairs and stopped in
his tracks when he saw me leaning against the kitchen island. I held
my breath as his crystal blue eyes caught mine, and then his gaze
dropped to do a full, slow sweep of my uniform. He paused about
where I figured my skirt hit just above my knee and I was overcome
with the urge to press my thighs together. A flicker of something
crossed his face, and my mouth went dry.
I’d seen that look. Men had given my mom that look. Suddenly I
didn’t feel so invisible. I wasn’t sure that I liked it. I wasn’t sure that
I didn’t.
He let out a sigh and turned away, heading up the stairs without
a word. I heard the bathroom door shut, and then the shower come
alive with a high-pitched whine as water roared up the pipes.
Wanting to shake the uncomfortable feelings warring in my stomach,
I dumped the rest of my cereal out with a pang of guilt for the
waste, and went to sit on the porch steps to wait. There was no way
I was hanging around to watch Buck come downstairs in a towel and
nothing else. I told myself it was his close scrutiny of my skirt that
made me uncomfortable, but I knew deep down I was more worried
how seeing him next to naked would make me feel.
Tough it out, get good grades, go home. The less time I spent
eyeing up some rich asshole who seemed to dislike wearing shirts,
the better. I’d be back with my mom at the Park before I knew it
anyway.
I scuffed my new black flats in the gravel and waited as the
world around me woke up. Birds called to one another, and sun
crested over the pine trees to spill out over the yard. I got a good
look at Buck’s Range Rover; I knew it was his because the custom
plates read BARRON. Unmistakably his, especially since it was
painted in school colors. It couldn’t have screamed more
ostentatious unless it had 24” rims and a ridiculous lift kit.
Behind me the door slammed, and Buck pounded down the steps
and was halfway to his SUV before I could even move. His hair was
wet, and he looked good from behind in his pressed-black uniform
with red sweater slung over his shoulder. I scrambled to my feet and
hauled my backpack off the ground, skidding on the gravel a bit to
get to the passenger door before he could get it in his head to take
off. I hauled myself in and the engine roared to life.
“Morning,” I said, knowing he wasn’t likely going to reply. He
leaned over and flicked on the radio, eyes glued to the road as we
took off down the two-lane highway. I shifted to stare out the
window as the greenery whipped by us. Wrapping my arms around
my backpack, I hugged it into my chest like armor, shooting the odd
look over to Buck. His jaw was tight, his longish brown hair hanging
down over his eyes. He flicked his head to the side with a noise of
irritation to clear his line of sight.
“You figured out what you’re gonna say?” he asked as the radio
turned over to a commercial break. His voice startled me and my
fingers clenched on my backpack as I looked at him.
“What?”
“You’re new. What are you going to say about transferring?” he
spoke slowly, drawling out the words as if that would help me better
understand him. Something in his tone set my teeth on edge.
“Nothing,” I said with a shrug. My uncle had promised me he’d
already spoken with my new teachers- there’d be no standing at the
front of the class and introducing myself to the other students. It
was what I wanted, to be able to slip in and not have to talk about
what’d happened, or why I was living with my uncle. Buck snorted.
 “It’s a small school, Quinn. Maybe you’re used to the inner city
and a graduating class of six hundred people, but most of us have
known each other since we were six. But whatever, it’s your funeral.”
The derision was clear in his voice: he thought I was stupid for
not having come up with some pre-fab story of how I’d landed
there. He turned off the highway at a low brick and stone sign that
read HIDDEN RIVER ACADEMY. I felt a nervous tingle of electricity
run along the the tips of my fingers as we rolled onto the well-
manicured campus.
There was a parking lot for students, and the sight of so many
expensive cars lined up next to one another made my toes curl in
my shoes uncomfortably. I wanted to run all the way back to the
farmhouse and beg my uncle to allow me to take online classes until
my mom got out on parole.
Buck parked the car and leaned back in his seat with a sigh
before looking over at me, eyes lingering on my lap for another long
moment. I crushed my backpack tighter against my body, hiding
behind it. He shook his head, and gave a chuckle that seemed
strained before popping open his door.
“C’mon, Quinn,” he said, and I let myself out. He was already
walking towards the largest building on the campus, a proud red-
bricked monolith with the flag waving in front of it. Maybe he was
right, and I needed to figure out what I was going to say. I’d never
given it much thought, expecting to not make new friends since I
wasn’t planning on staying for even a full semester if I could help it.
We were halfway up the paved path that lead to the front doors
when I saw two tall reddish blond heads step out of the double
doors, accompanied by a girl with deeper red hair that glinted in
the sun.
“BARRON!” One of the guys waved us over, or waved Buck over
and I just happened to get caught up in the tidal wave of his
presence. “That’s Mia,” the first guy said to the girl, pointing at me,
and I realized that it was Shawn from the gas station. I blinked at
the boy next to him- identical. Oh. Right. Shawn had a twin. Buck
made a low noise in the back of his throat as we walked up to them,
me trailing behind him and a little to the right, just out of his
eye-line.
“Hey Mia,” said Shawn’s twin, flashing me a similar pearly-white
smile, perfect teeth in a lightly tanned face. He had the same light
constellation of freckles over his nose, giving him a similar innocent
look as Shawn, but the way he looked me over was anything but
sweet. Shawn noticed, and elbowed him in the side. The red-haired
girl just tossed her glossy mane of stick-straight hair over her
shoulder and smiled politely at me.
“Mia, this is Garrett, he’s-“
“We’re twins,” Garrett interrupted Shawn helpfully, reckless grin
on his face. The red-head laughed, lifting one hand delicately in
front of her mouth. I saw a row of perfectly manicured nails hiding
her lips. Beside me, Buck shifted, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yeah I think she got that,” Shawn muttered, clearly irritated with
Garrett stealing his thunder. “This is Siobhan.”
“Please call me Shiv,” the girl said, reaching out and tangling her
fingers with Shawn’s. I didn’t miss the vaguely possessive gesture as
she stepped into his space. He hadn’t mentioned a girlfriend the day
before when he was trying out his shoulder-line on me, and he shot
me a sheepish smile before pressing a kiss to the side of her
forehead. “I heard Shawn was going to show you around, and I
insisted I help too. He’s sweet, but he’ll forget half the important
things you have to know.” She laughed again, this time looking up at
him. Beside me, Buck shifted again and then stepped away, towards
the front doors.
“Meet me out front just after three, or you’re walking home,” he
said as a goodbye, and vanished into the school. Apparently he felt
his morning duties were done now that he’d delivered me intact to
Shawn’s tender mercies. Garrett let out a low whistle and looked
at me.
“What’d you do to piss him off, little Quinn?” he asked, grinning
madly. Shawn rolled his eyes and let go of Shiv’s hand to smack
Garrett up the back of the head.
“C’mon Mia, let’s get you settled in homeroom,” Shawn said with
another glare at his brother, before turning to the front doors. My
heart thudded uncomfortably in my chest as Garrett fell in beside me
and started talking about himself, the football team, and the
upcoming game. It all went over my head, but I nodded politely as
Shawn shot looks over his shoulder to see that I was still with them.
Shiv never looked back, her fingers biting into the skin of Shawn’s
hand. I thought of my mom, locked up and waiting for her chance at
freedom and steeled my stomach. I could handle this, whatever
Hidden River threw at me.

SHIV WAS cool with me but nice. Nice-ish. She stuck to Shawn like
glue through homeroom, and the rest of the day as Shawn met me
after each of my classes to take me to the next one. Uncle Matt
hadn’t been kidding about Shawn showing me around and the tall
red-head was taking his responsibility for ‘Little Quinn’, as Garrett’s
nickname had stuck, seriously. Being at the school was a bit of an
eye-opener into a whole world I’d never knew existed. My uncle was
revered by the student body, and a little bit of that rubbed off on
me, at least among the guys. They chatted me up but evaded asking
me detailed questions on why I’d transferred. Someone, likely their
coach, had put the fear of God in them and I was relieved to not
have to make something up on the spot. Lunch was spent sitting
next to Shiv, with another player’s girlfriend on the other side of me,
as Shawn introduced me to the boys my uncle coached, and their
respective girls who seemed to mostly be on the cheer squad.
“Where’s Barron?” a dark-haired boy with copper skin named
Tristan, another one of the players, asked me as I looked at the
school lunch tray in front of me. The cafeteria had a dizzying array
of choices and Shawn had told me proudly that the menu was
planned by a nutritionist and a chef from France. The thought of an
actual chef, and not a lunch lady, preparing our meals was a little
crazy, especially given the lack of attention the other students paid
their meals, like it didn’t even matter.
Shiv nudged me delicately, her fingers brushing my elbow.
 “What?” I asked, startled out of my thoughts, and then looked
over at Tristan as my brain caught up. He had a lazy grin as he
watched me, and he smoothed his hand through his close-cropped
hair. He was asking about Buck. Right.
“I dunno,” I shrugged my shoulder and Shiv smiled.
“They live together, they’re not stuck together, Trist.” She toyed
with a ripe, round cherry tomato between her fingers, and then
laughed a little like cellophane ripping. “So how is that, anyway?”
She tilted her head to look at me, her eyelashes dark and long
around a pair of perfectly green eyes. Shiv was model-pretty, with a
petite nose and flawless peaches-and-cream skin that had just a kiss
of golden tan.
Shawn looked at her like she hung the moon, a dopey puppy-grin
on his face whenever she turned the sunshine of her gaze on him.
She was sweet, but I sensed a steel core under all that silk, and I
knew that only my apparent blindness to her boyfriend’s good looks
was keeping her claws sheathed. “It’s a bit unorthodox, living with a
guy you go to school with when he’s not related to you, right?”
There was a slight hint of ice in her voice.
“Yeah it’d kinda be like having a live-in booty call,” Trist said,
wrapping one brawny arm around Grace, a quiet black-haired girl
with pretty brown eyes, who sat next to him. She broke into a small
laugh, and ducked out from under his arm. I felt a blush burning
across my cheeks and I ducked my head to get another spoonful of
soup into my mouth to hide it.
“Gross, Tristan, I’m sure it’s not like that at all,” Shiv said, but she
shot me another side-long glance that was part suggestion and part
question.
“It’s not,” I gulped hard, but a few of the players were looking at
me with speculation, and appraisal. “It’s not.”
I didn’t like it, and felt the desperate need to be invisible. I
wasn’t someone’s, anyone’s booty call. That was the last thing I
wanted to be. Shawn cleared his throat and slapped his hand down
on the table a little louder than necessary.
“You guys study for the Chem quiz tomorrow?” he asked, and
given the groans a few of the assembled students gave out, they
hadn’t. The chatter picked up, on what questions might be showing
up on the quiz, and Shawn met my eyes with a warm look. I bit my
lip and smiled in thanks- Uncle Matt was right, Shawn was a nice
guy. Beside me Shiv inhaled slowly and then stood, smoothing her
fingers over the back of her pleated skirt.
“Shawn, you want to go up to the library with me?” she asked
pointedly, not looking at me. He blinked and jumped up, grabbing
his bag.
“Yeah, sure,” he paused and then glanced down at me. “You
gonna be okay getting to your next class, Mia?”
Shiv had moved around the table to stand behind him, and she
gave me a look like iced-water running down my back. I nodded
mutely and he grinned. “Great. I’ll see you later maybe to get you to
your last class.” He turned and wrapped an arm around Shiv as she
smiled up at him, all warmth and sweetness again. I’d accidentally
made an enemy of her in the span of a few heartbeats. Fuck.
“I’ll take care of you, little Quinn,” Garrett said as he slid into the
seat next to me with at thud. “You can tell me all about how you and
Barron aren’t. You got Bio next? Mr. Green is easy, you’ll breeze right
through it.” He smirked at me. “He likes the girls though, so you
might wanna unbutton one of those,” he said, pointing at the placket
of my polo shirt where I still had both buttons done up. My jaw
dropped and he laughed, throwing his head back and slapping his
hand against the side of his thigh. He was like his twin in so many
ways, but darker, more sly and smug. I couldn’t see Shawn making a
joke like that.
“I just moved in yesterday,” I insisted about the status of my
non-relations with Buck, choosing to ignore his comment about Mr.
Green and buttons.
“The lady doth protest,” he shot back, raising a knowing eyebrow
and I felt warmth suffusing my face again. Was he quoting
Shakespeare at me? Back home you’d get a beating for being keen
enough to know anything from the plays we studied, but these kids
all had private tutors and seemed to relish in outsmarting one
another.
 “Seriously, stop,” I snapped, at the end of my patience, and he
raised both eyebrows this time as he hissed out a breath.
“Oh she does have claws. Now I see how you’re related to
Coach. Nobody does righteous anger like him.”
I ignored him and picked up my tray, getting to my feet. He
followed suit, grabbing my backpack before I could.
“Hey-“ I protested.
“Lemme walk you to class, Quinn,” he said, dropping the ‘little’
for once. I shoved my lunch tray into the rack by the garbage and
tried to calm the burning flush on my face. Everyone had been
relatively polite up until lunch, were they all thinking that I was
sleeping with Buck? I hadn’t even been in Hidden River for twenty-
four hours, and in that time he’d said less than a hundred words
to me.
I knew it was a small school, the principal had greeted me
himself and told me my year only had fifty-six students, and the
entire student body was around six hundred total. Back home I’d
been invisible, with almost the same amount of kids in my grade as
Hidden River High had in the entire school. I could see how quick
rumors would spread here, and everyone would be talking shit about
me if I wasn’t careful.
Well, I’d be more than careful. I might not be there forever, but I
didn’t want to let my uncle down by giving myself a bad name.
Being careful started with not letting one of the Richmond twins
carry my backpack.
“Give me my bag,” I said as I met Garrett where he waited at the
cafeteria doors. He lifted it up in the air and laughed.
“Get it, Quinn,” he taunted, the straps dangling down within my
grasp. I reached up to grab one and he yanked it away, stepping
backwards out of the cafeteria and into the hall. “C’mon Quinn,
where’s that fighting spirit?”
I was about to jump for it, lifting my arms up when he reached
down and brushed his hand over my bare stomach. My polo shirt
had come untucked from skirt, slipping up, exposing my skin.
Jerking away, I stared at him, startled. He just grinned at me, eyes
glittering. I could feel the ghost of his touch still, white-hot and
making my stomach tingle.
“Garrett, what are you doing?” a low voice came over my
shoulder, dangerous and soft. Instantly Garrett dropped his hand,
lowering my backpack within my reach. I grabbed it from him, and
he let me take it.
“Hey Buck,” Garrett said, before he ran a hand through his hair
nervously. “Me n’ Quinn were just going to Bio.” Buck stepped into
my sightline beside me, one of his arms crossed over his chest, the
other holding his bag over his shoulder. “C’mon Mia,” Garrett
muttered, and turned, walking down the hall.
I held my breath and didn’t look at Buck for a long moment
before he shook his head; I could just see him out of the corner of
my eye. He turned and walked off without another word. The bell
rang, and I took off after Garrett. Somehow I’d managed to be on
time to every class that day, and I didn’t want to break my streak.
 FIVE

Buck drove me home later that day without a word, and took off
again as soon as I stepped out of the car. I wasn't sure why he even
have bothered to drive me, when he clearly had other things to do
that afternoon. My uncle Matt had stopped me outside of the school
and told me that I was on my own for dinner but to help myself to
whatever was in the fridge. It was good to be in the house by
myself; I wanted some time to look over my homework in peace.
My teachers had been fairly kind, with varying degrees of
strictness. Despite my good grades back at home, I was behind in
almost every class, something that grated on me. I piled my
textbooks on the kitchen countertop and cracked open my laptop. I’d
played around with it a bit during the day; my old high school had
received a gift of a computer lab from an alumni who’d struck it big
in the tech world so Apple computers weren’t new to me. My fingers
ran along the crisp silver edges of it, and I still marveled at the
delicate touch of the keys under my hands. Guilt bit at my stomach
as I sat admiring my uncle’s gift.
My mother was wasting away in jail, while I was clean, well
clothed, and well fed. I hadn’t done anything to earn the generosity
or kindness being showered on me. I was benefitting and my mom
was paying the price.
With that thought poisoning my good mood, I settled down to
transcribe my notes that I'd taken that day by hand into my laptop. I
was almost done when I heard wheels hit the gravel outside and two
car doors slam. I looked up as I heard male laughter and closed my
laptop quickly, packing my things up.
“Hey look, it's little Quinn.” I didn’t recognize the boy who walked
into room, but he was followed by Buck and Shawn. Shawn shot me
a grin and Buck’s expression was neutral. My reaction to him was
anything but neutral- he’d changed out of his uniform at some point,
and he was in a pair of ripped and faded jeans, and a tight shirt that
hugged along his biceps. Shawn was gorgeous too, and I guiltily
allowed myself to take in the warmth of his smile as he looked at
me. Their friend was equally handsome, but Shawn and Buck set me
off in a different way. I tried to tamp down on that feeling. Their
eyes on me made my skin hot, and it was like I wasn’t wearing a
thick wool plaid skirt and slightly oversized sweater- it was like they
was looking right through the fabric to find me naked underneath.
My face warmed. Shawn smirked. Buck’s eyes lingered at my
waist. Whatever he saw there, I wasn’t sure he liked, because his
eyebrows pulled together in an expression I was coming to know
fairly well. He’d leveled the same one at me and Garret after lunch,
and before that, at me in my bedroom last night.
“Hey Mia,” Shawn gestured to the new guy, “this is Noah. He's a
senior, so you haven’t met him yet.”
Noah sauntered over to me and stuck out his hand. I took it. He
grinned and shook his head, squeezing my fingers in his before
letting me go.
“She sure as shit looks like Coach, but he never talks about his
family, are we sure she’s the real deal?” he tossed over his shoulder
to the other two boys. Shawn rolled his eyes.
Buck was moving towards the couch, a great horse-shoe shaped
leather monstrosity that could seat twelve people comfortably. He
sprawled out on it and I wondered if my uncle brought the team
home to go over plays, or if Buck had his friends visit. There was no
way a single man needed a house that big. It was mildly intimidating
to think of my house being invaded by a bunch of burly football
players.
Noah left me to go collapse on the couch next to Buck. Shawn
gave me a two finger salute and sat down as Buck turned the TV on.
 “You going to make dinner tonight, sis?” Buck asked, setting my
nerves on edge with tone. I stared at him blankly. I wasn’t his sister.
Noah shot Buck a look and then glanced over at me, a wild grin
spreading across his face.
“Oh I like that. Sister dearest, huh Buck? Fuck man, you’re crazy.”
Buck sat up a little at the leering tone in Noah’s voice and
snorted.
“Jesus you’re fucking perverted.” Buck twisted to look at me. “So
are you making dinner tonight? Matt said you were.”
Matt. Sis. He’d called my uncle ‘coach’ just the night before, and
now he was referring to me as his sister. The level of familiarity he
played with was unnerving me.
“Uh, I guess. Are all three of you staying?” I asked as I walked
around the island. I was answered by a chorus of agreement from
the boys and I sighed to myself as I opened the fridge up. Cooking
for Mom and then later Mom and Brandt had been an adventure of
‘try to get as many calories into your body with as little money as
possible’, but my uncle kept the fridge stocked. There was every
protein known to man including, dessert tofu, and the vegetable bin
was brimming with greens and oranges and reds. I could make
dinner.
I glanced back at the boys. I just wondered how much I needed
to feed them. Boys ate more than girls, and definitely ate more than
drugged-out not-step-dads.
“I’ll help.” Shawn was at my elbow, towering over me, that sweet
smile he’d laid on Shiv earlier gracing his face. I couldn’t help but
beam back. “What’re we making?”
I pulled out a package of chicken breasts and passed them
to him.
“Start cutting these up into strips, let's make fajitas." I
rummaged around in the vegetable bin for peppers and lettuce as
Shawn moved around behind me. Buck put on some football game
and he and Noah were talking animatedly on the couch. It was the
most I’d ever seen him talk. I found the rest of the fixings that we
need for dinner and Shawn started grilling up the chicken. I’d never
seen a gas range up close before, so I was grateful for the help.
Another random document with
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mid-August respectively. A little accommodation of the seasonal
feasts of the farm would be required to adapt them to the remaining
three. And here begins a process of dislocation of the original dates
of customs, now becoming traditional rather than vital, which was
afterwards extended by successive stages to a bewildering degree.
By this time, with the greater permanence of agriculture, the system
of autumn ploughing had perhaps been invented. The spring
ploughing festival was therefore of less importance, and bore to be
shifted back to mid-January instead of mid-February. Four of the six
tides are now provided with initial feasts. These are mid-November,
mid-January, mid-March, and mid-September. There are, however,
still mid-May and mid-July, and only the high summer feast to divide
between them. I am inclined to believe that a division is precisely
what took place, and that the hitherto fluctuating date of the summer
feast was determined in some localities to mid-May, in others to mid-
July[378].
The European three-score-day-tide calendar is rather an
ingenious conjecture than an ascertained fact of history. When the
Germano-Keltic peoples came under the influence of Roman
civilization, they adopted amongst other things the Roman calendar,
first in its primitive form and then in the more scientific one given to it
under Julius Caesar. The latter divided the year into four quarters
and twelve months, and carried with it a knowledge of the solstices,
at which the astronomy neither of Kelts nor of Germans seems to
have previously arrived[379]. The feasts again underwent a process
of dislocation in order to harmonize them with the new arrangement.
The ceremonies of the winter feast were pulled back to November 1
or pushed forward to January 1. The high summer feast was
attracted from mid-May and mid-July respectively to the important
Roman dates of the Floralia on May 1 and the summer solstice on
June 24. Last of all, to complete the confusion, came, on the top of
three-score-day-tide calendar and Roman calendar alike, the
scheme of Christianity with its host of major and minor ecclesiastical
festivals, some of them fixed, others movable. Inevitably these in
their turn began to absorb the agricultural customs. The present
distribution of the five original feasts, therefore, is somewhat as
follows. The winter feast is spread over all the winter half of the year
from All Souls day to Twelfth night. A later chapter will illustrate its
destiny more in detail. The ploughing feast is to be sought mainly in
Plough Monday, in Candlemas and in Shrovetide or Carnival[380]; the
beginning of summer feast in Palm Sunday, Easter and St. Mark’s
day; the early variety of the high summer feast probably also in
Easter, and certainly in May-day, St. George’s day, Ascensiontide
with its Rogations, Whitsuntide and Trinity Sunday; the later variety
of the same feast in Midsummer day and Lammastide; and the
harvest feast in Michaelmas. These are days of more or less general
observance. Locally, in strict accordance with the policy of Gregory
the Great as expounded to Mellitus, the floating customs have often
settled upon conveniently neighbouring dates of wakes,
rushbearings, kirmesses and other forms of vigil or dedication
festivals[381]; and even, in the utter oblivion of their primitive
significance, upon the anniversaries of historical events, such as
Royal Oak day on May 29[382], or Gunpowder day. Finally it may be
noted, that of the five feasts that of high summer is the one most fully
preserved in modern survivals. This is partly because it comes at a
convenient time of year for the out-of-door holiday-making which
serves as a preservative for the traditional rites; partly also because,
while the pastoral element in the feasts of the beginnings of winter
and summer soon became comparatively unimportant through the
subordination of pasturage to tillage, and the ploughing and harvest
feasts tended more and more to become affairs of the individual farm
carried out in close connexion with those operations themselves, the
summer feast retained its communal character and continued to be
celebrated by the whole village for the benefit of everybody’s crops
and trees, and everybody’s flocks and herds[383]. It is therefore
mainly, although not wholly, upon the summer feast that the analysis
of the agricultural ritual to be given in the next chapter will be based.
 CHAPTER VI
VILLAGE FESTIVALS

[Bibliographical Note.—A systematic calendar of

English festival usages by a competent folk-lorist is much
needed. J. Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities
(1777), based on H. Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares (1725),
and edited, first by Sir Henry Ellis in 1813, 1841-2 and
1849, and then by W. C. Hazlitt in 1870, is full of valuable
material, but belongs to the age of pre-scientific
antiquarianism. R. T. Hampson, Medii Aevi Kalendarium
(1841), is no less unsatisfactory. In default of anything
better, T. F. T. Dyer, British Popular Customs (1891), is a
useful compilation from printed sources, and P. H.
Ditchfield, Old English Customs (1896), a gossipy account
of contemporary survivals. These may be supplemented
from collections of more limited range, such as H. J.
Feasey, Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial (1897),
and J. E. Vaux, Church Folk-Lore (1894); by treatises on
local folk-lore, of which W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-
Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders
(2nd ed. 1879), C. S. Burne and G. F. Jackson, Shropshire
Folk-Lore (1883-5), and J. Rhys, Celtic Folk-Lore, Welsh
and Manx (1901), are the best; and by the various
publications of the Folk-Lore Society, especially the series
of County Folk-Lore (1895-9) and the successive
periodicals, The Folk-Lore Record (1878-82), Folk-Lore
Journal (1883-9), and Folk-Lore (1890-1903). Popular
accounts of French fêtes are given by E. Cortet, Essai sur
les Fêtes religieuses (1867), and O. Havard, Les Fêtes de
nos Pères (1898). L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud, Superstitions
et Survivances (1896), is more pretentious, but not really
scholarly. C. Leber, Dissertations relatives à l’Histoire de
 France (1826-38), vol. ix, contains interesting material of
an historical character, largely drawn from papers in the
eighteenth-century periodical Le Mercure de France.
Amongst German books, J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology
(transl. J. S. Stallybrass, 1880-8), H. Pfannenschmidt,
Germanische Erntefeste (1878), and U. Jahn, Die
deutschen Opfergebräuche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht
(1884), are all excellent. Many of the books mentioned in
the bibliographical note to the last chapter remain useful
for the present and following ones; in particular J. G.
Frazer, The Golden Bough (2nd ed. 1900), is, of course,
invaluable. I have only included in the above list such
works of general range as I have actually made most use
of. Many others dealing with special points are cited in the
notes. A fuller guide to folk-lore literature will be found in
M. R. Cox, Introduction to Folklore (2nd ed. 1897).]
The central fact of the agricultural festivals is the presence in the
village of the fertilization spirit in the visible and tangible form of
flowers and green foliage or of the fruits of the earth. Thus, when the
peasants do their ‘observaunce to a morn of May,’ great boughs of
hawthorn are cut before daybreak in the woods, and carried, with
other seasonable leafage and blossom, into the village street. Lads
plant branches before the doors of their mistresses. The folk deck
themselves, their houses, and the church in green. Some of them
are clad almost entirely in wreaths and tutties, and become walking
bushes, ‘Jacks i’ the green.’ The revel centres in dance and song
around a young tree set up in some open space of the village, or a
more permanent May-pole adorned for the occasion with fresh
garlands. A large garland, often with an anthropomorphic
representation of the fertilization spirit in the form of a doll, parades
the streets, and is accompanied by a ‘king’ or ‘queen,’ or a ‘king’ and
‘queen’ together. Such a garland finds its place at all the seasonal
feasts; but whereas in spring and summer it is naturally made of the
new vegetation, at harvest it as naturally takes the form of a sheaf,
often the last sheaf cut, of the corn. Then it is known as the ‘harvest-
May’ or the ‘neck,’ or if it is anthropomorphic in character, as the
‘kern-baby.’ Summer and harvest garlands alike are not destroyed
when the festival is over, but remain hung up on the May-pole or the
church or the barn-door until the season for their annual renewing
comes round. And sometimes the grain of the ‘harvest-May’ is
mingled in the spring with the seed-corn[384].
The rationale of such customs is fairly simple. They depend upon
a notion of sympathetic magic carried on into the animistic stage of
belief. Their object is to secure the beneficent influence of the
fertilization spirit by bringing the persons or places to be benefited
into direct contact with the physical embodiment of that spirit. In the
burgeoning quick set up on the village green is the divine presence.
The worshipper clad in leaves and flowers has made himself a
garment of the god, and is therefore in a very special sense under
his protection. Thus efficacy in folk-belief of physical contact may be
illustrated by another set of practices in which recourse is had to the
fertilization spirit for the cure of disease. A child suffering from croup,
convulsions, rickets, or other ailment, is passed through a hole in a
split tree, or beneath a bramble rooted at both ends, or a strip of turf
partly raised from the ground. It is the actual touch of earth or stem
that works the healing[385].
May-pole or church may represent a focus of the cult at some
specially sacred tree or grove in the heathen village. But the
ceremony, though it centres at these, is not confined to them, for its
whole purpose is to distribute the benign influence over the entire
community, every field, fold, pasture, orchard close and homestead
thereof. At ploughing, the driving of the first furrow; at harvest, the
homecoming of the last wain, is attended with ritual. Probably all the
primitive festivals, and certainly that of high summer, included a
lustration, in which the image or tree which stood for the fertilization
spirit was borne in solemn procession from dwelling to dwelling and
round all the boundaries of the village. Tacitus records the progress
of the earth-goddess Nerthus amongst the German tribes about the
mouth of the Elbe, and the dipping of the goddess and the drowning
of her slaves in a lake at the term of the ceremony[386]. So too at
Upsala in Sweden the statue of Freyr went round when winter was at
an end[387]; while Sozomenes tells how, when Ulfilas was preaching
Christianity to the Visigoths, Athanaric sent the image of his god
abroad in a wagon, and burnt the houses of all who refused to bow
down and sacrifice[388]. Such lustrations continue to be a prominent
feature of the folk survivals. They are preserved in a number of
processional customs in all parts of England; in the municipal
‘ridings,’ ‘shows,’ or ‘watches’ on St. George’s[389] or
Midsummer[390] days; in the ‘Godiva’ procession at Coventry[391],
the ‘Bezant’ procession at Shaftesbury[392]. Hardly a rural merry-
making or wake, indeed, is without its procession; if it is only in the
simple form of the quête which the children consider themselves
entitled to make, with their May-garland, or on some other traditional
pretext, at various seasons of the calendar. Obviously in becoming
mere quêtes, collections of eggs, cakes and so forth, or even of
small coins, as well as in falling entirely into the hands of the
children, the processions have to some extent lost their original
character. But the notion that the visit is to bring good fortune, or the
‘May’ or the ‘summer’ to the household, is not wholly forgotten in the
rhymes used[393]. An interesting version of the ceremony is the
‘furry’ or ‘faddy’ dance formerly used at Helston wake; for in this the
oak-decked dancers claimed the right to pass in at one door and out
at another through every house in the village[394].
Room has been found for the summer lustrations in the scheme
of the Church. In Catholic countries the statue of the local saint is
commonly carried round the village, either annually on his feast-day
or in times of exceptional trouble[395]. The inter-relations of
ecclesiastical and folk-ritual in this respect are singularly illustrated
by the celebration of St. Ubaldo’s eve (May 15) at Gubbio in Umbria.
The folk procession of the Ceri is a very complete variety of the
summer festival. After vespers the clergy also hold a procession in
honour of the saint. At a certain point the two companies meet. An
interchange of courtesies takes place. The priest elevates the host;
the bearers of the Ceri bow them to the ground; and each procession
passes on its way[396]. In England the summer lustrations take an
ecclesiastical form in the Rogations or ‘bannering’ of ‘Gang-week,’ a
ceremony which itself appears to be based on very similar folk-
customs of southern Europe[397]. Since the Reformation the
Rogations have come to be regarded as little more than a ‘beating of
the bounds.’ But the declared intention of them was originally to call
for a blessing upon the fruits of the earth; and it is not difficult to
trace folk-elements in the ‘gospel oaks’ and ‘gospel wells’ at which
station was made and the gospel read, in the peeled willow wands
borne by the boys who accompany the procession, in the whipping
or ‘bumping’ of the said boys at the stations, and in the choice of
‘Gang-week’ for such agricultural rites as ‘youling’ and ‘well-
dressing[398].’
Some anthropomorphic representation of the fertilization spirit is
a common, though not an invariable element in the lustration. A doll
is set on the garland, or some popular ‘giant’ or other image is
carried round[399]. Nor is it surprising that at the early spring festival
which survives in Plough Monday, the plough itself, the central
instrument of the opening labour, figures. A variant of this custom
may be traced in certain maritime districts, where the functions of the
agricultural deities have been extended to include the oversight of
seafaring. Here it is not a plough but a boat or ship that makes its
rounds, when the fishing season is about to begin. Ship processions
are to be found in various parts of Germany[400]; at Minehead,
Plymouth, and Devonport in the west of England, and probably also
at Hull in the north[401].
The magical notions which, in part at least, explain the garland
customs of the agricultural festival, are still more strongly at work in
some of its subsidiary rites. These declare themselves, when
understood, to be of an essentially practical character, charms
designed to influence the weather, and to secure the proper
alternation of moisture and warmth which is needed alike for the
growth and ripening of the crops and for the welfare of the cattle.
They are probably even older than the garland-customs, for they do
not imply the animistic conception of a fertilization spirit immanent in
leaf and blossom; and they depend not only upon the ‘sympathetic’
principle of influence by direct contact already illustrated, but also
upon that other principle of similarity distinguished by Dr. Frazer as
the basis of what he calls ‘mimetic’ magic. To the primitive mind the
obvious way of obtaining a result in nature is to make an imitation of
it on a small scale. To achieve rain, water must be splashed about,
or some other characteristic of a storm or shower must be
reproduced. To achieve sunshine, a fire must be lit, or some other
representation of the appearance and motion of the sun must be
devised. Both rain-charms and sun-charms are very clearly
recognizable in the village ritual.
As rain-charms, conscious or unconscious, must be classified the
many festival customs in which bathing or sprinkling holds an
important place. The image or bough which represents the
fertilization spirit is solemnly dipped in or drenched with water. Here
is the explanation of the ceremonial bathing of the goddess Nerthus
recorded by Tacitus. It has its parallels in the dipping of the images
of saints in the feast-day processions of many Catholic villages, and
in the buckets of water sometimes thrown over May-pole or harvest-
May. Nor is the dipping or drenching confined to the fertilization
spirit. In order that the beneficent influences of the rite may be
spread widely abroad, water is thrown on the fields and on the
plough, while the worshippers themselves, or a representative
chosen from among them, are sprinkled or immersed. To this
practice many survivals bear evidence; the virtues persistently
ascribed to dew gathered on May morning, the ceremonial bathing of
women annually or in times of drought with the expressed purpose of
bringing fruitfulness on man or beast or crop, the ‘ducking’ customs
which play no inconsiderable part in the traditions of many a rural
merry-making. Naturally enough, the original sense of the rite has
been generally perverted. The ‘ducking’ has become either mere
horse-play or else a rough-and-ready form of punishment for
offences, real or imaginary, against the rustic code of conduct. The
churl who will not stop working or will not wear green on the feast-
day must be ‘ducked,’ and under the form of the ‘cucking-stool,’ the
ceremony has almost worked its way into formal jurisprudence as an
appropriate treatment for feminine offenders. So, too, it has been
with the ‘ducking’ of the divinity. When the modern French peasant
throws the image of his saint into the water, he believes himself to be
doing it, not as a mimetic rain-charm, but as a punishment to compel
a power obdurate to prayer to grant through fear the required boon.
The rain-charms took place, doubtless, at such wells, springs, or
brooks as the lustral procession passed in its progress round the
village. It is also possible that there may have been, sometimes or
always, a well within the sacred grove itself and hard by the sacred
tree. The sanctity derived by such wells and streams from the use of
them in the cult of the fertilization spirit is probably what is really
intended by the water-worship so often ascribed to the heathen of
western Europe, and coupled closely with tree-worship in the
Christian discipline-books. The goddess of the tree was also the
goddess of the well. At the conversion her wells were taken over by
the new religion. They became holy wells, under the protection of the
Virgin or one of the saints. And they continued to be approached
with the same rites as of old, for the purpose of obtaining the ancient
boons for which the fertilization spirit had always been invoked. It will
not be forgotten that, besides the public cult of the fertilization spirit
for the welfare of the crops and herds, there was also a private cult,
which aimed at such more personal objects of desire as health,
success in love and marriage, and divination of the future. It is this
private cult that is most markedly preserved in modern holy well
customs. These may be briefly summarized as follows[402]. The
wells are sought for procuring a husband or children, for healing
diseases, especially eye-ailments or warts, and for omens, these too
most often in relation to wedlock. The worshipper bathes wholly or in
part, or drinks the water. Silence is often enjoined, or a motion
deasil, that is, with the sun’s course, round the well. Occasionally
cakes are eaten, or sugar and water drunk, or the well-water is
splashed on a stone. Very commonly rags or bits of wool or hair are
laid under a pebble or hung on a bush near the well, or pins, more
rarely coins or even articles of food, are thrown into it. The objects so
left are not probably to be regarded as offerings; the intention is
rather to bring the worshipper, through the medium of his hair or
clothes, or some object belonging to him, into direct contact with the
divinity. The close connexion between tree-and well-cult is shown by
the use of the neighbouring bush on which to hang the rags. And the
practice of dropping pins into the well is almost exactly paralleled by
that of driving nails ‘for luck’ into a sacred tree or its later
representative, a cross or saintly image. The theory may be
hazarded that originally the sacred well was never found without the
sacred tree beside it. This is by no means the case now; but it must
be remembered that a tree is much more perishable than a well. The
tree once gone, its part in the ceremony would drop out, or be
transferred to the well. But the original rite would include them both.
The visitant, for instance, would dip in the well, and then creep under
or through the tree, a double ritual which seems to survive in the
most curious of all the dramatic games of children, ‘Draw a Pail of
Water[403].’
The private cult of the fertilization spirit is not, of course, tied to
fixed seasons. Its occasion is determined by the needs of the
worshipper. But it is noteworthy that the efficacy of some holy wells
is greatest on particular days, such as Easter or the first three
Sundays in May. And in many places the wells, whether ordinarily
held ‘holy’ or not, take an important place in the ceremonies of the
village festival. The ‘gospel wells’ of the Rogation processions, and
the well to which the ‘Bezant’ procession goes at Shaftesbury are
cases in point; while in Derbyshire the ‘well-dressings’ correspond to
the ‘wakes,’ ‘rushbearings,’ and ‘Mayings’ of other districts. Palm
Sunday and Easter Sunday, as well as the Rogation days, are in a
measure Christian versions of the heathen agricultural feasts, and it
is not, therefore, surprising to find an extensive use of holy water in
ecclesiastical ritual, and a special rite of Benedictio Fontium included
amongst the Easter ceremonies[404]. But the Christian custom has
been moralized, and its avowed aim is purification rather than
prosperity.
The ordinary form of heat-charm was to build, in semblance of
the sun, the source of heat, a great fire[405]. Just as in the rain-charm
the worshippers must be literally sprinkled with water, so, in order
that they may receive the full benefits of the heat-charm, they must
come into direct physical contact with the fire, by standing in the
smoke, or even leaping through the flames, or by smearing their
faces with the charred ashes[406]. The cattle too must be driven
through the fire, in order that they may be fertile and free from
pestilence throughout the summer; and a whole series of
observances had for their especial object the distribution of the
preserving influence over the farms. The fires were built on high
ground, that they might be visible far and wide. Or they were built in
a circle round the fields, or to windward, so that the smoke might
blow across the corn. Blazing arrows were shot in the air, or blazing
torches carried about. Ashes were sprinkled over the fields, or
mingled with the seed corn or the fodder in the stall[407]. Charred
brands were buried or stuck upright in the furrows. Further, by a
simple symbolism, the shape and motion of the sun were mimicked
with circular rotating bodies. A fiery barrel or a fiery wheel was rolled
down the hill on the top of which the ceremony took place. The
lighted torches were whirled in the air, or replaced by lighted disks of
wood, flung on high. All these customs still linger in these islands or
in other parts of western Europe, and often the popular imagination
finds in their successful performance an omen for the fertility of the
year.
On a priori grounds one might have expected two agricultural
festivals during the summer; one in the earlier part of it, when
moisture was all-important, accompanied with rain-charms; the other
later on, when the crops were well grown and heat was required to
ripen them, accompanied with sun-charms. But the evidence is
rather in favour of a single original festival determined, in the
dislocation caused by a calendar, to different dates in different
localities[408]. The Midsummer or St. John’s fires are perhaps the
most widely spread and best known of surviving heat-charms. But
they can be paralleled by others distributed all over the summer
cycle of festivals, at Easter[409] and on May-day, and in connexion
with the ploughing celebrations on Epiphany, Candlemas,
Shrovetide, Quadragesima, and St. Blaize’s day. It is indeed at
Easter and Candlemas that the Benedictiones, which are the
ecclesiastical versions of the ceremony, appear in the ritual-
books[410]. On the other hand, although, perhaps owing to the later
notion of the solstice, the fires are greatly prominent on St. John’s
day, and are explained with considerable ingenuity by the monkish
writers[411], yet this day was never a fire-festival and nothing else.
Garland customs are common upon it, and there is even evidence,
though slight evidence, for rain-charms[412]. It is perhaps justifiable
to infer that the crystallization of the rain-and heat-charms, which
doubtless were originally used only when the actual condition of the
weather made them necessary, into annual festivals, took place after
the exact rationale of them had been lost, and they had both come to
be looked upon, rather vaguely, as weather-charms.
Apart from the festival-fires, a superstitious use of sun-charms
endured in England to an extraordinarily late date. This was in times
of drought and pestilence as a magical remedy against mortality
amongst the cattle. A fire was built, and, as on the festivals, the
cattle were made to pass through the smoke and flames[413]. On
such occasions, and often at the festival-fires themselves, it was
held requisite that, just as the water used in the rain-charms would
be fresh water from the spring, so the fire must be fresh fire. That is
to say, it must not be lit from any pre-existing fire, but must be made
anew. And, so conservative is cult, this must be done, not with the
modern device of matches, or even with flint and steel, but by the
primitive method of causing friction in dry work. Such fire is known as
‘need-fire’ or ‘forced fire,’ and is produced in various ways, by
rubbing two pieces of wood together, by turning a drill in a solid
block, or by rapidly rotating a wheel upon an axle. Often certain
precautions are observed, as that nine men must work at the job, or
chaste boys; and often all the hearth-fires in the village are first
extinguished, to be rekindled by the new flame[414].
The custom of rolling a burning wheel downhill from the festival-
fire amongst the vineyards has been noted. The wheel is, of course,
by no means an uncommon solar emblem[415]. Sometimes round
bannocks or hard-boiled eggs are similarly rolled downhill. The use
of both of these may be sacrificial in its nature. But the egg plays
such a large part in festival customs, especially at Easter, when it is
reddened, or gilt, or coloured yellow with furze or broom flowers, and
popularly regarded as a symbol of the Resurrection, that one is
tempted to ask whether it does not stand for the sun itself[416]. And
are we to find the sun in the ‘parish top[417],’ or in the ball with which,
even in cathedrals, ceremonial games were played[418]? If so,
perhaps this game of ball may be connected with the curious belief
that if you get up early enough on Easter morning you may see the
sun dance[419].
In any case sun-charms, quite independent of the fires, may
probably be traced in the circular movements which so often appear
invested with a religious significance, and which sometimes form
part of the festivals[420]. It would be rash to regard such movements
as the basis of every circular dance or ronde on such an occasion; a
ring is too obviously the form which a crowd of spectators round any
object, sacred or otherwise, must take. But there are many
circumambulatory rites in which stress is laid on the necessity for the
motion to be deasil, or with the right hand to the centre, in
accordance with the course of the sun, and not in the opposite
direction, cartuaitheail or withershins[421]. And these, perhaps, may
be legitimately considered as of magical origin.
With the growth of animistic or spiritual religion, the mental
tendencies, out of which magical practices or charms arise, gradually
cease to be operative in the consciousness of the worshippers. The
charms themselves, however, are preserved by the conservative
instinct of cult. In part they survive as mere bits of traditional ritual,
for which no particular reason is given or demanded; in part also
they become material for that other instinct, itself no less inveterate
in the human mind, by which the relics of the past are constantly in
process of being re-explained and brought into new relations with the
present. The sprinkling with holy water, for instance, which was
originally of the nature of a rain-charm, comes to be regarded as a
rite symbolical of spiritual purification and regeneration. An even
more striking example of such transformation of intention is to be
found in the practice, hardly yet referred to in this account of the
agricultural festivals, of sacrifice. In the ordinary acceptation of the
term, sacrifice implies not merely an animistic, but an
anthropomorphic conception of the object of cult. The offering or
oblation with which man approaches his god is an extension of the
gift with which, as suppliant, he approaches his fellow men. But the
oblational aspect of sacrifice is not the only one. In his remarkable
book upon The Religion of the Semites, Professor Robertson Smith
has formulated another, which may be distinguished as
‘sacramental.’ In this the sacrifice is regarded as the renewal of a
special tie between the god and his worshippers, analogous to the
blood-bond which exists amongst those worshippers themselves.
The victim is not an offering made to the god; on the contrary, the
god himself is, or is present in, the victim. It is his blood which is
shed, and by means of the sacrificial banquet and its subsidiary rites,
his personality becomes, as it were, incorporated in those of his
clansmen[422]. It is not necessary to determine here the general
priority of the two types or conceptions of sacrifice described. But,
while it is probable that the Kelts and Teutons of the time of the
conversion consciously looked upon sacrifice as an oblation, there is
also reason to believe that, at an earlier period, the notion of a
sacrament had been the predominant one. For the sacrificial ritual of
these peoples, and especially that used in the agricultural cult, so far
as it can be traced, is only explicable as an elaborate process of just
that physical incorporation of the deity in the worshippers and their
belongings, which it was the precise object of the sacramental
sacrifice to bring about. It will be clear that sacrifice, so regarded,
enters precisely into that category of ideas which has been defined
as magical. It is but one more example of that belief in the efficacy of
direct contact which lies at the root of sympathetic magic. As in the
case of the garland customs, this belief, originally pre-animistic, has
endured into an animistic stage of thought. Through the garland and
the posies the worshipper sought contact with the fertilization spirit in
its phytomorphic form; through sacrifice he approaches it in its
theriomorphic form also. The earliest sacrificial animals, then, were
themselves regarded as divine, and were naturally enough the food
animals of the folk. The use made by the Kelto-Teutonic peoples of
oxen, sheep, goats, swine, deer, geese, and fowls requires no
explanation. A common victim was also the horse, which the
Germans seem, up to a late date, to have kept in droves and used
for food. The strong opposition of the Church to the sacrificial use of
horse-flesh may possibly account for the prejudice against it as a
food-stuff in modern Europe[423]. A similar prejudice, however, in the
case of the hare, an animal of great importance in folk belief, already
existed in the time of Caesar[424]. It is a little more puzzling to find
distinct traces of sacrificial customs in connexion with animals, such
as the dog, cat, wolf, fox, squirrel, owl, wren, and so forth, which are
not now food animals[425]. But they may once have been such, or
the explanation may lie in an extension of the sacrificial practice after
the first rationale of it was lost.
At every agricultural festival, then, animal sacrifice may be
assumed as an element. The analogy of the relation between the
fertilization spirit and his worshippers to the human blood bond
makes it probable that originally the rite was always a bloody
one[426]. Some of the blood was poured on the sacred tree. Some
was sprinkled upon the worshippers, or smeared over their faces, or
solemnly drunk by them[427]. Hides, horns, and entrails were also
hung upon the tree[428], or worn as festival trappings[429]. The flesh
was, of course, solemnly eaten in the sacrificial meal[430]. The crops,
as well as their cultivators, must benefit by the rites; and therefore
the fields, and doubtless also the cattle, had their sprinkling of blood,
while heads or pieces of flesh were buried in the furrows, or at the
threshold of the byre[431]. A fair notion of the whole proceeding may
be obtained from the account of the similar Indian worship of the
earth-goddess given in Appendix I. The intention of the ceremonies
will be obvious by a comparison with those already explained. The
wearing of the skins of the victims is precisely parallel to the wearing
of the green vegetation, the sprinkling with blood to the sprinkling
with lustral water, the burial in the fields of flesh and skulls to the
burial of brands from the festival-fire. In each case the belief in the
necessity of direct physical contact to convey the beneficent
influence is at the bottom of the practice. It need hardly be said that
of such physical contact the most complete example is in the
sacramental banquet itself.
It is entirely consistent with the view here taken of the primitive
nature of sacrifice, that the fertilization spirit was sacrificed at the
village festivals in its vegetable as well as in its animal form. There
were bread-offerings as well as meat-offerings[432]. Sacramental
cakes were prepared with curious rituals which attest their primitive
character. Like the tcharnican or Beltane cakes, they were kneaded
and moulded by hand and not upon a board[433]; like the loaf in the
Anglo-Saxon charm, they were compounded of all sorts of grain in
order that they might be representative of every crop in the field[434].
At the harvest they would naturally be made, wholly or in part, of the
last sheaf cut. The use of them corresponded closely to that made of
the flesh of the sacrificial victim. Some were laid on a branch of the
sacred tree[435]; others flung into the sacred well or the festival-fire;
others again buried in the furrows, or crumbled up and mingled with
the seed-corn[436]. And like the flesh they were solemnly eaten by
the worshippers themselves at the sacrificial banquet. With the
sacrificial cake went the sacrificial draught, also made out of the
fruits of the earth, in the southern lands wine, but in the vineless
north ale, or cider, or that mead which Pytheas described the Britons
as brewing out of honey and wheat[437]. Of this, too, the trees and
crops received their share, while it filled the cup for those toasts or
minnes to the dead and to Odin and Freyja their rulers, which were
afterwards transferred by Christian Germany to St. John and St.
Gertrude[438].
The animal and the cereal sacrifices seem plausible enough, but
they do not exhaust the problem. One has to face the fact that
human sacrifice, as Victor Hehn puts it, ‘peers uncannily forth from
the dark past of every Aryan race[439]. So far as the Kelts and
Teutons go, there is plenty of evidence to show, that up to the very
moment of their contact with Roman civilization, in some branches
even up to the very moment of their conversion to Christianity, it was
not yet obsolete[440]. An explanation of it is therefore required, which
shall fall in with the general theory of agricultural sacrifice. The
subject is very difficult, but, on the whole, it seems probable that
originally the slaying of a human being at an annually recurring
festival was not of the nature of sacrifice at all. It is doubtful whether
it was ever sacrifice in the sacramental sense, and although in time it
came to be regarded as an oblation, this was not until the first
meaning, both of the sacrifice and of the human death, had been
lost. The essential facts bearing on the question have been gathered
together by Dr. Frazer in The Golden Bough. He brings out the point
that the victim in a human sacrifice was not originally merely a man,
but a very important man, none other than the king, the priest-king of
the tribe. In many communities, Aryan-speaking and other, it has
been the principal function of such a priest-king to die, annually or at
longer intervals, for the people. His place is taken, as a rule, by the
tribesman who has slain him[441]. Dr. Frazer’s own explanation of
this custom is, that the head of the tribe was looked upon as
possessed of great magical powers, as a big medicine man, and was
in fact identified with the god himself. And his periodical death, says
Dr. Frazer, was necessary, in order to renew the vitality of the god,
who might decay and cease to exist, were he not from time to time
reincarnated by being slain and passing into the body of his slayer
and successor[442]. This is a highly ingenious and fascinating theory,
but unfortunately there are several difficulties in the way of accepting
it. In the first place it is inconsistent with the explanation of the
sacramental killing of the god arrived at by Professor Robertson
Smith. According to this the sacrifice of the god is for the sake of his
worshippers, that the blood-bond with them may be renewed; and
we have seen that this view fits in admirably with the minor sacrificial
rites, such as the eating and burying of the flesh, as the wearing of
the horns and hides. Dr. Frazer, however, obliges us to hold that the
god is also sacrificed for his own sake, and leaves us in the position
of propounding two quite distinct and independent reasons for the
same fact. Secondly, there is no evidence, at least amongst Aryan-
speaking peoples, for that breaking down of the very real and
obvious distinction between the god and his chief worshipper or
priest, which Dr. Frazer’s theory implies. And thirdly, if the human
victim were slain as being the god, surely this slaughter should have
replaced the slaughter of the animal victim previously slain for the
same reason, which it did not, and should have been followed by a
sacramental meal of a cannibal type, of which also, in western
Europe, there is but the slightest trace[443].
 Probably, therefore, the alternative explanation of Dr. Frazer’s
own facts given by Dr. Jevons is preferable. According to this the
death of the human victim arises out of the circumstances of the
animal sacrifice. The slaying of the divine animal is an act
approached by the tribe with mingled feelings. It is necessary, in
order to renew the all-essential blood-bond between the god and his
worshippers. And at the same time it is an act of sacrilege; it is killing
the god. There is some hesitation amongst the assembled
worshippers. Who will dare the deed and face its consequences?
‘The clansman,’ says Dr. Jevons, ‘whose religious conviction of the
clan’s need of communion with the god was deepest, would
eventually and after long waiting be the one to strike, and take upon
himself the issue, for the sake of his fellow men.’ This issue would be
twofold. The slayer would be exalted in the eyes of his fellows. He
would naturally be the first to drink the shed blood of the god. A
double portion of the divine spirit would enter into him. He would
become, for a while, the leader, the priest-king, of the community. At
the same time he would incur blood-guiltiness. And in a year’s time,
when his sanctity was exhausted, the penalty would have to be paid.
His death would accompany the renewal of the bond by a fresh
sacrifice, implying in its turn the self-devotion of a fresh annual
king[444].
These theories belong to a region of somewhat shadowy
conjecture. If Dr. Jevons is right, it would seem to follow that, as has
already been suggested, the human death at an annual festival was
not initially sacrifice. It accompanied, but did not replace the
sacramental slaughter of a divine animal. But when the animal
sacrifice had itself changed its character, and was looked upon, no
longer as an act of communion with the god, but as an offering or
bribe made to him, then a new conception of the human death also
was required. When the animal ceased to be recognized as the god,
the need of a punishment for slaying it disappeared. But the human
death could not be left meaningless, and its meaning was
assimilated to that of the animal sacrifice itself. It also became an
oblation, the greatest that could be offered by the tribe to its
protector and its judge. And no doubt this was the conscious view
taken of the matter by Kelts and Teutons at the time when they
appear in history. The human sacrifice was on the same footing as
the animal sacrifice, but it was a more binding, a more potent, a
more solemn appeal.
In whatever way human sacrifice originated, it was obviously
destined, with the advance of civilization, to undergo modification.
Not only would the growing moral sense of mankind learn to hold it a
dark and terrible thing, but also to go on killing the leading man of
the tribe, the king-priest, would have its obvious practical
inconveniences. At first, indeed, these would not be great. The king-
priest would be little more than a rain-maker, a rex sacrorum, and
one man might perform the ceremonial observances as well as
another. But as time went on, and the tribe settled down to a
comparatively civilized life, the serious functions of its leader would
increase. He would become the arbiter of justice, the adviser in
debate; above all, when war grew into importance, the captain in
battle. And to spare and replace, year by year, the wisest councillor
and the bravest warrior would grow into an intolerable burden. Under
some such circumstances, one can hardly doubt, a process of
substitution set in. Somebody had to die for the king. At first,
perhaps, the substitute was an inferior member of the king’s own
house, or even an ordinary tribesman, chosen by lot. But the
process, once begun, was sure to continue, and presently it was
sufficient if a life of little value, that of a prisoner, a slave, a criminal,
a stranger within the gates, was sacrificed[445]. The common belief in
madness or imbecility as a sign of divine possession may perhaps
have contributed to make the village fool or natural seem a
particularly suitable victim. But to the very end of Teutonic and Keltic
heathenism, the sense that the substitute was, after all, only a
substitute can be traced. In times of great stress or danger, indeed,
the king might still be called upon to suffer in person[446]. And always
a certain pretence that the victim was the king was kept up. Even
though a slave or criminal, he was for a few days preceding the
sacrifice treated royally. He was a temporary king, was richly
dressed and feasted, had a crown set on his head, and was
permitted to hold revel with his fellows. The farce was played out in
the sight of men and gods[447]. Ultimately, of course, the natural
growth of the sanctity of human life in a progressive people, or in an
unprogressive people the pressure of outside ideals[448], forbids the
sacrifice of a man at all. Perhaps the temporary king is still chosen,
and even some symbolic mimicked slaying of him takes place; but
actually he does not die. An animal takes his place upon the altar; or
more strictly speaking, an animal remains the last victim, as it had
been the first, and in myth is regarded as a substitute for the human
victim which for a time had shared its fate. Of such a myth the
legends of Abraham and Isaac and of Iphigeneia at Aulis are the
classical examples.
There is another group of myths for which, although they lack this
element of a substituted victim, mythologists find an origin in a
reformation of religious sentiment leading to the abolition of human
sacrifice. The classical legend of Perseus and Andromeda, the
hagiological legend of St. George and the Dragon, the Teutonic
legend of Beowulf and Grendel, are only types of innumerable tales
in which the hero puts an end to the periodical death of a victim by
slaying the monster who has enforced and profited by it[449]. What is
such a story but the imaginative statement of the fact that such
sacrifices at one time were, and are not? It is, however, noticeable,
that in the majority of these stories, although not in all, the dragon or
monster slain has his dwelling in water, and this leads to the
consideration of yet another sophistication of the primitive notion of
sacrifice. According to this notion sacrifice was necessarily bloody; in
the shedding of blood and in the sacrament of blood partaken of by
the worshippers, lay the whole gist of the rite: a bloodless sacrifice
would have no raison d’être. On the other hand, the myths just
referred to seem to imply a bloodless sacrifice by drowning, and this
notion is confirmed by an occasional bit of ritual, and by the common
superstition which represents the spirits of certain lakes and rivers as
claiming a periodical victim in the shape of a drowned person[450].
Similarly there are traces of sacrifices, which must have been
equally bloodless, by fire. At the Beltane festival, for instance, one
member of the party is chosen by lot to be the ‘victim,’ is made to
jump over the flames and is spoken of in jest as ‘dead[451].’ Various