The Great Harvest in the Hills

One Hundred Years Before Modern Times

“Come with me now son, we don’t want you to be late.” Hamilton Angel was a good man. He made sure his son went to service every week, got him up for school in the morning, and made sure that his farm gave enough back to the village that he did not have to worry about starving during the coming cold season. While he might have lost his wife during birth, he was happy with his little lot in life.

“But father…”

“No buts, Zephyr. You must go to school. Learning is important for a growing man.” Hamilton knew his son had a hard time fitting in at school, but in time, he was sure the other students would see the genuine person his son was. He was an adventurous boy, who had an extreme imagination. He claimed he could hear and see things in the wind. Zephyr had told when the rain came and had even helped the village once by warning of a flood when the rivers had overflowed. But the village saw him as a bad omen. Born during a storm had cursed his son to some fate he could not see. He would not believe it. His son was as close to their name as one could be. An angel.

School was as close to hell as Zephyr ever wanted to get. He walked the short distance to the schoolhouse with his head down, listening to his neighbors laughing and joking with each other. He could already hear their taunts beginning. The name calling, they would start the moment they noticed him. It happened every morning and it would keep happening for as long as Zephyr had to attend that school. He tried to talk to his father about it, but he would never listen. Hamilton would never see the disrespect and bullying that Zephyr had to deal with daily. Instead, he saw his son failing to make friends because he was closed off.

Zephyr was closed off because people called him a freak otherwise. When he had warned the village of the flood, they saw him as a demon. Though he was bringing ruin to them, when all he had tried to do was save people. Even trying to save lives, people still died. In the rush to prepare, many had gotten left behind and had lost to the raging waters. The villagers claimed that if he had just left things alone, they would have lived. It was God’s plan. But if that were true, why would he want people to die?

They perplexed him, but it didn’t change the fact that people still bullied him and called him names.

“Look guys, it’s the mind reader! Hey Zeph, come on, read my mind, you little freak!” With the words tossed his way, a rock hit him in the head. It was so shocking it send him tumbling to the ground. He groaned at the sudden movement and reached up to check to see if he was bleeding. Seeing nothing, he slowly got back to his feet, to see the laughing faces of his classmates. He stared at them for a moment before turning and heading for the schoolhouse again. The teacher was standing in the doorway, having watched the interaction with a frown on her face.

“You should have said something, it is vulgar to ignore people when they are speaking to you.” Zephyr blinked, confused. But he could see how serious she was being. He nodded his head before ducking it in shame and walked into the school. Not even the adults stood up for him. He was used to all of it now. He took his seat in silence, even though the rest of the class was laughing at the mud that adorned his clothes.

“Zephy can’t even shower.” One girl giggled as she pointed at him and laughed louder. The rest joined in with even more taunts. Claiming he was so small because his family was so poor, and God was punishing them for it. He was so thin because his father refused to waste food on a waste of space like him. None of it was true, but there was no point in arguing with any of them. They made their minds up about him, and that was that.

As class started, so did fresh rain, it nearly time for the Harvest and the grandest party of the year, and that’s all the class was about. The teacher went on and on about the history of the Harvest and how it used to be coveted by witches and demons, before God came to the land and washed them all away. Now they could celebrate in peace and harmony. Zephyr had to roll his eyes, because he knew the truth.

God’s eyes never looked into the valley of Seneca Hills. He was blind here.

He looked out the window into the rain and noticed something in the day's fog dancing through the drop. The figure waved to him as it danced, bending its body through the waves of water falling from the sky like it was a river. The movements were as smooth as silk, and the figure was captivating, keeping his attention, and making him zone out the droning on from his teacher. All he could focus on was this figure and what it could be.

He knew there were things out there. More than just God. There was something darker and deeper stashed away in Seneca Hills, and Zephyr wondered if this being was one of them.

“Zephyr Angel, if you cannot pay attention, then perhaps you should not be here at all!”

Zephyr knew he was going to have to hear his father yell when he entered their home early. Being sent home from school wasn’t something new, but it happened so often that Hamilton was becoming anger every time. He wanted his son to fit in, but Zephyr knew that would never happen. The village had their view of him, long before he could defend himself. The children of the village followed in their parents’ footsteps. Now he was upsetting his father as well.

When he headed up the stairs to his house, his father met him at the door. Hamilton didn’t look as angry as Zephyr thought he would. Instead, he just looked sad. Maybe he had realized that his son wasn’t responsible for this behavior, and in fact, the village was.

“Go upstairs and get cleaned up. The Harvest is tonight, and while I want to make you miss it, it’s tradition and we already have enough stares as it is.” Hamilton stepped to the side to let his son pass and watched him walk up the stairs. The older man sighed before shutting the door and resting his head on it. “I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong. I raised him the best I could. Despite that, something is just wrong… please lord. Help him.”

Zephyr heard his father’s prayer from the stairs, and instead of going to his room, he raced up to the attic. Here, spread out, were all of his mother’s things. Various blankets she had when she was pregnant with him, and large sweaters she wore often in the colder seasons. Zephyr sat himself down in the center of his safe space and pulled a box towards himself. He had been meaning to go through it the night before, but his father had called him down for dinner before he had gotten to do so.

Laying on the top of the box was an old bag of wheat meal lying on the ground and reaching down to pick it up. It was strange; his mother seemed to have altered the bag some as if been using it for a sewing project. He turned it over in his hands until he saw the face. An eerie smile stared up at him, with two holes for eyes. The top of the bag had been the part that was altered the most; instead of it being flat like a typical bag, someone instead fastened it with two floppy, long bunny-like ears. Zephyr stared at the bag in his hands for a long moment before he noticed something had slipped out of it and had fallen to the ground at his feet.

My dearest Moon Child. I know I will never get to hold you in my arms. But know that a mother’s love never lost, not even in death. You will always have me with you forever, in every inch of your life. I am your heart and soul now, my little Moon. I hope they fill your first Great Harvest with the joyous screams and laughter that followed you into this world.

You are worth more than the Hills and the Stars, my Moon.

I love you.

Your Mother

Zephyr’s eyes filled with tears as he read the letter repeatedly. He had never seen his mother’s handwriting before, but he knew from the words that it had to be hers. He had no nickname. No one had ever called him anything but Zephyr before. But reading this letter, he could feel the love of a mother for her child. He held it to his chest before he pulled the hood over his head.

The Great Harvest she spoke of in the letter was happening that night. A once-a-year party that everyone in town would attend. The Harvest was the time of year when everyone in the town came together. The children could run around in various crafted dresses and collect treats from other villages, as the rest of the town celebrated the bounties that the harvest brought into the town. This year was the largest in years, a great harvest. The entire village was praising the work of the farmers who had worked all spring and summer to make it happen, and Hamilton Angel was one person at the center. This should mean Zephyr was as well, but as he sat in the attic, he could hear the village already starting its joyous extravaganza.

He stood up and moved to the attic window, placing a hand on the window to push it open slowly. The window flogged up with dirt and grime from years of misuse, and he couldn’t see out of it, so he had to open the window. When he did, he could see the village. He could see in the center of town a large fire roaring. Children danced around it, singing songs that none of them knew the meaning of. He could see the older folks telling stories to anyone who would listen, and could see the teens trying to get the drunks to give them some of the ale instead of cider.

All of Seneca Hills were there, except for Zephyr.

Read it again. A voice on the wind told him, and he looked down at the letter in his hands. Rereading the letter, he noticed one thing. His mother had hoped they would fill his first Great Harvest with screams. That was a strange thing to place in a letter. Especially since there was no way for his mother to know when a great harvest would come around. He looked back down at the village and felt the wind brush against him from the window. It was warmer than it should be and then he heard it, the voice.

Come to me.

He looked around the attic, but he knew there would be no one there. The voice wasn’t coming from the attic; it was coming from the Hills. Somewhere out in Seneca Hills there was something calling to him. There always was something speaking to him in the shadows, but now it was taking shape and form in his mind. Fire roaring in his ears, he turned and marched for the door.

If his mother wanted his first Great Harvest to be filled with screams, then he would fulfill her wish.

As Zephyr left the attic, he made his way through the farmhouse, collecting a few things on his way. His small little school satchel hung around his neck as he made his last stop, the kitchen. His father left the backdoor open, and the laughter and music from the Harvest was coming in loud and clear. But his attention was on the knife that lay just out of reach on the high countertop. His father had been hard at work that day, making something to pass at the Harvest and had left the knife out, but the man had always put the sharp things far out of his reach. That was okay, though, because there were other things.

Zephyr turned then and spotted his father’s scythe. It was twice his height. Zephyr could manage it just fine. He grabbed it and let the blade hit the ground as he dragged it behind him out of the house. He never looked back.

No one in Seneca Hills cared for him. The village treated him like he was a freak. Even his own father was praying for him to be different. Only his mother, from one letter, had understood him. They teased him because of his foresight into disaster. They feared him because his birth had brought a storm with it. Well, if they wanted to see what genuine fear was, he would gladly show them.

Heading towards the fire, it did not shock him that no one noticed him. His classmates and the rest of the village children never minded him. There was no one who paid him any attention at all, not even when his day of birth rolled around. None of them cared for him. None of them showed him the compassion they showed the rest of the children in town.

Even walking up to the first person, his teacher, he held out a hand. The woman had laughed, clearly drunk on the laughter and festival, but she handed him no treat. She had none left for him. It was a well-known fact that it was bad luck not to give every child in the village a treat during the Great Harvest. It would mean the following Harvest would fail. Children were the bounties they were the most thankful for, after all. Without them, they doomed Seneca Hills to be drowned in by the Hills.

After a minute of holding his hand out and his teacher continuing to wave him away, he lifted the scythe. She made no other sound other than to choke on her laughter when the scythe bit into her side.

Their eyes dulled as Zephyr watched, removing the scythe’s blade and stepping back to keep his feet from stepping in the blood. He was watching it, having never seen it before. Focused on the way it dripped from the open wounds. The sounds became hollow around him as he focused only on the dark red liquid pulsing out of the wounds. They had been sitting on barrels and haystacks, which were now being coated and covered. The hay absorbed the blood better, but the barrels caused it to waterfall onto the ground. Splattering into fanciful designs. He knelt down to press two fingers into one design, turning his fingers into the liquid before stepping back.

He reached up and drew his fingers across the smile he knew was already on his mask. It would highlight the smile on the mask, he was sure of it.

“Zephyr!” He heard his name and turned around to see one boy who always laughed at him at school. The boy wasn’t wearing a costume, even though it was bad luck for the children to be seen without a mask on. “Thought they would lock away our little weirdo in his tower…” The laughter echoed in Zephyr’s ears and he dropped the scythe to reach up to pull the rabbit ears closed. The boy laughed harder and Zephyr shook his head to stop the sound. It was so loud. It needed to stop.

“Aw poor little baby. Need daddy to come save you?” More laughter. This time, there were more voices. More boys laughed at him. He turned away from them to face the face, and the laughter dulled down. All he could hear now was the fire. He stared into it, and the fire stared back into him. His emerald eyes glowing as they stared into the fire. He should be warm, shouldn’t he? But he wasn’t. He was hollow. But the laughter was over. “What is wrong with you? Little freak.” The boy who had started went to grab him, and instead Zephyr grabbed his wrist, pulling him. The boy hadn’t been ready for Zephyr to fight back, and lost his balance.

With the height of the fire, and how loud the music was, no one heard the boy cry out for help. No one heard the other three either when Zephyr turned on them and used their surprise to feed them into the tentacles of fire that met them. Something in his mind gave him thanks. He wasn’t sure who or what it was, but he bowed his head in prayer. That was what they should have been doing. It was an old rite. Feeding the family fire before your own meal. But they had all stopped that. So, it must be so hungry.

Well, there was more food to go around. Zephyr looked around at the people, and before he knew it, he was using branches to spread the fire to other parts of the clearing. Then to the houses. No one noticed who was doing it until the only ones left were the priest of the local church and his father. His father whose side was half burnt and the priest who had tried to save himself by hiding by the church.

“Zeph…” His father called out, turning around. Screaming into the night. He sounded scared as he did it, but Zephyr didn’t believe it. It was a lie. If he was afraid of losing him now, then why hadn’t he been afraid all those years before? No. He didn’t care. All he cared about was himself. Like he always did.

“Right here, father.” His voice was as soft-spoken as ever. His mask went into his bag. “It was a perfect Great Harvest. I think they are very pleased now. They were ever so hungry before.” He looked up at the flames, seeing the green eyes reflected on him, and he gave the figure a grin before he turned back to his father’s eyes. They weren’t the same as his. No. He had his mother’s eyes. He looked just like she did.

He gave his father a kiss on the forehead before a tentacle of flame reached out and snatched it up, burning his body to ash. Zephyr watched the being for a few more moments before he skipped down the steps of his former home. He bowed to the being in the fire before turning towards the road that led out of Seneca Hills.

He wanted to see the sea. He wanted to see the world beyond the Hills.

And he would.

Because They were calling him

And he would answer.