The Age of Miracles

In the Forest of Moär beyond the Trask farm

stood a pyramid of red stones. Old as the land,

some said. Others said that druids had built it

and had gone feral—shunning language, even

clothing. They had eaten meat off the carcass.

No one in town had actually seen the pyramid.

Indeed, a few said that it did not exist—except

in the dreams of those careless wanderers who

approached the forest, or those who, at night,

fell asleep before having closed their windows.

Not a word of this to the children, they all insisted.

On his morning walks, Mal talked to the men

who smoked their pipes by the war memorial.

They recounted stories of their ancestors who

had caught fire merely by looking at the forest.

Once, a hot wind had blown from the north,

over Moär, bearing the reek of burning flesh.

At least two dozen folk that day had suffered

pains in the stomach or issues of blood from

the mouth. None had ever recovered entirely.

Another time, Uriah Hellman, the invalid, had

been seen two places at once: in his chamber,

reading aloud passages from the Good Book,

and more than a mile away, pouring kerosene

in a triangle around Lionel Matheson’s house.

The men said that the age of miracles had not

ended. Three Trask boys had come into town

the same day that Mal had taken up residence.

No one had known them, but like every Trask

they had worn on their feet only wraps of skin.

Mal took to shutting his windows at nightfall.

Before bed he lit the lamps in the living room

and started the Victrola—records of hit songs.

But lamps went out before dawn, and records

lasted only so long, music giving way to a hiss.