DanielRoopis a member of the Horror Writers Association and a seventh generation East Tennessean. He has published horror fiction in The Maul Magazine, and has numerous poetry publications. He has been mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannicafor his accomplishments in poetry slams, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his work in Will Work for Peace.
The Offering
By Daniel Roop
Dusk, and the sassafras tea had just come to a boil when Elsiesaid, “I never understood why you wouldn’t let us spend the night here when we were kids.” I set the earthenware mug in front of her and said, “Careful, it’s hot.”
She blew on it for a moment, then stoodupandstretched, still stiff from her long drive up that morning. Shelooked out the kitchen window, gazing over the south pasture, the distant creek withits stretch of walnut trees. I knew that pasture waswhere he would approach from, but Istilldidn’tknow how to explain. It was something shehad to experiencefor herself.
“I didn’t know you’deven noticed.”
“Come on Mom, how could we not? It was like a fourhour drive each way to visit grandma and grandpa here, and every time we’dset out extra early, earlier than a school day, drive up, visit all day, and leave right after supper. Or if it waswinter, before supper.”
“It gets dark earlier in winter.”
“I’maware, Mom. You’dalways have a different excuse. I don’twant to drive in the dark. I don’twant to risk icy roads.I don’twant to throw off Elsie’s schedule.I don’twant to put y’all out– I remember that exactly because this is the only place you ever said y’all. A few times dad got so tired he tried to talk you into staying, but you glared it away, and we gota hotel not even thirty minutes down the road. It was weird.” She sat back down and blew on the tea, finally risking a tentative sip. I’dalready drunk half of mine, with lots of sugar. I’dput the lancets away in the back of a drawer before she arrived. I didn’twant her thinkingI had diabetes on top of everything elsewe had to discuss.
I wondered if, later that night,she would notice the smell or the sound first. I wondered for the hundredth time since I’dinvited her up for the week if I was doing the right thing, ifI was offering her freedom or servitude. Out of season, the cicadasbuzzedand the frogs croaked all around the farmhouse, loud enough that it could be hard to have a conversation outside on the back porch. That’swhere he would enter, though I never knew exactly when. He had his patterns, as they all did, but they weren’trigid. There was enough variety that I could still be surprised.
“God, I loved it here when I was little. I’mso glad you moved back.”
I wondered if she would feel that way when he arrived. I wondered if she would forgive me.
The farmhouse where we were sipping tea stood in the middle of 144 acresmy family had owned since 1886, on the far western edge of Scruggs County, Tennessee. I was the sixth generation to grow up under these creaking eaves and this weathered tin roof, gorgeously cacophonous wheneverthe rain rushed down.I was my parents’only child and they doted on me, while also teaching me what life on a farm meant, what devotionwas demandedif one was to be a good steward.Elsiewas the seventh generation of our bloodline to spend childhood daysdashing through thewheat,swinging from willow branches,and huffingindignantly in the creek when water striders would slip from her grasp.Childhood days, butas she had noticed,never childhood nights.
Growing up here, I was the only farmer’s daughter I knew who read Wallace Stevens. I remember lying under thebigmagnolia in the west field with my high school boyfriend, trying to explain “The Anecdote of the Jar” to him. “So,it’s about a jar?”
“It’s about people, and about how we can’t help but fixate on whatpeople leave behind.”
“I’m pretty sureit’s about a jar.”
“Look, if you were walking through the woods here and found an, I don’t know, a Hot Wheels car, that would draw your attention more than another tree.”
“I don’tknow. I like trees. What kind of Hot Wheel are we talking about?” He was willfully, charmingly ignorant. We held each other tightly thatlast summer butheld the relationship loosely. We knew where I was headed, a scholarship bobbing like a lifeboatthat comingfall. I’dtold him once, though only once, thathe should enroll, too, but I didn’tpush. He said, “Shit, Bet, we both know I’mnot gonnaWallace Stevens my way outtahere. I know wheremy next fifty years will be.” I couldn’ttell, as well as I knew him, if he spoke with determination or regret. We wrote three timesafter I left.Ifilled pages,front and back,with quotes from Simone Weil and Denise Levertov. He wrote with a brief,gruff joy of a calf being born. He died eight years ago from a heart attack, bush-hogging his back meadow.
I’dspent fortyyears teaching English Lit in small colleges and universities, at first moving as far away as a job would take me. Over the years, without a spoken intention, we driftedbackcloser and closer while still keeping an appropriate buffer of miles between our home and the farm.I wanted Elsieto be close enough to know myfamilyand to experience the beauty of this place, butI didn’twant her to feel trapped by it. At the end ofeach visit during her childhood, I hated to see the yearning on my parents’ faces, and on Elsie’s. They loved each other and would have loved more time together.She and my mother had a special bond, spending hours hulling and shelling walnuts from the standof trees next to the creek.None of that softened my resolve. We packed up and went every time, daylight still visible in the rearview mirror.
After my mother died last winter, my daddy having passed away the prior spring, I moved backto the farm, shocking Elsieand all my colleagues. It was the first time I was glad my husband was gone. It was one less person who needed an explanation.
It was the sound that she noticed first. If it had been the smell, he never would have gotten so close. Her screaming woke me at two a.m., though it was a shallow sleep I readily rose from. I’dbeen tossing fitfully all night, anxious for what was to come.
Her screaming was reaching a hysterical pitch when I opened the spare bedroom door to find her huddled on the floor in the corner, immobile, unable to run. I understood. We expect peopleto behave rationally in extreme situations, never noticing that we don’tevenbehave rationally on a random Tuesday. She held one hand over her mouth,but itdid nothing to stifle the volume, as she pointed at the shape lying on the bed.
The buzzing was as loud as her screaming, loud enough to reverberate painfullyin the small wood-paneledroom. The stench was overpowering, especially if you were used to lilac and lavenderbath salts, unaccustomed tothe residue of rotten flesh. The form lying on the bed, his back to us, was the silhouette of a seven-year-oldboy, composed entirely of flies, thousands of them, crawling over each other, spasticallyflittingin tight circuits, close enough to maintainthe shape, to be a unified whole. I knew from experience there was nothing bodily underneaththatjitteringsurface, having plunged my hand inside one rash nightwhen I was eleven. It was simply openspace wearing this writhing armor of flies, moving in unison, now turningover to face us, now sitting up on the side of the bed, as I said, “It’sokay, Silas. You haven’tdone anything wrong.” After all these years I still didn’tknow if hecould hear me. I just knew hecouldn’tsay anything back. I looked down at Elsie and touched her shoulder. “We should get some cocoa.”I helped her to her feetand led her out of the room as the shape dissolved into the air.
She was still shaking when I set the mug down. “What the fuck, Mom?!”
“That’s Silas, honey.”
“No, that’s a big fucking cloud of flies!”
“Silas is your five times great uncle.”
“Are you losing your mind? Is this Alzheimer’s? You’reonly sixty-eight. No, shit, I saw it,too, I smelledit, God,you’renot crazy. I mean, you might be crazy, but—”
“Silas died when he was seven.The family’s best guess was that he fell in a sinkhole. They searchedfor him for a month beforehis mother finally agreed toa funeral.They never found him, but obviously the flies did.That’show he’salways appeared, as far backas I can remember.”
“Mom, this is insane. What’sgoing on?”
“What’salways gone on here, every night, almost aslong as we’vehad the place.Look out the back window, Elsie. I can’tsay for sure, but most nights she’sout there.”
Shestoodslowly, still holding her cocoa in trembling handsas she tooksmall, tentative steps toward the window.The moon was nearly fullin a cloudless sky, and I knew what she was seeing when she said, “Oh my god, whatisthat?”
“That’sSilas’smom, Geneva. She’slooking for him, which is what she does most nights.” I couldn’tcount how many times inmy youth I’dlooked outintothat fieldand seen Geneva, desperate need etching her face, forcing her way forward into nothing.“We should get some sleep. There’llbe a lot to talk about tomorrow.”
Elsieprotested halfheartedly, casting foranswers as she finished the cocoa, but her mind was ready to shut down. She wanted me to tuck her in and stay with her until she fell asleep. It took a long time. I was happy to do it, gratefulto have thosemoments together. I was glad to comfort her once more beforeI had to tell her the whole story.
We slept late. I rose first, frying bacon and eggsin my grandmother’s old cast iron skillet, brewing coffee, and getting one of the lancets out. I sat at the table, trying for the thousandth time to figure out theelusiveorder of words that would explainthis place to someone who didn’tgrow up embedded in it, who wasn’traised amongstitsimpossibility. Elsie joined me around noon, wiping sleep from her eyes with the back of her handwith the exact same mannerism she had attwo years old. She said, “This is where I say I had a crazy dream last night, right?”
“This is where you have a strong cup of coffee while I heatthe food back up.”
I warmed a plate for her as she sipped from her favorite mug. She had purposely sat in a different chair, turning her back to the window. “Mom, I don’t even know what to ask.”
“I know. Eat up, then we’lltake a walkand I’lltell you everything.”
I was pleased to see she had an appetite. She’dneed the strength. As expected, when her eyes wandered to the lancet on the table,she began grilling me about my health, whichI assured herwas fine, though I’mnot sure she believed me, physically or mentally.When she finished, I pocketed the lancetandwe stepped out the back door. We were going to the old well.
Fall leaves crunched underfoot as I led heracross the back pasture, though plenty stillblazed orange and red on the branches. I began the story, the one I’dprotected her from for three decades. “The first thing you should know is that you won’tsee just Silas and Geneva. There are over a dozen of them here, all family, going back to the late 1800’s. We can’tcommunicate with them, or them with us, as far as any of the family has ever been able to tell, but they do seem to enjoy being close to the living. That’slikelywhy Silas curled up next to you last night.”
“Mom, Jesus, assumingany ofthis is real, you could have warned me.”
I stopped walking and looked at her. “How would that warning have been received, that warning about the sentient, ghostly cloud of flies?”
She looked back. She had the same hard expression as me, as my mother. It gave way to a resigned smile. “Fair enough.”She picked up an acorn, rolled itssmooth potential betweenher hands,and we walked on.
“The first one to appear was Bertha. I’mnot going to count how many greatsof a grandmother she is to you. She was the first of the family to die on the farm, we thinkfrom a stroke, but who really knows back then.” I led her up to the waist high well, stone smoothed by a century of weather, moss-covered and cold. It hadn’tbeen used for its original purpose since before I was born. It was used for something else.
“You’regoing to want to ask me a lot of questions that start with why, and I’mso grateful for the fierce, inquisitive person you’vebecome. But please listen, so we don’twaste too much of our time together on why’s. I spent years wondering myself, buteach seeming answer just pulledback the curtain to reveal another mystery. I don’tknow why. I just know what is.”I tookout the lancet. I pricked my finger, a practiced motion, no longer flinching in the least. I held my hand over the well and squeezed out a drop of blood. I wiped my finger with an alcohol swab and said, “This is what we do, what we’vealways done. This is what it means to be a steward of this place, and of its people.I’mgoing to need to sit down shortly, so we should get back to the house.” I turned and walked briskly away from the well, her trailingbehindme,draggingher thousand why’s.
The fatigue, after months of this daily sacrifice, wasn’tdebilitatinganymore. That first week afterI moved back to the farm, after my first offering, I could barely walk the distancefrom house to welleach morning, once myblood had spread into the groundwater, into the soil. I’dgrownstronger with time. By now it just felt like the strain and ache of a hard day’s work,a bone-deep wearinessthat passed within a few hours.I explained this to heron the walk back so, seeing my exhaustion, she wouldn’tbe more alarmed than she already was. She cutus each a piece of the stack cake I’dmade yesterday,and we sat at the table.She was relentless, blessher analytical mind, digging for answers I’dnever had.
“I told you, Elsie, I don’tknow why. I don’tknow which family member learned how to do this, or how. I just know every generation has done it, and it’sworked.”
“What do you mean it'sworked?”
“The offering is what lets the family, the ghosts, or whatever you want to call them, stay. A drop of our bloodgives the land what it needs to nourish them, to let them continue being here.That’swhy, after my parentsdied, I came back. I was the last person alivewho could make the offering.”Of course, that wasn’ttrue.
“And if you don’t?”
“Then they can’tstay. You know I loved my life away from this place. I tried another way right after your grandmother died, when I was determined to stay in the city. I took a vial of blood, put it in a dropper bottle, and hired a local man I’veknown for years to administer one drop in the well each day. I told him it was a new water treatment. I know he’strustworthy andhe did exactly as I told him. Itdidn’twork.”
“What happened?”Her fork had been stalled halfway to her mouth the whole conversation. It hung there in midair, liable to go in either direction.
I sighed. “It means they were going to be ripped away, that whatever this relationship iswas falling apart. That first night of the dropperedblood,the neighbors said they heard red foxes screaming all around the place, said it sounded like hundreds of them.You wouldn’tknow, growing up in the city, but red foxes sound like a person in lament.The nextday there was a localized hailstorm, not on any forecast,centered on this farm.Two huge sinkholes opened in the north field. I drove herein a rushthat next night,andI heard the foxes as I pulled in the driveway. But it wasn’tfoxes. The family, all of them, were kneeling or lying around the well, wailing. I’d never seen them all gathered together.I’dnever heard them make a sound in my sixty years. They were flickering, like a lightbulb when it’sthreatening to go out. I hurried to the well and pricked my finger. I felt an overwhelmingfatigue, like I’dput up a whole season’s worth of tobacco in one moment. I collapsed and woke up the next morning at the well.Everything was as it had always been. That’swhen I knew I had to move back. The place doesn’tjust need our blood. It needs our presence.”
She’dbarely taken a bite. “Finish your cake, Elsie. It’sgrandma’s recipe, your favorite.”
Dusk was coming onagain, a dusk that held an entirely new meaning for my daughter, one I’dhidden from her since the moment she was born. I didn’tknow exactly what she was feeling, no matter how hard I’dtried to imagineover the years whather reactionwould be. I’dcarried this place and its secret in my blood, as natural as breathing, for as long as I could remember. I’dfelt its inexorable pulland fled from it, only to return, hand extended. “They’llbe coming any time, now. I want you to see some of the others.” She sensedthe sadness in my voice.
“Mom, do you even wantto be here?”
“I honestly don’tknow. Some days I do, some I don’t. I know you always thought this place was perfect when you were young, and now you probably seenothing but a cloud of fliesbearing down, but the truth ismore than that. So many of my colleagues romanticizeWendell Berry, thinkingtheycouldleave the city behind andtake up the noble rurallife, butnoneof them wouldcrouchdownin the muck and birtha bloodslickedcalf into this fractured world. All farms are sacrifice, Elsie, this one more than most. But it’snot just sacrifice. You need to see the others.”
We stepped out into the coming darkness, October air crisp in our lungs. I took her to their most frequenthaunts, and fortunately most of them were keeping to their patterns. As we walked, she wrapped her arm inmineand said, “How do you know they even want to be here? Maybe theywant to go on. Being an empty ball of bugs can’tbe pleasant.”
“I’vewondered about that, too, butevery life has some suffering. A hard life isn’ta life without meaning, ifwhat they have now is life. Despite what’s walking toward us, you’llsee it’snot all bad.”
She turned to follow my gaze, and saw ayoungwoman stumbling through the field, intestines spilling out into her cradled arms, face distorted with panic and pain. “That’sTrudy. There used to be panthers in this area. She was thirty-two.”
Elsie was appalled, pulling her arm away. “Mom, that’sit, you’vegot to end this. This is a fucking sickness.It’storture. Maybe theywere wailing at the well that night because that kind of dying hurts, but it’swhat they need to do.”
I didn’tanswer. I strode on towards the barn. I walked inside, and scaledthe ladder to the loft above, Elsie climbing after me, still protesting. As she joined me, standing ankle deep in fragrant hay, I pointed to thepile at theedge of the open doors, bathed in moonlight, where a teenage girl, gingham dressaskew, lay in the hay, deeply kissing a stout young man whose overalls she had worked halfway down. They were silent, but their faces were pure joy. “That’sTrudy, at sixteen. That’sJosiah, a farmhandfrom the next hollow. Theygot married a year after this.” I pointed out the loft into the distant pasture.“He planted thatbigmagnoliaover her grave when she died.” We looked back down at them, so passionate it was hard to accept it would ever end. “Let’s leave them to it.” We climbed out of the barn,and she followed meback towards the house. We passed Geneva near the old smokehouse, still searching for Silas, frantic in her grief, hands wringing in muteagony.
I led Elsie intothe farmhousethrough the back porch as I said, “Oh good, she’s here.”I nodded, and Elsie peeked over my shoulder into the living room. A womanofat least eighty sat in the rocker, her facecreased with laugh lines. She tapped her foot andsang silently as she pieceda quilt. “That’sGeneva. That quilt is on the bed you slept in last night, though it’spretty worn now.She madeit for one of her seventeen grandchildren, though I can’tremember which one.”
As we stepped back into the night, I paused on the threshold and said, “These ghosts— they’renot just stuck here, frozen in one frame. There’smore to their life, then and now, than their worst moment. Come on, there’smore to see.”
We took our time, covering a sizable piece of the farm, and Elsie saw most of them, the good and the bad. We finally headed toward the creek, which I had been saving for last, which I had been dreading. I didn’tknow if I wanted her to be there or not. I didn’tknow if Elsie would be elated, or if she would never speak to me again. As we walkedthrough the field, I pointed out Chester, fifty years old, raking hay near the fenceline, thenshortly afterwards we strolled alongside Chester, twenty years old, fishing pole over his shoulder, whistling silently as he headed towards the creek before blinking out into the blackness.
Elsie stopped abruptly and took my hand. “Why didn’t you want me to know about this?”
“Oh, Els, I’ve been trying to figure out how to have this conversation your whole life, or whether we should ever have it at all.” I was tearing up, but I’dpromised myself I wouldn’t, that I would be as strong for her as I’dbeen for those who came before, that I wouldn’tadd any more weight totheinevitable gravity of thisplace. I went on. “In our family, making theoffering was a given. It wasn’ta choice. It wassimplywhat wedid. My mother and daddy did me a great kindness by pressuring me as little as they did when I left, by honoring my decision to keep this from you.”
A brilliant blue formcaught our eyes. A little girl ran across the pasture near us, features so distinct you could see the glorious summer sweaton her glowing forehead as she chased ethereal fireflies, whooping and cheering silently each time she caught one. I turned back to Elsie,and we continued towards the creek. “I thoughtI made my choice when I left, but here I am.I tried my best to break away, but after growing up here, this placewas marrow and muscle. It was memoryI couldn’tmove without. I thought if I gave you more distance, gave you years and miles away, you would have a chance. You would have alife of your own.”
We stepped slowly down the bank, and there she wasat last, standing on the other side beneath a walnut tree.Elsie had started to ask another question, butstopped short and choked it back. The woman across the creekheldan old milk bucket halfway filled with walnuts. She smiled at someone next to her, gently extending her arm at waist level as though reaching for something shorterthan herthat we couldn’tsee, as though reaching for a child.
Elsie was crying. I said, “That was her chasing fireflies, too. She would have been about sixthen. I’msure you know how old she ishere.”
Elsie’s breath camein huge gulps, crying mingled with laughter, griefmixed with wonder. I wrapped my arm around her and said, “Look how happy she is.” We stayed until my mother turned to walk back towards the house, still talking silently to theunseen child by her side, andfaded away.
We slept late again the next day, waking around noon to a cloudless fall blue sky. The kitchen felt too dark, so we drank our coffee on the back porch. Elsie said, “I want to give the offering today.”
“Sweetie, I don’tknow if you should. It’sso exhausting, and I want—”
“Mom, I want to do it. I need to know what it’slike.”
I stared past her at the well. I hated it, but she was right. She needed to feel the weight, needed to understand at least part of the price before she came to some ignorantly romantic decisionwhen one day I was gone. I nodded and went inside to get the lancet.
As we walked toward the well, she said, “Do you think what they have here, these fragments,is life?”
I squeezed her hand. “I’m past judging anyone’s life.” I had come to understand that I woulddie one day not knowing if I was here because of charity, serving these people I loved, or because of greed, unable in my need to let these tetheredsouls go.I lived my daysherebound in thatmesh of selfishness and selflessness that accretes to us all.
I opened my hand and offered her the lancet. She needed to do it for herself. Shenodded,untwisted the cap, and made the sacrifice.Shereached out into open space, into the years past and to come, and let the drop fall.
Daniel Roop is a member of the Horror Writers Association and a seventh generation East Tennessean. He has published horror fiction in The Maul Magazine, andhas numerouspoetry publications. He has been mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannica for his accomplishments in poetry slams, andhas been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his work in Will Work for Peace.
