By some sort of unspoken agreement, Clarice, Sussana and I met at the village well. They knew I’d gone up the hill with Mathilda four days ago, but this was the first time we’d had a chance to talk among ourselves.

Clarice asked, “How is Mathilda Potter coping with Anthracyda?”

“Not that well,” I responded. “She is having a hard time accepting something that isn’t in the Bible. She wants to save its soul, but it doesn’t think it has one to save. Apparently it has its own bible that disagrees with ours. Besides that, it doesn’t have a body to be resurrected into anyway.”

“It didn’t give her a sermon, did it?” laughed Clarice.

“No, but I think it wanted to. It didn’t like that Mathilda’s God is jealous and wants to make people fear it. It said it won’t question her beliefs and asked that she not disrespect its beliefs. I wonder what its bible says.”

Sussana interjected, “I think she is struggling to accept Anthracyda as not evil. She teaches what she was taught. Good spirits are a new thing to her.”

“She’s teaching small children to think the way she does, and uses her birch quite liberally,” said Clarice.

“Practically every family in the village except yours and mine agree that is the way to teach” I said to Clarice. “That doesn’t teach you how to learn new things your parents didn’t know.” I turned to Sussana. “What about yours?”

“My family? We were beaten, but then hugged afterwards” replied Sussana.

“So halfway in between” I said. “At least you are curious, so you can become a wise woman, even if your mother wasn’t.”

I decided to bring the subject back to Anthracyda and Mathilda. “Anthracyda told Mathilda that it was 110 million years old. I was always told the earth is only a few thousand years old. I can’t comprehend that kind of age. Do we think it lies just to confuse us, or what do you think? It did say we needed to take our story of creation less literally.”

Sussana said, “It told me that it was older than I can imagine.”

Clarice added, “When my mother and I talked to it, we talked about raising children, birds and villages, not about how old it was. My mother thinks it wants us to teach the village to be a kinder place.”

“What? Kinder place? I have no idea what that means” I said.

Clarice said, “More like Sussana than Henry Dericote. You” she said turning to Sussana, “care about people and try to help them even when it costs you nights of sleep.” She turned to me. “Henry just talks about how much money his family has and that makes them more important than us.”

“More hugs, fewer beatings” said Sussana.

“I think we can agree on that” I replied.

Sussana grimaced. “Fine for us to say that, but as the only one in the village who has actually been accused of witchcraft, I don’t know how we convince the village, let alone the world, to be a nicer place.”

Clarice thought a moment and said, “If we start with our children, maybe their children’s children will have taught the village. If Anthracyda really is 110 million years old, it must have a lot of patience and isn’t expecting miracles from us.”

With a sudden inspiration, I picked up my bucket of water, tipped a little water from my bucket into each of theirs and set it down again. “More hugs, fewer beatings.”

They looked puzzled for a second, the Clarice nodded, set her mouth in a firm line, picked up her bucket and tipped a little water into mine and then into Sussana’s. “More hugs, fewer beatings.”

Sussana looked carefully around. There was no one in sight. She grabbed her bucket and tipped a little water into mine and Clarice’s. “More hugs, fewer beatings” she agreed.

There would be push back from those who believed in the adage “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, but my parents and Clarice’s parents had faced those before us. We wouldn’t finish the project they and Anthracyda had begun, but maybe future generations in the village would.

More hugs, fewer beatings.

Epilogue: Philip Rede Returns (August 12-18, 1960)

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