Chapter 11: The Believers

Chapter 11: The Believers

They fled the cellar like ghosts from a tomb, scrambling back through the Town Hall’s dusty underbelly and into the cold, silent labyrinth of the storm drains. The image of the Mother Plant was seared into Tamara’s mind: the obscene, pulsing heart of Solenvol, its fleshy branches birthing the very instruments of their damnation. The air of Rory’s archive, once a suffocating pocket of history, now felt like the only breathable atmosphere left in the world.

Rory slammed the hidden stone door shut, the sound of grinding rock a final, definitive seal against the horror they had witnessed. He leaned against it, his chest rising and falling in ragged, shallow breaths. The cynical armor he wore had been shattered, leaving behind a man staring into the abyss he’d only ever read about.

“We saw the heart,” he said, his voice a raw whisper. “Generations of my family wrote about it, speculated… but to see it…”

“Then we know what to do,” Tamara said, her own voice tight with a terrifying, clarifying rage. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach, but it was now fuel. “We have to kill it. Burn it out of the ground.”

Her words hung in the dusty air. It sounded simple, but the reality of the task was monstrous. The Plant was not just a physical object; it was the nexus of a psychic parasite, the anchor of a god. How do you kill a nightmare?

“Fire,” Rory said, pushing himself off the wall and pacing the small, cramped space. “It has to be fire. But it can’t be just… a little fire. Lamp oil won’t be enough. That thing is ancient. Its roots run through the whole damn town. We’d need to incinerate it. Something that burns hot enough and fast enough that it can’t… react.”

He stopped, running a hand through his hair, his mind, the archive of Solenvol’s secrets, now a tactical map. “The old Soviet fuel depot. On the east side of town. It’s been abandoned for decades, but there might be something left in the tanks. Diesel. Kerosene. Something potent.”

“Okay,” Tamara agreed, nodding. “We get the fuel. We get back into the cellar.”

“It’s not that simple,” Rory countered, his pragmatism returning. “The two of us… we can’t carry enough. And we can’t risk moving through the town with that much fuel without causing a stir. We’d need a distraction. Something big, on the other side of town, to draw attention while we move.” He let out a bitter, humorless laugh. “And who’s going to help us? Who in this town is willing to risk being turned into a party favour for a chance at a freedom they can’t even remember?”

The question was heavy with the weight of decades of absolute obedience. But Tamara thought of the Ivanovs. The father’s desperate, protective grip on his daughter. The terror in his eyes that wasn't piety, but pure, unadulterated fear.

“What about the Ivanovs?” she asked. “The family I stayed with. The father… he looked like he was a breath away from breaking.”

Rory considered it, his expression grim. “Ivan Ivanov. His wife, Anya, was taken five years ago. Claimed a fever was a punishment, not a sickness. Broke the rule of gratitude. Ivan’s been a ghost ever since, just trying to keep his daughter invisible.” He shook his head. “He’s broken, Tamara. Not brave. Fear makes people compliant, not rebellious.”

“Fear of losing the only thing you have left can make you do anything,” she argued, remembering the fierce love in the man’s eyes.

Before Rory could reply, a different sound reached them from the world above. It wasn’t a bell or a footstep. It was the faint, muffled sound of voices. A chorus. They were singing.

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In the cold, cavernous space of the Solenvol town church, candlelight flickered on stone. The building’s original Christian iconography had long since been removed or covered. In place of a cross, a large, stylized carving of a Christmas Begonia hung above the altar, its thorny vines rendered in dark, polished wood.

A dozen figures were gathered in the pews. The elders of the town. Marta stood at the pulpit, her face illuminated from below, a mask of zealous conviction. Beside her stood the old man from the general store, his hands steepled, his eyes closed in pious concentration.

“We thank him for the lesson,” Marta intoned, her voice resonating in the nave. “The boy Lev was a stray thread. A weakness in the pattern. The Merry Man, in his festive wisdom, has snipped him away, making the whole tapestry stronger.”

“We are grateful for the gift of order,” the elders chanted in response, their voices a low, unified hum.

When the prayer was done, a small, stooped woman named Lena stepped forward. She was one of the town’s watchers, her eyes missing nothing.

“Marta,” she said, her voice thin and reedy. “During the summons. A light. In the window of the old cobbler’s shop overlooking the square.”

Marta’s serene expression sharpened. “The one Rory’s family used to run?”

“The same,” Lena confirmed. “Two shadows. I saw them. The boy… and the outsider. The Volkov girl. They watched the entire gifting.”

A murmur of disquiet rippled through the elders. The archivist’s rebellious streak was a known, tolerated sickness. But the arrival of an outsider—the descendant of the great heretic Elena—had changed the balance.

“She is a disease,” Marta said, her voice dropping, gaining a venomous intensity. “She carries the tainted blood of the one who fled. She comes here not with an open heart, ready to receive the Merry Man’s generosity, but with questions. With the poison of the outside world. She seeks to unravel the sacred knot that binds us, that protects us.”

An elder, a blacksmith with hands like worn leather, spoke up. “Protects us? Marta, it is a prison. The boy Lev…”

“The boy Lev is a martyr for our stability!” Marta snapped, her voice cracking like a whip. She stepped down from the pulpit, moving among them, her presence commanding. “Have you forgotten the stories? The truth our parents whispered to us? Have you forgotten the Long Winter?”

She didn't need to elaborate. The name alone cast a chill over the room that had nothing to do with the cold stone. The Long Winter was their genesis story, the horror that predated their current, orderly nightmare. It was the time after the Soviets had fled, after their botched ritual had shattered the old balance but before the new ritual had been perfected. A time when the entity, enraged and wounded, had been truly untamed.

“It was chaos,” Marta whispered, her voice a storyteller’s hypnotic croon. “Not a single gift a day, but a hundred. Twisted things left on doorsteps. Shriveling crops in the fields one moment, a glut of rotting fruit the next. Punishments with no reason, no warning. The air itself was alive with its madness. People starved. People went insane. It was picking us apart, thread by thread, for sport!”

She fixed her burning gaze on the blacksmith. “This ritual, this life we lead… it is not a prison. It is a sacrament. We feed the Merry Man our gratitude, and in return, he gives us structure. He gives us survival. The socks are a small price to pay for the sun to rise—even this sun—every morning. We are not his prisoners. We are his keepers. We keep him calm, sated, and contained within these walls, protecting the rest of the world from a god’s tantrum.”

Her words settled over them, a comforting, horrifying blanket of absolute conviction. They were not victims. They were saviors, engaged in a holy, vital task. Freedom, in Marta’s gospel, was not liberation; it was apocalypse.

“The archivist and the Volkov girl do not understand this,” she continued, her voice hardening once more. “They see only the cage, not the monster it holds. They will pull at the threads until the whole thing unravels, and they will unleash the Long Winter upon us all again.” She returned to the altar, turning to face them, her silhouette framed against the wooden begonia.

“We must show the Merry Man our unwavering faith. We must prove our gratitude is absolute. Find them,” she commanded, her voice ringing with the authority of a high priestess. “Find the heretics. And we will gift them to him ourselves.”