I step out of Gracehome and take in huge breaths of the clean spring air and I know that I cannot marry Beryl, even if that means I must live out my days in the Pit, even if it means I must follow Sister Salah off the Knob and into the Pison, even if it means I must spend eternity in Hell, even if it means I must wander the earth alone until Armageddon destroys me along with the rest of the sinners.

I move aimlessly through the walkways of the Village, disconnected from all I see. The Grace go about their daily tasks: Brother Will wheeling a barrow filled with sacks of flour; Sisters Olivia and Louise in the yard outside the nursery directing several of the smaller children in a game; Brother Peter driving the ATV from the garage toward the south meadow. I have tasks of my own to perform, but I cannot think of what they might be, so I take myself to the Sacred Heart, where I am alone. I kneel at the wall and clasp my hands together and gaze into the naked branches of the Tree and pray for guidance — a sign, a miracle — for a way out. But all I see is a tree, possibly planted by Lynna’s grandfather, with a scant few of last year’s withered fruits still clinging to its branches.

I do not know how long my mother stood watching me, but when she kneels beside me at the wall, I sense that she has been there for some time.

“You have seen Father Grace,” she says.

I nod.

“I hear he is not well.”

“I think he was drunk,” I say.

She does not seem surprised. “It has been a dreadful winter. He mourns the loss of his child, and the others who have left us.”

“He told me that the Tree will bloom one last time, and that I am to wed Beryl, and that Zerachiel will come by summer’s end.”

She does not reply at first. I can hear her breathing. After a time, she speaks.

“Do you believe him?”

“I believed it when he said it. I heard it from his lips.”

“Even a prophet can be wrong.”

“A prophet who prophesizes falsehoods is no prophet.”

“Perhaps not, but his words give us hope. That is why we are here.”

“For hope?”

She nods, smiling sadly. “What will you do?”

“I cannot marry Beryl. I will tell Father Grace that the Lord has spoken to me.”

“Is that the truth?”

“No,” I say miserably.

“Are you certain?”

“If he has, I have not heard him.”

“You must have faith, Jacob.”

I hear footsteps and look back to see Brother Wallace entering the Heart, followed closely by Brother Peter. My mother and I watch silently as they step over the wall and approach the Tree. They are speaking in low, urgent voices. Brother Peter plucks a dried fruit from a branch and crushes it between his fingers. He drops to one knee and brushes aside the dried leaves and digs into the earth with his hand, then sniffs his fingers. I hear him speak a single word.

“Razar.”

I know what Razar is. Last summer I spent a day in the south meadow with Brother Jerome, masked and gloved, applying a toxic herbicide called Razar-X4 to the thistles that had invaded our sweetgrass. The sharp, acrid smell of it had stayed on my clothes for days. And now I remember smelling that same chemical more recently, the day Lynna and I saw Tobias come out from the Heart carrying an empty bucket.

My prayers have been answered. The Tree will never bloom again.