Today’s newsletter features something a little different. What follows is a short story: The Blessed Era: A Lottian’s History of Stone Hill. It’s a climate parable inspired in part by Shirley Jackson’s classic short story, The Lottery. I hope you enjoy!
No one in Lott knows when the stone pile began, nor how, nor who was responsible. All we know is that one morning, for some reason, a resident of our village placed a stone on the hill that rose above Lott’s east side, and this villager subsequently found that the day which followed was blessed by unusually good fortune. Perhaps the ground he tilled was soft as fine sand beneath his plow, his lenders unexpectedly forgiving. So he placed another stone on the hill the next morning, perhaps balanced perfectly atop the first, and what followed was another day touched by remarkable good luck. Perhaps on the third morning, this villager was hurrying up the eastern hill to place another stone when he passed a neighbor. Perhaps noticing the neighbor looked a bit forlorn, he asked her what was the matter.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she might have replied. “I’m just afraid my strawberries aren’t going to make it this year. That late frost, and all.”
Perhaps the first villager, not wanting his neighbor to think him disturbed but wishing sincerely to be helpful, as is the Lottian way, mentioned the strange coincidence which had occurred— namely, two consecutive days of particularly good fortune coinciding with two instances of placing a stone atop the hill on the preceding mornings.
Perhaps the neighbor laughed bitterly, and shrugged her shoulders, and said something to the effect of “What could it hurt?” and followed the first villager up the hill, feeling quite silly about the whole thing.
It’s possible she asked what manner of stone she was meant to place on the hill, whether a smooth, round stone, or a jagged one with two flat edges (the better for stacking), and did it matter whether the stones were stacked at all, or did they simply need to be placed somewhere on the hill, and what about the place where the stones were gathered, did that affect things, and other questions meant mostly to break the silence. And then, as the steep climb began to steal her breath, fewer questions and a greater feeling of silliness, and perhaps even pangs of suspicion about how well she really knew this man, and whether he might have some nefarious cause for leading her up that hill, away from the protective eyes of the other residents of Lott.
Finally, arriving at the hill, perhaps the first villager motioned toward his strange little monument consisting of two little stones stacked one atop the other. Maybe at this moment his neighbor considered calling the whole thing off, but after all she had come this far, so why not at least humor the fellow, who really was rather odd and probably harmless, now that she thought of it? So perhaps she picked a stone from the dirt carelessly and at random, or perhaps with great care and precision, then placed it a bit higher up, on the apex of the hill, directly beside or even atop her neighbor’s existing stack. Maybe the two villagers exchanged a few words after, or perhaps she simply turned and walked back down the hill, and upon returning to her garden found that her formerly brown and brittle strawberry plants were now lush and green and— and this was the truly incredible thing— filled with already-ripe strawberries as big around as mandarins and crimson as freshly spilled blood.
Perhaps the woman ran through town— though this may be a bit of a dramatic interpretation of events— but maybe she did, maybe she gamboled through the village shouting and proclaiming that there was magic atop the hill, to this point still known simply as “the hill,” as it was the only one around. Maybe— and this is likely— most of the villagers thought she was crazy, cuckoo, out-of-her-right-mind, but maybe a few shrugged and thought, well, stranger things have happened, and set out to inspect the hilltop for themselves and perhaps leave a stone of their own.
All of this, of course, is speculation. There is no one now living who was there for the beginning of the stone pile, and the village of Lott has never been known for keeping detailed histories of its goings-on, preferring instead to look toward the future.
The point is that there was certainly a time before the stone pile, and the naming of the hill it stood on as Stone Hill, and the extraordinary events that followed in our village.
As for what followed, we don’t have to speculate. The evidence is here before us, a tale easily traced through the roads and alleyways of this once-commonplace village.
As Stone Hill’s renown grew, so too did the stone pile. Soon every villager had their own evidence of its tremendous powers for granting good fortune.
It should be noted that the villagers of Lott at this time were no strangers to magical goings-on, the land surrounding the village filled with all manner of powerful witches and mischievous fairies promising good fortune in exchange for some particular price. But though these magical beings, who have long since vanished for reasons unknown, were indeed capable of delivering on their promises, the prices they required in exchange were always steep. Some long and arduous quest here, the slaying of some thorny, awful creature there.
Yet here, now, was the simple arithmetic of the hill: place a stone in the morning, experience good fortune all that day. It seemed that the hill (or whatever benevolent being had imbued the hill with this magic, as there was and will likely always be great debate about the “who” and “why” of it all; regardless, most Lottians came to think of the hill itself as the being responsible, imbuing it with conscious thoughts and intentions) followed its own straightforward set of rules, rules which were quickly revealed through a thrilling period of discovery.
For as knowledge of the hill’s powers began to spread in Lott, there arose the manner of questions one might expect in circumstances such as these.
What of the elderly, too weak or infirm to make the trek to the top of Stone Hill? Are they, even those who are most in need of the hill’s blessings, to be forever excluded from such blessings? This led to the next most important discovery relating to the hill, second of course to the original discovery of its powers speculated upon above.
One wondrous day, some dutiful grandson or granddaughter climbed the hill, the stone pile on top of which was perhaps by this time nearly a meter tall and three meters across. She picked up a stone and then did what would turn out to be a rather remarkable thing. She placed her stone not for herself, but on behalf of someone else. Maybe she spoke their name aloud, or simply held it in her heart as she dropped the stone with a clup atop the others. Then she returned to the village and found, to her great joy, that her grandmother or grandfather was up, out of bed, walking about, their eyes seeing with a clarity that had been obscured for many years.
That was when the village discovered that the hill could bless by proxy. Of course, Lott would never be the same.
It began innocently enough. Villagers who were already making the daily trip to the top of the hill to place a stone for themselves were more than happy to place one for their loved one, their sick neighbor, their injured child.
This was also around the time that crowding on the hill became a concern. Everyone wanted to place a stone first thing in the morning, as the hill’s blessings seemed to extend only through that calendar day, meaning that a stone placed in the afternoon had less time to provide good fortune before its magic wore off overnight. As the hill’s powers shifted in the public consciousness from strange coincidence to indisputable fact, there was soon a daily crush of villagers crowding the stone pile to place their stones and hurry back to the village, eager to discover how the hill would bless them that day. It wasn’t long before one could expect to wait over an hour or more to get close enough to the pile to place their stone. (Throwing a stone from a distance was— and still is! — highly frowned upon as a safety hazard, and rightfully so.)
The village council soon met to discuss what would be done about this. Their village had been greatly blessed, they all agreed, but managing that blessing in a responsible and levelheaded way was the only way to ensure it could continue in perpetuity. They determined that, given the hill’s ability to grant proxy blessings, the town would elect a committee of stone placers. These stone placers would be paid a modest fee from the tax paid by Lottians to serve as authorized representatives for all the village’s townspeople. Villagers who wished to have a stone placed on their behalf would need only express their desire via a signed letter to the council, and from that moment forward an authorized representative would place a stone for them at the hill each morning.
This was a great relief to both the council and the villagers, despite some early skepticism about whether the stone placers could be trusted to remember every name on their list and whether a proxy blessing was truly as effective as one placed by the recipient themselves. But it soon became clear that this system was effective, efficient, and— most importantly— sustainable. The daily crowding at Stone Hill ceased almost overnight, and the blessings continued to flow.
Then, one day, in the still-dark hours of early morning, a now-infamous villager by the name of Theodore Crowe found himself unable to sleep in his home on the north side of Lott. Thinking he might fix himself a snack— Theodore Crowe never found a problem he wouldn’t first attempt to remedy with food— he navigated in the darkness toward the stairs leading down to his kitchen. Unfortunately, a protruding nail caught his foot and sent Mr. Crowe tumbling down the staircase, landing at the bottom with a thud and badly injuring his back.
Unsurprisingly, Theodore’s first thought was the stone pile. By 11am his assigned stone placer would deliver a stone to the hill in his name, and Theodore’s back would surely begin to feel better right away. But 11am was a long way off yet, with even sunrise still many hours away. Bitterly and in considerable pain, still lying in a heap on the landing, Theodore Crowe considered that if the proxy stone placers kept nocturnal hours, beginning the stone placing process at midnight each day, he would have woken up this early morning already blessed with good fortune, and certainly wouldn’t have caught his foot on that wretched upturned nail. Indeed, he realized with a surge of fresh rage, he likely wouldn’t have had trouble sleeping in the first place.
But Theodore Crowe was a savvy man. Where there was inconvenience, he knew, there was opportunity. And there, lying skeewompus on the landing, his back radiating unpleasant electricity through his body, he began planning his new venture.
It should come as no surprise that the announcement of Lott’s first private stone placing service, in which a young man employed by Crowe would climb the hill at 11:30pm each night so that customers’ stones could be placed precisely at midnight, leaving not a minute of their following day unblessed by good fortune, caused not a little uproar within the village. Theodore Crowe was called an opportunist, an exploiter, accused of profiting excessively from an already incalculable blessing. Many even worried that directly profiting from the hill’s magic might anger whatever entity was responsible for that magic, causing its power to be withdrawn forever.
And yet!
Theodore’s story was a compelling one. For himself, it had been just an injured back— one that had already healed after a few days of good fortune courtesy of the hill. But what if something worse had happened? The hill had not, thus far, resurrected anyone from the dead. There seemed to be a limit to its power.
And, in truth, some in the village had grown dissatisfied with the village’s designated stone placers. There had been a few unfortunate incidents. Late deliveries of stones to the hill, villagers who found themselves seemingly lacking good fortune only to discover their name had been forgotten in that day’s batch, and other mishaps of the like.
Theodore Crowe’s service, on the other hand, was dependable, punctual, and reasonably priced. The stone placer he employed, a young man by the name of George Halberry, approached his newfound employment with a seriousness beyond his years. He never missed a late-night climb, never forgot a name on his list of customers. By the time the village council convened to determine whether Crowe’s service was legal according to Lott’s bylaws, he had already acquired a growing list of well-regarded customers. And, considering there were no laws on the books that dealt with profiting from magical hills, the council voted to allow his little business to carry on.
It was around this time that the first outsider arrived in Lott.
Somehow, word had gotten out about the village’s magical hill. One rainy afternoon a middle-aged, slightly scruffy-looking man arrived at the town hall and asked whether there were any plots of land available to be purchased on the cheap.
“As it happens,” the man was told, “the cheapest land in town is on the lower slopes of Stone Hill, where both building and growing anything in the way of crops is difficult due to the hill’s steep grade.”
The man said he didn’t mind; he was sure the blessings the hill provided would more than make up for the difficulties of living on the hill.
As Lott had always been open to outsiders, and with the altruistic belief that there was no reason new residents couldn’t also benefit from the hill’s seemingly unlimited blessings, the outsider was allowed to settle at its base. Naturally, his acceptance as a new member of the village was contingent on his making a series of commitments— chief of which was the promise to never, ever disturb the stone pile. Having come for the sole purpose of benefitting from the hill’s magic himself, the outsider happily agreed.
More outsiders came. Before long, a settlement grew on the hill’s lower slopes. Stone Hill came to describe not only the geographical landmark itself but the community of outsiders who settled in its shadow.
“Have you met Alvin Granger? He’s one of the Stone Hill folk.”
Was there some level of disdain among the original Lottians toward these “Stone Hill folk?” Perhaps a little. The hill was, after all, their discovery. It belonged to the people of Lott, as much as it could belong to anyone.
But these whisperings were few and far between. The residents of Stone Hill were found to be a generally agreeable lot, and they bought property that was otherwise unused, and seemed genuinely to respect the hill and its powers. Even when the council voted that non-original Lottians would only be permitted to place one stone per week— the stone pile was growing, after all, and there had begun to rumble a low hum of dread about what would happen when the pile someday grew too large to be contained on the magical hill— the Stone Hill residents happily obliged. One day of particularly good fortune per week, they figured, was more than enough, particularly when combined with the general good luck of living in a place as lovely and welcoming as this.
And so there was a period of pleasant calm in Lott befitting a village populated entirely by men and woman imbued with miraculous good fortune. No one died before their time, and the troubles of other lands were distant murmurs on the wind.
Then came more remarkable news.
“They found another hill.”
“I don’t believe it. Where?”
“Apparently it’s some ways east of the town of Hardie. A two-hour walk from town center, if the rumors are true.”
“Two hours! Well, we are truly blessed to have found ours so near our village. Still, another hill! Astounding.”
“Quite incredible. How many are out there, do you think?”
“Impossible to say.”
The discovery of a second blessing hill caused quite a stir in Lott, as one might imagine, but it faced steep competition for the title of most momentous news that season.
Around this same time, the people of Lott came to discover that larger stones placed on the pile led to longer-lasting blessings.
It began, unsurprisingly, with the immigrant residents of Stone Hill. Only permitted one stone per week, some began to wonder whether they could extend their blessings’ effectiveness by placing larger stones than the usual walnut-sized ones that were the general standard, by virtue of stones of this size being the most readily available in the soil in and around Lott. Of course, the rumor that larger stones equated to good fortune lasting multiple days was initially dismissed by original Lottians. But as some began to try placing fist-sized, then head-sized stones, they couldn’t deny the truth any longer.
The moment the association between stone size and blessing longevity became common knowledge, the town council wisely convened a meeting for all residents.
“We cannot,” the council said, “allow this wondrous blessing to make us foolish. We urge all of you to resist the temptation to place the largest stones you can find on the hill, and recall that a small stone placed daily has served each of us well these many months. On a related note, and in light of this discovery, we are forthwith removing the once-per-week limitation of stones for new citizens.”
There were cheers at this from the many Stone Hill residents in attendance, and groans from some original Lottians.
“We encourage everyone to limit the size of their stones to only those smaller than a fist. In this way, we can all ensure that we’ll be able to enjoy the hill’s blessings for generations to come.”
The pubs and public spaces of Lott were filled that night with villagers discussing the council’s message.
“It’s not nearly severe enough,” said Ptolemy Burl, a broad-chested man for whom ‘not severe enough’ seemed to be a lifelong mantra. “You can’t just tell people what they should do, you’ve got to tell them what they must do, else they face the consequences. Do they really think people are going to give one rip about what the council ‘urges?’ If it’s not set in law, no one’s going to abide by it.”
“Don’t sell our people short,” said Marlene Hussan, a much-beloved widow in Lott whose garden was renowned for its lilacs. “Left to their own devices, people will do what’s right.”
One can imagine the countless other spirited debates that followed this pattern across the village, just as the same pattern was followed in the other villages whose people discovered their own blessing hills.
Who was right? Well, both in their way. That is the nature of things. Many people did, indeed, restrain the size of their blessing stones. Was this out of altruism or habit? Who can say?
And there were, of course, others. The walnut-sized stones that made up most of the hill were quickly interspersed by other, much larger stones. Some were the size of melons, some the size of barrels. These near-boulders were indeed a mystery in Lott, as they would have required either several very strong men or a pulley system of some kind to bring up the hill. Yet no one ever saw these stones being placed, and no one ever admitted to having placed one themselves.
The stone pile grew, and with it the blessings of Lott’s people. It wasn’t long before the pile became so high that it began noticeably delaying the moment each morning’s first rays of sunlight alighted on the village. This, of course, was a pittance in exchange for the miraculous fortune enjoyed by the villagers. Indeed, it was even seen by many to be a blessing in itself. The hill’s magic meant that backbreaking long days of work which had once required many villagers to awaken before dawn were a relic of the past. Lottians could now sleep as long as they were inclined, confident that the day’s work would somehow manage to be done without much fuss, and later sunrise meant more time to doze comfortably into the twilight grey before the angular sun of early morning squawked through their windows and onto their faces.
Some years passed. Children were conceived and born. This generation of Lottians who would never taste a world without magical good fortune were dubbed Blesslings, and they paid for their luck by enduring the crotchety but good-natured ribbing of their elders, those who could still remember what it was like to ‘make it on their own steam.’
When rumors came that a Stone Hill boy had been crushed to death when a corner of the stone pile collapsed, trapping and suffocating him while his parents were away on some errand, the council convened at the hill to investigate.
There had, indeed, been a rockslide on one corner of the hill. Or, at least it looked as though there had been. One couldn’t be quite sure if that corner had always been a bit askew. The council spoke to the boy’s weepy parents, who for their part did not hold the stone pile responsible. Perhaps, they said— and they earned the Stone Hill folk a great deal of respect from the original Lottians for this sentiment— there was some hidden wisdom at play, and their boy’s death might someday prove fortunate in a way yet unseen.
Still, the boy’s death as a result of the stone pile’s shifting (if that had, indeed, been the cause) initiated a great deal of handwringing among the original Lottians.
“Of course, we don’t have to worry about any of our homes or children being crushed. That’s for the Stone Hill folk to concern themselves with, having chosen to settle in so precarious a spot. But it does get you thinking.”
A bit of thinking, the Lottians began to realize, was long overdue as it related to the exact mechanics of the hill’s magic. If placing a stone on the pile brought a day’s worth of good fortune, what might removing a stone bring? A day’s worth of ill luck? Or was this an oversimplification of a more complex and inscrutable magic?
And this is when the tale becomes ever thornier and knottier, for it was this period of theorizing relating to the hill which inspired the first of the Unfortunates.
Despite the fact that the Stone Hill boy’s death was the first such occurrence on record, and had not even been confirmed to have happened the way the rumors suggested, and despite the fact that the council immediately responded by installing wooden bulwarks designed to stabilize the stone pile as it continued to rise higher and spread further atop Stone Hill, there were those few Lottians who saw in all this some harbinger of impending doom.
It began with young Mallory Haywood shouting in the town square to any who would listen during the bi-monthly seller’s fair.
“We’ve built our lives upon power we don’t understand,” she cried, or something to that broad, dramatic effect. “We don’t know how or why the hill does what it does, or how long its power will last. We don’t know what hidden effects its magic may hold.”
Of course, she was largely ignored. Lottians are generally respectful people, and as is the habit of respectful people they let this young woman make her noise without removing or otherwise disturbing her, and did all their mocking and dismissing while she was well out of earshot.
“For someone so suspicious of the hill, she’s certainly benefitted a great deal from its good fortune— what with her being acquainted with half the young men in town and having thus far escaped bearing a child out of wedlock.”
But soon it wasn’t just Mallory Haywood causing a ruckus. One day, two Stone Hill folk rushed into Lott dragging young Gabriel Frye gruffly by the arms, a defiant look in his usually placid eyes. The two Stone Hill men who detained him brought him before the town council.
“We caught him removing stones from the hill,” they said, to audible intakes of breath from the scandalized council members. “One after the other, quick as he could. Just tossing them over his shoulder like it was nothing.”
“I must know,” Gabriel shouted. “I must know what will happen. I only thought of myself, of my own name. None of the other villagers. So that any misfortune would only befall me.”
“It does not matter,” said the council members. “Those stones were placed by the people of this village. Their good fortune is connected to those stones. Who knows what you might have done today?”
“We’ve already put the stones back,” said one of the Stone Hill folk proudly. “For what it’s worth.”
Gabriel Frye’s family was heavily fined for his selfish act, as the council saw the need to make an example of him. And it should come as no surprise that for the following weeks, whenever any minor discomfort or misfortune befell any Lottians, it became habit for the afflicted party to mumble under their breath a mocking, “Thank you, Gabriel Frye.”
This event, and the subsequent punishment and ostracization it brought upon Gabriel, did much to dissuade other acts of open rebellion against the hill’s blessings. For a while, it seemed peace had been restored. But it wasn’t long before the council was faced with a new act of protest, one much less brazen and yet all the more insidious for it.
One afternoon, just before they were set to conclude business for the day, the council was confronted by a cadre of concerned-looking faces. Eighteen in all, nine pairs of Lottian parents, standing before the council and looking gravely concerned.
“Our children, they’ve…”
Glinda Marcos couldn’t even speak it aloud.
“They’re not placing stones,” expelled Harold Templeton. “Not one of them. We just found out. They won’t say for how long it’s been going on. No matter how much we threaten, cajole, implore them. They won’t budge. Say they want to live— what was the word they used?”
“‘Naturally,’” exclaimed Helga Northrup, before burying her face in the shoulder of her husband, August.
The council was aghast. Nine youths, a not-inconsequential sampling of Lott’s citizenry, causing daily exposure to misfortune for all in the blessed village.
The culprits were called up to face the council at once.
“Explain yourselves,” they were told.
And the young people explained. They spouted all manner of confused rhetoric, about wanting to experience the fulness of the world’s experience, about fearing what would happen when the pile grew too large, about sending a message that the hill’s power shouldn’t be used until it’s fully understood.
“You realize, of course,” the council said, “that your actions don’t just impact you. Misfortune that befalls one, befalls all of us. Imagine if something were to happen to you as a result of bad luck. Think of your parents. Look at them, standing back there in their pitiful row of shame and fear. Think of their love for you. Would you put their happiness at risk, all to prove— what, exactly? What does rejecting the hill’s blessing show? Do you think that you in your youth and naivette have considered some risk that we, the council, have not?”
Some of those first abstainers relented, in time. Others remained, and gathered a small following in Lott. Still others left Lott and are said to have amassed even greater numbers for their “cause” abroad.
It’s these that we know today as the Unfortunates, those who deliberately choose to live without the blessing of Lott’s or any magical hill. They are not to be confused with those who, by virtue of being too distant or too weak or simply ignorant of their existence, have no choice but to live un-blessed.
Did any of the Unfortunates’ fears come to fruition in their home village of Lott?
Of course, as we all know, they did not.
The rockslides since that time have been minor and correctable. The Stone Hill folk who have been injured or had their homes crushed have been blessed with speedy physical and temporal recovery thanks to their continued reliance on the stone pile, and Lott’s people have never been happier nor less vexed by the trials and tribulations of a now-forgotten era of struggle.
As for other stone piles throughout the country, naturally rumors reach our village. It’s said that one town was entirely buried, every man, woman, and child, when a minor earthquake sent the pile cascading through the streets. Another village is said to have collapsed in on itself, the ground on which it was built having been mined of every last pebble, rock, and boulder and subsequently caving into a sinkhole. According to the rumors, that village’s stone pile remains untouched, like a monument.
But even if these rumors are true, they always come paired with damning information about the way these irresponsible villages have managed their stone piles. They hadn’t installed any bulwarks to stabilize the stones, or they’d been too lazy to fetch stones from further afield rather than pulling them from their own foundations.
But Lottians are made of more industrious stuff, as any who know them will tell. Our continued prosperity only proves that this happy ending— like all happy endings— is not the result of luck, or magic, or fortune, but is attributable to a series of wise choices, made in success, by a deserving people who know an opportunity when it presents itself to them.
For the stone pile in Lott still stands to this day, and continues to grow, as does the good fortune of our people.
Great read!! Really enjoyed this!!