That’s all I can ask, but Dr. Huitt, please understand, Elder Josiah is very good at making terrible things sound reasonable. He’s had 200 years of family wisdom teaching him how to justify the unjustifiable. Don’t let him manipulate you into becoming what Martin Carver became.
She and Daniel withdrew then, leaving the brothers to change into the colonial clothing. As Samuel pulled on the rough homespun shirt, he caught his reflection in a small mirror hung on the wall. dressed in these old-fashioned clothes. He looked like he’d stepped backward through time, become a character in some historical pageant. Except this was no pageant.
This was real, and the stakes were measured in human lives and human suffering. Thomas finished dressing and checked his pocket watch, a modern convenience. He’d refused to give up, despite Elder Josiah’s preference for period appropriate timekeeping. 7:30, he said. Assembly begins at 8. We should go. Samuel nodded, taking a deep breath to steady himself.
Thomas, whatever happens today, whatever we see, we need to stay calm. We need to observe, gather information, and make rational decisions. Can you do that? His brother’s laugh was bitter. I’ve been doing that for 3 months, Samuel. I’ve documented horrors that will haunt me forever. smiled at people who I know would imprison us without hesitation and pretended to work on a breeding program that violates every ethical principle I hold.
I can maintain composure through one more assembly. The question is whether you can. Samuel had no answer to that. Together they opened the door and stepped out into the morning light of Milbrook Hollow. The sky above was gray with low clouds, and the air carried the scent of wood smoke and something else, something organic and faintly rotten that Samuel couldn’t identify.
The path to the church was clear, marked by residents already making their way to assembly, their movements slow and deliberate. As Samuel and Thomas joined the procession, Samuel noticed people staring at them with undisguised interest. Some faces showed hope, others showed calculation, and a few showed something that looked like pity.
No one spoke. The only sound was the shuffle of feet on packed earth and the continued tolling of the church bell. As they approached the white painted church with its listing steeple, Samuel saw Elder Josiah standing at the entrance, greeting each resident with a nod or a touch. When the old man’s pale eyes fixed on Samuel, his smile widened. Dr.
Hewitt, he called out, his voice carrying clearly despite its raspy quality. Welcome to the house of the Lord. Today you will witness the truth of Milbrook Hollow. Today you will understand why providence brought you to us. Today everything becomes clear. And as Samuel climbed the church steps, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was walking not into a place of worship, but into a carefully constructed trap from which there might be no escape.
The interior of the church was dim despite the morning hour. The windows having been constructed deliberately small in the colonial fashion, and what light did enter seemed to be absorbed by the dark wood of the pews, and the walls painted a color that might once have been white, but had yellowed to the shade of old bone.
The space smelled of bodies and incense and something medicinal that Samuel recognized as Lordinum. As [clears throat] his eyes adjusted, he saw that every pew was filled with residents, perhaps 80 people in total, all facing forward toward a raised pulpit where Elder Josiah would deliver his sermon. But it was the front of the church that made Samuel’s breath catch in his throat.
Arranged in a semicircle before the altar were 12 small chairs, and in each chair sat a child. These were the survivors Thomas had documented, the youngest generation of Milbrook Hollow, and seeing them in person was infinitely worse than reading clinical descriptions in a journal. Samuel’s physicians training allowed him to catalog their conditions even as his human compassion threatened to overwhelm him.
The girl on the far left, perhaps 9 years old, had the grotesqually enlarged head of advanced hydrophilis, her skull so massive that her neck seemed impossibly fragile beneath it. She stared straight ahead with eyes that showed no recognition, no awareness, her hands lying limp in her lap, while a woman, who must have been her mother, stood behind the chair, one hand resting protectively on the child’s shoulder.
Next to her sat the boy Thomas had described with the externalized organs. Samuel could see the bulge beneath the special garment that had been constructed to cover his exposed abdomen, and the child’s face was drawn with chronic pain. His skin holding the grayish palar of someone whose body was slowly failing.
He couldn’t have weighed more than 40 lb despite being 8 years old, and his breathing was shallow and labored. To his right was the girl with the severely curved spine positioned on her chair in a way that accommodated her twisted body. She was actually trying to smile at the gathered congregation, and the effort it cost her was evident in the tightness around her eyes.
Her hands, Samuel noticed, were completely normal, and she used them to grip the chair arms with white knuckled determination. Maintaining her seated position through sheer will, the child, with reverse symmetry, sat in the center, his normal right side facing the congregation, his malformed left side turned slightly away, as if even at his young age he understood the instinct to hide his worst features.
He was watching the assembled residence with bright intelligent eyes that suggested his mind at least had been spared the worst of the genetic damage. When his gaze fell on Samuel, there was recognition there, understanding that here was someone new, someone from outside, and Samuel saw hope flash across.
Half of the boy’s face before it was suppressed into the blank expression the other children wore. The remaining children showed variations on the same themes of profound genetic damage, club feet and twisted limbs, facial deformities that made eating and breathing difficult, eyes that pointed in wrong directions or didn’t open at all.
One child, a girl of perhaps seven, had been born without a nose, just two small openings in the center of her face that served as nostrils, and her mouth was a lipless slit through which Samuel could see malformed teeth. She breathed through her mouth with a wet rasping sound that carried through the silent church. Another boy had hands where each finger had split into two digits, giving him what appeared to be 20 fingers in total, and he kept them hidden under a blanket across his lap as if ashamed of them.
Thomas had moved to a pew near the back, and Samuel joined him, unable to look away from the children, even as every instinct told him to flee. “Dear God,” Samuel whispered. How do they survive? Some of those conditions should be incompatible with life. Thomas leaned close, his voice barely audible. Constant care.
The mothers and some of the healthier residents dedicate themselves entirely to keeping these children alive. They feed them every few hours, manage their pain with lordinum and other medicines, clean them, exercise their working limbs, everything necessary. It’s a full-time occupation for half the adult population, but Samuel, they’re not getting better.
They’re slowly declining. The boy with the exposed organs has maybe 6 months. The girl with hydrophilis is blind now and having seizures. This is a hospice ward masquerading as a congregation. Elder Josiah emerged from a side door and ascended the pulpit. His movement surprisingly spry for a man of his years.
He surveyed the gathered residence with evident satisfaction, then turned his pale eyes to the children before speaking. Brothers and sisters of Milbrook Hollow, he began, his rasping voice somehow carrying to every corner of the church. Adut, we gather today in joy and in sorrow. Joy, because providence has delivered to us not one but two men of learning, men whose knowledge and whose blood can save us from the fate we see before us.
sorrow because in their faces I see the question that plagues every outsider who views our children. I [clears throat] see them wondering how we could allow this to happen, how we could permit such suffering. And it is that question, that judgment that I must address before we proceed further.
He paused, gripping the edges of the pulpit with his oversized hands. 200 years ago, our ancestors fled corruption. They fled a world that had abandoned God’s law. that mixed bloodlines without care for purity, that valued growth and expansion over spiritual truth. They established Milbrook Hollow as a sanctuary, a place where the faithful could maintain their covenant without interference from the fallen world beyond these mountains.
For 10 generations, we have kept that covenant. We have married only among ourselves. We have refused all contact with the outside. We have remained pure. His voice rose with fervor, and Samuel saw several residents nodding along. But purity comes at a cost. Our bodies bear that cost, as you can see in our children.
Our flesh has become weak even as our spirits remain strong, and now we face a choice. Do we abandon the covenant that has sustained us for two centuries? Do we open our gates and let the corruption flood in? Or do we find a way to strengthen our flesh while maintaining our spiritual purity? Josiah’s gaze fell directly on Samuel and Thomas.
These two brothers represent our answer. They come from the outside, yes, but they come with knowledge. Dr. Samuel Hwitt is a physician trained in the healing arts. Thomas Huitt is a surveyor and mathematician skilled in measurement and planning. Together with God’s guidance, they can help us design a program that will introduce new strength to our bloodlines without sacrificing what makes us holy.
They can help us save our children. The congregation stirred, murmurss of hope and agreement rippling through the pews. Samuel felt the weight of dozens of eyes upon him, felt the desperate need radiating from parents who had watched their children suffer from birth. Elder Josiah continued, “I propose that we offer these men an honored place in our community, that we marry them to women of childbearing age who carry the healthiest bloodlines, that we ask them to use their skills to identify which pairings will produce the
strongest children in the next generation. In return, we offer them shelter, sustenance, and the knowledge that they are doing God’s work, saving a people on the brink of extinction. Samuel’s hands gripped the pew in front of him hard enough that his knuckles went white. The proposal was exactly what Thomas had predicted, and it was being delivered with such smooth reasonleness that Samuel could see how outsiders might be swayed.
Josiah was framing it as a rescue mission, a sacred duty, when in reality it was imprisonment and forced breeding dressed up in religious language. Before Samuel could formulate a response, Thomas stood up. “Elder Josiah,” he said, his voice carrying through the church. “May I speak?” Josiah nodded graciously. “Of course, Thomas.
You’ve been part of our community these past months. Your voice matters here. Thomas stepped into the aisle and Samuel could see his brother’s hands shaking slightly. I’ve spent three months studying your genealogy, documenting your children, trying to understand the biological processes that have led to this situation.
And I need to tell this congregation something that Elder Josiah has refused to hear. A breeding program involving two outsiders won’t be enough. The genetic damage is too extensive. You need massive introduction of new bloodlines, dozens of outsiders, perhaps even full evacuation and integration with external populations.
Anything less is just delaying the inevitable. The congregation erupted in murmurss, some angry, some fearful. Josiah raised his hand for silence, his expression darkening. Thomas, we’ve discussed this. Integration with the outside world means abandoning our covenant. It means becoming like them, corrupted and fallen. We cannot do that.
Thomas’s voice grew stronger, more insistent. Then you’re condemning these children to death and ensuring that the next generation will be worse. Look at them, Elder Josiah. Really, look at them. They’re suffering every moment of every day. Is maintaining your covenant worth that? Is your spiritual purity more important than their physical agony? For a moment, Samuel thought his brother had broken through, that the stark truth would force Josiah to see reason.
But then the old man’s expression hardened into something cold and implacable. “You speak of suffering as if it has no purpose,” Josiah said quietly. “But suffering purifies. It tests our faith. These children bear the weight of our covenant in their very bodies and through their sacrifice we remain holy. Yes, their lives are difficult.
Yes, they endure pain that you in your worldly wisdom find unbearable. But they serve a higher purpose. They are the price of purity. And we will not dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the principles that gave them meaning. Samuel felt nausea rising in his throat. This was it. the true face of Milbrook Hollow’s leadership.
Josiah wasn’t interested in actually helping these children. He was using their suffering to justify his own fanaticism, turning their genetic damage into a twisted form of martyrdom. The children weren’t patients to be healed. They were symbols to be maintained. Samuel stood, drawing every eye in the church. “That’s monstrous,” he said, his voice shaking with rage.
he no longer tried to contain. Those children aren’t martyrs. They’re victims of a system that prioritizes ideology over human welfare. You can dress it up in religious language all you want, Elder Josiah, but what you’re describing is child abuse on a generational scale. The church went silent. Several residents gasped at his words.
Josiah’s pale eyes fixed on Samuel with an intensity that was almost physical. Dr. Hewitt, I understand that as an outsider you find our ways difficult to comprehend. But you must understand that we are not asking for your judgment. We are asking for your help. These children need you. Their parents need you. I am offering you the opportunity to save lives, to use your medical knowledge for good.
Will you refuse them out of pride, out of moral superiority? The manipulation was so smooth, so practiced that Samuel could see how it had worked on previous outsiders. Josiah was refraraming the entire situation, making refusal seem like selfishness rather than ethical responsibility. But Samuel had read about Martin Carver’s teeth, had heard Martha’s story about her mother.
He knew what acceptance would mean. I will not be party to forced breeding, Samuel said clearly. I will not help you design a program that treats human beings as livestock. If you truly want to save your children, you need to leave this valley, integrate with the outside world, and seek proper medical care. I’ll help facilitate that.
I’ll advocate for you, find resources, ensure you’re treated fairly, but I will not help you perpetuate this system. The congregation erupted into chaos. Some residents shouted in anger, others in fear. Parents of the afflicted children began crying. Josiah raised his hands for silence, but it took several minutes before the noise subsided enough for him to speak.
When he did, his voice had lost all warmth. Thomas warned me you might be difficult, he said to Samuel. He told me about your rigid ethical principles, your refusal to compromise. I had hoped he was wrong, that you would see the necessity of our situation, but I see now that you’re like Martin Carver, too proud to do what must be done.
He turned to address the congregation. Brothers and sisters, Dr. Huitt needs time to reconsider. He needs to truly see what his refusal means. I propose we show him everything, all of it. Not just the children who can sit upright for assembly, but the others as well. The ones we keep in the medical house, because their suffering is too great for public viewing, Thomas grabbed Samuel’s arm.
Don’t agree to this, he whispered urgently. Samuel, you don’t want to see what’s in the medical house. Trust me. But it was too late. Josiah had already descended from the pulpit and was walking towards Samuel with that peculiar lurching gate. Come, Dr. Huitt, let me show you the full cost of refusal. Let me show you what happens when we don’t have help from the outside.
Then you can make your decision with complete information. Samuel wanted to refuse, wanted to demand that he and Thomas be allowed to leave immediately. But the parents of those 12 children were looking at him with such desperate hope, and he was a physician sworn to see suffering and respond to it. “All right,” he said quietly. “Show me. The medical house was located behind the church, the long, low structure that Samuel had assumed was storage or a meeting hall.
As Josiah led him and Thomas toward it, followed by several senior members of the community, Samuel noticed that the windows here were covered not just with cloth, but with boards, and the door had three separate locks. Josiah produced a ring of keys and began unlocking them one by one. “What you’re about to see,” he said as he worked, are the children who couldn’t survive.
Samuel fought to keep his expression neutral, but internally he reeled. Partial consciousness in a parasitic twin was extraordinarily rare, potentially unprecedented. The growth was developing its own neural tissue, its own primitive awareness. Nathaniel, I need to ask you something important. Do you want to leave Milbrook Hollow? If we could take you somewhere with doctors who might be able to help you, would you want that? The boy’s response was immediate.
Yes, God. Yes. I want to see the world outside. I want to go to school with normal children. I want He stopped, his primary face crumpling. But mother won’t let me. She says the outside world would reject me, hurt me. She says I’m safer here. Samuel placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, careful to avoid the side with the growth.
What if I could convince her? What if I could show her the doctors outside might be able to stop the growth? Give you a chance at a normal life. Nathaniel’s eyes, his proper eyes lit with desperate hope. You could do that? Really? Samuel couldn’t promise anything, but he nodded. I’m going to try. That evening, he approached Nathaniel’s mother, Elellanor, during her shift, maintaining Rebecca in the medical house.
She was spooning broth into the infant’s mouth with mechanical precision, her face blank with exhausted routine. “Mrs. Eleanor,” Samuel said gently, “I’d like to discuss Nathaniel’s condition with you.” She didn’t look up. “He’s dying. I know he’s dying. I don’t need a doctor to tell me that.” Samuel sat beside her.
He’s dying, yes, but he doesn’t have to die here. There are surgeons in Richmond, physicians who specialize in unusual conditions. They might be able to remove the growth, give Nathaniel years he wouldn’t have otherwise. Now Elellanena did look at him, and her eyes held the same desperate denial he’d seen in Anna with Rebecca.
Remove it, cut into my son’s skull. That would kill him. No better. He dies here comfortable, surrounded by family. Samuel kept his voice calm. Mrs. Eleanor, I’ve examined Nathaniel extensively. The growth is accelerating. Within 6 months, it will be large enough to cause severe neurological damage. Within a year, it will kill him.
Surgery is his only chance. And more than that, Nathaniel wants to leave. He wants to see the world outside. Don’t you think he deserves that choice? Elanor’s hands began to shake, broth spilling from the spoon. He’s a child. He doesn’t understand what the outside world would do to him. They’d stare, call him a monster, lock him away in some asylum.
Here he’s loved. Here he’s accepted. Samuel leaned forward. Here he’s dying, and he knows it. He’s a brilliant boy, Elellanena. He understands exactly what’s happening to him. and he’s telling you he wants a chance, even if it’s a small chance, at something more than slow death in this valley. Are you going to deny him that because you’re afraid?” The words were harsh, calculated to break through Elellanena’s denial.
” She flinched as if struck, then burst into tears, rocking back and forth with Rebecca’s body still cradled in one arm. “I can’t lose him. I can’t watch him leave. And know I might never see him again.” Samuel placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. I’m not saying you have to let him go alone. You could leave with him. Come to Richmond.
Be there for his surgery. Help him adjust to the outside world. You don’t have to stay in Milbrook Hollow just because you were born here. Elellanena looked at him, really looked at him, and Samuel saw the moment the possibility penetrated her grief. I could leave with Nathaniel. Samuel nodded. That’s what we’re planning.
Evacuation for everyone who wants it. Medical care, housing, assistance, help integrating into society. You and Nathaniel could have a life beyond this valley. Elellanena’s tears came harder now, but they were different tears. Relief mixing with grief, hope mixing with terror. What about Rebecca? What about the others who can’t leave? This was the question Samuel had been dreading.
Rebecca isn’t going to survive more than a few more weeks. Helena, you know that her condition is incompatible with life. The kindest thing we can do is keep her comfortable while she’s here and help you grieve when she’s gone. But Nathaniel, Nathaniel has a chance. Don’t sacrifice his future trying to hold on to a child who’s already lost.
The brutal honesty broke something in Eleanor. She nodded slowly, tears streaming down her face, and whispered, “All right. All right. I’ll go. I’ll take Nathaniel and go, but please promise me you’ll take care of Rebecca until until the end, Samuel promised. And as Elellanena left the medical house, he felt the weight of what he’d just done.
He’d convinced a mother to abandon a dying child to save a living one. It was the right medical decision, the ethical choice, but it felt like murder nonetheless. Over the next week, Samuel had similar conversations with 17 other parents. Some agreed immediately, desperate for any chance at better lives for their children.
Others resisted until shown Thomas’s calculations, the mathematical proof that staying meant extinction. Two refused outright, choosing to remain in Milbrook Hollow with their damaged children, accepting death over uncertainty. Samuel documented everything, knowing these decisions would haunt him, but understanding they were necessary.
Meanwhile, Josiah managed the council, slowly preparing them for the announcement. He framed it as a medical consultation, bringing in outside help to address the genetic crisis. He didn’t mention evacuation until the night before Samuel was scheduled to leave to contact authorities. The council meeting was held in the church, all 15 senior members present.
Josiah stood at the pulpit, his breathing labored, his pale face showing the strain of his failing heart. Brothers and sisters, he began, I’ve called you here to discuss our future. Dr. Hwitt has completed his examination of every resident. Thomas has finished his genealogical analysis, and I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear, but need to understand. Milbrook Hollow is dying.
” Murmurss rippled through the council. Ezekiel stood, his face flushed with anger. He was younger than his father, but bore the same oversized frame and pale eyes. We know we face challenges, father. That’s why we asked the doctors for help. But dying? That’s an exaggeration designed to frighten us. Josiah’s voice turned hard.
Is it, Thomas? Show them the projections. Thomas stood and unrolled a large chart he’d prepared, mapping birth rates and mortality rates over the next 20 years. The lines were stark, undeniable. Within 5 years, deaths would exceed births. Within 10 years, no viable children would be born.
Within 20 years, the last resident would die. Ezekiel stared at the chart, his face going white. This can’t be right. There must be an error in the calculations. Thomas shook his head. I’ve checked them 17 times. Use different methodologies, different assumptions. The result is always the same. The genetic damage is too extensive. The population too small.
Milbrook Hollow has reached the point of irreversible decline. Another council member, an elderly woman named Prudence, spoke up. So, we need the breeding program. We need Dr. Hwitt and Thomas to father healthy children, introduce new blood. That’s why they’re here. Josiah shook his head. Two men aren’t enough.
Even if they fathered 20 children each over the next 10 years, it wouldn’t reverse the damage. We need massive genetic intervention, dozens of outsiders, and that’s impossible while maintaining isolation. So, we have two choices. Die pure or survive by integrating with the outside world. The council erupted.
Voices rose in anger and fear. Council members shouting over each other. Ezekiel’s voice cut through the chaos. Integration is betrayal. Our ancestors founded Milbrook Hollow to escape corruption. You’re asking us to undo 200 years of covenant. Josiah struck his walking stick against the floor, the crack silencing the room.
I’m not asking. I’m telling you what’s going to happen. In 2 days, Dr. Hwitt leaves to contact Virginia authorities. He’ll bring medical teams, social services, resources to evacuate anyone who wants to leave. Those who wish to stay can stay. Those who wish to go can go, but the children, all children under 12, will be evacuated regardless of parental wishes.
That’s my decision as elder, and it’s final. Ezekiel stepped forward, his face contorted with rage. You have no authority to make this decision alone. The council must vote. Josiah met his son’s eyes steadily, then call the vote. But understand this, I’ve already sent word outside. I’ve already contacted authorities through travelers Thomas encountered months ago.
The process has begun. You can vote to support it or vote to oppose it, but you can’t stop it.” The room went dead silent. Samuel realized with dawning horror what Josiah had done. He’d lied. There were no travelers, no advanced contact. He was bluffing, forcing the council into a position where they believed resistance was futile.
It was manipulation of the highest order and it was brilliant. Prudence spoke, her voice quavering. Josiah, if this is truly happening, if outsiders are coming, then we need to prepare. We need to decide as a community how to face this, not have it forced upon us. Josiah’s expression softened. That’s all I’m asking. Prudence, preparation, not resistance.
Help me make this transition as smooth as possible. Help me ensure our people are treated with dignity, not as curiosities or prisoners. We can control how this happens, but only if we work together. One by one, council members began nodding. Not agreement exactly, but acceptance, understanding that the future Josiah described was inevitable, whether they supported it or not.
Only Ezekiel remained, rigid, his fists clenched at his sides. I will not support this. I will not be complicit in destroying everything our ancestors built. And I’m not the only one. There are others who will stay, who will maintain the covenant, even if it means dying. Josiah looked at his son with profound sadness.
I know, Ezekiel, and I respect your choice, but you don’t get to make that choice for the children. Your own daughter, Sarah, she’s coming out. She’s getting proper medical care for her club feet, getting a chance at a normal life. You can come with her or stay behind, but she’s leaving. Ezekiel’s face crumpled. You’d separate a father from his child.
You’d destroy our family. Josiah’s voice was gentle but implacable. I’m saving your child from a life of suffering you’ve chosen. But she didn’t. That’s what fathers do. Ezekiel, we protect our children even when it costs us everything. The meeting dissolved after that. Council members departing in stunned silence.
Samuel and Thomas remained with Josiah, watching the old man lean heavily on his walking stick, his breathing ragged. “That was well played,” Thomas said quietly. “The bit about advanced contact. They’ll never know it was a bluff until after evacuation is complete.” Josiah smiled wearily.
“Politics,” Thomas, sometimes you have to lie to accomplish truth. “Now, Dr. Hwitt, you leave at dawn. I’ve prepared documents, letters of introduction, everything you’ll need. Bring back help and bring it quickly. My heart won’t last much longer, and I need to see this through before I die.” Samuel studied the old man, seeing him clearly for perhaps the first time.
Not a villain or a savior, but something more complex. A pragmatist born into impossible circumstances. Who’d spent his life navigating between tradition and survival. who’d finally chosen survival even though it meant destroying everything he’d been raised to preserve. “Why,” Samuel asked. “Why spend your whole life maintaining this system only to dismantle it at the end?” Josiah met his eyes, and in those pale depths, Samuel saw exhaustion that went beyond physical.
“Because I was a coward when it mattered, Dr. Huitt, 20 years ago, I had the authority to change things, and I didn’t. I let my granddaughter die rather than admit our covenant was killing us. Every child who suffered since then, every life shortened by genetic damage, that’s on me. This is my penance. This is how I earn whatever afterlife awaits people like me.
Samuel felt something shift in his chest, some final piece of understanding clicking into place. Josiah wasn’t asking for redemption. He was past that. He was simply trying to do the least harm possible with what time remained. “I’ll bring help,” Samuel promised. “And I’ll make sure they understand. This isn’t a rescue operation.
It’s assisted transition. Dignity, not charity.” Josiah nodded satisfied. “That’s all I ask.” “Now go, both of you, rest. Tomorrow begins the end of Milbrook Hollow, and we need to face it with clear minds.” As Samuel and Thomas left the church, Samuel looked back once to see Josiah still standing at the pulpit, his silhouette stark against lamplight.
Looking like nothing so much as a captain preparing to go down with his ship, Samuel left Milbrook Hollow at dawn, carrying Josiah’s documents and the hidden history Martha had shown him. The path out was clear now, the psychological barrier gone, and he made the ridge by midm morning. He turned back once to see the valley below, peaceful in morning light, and wondered how many of those 83 souls would still be alive when he returned.
Thomas had stayed behind, ostensibly to continue documentation, but really to ensure Josiah wasn’t left alone to face whatever resistance might emerge. Samuel reached the nearest town 3 days later, a settlement called Harper’s Ferry, and immediately contacted Virginia authorities. What followed was bureaucratic nightmare.
Officials didn’t believe him at first. An isolated community of 83 people suffering genetic damage from 10 generations of inbreeding hidden in a valley that appeared on no maps. It sounded like frontier fantasy. Samuel showed them the documents, the genealogical charts, the medical records. Still, they hesitated. Finally, he showed them the hidden history, the record of murders and imprisonments.
That got their attention. Within a week, a team was assembled. Doctors, social workers, surveyors, and a small contingent of marshals in case resistance turned violent. They entered Milbrook Hollow on a gray October morning, exactly 23 days after Samuel had first stumbled upon it. The residents were gathered in the church, Josiah having prepared them for this moment.
Some faces showed relief, others showed terror, and a small group led by Ezekiel showed defiant rage. The head marshal, a man named Cooper, read a prepared statement about medical emergency and voluntary evacuation. But his words were drowned out when Ezekiel stood and shouted, “This is invasion. This is the corruption our ancestors fled. We will not go quietly.
Josiah rose from his seat at the front, his breathing labored, his face gray. Ezekiel, enough. These people are here to help. But his son wouldn’t be silenced. Help. They’re here to destroy us, to scatter our families and erase our covenant. He turned to the gathered residents. Who stands with me? Who refuses to abandon our home? 15 people stood, including several parents of the damaged children.
Samuel felt his stomach sink. This was the moment he dreaded when principal collided with survival and there were no good answers. Cooper stepped forward, his hand on his pistol but not drawing it. Sir, we’re not here to force anyone. Adults can choose to stay. But the children, medical professionals have determined they require immediate intervention.
The children are coming with us. Ezekiel’s face went purple with rage. You’ll take them over my dead body. He moved toward his daughter Sarah, the girl with club feet who sat in the front row. Cooper’s hand tightened on his pistol. Samuel saw the moment crystallizing, saw how this could spiral into violence, and stepped between them. Ezekiel, stop.
Look at Sarah. Really look at her. The girl was crying silently, her twisted feet visible beneath her dress, her face showing the pain she lived with constantly. She’s 9 years old, Samuel continued. She spent every day of those 9 years in agony because her bones grew wrong. There are surgeries that can fix her feet, give her a normal life.
Are you really going to deny her that because of pride? Ezekiel’s voice broke. She’s my daughter, my blood, my responsibility. Samuel’s voice was gentle now. Then be responsible. Let her go. Come with her if you must, or stay if you can’t bear to leave. But don’t make her pay for your choices. She deserves a chance you never had.
The chance to choose her own path. The fight went out of Ezekiel. Then he collapsed into a pew, sobbing, and Sarah limped to him, wrapping her thin arms around his massive frame. Papa, she whispered, “I want to go. I want my feet to stop hurting. Please let me go.” Ezekiel held his daughter, his body shaking, and finally nodded. All right. All right.
Take her. But I’m staying. Someone has to maintain the covenant, even if I’m the last one. Sarah pulled back, confusion on her young face. You’re not coming with me? Ezekiel shook his head, unable to speak. Sarah looked at Samuel, then at her father, and made a decision that was heartbreaking in its clarity.
Then I’m staying, too. I won’t leave you alone, Papa. Samuel started to protest, but Josiah’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. Let her choose,” the old man whispered. “She’s old enough to understand what she’s deciding. If she wants to stay with her father, that’s her right.” Samuel watched Sarah settle beside Ezekiel, her small hand in his large one, and understood that some choices couldn’t be made by outsiders, no matter how obvious the right answer seemed.
In the end, 64 residents left Milbrook Hollow. 19 remained. Ezekiel and his daughter, the seven children from the medical house who were too damaged to survive transport, and 11 adults who chose death over change. Samuel spent his final hours in the valley making the medical house as comfortable as possible, ensuring adequate morphine supplies, teaching the remaining adults how to manage pain in the final stages.
Rebecca died 3 days after the evacuation. her mother, Anna, one of those who’ chosen to stay. Samuel wasn’t there to see it, but Thomas wrote him later describing how Anna had held her daughter through the last struggling breaths, singing lullabies to a child who’d never been able to hear them. The boy with externalized organs lasted 2 weeks.
The girl with hydrophilis made it a month before seizures finally stopped her heart. One by one, the damaged children slipped away, and the adults who’d stayed to care for them prepared for their own ends. Nathaniel was among those evacuated. His surgery in Richmond was partially successful. They removed most of the parasitic twin, though some neural tissue had to be left behind to avoid damaging his brain.
He lost vision in one eye and developed a permanent tremor in his left hand, but he survived. Elellaner stayed with him through recovery, and last Samuel heard, they’d settled in a small town in Pennsylvania, where Nathaniel attended school, and Elellanena worked as a seamstress. The boy wrote Samuel letters occasionally, describing his life with a wonder that made Samuel weep.
Martha and Daniel left together, settling in Richmond, where Martha trained as a midwife, and Daniel found work as a carpenter despite his unusual proportions. They had a daughter two years later, healthy and normal, and named her Sarah after the girl who’ chosen to stay behind. Thomas remained in Virginia, continuing his surveying work, but also writing a comprehensive account of Milbrook Hollow that was published in medical journals and sparked decades of research into genetic isolation.
He never quite forgave himself for the months he’d spent documenting suffering instead of acting to end it. And Samuel knew his brother carried those ghosts until his death 30 years later. Elder Josiah lived to see the evacuation completed, then died quietly in his sleep exactly one week later, his failing heart finally giving out.
Ezekiel buried him in the small cemetery at the edge of town. And Samuel heard later that father and son had reconciled in those final days. Josiah telling Ezekiel that maintaining the covenant alone was noble, even if misguided, and Ezekiel telling his father that he’d made the right choice, even though Ezekiel couldn’t follow it. The residents who left Milbrook Hollow faced challenges.
Samuel had only partially anticipated. Integration was painful, marked by staires, and whispered questions about their unusual features. But most adapted, found work, built lives. Several of the younger ones married outsiders and had healthy children. The genetic damage diluting over generations until it became invisible.
5 years after the evacuation, Samuel returned to Milbrook Hollow one final time. The valley was empty now. Ezekiel had died 2 years earlier. Sarah 3 months after him, both buried beside Josiah. The remaining adults had drifted away or died, and the building stood vacant, slowly being reclaimed by Forest. Samuel walked through the settlement, seeing windows broken by weather, roofs collapsing under snow weight, the church steeple finally fallen from its listing position.
Nature was erasing what humans had built, covering the scars. He stood in the medical house in the room where Rebecca had died, and tried to find meaning in what had happened here. 10 generations of suffering, of children born damaged, of parents pouring love into bodies that couldn’t receive it, of a community trapped by the choices of ancestors long dead.
Had it served any purpose? Had the suffering meant anything? Samuel had no answer. He was a doctor trained to heal, and he’d helped dismantle a community that was killing itself. That should have felt like victory. But standing in that empty room, breathing air that still smelled faintly of lordnham and death, he felt only the weight of choices that had no right answers, he left Milbrook Hollow as the sun set, climbing the path to the ridge one last time.
From the top he looked back at the valley, at the settlement barely visible through encroaching trees, and understood that some places were meant to die. Some systems were so broken that the only ethical choice was to let them end, to save what could be saved and mourn what couldn’t. Milbrook Hollow was gone now, existing only in medical records and Thomas’s published accounts in the memories of those who’d escaped and the graves of those who’d stayed.
Samuel thought of Nathaniel, alive and learning in Pennsylvania. He thought of Martha’s healthy daughter, born free from the genetic damage that had marked her mother. He thought of the 64 lives saved, the future generations who would never suffer as their ancestors had. And he thought of Sarah choosing to stay with her father, her club feet hurting with every step, dying at 14 in a valley that had killed everyone it touched.
There were no good choices in Milbrook Hollow. There had never been good choices. There was only the least terrible option, executed with as much compassion as circumstances allowed. Samuel had saved everyone who could be saved and provided comfort to those who couldn’t. It would have to be enough. As he descended the far side of the ridge, leaving the valley behind for the last time, he understood that Milbrook Hollow’s true horror wasn’t the genetic damage, or the suffering children, or even the fanatical devotion to a
poisonous covenant. The real horror was how reasonable it had all seemed to the people trapped inside it. How love and duty and faith had been twisted into justifications for perpetuating suffering. How good intentions had paved a road to systematic human destruction. And the most terrifying part, how easy it had been for Samuel himself to almost become part of it, to almost convince himself that working within the system was better than destroying it, that gradual reform was preferable to revolutionary change. Josiah had been
right about one thing. Systems don’t change because people within them suddenly become ethical. They change because someone from outside recognizes them as broken and has the courage to say so. Consequences be damned. Samuel never returned to the valley again. He lived another 40 years practicing medicine in Richmond, training new doctors, and occasionally giving lectures about genetic isolation and the importance of genetic diversity.
He never mentioned Milbrook Hollow by name in public, honoring the privacy of those who’d escaped, but he taught the lessons it had burned into him. Question systems that demand suffering, challenge authorities who justify cruelty with tradition, and never ever believe that good intentions excuse terrible outcomes.
On his deathbed at 74, surrounded by colleagues and students, Samuel’s last coherent words were about a valley he’d visited once 50 years earlier. The children, he whispered, “Did we save enough of them?” His students assured him, “Yes, they’d saved everyone who could be saved.” Samuel smiled, closed his eyes, and died believing it.
But the truth which Samuel had always known in his darkest moments was that they’d saved some and lost many, and there was no equation that could balance that ledger. No moral calculus that made the sacrifice acceptable. Milbrook Hollow had taught Samuel that some prices are too high to pay, no matter how noble the intention. And sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit a 200-year mistake and have the courage to end it.
Even when ending it means destroying everything the founders believed they’d built. The valley remained hidden for another century, occasionally stumbled upon by hikers who found old foundations and wondered what settlement had existed there. The stories faded, became local legend, lost their specificity and truth.
Eventually, Milbrook Hollow existed only in academic journals and in the genetic legacy of the 64 who’d escaped. Their descendants carrying recessive traits that occasionally surfaced, reminding them that history lived in blood and bone, and in one small cemetery in Pennsylvania. A woman named Martha sometimes brought her daughter to a grave marked only with dates. Sarah Donti831845.
The girl who’d chosen love over life, who’d stayed with her father rather than save herself, who’d become the last child born in Milbrook Hollow and the last to die there. Martha would tell her daughter the story, making sure it wasn’t forgotten, making sure someone remembered that choices have consequences, and sometimes the worst consequence is learning to live with the choice you made.
That was the real ending of Milbrook Hollow, not in the empty buildings or the published accounts or even in the saved lives. It was in the stories told to children who would never understand what their ancestors had endured. In the genetic traits that persisted despite dilution, in the graves that marked those who’ chosen differently.
Some places exist to teach us what not to become. Milbrook Hollow was one of those places. And Samuel Hewitt, who’d stumbled into it looking for his brother and stayed long enough to help dismantle it, carried its lessons until his final breath. That purity is poison, that isolation is death, and that sometimes the only way to save people is to destroy the very thing they believe makes them worth saving.
