Chapter 6
The Second Place
Dzeze and Erzvilkas follow the whisper to an abandoned farmhouse on the ridge, where they find Ona and a group of women holding the missing men in a trance-like state. A confrontation leads to Ona's capture, the men are freed, and the town begins to heal. Dzeze completes her documentary, and Erzvilkas stays to help rebuild. The whisper fades, and the hour between is broken.
The whisper led them deeper into the forest, past the collapsed mine and up a narrow ridge they had never explored. Dzeze kept her camera running, the red light a small comfort in the growing dark. Erzvilkas walked beside her, his hand resting on the knife he had borrowed from the town's last hardware store. Behind them, the group of twenty women moved in silence, their lanterns casting long shadows on the mossy ground.
The voice grew clearer as they climbed. It was Ona's voice, but thinner now, as if she were speaking through a radio that was running out of batteries. The words were the same: "The old ways must be restored. The weak must be purified." Over and over, like a prayer.
"She's using a transmitter," Erzvilkas said. "But it's not coming from the mine. It's coming from up ahead."
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