Part 14: How The Holler Stayed Alive

They built the fire in a rough circle, not tidy and not planned, just how people do when nobody’s in charge and everybody’s paying attention. Logs pulled from where they’d fallen. Stones dragged in with scraped knuckles and laughter when one rolled downhill like it had someplace better to be.
Enna Mae watched from her rocker, not sayin’ a word. She knew better than to rush what was forming. Circles don’t need instructions. They need permission.
Poppy sat cross-legged in the dirt, Cypress pressed against her leg, Ash fussing with the kettle like he always did when things got too quiet. The women drifted in one by one — the ones who stayed, the ones who’d come back, the ones who didn’t yet know why they’d wandered toward the light.
Nobody asked who belonged.
That’s how you know a circle’s real.
A woman laughed — sudden and loud — at something small and foolish, and for a second it startled them all. Then another laugh followed, and another, till the sound rose up and cracked the tight places open. The mountain didn’t flinch. It had heard worse. It had heard better too.
Poppy felt it then — that tug in her chest, the one she used to think meant something was wrong. She knew better now. It meant something was asking to be seen.
“Why we keep forgetting how to do this?” she asked, half to herself, half to the fire. “Sit together. Tell the truth. Let joy show up without apologizing.”
No one answered right away. Answers are impatient things. Truth waits.
It was the Wagon Woman who finally spoke. Her voice was steady now, like someone who’d learned the storm wasn’t endless. “Because the world teaches us to survive alone. Easier to control us that way.”
Ash snorted softly. “Ain’t nothin’ easier about lonely.”
That earned a nod from half the circle.
The Preacher’s Wife stared into the flames. “They told me joy was dangerous. Said if I laughed too loud, God might mistake it for pride.”
Enna Mae finally spoke then, voice cutting clean through the smoke. “Joy ain’t dangerous. Suppressing it is.”
Silence followed — the good kind. The kind that lets a thing land.
Poppy poked at the fire with a stick, sparks jumping like they had somewhere important to be. “What about the things that are wrong?” she asked. “The real wrong ones. The kind folks tell you to forgive fast so nobody has to be uncomfortable.”
Enna Mae leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “You don’t forgive rot by covering it with lace. You pull it into the light and sit with it long enough to see what it’s made of.”
The fire hissed, like it agreed.
“Most storms look bigger than they are,” she went on. “But you don’t know that till you stop runnin’ and let the rain soak you. Tiny storms feel huge when you face ’em alone.”
Poppy looked around the circle — really looked. Scars. Smiles. Tired eyes that hadn’t given up. Hands that had buried things and planted others.
“So this is how you do it?” she asked. “You don’t pretend it’s fine. You don’t burn it down. You just… stay?”
Enna Mae nodded. “You stay. You listen. You keep joy on the table so bitterness don’t take its place. You call wrong what’s wrong. And you love each other anyway.”
Ash lifted his tin cup. “To sittin’ it out.”
Someone else added, “To not goin’ numb.”
Another voice: “To laughin’ when we can.”
The circle warmed. Not just from the fire — from recognition. From relief.
Poppy felt peace then — not the quiet kind folks sell, but the sturdy kind. The kind that comes from knowing storms pass, truth survives, and joy ain’t frivolous — it’s resistance.
Above them, the trees leaned in, roots tangled deep and unseen, holding each other upright through every weather they’d ever known.
And for the first time, Poppy understood:
circles don’t erase the storm.
They make it walkable.
And that — that was how the holler stayed alive.