Chapter 32: Its Wrath Shall Scald The Sun

A woman stands with her back to us, staring out over a ruined town. Her hands are raised over her head. A quote reads: "We're keeping our shape out here, about as well as we can - but every single day, it's harder." -Paige

## Credits

### Featured Voices

* Alex Nursall as Sam Kincannon
* Sarah Griffin as Shrue
* Laurence Owen as Dan
* Lucille Valentine as Paige
* William A. Wellman as Chuck Harm
* Alison Campbell as Alice
* Jimmie Yamaguchi as Hayward
* Ishani Kanetkar as Elgin
* Méabh de Brún as Carpenter

### Additional Voices

James J Harringman, William A. Wellman, AJ Fidalgo, Marlon Dance-Hooi and Alyssa Petrie

## Meta Data

### Content Warnings

This episode contains vomiting (4.54-5.04), implied alcoholism, animal death / mild body horror (17.18-17.45), discussion of suicidal ideation (33.40-34.20)

## Episode Guide

In a ruined city far to the north of the Peninsula, Paige dwells unhappily on her status as prophet of a radical new faith - but a meeting with an old friend could change everything.

## Description

### Hard Truths With Sam Kincannon

The same political broadcast from the previous episode, Hard Truths With Sam Kincannon, plays. They talk about The Woundtree, the new anti-sacrificial cult that has been causing problems in both the CLS and the Peninsula. Adjudicator Shrue, on the programme, says they understand the concern but warns against exaggerations. Leonard Trunce talks about art, distantly in the background we hear a battlefield. We hear Shrue’s voice over loudspeakers in Bellwethers. They are still defending the motives behind the Woundtree. Sam asks Shrue is a god must feed. Shrue hesitantly admits they must, but acknowledges the inequalities in the system.

### The Widow of Wounds

Over the loudspeakers we hear Dan The Fanatic, he recites the Truths of the Many Below. Paige talks in her sleep, she repeats the word tree. When she wakes she retches into a bin, before getting out of bed. She opens the blinds and pours herself a glass of something alcoholic. Paige turns on the radio. Chuck Harm is also talking about the Woundtree. The CLS believe, or want their citizens to believe, that the Peninsula created the Woundtree and it backfired on them. Chuck Harm says that the conditions for sacrificial victims have since worsened, rather than improved. Paige turns the broadcast off.

Paige talks about Bellwethers. She didn’t see it after the Wither Mark was set off. Hayward did, and says that it has since improved. Paige said it’s still awful, but the signs of the Trawler-man have since left. Left behind was the carcass of a town. Hayward and Paige had been on the run for days, with a growing number of prison escapees as disciples. The town had made headlines, but now it was forgotten. But no one would find them there, the town had been removed from the maps. At least one other group had tried to claim the town, but had failed. They renamed Bellwethers to the Grace. They built a greenhouse, and a hatchery, and added electricity to some of the bunkhouses. They stick to a vegetarian diet, to be safe, even though it seems like Paige’s god doesn’t kill animals anymore.The town is dangerous, they have to remember their gas masks and to zip up their tents to prevent excruciating deaths. They keep the starving gods at bay with the loudspeaker system. They’re enduring, but it’s getting harder.

Paige steps out of her tent and runs to her car. She is seen by Dan, who calls her by her titles. She greets him, telling him that the Tree did not visit her with visions last night. Her introduction in the episode contradicts this. Paige tells him she’s late for a meeting and leaves. She, understandably, dislikes him hanging around outside her house. Paige drives into the centre of the town. She stops at the Hatchery, to speak to Alice. A chicken crosses the floor and turns into a shrieking chicken-angel. Alice kills it efficiently. A window seal broke in the night, letting a wild god in. They were forced to kill the chickens, leaving them no choice but to make another run into the farmlands soon. Paige isn’t sure if they can do so safely, they have canned goods. Paige tries to say they don’t sacrifice people, but Alice is insistent on a supplemental god of the roost to protect them. Paige is forced to put her foot down on the matter. Alice calls spitefully after her. Paige has been missing morning prayers.

### Hayward, Elgin and Paige's Meeting

Hayward and Elgin sit in a meeting room discussing the state of the town. Elgin expresses that they need an infirmary, a quarantine-zone for when people start getting really sick. Elgin suggests the old fire station as a secondary compound, but Hayward refuses this because Powell saw an angel around the fire station recently and would like to confirm its security first. They need digging equipment. They are about to move to the next point on the agenda when Paige walks in. She’s angry at Hayward for not waking her. Hayward tells her he didn’t want to wake her because she’s been so tired recently. Elgin handled morning prayers. Paige asks if their disciples were angry she didn’t show up. Hayward says they weren’t. Elgin says the brain-trust wants to know if they’ve read the latest chapters. They’re looking for direction. Hayward says their plan for an anti-sacrificial society was detailed on a national level but less detailed as something small scale communities could commit to. Paige is angry and does not mince her words in expressing her dislike of it. It’s rough and needs developing. Hayward believes that it’s necessary to have a vision of something to come after. They move onto the last item. Disciples from the North-Eastern are petitioning for a name change, they don’t like the Woundtree. Hayward expresses that changing the name again will confuse people. It’s spreading as the Tree of Spite in the CLS, and is doing well there. Hayward’s issue is the word ‘spite’, which makes it seem like a vengeful god. Elgin tells him that they understand that, they just believe unity is more important. He agrees to speak to them in the canteen. Hayward has one surprise item, and Paige has something she wants to discuss with him. She asks Elgin for a coffee. Hayward tells Elgin to sit down again. Paige just wanted to tell Hayward that she can’t continue like this. Elgin closes her log book and leaves to get that coffee.

### Hayward And Paige

Hayward chastises Paige for her impatience. Paige refers to transparency, like Hayward said. Hayward asks if Paige has been drinking, she doesn’t respond to him. It’s not a new conversation. Paige expresses that the “after” is ridiculous, because there’s not going to be a better world to come. She is not optimistic about the future. It can only end in death. Hayward argues that there’s a chance it ends like that, or they could choose courage and hope for a better outcome. Paige points out Hayward’s empty words. She asks if he remembers everyone’s names. He doesn’t. Neither does she. She wonders how she can trust them if they don’t know them. Hayward tells her they can’t think that way. Paige wonders what the plan is for defectors. Hayward tells her she’s not naive. They have to make a few difficult choices. She accuses Hayward of making difficult choices already. He tells her he’ll be honest with her if she wants, but he’s just doing his job to keep the weight off of her. She gets to her feet. They’re accomplished so much, but it’s not a comfortable accomplishment. They can’t build anything that can’t be repurposed. She asks if she sounds ungrateful, and Hayward tells her that she sounds like someone in a difficult position. He knows it doesn’t help. She expresses that she can’t kill herself, although she’d been considering it. She knows it wouldn’t help because she’s already branded by their god. She doesn’t even know what would happen, if it would let her die. Hayward tells her he doesn’t want her to be afraid of it, and she says it’s too late for that. He wants to show her something good.

### Paige And Carpenter

It’s Carpenter. In her dream she hears the whispers of the Cairn Maiden. Carpenter pleads with her, she doesn’t want to die yet. She wakes up, and Paige is sitting next to her. Carpenter says she thought Paige had gone home, before saying that Hayward found her in the woods. She has many questions for Paige, starting with how all of this happened. Paige begins to tell her story. Carpenter steps out on the roof, looking over the town and at the rockets falling on the horizon. Paige joins her. Paige asks how it feels being back here. Carpenter tells her it feels as though she always ends up back where she started. She says Paige’s people are doing good out here. Paige jokingly says that they’re an experiment coming from the very worst place in the world. She then says that Hayward thinks it's an unhelpful description. All they said at the start was that no one dies at the hand of anyone’s god, even volunteers. People began discussing a world without gods. Prayer meetings are becoming more and more confrontational. There are four different groups: those who think the only god should be the Woundtree, those who want to get rid of all gods altogether, those who argue for a reset back to the ways of the old gods, and those who want to focus on staying alive. It’s four splinters in a 6 month old faith. Carpenter asks how many people are out here. Paige says it's maybe 60, but it keeps growing. They free sacrifices, and give them the choice to come with them or go their own way. They’ve had 11 failures, to 5 successes. Dan begins speaking to Paige. Carpenter asks why he calls her that title. It was Hayward’s idea. They made up a story and made it palatable. Paige hates the character created for her, the role she has to play.She didn’t want to lie, Hayward says that everything is built on a little performance. She believes nothing new can be built on the back of the same old deceptions. They disagree on everything. Carpenter asks if she trusts him. He’s the person she trusts the most. The hope of it has changed him, and he’s become a better person. She’s ashamed that she didn’t find the same change in herself, that she’s come to resent him for his growth when she doesn’t think she’s changed. She wanted this god to be a weapon for the oppressed, but it’s a cause. That means she has to be a leader, even as they change everything she’s created. She’s not in control of it but she’s still bound to it. She asks Carpenter if she dreams, before referring to her own remedies for it. The wind causes everyone to have bad dreams in the Grace, and no one gets enough rest. Carpenter comments that Paige told Dan she isn’t dreaming. Paige admits she sees it every night. Hayward and Paige agree they can’t tell their followers about it. It tells Paige that it hates them all, that they all hurt each other and they're all tainted by the hurt they’ve caused. There has to be a reckoning for that. We hear the whispers of the Cairn Maiden rise. Paige snaps Carpenter out of it. Paige warns her of the awkward welcome lunch Hayward has prepared for them.

### Carpenter And Hayward

Sam Kincannon’s broadcast from the start of the episode plays. Hayward hums as he cooks. Carpenter enters, and he turns off the radio. When asked, Carpenter requests pancakes. He tells her seed and flesh tend to be unreliable, he recommends she drink coffee without milk for the same reason. Hayward addresses the awkwardness of their meeting again, Carpenter quips that Paige must have coached him for this conversation. He tells her she’s told him a lot about Carpenter. She asks if Hayward is in the habit of telling lies, and Hayward admits that it’s all he seems to do. Although he’s lying to himself less. He asks if she’s in the habit of holding grudges. Carpenter asks if he remembers her accomplice, Faulkner. He does. She says she loves Faulkner like a brother, and he turned on her to save himself. She still can’t decide if when she sees him again she’d kill him herself or be ecstatic that in spite of everything they’ve been through the both of them are still alive. She can’t carry hate for other people around as well. She asks if Hayward believes in what he’s doing. They have a resource problem. He says he never thought fighting back would be easy, and Carpenter replies that it was never easy for her either. He does believe in what they’re doing. Carpenter tells him he’s doing something brave, but she can’t help but comment that Paige is unhappy. Hayward understands that the idea that must be killed is the idea that a god must feed. Carpenter jokes that Hayward still talks too much. Hayward asks if her pancake is good, it’s not. He asks if she’d help convince Paige that their next move is the right way forward. Carpenter asks why Paige won’t listen to Hayward. He tells her that’s because she believes there’s no hope for them. They both agree she’s not wrong to feel the way she does. They need an insider, who can speak the truth aloud. Shrue’s voice plays on the radio as he tells Carpenter they need a defector.

## References

1. ↑ Episode Release Announcement on Twitter
2. ↑ Official episode synopsis at https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5fec690f8211cf453a1b89e2