Year of Wonders Reader's Response #11

The Body of the Mine
        Josiah Bont becomes greedy as a gravedigger, demanding a large pay and even digging graves before the dead are dead. After hearing that Josiah was digging up a grave on Christopher Unwin's property, Anna and Mr. Mompellion set off to stop him. Christopher Unwin is the last surviving son of his large family that had all been killed by the plague. Christopher himself had fallen ill, but he was seeming to recover from the plague, something that was extremely rare in the village. While Anna tended to Christopher, Mr. Mompellion argues and then physically fights Josiah.
        The next day, Christopher appears covered in mud and blood in front of the villagers. Josiah had tried to bury him alive. The whole town enraged, Josiah is forced to go to the Miner's Tavern (the village's only court system) to have a trial. When asked if anybody has a defense for him, Anna says nothing. He is taken to the Unwin mine and stabbed. The tradition is that the guilty is to be saved by their kin or otherwise left to die. Nobody saves Josiah Bont. Not even Aphra, although she has a good escuse. That night, the plague had taken all of her children but one. Aphra shows up to Anna's door three days later (for there was a storm) distraught. The two of them go to the Unwin mine where they find Josiah's corpse. Anna notes that Aphra does not make a cross for his grave, but instead a manikin. When Anna says "Amen" after she prayed over her father's grave, Aphra made a sign at the end of it that did not resemble to sign of the cross.