Age of Favor

The Age of Favor is Gatlin’s rule that members of its community must enter the corn at a prescribed age and be sacrificed. Initially, the limit is nineteen; after Isaac reports that He Who Walks Behind the Rows has rejected a sacrifice, the limit is lowered to eighteen. The rule turns age into a sentence enforced by the community’s religious authority, and its revision sends a new group of young people into the corn.

Definition and Religious Rationale

The name “Age of Favor” describes the age at which a person is expected to enter the corn, where the community believes sacrifice secures the continued favor of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Isaac presents the rule as part of a divine order: the corn has been given as a place of killing, and the community has been shown favor in return. His reported revelation links obedience, sacrifice, and the hope that the community will continue to prosper.

The doctrine gives the rule a cycle of its own. The community is told to be fruitful and multiply, while its members are also expected to enter the corn once they reach the required age. Fertility and sacrifice thus operate together in Gatlin’s understanding of communal survival: the next generation is produced, and the older generation is offered in turn.

The Original Threshold

The original limit is nineteen. Burt’s account of Gatlin’s history identifies Richard “Amos” Deigan as having turned nineteen on September 4, 1964, the date recorded in the town’s book. Burt suspects that Deigan was killed as a sacrifice in the corn. That history makes the age rule more than a general teaching: it connects a particular birthday and a named member of the community to the practice.

The rule continues to shape expectations years later. Burt points to Rachel Stigman, formerly Donna Stigman, who had turned nineteen about a month earlier, and Moses Richardson, who would turn nineteen in three days. By asking what will happen to Moses on his birthday, Burt draws attention to the rule’s immediate consequences for people still living in Gatlin. The age threshold is not merely part of an old account; it identifies who may be next.

Isaac’s Revelation and the Change to Eighteen

The change follows the deaths of Burt and Vicky. In the clearing, the children gather before the bodies and two crucified skeletons. Isaac, who is nine, has been the Seer since the corn took David a year earlier. David had been nineteen and had entered the corn on his birthday at dusk. Isaac’s authority therefore rests on his role as the child through whom the group receives visions, while David’s fate provides a prior example of the age rule in action.

Isaac says that he dreamed of the Lord as a shadow walking behind the rows, and that the Lord was displeased with the sacrifice. In the message he recounts, the Lord says that the recent death was not an acceptable offering and compares it to earlier cases involving the Blue Man and a minister who escaped. The revelation changes the rule: Isaac announces that the Age of Favor has been lowered from nineteen plantings and harvestings to eighteen. The community’s religious requirement is therefore presented as subject to revision when its authority declares a sacrifice unacceptable.

Enforcement and Consequences

The announcement immediately places Malachi and Joseph, the two eighteen-year-olds in the gathered group, under the new limit. About twenty others of that age are said to be back in town. Malachi, who had led the hunt for Japheth and killed him after he was cursed as Ahaz, answers that he obeys the word of God. His assent gives the revised rule the community’s compliance rather than leaving it as Isaac’s pronouncement alone.

That night, everyone now above the Age of Favor walks silently into the corn and goes to the clearing to seek the continued favor of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Malachi does not turn back when Ruth calls goodbye. Ruth, carrying Malachi’s child, watches him leave in tears. The rule thus separates a pregnant woman from the father of her child and extends the community’s sacrifice beyond the two men singled out at the announcement: all who have crossed the newly lowered threshold go into the corn.

Ritual Objects and the Rule’s Significance

The rule is part of a broader religious practice expressed through local preaching, scripture, and objects. Burt sees a church sermon board announcing the power and grace of He Who Walks Behind the Rows, dated July 24, 1976. In the church, a book bears a message that the iniquitous should be cut down so the ground can become fertile again. These details echo the belief that death and the fertility of the land belong to the same religious order, while also revealing how that order is taught and recorded in Gatlin.

After Isaac’s pronouncement, the girls make many corncob crucifixes to ward off further evil. Such objects do not cancel the Age of Favor: the community responds to perceived danger with protective tokens, then follows the revised rule by sending those above the threshold into the corn. Against that collective obedience, Ruth’s grief and secret hatred of the corn register a private refusal of the system’s terms. The rule’s decisive effect is therefore both institutional and personal: it organizes Gatlin’s understanding of religious duty, while repeatedly determining who must leave the living community and who is left behind.