Year of the Deaths

The Year of the Deaths, also known as Year 9, marks the first year in which The Tribe's population declined from its beginning to its end. Three children died after an unexplained illness, and the two births that year could not offset the losses. The name records a reversal in the community's growth: life continued, but the year's defining fact was that children had died.

Place in the Tribe's Calendar

The year belongs to The Tribe's post-disaster calendar, in which a year could be remembered and named for an event or shared experience. Its name was not based on a battle or a distant public crisis, but on deaths within the community. The contrast with the following year is telling: Year 10 had no event that initially seemed worth naming, until the children proposed the Year of the Fishing, recalling the abundant striped bass in the Bay and the pleasure of catching them. One year was defined by loss; the next, by a shared activity that provided both food and enjoyment.

The Illness and Its Uncertain Cause

In autumn, three children developed severe diarrhoea and died. No one knew exactly what had happened. The adults suspected that the children might have been playing in a nearby uninhabited house, where they could have found ant poison. The proposed explanation was that they tasted the sweet substance and shared it, but the cause remained uncertain. The account presents the abandoned house as a place where remnants of the old world could still threaten people who had no reason to recognize the danger.

Family Loss

One of the dead children was Ish's son. Ish had worried more about how Em would bear such a loss than about his own response, but he found that he had underestimated her resilience. Em mourned her child while also accepting death as part of life. Molly and Jean, the other bereaved mothers, grieved more openly and were more deeply stricken. The different responses do not lessen the loss; they show how the same deaths were experienced within several families at once.

Population and Significance

Two children were born during the year, yet The Tribe's total population was smaller at year's end than at its beginning. This was the first such decline, making the deaths significant beyond the families directly affected. Earlier, the community's births had seemed to push back the threat of dwindling numbers; the Year of the Deaths showed that births could not guarantee continued growth. Its name preserves that fragile arithmetic alongside the intimate grief, while the suspected poison points to a new kind of danger: even after civilization had disappeared, its abandoned materials could still endanger the living.