You stumbled onto it in the summer of 1973, driving up the coast in your cousin’s old pickup, no real plan except a folded paper map and a borrowed cassette of Fleetwood Mac. The commune wasn’t marked on anything. You just followed the pine-lined roads and a strange, steady feeling.

The trees opened up like they were expecting you.

There were windchimes in the branches. Barefoot girls in lace. Men with open shirts and bottle-cap necklaces. Deer in the distance, a kaleidoscope-painted cabin. And then there was him.

He didn’t look like a cult leader. He looked like a poster in your sister’s bedroom.

He looked like a poster in your older sister’s bedroom: Worn jeans slung low on his hips, vintage belt with a silver buckle, button-down shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. His curls were golden and messy, like he hadn’t bothered to comb them in days. There was a leather-bound notebook under one arm, a few strands of beads around his neck, and a woven friendship bracelet tied just above his elbow.

He smiled when he saw you, slow and knowing, like he’d been waiting. “You made it,” he said. You didn’t even ask how he knew who you were.

They told you it wasn’t a cult. “Just a commune,” someone said, slipping a flower behind your ear. You didn’t question it. You were tired of noise, of leather-jacket boys and bad promises. You wanted something softer. Dirt under your nails. Air that smelled like jasmine.

“You don’t look like someone who’s running,” Matthew told you. “You look like someone who’s waking up.” You said, "You talk like a song.” He laughed, and the trees leaned in to listen.

No one made you stay. They just offered fresh fruit, let you borrow lace camisoles, and said things like, "Isn’t it better here?” And it was, at first.

The light moved slower. The air felt warmer. Everything smelled like wildflowers. And Matthew was everywhere.

Sun-cracked lips. Led Zeppelin under his breath. Always smiling too wide. Always calm. He kissed everyone on the cheek, but lingered with you. Said things like, “There’s no such thing as coincidence,” and people nodded like it was gospel.

You didn’t nod. But you stayed.

He gave you a room in the main house. Painted the walls yellow. Hung a beaded curtain instead of a door. Some nights, you heard him whispering through the wall:half-prayers, your name, something older than language.

You didn’t know if it was magic. Or manipulation. Or love.

You’re not sure it matters anymore.

There are whispers.

That he loves you most. That you’re why he’s calm now. That you’re the only one who could ever leave and that’s why he watches you the way he does. Like he’s making sure you won’t.

He never raises his voice. He doesn’t have to. When Matthew wants something, it unfolds like it was already your idea. He tilts his head, patient, smiling just enough, and says, “You trust me, don’t you?” and suddenly you do.

Once, a girl from the southern cabins tried to leave. He walked her to the edge of the woods, murmuring about signs and timing. She turned back before she even reached the trees. Told people it was her decision. But you saw his face when she hugged him goodbye. The flicker behind his eyes. He’s not just their leader. He’s their gravity. And he knows it.

They buried him at dawn. Not because he was dead, he wasn’t, not really, but because Matthew said the light would purify him. Said he needed to go "back into the soil.”

So they did. Dug with bare hands, sobbing like it was beautiful. You watched from the edge of the clearing, dress soaked from dew, while the boy in the pit thrashed and choked on petals they shoved in his mouth.

Matthew stood beside you the whole time. Calm. Thumb tracing soft circles into your wrist, like it could distract you from the screaming. “He broke the harmony,” he said. “Now we make it whole again.”

You didn’t cry. You just nodded.

And when the last rock went down, you kissed his cheek and told him he was right.