The search for Flora begins. Volunteers come out and search the woods in a grid. Lee finds Flora’s doll, dismembered and laid out neatly, with a pig’s head instead of the doll’s head. She is horrified, but at least it shows that Flora was there. She continues out with Shelby and Matt, and they discover the yang to the doll’s yin: a dismembered pig with a doll’s head. Beyond that is a farmhouse that seems abandoned. Inside, they find nothing but rotting food and plenty of insects. A growl-scream draws the trio out to the barn, where they find two filthy, feral, inbred children suckling a pig teat.
The cops are brought in, and the feral children are collected. The cops say the boys are part of the Polk clan. There is no sign of the elder Polks. The working theory is that they were occupying the land illegally and when they heard the police looking for them, they fled with the girl, leaving their own children to fend for themselves. Mason comes into the police station raging, and needs to be restrained from questioning the children. A social worker sits with the boys, and the only word they say is “Croatoan.”
After over three days of searching, Lee and her family finally take a break. They are exhausted and pushed to the edge. Back at the house, Mason is furious with Lee, and accuses her of hiding Flora and making this all a game so she could sneak off across the border with her. Mason threatens to take his theory to the police, and when Lee comes towards him, pleading for him not to, he pushes her. Realizing he has gone too far, Mason backs off and leaves.
In the middle of the night, Matt is woken by a phone call. He wakes Shelby and Lee, and they meet the police in the woods. They found a body. It has been burned beyond identification, but is definitely an adult, tied up to an enormous Blair Witch wooden effigy. A piece of jewelry was found within the remains. Lee identifies it as belonging to Mason.
In the morning, Matt and Shelby check their security cameras. They see Lee leaving the house 15 minutes after Mason does… and returning four hours later. Shelby wants to take this to the cops, and Lee comes in, furious and hurt. Matt insists they trust her but thinks maybe it is time they “listen to the house” and leave. A diminutive southern gentleman in a ridiculous wig enters the house, claiming he was called to help find Lee’s little girl. This man is Cricket and he claims to be a psychic. He was called to them by a spirit whispering in his ear. He has worked with the FBI in missing children cases across the country, with remarkable results. Matt and Shelby looked him up and found he was legit – at least as far as working with the FBI. Shelby believed he was a psychic; Matt thought he was a con artist. Lee was skeptical, but wanted to believe.
Cricket tours the house, and zeros in on the cubby beneath the stairs. “She was here,” he proclaims. Nothing groundbreaking – how could a kid NOT want to play under the stairs? But then he opens the door and finds the bonnet. Cricket declares Flora was taken by a girl named Priscilla, who died in the 1500s and had a fondness for corn husk dolls.
Cricket holds a seance, and calls for Priscilla. Instead, Kathy Bates shows up, only visible to Cricket, who identifies her as The Butcher. The woman splits the candle straight down the middle with a cleaver and proclaims that she protects this place, and will stop at nothing to protect this place. If she had Flora, she would have been dead long ago, but Priscilla hid her away. The Butcher disappears, the windows shatter, and Cricket cries out, “Croatoan!” The service over, Cricket proclaims that malevolent spirits have Flora, but Cricket can take Lee to her – for a nominal fee of $25,000. Everyone is furious, especially Matt, who feels his suspicions about Cricket have been proven true. Cricket defends his fee (“Even the FBI pays!”) and Lee pulls a gun on him. Matt diffuses the situation and kicks Cricket out of the house. On his way out, he whispers something to Lee that shook her up.
The producer asks Lee what was said, and Lee pretends she doesn’t remember. When the producer mentions Emily, Lee goes bonkers. Eventually, she calms down and explains that, when she was 17 years old, she had Emily. Emily was four years old when Lee decided to leave her in the car for just a few minutes while she ran into the store. By the time she got back to the car, Emily was gone and she never saw her again.
Back to the real story. The next day, Lee visits Cricket and pays up. After he was asked to leave the house, he walked around the woods and was blasted with spirits. He tells Lee the story of the Roanoke Colony, the lost colony that everyone in North Carolina is familiar with – mostly as a ghost story told around a camp fire. One of the first group of European settlers in the late 1500s, the entire settlement, over 100 people, vanished as if overnight. Lee is doubtful; after all, the site of the Roanoke Colony is a hundred miles from where they are. Cricket tells her she doesn’t know the whole story.
The Butcher is a woman named Thomasin White. Her husband, John, was the governor of the Roanoke Colony. Things were getting bleak, and John decided to go back to England for more supplies, leaving his wife in charge. The people of the colony were not happy to be “ruled” by her. Food was running scarce and the colonists blamed Thomasin for that. They wanted to pack up, move inland, and install a new leader. Thomasin refused. As she slept, several men – her son Ambrose included – abduct her and put her in a Mask of Infamy, an enormous iron headpiece with spikes. The mask is not itself lethal, but it is nearly impossible to eat with it on. The abductors plan to travel inland and will exile Thomasin from their group. The leader of the mutineers asks Ambrose to pledge his fealty. He hesitates, so the mutineer holds a cleaver to the young man’s throat. Ambrose takes the proffered padlock and gives his mother one last chance to reconsider. She refuses, so he locks her mask on.
Thomasin was abandoned in the forest for days, dying of dehydration and hunger. She hears a horrible grunting noise and runs. Suddenly, an evil wood nymph (played by a decidedly unglamorous Lady Gaga) offers Thomasin a beating heart. “Eat. Surrender your soul to me.” Thomasin’s mask falls away, and she eats the beating heart.
While the colonists are discussing their plan to move inland, Thomasin surprises them with a meat cleaver to the head of the mutineer. Another one starts to speak, and Thomasin slashes his throat. She next goes to Ambrose, who kneels before her and begs for mercy. She doesn’t kill him, purely because he is her son, but does warn him not to defy her again. She proclaims that the colony will move inland. And that place they settled was the Millers’ new property. Thomasin, The Butcher, has claimed dominion and will kill anyone who moves onto her land.
That night, Cricket takes Shelby, Matt, and Lee into the woods. Holding her bonnet, he calls to Priscilla. Instead he sees The Butcher and her “muscle;” the others do not see them. Cricket tries to negotiate with The Butcher, and suggests that if she brings them Flora, they will ensure no human ever trespasses on “her land.” Cricket promises they will burn the house down. Shelby is pissed, but Lee insists Matt agreed to the stipulation. Shelby is furious, but when she looks around, Matt is gone. She goes off looking for him, while Cricket finishes up with The Butcher. He promises Lee that The Butcher agreed to the terms.
Matt maintains that he has no memory of slipping away, or what Shelby saw when she found him. Shelby first finds a slaughtered pig. Then she sees the two Polk brothers, jerking off to Matt fucking demon Gaga from behind.
Shelby goes back to the house on her own. When Matt finds her, she seems more furious that he promised to burn down their home than the fact that Matt was cheating on her with an otherworldly creature. Matt insists he has no idea what she is talking about, but then the cops show up and arrest Lee. Matt asks Shelby what she did. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Check out the preview for next week’s episode!
