Glittering bony branches hulk and sway above me. My breath hangs heavy in the air. Propping myself up to get a look at my surroundings, I flinch as the harsh wind hits my chin. I touch it—the sticky clotting of blood, the dirt caked beneath my nails, stinging the cut.
“Last night really happened,” I whisper.
Peering through the gap in the fence where the blade came through, I can’t believe I thought he wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t hear the breathing anymore, but I’m not going to get close enough to be certain. Father said that was one of my best traits: I didn’t need to learn a lesson twice. Maybe the poacher assumed I was dead and moved on. The idea of him watching me while I lay there unconscious, bleeding, makes me sick to my stomach.
Staring into the dense forest, separating me from the camp, I know what I have to do. Ghosts or not, I won’t last another day without water. Even thinking about it makes my tongue ache. The animals must be drinking from somewhere.
As I get to my feet, the dizziness sets back in. I have to lean over and brace my hands against my knees to get the world to stop spinning. I’m thinking I need to throw up, but I only dry-heave a few times. There’s nothing in there. Not even spit.
Holding on to a sapling for balance, I take my first step back into the woods. The wind rustles through the high branches, making me shiver. Even the sound of the ground cover crunching beneath my boots feels sinister.
I used to love the woods. I’d spend every moment of my free time exploring the depths of hidden treasures, but this is different.
A bird lets out a shriek of warning. And I can’t help wondering if the warning is for the other birds or for me.
“I am my father’s daughter,” I whisper, straightening my spine. I believe in medicine. In facts. In truths. I will not get caught up in superstition. Maybe the ghosts are something you have to believe in for them to hurt you. I need to think that way, because right now my nerves are dangling by a thread.
I have no idea where I am, how far I got from the camp last night, but as I look up to get my bearings, the sky is no help. It looks like it’s been smeared with river clay—a drab, endless swath of pewter. Back home, I hardly thought about the sun, but out here, it’s everything.
When it briefly pops out, I rush to a spot where it’s beaming down, longing to feel it on my skin, but by the time I reach it, it’s gone. It feels personal now, like Eve is toying with me.
As I crawl over a large cluster of limestone to try to catch another beam of light, I spot a patch of bright green algae clinging to the edge of a small pool of water. Just the sight of it makes my throat burn with thirst. How long has it been since I’ve had something to drink? Hours … days … I can’t recall. But as I move toward it, I catch something. A swish of a tail. There’s a creature hunched beside the pond. It raises its head—two beady black eyes glare back at me. I recognize the perky ears, the pointed nose, the copper coloring of its fur—but there’s something wrong. Blinking hard, I see a fox, but it looks as if someone’s painted a bright red smiley face over its mouth and whiskers. I’ve heard the rumors that the animals are mad in the woods, but when I look closer, I see the small rabbit splayed open at its feet. Blood oozes into the stagnant pool like a pot of ink tipped over in the rain.
My stomach lurches. My head feels so light, like it could float off my body at any moment. Pressing my face against the cool mossy stone, I try to get hold of myself. “You’re okay. It will pass.” I think about waiting for the fox to leave, drinking the bloody water, but as a breeze passes over me, I follow it up a steep incline, and remember my mother telling me that water
is best when collected high on the spring. And that water had to come from somewhere.
Following the faint trickling sound, I use the holly bushes to guide me up the wooded hill, but every time I grab them, the points prick my fingers. My feet are unsteady. My vision blurs to the point that I have to stop every few yards to gain my composure, but when I finally reach the top, I’m met with the most welcome sight—water gushing through the limestone, forming a small deep pool. The water looks crystal clear, no sign of the algae … or blood … but I need to be careful. It’s hard to know what’s real anymore. Crawling toward the surface, I lean over, sinking my hands into the frigid water, scooping it into my mouth. Most of it dribbles down my chin, soaking my dress, but I don’t care. It tastes clean—nothing like the water from the well.
As I go in for another drink, I see something twitch at the bottom of the pool. Clinging between two large rocks, there’s a cluster of dark shells that look like rolled-up shoe leather. Mollusks of some kind.
I know I could catch my death going in after them, but I might very well die from hunger if I don’t. Stripping off my clothes, I try to ease into the water at first, but every inch feels like I’m being skinned alive. Letting out three short pants, I plunge my entire body under the water. The shock seems to revive me a bit, making me move a little quicker. I pry two of them loose, but there’s one that’s really rooted in there. As I come up for air, I place the two shells on the edge and hop out to grab a jagged rock. The air feels so nice and warm that I don’t want to go back under again, but I need as much food as I can get.
Diving back under the surface, I’m digging the rock into the crevice, trying to pry the third one free, when I think of a time my father took me to the big river. I was so keen on catching my first fish. First line in, I caught a beautiful rainbow trout. It fought so hard that it took all my strength to reel it in. Even when I got it to the shore, it flipped its body all over the place, thrashing its head from side to side, and when I went to hit it with a stick, my father unhooked it and threw it back in. “You have to respect something that wants to live that bad,” he said. I remember being furious at him, but I understand it now.
This little one isn’t ready to give in. And neither am I.
Pushing back to the surface, I pull myself out of the spring, grab my clothes, and immediately start working on the two shells I harvested, but I’m shivering so hard I can barely hold on to the rock. “Breathe, Tierney,” I whisper.
Pulling up the hood of my cloak, I sink into a tight ball, blowing hot air into the gap until the feeling comes back in my fingers.
Trying it once again, with steady hands, I use the rock to gently pry open the shell. The cream-colored flesh, the pinks and blues and grays lining the inside of the shell—I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s some kind of mussel or clam. I poke it and it flinches. At home, we’d slurp these down as quickly as possible so we wouldn’t have to taste them, but I want to taste it. I want to taste anything other than bile. I only hope I can keep it down. Carefully separating the mussel from the shell, I take it in. I chew every bit of it, savoring it all the way to the very last drop of murky liquid. I wanted to save the other one for later, but I can’t wait. Prying it open, I suck the mussel into my mouth, and immediately bite down on something hard. I’m thinking it’s just a piece of shell that broke off, but as I spit it out into my hand, I realize it’s a river clam pearl, just like the ones from my veiling day dress. Turning it over in my hand, I study every facet, every hint of iridescent color, every dent and rise. These are rare. And now I have two. I put it in my pocket, nestling it with the one June gave me. Maybe when I get home I can give these to Clara and Penny. And I realize that’s the first time in months I’ve even thought about going home—about getting out of here alive.
A light brushing sound grabs my attention. It’s too soft to be leaves.
There’s something about it that reminds me of home.
Climbing to the top of the ridge, above the spring, I find a wide plateau, covered in the shriveled remains of weeds, a tiny pop of color on the right side.
As I walk toward it, I’m trying not to get too carried away, but what if it’s the flower from my dream?
Getting on my hands and knees, I see it’s not the flower but the frayed end of a red ribbon. A surge of excitement rushes through me. If other grace
year girls were here … if they survived the wood … then so can I.
I tug on the strand, but it seems to be stuck on something. As I adjust my body so I can pull it up with a little more force, I feel something crunch beneath my knee. It’s an unnatural sound, like a broken piece of china. Pushing away the dead weeds and clumps of dirt, I find something solid. I’m trying to figure out what it is when my thumb jams through a hole in the rock.
Only it’s not a hole … and this isn’t a rock. It’s a human skull with molars still attached.
The red ribbon garroted around the neck bones.
My stomach tightens into a hard knot. Dropping the skull to the ground, I frantically try to cover it back up with dirt, but all I can think about is the girls who went into the woods and never came back.
Maybe the ghost stories are true.
Wanting to put as much distance as I can between myself and whatever dark truth lies at the top of the ridge, I careen down the hill and immediately lose my footing, rolling the rest of the way down, bashing into a rotting tree stump. I’m lying on my back, staring up at the vast sky. There’s a part of me that wonders if I’m already dead. If those are my bones. Maybe a hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye and I’m nothing but a shadow now. But as my vision slowly comes back into focus, so does the pain. Being dead shouldn’t hurt this much. Using a tangle of exposed roots, I pull myself up. It takes a few minutes for my brain to catch up with my body, but I don’t have time to give in to whatever this is. The sun is beginning to wane.
The smell of oats burning in a cast-iron skillet draws me back toward the camp. I try to mark my path the best I can so I can find my way back to the spring, if need be. Settling in an evergreen near the perimeter, I watch them in the clearing, laughing, carrying on—as if they don’t have a care in the world. They’re happy I’m gone. I don’t know if it’s jealousy talking or my imagination gone askew, but there’s something about them that reminds me of the trappers coming back from the outskirts, hopped up on hemlock silt, reeking of mischief. It’s hard to believe that just a few days ago, I was one of them. It feels like a world away.
Gertrude walks across the clearing, the back of her head glistening in the dying light. I’m leaning forward to see if I can somehow get her attention,
tell her I’m all right, when one of the branches snaps beneath me. It gets Gertie’s attention, but unfortunately, it gets Kiersten’s, as well.
I’m balancing my weight, trying not to make another sound, as the girls gravitate to the edge of the clearing.
“It’s a ghost,” Jenna whispers.
“Maybe it’s Tierney,” Helen says, nuzzling Dovey under her chin. “Looking for revenge.”
“She wouldn’t dare come back here, dead or alive,” Kiersten says, narrowing her eyes. “There’s a lot more I can cut off of Gertie if she decides to test me.”
And I swear she’s staring right at me, like she’s whispering directly in my ear.
Jumping down, I back away from the tree … from Kiersten’s eyes, and retreat into the woods.
Like a ghost, I walk through the night.
I don’t know where I am … where I’m going, but I’m not lost, because there’s no one looking for me. Nowhere to go. I thought being with the girls at the camp, watching them slowly slip into madness, was the loneliest I could ever feel.
I was wrong.
I spend my days memorizing the woods, cutting new paths, looking for food, and in the evenings, I batten down wherever I can, under a fallen log, a rain-whipped hollow in a rock, but I never stay in the same place twice. The abundance of animal tracks lets me know I’m not alone in here, and by the size of the prints, I can tell there are much more frightening things in here than ghosts.
The only upside is that being away from the camp seems to have given me some clarity. I still get dizzy from time to time, but I don’t feel as unhinged, as if the earth might open up and swallow me whole. Maybe just being around each other is what’s making the sickness spread. A poison of the mind.
Other than a lucked-upon scavenged root, or the occasional acorn a squirrel gave up on, I haven’t eaten in weeks. My stomach doesn’t growl anymore. It doesn’t even hurt. When I take in a deep breath, I imagine the air filling me up, sustaining me. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it seems to be enough.
Occasionally, I get a whiff of chicory water or fatty meat roasting over an open flame, but I know the girls don’t have anything like that in the camp. Even if they did, they’re not in the right frame of mind to pull off a meal like that.
I follow the scent all the way to the fence. There’s a part of me that wants to claw my way over the barrier to get to it, but maybe that’s how they’ll lure me out. Or maybe it’s my mind playing tricks on me.
Father had a patient a few years ago who insisted he smelled dandelion greens in the dead of winter. That was right before something exploded inside his head and he bled out.
“No.” I give my braid a hard tug. I need to stay focused—steer clear of the fence. I don’t care that the girl from my dreams led me here.
I know enough from eavesdropping on the fur trappers returning from the wilds to understand that the real enemy out here isn’t the wildlife or even the elements, it’s your own mind. I always thought of myself as such a solitary creature—oh, how I longed to be alone—but I didn’t realize until I got out here how much of that is false. Something I told myself to feel strong … better than the rest. I spent most of my life watching people, judging them, sorting them into some category or another, because it kept the focus off myself. I wonder what I’d see if I came across Tierney James today. And now I’m talking about myself in the third person.
I try to stay busy, but it’s harder than one might think. When I feel myself drifting to that shadowy realm behind my mind’s eye, that place of doubt and blame, guilt and remorse, I pull myself back with little tasks. I weave a rope so I can pull myself up the incline easier. I remember Michael and I doing that a few summers back so we could reach the bluff over Turtle Pond. I’ll never forget that feeling, leaping off the ridge into nothing but air, hitting the cool water with a tremendous splash.
Thinking about him hurts. I’m not pining after him like some veil- hungry schoolgirl. It hurts to think about how wrong I was about his feelings for me. It makes me wonder if I’ve been wrong about other things, too. Important things.
Taking shelter from the wind behind a giant oak, I press my body against the bark. At first, it feels grounding, something to remind me that I’m still a human being, but my thoughts eventually turn into wondering if I’ll be petrified here, if I’ll become one with the tree. A hundred years from now people will pass by, and a girl will tug on her father’s sleeve. “Do you see the girl in the tree?” she’ll ask. And he’ll pat her on her head. “You have a grand imagination.” Maybe if she looks closely, she’ll be able to see me blink. If she places her palm against the bark, she’ll be able to feel my heart still beating.
On clear mornings, I climb past the spring, all the way to the ridge. Every day it gets a little harder, but it’s worth it. Through a sea of barren branches, I get a glimpse of the entire island, encircled by a crust of ice, which slowly gives way to the deepest blue water I’ve ever seen.
If I didn’t know what this place was, the horror of what goes on here, I’d say it’s breathtaking.
But the bones are a constant reminder.
Whether it’s the girl from my dreams or a nameless faceless girl from the county, she’s always here to remind me of what could happen if I slip up. If I let my guard down.
However she met her end, I hope she had time to make her peace. Father once treated a trapper from the wilds with a hatchet lodged in his skull, his body convulsing with the slightest movement. My father gave him a choice. Pull it out and hemorrhage quickly or leave it in and die a slow death. The trapper chose the latter. I remember thinking it was the coward’s choice, but now I’m not so sure. There’s no such thing as a gentle death, so why give it a helping hand? He fought hard for his very last breath. Running my hand over the dirt, I want to believe she did the same. Maybe she crawled all the way from the camp, to the highest point on the island for refuge. Dying with a view like this wouldn’t be the worst way to go.
But the darkest part of me can’t help but wonder if her own kind did this to her. If that’s what will happen to me.
Today, there’s a large plume of smoke rising from the girls’ camp. Clearly, they’re using green wood. A number of other small wisps of smoke can be seen wafting up from the shore in every direction, which leads me to believe the poachers must have camps of their own. They appear to be stationed around the island in perfect intervals. It tells me they’re organized. Methodical. I still haven’t figured out how they get to us, how they break us down to poach us, but I’m doing my best to keep my wits about me.
I’d like to stay up on the ridge forever, but I tire easily now. Even standing up to the wind blowing against me feels like work. Sometimes I feel like it might pick me up and carry me off to another land. But that’s magical thinking. There’s nothing magical about starving and freezing to death.
As I climb down the ridge to start another mind-numbing day of foraging for roots, I see a large rodent pop up from the spring with the last river clam perched between his teeth.
“Muskrat,” I hiss.
As he takes off down the hill, I go barreling after him. I’m chasing him through the forest, past a huge grove of pines, all the way to the barrier, where he stops. I’m thinking I have him trapped when he turns and burrows his way under the fence. I lunge for him, reaching my hand all the way through the hole, but it’s too late.
Resting my cheek on the ground, I start to weep. I know it’s pathetic, but it felt like as long as that river clam survived, so could I. But the truth is, I’m running out of time. Out of resources.
I’m staring at the hole in the bottom of the fence, trying to think about what the hell I’m going to do, when it strikes me: the fence—Hans.
On our way to the encampment, Hans told me that he was in charge of maintaining the barrier, that he wanted to be close by. If the fence is reported as being damaged, he’ll have to come and fix it. I know it’s against the law to fraternize with the guards, but Hans is my friend. He’s always protected me in the county as much as he could. If he threw my pack over the fence when we first got here, maybe he’d be willing to bring me food— even a blanket, just so I could get back on my feet.
But no one’s ever going to notice a muskrat-sized hole this far from the gate. Checking out the wood, I see the enormous cedar log is rotting out. When I pick at it, chunks come off easily in my hand. But I don’t have the time or energy to pick away at it for days. Using the heel of my boot, I kick at the soft wood until there’s a hole big enough to pass a kettle through— surely something even the dumbest poacher would notice and report.
And so I sit.
And I wait.
It seems far-fetched, at best. But I’m desperate.
A vicious wind races through the gap in the fence; I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders. I can’t believe I used to love this time of year
—all bundled up in woolen cocoons, to the point where no one could discern one child from the next. Not the women. After their grace year, their
faces needed to be free and clear to make sure they weren’t hiding their magic. The wives scarcely went outdoors during those months. But come spring, when they emerged, it was like watching butterflies shake free of their chrysalis. Little things, like taking the long way to the market. Moving to a different side of the lane just to catch a beam of sunlight.
Occasionally, I’d see one of them slip off her shoe, placing an unstockinged toe into the freshly sprung grass. A hint of wild decadence, a secret place within her heart that could never truly be tamed.
Lying down on a nest of gathered leaves and bark, I stare through the hole in the fence, memorizing every divot, every crack, every splinter in the rotten wood, and I can’t help wondering if that’s what my insides look like now, or if there’s nothing left inside of me but a hollow space.
Turning my focus to the vast sky above, I let my mind wander over the land. There are times when it feels unfathomable that life is continuing elsewhere. The poachers are living their lives, the grace year girls are living theirs, my parents, my sisters, Michael—for everyone else, time is moving forward, but all I have is this. It feels as if I’m slowly losing touch with reality, with time, with even being a human. Everything’s boiled down to the bare necessity. Eat. Evacuate. Sweat. Shiver. Sleep. This is what it means to exist. All those years at home, I was biding my time, waiting for my real life to begin, but that was my real life, as good as it would ever get, and I didn’t even know it.
It’s so cold, I can see my breath hovering around me. If I close my eyes I can smell the colors green and yellow, feel the sunshine on my skin, but when I open them all I see is gray and brown, the scent of death filling my nostrils, maybe my own. A slow deterioration of body and spirit.
I thought I only closed my eyes for a moment, but it must’ve been longer. A few hours, or maybe it’s been days, but dark is on its way.
With just enough light to gather some wood that might be dry enough to catch, I scoop up a handful of leaves, making a small nest. Using my flint, I hover over it—spark after spark after spark until it finally ignites.
Gathering the nest in my hands, I gently blow. It makes me think of Michael, when we were kids, blowing on dandelions, making wishes.
I always wished for a truthful life. I never asked him what he wished for
—I wonder if he wished for me.
At the unveiling ceremony, he said, You don’t have to change for me. But that’s not entirely true. In that moment, I became his property. A slower death for me than anything I’d face out here. As much as he thinks he loves me—his allegiance to his family, his faith, his s*x will always prevail. I saw a flash of that when we got in an argument on veiling day. He can tell himself he’s only trying to protect me, but there will always be something in him that wants to contain me, hide me from the world.
The nursery rhyme that Ami was singing lilts through the trees. Without thinking, I sing along with her.
Eve with the golden hair, sits on high in her rocking chair,
The wind doth blow, the night unfurls, weeping for all the men she’s cursed.
Girls beware, if you don’t behave, you’ll be sent to an early grave.
I’m not sure how long I sit there, staring into the flames, singing her song, but the fire’s dwindled to embers now, and mine is the only voice in the forest. Maybe she was never singing at all. And then I remember that Ami is dead.
Curling up into a tight ball next to the fire, I carefully tuck in my cloak around me. Once I’m satisfied that every gap has been tended to, I settle in. The trick is to lie perfectly still. One wrong move and the cold air will invade my space like a brutal army. And once the chill sets in, it’ll be nearly impossible to shake.
I’m lying there shivering, praying for sleep, when I hear something enter my campsite. At first I think it might be the ghost, the girl buried on the ridge, but the footsteps are too heavy, the deep huffing of air too loud, the scent too foul. This is something entirely corporal. Animal.
I think about running, but I’m too tired to move, too weak to fight anything off, and if I leave this fire, if I leave my meager cocoon, I might
very well freeze to death anyway. Instead, I lie perfectly still, staring into the embers, willing whatever it is to pass me by, but it only comes closer, so close that I can feel it hovering over me. It nudges my spine. My mind is telling me to flee, but I force my body to stay limp. Play dead. That’s my only defense right now, which honestly isn’t that far from the truth.
The animal lets out a horrifying groan; a long strand of drool drips onto my cheek. I know that sound. I know that smell. Bear. I have to clench my jaw to stop myself from screaming. It’s nudging me with its snout, pawing at my side. The sound of its claws ripping through the wool of my cloak makes me feel faint. I’m thinking this is it, how I’ll meet my end, when I hear something drop on the forest floor a few feet away. The bear must’ve heard it, too, because it decides to stop mauling me long enough to investigate. I hear gnashing teeth, followed by another thud, this time a little further away. And then another thud, even further. With every step it takes away from me, I breathe a little easier, and when I hear it reach the ravine, on the other side of the pines, I know it somehow decided to move on. Wanting to wipe the rancid drool from my face, I reach out to grab a leaf, and my hand brushes against something warm and wet. Picking up one of the burning logs, I hold it close, squinting into the void to find the fatty remains of a mangled piece of fresh meat. Without even thinking, I shove it in my mouth. I’m gagging and chewing at the same time, disgusted and grateful for this tiny miracle. Looking up at the trees, I’m wondering where it could’ve possibly dropped from, and that’s when I hear it. There’s someone on the other side of the fence.
Crawling forward, I whisper through the hole in the wood, “Hans, is that
you?”
But the only reply is his retreating footsteps.
At the first hint of cold gray dawn, I brace my hands on the frozen ground to get up, then notice small flecks strewn all around me.
At first I think it might be snow—the air has felt that way for days—but it’s the wrong shape, the wrong color: cream with specks of light red. I poke it with my boot; it rolls over. A bean. I’m sure of it. When I lean forward to pick it up, more beans fall to the ground.
Where did these come from? I’m thinking Hans might’ve thrown these in along with the meat, but when I stand, I see another one fall from my cloak.
Slipping my fingers inside the clawed edges of wool, I feel a series of small hard bumps. Carefully opening the stitches of the hem, I peel back the soft gray, revealing an intricate maze of seeds that have been sewn into each layer of the lining. Hundreds of them.
Pumpkin, tomato, celery, and a few I don’t even recognize.
“June,” I whisper, the realization taking the breath from my body. She must’ve worked on this for months, but how did she know I would need these? Unless what’s happening to me happened to her. Clamping my hand over my mouth, I try to stifle a sobbing gasp, but it can’t be stopped. Tears are streaming down my cheeks, and all I can think about is how much I want to see her again. How much I want to see all of them—my mother and father. Clara and Penny, Ivy … even Michael. I want to thank them, say I’m sorry, but in order to do that, I need to survive this.
For weeks, I’ve felt like I’ve been moving under thick water, but not today, not in this moment. Despite the gloomy weather, the cold nipping at my flesh, the emptiness festering inside of me, I have a spring in my step. A newfound bit of hope, one that I’ve been carrying with me all this time.
Climbing the incline, I pass the spring, the bones of the girl, and fight my way to the highest ridge. I remember June said she sewed in different layers of lining for each new season, but I’m just going to plant them all. I may not even make it to the next season.
I know next to nothing about gardening, just the little bits I’ve picked up from June’s stories, but I seem to remember a little nursery song she taught Clara and Penny. I even remember the hand motions that go with it. I feel silly for doing it, but it brings an unexpected smile to my face. “Dig, drop, cover, pat … water, sun, grow, eat.” I raise my head to the sky, willing the sun to come out, to give me a sign, when something falls in my eye. My skin prickles up in a fresh wave of goosebumps. “Snow,” I whisper, my heart sinking in my chest.
At home, I would be ecstatic for the first snow. Michael and I would spend the whole day planning our snow kingdom, stuffing handfuls down each other’s backside, wandering home at dusk with numb fingers, eyelashes caked with glittering ice. I’d thaw by the hearth, sipping mulled cider, peeling off one layer at a time, with the sound of my mother taking out her frustration on her knitting needles, the crinkle of Father’s paper, the serene voices of Clara and Penny taking turns reading a chapter from a book.
Blinking hard, I try to erase the memories from my brain, but I’m too weak to stop them anymore. I need this garden to work.
Wiping away my tears, I frantically dig my fingers into the soil, but the ground is nearly frozen solid. Any sane person would wait until spring, but I don’t have that luxury.
Using sharp rocks and sticks, I burn through the daylight, I burn through every last bit of my energy, tilling that soil, until I can no longer feel my hands. And as the sun begins to set, the cold air settles deep into my marrow, threatening to freeze me in place. A part of me wants to curl up,
close my eyes, but I know I’ll never be able to get up again. I’ll die on this ridge, and as weak and tired as I am, I’m not ready to give up yet.
With bloody, battered fingers, I place each seed into the soil and cover it with the freezing earth. I say a silent prayer for each one of them. I know it’s against the law for women to pray in silence, but I’m the only God here. With the last seed in place, I take a look around to see the snow has blanketed the forest around me, like it’s hiding me from the world, tucking
me in for a long forgotten nightmare.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I whisper.
The clouds let out a deep groan, as if in response; goosebumps erupt over my entire body.
Thunder snow.
“It’s just a coincidence. That’s all,” I say as I gather my things, but before I can descend the incline, another burst of thunder shakes the very ground beneath me.
Eve will not be denied.
The storm bears down on the island like a heavy omen.
I know I should find shelter until it passes, I’ve heard about storms like these from the trappers, but if this garden doesn’t make it, neither will I.
Flipping up the hood of my cloak, I brace myself as I push against the ice, wind, and snow. It’s hard to see the next step in front of me, let alone where the rows are so I can step between them.
A crack of lightning pierces the air, striking the ground in front of me. All my hair is standing on end, but I’m okay, I’m thinking the garden is okay, when the earth lets out a terrifying groan and the ground begins to shift. I’m rushing around the ridge, digging my freezing hands into the dirt, manically trying to push the soil back together, but it’s disintegrating beneath me. Scrabbling upward, I manage to hold on to some vines as half of the ridge breaks off, thundering to the bottom of the ravine.
As I look down at the seeds, floating away down the eroding bank, I start to weep. That was everything I had. My last chance. And all I can do is watch it wash away, slip right through my fingers. Pulling myself back onto the ledge, I look up to the sky and I scream, “What did I do to deserve this?”
A burst of thunder seems to answer back, louder than lions, and I can feel her power, her ire, and it makes me angry—somehow I feel betrayed by her, but there were no promises made, no secret pacts to be broken. No one told me that this would be fair, that this would be easy. I can’t help feeling that maybe I’m not meant to be here. Maybe I’m not meant to survive this. I
scream as long and hard as I can, raging against everything that brought me here, and when I collapse into the frozen mud, a scream echoes back to me, a scream that isn’t my own.
At first I think it might be a trapped animal, the final cry of a dying elk, but when it happens again, I know it’s human. A blood-curdling scream, and it’s coming from the direction of the camp.
“Gertrude,” I whisper.
Abandoning the ruined garden, I run through the woods. I know the way by heart now, every fallen log, every wicked branch.
As I get closer, the screaming grows, but there’s also laughing and singing. I break into the clearing to find girls spinning in circles, covering themselves in mud and snow. One of the girls is standing on top of the privy, waving her hands around, as if she’s orchestrating the entire thing.
“Have you seen my veil?” A girl stumbles toward me, soaked to the bone, ice clinging to her dark lashes. It’s Molly. I want to tell her she doesn’t have a veil, but she’s already wandered off in a daze.
I can’t tell if they’ve gotten worse or I’ve just gotten better, but this is pure insanity.
Kiersten grabs Tamara’s hand, pulling her into the center of the clearing. They’re dancing wildly, spinning faster and faster, laughing and shrieking into the inky darkness, when a flash of lightning needles through the sky, striking the earth before them. I can smell the electricity in the air, but it’s more than that. I smell burning hair and searing flesh. Tamara is on the ground, her body convulsing in a shallow puddle.
Helen staggers forward to get a closer look and then covers her mouth. It’s hard to tell if she’s laughing or crying—maybe she doesn’t even know which.
Another flash of lightning beats down, making everyone duck for cover, everyone except Kiersten, who’s grabbing Tamara’s twitching arms, dragging her toward the fence. “Open the gate,” Kiersten yells.
“Wait … what are you doing?” I run into the clearing, but Kiersten shoves me out of the way.
“I’m doing her a mercy,” Kiersten says.
Tamara’s eyes lock in on mine. She still can’t speak, but I see the terror. “You can’t.” I get back on my feet. “She’s still breathing.”
“Do you want her sisters to be sent to the outskirts?” Kiersten asks. “She deserves an honorable death.”
As the girls rush forward to open the gate, I plead with them to stop, but it’s as if they don’t even see me … hear me.
Searching the clearing, I’m looking for anyone who’ll listen when I see Gertrude hiding behind the punishment tree, tears streaming down her face. That’s how I know she’s still in there: no matter what’s happening, no matter how far we fall, somewhere inside, she knows this is wrong.
As they lift Tamara’s body to throw her out of the encampment, an enormous flash of lightning erupts over the camp, illuminating her face stretched into a soundless scream of horror.
The light dissipates; the dense thud of Tamara’s body hits the ground. The eerie creak of the gate is followed by the clunk of the closing latch, like the final nail in a coffin.
Crowding against the fence, the girls press their faces against the gaps in the splintery wood, vying for a glimpse.
Sick caw noises echo from the shore.
As heavy footsteps descend on the other side of the gate, I back away.
I don’t need to see it to know what’s happening. I can hear it. I can feel it—blades ripping into flesh, Tamara’s soundless scream winding up, building steam until that’s all I can hear.
A few of the girls have to turn away, Jessica clenching her eyes shut, Martha crouching on the ground, everything in her stomach coming up at once, but they will never be able to escape what they’ve witnessed. What they’ve done. The rest stand there, unable to tear their eyes away from the carnage—this feels like judgment to them, God’s will, but it’s really just the will of Kiersten.
“You killed her,” I say. “Tamara was one of your closest friends, and you murdered her.”
Kiersten turns on me, a savage look in her eyes.
“Is … is that Tierney?” Helen staggers toward me, Dovey peeking out of the pocket of her cloak.
“She’s back?” Katie asks, poking at my arm. “How?”
Jenna gets right in my face. Her pupils are so large they look like flat black marbles. “Is she a ghost?”
Kiersten picks up the axe resting against the fence. “There’s only one way to find out.”
As she stalks toward me, I’m backing up to the perimeter.
With every step, I feel the weight in my limbs, my blistered feet sloshing around in my boots, my heart throbbing in my throat.
The girls are buzzing all around me, like black flies on a fresh carcass.
“Everyone knows ghosts don’t bleed … so all we have to do is—” Kiersten loses her balance and stumbles forward, slamming into me with such force that it makes me stagger back a few steps.
The girls look on with wide eyes. Kiersten’s jaw goes slack; there’s a low, nervous chuckle seeping from her throat.
And soon, they’re all laughing.
Following their gaze, I look down to find the axe embedded between my shoulder and my chest. It looks fake—like the sawed-off iron spikes we glue onto Father Edmonds’s hands and feet for the crucifixion ceremony at Passover.
Gripping the handle with both hands, I give it a hard tug, which only makes them laugh harder. I keep pulling until the axe finally gives, and with it comes the blood. Too much blood.
They’re laughing so hard now that tears are streaming down their faces. They think this is some kind of game.
But I’m still standing. And there’s no one holding me back anymore.
Clutching the axe in my right hand, I take off running, barreling through the woods. I was sure they wouldn’t follow. I was wrong. My only advantage is I know the terrain—but what the girls lack in know-how, they seem to make up for in determination.
“Over here,” someone screams behind me.
Even tripping, running into tree branches, into each other, they seem to get right back up again, as if the pain doesn’t affect them. Maybe it’s magic or maybe it’s whatever’s infecting them, but my best bet is to hide, wait them out.
Leaping over a fallen cedar, I scoot back into the dark recess to catch my breath. Two girls vault over behind me; one of them lands wrong, and the sound of her ankle snapping makes me cringe, but somehow she manages to get right back up again, limping after the others.
I try to move my arm so I can get a good look at the damage, but it only makes the blood flow faster. I have to slow it down if I’m going to have any chance of making it through the night. Propping the axe between my knees, I reach under my skirts and rip a strip of cloth from the bottom of my chemise. The ripping sound is louder than I thought it would be. Quickly, I tie the cloth around my shoulder, but the ache is already starting to sharpen. I’ve seen enough of my father’s patients to know that the shock is what’s keeping me upright at the moment. Soon, it will wear off, and with that will come the pain. More than I can probably bear. If I can reach the spring, I can clean the cut out, assess the damage, but I have to get there first. I’m
starting to gather my nerve to get up when I hear footsteps in the snow. One of the girls must’ve heard the ripping sound and doubled back. I’m holding my breath, keeping as still as possible. All I have to do is stay quiet, stay hidden until she moves on, but there seems to be something in here with me. A soft squeaking noise, tiny claws scratching against my boots. I glance down to see the tip of a skinny tail emerging from under my skirt.
Forest rat.
Now it’s climbing up the outside of my skirt. I think the rat is heading for the torn hem of my cloak, searching for a stray seed, but it crawls right past the opening, toward the wound on my shoulder. A cold sweat breaks out on my brow. Rats carry disease, and we don’t have proper medicine out here. I wait as long as I can, until I can’t stand another second, before I use my good hand to fling the rat from my shoulder. It flies through the air, scrabbling for position, managing to grasp the head of the axe that’s balanced between my legs. Before my mind can even process what’s happening, the axe is careening toward the earth, impaling the rat—directly at the feet of a grace year girl.
Leaning over to peek into my hiding space, Meg Fisher whispers, “There you are.”
I kick her hard in the face, she falls back, there’s blood gushing from her nose, but all she does is laugh.
Grabbing the axe, I push past her, running to the only place I can think of, the one place no one, not even Meg, will be crazy enough to follow. Using the axe, I hack away at the rotting wood and dive headfirst into the gap in the bottom of the fence. I’m shimmying my way through when I feel cold fingers coil around my ankle.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Meg says, jerking me back. Jagged bits of wood dig into my shoulder. The pain is so intense that it makes me lose my breath, but I can’t let them take me.
Digging my nails into the frozen earth, I kick and scratch my way to the other side, but as soon as I get to my feet, I hear a caw echo from the south. Stumbling forward, I take cover behind a wind-ravaged pine.
“You can’t hide from me,” Meg calls out between grunting and laughing, straining to get through.
Whether it’s the water or the food or the very air making her behave this way, this isn’t the same girl I knew back home—the one who passed the giving basket at church, who collected Queen Anne’s lace from the meadow in the early-morning hours so she could place it under the punishment tree after her mother faced the gallows. I want to tell her to stop, think about what she’s doing, but she’s not in her right mind.
There’s another caw, closer this time.
I peek my head around the tree to find Meg’s black eyes glinting in the moonlight. A huge grin takes over her face, as if the corners of her mouth are being pulled tight by invisible string.
“Got her,” she screams back toward the fence. “She’s right ove—” A low hum hurtles through the night air and then abruptly stops.
Meg sinks to her knees, her eyes going wide; blood trickles from her open mouth.
I’m trying to comprehend what’s happening when I catch a glint of shiny steel protruding from her neck. A throwing blade, just like the one that nearly hit Helen on the trail.
I’m about to crawl forward to help her when I see a black shadow emerge from the south.
Poacher.
I try to keep track of him, but he’s moving so fast through the dark that my eyes can hardly keep up.
As he descends upon Meg’s crumpled frame, I hear her trying to speak, but I can’t make out any words beyond the gurgling of her blood-filled throat. Grabbing her by the hair, he yanks her head back, exposing the pale skin of her neck to the moonlight; that shrill caw escapes from beneath his shroud. It’s echoed back.
The ground sways beneath me. Gripping the axe to my chest, I sink down against the tree, pressing my spine into the knotty bark, desperately trying to stay in the present, but I can feel the blood leaving my body. I can feel myself slowing down.
Soon, this place will be teeming with poachers. I won’t be able to get back through the fence, not before I bleed out.
I’m teetering on the edge of consciousness. Maybe it’s the loss of blood, the sound of the poachers ripping into her flesh, the utter hopelessness I feel, but I begin to drift …
There’s snow melting on my lips. For a moment, I’m back in the county, in the meadow, catching snowflakes on my tongue. I’m twelve years old. I know this because I still have a white ribbon. Michael and I are lying side by side making snow angels. When I roll over to get up, he gives me the queerest look—the space between his eyes crinkling up—the same way he looked when he held the rock over a dying deer in the woods last summer. “You’re bleeding,” he whispers.
I check my nose, my knees—there’s nothing there, but he’s right. There’s blood on the snow, right where I was lying. At first, I think it must be a suffering animal that’s burrowed its way beneath the snow, but the damp sticky feeling between my legs tells me otherwise.
I want to stuff it back in, pretend it didn’t happen, but he knows. Soon everyone will know. I don’t see it as a beautiful pain, something that will bring me closer to my purpose, closer to God, I see it as a sentence. Without another word, Michael gathers our things and walks me home. When we reach my door, he opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. What is there to say?
I’m the suffering animal beneath the snow.
From across the great lake, the wind finds me, whispering in my ear. “Time is running out.”
Looking up, I find the girl standing on the shore. I haven’t seen her in so long, it brings a smile to my face.
I know I have a choice: stay here and die in my memories, or embrace one last adventure. I’ve followed her for so long now, what’s once more?
The clouds seem to clear, unveiling a moon so bright, so full, that I’m afraid it might burst.
And suddenly, I know what she’s been trying to tell me. Time is running out … on me.
Maybe surrendering my flesh is the only way I can still be of use. Because isn’t that the biggest sin of all for a woman?
Not to be of use.
Tightening my grip on the axe, I crawl forward. I don’t look back. Instead, I focus on the smell of algae and wet clay, and when the wind unfurls around me again, I know I’m headed toward open water. Toward home.
When I reach the rocky shore, I use the axe to help me to my feet. Looking out over the horizon, I see two moons.
One is real, the other a reflection.
It’s just like the girl. Maybe that’s all she ever was, a reflection of who I wanted to be.
Walking onto the ice, I wonder how far it goes … how long it will last.
A few more feet … ten … twenty?
As the wind washes over me once again, I close my eyes and hold my arms out.
In this moment, I’d do anything for the magic to be true. I’d forsake everything just to be able to fly far away from here.
But nothing happens. I feel nothing.
I don’t even feel cold anymore.
The distinct sound of footfall on the rocky shore creeps up on me. But it’s more than the sound, it’s something I can feel deep inside of me. Like standing on a razor’s edge.
Peering over my shoulder, I can’t make out his features, but I know it’s him—the way he moves, like heavy fog rolling in over the water.
With the dark gauzy fabric billowing around him, he looks like the angel of death. Nameless. Faceless. But isn’t that exactly what death is?
As he steps onto the ice, I turn to face him.
A deep crack needles beneath us, making us both freeze in place.
I always thought if it came to this, I’d be able to face my death with dignity and grace, the same way I’ve seen countless women face the gallows in the square. But there’s nothing dignified or graceful about dying like this, being skinned alive.
Lowering my chin, I square my feet, grip the axe with both hands, and stare him down.
Maybe it’s Eve slipping under my skin, maybe it’s the moonlight, or my feminine magic making me cruel and wily, but all I want to do in this moment is take him down with me.
Warmth is trailing down my arm, over my hands, making the handle slick with blood. But all I need is one good swing.
As if sensing my intentions, he holds his hands out in front of him, the way you’d try to calm a skittish horse before ensnaring it with a bridle.
I lift the axe. The moonlight glints off the blade, setting something off inside of me—a memory rising to the surface, something I thought I’d buried long ago: my mother standing over my bed, her eyes soft and moist, her metal thimble twitching in the lamplight. “Dream, little one. Dream of a better life. A truthful life.”
And I wonder if she can see me now, if she can feel me, from across the great lake, over treacherous trails of thorn and thistle, if she somehow knew how all of this would end.
With tears streaming down my face, I whisper, “Forgive me.” Tightening my grip, I heave the axe into the ice.
At first, there’s nothing, only the shock of impact reverberating up my arms, settling in my wound, making it throb with every beat of my heart, but then I hear it, a dull pop followed by a long continuous crack, as if my bones are being split in two.
He lunges for me, but it’s too late. As the ice breaks beneath my feet, I plunge into the frigid water, a straight needle shooting toward the depths, but my skirts billow up around me, slowing my descent. Or maybe I’m not drifting down but up. Maybe it’s the wind filling my skirts, making me soar high above the earth. My lungs are burning to take a deep breath. Whether I’ll fill my chest with stardust or water, I cannot say, but I feel my body slowing down. My heart thrums in my ears, my throat, the tips of my fingers, like a funeral dirge.
Slow. Slower. Stop.
With the moon lighting the way, I drift under a sheet of glass. I’m watching the world pass me by. I don’t feel sad, I don’t feel lost, I feel a
sense of peace knowing that I left this world on my own terms. This is one thing they couldn’t take from me.
I’m trailing my fingers against the surface when I hear a crash of thunder, a shattering of glass. Something tugs at my braid and I’m jerked toward the heavens. Jagged knots are being dragged against my back. There’s something beating on my chest—a soft warmth on my lips. A burning sensation flares in my lungs; I’m heaving up liquid. When I take in a deep gasp, it burns—the air feels alien going into my lungs, a betrayal of some kind.
I’m walking, but I have no feet. I’m drifting through the woods on a cloud of smoke. There’s a caw in the distance. A blood-drenched hand covers my mouth. My eyes focus on the one thing I can’t make sense of— two black orbs staring back at me, the eyes of my executioner. My enemy.
Straining my neck, I bite down as hard as I can. And then the world goes black.
I am nothing. I am no one. Only skin and bones.
The sound of a serrated blade tearing through cloth seeps into my senses. There’s blazing heat along my back, my spine. Long, even breath pulsing against the nape of my neck. A heavy weight on top of me, all around me. I try to stay disconnected from my body, unaware, the way I used to drift away during a punishment in the square, but as life returns to my limbs, so does the pain. A deep throbbing sensation on my left shoulder.
When the heat against my back leaves me, I see a man walk across the room, stark naked, pure muscle roiling beneath flesh. I want to scream, I want to wail, but I can’t find the air. Every bit of my energy is being taken up with violent shivering. My teeth are clattering so hard I’m afraid they might break. A blur of charcoal fabric swells in the corner of the room and the poacher is back. Black eyes boring into me from the void.
Hovering over me, he pours rancid liquid down my throat. I try to spit it out, but he holds his hand over my mouth, forcing me to swallow.
A flash of gleaming steel, followed by the sharpest pain I’ve ever felt.
The blade digs into my flesh. It feels like he’s tearing my arm off, but it happens again and again and again, more times than I have skin on my arm. I know they believe the more pain, the more potent the flesh, but it’s a lie. I want to tell him the magic isn’t real, that all he’s doing is killing someone in cold blood, but something tells me it wouldn’t even matter.
As the heavy liquid spreads through my chest, I know what this means. I know what this is. Death isn’t just coming for me … it’s here.
The wind howls around me, and with it comes the smell of witch hazel and rotting flesh.
Frantically, my eyes dart around the room. There are long strips of sinewy meat hanging from hooks. Tanned hides drying on a crudely made rack, and knives … so many knives, splayed across a rough butcher block table. My eyes quickly settle on a fawn-colored leather satchel, a series of small glass bottles lined up in front of it.
His kill kit.
The bottles are for me.
Panic courses through my muscles. My heart is beating so hard I’m afraid it will burst.
I try to get up, but I can’t move my arms. I can’t move my legs. The only thing I can move is my head, and even that feels so heavy, so bloated, that I can hardly keep it steady.
I look down to see what’s become of me, but my body is hidden beneath heavy pelts. I wonder if the skin is gone from my entire body now, if beneath the covers I’m only a tangled labyrinth of veins and severed nerves being held together by congealed blood.
I try to scream, but there’s something in my mouth preventing me from doing so. It tastes of cedar and blood. It makes me think of the horses from the county, with their braided manes, a bit inserted against the back of their jaw in order to control their movement. And I realize that’s what I am now. Under someone else’s control.
Noticing my agitation, the poacher emerges from the shadows, covered in charcoal-gray shrouds. He’s been watching me this whole time. Probably enjoying it. He forces more of the noxious fluid down my throat. I’m choking on it, but he doesn’t care. I can see it in his eyes. I’m nothing more than a pelt to him. An animal.
As the heavy liquid spreads through my body, I’m trying to decide if I should fight or give in, if I even have a choice, when I sense a glow moving from the hearth to my left side. It doesn’t flicker like a candle; it’s strong and steady as a northern star. As the light bends toward me, with it comes the pain. Agonizing pain. A soundless scream boils inside of me. The smell of burning flesh fills my nostrils. I remember hearing that some of the cruelest poachers like to brand their kill, play with their prey before death.
On the edge of passing out, I hear a sound—boots trudging through heavy snow, the clank of wind chimes, only the sound is too dull for metal or glass. It sounds like heavy blocks of petrified wood clattering together.
The poacher must hear it, too, because he lowers the iron from my flesh.
A flash of fear in his eyes.
“Ryker, you there?” An unfamiliar voice penetrates the small space. It sounds like it’s coming from far away.
I let out a moan for help, anything but this, and the poacher shoves his filthy hand over my mouth and nose. I’m struggling against the fleshy part of his palm, for even the smallest bit of air, but he’s too strong. Meeting his cold dark eyes, I know that in a few short seconds he could snuff me out without the slightest hesitation, and maybe that would be for the best, but then I think of my mother and father, my sisters, even Michael. I promised that I would do everything in my power to make it home. Not in those glass bottles … but alive. And as long as there’s breath in my body, I will fight.
But there are many ways to fight.
Blinking up at the poacher, I feel tears slip from the far corners of my eyes, pooling in my ears. I’m silently pleading with him to let go. He must understand, because just as I’m on the verge of death, he eases his hand away. I’m taking in wild gasping breaths when he whispers, “One more sound, and it will be your last. Do you understand?”
I nod my head. At least I think I’m nodding,
“C’mon, lazy,” the stranger’s voice calls. “You’re missing out.” “Can’t. Sick,” the poacher replies, never once taking his eyes off me. “Then I’ll come up.”
“No.” The poacher bolts to his feet, showing me his knife belt, one last look of warning before slipping through the heavy door covering.
“Why are you wearing your shroud inside?” the other one asks. “Are you hurt? Did they try to pull you over the barrier?” There’s urgency in his voice, but it sounds thin and distant, like he’s talking through a narrow tube. “Have you been cursed?”
“Only a fever,” the poacher replies. “I should be fine by the new moon.”
I wonder how far away that is … days, weeks, if that’s how long he plans on dragging this out before he finally kills me.
I’m struggling to get up, even lift my head enough so I can get a better sense of where I am … but it’s no use. I must be tied down.
“Did you hear the news?” the other one says. “We got two a fortnight ago. One right by the gate. The other one made it clear over here to the southeast barrier. Your territory.”
“Huh,” the poacher says. “I guess I must’ve slept right through it.”
He’s lying, but it tells me something. They must not know about the rotting cedar, the gap under the fence. And by the way he’s talking, it can’t be far from here. If I can just make it out of here, maybe I can slip back through.
“First one lasted a couple of days, had burns on its back and chest, but Daniel was able to render most of the flesh.”
“Tamara,” I whisper, my eyes veering toward the glass bottles on the table.
“The second one drowned in its own blood before Niklaus even got off its fingertips. At least it wasn’t burned.” He laughs. “Dumb, lucky bastard.”
My chin begins to quiver. She wasn’t an it. She had a name. Meg.
“They said there was a third. Blood trail led right to the shore, to a big hole in the ice. I tried fishing it out, but only found this old rag.”
“Is that wool?” the poacher asks, a strange tension in his voice. “I’ll trade you for it.”
“Why?” the other one asks. “It’s all ripped up … filthy. Probably full of disease.”
“I can boil it … make a nice satchel out of it.” “Got any hemlock silt?” the other one asks.
“Not yet, but I bet there’ll be some down in the cove come spring. Got a nice elk hide, though.”
“Why would you trade a fine pelt for this? What’s going on?”
“Look, I don’t like to rub it in.” The poacher’s tone changes. Light. Sunny. “But there’s plenty more pelts around here … if you’re skilled with a blade.”
“Hey, I’m getting better,” the other one says with a robust crack of laughter. “Just get me within ten feet of prey and I’ll take it down. You’ll see.”
They’re joking about killing … killing us.
“We got a deal?” the poacher says. “Take whichever one you want.” “Your loss.”
I hear something heavy being pulled off a rod. The same sound as in the market when the reindeer hides come in from the north. And then I hear the poacher catch something.
As they say their good-byes, I’m straining my neck, determined to get a peek at my outside surroundings, but when he slips back through, all I can see … all I can focus on is the frozen gray clump in his hands.
My cloak.
Just the sight of him touching it fills me with rage. June made that with her own two hands. For me. It’s mine. He has no right to it. But clearly, he wants a trophy.
As he hangs it on a meat hook on the far end of the room, hot acid fills my throat, but instead of turning my head, letting it dribble out the corner of my mouth, like some pathetic victim, I swallow it. I swallow all of it.
I have no idea what he has planned for my body, but I have a plan of my own.
Most of the time, I can’t see him, but I feel him watching me. I vaguely remember the sight of his naked backside, but I have no idea what his face looks like, what kind of deformity he’s hiding under his shroud. In my head, he’s a monster.
The only time I’m sure he’s not watching is when he tends to the hearth, which he does with an almost religious fervor. It tells me he’s disciplined. Careful. Vigilant. But I know how to make myself invisible, to play the broken bird. I’m a grace year girl, after all. I’ve been training for this my whole life.
So I stop fighting.
I stop spitting and screaming.
And after a few days, the bit comes out of my mouth.
When he raises the cup to my mouth, instead of trying to bite down on him like a wild animal, I part my lips, storing as much of the liquid as I can in my cheeks, and the moment he turns to set the pewter cup on the bench, I tilt my face, slowly releasing the liquid onto the peat mattress. The fetid smell of the insipid honeycomb used to mask the bitter taste of the poppy makes me gag, but nothing comes up anymore. Maybe that’s part of his plan, what he’s trying to do—dry me out like a piece of jerky.
As soon as I stop ingesting the liquid, the world begins to sharpen. Unfortunately, so does the pain. I hide it the best I can, biting down on the inside of my cheek when I feel it gnawing away at me, but the fever raging through my body will not be denied. I know he’s just trying to keep me
quiet so he can take his time, salvage every piece of me. I’m not sure if the blade or the infection will kill me first, but time is running out.
When he leaves twice a day for water and firewood, I practice moving my toes, flexing my calves and thigh muscles, but my movement is limited because of the ropes. Despite the restraint pinning down my right arm, it seems to be working just fine. The left arm is another matter. It doesn’t seem to be tied down, but the slightest movement of my pinkie sends an unbearable bolt of pain ricocheting through my entire arm, settling deep inside my chest.
But I have to remind myself, pain is good.
No matter what he’s done to me, it means that I still have an arm. That I’m still alive.
I count the steps that it takes for him to walk to the doorway. I imagine doing it myself, over and over and over again. Sometimes, I wake from a fitful sleep to think I’ve already done it, that I’m free, but the blur of gauzy charcoal fabric in my peripheral brings everything back to me … why I’m here.
When he leans over me, I try not to look him directly in the eyes. I don’t want to give myself away, but it’s more than that. I’m afraid of what I’ll see reflected back. What’s become of me. When I feel my strength waning, I stare at the crudely carved female figures perched on the mantel. No doubt a display to remind him of how many girls he’s killed. But I will not be joining them.
It takes eight more cups of forced liquid, and nine trips outside of the shelter for supplies, before he’s careless enough to leave his blade belt on the bench next to me.
I try not to stare at it longingly, but this is it. This is everything.
As soon as he turns his attention to tend to the hearth, I lift my arm from beneath the pelts. The pain is so intense that I have to clench my teeth together so I don’t scream out against my will. My arm is trembling, a cold sweat beads up on my forehead, but as soon as I grasp the hilt of the blade, something else in me takes over. A determination I haven’t felt in months. I will get out of this. I will survive. As I ease the blade from the sheath, fresh
blood seeps from my shoulder, dripping onto the wood floors, but I can’t stop now. I can’t let go.
Slipping the blade under the pelts, I start working on the restraint holding down my right arm. I’m prepared for a long arduous fight, but the blade slices right through, as if I’m cutting into a fresh block of lard. It startles me, but it’s good. That means it’s sharp.
Switching the blade to my right hand, I twist my body and quickly sever the restraints on my ankles.
As soon as I’m free, all I want to do is fling off the pelts and bolt for the door, but I have to be smart about this. I’m not foolish enough to think I can outrun him—not in my condition. Tightening my grip on the blade, I close my eyes and do one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life … I wait.
I try to listen for his steps, but he’s so quiet—just like the first time I encountered him on the trail.
I concentrate on his breath, slow and steady as the metronome in Mrs. Wilkins’s parlor. Everyone thought she was blind after she came back from her grace year, but I remember sneaking a candy from a silver dish once, her beady eyes darting toward me like an arrow.
What if this is the same? What if he left the belt there as a test … a trap? I’m praying that he doesn’t notice the empty sheath … my blood on the wide planked floors … my body drenched in sweat.
The smell of pine, lake water, and smoke fills my nostrils, and I know he’s close. All he has to do is lean over me, like he’s done a hundred times before.
As he presses his wrist against my forehead, I hold my breath. I’m only going to get one shot at this, and if I miss … I can’t even think about that.
Gripping the hilt as tight as I can, I kick off the heavy covers and lash out at him with the blade. A strange sound escapes his lips as he staggers back, clutching his lower abdomen. I’m not sure how much damage I did, but there’s blood.
When I leap onto the cold floor, my bony legs begin to buckle, but I can’t give in to this. If I don’t get out of here now, I never will. Propelling myself toward the doorway, I push through the thick buffalo hide; the sun
hits me like a bolt of lightning, blinding me, grinding me to a halt. The cold air bites into my flesh. I can’t see the poacher behind me, but I can hear him, dragging his body across the floor. “Stop … don’t take another step.”
I don’t know where I’m going, what’s in store for me out there, but anything is better than this. As soon as tiny dots of muted color begin to prickle the backs of my eyes, I take my first step toward freedom … into nothing but air.
I’m plunging toward the depths when something catches me by the wrist. I try to scream, but the pain is so eviscerating that it robs me of my breath.
When the world slowly comes back into focus, I find myself dangling at least forty feet above the ground. The earth below is blanketed in thick snow, the northerly wind penetrating straight to my bones.
“Grab on to me with your other hand,” a gravelly voice calls out. I look up to see the billowing charcoal silhouette of the poacher leaning over a narrow platform. Looking around, I’m shocked to discover that I’ve been in some kind of tree house this whole time … a blind … like they use back home for elk hunting. Only this isn’t for elk. It’s for hunting grace year girls. Hunting me.
“Just let me go,” I say, tears stinging my eyes. “Do it, and all of this can be over.”
“Is that what you want?” he asks. “It’s better than being skinned alive.” “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
Blinking up at him, I concentrate on his face. I’m expecting the same cold, inhuman gaze, but what I find confuses me. I don’t know if it’s the pain or the cold or the sickness making me see things that aren’t there, but in this light, he almost looks … kind.
Reaching up with my other hand, I grasp his wrist and let him pull me up. I could be making the biggest mistake of my life, but even now, after everything that’s happened, I’m still not ready to give up. Surrender.
I groan as my body scrapes against the side of the rough-hewn wood platform. My naked body. Searching the room for my clothes, all I find is strips of linen spread out by the small hearth.
“What did you do to my clothes … to me?” I ask, doing my best to cover up with my hands.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he says as he grabs a strip of cloth, tying it around his bloody torso.
“But I’m naked … you were naked. I saw you—”
“You were freezing to death. It was the quickest way to warm you up,” he says as he yanks a hide off the bed and tosses it at me. “You’re welcome.”
I wrap the pelt around me, ashamed by how good it feels. “But I saw you with a knife … you skinned me … branded me.” I peek inside the pelt. Just the sight of the fresh blood oozing from the bandage on my shoulder makes me sway a little on my feet.
“I didn’t brand you,” he snaps. “I had to cauterize the wound, which you’ve probably ripped open again.” He moves toward me, and I back up against the wall, knocking over a pile of antlers.
“Don’t touch me,” I whisper, my fingertips grazing a pointy edge. I’m ready to protect myself if need be, but he softens his tone.
“May I?” he asks, taking a tentative step toward me, nodding toward my left arm.
I don’t like that I can’t see his face. It’s disconcerting, but maybe that’s the whole point. The same way the veils dehumanize us, the shrouds do the same for them. One symbolizes pure innocence, the other pure death.
Letting the pelt slip from my shoulder, he reaches out to unwrap the bandage.
His fingers feel like slivers of ice against my skin.
I take in a hissing breath. “What’s that smell?” I ask. I follow his gaze to the gaping flesh on my shoulder.
I’ve seen enough stab wounds in my father’s care to know this one is bad, the kind that even the strongest men have succumbed to. A wave of dizziness swells inside of me, making me waver.
“Tierney, you should lie down, you’re in no condition—”
“How do you know my name?” I stare up at him, but my vision is starting to blur. “Who are you?”
He doesn’t reply, but there’s a sound—like something heavy and wet, slowly sizzling in a pan.
A flash of movement catches my eye. I squint into my mangled flesh. The room begins to lurch, but my feet are firmly planted on the ground.
“Maggots,” I whisper. “The smell is coming from me. It’s the smell of death.”
I dream. Strangely enough, not of the girl, not of home, but of here—this place, this poacher. A cool rag on my forehead. Biting into soft wood when he cuts away decrepit flesh. The woozy droplets of blood being wrung from a bandage into a worn copper bowl. The steady sound of a thick needle. In and out. Out and in.
Sometimes I think I see hazy light spilling through the cracks in the wood; other times, it’s so dark that it feels as if I’m floating through space, unmoored from the gravity holding me to this earth.
I try to keep track of time, but my mind is lost in shadow. In memories.
I imagine it’s like being in the womb. The thrum of a heartbeat in the distance. The rushing sound of blood swirling all around me. I wasn’t allowed in the room for Clara’s birth because I hadn’t bled yet, but I was there for Penny’s. They say by your fifth, the baby just slides right out, but that’s not what I witnessed. I saw violence. Pain. The shifting of bones. I tried to turn away, but my mother grabbed me, pulling me close. “This is the real magic,” she whispered. At the time, I thought she was delirious, mad from exhaustion, but I wonder if she knew the truth. If she was trying to tell me something.
I feel myself teetering on a razor’s edge, as if one grain of sand in the wrong direction could tip the scale, taking me down to the depths of nevermore, and yet I’m still here. I’m still breathing.
Sometimes I talk just to hear the sound of my voice. To know that I still have a tongue. A throat. I ask questions—Who are you? Why haven’t you
killed me—but they’re never answered. Instead, the poacher sings. Songs of old. Songs I’ve only heard on the breeze, a passing whistle escaping the trappers’ lips as they head back north. Or maybe he isn’t singing at all. Maybe he’s talking. Softly, the words bending in and out of my consciousness.
“Drink,” he says, holding the cup to my lips.
I’m trying to focus in on him, but it’s like smoke drifting through my fingers.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Ten sunrises, nine moonfalls,” he says, adjusting the rolled-up fabric beneath my head. “It’s for the best, considering what I had to do to you.”
I try to move my arms and my legs, just to know that I still have them, but it brings a fresh wave of pain.
I remember the last time I was awake. The last time we spoke. He said my name.
“How do you know my name?”
“You need to drink.” He tilts the cup. It’s hard to swallow the sweet thick liquid. It’s hard to swallow at all. Like my body forgot how.
But I can feel the poppy spreading through my chest, my limbs, making my eyelids feel as if they’ve been threaded with heavy cinder.
“How do you know my name?” I ask again.
I’m expecting nothing, but instead, a soft voice emanates from beneath his shroud. “That was a mistake.”
I study him, the wide space between his eyes that gets knotted up … I always thought it was anger, hatred, but maybe I was wrong … maybe it’s concern.
“Please,” I whisper. “We both know I’m probably not going to make it.” His eyes veer to my wound. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
There’s a long unbearable pause. The heaviness that accompanies a deep, dark truth.
With only the sound of the wind howling through the trees, the slow crackle of the fire, he says, “I knew who you were as soon as I saw your eyes … you have the same eyes.”
“The girl from my dreams,” I say with a tight inhalation of breath, the memory of her coming back to me all at once. “You’ve seen her, too … who is she?”
“What girl?” He places his inner wrist against my forehead. I want to flinch away from his touch, but his cold skin feels like a much-needed balm to my burning flesh. “Your father,” he says, staring down at me. “You have his eyes.”
“My father?” I try to sit up, but the pain is too intense. I knew my father had been sneaking off to the outskirts for years, but I never imagined this. “Are we…?” I try to finish the sentence, but it feels like there’s a boulder in my throat. “Are we … relations?”
“Brother and sister? No.” The poacher unwraps my bandage; his nostrils flare. Either the idea repulses him just as much as it repulses me, or it’s in response to the wound. Maybe both. “Your father’s not like that. He’s a good man.”
“Then why?” I ask, fighting to stave off the lull of the poppy. “Why does he go there?”
His eyes narrow on me. “You really don’t know?”
I shake my head, but my skull feels like it’s full of heavy water.
“He treats the women of the outskirts, the children … he saved Anders,” he says as he gently crushes herbs in a small stone vessel.
“Anders?”
He lets out a sigh, as if he’s mad at himself for saying too much. “You probably don’t remember, but he paid me a visit a few weeks ago.”
“How could I forget.” I wince as he smears a dark green poultice over my wound. “You nearly smothered me to death.”
His eyes turn cold. “That would’ve been a pleasure compared to what he would’ve done to you had he discovered you here.”
Staring past him, at the empty glass bottles lined up on the table, I think about Tamara and Meg. The horrible things they did to them. A shiver runs through me.
“We need to get this dirty ribbon away from—”
“No.” I reach up, tucking the braid behind me. “The ribbon stays. The braid stays.”
He lets out an irritated sigh. “Suit yourself.” “Who’s Anders?” I ask, trying to soften my tone.
I can tell he’s reluctant to talk, but I just keep asking until he gives.
“We grew up together,” he says as he wraps a fresh strip of linen around my shoulder. “Last hunting season, the prey tried to take him over the barrier, bit him, cursed his entire family. Everyone died, but your father was able to save him.”
“My father saved a poacher?” I ask. “But he would be exiled if anyone found out about that, and my mother, my sisters, we would be—”
“Of course that’s your highest concern,” he says, tying off the bandage tighter than need be.
“I didn’t mean … it’s just … why? Why would he risk it?” “You still don’t get it,” he replies.
A caw echoes through the woods, making us both flinch. “I don’t underst—”
“I made a deal,” he says, pushing away from the bedside, strapping on his knives. “In exchange for Anders’s life, I promised that I would spare you if given the chance.”
“But you stabbed me through the fence.”
“I barely nicked you. You were getting too close … too comfortable.” “That night on the trail … the day I went over the barrier to help
Gertrude,” I say, getting short of breath.
“Honestly, if I’d known how much trouble you’d be, I would’ve thought twice,” he says as he tosses a cold wet rag in my direction. “But now he and I are even.” He blows out the candle and pulls back the door covering.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“To do my job. What I should’ve been doing all along.”
As I sit alone, shivering in the dark, I can’t help thinking about the hurtful things I said to my father before I left the county, the pain in his eyes when he entered the church with the veil. “Vaer sa snill, tilgi meg,” he whispered as he pressed the flower of my suitor into my hand.
I always thought he taught me things because he was selfishly practicing for a son, but maybe it was for this, so I could survive my grace year. Maybe he did all of this … for me.
Tears sting the back of my eyes. I want to get up and run, anything but sit here with my feelings, but as I get out of bed, my legs wobble as if they’re made from straw and putty. I stagger forward, grabbing the edge of the table to try to catch myself; it begins to tilt; the tiny glass bottles roll toward me, the knives begin to slide. I right it just in time before everything goes crashing to the floor. As I’m leaning over the table, trying to catch my breath, I spot a small notebook, wedged behind the worn leather satchel. I open it to find sketches of muscles and veins, skeletal structures, similar to the field notebooks my father keeps on his patients. But when I turn to the last entry, I see a diagram of a girl—every mole, every scar, every blemish marked in great detail, from the brand of my father’s sigil on the bottom of my right foot all the way to the smallpox mark on my inner left thigh from a vaccination my father gave me last summer. This is a map of my skin, the small dashes indicating where he’ll cut. There’s even a detailed log planning out each piece of me that will go in each corresponding bottle. One hundred in all. A deep chill runs through my entire body.
The poacher kept his word to my father. But like he said, they’re even
now.
Looking at the knives, the metal funnel, the pliers, the hammer—it turns my stomach.
It’s entirely possible he’s simply preparing, just in case the infection takes me, but there’s an undeniable part of him that wishes me dead. I run my finger along the dotted lines of the sketch, and I can’t stop thinking about the fundamental rule of poaching, why they skin us alive instead of killing us first. The more pain, the more potent the flesh. I look down at the fresh blood seeping through the bandage. Maybe he hasn’t been helping my wound at all. Maybe he’s been making it worse so I can suffer as long as possible.
I think about grabbing my cloak, taking my chances in the woods, but I’m in no condition.
If I’m going to survive this, I need for him to see me not as an it, not as prey, but as a human being.
But I’m not so naïve as to think I don’t need a backup plan.
With trembling hands, I put back the bottles and the notebook and grab the smallest knife from the table. Dragging myself back to bed, I pull the thick pelts over me and slip the knife beneath the mattress, practicing pulling it out again and again, until I can no longer feel my arm. I want to stay up, wait for him, make sure he doesn’t get the jump on me, but my eyes are too heavy to hold.
“Vaer sa snill, tilgi meg,” I whisper on the breeze, hoping it will carry my message straight to my father’s heart, but that’s magical thinking, something I don’t dare dabble in anymore.
Instead, I vow to make it home, so I can tell him myself.
I wake to the sound of breaking bones.
Letting out a gasping breath, I start to reach for the knife, then realize the poacher’s clear across the room, sitting on a stool in front of the table, cutting away at something. I’m thinking the worst, wondering who it might be, when I catch a glimpse of a rabbit foot dangling over the edge of the table. Lurching to the side of the bed, I grab the pot, retching up everything in my stomach.
He doesn’t even flinch.
Wiping the bile from my mouth, I lean back on my makeshift pillow. “Is that where you go at night? To hunt?”
He grunts out a reply. Could be yes. Could be no. He’s clearly not in a mood to chat, but I can’t let that stop me.
“Is it just rabbit, or do you hunt other things?” I know the answer, but I want to hear him say it.
He peers back at me, his eyes dark and narrow. “Whatever’s careless enough to get in my path.”
“Prey,” I whisper, an icy current running through me. “That’s what you call us, right?”
“Better than poachers,” he says as he returns to his work, snapping the neck.
“Do you have a name?” I ask, trying to sit up, but the pain is still too much.
“Other than poacher?” he replies dryly. “Yes. I have a name.”
I’m waiting for him to tell me, but it never comes. “I’m not going to beg you.”
“Good,” he says as he continues to work on the rabbit.
The sound of his steady breath, the constant drip of the icicles on the eaves, it’s driving me crazy—alone in the woods kind of crazy—only I’m not alone.
“Forget it,” I say with a heavy sigh as I turn my head toward the door. “It’s Ryker,” he says softly over his shoulder.
“Ryker,” I repeat. “I knew that. I heard the other poacher call you that. It’s an old Viking name.” I perk up, trying to make a connection. “Det ere n fin kanin,” I say, but he doesn’t seem to understand.
My shoulder is throbbing now. A sheen of cold sweat covers my body. “I think I could use some more medicine,” I say as pleasantly as
possible.
“No,” he replies, without even looking at me.
“Why?” I blurt. “I’m in pain. Do you want me to be in pain … is that it?”
He turns to me, peeling back the rabbit fur in one long continuous stroke, as casually as if he’s slipping off a silk stocking.
“You don’t scare me,” I whisper.
“Is that right?” he says as he drops the rabbit and abruptly gets up, blood staining his hands.
As he sits next to me, I ease my hand down to the edge of the mattress, slipping my fingers beneath for the comfort of the blade, but there’s nothing there.
“Looking for this?” he asks, pulling the small blade from the sheath strapped to his ankle. “The next time you get out of bed to rifle through my things, you should make sure you’re not leaving a trail of blood on the floor.”
I reach out to hit him, but he catches my hand. “Save your energy. When you get well enough to return to the herd, you’re going to need it.”
I’m struggling to pull my hand free.
“You don’t need the poppy anymore,” he says as he releases me. “At this point, it will do more harm than good. It’s up to the Gods now. You’re
either going to live or you’re going to die.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, tears streaming down my face. “I saw the notebook. You fulfilled your promise to my father, many times over. Why haven’t you killed me yet or just let me die?”
A deep ridge settles between his eyes. “I keep asking myself the same question,” he says, finally meeting my gaze. “But when I saw you … on the ice … you looked so…”
“Helpless,” I whisper, disgusted and angry by the idea of that being what saved me.
“No,” he says, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “Defiant. When you struck the ice with that axe … it was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.”
Stark white light bleeds through the fluttering edge of the buffalo hide covering the door.
“I see you survived another night,” he says as he stands over me, his clothes smelling of fresh snow and wood smoke. I can’t tell if he’s pleased or disappointed. Maybe he’s not even sure.
I lurch to my side to throw up. He nudges a bucket closer with his boot, but there’s no need. It’s just a small bit of drool and bile. My insides are rejecting even the smallest thing now. “What’s happening to me?”
“It’s the infection,” he says, sitting on the bench to inspect my wound.
His fingers feel like they’re made of ice.
I glance over at the angry red flesh. “I don’t want to die here,” I say with a sharp inhalation of breath.
“Then don’t,” he says, squeezing my arm tight, drawing the pus from the sutures.
My head lolls forward. I feel like I might pass out at any moment.
“How did this happen?” he asks, his voice harsh in my ears, insistent.
For a moment, I can’t remember, maybe I don’t want to remember, but slowly it comes back to me, nothing more than a flash of images—Gertie’s scalp glinting in the moonlight. The woods. The seeds. The storm. Tamara’s twitching body being shoved out of the gate.
“Kiersten,” I whisper, my shoulder aching at the memory. “It was an axe.”
Dabbing at the edges of my cut with witch hazel, he asks, “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I say, my chin beginning to quiver. I try to pull up the pelts to hide my emotion, but I don’t have the strength. “I only wanted to make things better…,” I whisper. “I wanted it to be … different.”
“Why?” he asks, rewrapping my shoulder in a fresh bandage. I don’t think he’s that interested, he’s probably just trying to keep me talking, keep me conscious, but I want to talk. I want to tell someone my story, just in case …
“The dreams,” I reply. “The women of the county aren’t allowed to dream, but I’ve dreamt of a girl ever since I can remember.”
He looks at me curiously. “Is that the girl you were asking me about?”
I don’t remember telling him about her; it makes me wonder what else I’ve told him in my addled state, but what does it matter anymore.
“I know it sounds crazy, but she was real to me. She showed me things … she made me believe that things could be different … not just for the grace year girls but for the laborers … the women of the outskirts, too.”
He stops and stares at me. “Is that your magic?” he asks. “No.” I shake my head.
“Then what do you think it means?”
“I don’t think it means anything anymore. It’s just a fantasy. What I wanted my life to be.” Reaching for the comfort of my braid, I pull it over my shoulder, tracing the red ribbon with my fingertips. “In the county, only our husbands are allowed to see us with our hair down, but when we arrived at the encampment, the girls took out their braids as a symbol that they’ve embraced their magic. I refused. That’s the real reason they turned on me.”
“Why would you refuse to embrace your magic?” he asks, unable to conceal his shock.
My eyes well up to the point that I can’t see clearly, but I refuse to blink. “Because it isn’t real.” Saying it out loud feels dangerous but necessary.
Pressing his wrist against my forehead, he says, “We really need to get your fever down.”
I jerk my head away from him. “I’m serious. I don’t know if it’s something in the air, the water, our food, but something is making them
change … making them see and feel things that aren’t real. It happened to me, too, but when they banished me from the camp, I got better. Clearer.”
“You were starving to death when I found you, bleeding out—”
“Have you ever seen them fly?” I raise my voice. “Have you ever seen them disappear before your very eyes? Have you ever seen them do anything … but die?” The tears finally release, searing down my face.
“Drink this,” he says, pouring a cup of steaming broth from a kettle. My eyes widen. “I thought I couldn’t have any more—”
“It’s yarrow. It won’t ease the pain, but it might help with the fever.”
Sipping the broth, I try to forget about the pain nagging at my shoulder and think of anything else, but my thoughts keep coming back to my family. A different kind of pain. My little sisters. I bet they’re worried sick about me, worried about what will happen to them if my body goes unaccounted for.
“If I die … promise you’ll skin me,” I say, swallowing the bitter liquid. “Give me an honorable death, so my sisters won’t be punished.”
“Of course,” he says without the slightest hesitation.
“Of course?” I try to raise my head. “Can’t you even say, Hey, don’t talk like that. I’m sure you’re going to make it?”
“I’m used to speaking my mind.” He sets the cup on the table. “I say what I mean.”
“What a luxury that must be.” I laugh as I settle further back in the pelts, but it’s not at all funny. “I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do that.”
“Why not?”
I try to focus on him, but I can feel the fever taking over. “In the county, there’s nothing more dangerous than a woman who speaks her mind. That’s what happened to Eve, you know, why we were cast out from heaven. We’re dangerous creatures. Full of devil charms. If given the opportunity, we will use our magic to lure men to sin, to evil, to destruction.” My eyes are getting heavy, too heavy to roll in a dramatic fashion. “That’s why they send us here.”
“To rid yourself of your magic,” he says.
“No,” I whisper as I drift off to sleep. “To break us.”
A shrill caw in the distance jars me awake.
Ryker reaches for his knife belt and then stops, sinking back into the shadows.
“Aren’t you going?” I ask.
“It’s too far away. The call is coming all the way from the northwest.”
That may be true, but I want to believe it’s more than the distance, that maybe he’s starting to see us in a different light.
As he tends to the fire, my eyes veer toward the glass bottles lined up on the table, set there like a constant reminder.
“How can you do it?” I ask, a dry hollow sound to my voice. “Kill innocent girls?”
“Innocent?” He looks back at me, staring pointedly at my shoulder. “No one is innocent in this. You of all people should know that.”
“It was an accident.”
“Accident or not, you have no idea what they’re capable of. The curse. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” As he stokes the fire, his shoulders begin to relax. “Besides, nothing in this world is cut and dried. From death there is life … that’s what my mother always says,” he adds quietly.
“You have family?” I ask. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that poachers would have feelings … a life before all of this.
He starts to speak but then clenches his jaw tight.
“Look, I don’t want to be here just as much as you don’t want me here.
I’m only trying to pass the time.”
He remains silent.
I let out a huff of air. “Fine.”
“I have a mother. Six sisters,” he says, staring up at the figurines on the hearth.
I count them. There are seven in all. I thought they represented the girls he’d killed, but now I’m thinking they might be his family.
“Six sisters?” I ask, trying to adjust my body so I can see better, but I’m still too weak. “I didn’t think women of the outskirts had that many children.”
“They don’t.” He sets the kettle over the flames. “They’re not blood.” He glances back at me but doesn’t meet my eyes. “My mother … she takes in the young ones. The ones no one wants.”
I’m trying to figure out what he means when the thought hits me right in the throat, making me choke on my own words. “Girls from the county? The girls who get banished?”
He stares into the flames, his eyes a million miles away. “Some of them are so traumatized they don’t speak for months. At first, I hated them, I didn’t understand, but I don’t think about them that way anymore.”
“As prey?” I ask, my voice trembling with anger … fear. “And still you poach us?”
“We’re not poaching anything,” he snaps. “We’ve been sanctioned to cull the herd, paid handsomely to deliver your flesh back to the county. Your fathers, brothers, husbands, mothers, sisters … they are the ones who consume you. Not us.”
A sick feeling rushes through my entire body, making my eyes water. “I had no idea it was the county who did this.”
“If I leave, if I don’t take my place as a poacher, my family won’t get my pay … they’ll starve. And thanks to the county, I have a lot of mouths to feed.”
“Who pays you?” I ask, trying to get control of my breath … my reeling thoughts.
“The same people who send you here,” he says, pouring a steaming cup of broth. “On the final day of our hunting season, we line up outside the gate. Those who return empty-handed get just enough so our families can
survive. Those who have prey present their kill. The bottles are counted, the brand verified. If it’s healthy, properly rendered, they get a sack full of gold, enough to take their families west … leave this place for good.”
“But there’s nothing out there … nothing but death.”
“Or maybe that’s what they want us to believe,” he says, barely above a whisper, as he lifts my head, helping me drink.
Another caw rings out over the woods, closer this time, making my skin prickle.
“How do they do it?” I ask, staring toward the doorway. “How do they lure the girls out of the encampment? Is it skill … brute force … the power of persuasion?”
Ryker sets down the broth. “We don’t have to do anything.” His gaze settles on my wound. “They do it to themselves. To each other.”
His words feel like an axe, cutting me all over again.
“Have you ever killed a grace year girl?” I whisper, afraid of the answer, afraid not to ask.
“Almost,” he says, pulling the pelts up, gently tucking me in. “But I’m glad I didn’t.”
“You’re burning up,” he says, pressing a cool rag to my forehead.
Prying my eyes open, I’m struggling to focus on him, to focus on anything. A dull clanking noise pulls my attention.
“What’s that sound?” I whisper. “The wind.”
“The other sound. I’ve heard it before.” “The chimes?” he asks.
I let out a deep shiver. “I don’t remember wind chimes sounding like that.”
“They’re made from bones.”
“Why?” I ask, trying to keep my eyes open.
“Anders … he likes to make things with bones.”
I think I heard him correctly, but I can’t be sure of anything anymore.
I reach for the cloth draped over his mouth. “I need to see your face,” I say through my chattering teeth.
He stops me, tucking my arm back under the pelts. “It’s better this way.” “You don’t have to worry about me … how I’ll react,” I say. “I’ve seen
all kinds of deformities. My father has a book—”
“It’s not that.” He lowers his eyes. “It’s forbidden.”
“Why?” I try to wet my lips, but they only seem to crack open with the effort.
“Without our shrouds,” he replies, glancing up at me through his dark lashes, “we’d have no protection from your magic.”
“I told you, I have no magic.” Once again, I reach for the gauzy fabric.
“You’re wrong,” he says, folding my outstretched fingers back into my sweaty palm. “You have more than you know.”
There’s something about his words, the way he says them, that makes me flustered; an unfamiliar heat rises to my cheeks. I want to argue, tell him the magic isn’t real, but I don’t have the energy.
“Please,” I whisper. “I don’t want to die without seeing the face of the person who tried to save me.”
He stares at me intently. He’s so quiet, I wonder if he even heard me.
With only the sound of the snow shifting from the eaves, the heavy hiss and crackle of the fire, he begins to unwrap the charcoal shroud. With each new sliver of exposed skin, my heart picks up speed. The sharp angle of his nose, his chin. Thin lips pressed together, dark hair curled up haphazardly around his shoulders. Is he handsome? Maybe not by the standards of the county, but I can’t stop staring at him.
I wake to Ryker singing softly, his bare back to me, muscles rising beneath his skin as he stokes the fire. It’s a song I recognize from the county. A real heartbreaker. His sisters must’ve taught it to him.
My hair is wet, my whole body is damp, but my lips and tongue are so dry they feel like the bark of a sycamore tree. I try to say something, eke out even the tiniest word, but nothing comes out. I’m so hot that it feels like I’m slowly roasting on a pyre. Using all my strength, I fling the pelts off of me.
Ryker startles when they hit the floor with a dull thud, but he doesn’t reach for his shrouds.
Kneeling beside me, his brow knotted up in worry, he presses his inner wrist to my forehead. I swear I can feel his heart beating against my skull, or maybe it’s my own, but as he looks down at me, his face softens, the faintest smile easing into the corners of his mouth.
“Your fever broke.”
“Water,” I manage to get out.
Scooping up the water from a bucket, he holds it to my lips. “Take it slow.”
The first sip is so good, so cool against my throat, that I can’t help grabbing his hands, gulping it down. Half of it runs down my chest, but I don’t care. I’m alive. I pull the chemise away from my skin. My chemise. The crude stitches, the uneven hems. He’s sewn it back together for me.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says as he leans over me to unwrap the bandage from my shoulder. “You haven’t seen my handiwork.”
“Is this also your work?” I ask, skimming my thumb over the muted thick pink scar on the lower side of his abdomen.
He takes in a tight inhalation of breath, his skin prickling beneath my touch.
“Did I do this?” I ask, remembering lashing out at him with the blade when I tried to escape.
“I guess we both have something to remember each other by.”
Looking over at my arm, what’s left of the muscle on my shoulder, the jagged scars, the puckered skin, all I can feel is grateful. He saved my life more times than I can count, but I need to remember that he’s still a poacher and I’m still a grace year girl.
“Is it daylight?” I ask, looking off toward the pelt covering the doorway. “Would you like to see?”
“Even if I could move, isn’t it too dangerous?” I ask.
Reaching up to the ceiling, he pushes open a hatch. I hear slushy snow slide to the forest floor.
The sunlight blinds me for a moment, but I don’t care. The rush of cold air blowing in off the water seems to revive me a bit. I smell melting snow, lake water, river clay, and fresh-cut cedar.
When I can see clearly again, he’s rolling up birch bark, placing it on the roof. “What’s that for?”
“It’s finally starting to thaw. This will keep the water from settling.”
I’m still trying to get used to seeing him without the shroud, but I like it. “Hungry?” he asks.
I think about it for a good minute. “Famished.”
Ryker tosses a sack of walnuts onto the bed; they spill out, startling me. “You need to start building muscle,” he says, placing a steel cracker in
my left hand. “I can’t.”
“If you had enough strength to go for that knife hidden beneath the mattress, you have enough strength for this.”
“That was self-preservation.”
“So is this. Do you want to starve again? Eating whatever chunks of meat I decide to toss over the barrier?”
“That was you?” I ask. “Who else?”
I thought it was Hans, but I keep it to myself.
“You need to start pitching in,” Ryker says. “Take care of yourself.”
Propping myself up, I reach out to grab a walnut. I’m trying to work the cracker, squeezing as hard as I can, but I’m not even making a dent.
“Like this,” he says, cracking one wide open without the slightest effort, tipping the meat inside his mouth, grinning widely.
My stomach growls.
“I get what you’re trying to do, you know.” I glare up at him. “When I was five, I went to the orchards with my father. He could reach right up and pluck an apple from the limbs. I asked him to hold me up so I could get one, and he refused. He said, ‘You’re smart enough to get one on your own.’ It made me furious, but he was right. Eventually, I grabbed a long stick and beat it out of the tree.” I laugh at the memory. “I have to admit, it was the best apple I’ve ever had.”
He smiles, but I see something behind his eyes. A tinge of sadness … regret.
“Do you know who your father is?” I ask.
“I was born in June.” He looks at me like I should know what that means.
“April, for me.”
“Figures,” he says. “Stubborn. Obstinate. Try this one.” He rolls another walnut my way. “I was born nine months from when the poachers returned for a new hunting season.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling heat rise in my cheeks. “So he’s a poacher?” “Was a poacher.”
“I’m sorry … did he pass?”
“If you mean pass right over the mountain, then yes.” He cracks another one. “He got a kill, but he didn’t take us with him. He offered to take my mom and me, but not the girls. He could never look at them as anything but the enemy.”
“Like Anders?” I ask, thinking about the way he talks about the grace year girls.
He lets out a deep sigh. “Anders is complicated. His mother was once a grace year girl. She got rid of her magic, nearly died from it, has a scar clear across her face, but her husband-to-be didn’t like the way she looked anymore, so they banished her.”
“I know this story from my mother,” I whisper. “She was a Wendell girl.”
He shrugs. “She hated the county. Everything it stood for. She raised her boys the same.”
“She had more than one boy?” I ask, sitting up a little taller.
“A rarity. I know.” He nestles the empty shells together. “She loved them. Doted on them. Especially William, Anders’s little brother. He was always so … happy. Anders wanted to get a kill so his little brother wouldn’t have to. And now they’re gone…” His voice trails off.
“The curse?” I ask.
Ryker nods. “My mother believes it happened for a reason, but she believes a lot of things. I guess if the curse never happened, if your father hadn’t saved him, we wouldn’t be here right now.” He looks up at me. His eyes are the color of burned sugar. I never noticed that before.
I swallow hard. “Your mother sounds lovely. What’s she like?”
“Kind, beautiful, full of life.” As he says this, I watch his entire body relax. Normally he holds his frame like a tight wire, ready for anything, but I see an ease come over him. “But there are spells. She works hard, provides as much as she can, but she’s getting older now. Before I came of age, it was my responsibility to take my sisters from the hut when she had a visitor … to help her when she needed to recover.”
“Recover?”
His shoulders collapse. “Sometimes it’s crying spells. A dark cloud hanging over her. Other times it’s more serious and I have to send for the healer.”
“Serious how?” I’m still trying to crack the shell, but I don’t have the muscle strength.
“The wives are spared this,” he says as he picks another walnut. “While you are vessels for sons, the women of the outskirts are vessels for their desire. Their rage.” His eyes narrow. “There are certain men that will only be accepted inside a hut when the food is running low.”
I think about the Tommy Pearsons and Geezer Fallows of the world, and a shiver runs through my blood.
“Or worse, the guards,” he adds.
“The guards? But they’ve gone under the knife. They don’t have any…” I finally manage to crack the walnut open.
He raises a brow; he almost seems amused by my sputtering. “It doesn’t castrate their minds. If anything, it makes them worse.”
“How?” I ask as I tip back the shell, finally getting something to eat.
“Because no matter what they do, they can never be truly … satisfied.”
I think about Hans, weeping in the healing house, ice nestled between his legs … the look of utter despair when he escorted the girls home from his first grace year, the girl he loved not being one of them. The tic he had of rubbing his heart, like he could somehow mend it. His trembling hand when he unsnagged my ribbon from the post. Maybe that’s true for some, but not Hans.
“That’s like saying all poachers are animals,” I say.
“Maybe we are.” He glances up at me, trying to gauge my reaction. He wants to know what I think of him.
But I’m afraid of what will slip out if I open my mouth.
“Here,” he says as he reaches over, putting his hand over mine to help me crack the next one.
I could still be delirious from the fever breaking, or high on the fresh air, but when he pulls his hand away, my fingers seem to hang there in the ether, as if longing for his return.
