As the guards approach the gate, clubs in hand, their thick-soled boots heavy against the earth, we don’t wait for them to come knocking. We open the gate wide, filing out in silence.
We keep our heads bowed to the ground, and not only so they’ll think we’ve dispelled our magic. We do it out of reverence for everyone who’s walked this path before. Everyone who will be forced to walk it in the future.
When I hear the gate close behind me, a tightness spreads throughout my chest. Leaving this place feels like I’m leaving Ryker, but then the wind finds me, rustling a strand of hair loose from my braid. Maybe he’s standing right next to me, whispering my name.
“It won’t be long,” I whisper back.
“This one’s talking to herself.” A guard nods toward me.
“Better than last year. Remember the Barnes girl, the one with half her ear missing? She pissed herself before we even reached the shore.”
They snicker as they push past, but I don’t mind. Let them think I’m crazy.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a flash of red. As I walk toward it, my heart picks up speed. The flower. I’d almost forgotten about it. Pretending to trip, I crawl over to it, skimming my fingers over the perfectly formed petals, but now there are two. Maybe this is how it spreads. One at a time. Slow, but sure.
It’s easy to think of your life as being meaningless out here, a tiny forgotten imprint that can easily be washed away by the next passing storm, but instead of making me feel small, it gives everything more purpose, more meaning. I’m no more or less important than a small seedling trying to burst through the soil. We all play a part on this earth. And however small, I intend to play mine.
“On your feet.” Two of the guards pick me up by my elbows. I want to fight them off, but I force myself to go limp.
As they put us in boats and we cross the water, it’s impossible not to notice how much we’ve dwindled in size, not just from hunger, and supplies, but in sheer numbers. I count for the first time—eighteen of us have fallen. Out of those, four had veils, which means four men will be choosing new wives among the survivors. Even after everything that’s happened, I wonder how many of the remaining girls are still hoping for a veil. It was enough to get them to leave the camp untorched, but truly believing, giving up everything they were raised on, will take time. Something I’m quickly running out of.
The open water, the breeze, the unobstructed sun glaring down on us—it feels like freedom, but we know it’s a lie. This is how they break us. They take everything away, our very dignity, and anything we get in return feels like a gift.
In front of the guards, we’re silent; we don’t meet their gaze. I keep my cloak wrapped tight around me, our secrets even closer, but at night, with the steady purr of their drunken slumber, the girls whisper in the dark, about the black ribbons they’ll receive, what’s expected in the marital bed, which labor houses they’ll be assigned to, finally giving way to what the council will do to me after I tell them the truth … how I’ll be punished … how I’ll die.
The gallows would be a kindness. Most likely they’ll burn me alive, but at least my sisters won’t be punished in my absence. There will be a stain on my family name, but in time, it will fade. My mother will smile a little harder, my sisters will toe the line, play their part, and hopefully, by the time their grace year comes around, my treachery will be nothing but a distant memory.
On the second day of our march, as we approach the outskirts, the pit in my stomach begins to grow. I wonder if I’ll recognize Ryker’s family. I wonder if they’ve already gotten word of his death.
When I get my first whiff of wood smoke, musk, and flowering herbs, I trail behind the others. I’m suddenly painfully aware of my secret. Searching the sea of women, I stop when I see Ryker staring back at me— not Ryker, but a woman with his eyes, his lips, surrounded by six girls. It brings a fresh wave of pain to the surface, but also relief. In some way, he will live on.
There are so many things I want to say—how much I loved him. How he wanted a better life for them, how he died with his eyes wide open, under a northern star. But before I can gather the nerve to speak, his mother says, “It’s you … you look just like her.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but as I open my mouth to ask, a guard comes up behind me, grabbing my arm, pulling me away.
As I look back, she pulls her hair away from her shoulder, revealing a tiny red bloom pinned to her tunic.
“Wait…,” I whisper, but as I try to go back, the guard yanks me to his side.
“It’s too late to run. You belong to the county now. You belong to Mr.
Welk.”
 |
When we reach the gate, the guards hold the line. The church bell tolls for each one of us. We hear a gasp from the people of the county on the other side of the fence: it’s the bloodiest season in grace year history. Out of the thirty-three girls, only fifteen of us are coming home alive.
The clinking of coin cuts through the atmosphere, drawing my attention to the guard station, where men are lined up, the same as when we left for the encampment last year. It’s not until I spot a few heavy leather satchels among them that I realize they’re not here to watch the broken birds, they’re here for payment. For a brief second, I catch myself searching for Ryker’s face, but he’s gone now. And he’s never coming back.
The gates open, jarring me back to the present. As the new grace year girls funnel out in a prim line, it takes me by surprise. They look so young, so pretty, like dolls being dressed up for a dance—not being sent for slaughter. I think about the way the returning girls looked at us when we passed them last year, as if they despised us, and I wonder what these new girls see in us. I hope they know the leap of faith we’ve committed, that we tried to make things better for them.
Though my chin is quivering, I try to smile. “Take care of each other,” I whisper on the breeze.
And as the last girls disappear, I turn to face the open gate.
My eyes fill with tears, my body feels welded in place, but somehow I move. Maybe it’s the momentum of the crowd; maybe it’s something more primal than that.
My moment of truth.
The heaviness is palpable. I feel it in every part of my body, but I feel it from the other girls as well. They know what this means for me … that this is the end of the line.
As we move into the square, people are craning their necks trying to see which girls made it. There are sighs of relief, disappointed gasps.
The men who offered a veil take their places, standing in front of the girl of their choosing, a black silk ribbon in hand. I see the tips of Michael’s fine boots in front of me, but I can’t bear to meet his eyes.
Four new girls are chosen to replace the fallen brides, but there are whispers. Peering down the line, I see Mr. Welk standing before Gertie.
He places his hand on her shoulder; I see her recoil. “We’re sorry to inform you that Mr. Fallow passed this winter. Please accept our condolences.”
Gertie puts her hands over her mouth, taking in a gasping breath.
“Look how broken up she is,” I hear someone comment from the crowd. “I heard they’re sending her to the fields.”
She looks over at me, a flash of wild excitement in her eyes, but her secret reverie dies as she takes in Michael standing in front of me.
And I know the longer I put this off, the harder it’s going to be … for all of us.
Unbuttoning the clasp of my cloak, I let it slip from my shoulders. As the tattered wool hits the ground, I raise my chin to face the crowd. The first person I see is Michael. He’s standing before me, a gardenia in his lapel. The flower he chose for me—the flower of purity. He smiles at me, the way I always remembered him, standing in the meadow, his shirtsleeves rolled up, the sun glinting through his hair, but as the autumn breeze seeps through my threadbare chemise, making the fabric cling to my swollen belly, I see the blood drain from his face, hurt and shock welling up in his eyes.
I blink long and slow, hoping to erase the image from my mind, but when I open them again, I immediately spot my family standing in the front row. My father’s gritting his teeth; Ivy and June are covering Clara and Penny’s eyes. My mother stands like a statue, stone cold indifference, as if I’m already dead to her.
But it’s nothing compared to the chill I feel from the county. There are hisses and whispers, demands for punishment.
Someone throws a flower at me, hitting me square in the cheek—an orange lily, the flower of anger, hatred. Disgust. Picking it up off the ground, I trace my finger along the razor-curved edges, but I can’t allow myself to disappear right now. As much as it hurts, I have to stay present, I have to stay in my body, in this moment.
Back in the encampment, I was so full of purpose, but now that I’m here, standing before them, I can’t help but feel regret. Not for what I did— being with Ryker was the closest I’ve ever felt to God—but I feel bad for doing this to my family, to Michael. They don’t deserve this humiliation. None of us do.
The unpleasant din sweeping through the crowd quickly escalates to shouts and accusations. “Whore. Heretic. Burn her.”
My knees start to give way, but I lock them in place. I have to be brave
—for Ryker, for the grace year girls … because I know the truth.
Michael’s father steps forward, wearing a mask of concern, but I see what lies beneath. The glint in his eyes. He’s thrilled to be rid of me.
“Never in my years has a crime been so apparent,” he adds, motioning toward my protruding belly.
A screeching wail breaks out in the crowd; women come rushing toward me, hissing, spitting, grabbing at me. As the guards pull them away, I see my mother’s face among them. Of course, she’s one of them. The hurt I feel is overwhelming, but the shame is unbearable, a death all its own. As they’re dragging her away, she lifts her skirts, baring her naked ankle, a jagged scar running down the side. I’m wondering why she did that, what it means, when a shoe comes hurtling my way. I duck just in time. The crowd is screaming for blood. My whole body is trembling. But I have to calm myself. I have to be able to speak clearly. Speak the truth. I won’t let them scare me into silence.
I don’t remember clenching my fist, but when I uncurl my fingers, I find the most startling thing. A tiny red flower. Five petals perfectly formed. The flower from my dreams. But how did it get here?
My breath grows shallow in my chest. I’m searching the crowd, looking for an answer, when my eyes settle on my mother. Her glassy eyes are locked on mine; her bottom lip has the slightest quiver. Pushing aside the scarf draped around her neck, she reveals a tiny red flower, pinned over her heart. The realization hits me so hard that I have to brace my hands against my knees so I don’t pass out.
It’s her.
The scar on her ankle—it’s from the trap the guards set the night before veiling day. That’s why she had blood running down her leg, why she was drinking bloodroot, to stave off infection. And the reason she was always first to join in on a punishment was so she could offer a kind word, a flower, a bit of comfort. Ryker’s mother said you look like her—it had nothing to do with the girl from my dream; it was because my mother is the one that’s been meeting with the women of the outskirts all this time.
She is the usurper the county has been whispering about, hunting.
I want to run to her, thank her … for letting me dream, for risking her life to try to help the women of the county, but I can’t. All I can do is stand here and swallow it, like we have to swallow everything else. I’m trying to hold back my emotions, but I can feel my face contorting. That strange heat moving to my cheeks. I always thought it was magic moving through me, but now I know it to be rage.
Mr. Welk puts his hand on Michael’s slumped shoulders. “As you know, today is the day I relinquish my role as head of the council to you, but given the grave nature of the offense, I will take on this burden for you.”
I’m waiting for him to say it, aching for him to deliver my sentence, because once that happens, I’ll be able to speak my truth. It’s the law that every woman must stand with open eyes, open ears, for the duration of a punishment. And even if they try to cut me off, it takes a long time for a body to burn.
Mr. Welk proudly addresses the crowd. “As my final act of service, a gift to my son, I hereby sentence Tierney James to—”
“The child is mine,” Michael says, his eyes still trained on the ground in front of him.
A collective gasp rises from the crowd. From me.
“There, now.” Mr. Welk holds his hands out in front of him. “We all know Michael hasn’t left the county in the past year. He’s in shock, that’s all, he’s confused. Just give him a moment.” He turns to his son. “I know you’re upset, but—”
Michael pulls away from him. “Tierney came to me in a dream.” He speaks directly to the crowd. “Night after night we lay together in the meadow. That’s how strong our bond is. That was Tierney’s magic.”
“That’s not possible,” someone calls out. “She’s a whore, anyone can see that.”
Mr. Welk motions for the guards to seize me, but Michael squares his body in front of me. “If you need to punish someone, punish me,” Michael says. “I’m to blame. I commanded her to come to me in her dreams, I made her lie with me, because I was selfish and couldn’t wait an entire year to be with her.”
I study his face—I can’t tell if he’s delusional enough to truly believe this or if he’s lying to protect me.
“I know of Tierney’s dreams.” Gertie steps beside me. “They’re as real as she’s standing before you.”
“It’s witchery,” a voice booms from the crowd. “Those two are in on it together. Depraved.”
I’m telling Gertie to stand down, don’t get in trouble for me, when Kiersten follows suit. One by one, the girls fall in around me. It nearly brings me to my knees. Never in my life have I seen a group of women stand together in this way. And as I look around the square, I can tell it doesn’t go unnoticed. The men are too caught up in their rhetoric, screaming red-faced into the void, but the women stand in soft silence, as if they’ve been waiting for this their whole lives. And like smoke signals on a distant mountain, I see a flash of red spread throughout the crowd.
A tiny red flower under the apron bib of the woman from the flower stand; she gave me a purple iris before I left, the symbol of hope. There’s a red flower beneath the ruffle of Aunt Linny’s dress; I remember her telling me to stay in the woods where I belong, even dropping a sprig of holly, just like the bushes leading to the ridge. There’s a red flower pinned underneath June’s collar; June sewed every single seed into my cloak … in secret. And
my mother, telling me that water was best when it came from high on the spring.
They risked everything to try to help me and I didn’t even know it. All I can hear is my mother’s words. “Your eyes are wide open, but you see nothing,” I whisper.
Tears burn my eyes, but I don’t dare blink; I don’t want to miss a single moment.
“This has gone too far,” Mr. Welk says, signaling to the guards. “Are you calling them liars?” Michael asks. “All of them?”
Mr. Welk grabs his elbow. “I understand what you’re trying to do, it’s noble, but you don’t know what you’re dealing with. This could get out of hand.”
Michael jerks his arm free. “Or maybe you’re calling me a liar?” he exclaims, loud enough so everyone in the county can hear. “Because if you don’t accept this, what you’re really saying is that the magic isn’t real.”
“Don’t be ludicrous,” Mr. Welk says with a forced chuckle. “Of course the magic is real.” He swallows hard. “I think the real issue here is safety.” He appeals to the crowd. “How do we know she won’t come for us in our dreams … murder us in our sleep?”
“Tierney’s magic is gone. I can feel it when I look at her,” Michael says as he stands before me, and yet he still can’t meet my eyes. “Come … see for yourself.”
The men press forward, scrutinizing every inch of me. I want to claw their eyes out, but I force myself to stand still.
“Enough of this nonsense.” Mr. Welk signals to one of the guards. “Get the torches.”
Michael stares his father down. “I’m warning you. If you burn Tierney, you burn me with her.”
The color leaches from Mr. Welk’s face. And in that brief moment, I see how much he loves his son, how he’d rather endure anything than give him up. Even me.
“Tell you what…” He signals to the guards to hold off. “I’ll examine her,” he says through his teeth, as if it’s causing him physical pain to be near me. As he stares me dead in the eyes, I can feel the hatred pouring out
of him, but there’s something more than that. Fear. He’s losing control, and we both know it. And like he said to me when he was whipping my backside in the apothecary that night, lack of respect is a slippery slope.
“My son speaks the truth.” His shoulders slump as he turns to face the crowd. “The magic has left her.”
The men let out a disappointed groan.
“But this is proof that the girls’ magic is getting stronger,” Mr. Welk says with a newfound lilt. “This proves that we need the grace year more than ever.”
It takes everything I have to keep my mouth shut, to listen to him stoke fear in the community, creating an even bigger lie, but when I look around at the women, I see the slightest shift. Hope spreading like a balm over an angry rash. It’s not the rebellion of my dreams, it’s not a show of strength like the girl possessed, but maybe it’s the start of something … something bigger than ourselves.
“Please, don’t do this, son,” Mr. Welk pleads. “She’s not worth it. She’s making a fool out of you.”
Michael holds up the black ribbon, telling me to turn around.
I know this is my last chance to speak up, to be heard, but in that moment, I feel the child move inside of me. Ryker’s child. If I don’t stand down, if I don’t accept this kindness, Ryker’s line will die with me.
I turn, tears streaming down my face.
Knotting the black silk around my braid, he rips out the red strand with more force than necessary, but I don’t mind. In this moment, I need to feel anything but this—anything to distract me from the pain of being silenced once and for all. But this isn’t about me anymore.
A guard rushes forward with a rolled sheet of parchment, handing it to Mr. Welk.
He breaks the seal and studies the register; there’s a dark glint in his eye. “I believe this falls upon you, Michael. Your first official duty as head of the council.”
As he hands it over, I can tell this is something bad. A way to get back at him for choosing me.
Michael grits his jaw, taking in a deep breath through his nostrils, before calling out, “It’s come to my attention that Laura Clayton’s body is unaccounted for.”
Laura. The haunted look on her face before she keeled over the side of the canoe.
As the county turns their attention to the Clayton family, Mrs. Clayton stands there seemingly unaffected, but then I see her fingers blanch around her youngest daughter’s shoulder.
“Don’t,” I whisper to Michael. “Please don’t do this.”
“I’ve used up all of my goodwill on you,” he replies through his teeth. “Priscilla Clayton…” Michael raises his chin. “Step forward.”
Mr. Clayton pries the girl away from her mother’s grasp and gives her a nudge in our direction.
As the girl walks to the center of the square, nearly tripping on her errant shoelace, she pulls her plait over her shoulder, nervously fidgeting with the white ribbon. I recognize her from Clara’s year. She’s only seven years old.
“Are you ready to accept your sister’s punishment?” Michael asks. Tears spring to her eyes, but she doesn’t make a sound.
“On behalf of God and the chosen men,” Michael says, the slightest waver in his voice, “I hereby banish you to the outskirts for the rest of your days.”
The sound of the massive gate creaking open makes me flinch.
As she takes her first wobbly step toward the outskirts, Michael stops her.
I let out a shaky breath thinking he’s had a change of heart, that he won’t go through with this, but all he does is reach down, pulling the white ribbon from her hair, letting it fall to the ground.
I look up at him in disgust. How could he do this? But he’s one of them now.
Kneeling down to tie her boot lace, I whisper, “Laura wanted me to tell you that she’s sorry.” I double-knot it. “Find Ryker’s mother. She’ll watch over you.” I look up, expecting a soft smile, a teary thank-you, but I’m met
with a cold flash of anger. And why shouldn’t she feel angry? We all should.
As the labor houses are assigned, the black ribbons administered, I follow the white strand of abandoned silk as it twists in the breeze, drags in the dirt, all the way beyond the gate, across the great lake, back to the woods where I left part of my heart, and I wonder if Ryker’s still out there, if he can see me. What he must think of me.
As the ceremony ends and the crowd disperses, I watch the guards carry unmarked crates from the gate to the apothecary. I’m looking around wondering if anyone else can see what I see, but the women give away nothing, their eyes a million miles away. In wonderment. In horror.
The things we do to girls. Whether we put them on pedestals only to tear them down, or use them for parts and holes, we’re all complicit in this. But everything touches everything else, and I have to believe that some good will come out of all this destruction.
The men will never end the grace year. But maybe we can.
|
In strained silence, Michael escorts me to our new home, a tidy row house filled with gardenias. I’m almost choking on the heavy perfume, on his good intentions.
As soon as the door closes, I say, “Michael, you need to know … I wasn’t taken … against my will.”
The look on his face is so gutting I almost wish they’d just burned me alive. “Don’t…,” he says, taking the gardenia from his lapel, crushing it in his fist.
“I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask you to lie for me.” A maid clears her throat as she comes in from the parlor.
“Take her,” Michael says, handing me off like an unruly child, before stepping outside.
“Where would you like her, sir?” she asks.
He turns, and his anger, the pure rage burning behind his eyes, sends a chill through me. It’s the first time I’ve felt afraid of him.
“She can wait for me in our bedroom,” he says as he slams the door behind him.
Walking up the plush carpeted stairs, I skim my fingers over the wallpaper, rich swirls of dark burgundy. “Padded shackles, but shackles just the same,” I whisper.
“What’d you say, ma’am?” the maid asks.
Ma’am. How did this happen to me? How did I get here?
At the top of the stairs, there are four closed doors. The gas lamps flicker beneath etched glass. There’s a painting on the wall. A child. A little girl lying in the grass. I wonder what she sees? Maybe it reminds him of me, the way we used to lie in the meadow. But I can’t help wondering if she’s dead. If they left her there to die.
“Mr. Welk would like you to wait in here, ma’am.”
Mr. Welk. That’s his name now. It’s not Michael anymore.
She opens the second door on the right. I step inside. I notice she never turns her back on me. I wonder if that’s a holdover from her grace year … if she thinks of me as her enemy.
Normally, we come back twitching and seething, wailing from our dying violence. But maybe I’m even more unnerving this way.
Backing out of the room, she closes the door and locks it behind her.
I pace the room, counting my steps. There’s a carved mahogany four- poster bed. A small rolltop desk with paper, ink, and quill. There’s a Bible next to the bed. Thick black leather, silky pages with gold edging. The inscription on the first page makes me want to set it on fire. To my son. My most prized possession. And I remember how much Michael hated that. Feeling pressured to follow in his father’s footsteps. Feeling trapped by all of this.
But that was Michael. Mr. Welk seems more than comfortable with all this now.
I’m crouching to look under the bed when something slips under my skin, like an old memory, or maybe it’s déjà vu—something my heart has already leapt into before my mind has had a chance to catch up. It’s the sound of an axe biting into hard wood. Peeking through the lace curtain, I see a man below, chopping timber. Viciously, he swings the blade, over and over and over. His body is a tight wire, the strain showing in his neck. There’s no finesse, no sense of preservation behind his cutting. He’s doing this to let out his rage … or to gather it.
And when he stops and looks up at my window, I realize it’s Michael.
Mr. Welk.
I duck back, hoping he didn’t see me, but when I peek out again, he’s gone … and so is the axe.
Hearing the front door slam open, heavy boots inside the foyer, I’m darting around the room looking for anything I can defend myself with, but what would be the point? Here, I am his property. He can do what he likes to me. No questions asked. And besides, everyone would know I had this coming.
Unlocking the door, he shoves it open. He’s standing there, covered in sweat, the axe by his side.
“Sit,” he says, pointing to the bed.
I do as I’m told. I have no idea what he expects of me, what more I can endure, but I try to think back on my instructions. Legs spread, arms limp, eyes to God.
Setting his axe down on the bedside table, he stands before me, the smell of rage spoiling on his skin. I grit my jaw, expecting the worst, but he does something so unexpected that I lose my words, I lose my breath.
Kneeling before me, he unlaces my filthy boots.
As he pries them off of my battered feet, he says, “I didn’t lie. I dreamt that I was with you every single night.”
With tears streaming down my face, he places the key on the bedside table, picks up the axe, and leaves the room.
|
A few moments later, there’s a light knock on the door. I bolt up expecting him to come back to me, so we can talk, work this out, but it’s only the maid.
I’m surprised by how disappointed I feel.
Drawing a bath, she helps me out of my clothes. She looks away when she sees my swollen belly, and I wonder what she must think of me. What they all must think of me.
I recognize her from the year before Ivy’s grace year. Her name is Bridget. She seems nervous, fidgety, but she doesn’t ask any questions. Instead, she talks nonstop about the goings-on of the county. Not much of it sinks in, but I’m happy for the noise, a sense of normalcy.
Using a fine boar-bristle brush, she scrubs my body clean with a soap made from honey that she buys at the market. She washes my hair with lavender and comfrey. The hot water feels so good that I don’t want to get out, but the lure of broth and tea awaiting me in the other room is a powerful motivator. Helping me into a stiff white cotton nightgown, she sits me down at the dressing table, encouraging me to eat while she brushes out my hair. She doesn’t have the gentlest touch, so most of the broth spills out of the spoon before it reaches my mouth. Eventually, I just pick up the bowl and drink it. It’s warm and salty and rich. She tells me that if I keep it down, I can move on to solids tomorrow, which is lucky for me, because it’s pot roast night. As she braids the black silk ribbon into my hair, she goes on and on about the menu, the wash schedule, the music at church, and when
she finally tucks me into bed, I pretend to fall fast asleep, just to get her to leave.
Finally, alone, I lie there in utter silence, but it’s not silent at all.
There’s the low woozy hiss of the gas lamps in the hall, the steady tick of the grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs. Staring up at the pale blue ceiling, the crisp white trim, I wonder how I got here. How this came to pass. Three days ago, I lost Ryker and was certain I’d be marching to my own death, and now, I’m here, in this strange clean box, married to a man that’s both home and a stranger to me. Hearing his footstep on the stairs, I grab the key to lock the door, but hesitate to turn the latch. Instead, I stand there, waiting, listening, watching his shadow beneath the door. He pauses, and I wonder if he has his hand on the knob, if he’s one heartbeat away from coming in here, but he passes by, walking to the end of the hall, where he opens another door and closes it behind him.
For weeks, this goes on.
I know I could ease his suffering with a single word, but instead I hold my breath.
What could we possibly say to each other that would make this okay? But with each passing day, I begin to unthaw.
I find myself singing a tune in the bath. I even laugh out loud remembering a time when Michael and I fell from an oak, scaring the pants off of Gill and Stacy in the meadow one night. Slowly, I return to the world. To some form of myself.
Sometimes I try to visualize Ryker, conjure his smell, his touch, but all I see is here. All I feel is now. It’s only when I look in the mirror at my swollen belly that I realize I’ll get to see Ryker every day. Not in my dreams, but in my arms. Michael has given me this gift. And despite everything, I’m grateful.
Soon, I begin to dress in the fine gowns laid out for me. I braid my hair, securing it with the black strand of silk. I sit at the window watching life go by through the sun-filled curtains. And when the clock strikes midnight, I venture downstairs to sit in front of the roaring fire in the parlor. I’m not afraid to stare into the flames anymore. What I wouldn’t give for a bit of magic right now. Real or imagined.
Night after night, I can feel Michael standing in the doorway behind me, watching, waiting for a kind word, a simple gesture, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it.
Sometimes, I find myself wondering what would’ve happened if he’d told me how he felt sooner. Would we have kissed under a starlit sky, before the grace year ever fell upon us?
But we can’t go back. He’s the head of the council now. In charge of the apothecary, the very place that deals in the body parts of dead grace year girls. No matter what we once were to each other, I need to remember that the Michael I knew is gone. This is Mr. Welk.
|
When a month has passed, a respectable amount of time for a returning grace year girl to recover from the brink of madness, I’m encouraged to go out. Encouraged is a mild way of saying they force me out the door and lock it behind me. It’s what’s expected of me. But more importantly, I need to show them that I belong here. Establish my new position. There’s no more hiding my belly, even if I wanted to.
It’s odd moving through the narrow lanes now. I find the men avert their eyes. It’s disconcerting at first, but then I realize how freeing it is. The women, on the other hand, meet my gaze head-on, eyes wide open. It’s the slightest shift, and something the men would never detect, but I feel it.
The women aren’t allowed to congregate outside of sanctioned holidays, but I crave their company. Before my grace year, I avoided the market like the plague, but now I find myself making excuses to go there. Every exchange, every look has a deeper meaning. Removing a glove to reveal a missing fingertip. Tilting the chin to display a mangled earlobe. We all carry our wounds, some more visible than others. It’s a language all its own, one that I have yet to master. But I’m learning.
With the exception of the greenhouse, I visit the honey stand the most. People must think I have the most outrageous sweet tooth or that I take more baths than a Grecian goddess, but it’s mainly to see Gertie. Only the usual pleasantries are exchanged, but it’s amazing how many subtleties you can put into a simple “good morning.” I smooth my hands over my skirts to show her how much I’ve grown, and in exchange, she smiles toward a girl
working alongside her; the girl smiles back—flushed cheeks, bright eyes, a hint of a smile curling her lips—and I wonder if Gertie’s found happiness. Bliss. Something better than the lithograph.
I’ve only seen Kiersten a few times, always escorted by her maids, pretty as ever, but when she looks at me and smiles, it’s like she’s looking right through me. Lost in a dream. Maybe it’s better that way. For all of us.
There’s always a bit of gossip you can gather from the market—not from the women, they know better, but from the men. Maybe their tongues are loose from whisky, or maybe they want us to hear about another man’s misfortune, but as I pass the chestnut stand, I learn there was a small fire at the apothecary. I can’t believe Michael didn’t mention it to me, but why would he? This is men’s business. I don’t like the way they’re speaking about him, as if he’s bitten off more than he can chew, but when I think about the apothecary, what they sell from secret shelves, I can’t deny there’s a small part of me that wishes it had burned to the ground.
Every afternoon, I walk to the west, past my old house, hoping for a glimpse of my mother, and today I’m finally rewarded.
I desperately want her to meet my eyes, just once, but her gaze seems to skim right over me.
I’m about to move along when I notice the dark pink petunia she’s twirling between her fingers. This flower can signify resentment, but in the old language it was an urgent message. Your presence is needed.
I know it’s dangerous to linger like this, but I’m convinced the message is for me.
As she walks due west, on the lane that cuts through the forest, I follow.
I shadowed my father a million times before, watching him sneak off to the outskirts, but it never occurred to me to follow my mother—that she would have a life of her own.
As she cuts off to the north, I quicken my pace. I want to make sure I keep a safe distance, but if I lose her trail, I’m afraid I’ll never be able to find her.
Reaching the tree where she veered off, I search for her, to no avail. I can almost hear her voice in my head. Your eyes are wide open, but you see nothing.
Breathing in the woods, I hear something, nothing more than a whisper, probably just the wind moving through the dying leaves, but it’s enough to lull me forward. Letting my senses guide me, I walk beyond a grove of evergreens, through a veil of leafy vines, to a small barren clearing.
In the center there are traces of a fire, the smell of moss, cypress, and black ash lingering in the air.
To the north, I hear voices—women’s voices, boisterous, untethered— and I realize I must be near the border of the outskirts. It could be a campsite used by the trappers, but around the fire there are traces of Queen Anne’s lace and valerian root. I remember hearing about the gatherings from Ryker. This is clearly a place for women’s work.
“We meet here on full moons,” my mother says. “You’ll receive a flower as an invitation, but not until the baby is born.”
I turn my head, searching for her, but she’s hidden among the trees. As I take a closer look around, it dawns on me. This is the place from my dreams. The trees are shorter, the light is different, and the forest floor isn’t blanketed with the mysterious red blooms, but this is definitely it.
“I’ve dreamt of this place,” I say.
“That’s because you were here once, when you were small,” she says. “Was I?” I ask, trying to seek her out.
“You must’ve followed me here, because you got lost,” she says; her voice seems to swirl all around me. “Mrs. Fallow found you. Brought you home. We were so worried you would talk about what you’d seen here, but you were always good at keeping secrets.”
I’m scraping my memory for a hint of what I’d seen. Flames, dancing, women joining hands. “For the longest time, I thought the dreams were real,” I say, searching for her behind the cascading vines. “I thought it was my magic creeping in, but it was me all along, talking to myself, showing me what my unconscious mind couldn’t bear to name,” I say.
It’s only when she steps out from behind a balsam that I see her. “Mother,” I whisper. I start running toward her, but she holds up her
hand to stop me.
She’s right. I can’t get carried away. I’ve forgotten what it’s like here.
How dangerous this is.
Stepping next to a fir, we speak to each other from different sides of the forest path. Each of us concealed in shadow.
“Are my sisters involved?” I ask.
“June, yes, she’s a great help to me, but Ivy isn’t cut out for such things.”
“How do I know who’s safe? Who’s one of us?”
“You won’t,” she replies. “Start with those closest to you. Little confidences to test the waters, but nothing that carries a punishment more than a whipping. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself.”
“I should’ve known it was you, behind everything,” I say, my eyes misting over.
“I didn’t do it alone. Your father is a good man. But all good men need a helping hand sometimes. Like Michael, with the fire at the apothecary.”
“What about it?”
She smiles. “Curious how only one cabinet was affected by the flames.” I stare at the charred remnants of the campfire, trying to grasp her meaning, and when I look back to tell her I had nothing to do with that, my mother is gone. I turn just in time to catch the tail end of her black silk
ribbon disappearing down the lane.
|
I want to run, call out Michael’s name in the square, but my mother’s right, I can’t draw attention to myself. Using every ounce of restraint that I have in me, I shorten my gait, slow my pace, until it looks as if I’m out for nothing more than a bit of fresh air.
I stop at the apothecary first, but he’s already locked up for the night, the
CLOSED sign dangling from a thin silver chain.
As I peek into the windows, the memory of catching my father buying one of the vials from Mr. Welk quickly rises to the surface, but now there’s only a charred shadow where the cabinet used to be.
“It’s true,” I whisper. Michael did this for me and he didn’t even tell me about it. Then again, I never gave him a chance.
For the past few months, all I’ve done is push him away, and for what? He saved my life, accepted another man’s child as his own, asking for nothing in return. I think I did it because I feel guilty for being so horrible to him when he lifted my veil. I feel guilty for betraying him by falling in love with someone else, and I feel guilty for not trusting him to be exactly what I’ve always known him to be—a good man.
Choking back my emotions, I make my way home, with slow, measured steps, but as soon as the front door closes behind me, I tear off my wool cape and run through the house, smacking right into Bridget at the top of the stairs. “Where is he?” I ask. “Where’s Mr. We— where’s Michael?”
“Council meeting,” she says, in a fluster. “He won’t be home till late. Is something wrong with the b—”
“No … no … nothing like that,” I say, smoothing down my skirts. “It’s nothing.”
She looks me over. “Why don’t you sit and rest,” she says, ushering me into the bedroom. “And I’ll bring up supper in a few.”
As I sit on the edge of the bed, she bends down, silently digging cockleburs from the hems of my skirts. Just like the ones I used to find on June.
I glance up at her, trying to figure out if she suspects anything, if I’ve somehow given myself away, but as she leaves, I notice the tiniest change. She doesn’t back out of the room anymore.
When Bridget comes up with dinner, I pick at it, pretend nothing’s happened, but everything’s different now. I’m different. It’s not just the news of the fire in the apothecary that has me feeling this way, although the gesture means more to me than he could ever imagine; this is about growing up, accepting responsibility, accepting kindness, accepting love.
As I step into the bath, Bridget fills the silence, babbling on and on about the flowers at church. I find myself leaning over the side of the tub to pluck a soft pink rose petal from the small arrangement on the tray. My mother told me to test the water with people who are closest to me. Who’s closer to me than Bridget? She was once a grace year girl, just like me. With deliberate intent, I drop the petal into the bath, watching it swirl around my ankles lasciviously.
Bridget stops talking. Her breath halts in her chest. I look up at her, waiting for her to snatch it out of the water, run and tell the head of the house of my transgression, but instead, I see the faintest rise in the corner of her mouth. And I know this is a new beginning. For all of us.
 |
Tonight, as the clock strikes twelve, I descend the stairs, my silk robes swishing against the thick rugs, and curl up on the settee and wait. Michael hardly makes a sound when he comes in, but I know he’s there; I can smell his amber cologne. Matching my breath to his own, I will him to enter, but when he turns to leave, I whisper, “Please. Join me.”
He clears his throat before stepping into the room as if he’s making sure that I was speaking to him.
He sits beside me, being careful not to get so close as to make me skittish. We stay like this for a long time, staring at the flames, and I remember Ryker telling me that Michael sounded like a decent man. I think he said that, or maybe that’s what I need to tell myself to make peace with this. Taking in a deep breath I say, “I owe you an explan—”
“You owe me nothing,” he whispers. “I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you. I only hope that in time you will grow to love me, too.”
My eyes begin to well up. “The fire at the apothecary … I know it was you. I know you did that for me.”
He lets out a burst of pent-up air. “For someone who’s right about so many things, when you’re wrong, you’re spectacularly wrong.”
I look up at him, trying to understand.
“I did it for me,” he says, his brow knotting up. “All those years we spent together as kids, running around the county, trying to figure out clues about the grace year, it meant something to me. The girl from your dreams … she meant something to me, too. I always believed, in you, in her, in change, you just didn’t believe in me.”
Tears are searing down my cheeks now.
Tentatively, he places his hand next to mine on the settee, the heat of his flesh drawing me in. I stretch out my fingers to take his hand in mine. At first, I flinch at the full weight of his palm, the weight of this moment, but it feels good. It feels real. Not a betrayal of Ryker, but that my heart is big enough to love two people at the same time, in two different ways.
And this is how it starts, how we grow our friendship into something more.
More than I ever expected.
|
Through the winter, Michael and I ease into our expected roles, until it doesn’t feel like a role anymore. We eat together, stroll through the market, attend church, go to social functions, arm in arm. On occasion, I’m allowed to help him in the apothecary, which has given me purpose, something to do, but also given me insight into the women of the county. It’s a delicate negotiation, trying to suss out who is amenable to change and who would sooner cut my tongue out if given the chance. But all of this will take time. Something I’ve finally come to accept that I have plenty of.
In the meantime, we enjoy each other’s company. I no longer flinch when he touches me; instead, I lean into him, for comfort and warmth. At night, we speak of everything under the sun, but never the grace year. That is the one vow I will never break. It doesn’t belong to him.
As the full moon of my ninth month draws near, I feel it in my body, the duality of wanting to hang on but needing to let go.
I used to dread the full moon. I saw it as a dark, wild place where madness dwells. But I think the full moon shows us who we really are … what we’re meant to be.
Tonight, when I open my eyes, the girl is lying beside me. I haven’t dreamt of her in so long, it startles me. She looks different … worried.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” I tell her, but when I reach out to touch her face, my hand goes right through her.
A jolt of pain shoots through me, making me crunch up in a tight ball. It starts in my lower abdomen, radiating throughout my limbs. It’s so intense,
so sudden, that I let out a sharp scream.
“What is it?” Michael bolts up in bed. “Another nightmare? I’m here.
You’re safe. You’re home.”
I try to stand, but the next wave of pain hits me like a runaway colt. “Whoa,” I manage to exhale.
“What can I do?” he asks.
I lean forward, trying to ease the pressure, when I notice tiny specks floating outside the window.
“Snow,” I whisper as I peer through the gap in the heavy damask curtains.
“Do you want me to open the window for you?” he asks, easing his warm hand over my lower back.
I nod.
As he opens it, the blast of freezing air brings me right back to the encampment—facing Ryker on the frozen lake. A fresh wave of pain comes over me, but it’s not physical this time. I try to get up so I can see the snow more clearly, but when I rise from the bed, Michael stammers, “Tierney … you’re bleeding.”
Without taking my eyes off the falling snow, I say, “I know.”
As he bolts out of the room, yelling at the maids to fetch the midwife, I can’t help wondering if this is a sign. A late snow sent by Eve. But what is she trying to tell me?
Another surge of pain comes, making my knees buckle.
Michael bursts into the room, dragging the midwife with him. She still looks half asleep, but once she sees the state I’m in, she snaps to.
“Dear child,” she says, pressing her hand to my forehead. I’m sticky with sweat and burning up with fever, but I try to smile. Another wave of pain hits, and I let out a deep groan.
As she helps me to the bed to examine me, I watch my stomach roiling in the lamplight. Tiny elbows and knees, struggling to get out.
“I need towels, hot water, ice, and iodine,” she barks at Michael.
“Now.”
“What’s wrong?” I pant. “Is there something wrong with the baby?”
As he rushes out of the room, hollering at the staff, I’m asking a million questions, but she just ignores me, removing the tools from her satchel. It reminds me of Ryker, the tools from his kill kit.
There’s a commotion downstairs. The midwife props up my body with the pillows. Even this small amount of jostling is excruciating. I have to bite down on a rag to stop myself from screaming out.
People are racing up the stairs; my mother and two older sisters barge into the room. Clara and Penny aren’t allowed, not until they’ve bled.
As they hover around me, I hear my father outside the room, trying to calm Michael down. “It’s going to be okay. Tierney is as strong as they come. She can do this.”
My mother presses a cool cloth to my head. “I’m scared,” I whisper.
She pauses, her face ravaged with worry. “Frykt ikke for min kjærlighet er evig.”
“Fear not, for my love is everlasting,” I whisper back. It brings fresh tears to my eyes. It reminds me of a time when I was small, curled up next to my mother in her room after Penny’s birth, the smell of blood and freesia hanging all around us. She was burning up with fever, and I knew by the look on my father’s face that it might be the last time I’d see her. As I clung to her soft warm flesh, burrowing my face in the musky linens, she told me to be strong. She pressed my hand over her heart. “There’s a place inside us where they can’t reach us, they can’t see. What burns in you burns in all of us.”
I ran to the woods that night, hiding in the tall grass. Hiding from all my fears.
The fear of growing older, the shame of not bearing sons. The wounds the women held so close that they had to clamp their mouths shut for fear of it slipping out. I saw the hurt and the anger seeping from their pores, making them lash out at the women around them. Jealous of their daughters. Jealous of the wind that could move over the cliffs without a care in the world. I thought if they cut us open they’d find an endless maze of locks and bolts, dams and bricked-over dead ends. A heart with walls so tall that it slowly suffocates, choking on its own secrets. But here, in this room,
my mother and my sisters gathered around me, I understand there’s so much more to us … a world hidden in the tiny gestures that I could never see before. They were there all along.
As my mother pulls away to help the midwife, June and Ivy step in to comfort me. “We’re here,” June says, taking my hand.
“It’s okay to scream,” Ivy says, taking my other hand. “I screamed my head off with little Agnes. It’s the one time we’re allowed, might as well make the most of it.”
“Ivy,” June hisses, but she can’t stop the small smile taking over the corner of her mouth. “We can scream together … if you’d like,” June adds.
I nod, a hazy smile coming over me as I squeeze their hands.
As the midwife presses down on my belly, she shakes her head. “What is it?” my mother asks.
“The baby’s in a bad position. I’m going to have to reach in and turn it.” My sisters hold on to me even tighter. We’ve all heard the stories. Childbirth is dangerous business under the most normal of circumstances,
but rarely do babies make it out of a breech.
“Brace yourself,” the midwife says as she grips my belly with one hand and reaches inside me with the other.
The pain is cutting at first, but it quickly shifts to something dull and deep. A guttural moan escapes my lips as I bear down.
“Don’t push,” she says.
But I can’t help it. The pressure is unbearable. I’m exhausted. Panting. Sweat seeping from every pore, my hair soaking wet, the bedsheets stained with blood. I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. And then I look outside at the gently falling snow and I think of Ryker. He would never let me give up. He would never let me be weak. Or I would never want to seem weak in front of him. I close my eyes and imagine he’s here with me, and maybe I’m delirious, on the edge of bleeding out, but I swear I can feel his presence.
I hear the men outside my room, glasses clinking, the faint hint of whisky seeping from beneath the door. “May you be blessed with a son,” Father Edmonds bellows.
“We should pray,” Ivy says, fear in her eyes.
As my mother and sisters gather round, they join hands. “Dear Lord, use me as your holy vessel to deliver thy son—”
“No. Not that.” I shake my head, my breath shallow in my chest. “If you feel the need to pray, then pray for a girl.”
“That’s blasphemy,” Ivy whispers, looking back at the door to make sure the men didn’t hear.
“For Tierney,” my mother says.
The women look at each other, an unspoken understanding falling over the room.
They rejoin hands. “Dear Lord, use me as your holy vessel to deliver thy … daughter—”
As they pray, I bear down.
“Feet,” the midwife calls out. “Legs. Arms. Head.” But her tone grows more somber in the end. “The child is clear.”
“Can I see?” I cry.
The midwife looks to my mother. She gives her a stern nod.
As the midwife lays the child on top of me, the tears come. “It’s a girl,” I say with a soft laugh.
But she just lies there completely still. “Please breathe … please,” I whisper.
As I wipe the blood from her perfect little face, I note that she has my eyes, my lips, Ryker’s dark hair, the slight dimple in her chin, but there’s a spot that won’t come clean. A small strawberry mark below her right eye.
And in the second of her first weighted breath, I realize it’s her—the girl that I’ve been searching for.
Letting out a sobbing gasp, I hold her close, kissing her softly.
The magic is real. Maybe not in the way they believe, but if you’re willing to open your eyes, open your heart, it’s all around us, inside us, waiting to be recognized. I’m a part of her, as is Ryker, and Michael, and all the girls who stood with me in that square to make this come to pass.
She belongs to all of us.
“I’ve dreamed of you my whole life,” I say as I kiss her. “You are wanted. You are loved.”
As if she understands, she wraps her tiny fingers around mine.
“What’s her name?” my mother asks, her chin trembling.
I don’t even have to think about it; it’s as if I’ve always known. “Her name is Grace,” I whisper. “Grace Ryker Welk. And she’s the one who’s going to change everything.”
My mother leans over to kiss her granddaughter, slipping a small red flower with five petals into my hand.
I look up at her and whisper, “My eyes are wide open, and I see everything now.”
With tears streaming down her face, my mother smooths her hand down my braid, releasing me from the black ribbon. And everything it means.
As I close my eyes and let out my next endless breath, I find myself walking in the woods, weightless, free.
I’ve been here before. Or maybe I never left.
A shadowy figure emerges on the trail ahead, dark shrouds billowing around him like smoke. With every step forward, he comes into clearer focus.
Ryker.
I can’t tell if he recognizes me or not, but he’s walking straight toward me.
Holding my ground, I wait to see if he’ll take me in his arms or simply pass right through me.
