The winter that came in like a lion has gone out like a lamb. The snow has melted under a clear mellow sun. The birds are singing, chlorophyll fills the air, and the full moon is upon us. Every night I see it growing through the hatch in the roof, which seems to mirror my own feelings for Ryker. Sometimes, when I look at him, it feels like my rib cage is being pried apart, expanding for extra air—it hurts, but it’s a feeling I’m not sure I want to let go of.
To pass the time, keep our minds occupied, our curious hands busy, Ryker and I toss a dagger back and forth. At first, I could hardly bend my fingers enough to grasp the hilt, but I’ve gotten rather good at it. Quick. I’ve also taken to helping him rig up traps, fine finger work that takes a steady hand, using an entirely different set of muscles. Ironically, Ryker told me that I would make for a decent poacher.
When he’s out hunting, I practice standing, walking, building my strength back in my legs, but it’s also an excuse to explore the space around me. He’s tidy, every nook seems to serve a purpose, but there are small personal touches here and there. A piece of driftwood in the shape of a swallow, a series of polished stones he’s collected from the shore. The small figurines that he whittles away at when he’s missing home. At the end of the hunting season he takes the figurines back to his family and then starts all over again to mark how much they’ve grown over the year.
At night, we talk for hours about everything and nothing. He teaches me about herbs; I teach him about the language of flowers. He knows a little
from Anders. That’s the one thing Anders’s mother hung on to from the county.
There are days when it’s enough to stand beneath the open hatch in the roof, feeling the spring air sink deep into my bones, and there are others where I long to be outside, when the soles of my feet begin to itch with the desire to explore, to be on my own. To answer to no one but myself. But that was never really the case. We all answer to someone.
We agreed that as soon as I was better, I’d return to the encampment. I’m better now, and yet here I stand.
The second I hear his footsteps on the bottom rung of the ladder, I slip back into bed and feign weakness. I tell myself it’s survival—here I have a warm bed, food in my belly, protection, but I know it’s more than that. It’s about him.
I don’t know what his favorite color is, his favorite hymn, if he prefers blueberries over boysenberries, but I know the way he clenches his jaw when he’s thinking, the rise and fall of his chest right before he drifts to sleep, the sound of his footsteps on the forest floor, the smell of his skin— salt, musk, lake water, and pine.
We come from completely different worlds, but I feel closer to him than I’ve ever felt to anyone.
We don’t speak of the future or the past, so it’s easy to pretend. When he leaves to hunt, I tell myself he’s simply heading off to work—maybe a neighboring island. Or sometimes I make believe we’re in exile, hiding from evil forces—which isn’t entirely off base, but even that feels too close. Dangerous.
During twilight, that shadowy place between sleep and dreams—that’s when it hurts the most. When reality worms its way between us.
In my weaker moments, I let myself fantasize that we could find a way. Maybe we could meet in the northern forest every year on the day of the unveiling ceremony, but it would never be enough.
The fact of the matter is, if I don’t return to the county at the end of my grace year, my sisters will be punished in my stead, and if he goes missing, his family won’t receive his pay. They’ll starve.
Ryker and I may be many things, but we could never willingly hurt the ones we love.
This will have to end before it even begins.
 |
Tonight, when he returns, he takes off his shroud, his boots, unstraps his knives, pulls his shirt off, hanging it by the hearth, and then pauses. He’s probably making sure I’m asleep before unbuttoning his trousers. I close my eyes, keeping my breath as even as possible. As soon as I hear them drop to the floor, I can’t help but look. I remember feeling so afraid when I saw him like this on the first night he brought me here. I saw violence in the scars covering his body, I saw brute force in the way his muscles moved beneath his skin, but now I see something else. There is strength, but also restraint. There are scars, but also healing.
He kneels beside me, pressing the inside of his wrist against my forehead. Force of habit, or maybe it’s just an excuse to touch me. Either way, I don’t mind.
I pretend to stir awake.
Grabbing a pelt off the bed, he covers himself. “I hope I didn’t scare you,” he says, a beautiful flush covering his neck and cheeks.
“You don’t,” I whisper.
His eyes meet mine. And what should be an innocuous gesture feels entirely electric.
“Ryker, you there?” A voice pierces the air between us.
He presses his finger to my lips to keep me quiet, but I don’t think I’d be able to utter a sound even if I wanted to.
It’s not until we hear a foot hitting the bottom rung of the ladder that Ryker reacts. Bolting to his feet, he says, “Anders, sorry, I was sleeping.” He gives me a look of apology before ducking behind the door covering.
“You’re just wearing a rabbit skin now?” Anders asks, a lightness in his voice.
“Guess so.” Ryker lets out a nervous laugh. “Ned got one by the eastern fence,” Anders says.
I sit up straight, tight as an arrow. That must’ve been the caw we heard last night.
“Hardly any meat on it, brains all scrambled, but Ned’s set for life.
You’re missing out. That’s the sixteenth one you’ve slept through.”
“Sixteen,” I whisper.
“They’re going down a lot earlier this season. Martin says the magic is really strong this year.”
“Is that right?” Ryker replies, but I can sense the uneasiness in his voice, which means Anders can probably sense it, too.
I hear him take another step up the ladder. “How’d that wool work out for you?”
“Wool?”
My eyes shoot to my cloak, hanging by the hearth. “You traded me an elk hide for it?”
“Oh, yeah, made a great herb satchel.”
“Let’s see.” The poacher takes another step up the ladder.
A surge of panic rushes through me. If he gets all the way up here, I need to be ready to run … to fight.
“I haven’t started yet,” Ryker explains, “but I will as soon as the weather turns cooler.”
Getting up as quietly as possible, I tiptoe across the room to fetch my cloak and boots. The floorboard lets out a deep groan.
There’s an awkward pause. I’m waiting for Anders to come charging up the ladder to see what’s going on when he says, “You know it was a year ago today that I was cursed … when you brought me home.”
“That’s right,” Ryker replies, a soft haze slipping into his voice. “I thought I was a dead man.”
“But you made it. You survived.”
“They owe me,” Anders says, his voice darkening. “They killed my whole family. All I need is one clean shot. We’d have a lot better chance if you were out here with me. All we need is one kill, and we can take your family and get out of this place for good. Just like we planned.”
“Take a look at that sky,” Ryker says, clearly trying to change the subject. Or maybe he’s trying to buy me some time.
Slipping into my boots, I grab a knife off the table.
“Yeah. Weather’s changing fast,” Anders replies. “Birds are flying low. Better batten down the hatches, close off the flue. Spring is about to go out with a bang.”
I let out a shaky breath when I hear Anders step off the ladder, his feet hitting the ground, hard. “Hey,” he calls up. “You know you can tell me anything. Whatever’s going on with you, I’m here. Whatever you need.”
As they say their good-byes, I sit on the edge of the bed, boots on, cloak around my shoulders, my body covered in a sheen of cold sweat.
“I’m sorry,” Ryker whispers as he comes back inside. It’s the first time he’s ever said he’s sorry to me.
“I wonder who it was last night,” I murmur. “Could’ve been Nanette or Molly or Helen…”
He takes off my boots.
“Or maybe it was Ravenna, Katie, or Jessica.” He removes my cloak.
“Becca, Lucy, Martha … Gertie…,” I whisper, my chin beginning to tremble. “They don’t deserve this. They don’t owe him their lives.”
Prying the knife out of my hand, he sits beside me.
“I know this is hard, but you don’t know what the prey is capable of … I mean, the girls.” He corrects himself. “When I found Anders last year, he was near death. It started with a rash near the bite mark, and by the time I got him back to the outskirts, it covered his entire body. He was burning up, vomiting blood, white bumps bursting to the touch. And within a week his entire family was dead.”
“White bumps?” I ask, wiping away my tears with the back of my hand. “The size of early spring peas?”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Does Anders have scars?” I ask, trying to control my breath. “Yes,” he replies warily.
“Like the one on my thigh?”
He thinks about it for a minute and nods; his cheeks flush. “It’s from the vaccination my father gave to me.”
“I have one, too,” he says, pointing out a small spot on the back of his shoulder.
“Did my father give you a shot?” I ask, running my thumb over his scar. “Yes,” he replies. “After we made the agreement.”
The memory comes flooding back to me. The ear in that glass bottle at the apothecary—covered in pustules. My father wasn’t buying that vial for himself or even for my mother—he was buying it for this.
“It’s not a curse,” I whisper, tears running down my cheeks. “It’s smallpox. A virus. I don’t know why I never put it together before, but my father had been working on a cure for years. You need to tell the others,” I say, shooting to my feet. “If you go to them and tell them the truth … they’ll stop.”
Ryker shakes his head. “They’d never believe me, and even if they did … think about it…” A look of horror passes over his face. “If they think the curse isn’t real, what’s to stop them from crossing the fence and hunting them down? They’d all be dead by sunrise.”
I sink back down to the bed. I don’t know how long we stay like this, sitting side by side, but the inch between us might as well be a mile.
 |
“Ryker,” I whisper into the dark.
The fire has nearly gone out, the last of the embers barely clinging to life. For a brief moment, I wonder if he’s already left to go hunting for the night, but when I look toward the doorway, I glimpse the top of his head. He’s sitting on the floor next to me, leaning back against the mattress. I can tell by his breathing that he’s fast asleep.
I know it’s wrong, but I find myself reaching out to touch his hair. Skimming my fingers over the twisted ends sends a surge of warmth rushing through me. I’ve touched Michael’s hair a million times back in the county and never felt anything remotely like this. I know I should stop, but instead, I find myself threading my fingers in deeper.
Ryker sits up with a jolt.
Clenching my hand into a tight fist, I try to get control of my breath. “Another nightmare?” I ask.
“Try to go back to sleep,” he whispers, staring into the dark. “What do you dream of?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he replies. “They’re just dreams.”
I know he’s probably right, but it hurts to hear him say that, especially after I confided in him about the girl from my dreams, everything it meant to me.
As if he can sense my feelings, he forces his shoulders to relax and leans back against the bed, eyes fixed on the doorway. “I’m in the woods,” he says softly. “I see water. It’s close, but I can’t seem to reach it.”
“What are you doing there?” I ask, taking in his musky scent.
“I’m searching for something … waiting for something … but I don’t know what it is. I walk through the forest, but my footsteps don’t make a sound, they don’t leave a trail. A buck comes charging through the trees. I take out my best blade, but the animal runs right through me.” I watch his Adam’s apple depress in the firelight. “And when I wake, I have this horrible feeling, this ache in my gut, like I’ll never leave those woods. I’ll never reach the shore. I’ll be alone … forever.”
I want to reach out to touch him again. I want to tell him that I’m here, that he’s not alone, but what good would it do? No matter the circumstances that threw us together, he will always be a poacher. I will always be prey. Nothing will ever change that. As soon as I cross back over the fence, all of this will be nothing but a dream.
A great and terrible dream.
|
I wake to find that Ryker’s set up a fishing line across a corner of the tiny cabin, draping pelts over it to hide a small metal tub, filled with steaming hot water.
“I thought you might want a bath,” he says.
Pulling the chemise away from my damp skin, I tuck in my chin and take a whiff. He thought right.
As he tends to the hearth, I duck behind the pelts. There’s a small jar of tea tree oil and a teakwood comb waiting for me.
I peek through the pelts. It seems silly. He’s seen me naked a hundred times; he has a map to my skin, for God’s sake, but everything’s different now.
Slipping out of the chemise, I step into the tub. A low grumble of thunder rattles the tin beneath me.
“Anders was right about the storm,” I say.
Pulling the ribbon from my hair, I let out the longest sigh of my life. I feel bad for swatting his hand away when he tried to take it out when I first arrived. I’m not sure if it was tradition or the idea of magic that set me off, but it makes me realize how ingrained the county runs in me.
Sinking into the water, it’s so hot, I’m afraid I’ll scald my skin, but it feels too good to stop. I can’t imagine how many kettles he had to boil to fill this.
I’m rubbing the tea tree oil into my hair when I feel something brush against my leg. I’m about to jump out of the tub when I see it’s a flower
petal. I take in a quick breath. Wild roses. In the county, bathing with flowers is a sin, a perversion, punishable by whip.
“Is everything okay?” he asks. He’s so attuned to me now. He probably hears the change in my breath.
“There are rose petals in the bath,” I say, trying to sound as calm as possible.
“It’s called a perfume bath. I’m told it’s good for your skin. I thought it might help with your scars, but I can take them out if you don—”
“No. Of course. That’s very kind,” I say, rolling my eyes at how stupid I sound—like I’m accepting the arm of a gentleman to escort me over a puddle that I could damn well get over myself.
Sinking back into the water, I try to avoid touching the petals, but I have to admit, it’s nice.
Another roar of thunder trembles beneath me, making me tense up. I remember the last time a huge storm came through. That didn’t end so well. Smoothing the rose water over the scar tissue on my shoulder, I try to think of something else. Anything else.
“Do you have a nickname?” I ask. “What’s that?”
“Like, Ry or Ryker Striker or—”
“No.” He lets out a tiny laugh. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh before. “Do you?”
I shrug. The pain in my shoulder seems to have dulled to the point that I hardly wince when I move it anymore. “Some of them call me Tierney the Terrible.”
“Are you terrible?”
“Probably.” I smile as I sink further into the water. “Who gave you a veil?” he asks.
The question catches me by surprise. “A very foolish boy.” I study him through the gap in the pelts, noticing the way he’s clenching his jaw. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
“You didn’t think anyone would be crazy enough to give me a veil?” I say, twisting the water out of my hair.
“I didn’t say that,” he replies, staring intently into the waning fire.
“His name’s Michael,” I say as I comb through my hair. “Michael Welk. His father owns the apothecary. He’ll be taking over as head of the council.”
“You say this like it’s a bad thing.” He peers back at me. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing’s wrong with him,” I say as I start to weave the ribbon into my braid. “He’s been my best friend since we were kids. That’s why I thought he understood. He knew I didn’t want to be a wife. He knew about the dreams. When he lifted my veil, I wanted to punch him in the face. And then he had the nerve to tell me that he’s always loved me … that I didn’t have to change for him.”
“Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe he wants to help you.” He pokes at the logs. “It sounds like he could’ve turned you in at any point for having the dreams, but he chose to protect you. He sounds like a decent man.”
I tie off the braid and glare at him through the gap. “Whose side are you on?”
“My own.” He meets my gaze. “Always my own.” He goes back to the hearth, but I can tell his mind is elsewhere. “Maybe you have an opportunity to change things. Maybe you can help the women of the outskirts, too. Like the usurper.”
“You know about the usurper?” I jump out of the bath, pulling on my chemise. “Have you seen her?” I join him by the smoldering remains of the fire.
“No.” He takes me in, his gaze lingering. “But I hear they meet with her on the border, in a hidden clearing. They stand together in a circle holding hands, talking late into the night.”
“Who told you that?”
He reaches out to catch a drop of water dripping from the end of my braid. “Rachelle…,” he says, glancing up at me through his dark lashes. “A girl I know.”
“Oh,” I reply, which comes off snippier than I intended. “Is that … do you have a … a someone back home?” I ask, tripping over my own words.
He looks at me curiously. “We’re hunters. We live a nomadic lifestyle.
We’re not allowed to form attachments … to spread our bastard seed.”
I can’t stop myself from looking down at his trousers. “So, you’re like the guards, then?”
“No.” He shifts his weight at the thought. “I’m all … intact.” “So you’ve never…”
“Of course I have,” he says with a grin, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. “Who else do you think the women practice on?”
“I thought you weren’t allowed to breed.”
“There are plenty of other ways to be with a woman. Besides, they know their bodies. They know when they’re fertile.”
A searing heat takes over my face. I’m not sure why it bothers me. The girls in the county do the same in the meadow when trying to snare a husband. But this feels different. For some reason, I can’t stop picturing the girl in Gertie’s lithograph. Is that what he’s used to? What it’s like for them? “We get to go home for a few days every year, between hunting seasons, but I’ll be going home to see my mother, my sisters. So the answer is no.” He looks at me intently, and my breath seems to catch in my throat.
“There’s no one special waiting for me back home.”
I pretend to be interested in the stitching of my chemise, anything to divert my attention from the lawlessness I feel racing through my blood, but even the stitching reminds me of his hands, the fact that he sewed this back together for me to make me feel more at ease. I keep reminding myself that the only reason he didn’t kill me is because of the deal he made with my father, but the why doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Maybe it’s the close quarters, the fact that he saved me more times than I can count, or maybe it’s forbidden fruit that’s making me feel this way, but I don’t think about getting out of here anymore. I don’t think about going home. I think about what it would feel like … the touch of his lips … his skin against mine.
A huge gust of air blows through the chimney, sending a whoosh of blazing embers shooting toward us. Ryker scoops me up in his arms, flinging me onto the bed.
As he snuffs out the sparks on my skin, I don’t scream out in pain. I don’t make a sound. The only thing I feel right now is the weight of his
body leaning against mine.
“Easy now,” he says as he lifts a stray damp strand of hair from my collarbone, gently blowing on my skin. I think he’s trying to cool me down, but it only seems to fan something deeper inside of me. It’s a different kind of heat. One that I don’t know how to quell. One that I’m not even sure I want to.
Dipping a cloth in a jar of aloe water, he runs it over the tiny burn marks on my neck, across my collarbone. I’m staring up at him, getting lost in the bones of his face, when he stops short of the lace edging of my chemise; a drop of water trails down my chest. There’s a weighted pause.
I want to ignore it, pretend this isn’t happening, but in this moment, I wish he hadn’t mended my slip. I wish there was nothing between us.
He stares down at me with the same intensity as when we first met, but what I once took as anger, I now know to be fear.
“Are you afraid of me?” I whisper. “My magic?”
“I’m not afraid of you,” he says, watching my lips. “I’m afraid of the way you make me feel.”
As we stare into each other’s eyes, the world around us disappears. I forget all about the girls at the encampment, the poachers hunting them down. I forget about my dreams, the world I’ll have to return to come fall.
I want to be lost.
I understand why the girls in the encampment cling to their magic. It’s the same reason I cling to this. We’re all yearning for escape. A respite from the life that’s been chosen for us.
Right now, there’s only this. And there are worse ways to pass the time.
I’m not sure if I’m lifting my head or if he’s leaning forward, but we’re so close now that I can feel his breath pulsing against my skin.
As he brushes his lips against mine, I feel a rush of heat move through my body, and when our tongues touch, something else inside of me takes over.
Threading my hands in his hair, wrapping myself around him, I’m pulling him closer … when he’s ripped from my limbs.
|
A boy with madness in his eyes stands at the end of the bed, holding Ryker back. His shroud has slipped from his face, revealing a spray of tiny scars covering his cheeks. Anders.
“I knew something was wrong,” he pants. “Did it bite you?” “It’s not what you think.” Ryker gives me a pleading look.
“Don’t look at it. It must’ve used its magic on you. Get your shroud, hurry, before it does something worse.”
Ryker lets out a long sigh. “I’m getting my shroud.”
Anders releases him and pulls a blade from the sheath on his belt. As he stalks toward me, Ryker reaches for the charcoal gauze hanging next to the hearth. I wonder if he really believes it … that I’ve somehow bewitched him.
I’m scooting back on the bed, all the way against the wall, when Ryker steps behind Anders, ensnaring his wrist with the shroud, twisting his arm back, forcing him to drop the blade. Before Anders can even react, Ryker has his hands tied behind him, the blade at his throat. “Don’t make me hurt you,” Ryker says.
“What are you doing?” Anders struggles to get free. “I’m not going to
take it from you. It’s your kill.”
Ryker kicks the stool away from the table full of knives to in front of the hearth. “I want to explain this to you.”
“There’s nothing to explain. It put a spell on you. Anyone can see that.” “There’s no spell,” Ryker says, forcing him to sit.
Unfortunately, Anders is directly in my line of sight now, which he takes full advantage of by staring a million daggers into me.
“Her name is Tierney.”
Anders shakes his head violently. “It doesn’t have a name. It’s prey.
Nothing more.”
“This is the daughter of Dr. James. The man who saved your life.” “So?”
“So … we owe him.”
Anders lets out a strangled laugh. “You’re just going to keep it … like a pet?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.”
“Look.” Anders softens his tone. “I get it, you’re lonely. We’re all lonely. But you’re going to have to kill it eventually. Or you could let me do it.” His eyes light up. “You can keep it until the end of the season, and when you’re done—”
“I don’t want to kill her,” Ryker says. “I want to be with her.” The admission stuns me almost as much as Anders.
“Y-you can’t be serious?” he sputters. “We’re poachers. We took an oath.”
“There are higher oaths.” Ryker glances back at me, and all I want to do is shrink into the wall. “We always said we’d leave if given the chance.”
“This is our chance,” Anders says, nodding at me. “If you skin it, we can take your family west, just like we planned. You can pick any girl you want from the outskirts—”
“There are other ways to leave,” Ryker says.
“Wait … you’re not…” Anders’s face goes ashen. “You’re not thinking of deserting, are you? What about your family? Your pay? They’ll starve
—”
“Not if you claim them as your own.” Ryker leans forward, looking at him intently.
“You’re serious,” Anders whispers, his eyes tearing up. “What about the guards? Have you thought about that? I’ve seen one of them sneaking around. He’ll be dragging in timber to fix the breach any day now. If they catch her here—”
“They won’t.”
“Unless I tell,” Anders mutters.
Ryker springs on him, holding the knife so close to his jugular that I hear it scraping against his whiskers. “I will die before I let anyone hurt her. Do you understand?”
“What about me?” Anders looks up at him, and I can almost feel his heart breaking. “What about our plans?”
“You are my brother,” Ryker says, cradling the back of Anders’s head. “That will never change. Once we’re settled, I’ll send for you and my family.”
“You think you can just drift off into the sunset?” Anders’s nostrils flare. “Why not? There’s plenty of land for the taking. I’m a good hunter.” “Not good enough,” Anders says, staring at me.
“She’s with me now.” Ryker moves into his line of sight, breaking the fixation. “The question is, are you?” He tightens his grip on the knife. “I need to know right now where you stand.”
“With you,” Anders whispers. “I’ve always been with you, brother. Till the end.”
Ryker looks back at me as if he’s waiting for my approval. I nod. I don’t know what else to do.
Bending to untie Anders’s hands, Ryker says, “I know this is a lot to ask, but this is all going to work out. You’ll see.” He gives his shoulders a squeeze, before letting him go.
As Anders walks toward the door, I’m bracing myself for anything, but Ryker seems to have quelled his anger.
Anders pauses by the door. “I dropped a jar of hemlock silt around here somewhere. That’s why I came … I wanted to show you. The storm kicked up a whole mess of it.”
“That’ll fetch a great price,” Ryker says excitedly.
“There’s more down in the third cove,” Anders says. “We could haul it in together. Fifty-fifty.”
“Nah, you can keep it, but I’ll help you bring it in.” “You’d do that?” Anders asks sheepishly.
“We’re still in this together,” Ryker says. “Now there’s just one more of us.”
Anders looks my way. He still can’t meet my eyes, but it’s a start.
“First light, I’ll meet you at the cove,” Anders says with a slight smile.
And for a brief second I can see the sweet boy Ryker told me about.
|
Immediately, I start cleaning up the cabin. I don’t know what else to do … with my mind … my body.
Ryker leans against the wall, watching me. “Whatever you’re thinking
—”
“Thinking? What could I possibly be thinking?” I pick up the shroud off the floor. “Oh, I don’t know … that maybe you just had someone tied up with this … someone who wanted to kill me, or you to kill me, or kill me together. I mean … kill it.”
A pained look crosses his face. “You have to understand,” he says as he moves toward me. “He was taken over the barrier by prey, they bit him, he believes his entire family was wiped out by the curse … but he’ll come around. Just give him a chance. He would never do anything to hurt me.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about.” I push past him, grabbing the stool, putting it back by the table. “And what’s this about being with me?” I scoff. “Don’t you think you should’ve at least asked me first? Or are you just going to claim me like the men in the county?”
“I just thought … okay … fine,” he says, following close behind. “We can get married, if that’s better.”
“No!” I yell as I storm off to another corner, but it’s only a few feet away. There’s nowhere to go. I accidentally kick something; it rolls under the bed.
“You don’t have to marry me,” he says, throwing his hands up in the air. “I just thought with the hair … and the ribbon … the way you were
raised … that it would be … important.”
Getting down on my hands and knees, I reach under the bed to grab whatever it was that I kicked. It’s a jar. Holding it up to the light, my mind stutters.
“I’m trying to talk to you … will you please hear m—”
“Wait. Is this the hemlock silt Anders was talking about?” “You found it,” Ryker says, reaching for it.
“Are you sure this is it?” I tug back on it, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Positive,” he says, clearly taken aback by my intensity. “You can tell by
the bright green color and the way the edges spread out like—” “What would this do to a person?”
“I’ve never touched the stuff, but the old crones use it in the northern woods for scrying work. If you even put a drop on your tongue, you’ll have visions. They say it connects you to the spirit world, above and below.”
“What about prolonged use … like all day … every day?” “You’d go insane.”
I put my hands over my mouth to stifle a sobbing gasp, but it leaks through my fingers. “I’m not crazy, then.” I let out a sputtering burst of pent-up air. “Don’t you get it?” With trembling hands, I grab on to him. “That’s what’s happening to the grace year girls. I knew it was something … the water … the food … the air … but it’s this … the algae … it’s inside the well. They all drink from it. When I was in the camp, I did, too. I was having dizzy spells, feeling things on my skin that weren’t there. But after I was banished to the woods and started drinking the water from high on the spring, I felt better. Clearer.” Fresh tears flood my eyes. “It’s not magic … it’s poison.”
I get up and start pacing the floor. “They need to know. Everyone needs to know.”
He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t make any difference.”
“How can you say that? It would make all the difference in the world. They wouldn’t be losing their minds … they wouldn’t be acting like this. The grace year could come to an end.”
“The curse. The magic. Even if they believed us, it wouldn’t really
change anything,” he says. “As long as there’s a price on your flesh, there
will always be poachers. There will always be a grace year.”
“There has to be something we can do,” I say, my eyes welling up.
“We can leave,” he says, wiping a tear from my cheek. “Last year, a trapper from the north brought us a message from a family we knew. They made it over the mountains, beyond the plains, to a settlement where men and women live side by side, as equals. Where they’re free.”
I’m trying to even imagine what that would be like. Everything in me wants to say yes, run away from the pain, but a horrible feeling spreads from the pit of my stomach all the way to my throat. “Our families—”
“Anders will take care of my family. They’ll get his pay, and as soon as we’re settled—”
“What about my family? If my body is unaccounted for, my sisters will be punished, sent to the outskirts.”
“If Michael is half the man you say he is, he would never let that happen.”
I bristle at the mention of his name. It feels wrong coming out of Ryker’s mouth. “Let’s leave him out of this.”
“Even if they were sent to the outskirts, my mother would take them in.” “But would they be expected to…”
“Not until they’ve bled,” he says, matter-of-fact. “And after that?” I ask, the realization gutting me. “As soon as we’re settled, we’ll send for them.”
“And if we never settle?” I ask, but I mean live, and I’m tired of not saying what I mean, so I ask again. “What if we don’t survive? What happens to them?”
“We will … but why is it okay for my sisters to work in the outskirts and not yours?” he asks.
“It’s not…,” I say, completely flustered. “But when I think of my sisters having to receive a man from the county, a man like Tommy Pearson, or any other man who’s patted their head at church, watched them sing in the choir, watched them grow up, it makes me sick to my stomach.”
“When I found you on the ice that night, you were ready to take your own life rather than hand it over to a poacher. Your sisters would’ve been sent to the outskirts. Why are you hesitating now?”
“I wasn’t in my right mind.” I raise my voice. “You saw me … I was dying.”
He pulls me close, pressing his forehead against mine, letting out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
The nearness of him, the warmth, feels like a soothing balm. “Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply without hesitation.
“Then trust that we can do this,” he says. “We have time to figure all of this out, but in the meantime, know that I will find a way. For all of us.”
“Why do you want this?” I ask, searching his face for answers.
He traces his fingers down my braid, all the way to the end of the red silk ribbon. “I want to see you with your hair down, with the sun on your face.”
|
Just before dawn, Ryker descends the ladder to meet Anders, and I feel hopeful for the first time in I don’t even know how long. Lying down on the bed, breathing in his heavy scent, I imagine what it would be like, being with him, as man and wife, away from the county, away from all of this. I always thought the best I could hope for was to work in the fields. I never imagined anything more than that. I can tell myself it’s because I’m a realist, but the truth is, I’m a coward. You can’t be hurt if you don’t try. I don’t know when it happened—when I stopped reaching for things. Maybe around my first bleed, that first heavy reminder of our place in this world. But I think I’m ready to start striving for something more.
When I hear Ryker’s boots on the ladder, I spring from the bed. He must’ve forgotten something, but I’m glad. I’m going to surprise him, tell him yes—but a dark-shrouded figure emerges through the door covering. Before I can grab one of the knives, he has me up against the wall, crushing the hilt of his blade against my windpipe.
“Anders…” I try to get free, but he only presses harder.
“Don’t talk. Listen. Tonight, when the moon is highest in the sky, you will leave.” I’m blindly groping the walls behind me, desperate to find something I can use as a weapon. “There will be a candle and a shroud waiting for you at the foot of the ladder.” I’m struggling against him, trying to grasp his arm, but it’s no use. “I will make sure your path is clear and marked to the breach in the fence. There, you will take off the shrouds,
leaving them behind, and then slither back into your hole, where you belong.”
“Ryker…,” I whisper, straining to speak. “He’ll kill you first.”
“You need to know that I’ll be coming back here at first light with every poacher in this camp. If you’re not gone, and Ryker chooses to protect you, I won’t be able to stop them.”
“He’ll never forgive you for this.”
“If you breathe a word to him … if you don’t follow my exact instructions, I will kill you. And if you think you’re safe behind that wall, you’re wrong. Do you see my face?” he says, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “I’m the only person who’s ever survived the curse, which means I’m immune. If you try to get a message to him … if you try to lure him to the fence … if you so much as breathe in his direction, I’ll know. And I’d rather watch him die a thousand deaths than watch him betray his family … his oath.”
“You mean, betray you,” I manage to get out.
He gets so close to my face that I can smell the bitter herbs clinging to his breath. “I would love nothing more than to peel the skin from your face like an overripe peach.” He takes in a deep breath through his nostrils, regaining his composure. “But I don’t want to hurt him. And I don’t think you want to, either. Play nice, play by my rules. Or I will come for you.”
|
I don’t know how long I sit there, running through every possible scenario, but by the time I find the will to move, the day has passed me by. The sky is smudged in pinks and purples—not unlike the colors my neck will be, come morning.
Hearing boots on the bottom tread of the ladder, I start rushing around, gathering my meager belongings, my cloak, my boots, my stockings. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him, but I don’t even know if it’s Ryker. What if it’s Anders coming back to finish the job … or the guards … Even if it’s Hans, how could I begin to explain this?
Grabbing a knife, I crouch next to the table. My hands are trembling.
A shrouded figure steps inside. I’m ready to slice his tendons wide open. “Tierney?” Ryker calls out.
I let out a shuddering breath; he turns to find me crumpled on the floor. “Hey … hey … it’s okay,” he says. “I’m here. I’m not going to let
anything happen to you. I told you that.”
As he pries the knife out of my hand and pulls me to my feet, I hold on to him, tighter than I’ve ever held on to anyone.
“Everything’s good now. I talked with Anders. He’s on our side. You have nothing to fear from him. He wants to help.”
I’m opening my mouth to try and tell him what happened when he says, “I have something for you. Anders actually helped me find it. He knows a place.”
He takes a piece of linen from his pocket, holding it as gently as if he’s carrying a butterfly. Peeling back the layers, he reveals a tattered deep blue pansy.
I feel a distant memory tugging at me. My veiling day. I was on my way to meet Michael when I stopped to look at the flowers … there was a woman working in the greenhouse who told me that one day someone would give me a flower—that it would be a little withered around the edges, but it would mean just the same. A wave of raw emotion rises inside of me. What she didn’t tell me was that it would mean so much more.
Looking up at him, I have to blink back the tears. I doubt Ryker knows what it means—he probably just thought it was pretty, but it’s hard not to see it as a sign.
“This is the flower of good-bye,” I whisper. “A bittersweet parting.” “I thought it meant everlasting love,” he says.
“That’s a blue violet,” I explain.
“I guess Anders isn’t as good with flowers as he thinks he is.”
“It’s a tricky one,” I reply. But I think Anders knew exactly what he was doing when he picked this.
“Can we just pretend it’s a violet?” He smiles.
Desperate to hide my feelings, I nod, and quickly turn away, placing the bloom on the edge of the table.
As he takes off his shroud, I realize how good I’ve gotten at pretending. Pretending not to notice the knives covering nearly every surface—
knives that were specially designed to peel my flesh. Pretending that eating preserves out of the same kind of jar they use to store our body parts in to sell back to the county is perfectly normal. Pretending this isn’t crazy … that we could actually get away with it … live happily ever after.
But there’s one thing in all of this that’s not pretend. I’m in love with him.
I may not be able to spend my life with him, grow old with him, but I can choose to give him my heart. My body. My soul. That’s the one thing they will never be able to control in me.
Untying the bow from my ribbon, I wait for him. He swallows hard before stepping toward me.
Taking in slow, measured breaths, he twirls the strand around his finger.
Our eyes meet. The energy radiating between us is so intense it feels like we might burn down the world.
As he pulls the strand, releasing my braid, I know I should avert my gaze, turn my eyes to God, the way we’re taught, but in this moment, all I want is for him to see me. To be seen.
As he lifts my slip over my head, it’s like lifting my veil. As I unbutton his trousers, I’m accepting his flower.
When he presses his skin against mine, the bloom he chose for me opens up, filling the space with a heady perfume of longing and pain. Entirely ephemeral. Absolutely forbidden. And completely out of our control.
Dropping the ribbon to the floor, the last confine the county holds over me, I lead him to the bed.
He’s a poacher. I’m prey. Nothing will ever change that. But in this small treetop cabin, away from our home, and the men who named us, we are still human beings, longing for connection, to feel something more than despair in this bleak year.
With nothing but the moon and the stars as our witness, he lies beside me. Pressing our palms together, entwining our fingers, we breathe in time. This is exactly where we need to be. There’s no second-guessing, no thinking. And when his lips meet mine, the world disappears.
Like magic.
|
Tonight, as I lie next to him, I memorize every inch of him with my fingertips. Every scar. Every chiseled ridge. I whisper secrets into his skin, everything I’ve longed to tell him, and when I run out of breath, I place the deep blue flower in the palm of his hand. He’ll know what it means. As bittersweet as it is, I can’t help thinking that maybe it survived for exactly this occasion. Because words would fail me, my lips would betray me. But this flower will tell him everything he wants to hear, everything he needs to tell himself. He can read into every petal, every fall, every rivet in the stem, but the meaning will remain the same. Good-bye.
He’ll probably be wondering if he did something, said something to make me leave, or maybe he’ll just think I was spooked by Anders. No matter the cause, no matter the pain, he’ll understand it was for the best— inevitable.
He saved my life. And now it’s time for me to save his.
Gathering my things, I descend the ladder. I see Anders was true to his word, placing the candle and the shroud beneath the blind, but the candle has burned down to the quick, leaving nothing but a pool of soft wax. As I look up at the sky, a feeling of dread presses down on me. I thought it was just before dawn, but the sun has been up for hours, hidden beneath thick dark clouds. I stayed too long.
Wrapping the shroud around my body, my face, I smell fetid meat and bitter herbs. It smells of Anders.
Bumping into something hanging from the ladder, I grab on to it to stop the noise. I know that sound. It’s the wind chime Anders made. I can’t help wondering if these are the discarded bones of grace year girls. If that’s what will happen to me.
Stepping away from the shore, back toward the barrier, feels wrong. Like something my body isn’t supposed to do. He said he’d mark the trail. I’m searching for a pattern, anything that stands out, when I spot the orange-yellow leaves of the butterfly weed marking the trail. The meaning couldn’t be more clear—leave and never return. Anders definitely knows his flowers.
As I follow the trail of petals, there’s a part of me that wonders if this is all an elaborate hoax, a path leading me straight into Anders’s blade, but when I clear the last of the trees and come face-to-face with the towering fence, I know he meant what he said—every word of it. But where’s the gap in the fence? I’m wondering if I’m too late, if Hans has already mended it, when I see a giant pile of leaves heaped against the side of the barrier. Getting down on my hands and knees, I start digging through it, relieved and heartbroken all at once to see that it’s still there. The gap is smaller than I remember.
But the world was smaller then.
I’m getting ready to crawl back through when I hear a strange brushing sound behind me. Like silk against rough fingers. I told myself I wouldn’t look back, but my head turns on pure instinct. There’s nothing there. Nothing I can see, but with spring in full bloom, everything feels hidden from me. Even the top of Ryker’s blind has been swallowed up by the foliage. Nothing but a memory. Another dream I once had.
|
Crawling through the gap, I rip off the shrouds, but I can’t get away from Anders’s scent, his blade against my throat.
I brace myself against a pine, trying to catch my breath, trying to pull myself together, but just being back inside the encampment brings that claustrophobic feeling back.
As I stare at the path ahead, I’m thinking I could hide in the woods, wait out the rest of the year. I picked up enough survival skills watching Ryker these past few months, but that would be the coward’s way out. I’d never be able to live with myself knowing that I could’ve helped them. That I could’ve stopped this.
Despite everything they’ve done to me, they deserve to know the truth.
The woods look different than the last time I was here, every shade of green imaginable tucked in all around me, but the rocks, the trees, the jagged paths seem to be burned into my memory. With each step forward, I’m trying not to remember the madness, the cruelty, the chaos, but as soon as I reach the perimeter, the edge of the clearing, my heart starts beating hard against my rib cage, my palms are sweaty, my limbs feel weak. I have no idea what they’ll do to me, but it’s too late to turn back now.
Tying the red silk ribbon around my wrist, I step into the camp.
I’m expecting a flurry of commotion, the excited panic that comes when the trappers return from the wild—return from the dead—but no one seems to give me a second glance. In fact, the first few girls that pass seem to look right through me. I wonder if they think I’m a ghost, an apparition come
back to haunt them. And for a moment, I wonder if it’s true. Maybe I died that night, maybe Ryker skinned me alive, and all of this is an elaborate hallucination of my own making.
Because even without the influence of the well water, I feel dizzy in their presence. Transparent. Paper thin. Like one stiff breeze could turn me into stardust.
“I know you.” A girl staggers toward me. I think it’s Hannah, but it’s hard to tell beneath all the dirt and grime. “Tierney the Terrible.”
I nod.
“Someone was looking for you.” She reaches up to scratch her head but ends up pulling out a clump of hair instead. “I can’t remember who,” she says before wandering off.
Cautiously, I walk the camp. The pots and kettles are piled up next to the fire, rotting food curdling at the bottom, rice scattered in the dirt, empty jars and cans strewn about. Roaches are battling it out for the remains. I pass Dovey’s cage, thinking she’s certainly dead by now, but huddled in the bottom corner there’s a scrawny bird. She’s not cooing, but when I slip my finger through the slats to try to pet her, she lashes out with a vicious squawk.
“That’s how she says good morning.” A soft voice passes behind me. I turn to find Vivi shuffling toward the gate, where a handful of other girls are huddled together.
The limbs of the punishment tree hang heavy, bloated with new trinkets, the soil beneath, caked in fresh blood. There’s a girl standing behind the tree—she’s so thin that I almost miss her. She’s stroking a long copper braid that obviously used to be attached to her skull. It makes me think of Gertie. Where is she?
As I open the door to the lodging house, the smell hits me like a runaway coach.
Urine, disease, rot, and filth. I wonder if it smelled like this when I lived here or if this is something new.
There are a few girls lying in their cots. They’re so still that for a moment I wonder if they’re dead, but I can detect the faint rise and fall of
their chests. I stare down at them, but they don’t meet my eyes. They seem to be lost in a world of their own making.
I find the spot where my cot used to be. I remember how scared I was the last time I was here, but I also remember Gertrude, Helen, Nanette, and Martha—talking late into the night. We were so full of hope in the beginning. We really thought we could change things, but one by one, they fell under the influence of the water … of Kiersten.
Their cots are gone now. I tell myself that maybe they’ve just moved their beds to the other side of the room, but when I look over at the swollen pile of iron frames stacked up in the corner, I know it’s a lie.
I’d love to play dumb, pretend I’ve been in a soundless slumber, but I heard the caws in the woods, as I lay beside a poacher every night, doing nothing to help them. Nothing to warn them. “I’m so sorry, Gertie,” I whisper through my trembling lips.
“She’s not here,” a voice calls out from the far corner of the room, making my skin crawl. I don’t see anyone there, but as I walk toward the sound, a hand reaches out from under one of the beds, grasping my ankle.
I scream.
“Shhh…,” she whispers, peeking out from beneath the rusty springs. “Don’t or you’ll wake the ghosts.”
It’s Helen. Or what’s left of Helen. There’s a half-moon puckered scar where her right eye used to be.
“What happened to you?”
“You can see me?” she asks, a huge grin spreading across her face. I nod, trying not to stare.
“I got so invisible that I couldn’t see myself anymore. They had to take out my eye, so I could come back … but Gertie…,” she says, staring off in the distance. “They took her to the larder.”
“The larder?” I ask. “Why?”
She tucks her chin into her chest. “Gertie was too dirty.” She snickers, but her laughter quickly dissolves into soft tears.
Backing away from her, I leave the lodging house and walk across the clearing to the larder. Each step feels harder than the last, like I’m trudging
against a strong current. People halt and stare, Jessica, Ravenna, but no one stops me. No one is coming after me. Not yet.
The sticky heat has made the door swell. As I pry it open, a flood of flies comes pouring out, but all I find is a cot piled high with ratty blankets. And now I understand what Helen meant—the smell is unbearable. Covering my nose and mouth with my overskirt, I take a good look around. The shelves have been emptied; a bucket sits on the ground next to the cot, full of bile and filth. There’s a dark green cloak peeking out from beneath the scratchy wool blankets.
“Gertie,” I whisper. Nothing.
I try one more time. “Gertrude?” “Tierney?” a soft voice replies.
My breath hitches in my throat. Digging through the blankets, I find her.
She’s bone thin, with skin the color of a late January sky. “Where have you been?” she asks.
It’s all I can do to hold myself together. “I’m here now,” I say, reaching for her hand. I feel her pulse, but it’s so weak I’m afraid her heart will stop at any moment.
“Let’s get you situated,” I say, peeling off the blankets, squeezing her limbs, trying to get some blood flowing. “Did they stop feeding you?” I whisper.
“No.” She blinks up at me. “I just can’t keep anything down.” “How long have you been like this?”
“Is it the new year?” she asks.
“It’s June.” I’m lifting her neck to prop it up on a rolled-up blanket when my fingers slip into something soft and gooey.
Taking the dusty lamp from the hook in the corner, I turn it up so I can take a look. The sight turns my stomach. I want to throw up, but I can’t let her know how bad it is. “Does this hurt?” I ask, pressing on the red swollen flesh edging the wound on the back of her skull.
“No. But I seem to have lost my braid,” she says, moving her hand down an imaginary line where it once lay.
And I realize that’s when time must’ve stopped moving for her—the day her braid was severed from her body. The day I was banished to the woods.
“Where is she?” Kiersten’s voice ratchets up my spine. I could try to hide, make her come in and get me, but Gertie’s been through enough.
“I’ll be right back,” I whisper as I pull a blanket over her and slip through the larder door to find Kiersten heading straight toward me from the eastern barrier, a swarm of girls hovering around her.
She moves like a wounded predator, her steps are slow but calculated, a rusty hatchet at her side. It takes all of my nerve to hold my ground.
“I have something for you,” she says as she swings the hatchet in front of her.
Instinctively, I flinch, but she only drops the blade at my feet. “We need firewood.”
I look up at her, really look at her—the dull-yellow matted hair, sunken cheeks, sallow skin, her once-clear blue eyes completely swallowed up by her pupils—and I realize it’s not just Gertie … Kiersten doesn’t remember. None of them do.
As I lean down to pick up the hatchet, she places her foot on it. “Hold it. You’re not allowed to take out your braid unless you’ve embraced your magic.”
Everyone in the camp seems to snap to attention, as if they can smell the venom in the air.
“I have,” I reply, a fresh surge of panic bubbling up in my chest. “You helped me. Remember?”
Her eyes narrow on me.
“You dared me to go into the woods. I was lost for a long time … near death—”
“You survived the woods … the ghosts?” Hannah asks.
“Yes.” I glance back at the trees, remembering the ghost stories they used to tell around the fire. “They spoke to me … saved me … led me home.”
I’m hoping my face isn’t doing what my insides are doing. I feel like a coward for lying, but it’s better than losing a tongue.
Kiersten reluctantly takes her foot off the blade.
I grip the hatchet. The handle is still warm from her touch. The heat moves through me, something I haven’t felt in a long time. There’s a part of me that wants to return the kindness, an eye for an eye, but I have to remind myself that it’s the water making them behave like this. They’re sick.
“Are they with us now?” Jenna asks, her eyes darting around the clearing like a scared animal.
Searching the camp, I’m trying to come up with something that might appease them when I see Meghan standing by the gate, who might as well be a ghost with that complexion. “There’s one over there,” I say, pointing in her direction. “But she’s harmless. She’s just trying to find a way out … she just wants to go home.”
As they stare at the gate, I know they’re thinking the exact same thing. Kiersten steps close to me, so close that I can feel her breath on my skin.
“How did you survive in the woods without food or water?”
I’m grasping for answers, trying to figure out what to say, when I think of the truth. Maybe there’s a way I can use this to get them to stop drinking from the well of their own accord. “The ghosts … they led me to a spring in the woods. I was very ill, but the water healed me.”
There are whispers buzzing all around me, like an agitated hive.
I’m thinking she’s going to call my bluff, strike me down, but instead, she nudges the cauldron toward me. “Prove it.” Roaches come skittering out onto her bare feet, but she doesn’t even notice. “Bring this back full of ghost water, or don’t bother coming back at all.”
“Sure.” I swallow hard. “I just want to check on Gertie first,” I say, moving toward the larder.
Kiersten steps in front of me. “I’ll take care of Gertie until you get back.”
I know Kiersten well enough to know it isn’t a kindness. It’s a threat.
Taking the hatchet and the kettle, I back away into the woods. I don’t dare turn my back on them.
It’s not until I’ve been safely swallowed up by the foliage that I sink to the forest floor and finally let it out. I’m not sure if I’m crying for them or for me, but I have to find a way to make this right. To fix this.
I may have broken my vows, shamed my family name, but I’m still a grace year girl.
I’m one of them.
And if I don’t help them, who will?
|
Tucking the hatchet into my skirt, I find the faint remains of the trail I made all those months ago. As I’m hacking my way through vines and hanging moss, a needling thought creeps in. What if I can’t find the spring? What if it’s been swallowed up by the forest or dried out? If I don’t deliver the water, they’ll never believe a word I say. Quickening my pace, I pull myself up the steep incline, relieved to find the spring still there. Collapsing beside it, all I want to do is strip off my clothes, jump in, cool off, but I need to get back to Gertie. I don’t like the way Kiersten said she’d take care of her until I returned.
As I’m washing out the kettle, I hear a soft scratching noise, the same thing I heard this morning before I crossed over the barrier. Following the sound, I climb the ridge and see something I’m not quite ready for. How could anyone be ready for something like this? The dead girl. Her stark white bones exposed to the surface. The last time I was here, only her skull was peeking up from the earth. I know that storm was vicious, washed away half of the ridge, taking my seeds down with it, but I didn’t think it could do something like this.
As I walk toward her body, I see that she’s curled into a tight ball, every delicate bone in perfect formation; even the tattered remains of her ribbon are still coiled around the vertebrae in her neck.
There’s a part of me that wishes I really could communicate with the dead. What would she tell me? Who did this to her and why? Leaving her body here is almost a bigger sin than the murder itself. We all know what an
unclaimed body means to us … to our families. Whoever did this must’ve hated her so much that they were willing to condemn her entire family. Even after everything I’ve witnessed here, it’s hard to imagine a grace year girl being capable of such a crime.
A wave of nausea rushes over me. Crawling to the ledge, I’m gulping down air, trying to calm myself, when I see the most astonishing thing. A pea shoot.
It doesn’t sound like much, but grabbing on to some vines, I lean over as far as I dare.
There’s life. So much life.
Squash, tomatoes, leeks, carrots, parsnips, corn, peppers, cabbage, and chard—a show of abundance, so rich that it takes my breath away. “June’s garden,” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes. “I can’t believe it.”
Grasping some leafy tops—the only ones I can reach—I pull up some plump carrots, and a few beets, before settling back on the ridge. It’s the best I can manage until I rig up some ropes, but this will make for a better meal than they’ve probably had in months.
I want to sing and dance, kiss the ground, but the realization quickly sets in that I have no one to tell. Or the person I want to tell is on the other side of the barrier. He might as well be on the other side of the world.
Looking back at the dead girl, I think of Ryker’s words. From death there is life. My eyes start to well up, but I can’t afford to think about him right now. I can’t afford to go soft.
After chopping wood and filling up the kettle with fresh water, I dig out a clump of clay and place it in my stocking for safekeeping.
Using my overskirt as a satchel, I tie up the firewood and affix it to my back. The vegetables go in my pockets; the wild herbs and bloodroot I collect go in my bosom. Getting the full kettle of water down the slope and dragging it back to the camp is difficult, especially with the heavy load balanced on my back, but this is the only thing that’s going to save them, save us all.
When I stop to take a breath, I realize this is the point in the forest where I used to veer off to the gap in the eastern fence, but that’s not what has me choked up. There’s a thyme flower nestled beneath a patch of clover. It’s a
low flower, one that’s so common most people hardly think of it anymore, but in the old language, it symbolized forgiveness. My first instinct is to think of all the people I’ve hurt, the people I’d like to give it to—Ryker, Michael, my father, my mother, my sisters—but they’re not here, and their forgiveness is out of my hands. There’s one person who desperately needs it, though, someone I’m completely in control of—myself. I did the best I could with what I’d been given. I stuck to my beliefs. I survived against all odds. I fell in love and gave my heart freely, knowing that it would be broken. I can’t regret the choices I’ve made, and so I must accept them. As I tuck the thyme flower into the top of my chemise, I hear something behind me.
I’m probably just being paranoid. With good reason, considering that the last time I was in the encampment they tried to cut out my tongue.
“Kiersten, is that you?” I whisper.
There’s no answer, but I hear the same light scratching sound I heard on the other side of the barrier … the ridge. It could be anything—a small creature skittering through the leaves, a boar in the distance rubbing its tusk against a tree—but I swear I can feel it. Eyes on my skin. Like the woods are staring back at me.
|
When I emerge from the forest, the girls gather round. They seem in awe that I’ve made it back alive—again—but even more so that I returned bearing gifts.
Kiersten pushes forward to inspect the water.
“Drink it.” Her eyes fix on me and I realize she thinks I might be trying to poison her. Glancing over at the well, it almost makes me laugh. Almost.
Taking the clam shell from my pocket, I dip up some water and slurp it down. “See? It’s good.”
She goes to put her dirty hands in, and I stop her.
“The ghosts gave me this. I’ll share it with you, but if you try to take it from me, there will be consequences.” I nod toward the woods. “They say you can have one sip each, for now. The rest is for supper.”
I’m waiting for her to knock me out, at the very least scream at me, but all she does is hold out her hands, as delicately as if she’s accepting a sip of wine from the jeweled goblet at church.
I dip the shell into the water and hand it to her. She sips it, savoring each drop, just like Mother does with the last of the dandelion wine.
As she takes in the final bit, the girls line up for their turn. Kiersten stands guard, supervising them. I wonder what she’s thinking—if by drinking this she’ll become more powerful … or if this means the ghosts won’t harm her … whatever’s going on in her hemlock-silt-addled brain, I’m grateful for it.
off.
When the last one has had her taste, Kiersten motions for them to back
As they slowly dissipate, I let out a long, quiet breath.
I’ve found the one thing that still scares them: the ghosts of the fallen
grace year girls.
I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep it up—hopefully long enough to get them clear of the hemlock silt—but my first priority is Gertrude. Not only because she’s my friend, but because they always put her last, they put her out here to die, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that happen.
As I drag her cot out of the rancid shack into the late-afternoon sun, Gertrude blinks up at it in disbelief and then gives me a hazy smile. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s seen the sun. Carefully, using the clump I brought back in my stocking, I spread clay over her hair, her scalp, and wash it clean with a bucket of well water. I then grind the bloodroot stems into a thick paste, applying it directly to her wound.
Limb by limb, I scrub Gertie’s emaciated body with basil and sage leaves. I’m trying to be gentle with her, not expose too much skin at one time so she doesn’t get too cold, but she’s shivering so hard that it rattles the rusty springs beneath her. I ask her if she’s okay, and she just smiles up at me. “Look how pretty the sky is,” she whispers.
Fighting back tears, I look up and nod. She’s so incredibly grateful, but she shouldn’t have to feel grateful for this—for being treated like a basic human being. None of us should.
Outside of the infection, she seems clearer than the rest. Maybe because she hasn’t been able to keep anything down—including the well water.
I give her little sips of fresh water.
“It tastes so good,” she says, latching on to the cup, trying to gulp down the liquid.
I have to pry the cup away from her. “You need to take it slow.”
I remember Ryker saying the exact same thing to me. It’s hard to imagine him caring for me like this. Bathing me, cleaning up maggots and puke. I even stabbed him in the stomach and he still took care of me. But I can’t think about Ryker right now. I can’t think about anything other than getting the camp clear of this poison.
Shredding the kindling into long wispy threads, I arrange the firewood in the pit and hit the flint over and over and over again until I finally catch a spark. I’m out of practice, but the wood shavings catch like a charm. With the fire crackling, I stash some of the fresh water in an empty honey jug in the larder and use the rest to make a stew. Adding carrots, beets, wild onion, and herbs, I set the kettle over the fire, and soon every girl in the encampment is gravitating toward me. Even Kiersten makes an appearance, pacing the length of the clearing like a caged animal. She hasn’t asked for the hatchet back, so I keep it close, just in case they try to jump me, but all they do is sit there, licking their lips, staring into the flames.
I wonder how long it’s been since they’ve eaten a meal. There’s a part of me that wants to refuse them, tell them this is only for me and Gertie—it would serve them right—but seeing them like this, emaciated, dirty, living- breathing-hollowed-out skulls, I have to remind myself, it’s not their fault. It’s the water that made them do all those things. As soon as I get them clear, everything will be different.
One by one, I dish out the portions, and we sit around the fire, just like we did on that first night, but there are a lot fewer mouths to feed now.
A noise rustles on the perimeter. The other girls must hear it, too, because all eyes are focused on the woods now. It’s the same sound I’ve been hearing all day, but I think it goes back further than that … it’s something familiar … a memory tugging at me … but I can’t seem to place it.
“What are they saying?” Jenna asks.
They all look at me, and I realize they think it’s the ghosts. My first instinct is to tell them they don’t want us to drink from the well, but that’s too clumsy. Too obvious. I need to find a way for Kiersten to think it’s her idea. If I come on too strong, too soon, she’ll know I’m up to something. Best to start small. And since I’m a terrible liar, I’ll start with something I know to be true.
“It’s Tamara,” I whisper, the memory of her death making my throat feel thick. “She lived for two more days, had burns on her back and chest from the lightning strike, but her poacher was able to render most of her flesh.”
They all look to Kiersten, but she pretends not to notice, staring directly into the flames.
There’s another sound, closer this time.
“Who’s that?” Jenna asks, peeking up through her fingers. “It’s Meg,” I reply.
The girls get very still.
“She disappeared months ago,” Dena whispers, the memory of her best friend coming back to her. “We thought the ghosts took her.”
“No,” I whisper. “She escaped, under the eastern barrier … took a knife in the neck. Drowned in her own blood before her poacher even got off her fingertips.”
“Stop … stop.” Helen’s shoulders begin to shake. At first I think she’s laughing, like she did on that night they threw Tamara’s twitching body out of the gate, but when she glances up at me, I see wet streaks running down her dirty cheeks. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Maybe she can’t voice it yet, maybe she doesn’t know how, but I can see it on her face—the seed of regret.
Looking around the campfire, it’s hard to imagine that in a few short months, we’ll be going home to become docile wives, compliant servers, laborers. Maybe for some, the true believers, they’ll think nothing of it— that everything was God’s will, a necessary evil so they could come home as purified women. Most have had their first taste of freedom—they might even like what they’ve become—but what of the others, the ones who only wanted to survive. When the “magic” wears off, when the memories come pouring in, how will they make peace with what happened here? The horror we inflicted on one another.
But maybe the well water will make them think it’s all a hazy dream. They won’t be able to distinguish fact from fiction, dream from reality. Maybe that’s the look the women always get after they return, the one I can never decipher. Maybe they don’t even know what they’re feeling.
Desperately trying to remember, but blessed to forget.
|
After cleaning out the larder, I move Gertrude back inside. They made it clear they would make room for us in the lodging house, but I don’t trust the girls, not until they’re clear of the hemlock silt.
Settling in beside her, I feed her a special broth I made with yarrow, ginger, and the remaining bloodroot. I’ve seen my father make it for his infected patients a hundred times before.
“This should help ease your stomach, your fever.”
“It’s good.” She takes a few sips through her chattering teeth, and when she looks up at me, I notice the same chalky red residue clinging to the corners of her mouth that I saw on my mother the night before I left.
My mind stumbles over the memory. It wasn’t the blood of grace year girls, it was the broth. I remember the cold sweat on my mother’s brow, her trembling fingers, her near-fainting spell at the church. She must’ve been ill, but why would they try to hide it from me?
Gertrude reaches back to scratch her head; I catch her hand. “No more scratching.” Ripping off a strip of my underskirt, I wrap the linen around her hands, tying them off like mittens. “That’s why you’re sick. Your wound is badly infected.”
“Wound,” she whispers, the memory of what happened slipping over her like the darkest of veils. “How will Geezer Fallow like me now?” She tries to make a joke out of it, but it’s no use.
We sit in silence for some time before Gertrude speaks again.
“Kiersten…” She swallows hard. “I need to tell you what happened.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything, you don’t owe me any expla—” “I want to,” she insists. “I need to.”
I squeeze her hand.
I had the same urge to speak when I was sick, the need to share my story … just in case.
“Kiersten found the lithograph in her father’s study. She asked me to meet her at church, in the confessional booth, before lessons so she could show it to me.” I wipe a cool rag over her forehead; she shivers. “It was the middle of July. Blistering outside, but the confessional was cool in comparison.” She stares at the flame of the candle. “I remember the smell of frankincense, the dark red velvet cushion pressing against the back of my knees. The ooze of beeswax dripping onto the pedestal.” A faint smile plays slowly across her lips. “Kiersten was squeezed in next to me so tight that I could feel her heart beating against my shoulder. When she pulled the parchment from her underskirt, it took me a minute to even understand what I was seeing. I thought…” Her eyes are on the verge of tearing up. “I thought she was trying to tell me something. I thought she was giving me some kind of a sign.” Her bottom lip begins to quiver. “I kissed her,” she says. “Like we’ve done a dozen times before. But we got caught. I wasn’t asking her to do those things in the lithograph. All I was trying to do was tell her that I loved her. It wasn’t dirty. I’m not dirty…”
“I know that.” I smooth my hand down her cheeks, wiping away her
tears.
“When Kiersten threatened to tell you, I played along. I thought…” “What?”
“I thought if you knew, you wouldn’t want to be friends with me anymore.”
“You thought wrong,” I say.
She studies me, a deep rift settling into her brow.
As she reaches up to try to scratch the back of her head again, I stop her. “You need to heal.”
She stares at me intently, a haunted look coming over her. “Can we ever really heal from this?” she whispers.
I know what she means. I know what she’s asking.
Pulling the thyme blossom from my chemise, I offer it to her. Tears fill her eyes. Pawing at it, she tries to accept it, but it’s no use with the linen wrapped around her hands. We both start laughing. And in this tiny gesture, this minuscule moment, I know we’re okay … that Gertrude is going to be okay.
“What happened to us?” she asks, staring into my eyes. “One minute we were building things, changing things, and then…”
“It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault … not even Kiersten’s.” “How can you say that?” she asks.
I’m not sure how much of this she’ll be able to take in, but I can trust Gertie. And it feels like if I don’t tell her, then it’s not real somehow. Leaning in close, I whisper, “It’s the well water. The algae … it’s hemlock silt. The same thing the crones use in the outskirts to speak with the dead.”
She stares up at me, and I can see her starting to put the pieces together. “The dizziness, the hallucinations, the violent impulses, it’s all from the well water? But if the magic isn’t real…,” she says, reaching out to touch my hair. “The ghosts in the woods … Tamara, Meg, you made all that up?”
“The ghost part, yes, but that’s the truth about what happened to them … how they died.”
“How do you know that?”
I think of Meg’s face—the look in her eyes when the dagger pierced the side of her neck. “Because I was there,” I whisper.
I see a chill race over Gertie’s flesh. “But if the ghosts aren’t real … how did you make those sounds happen?”
I want to put her at ease, tell her I planned the entire thing, but I’ve never been able to lie to Gertie. “I didn’t,” I whisper, trying not to imagine what else could be out there. Trying not to think of Anders’s threat.
“When you left … I thought…” Gertie’s eyes are getting heavy. She’s fighting it, just like Clara used to do at bedtime. “It’s like … you’re back from the dead.”
“Maybe I am,” I whisper, tucking the blankets in around her.
“Then tell me about heaven … what’s it like?” she asks as her eyelids finally come to a close.
As the last bit of the flame sputters out, I whisper, “Heaven is a boy in a treehouse, with cold hands and a warm heart.”
|
“He said he’d come back for you,” she says.
It takes me a minute to recognize her, to realize I’m dreaming, but then I notice the shaved head, the small red mark beneath her eye.
“Where have you been?” I ask.
“I’ve been waiting,” she replies, standing in front of the door. “Waiting for what?”
“For you to remember … for you to open your eyes.” She pushes the door ajar.
I snap awake to find myself hunched over Gertie’s cot, the slightest whiff of bay leaves and lime in the air. It reminds me of the apothecary … of home. I used to love that smell, but now it seems too harsh … astringent. But if it was just a dream, why is the door ajar? I’m certain I pulled it shut last night. I was so tired I suppose I could’ve opened it myself and not even remembered. Just because I’m back in the camp doesn’t mean I’m going to go crazy. Taking a deep breath, I try to concentrate on something pleasant, something real—dawn is slipping in, gray-pink on the verge of spilling into gold. I think this is my favorite time of day, maybe because it reminds me of Ryker. If I close my eyes I can hear him climb the ladder, remove his shrouds, and slip in next to me, the smell of night and musk
clinging to his skin.
“See, I didn’t scratch,” Gertie says, startling me.
I look back to see her holding up her makeshift mittens. “Good.” I smile up at her, thankful for the interruption, but even more thankful to see the
slightest bit of color return to her cheeks.
I catch her staring at my left shoulder, the deep indentation of missing flesh and muscle; I pull on my cloak.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I can’t imagine the horror you must’ve faced out there.”
I want to tell her about Ryker … about how he saved my life, that the only reason I left him was to save his … but not all secrets are equal. In the county, if Gertie’s secret got out, she would be banished to the outskirts, but if my secret got out, it would mean the gallows.
“You need to teach me how to do a braid like that,” she says, trying to lighten the mood. “I mean … when my hair grows back,” she adds.
Lifting my hands to my hair, I find it’s been done up in an elaborate box braid.
Yanking the ends free, I shake it loose, as if it’s full of snakes. There’s no way I could’ve done something like that in my sleep. I don’t even know how to make a braid like that, but I know someone who does—Kiersten. She wore a similar braid on veiling day. I remember on our first night at the encampment, the girls talking about Olga Vetrone, the girl who disappeared in the woods. They said she was being haunted, that the ghosts would braid her hair at night, tie up her ribbon in strange configurations. Made her go crazy. Nice try, Kiersten.
After I get Gertie situated, I go outside to find Kiersten and the others gathered around the well. As soon as I start walking across the clearing to the privy, they stop talking. They turn to watch me. I can feel their eyes on me like a dozen weighted lures sinking into my flesh.
“Come here,” Kiersten says, the tone of her voice making my insides shrivel.
I look behind me, praying she isn’t talking to me, but there’s no one else.
Reluctantly, I walk toward her. I’m trying not to panic, but I can’t help wondering if she heard me whispering to Gertie last night, if she remembers that I was banished … that she stabbed me with an axe.
“Closer,” she says, holding up the bucket of water. The patch of bright green algae clinging to the rope brings that vile taste back—the feeling that
your tongue is being coated in dank velvet.
Jenna loses her balance, accidentally bumping into Kiersten’s arm, causing some water to spill. Kiersten’s eyes flash.
Before I have a chance to even take in a breath, Kiersten slams the bucket into Jenna’s face. The sound of cracking teeth makes me cringe. Blood’s gushing from Jenna’s mouth, but she doesn’t scream … she doesn’t even flinch. The other girls just stand around as if they’re accustomed to these sudden bursts of violence. Or maybe I’ve forgotten what it’s like to live among them.
“This is for Tierney,” Kiersten says, offering me the bucket.
Jenna’s blood is dripping from the edge, making my stomach turn, but if I refuse, Kiersten will never trust me. This is a test.
Taking it from her, I’m pretending to take a sip when Kiersten tilts the bucket, forcing the liquid into my mouth. I’m choking on hemlock silt, blood, and malice, and they’re all laughing; their crazed pupils boring into me.
I barely make it into the woods before I hunch over, throwing up every last bit of liquid inside my stomach. I’m panting in my own filth, wondering if I’ve made a horrible mistake by coming back here. I should’ve used the shrouds to walk right out of this place and never come back—
“The shrouds,” I gasp. Anders. Is that what the girl was trying to tell me? He said he’d come back for me if I didn’t follow his exact orders—I was supposed to leave the shrouds on the other side of the fence.
Running to the breach in the eastern barrier, I come skidding to a stop when I see the shrouds are gone. I pace the area, trying to figure out what happened to them. Maybe I shoved them back through and forgot. I was upset. I just remember wanting to get them off me as soon as possible. Or maybe an animal carried them off—they smelled bad enough. Anders could’ve slipped through and grabbed them. He made it clear he wasn’t afraid of crossing the barrier—the barrier—it’s been mended. Sinking down next to it, running my hand over the thin cut of cedar that’s been wedged inside, I feel a mood slip over me. I thought it would take at least a few days to fix, that they’d be replacing the entire log. Yes, it’s shoddy work, but I’m trying to figure out why I care so much. Maybe I just wanted to see
a friendly face, to thank Hans for getting my supplies back to me when we first arrived, but it’s more than that.
The window to Ryker has been closed. And it feels like the final word.
|
Turning my back on the fence, I make a promise never to come back. No good can come of it.
Instead, I focus on the task in front of me—bringing the girls back to the world … back to themselves. The easiest thing would be to lead them to the spring, but I don’t think that even when they’re high on hemlock silt I’d ever be able to convince them to follow me into the woods. The ghost stories are too ingrained, too real to them, and I certainly didn’t help matters with my stories from last night.
I’m going to have to bring the spring to them.
Since the camp is at a lower elevation, I’m thinking I can make some kind of irrigation system, but without pipes or proper tools, I’m going to have to get creative.
When I brace my hand against a birch to avoid stepping on a cluster of deer scat, the bark lifts up under my sweaty palm. I remember Ryker telling me he used rolled-up bark on his roof to get the melting snow to drain.
Using the hatchet, I make a clean cut in the bark, lifting off a huge strip. If I roll up enough of these and link them together, maybe I can form a pipe. It’s a tedious task, peeling every birch I can find, but there’s something cathartic about it. I was laid up for so long, I forgot how good it feels to use your hands, your mind, for something constructive.
I nestle them together to form one long tube, then start to dig. I remember trying to till the soil for the garden in the dead of winter, how hard that was, but it’s nearly summer now, and the soil gives way to me
with only the slightest amount of pressure from the hatchet. After burying the tube all the way up the incline, I’m faced with the difficult task of diverting the brook. I have no idea if this will even work, but I’ve come this far. Digging out a trench, I watch the water flow into the tube. I’m running down the hill, elated to see it pouring from the bottom. Once I’ve filled the kettle, I realize I need to find a way to control the flow. I search the woods for a cork tree. I know I saw a couple of them around here. I figure if it’s good enough to hold the ale in the casks at home, it will be good enough for this. I spot one on the northern wooded slope and pry off a chunk. Whittling it down to the right size, I jam it in, but the water pressure causes it to shoot right out. I need something to hold it in place. Rolling a boulder over, I hold the cork over the tube and use my knees to nudge the rock beneath. I’m waiting for the bark to blow, the earth to reject the water like a spouting whale, but it seems to hold. For now. And all I can worry about is now. I’m thankful for it, because if I start thinking too far ahead, it will lead me all the way back to the county, to a very dark place.
Covered in mud and bark and leaves, I drag myself back up the incline,
into the creek, letting the cool water wash over me.
An apple blossom drifts down to the surface, reminding me of the rose bath Ryker made for me. Flicking it out of the pool, I plunge myself under the water, trying to force the memory out of my head. As I come up for air, I hear the faint scratching sound again. Happy for a distraction, I jump out of the pool, following the sound all the way to the top of the ridge, to the girl’s remains—the tattered end of her ribbon rubbing against the bones of her neck. This can’t be the same sound I heard in the camp, or clear on the other side of the fence. The distance is far too great. But that’s not the only thing that has me on edge. There appears to be something wedged inside her rib cage. Something I didn’t see before.
Sinking next to her, I peer inside to find a flower. A red chrysanthemum. The flower of rebirth. My skin explodes in goosebumps. How did this get here? I reach in to grab it, being careful not to touch her bones. It’s a little tattered and bruised, but the stem is cut on the bias, with precision and care. I wonder if Kiersten did this to mess with me, but I’ve never seen a flower like this in the encampment before. I can’t help thinking of the bloom Ryker
gave me—the one Anders helped him find—and I wonder if this came from outside the barrier.
“Stop it, Tierney,” I whisper to myself, pulverizing it between my fingers. “Don’t get paranoid. It’s just a flower.”
But a flower is never just a flower.
I blink long and hard as if I can somehow make things right in my head, but when I open them, nothing has changed.
Maybe it’s just traces of unpurged well water working their way through my system, or exhaustion, but there’s a part of me that can’t help wondering if by claiming the magic, telling them that I could communicate with the dead, I somehow raised her ghost.
