A History of Wild Places(84)

I nod at Theo, releasing the necklace—the cut on my forearm throbbing—and when he closes the door behind us, I look back over my shoulder. The life we built in this house felt real, a lifetime’s worth, but it was never ours to begin with.

“You okay?” Theo asks.

“We might never come back here,” I say, choking on the words.

He touches my hand, tightens his fingers through mine, and we walk away from the house. But I don’t look back again, for fear I’ll change my mind.





PART FOUR THE ROAD





BEE


The knife is tucked into the waistline of my skirt.

I didn’t mean to hurt Calla, but now I know the feeling of flesh peeling open beneath the weight of the blade. And it wasn’t so bad. I could do it again—if I needed to.

I make my way up the path to the birthing hut, my skin still damp, but my body buzzing. I don’t fully understand why my sister is not my sister, why my memories feel clotted with moss and dust, but there is also a clearing away, a sharpness to my thoughts that I haven’t known in years. Like the broken memories are being swept out by a sudden autumn wind, and I’m finally beginning to separate the fairy tales from the truth.

When I reach the birthing hut, I can hear the voices inside: Faye and Colette, even the soft whimpering of the baby who has yet to be given a name—Colette too afraid to name her, knowing she might not last long enough to bear it properly.

I stand outside the closed door of the small domed building, not knowing what I’ll say when I enter. I need to convince Colette to come with me—make her understand. I touch the knob, about to push the door inward, when it swings wide and Faye steps out—I can smell her lemony scent.

“Bee,” she says, startled. “Where’ve you been?”

Sleeping in the trees, past the perimeter where I shouldn’t go.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

I rub my palms together, trying to focus on Faye, hoping I might be able to see some outline of her standing before me. But everything is dark. “I need to speak to Colette.”

She is quiet a moment, then I sense the subtle shift of her chin as she nods. She pushes the door wide behind her, and I step through, walking to Colette’s bedside. The baby is in her arms, making the soft gurgling noises that babies do at this young age.

“Bee,” Colette says when I touch her arm, her voice thin and wiry, like she hasn’t been sleeping. Like her husband’s death has left her raw, and now she has to force her lungs to take every inhale, to keep her heart beating and not seize up beneath her ribs. I suspect the baby is the only thing keeping her alive.

“We need to leave,” I say quietly, only a whisper in the air. “The baby won’t survive here.”

But before Colette can speak, I hear Faye behind me, shifting closer from where she had been standing in the doorway. “What are you talking about?” she asks, her breathing slow, measured—the inhales of a woman who has learned to calm her own heartbeat, to remain always in control. “You know we can’t leave,” Faye adds. “It’s too dangerous.” They are words we all know by heart, a mantra we live by, but we die by it too—painfully, wretchedly, necks suspended in nooses.

“I can get us safely down the road,” I say.

“How?” Colette asks, her voice so brittle it shreds the air.

“I’ve been in the woods. I know how to pass through without catching the pox.”

I hear Faye take a step back away from me.

“I’ve been beyond the border many times,” I say, lifting my hands toward her so she can see that I’m not sick. “And I’ve never caught it.”

“How?” Faye asks.

I will need to lie to convince them, because if I tell them the truth: the notion that is clattering around inside my head—that perhaps the pox is not what we think it is, that if we flee through the trees we won’t get sick—they will think I’ve gone mad. So instead I say, “I carry a bundle of sage. And I can hear the trees splitting open. I know when they are sick; I know how to stay clear of them.”

Faye’s feet shuffle on the wood floor, uneasy. “The child would never survive the journey, it’s too far for her to be outside. It’s not possible.”

I swivel my eyes, hoping I’m looking directly at her, hoping she can see that we don’t have another choice. “We won’t be walking,” I explain. “We’re going to drive.”

“How?”

“Theo found a truck down the road, just past the border. It hasn’t been there long; it should still run.” I leave out the part about who the truck belonged to, how it got here, or that Calla isn’t really my sister.

“Bee—” Faye says in a low muttering hush, as if just my words were a betrayal to the community.

“What if we can save the child—” I interrupt before she can tell me all the reasons why this is a bad idea. “What if we can bring back medicine. What if there are things out there that can help us.”

“Whatever is out there might also kill you.” Her voice is directed away from me, her face straining toward the door, as if she’s afraid someone might be outside listening. “You don’t even know what’s beyond our woods, in the outside. You’ve never seen it.”