A History of Wild Places(86)

Their footsteps carry across the kitchen. More furtive words, vows of devotion, I’m sure. I hate him.

I wait for the sound of their feet moving up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom. For the rush of clothes being peeled away. For the heaviness of their breathing. But none of it comes. Instead, I hear the soft click of the back door again. And then nothing.

Maybe they only slipped inside to steal a kiss away from the eyes of the others, and now they have returned to their evening chores—Alice to prepare the yeast in the community kitchen for tomorrow’s loaves, Levi to survey the daily routines of the community. Perhaps they have left.

But I stay crouched, listening, wanting to be sure before I rise and bolt from the house. I draw in a tight breath, holding it in so I can better hear. But my heartbeat is too loud, hammering wildly against my eardrums, making it impossible to pick out distinctive sounds.

And then… a hand is on my arm, yanking me upright.

I cry out, the breath leaving my lungs in one shuddering exhale.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” Levi’s hands grip my upper arms, squeezing so hard I let out a small cry of pain, dropping the dried daffodil to the floor. He doesn’t even see it—doesn’t notice. He pulls me away from the chair, away from the flattened little flower. “Why are you in my house?” he barks, his voice so close to my ear it feels hot, sharp against my skin, and I smell the alcohol. He’s been drinking again.

“I’m leaving Pastoral,” I spit. They are words I shouldn’t say, but they feel so good when they leave my lips, the defiance tucked under each one. The betrayal.

His breathing turns shallow and he tightens his hands on me, dragging my face close to his. “You’re not going anywhere.” This is the anger I’ve always known was inside him, bottled up, kept hidden. And even if he doesn’t want me anymore, he won’t allow me to leave Pastoral. To leave him. Not because he’s worried about me crossing the border into the woods and catching the pox, but because he needs control. Always control—especially over me.

“You thought you could leave and I wouldn’t find out,” he says, his teeth mashing together. “That I wouldn’t come after you?” He laughs, quick and serrated, then yanks me toward the stairs.

Alice is no longer in the house, the sound of the back door shutting moments ago, was her leaving—maybe she really has gone back to finish up her work.

“I always knew you would try to leave,” he says, words mumbled, hardly making any sense. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long.” He drags me up the stairs, my legs giving out, unable to keep up when I can’t see each stair before it comes. I fall to my knees but he doesn’t slow; he keeps pulling me up, my shins banging against each step, tearing open the flesh. “You probably thought you’d take Colette and her baby with you too.” His hands pinch into my flesh. “You wanted to get help for her from the start; you never trusted my decision.”

“Levi,” I plead. “Stop.”

“I’ve done everything for you,” he says. We’ve reached the top of the stairs and he yanks me forward. “Since we were kids, I’ve taken care of you. And now you just want to leave me?” Each word lashes from his mouth, and he doesn’t sound like himself.

I hear the quick unlatching of a lock and a door swinging open. I know where I am, in the hall just down from his bedroom. This is the closet—the one he keeps locked for reasons I’ve never understood. He releases his hold on my arm, and I feel the white-hot pain of circulation rushing back down to my fingertips. Then… he shoves me inside the closet. I stumble and reach out to brace myself for whatever is in front of me, but my forehead slams into a sharp wood corner. Blood seeps into my eyes.

And for the first time, I think: Maybe he’s going to kill me.

I touch my forehead, feeling the sticky warmth on my fingertips, and it smells like metal.

“I won’t let you leave me,” Levi says now, his voice softened slightly, as if I should understand. “I won’t let you take my baby.”

My jaw quivers; the warmth of blood runs down my legs where they scraped open against the stairs, and along my temple, makes me dizzy. “Levi, please,” I say, but the door slams shut and the lock slides into place from the outside.

I am in a closet, caged.

His footsteps move away down the hall, followed by the thud of his heavy boots on the stairs.



* * *




My palms slide along the closet walls, locating the shelves, the line of coats hung from metal hangers, this narrow space where I am now confined.

I find the door, but there’s no knob on this side, only a smooth wood surface. I lean my shoulder against it with all my weight, but it doesn’t move. Not even an inch.

I hear the bang of the back door and I know Levi has left the house.

My knees burn where he dragged me up the stairs. My head throbs, and I press my hands against the door, willing it to open—but I’m starting to realize, there’s no way out of here until Levi unlocks it from the other side.

I sink to the floor, drawing my legs up to my chest—my heart beating too fast, the air sick with the stench of fresh blood. I think of all the times I slept folded in Levi’s arms, the times he kissed me on the forehead as the warmth of dawn crept through the curtains of his bedroom window. How I trusted him. How I imagined us walking through the community together as the years wore on, our hair turned white-gray, but our hands always folded together.