The Grace Year(11)

Mr. Welk steps to the front, seemingly oblivious to the macabre sight of her corpse swaying gently behind him, or maybe in spite of it.

“And now there are thirteen eligible men,” he announces as he motions toward Mr. Fallow.

Mr. Fallow stands with his hands clasped piously in front of him. Geezer Fallow. I can’t stop thinking about seeing him this morning in the square. He seemed happy as a lark. Not a man who was about to condemn his wife to death, but a man who was on the hunt for a new one.

As the crowd slowly begins to disperse, instead of backing away with the others, I push forward. I don’t want to see Mrs. Fallow up close, but I need to find that flower. I need to know that it’s real, but Michael stands in front of me like a brick wall. “We need to talk—”

“I forgive you,” I say as I peer around him, scanning the ground for the bloom.

“You forgive me?”

“I just … this isn’t a good time,” I say as I drop to my knees to look. Where could it be? Maybe it slipped through the cracks. Maybe it’s wedged between the cobblestones.

“There you are.” Kiersten bounces on her tiptoes in front of him. “Is everything all set?” she whispers.

Michael clears his throat. He only does that when he’s at a complete loss for words.

“Oh, I didn’t see you down there,” Kiersten says through her tight smile. “We’re going to be the best of friends. Isn’t that right, Michael?”

“Okay, lovebirds.” Michael’s father clamps his hand over his shoulder to pull him away. “You’ll have plenty of time for that later. Right now, we have a choosing ceremony to attend.”

Kiersten squeals in delight and flutters off.

At last, I think I’m free, when I’m yanked to my feet from behind.

The guards are herding the women back toward the church.

“Wait … there was a flower—” I start to yell, but one of the women elbows me hard in the ribs.

I lose my breath; I lose my bearings. I get swept up in the crowd, and the further I get from Mrs. Fallow’s swaying body, the less I’m certain the bloom was ever there to begin with.

Maybe this is how it starts—how I lose myself to the magic lurking inside of me.

But even if it was real, what would it matter anyway?

After all, it’s just a flower.

And I’m only one girl.





Before all the women are locked inside the chapel to await the veils, we’re counted. Normally, this would be my cue to make a round, do something annoying to get myself noticed, which would be followed by a swift admonishment from my mother to keep quiet and behave. I’d then sneak into the confessional booth and disappear through Father Edmonds’s quarters. That was always the creepiest part—the smell of laudanum and loneliness seeping from his bedchamber.

But there will be none of that tonight. Even though I’m not getting a veil, the girls who receive one will want to rub it in, soaking up the envy and disappointment in the room like emaciated ticks.

Standing with my back against the curtain of the confessional booth, I grip the oxblood velvet with hungry fingers. It’s killing me that I won’t be able to witness my own year. But if I close my eyes, I can feel the hay itching my nose, smell the ale and musk wafting up to the loft, hear the names of the girls escape their feverish lips.

I already know the prettiest girls with superior breeding and gentle graces will get a veil, but there’s always at least one wild card. I scan the room wondering which one it will be. Meg Fisher looks the part, but she has a strange savage streak. You can see it in her shoulders, the way they roll forward when she feels threatened, like a wolf trying to decide whether to attack or retreat. Or Ami Dumont. Delicate, sweet. She would make for a docile wife, but her hips are too narrow, beddable to be sure, but not sturdy enough to withstand childbirth. Of course, some men like breakable things.

They like to break them.

“Bless us, Father,” Mrs. Miller says as she attempts to lead the women in prayer. “Please guide the men. Let them use your holy voice to do your bidding.”

It takes everything I have not to roll my eyes. By now, the men will have cracked open a second barrel, telling tall tales of the women in the outskirts, the wicked things they’ll do for coin, bragging about all their bastards roaming the woods, hunting for a girl to poach.

“Amen,” the women say, one after the other. God forbid they do anything in unison.

This is the one night a year the women are allowed to congregate without the men. You’d think it would be our opportunity to talk, share, let it all out. Instead, we stand isolated and petty, sizing each other up, jealous for what the other one has, consumed by hollow desires. And who benefits from all this one-uppery? The men. We outnumber them two to one, and yet here we are, locked in a chapel, waiting for them to decide our fate.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s the real magic trick.

I wonder what would happen if we all said what we really felt … just for one night. They couldn’t banish us all. If we stood together, they’d have to listen. But with rumors swirling about a usurper among us, no one is willing to take that risk. Not even me.

“Do you have your sights set on a particular labor house?” Mrs. Daniels asks, eyeing my red ribbon. As she leans in, I get a whiff of pure iron, but I also smell the decay. No doubt she’s been using grace year blood to try to hang on to her youth. “I mean, if you don’t get a veil … of course,” she adds.