The Grace Year(25)

As if Kiersten can hear my thoughts, she peers back at me over her shoulder, ice-blue eyes singeing a trail from my ankles to the top of my head.

I duck down, pretending to refasten my bootlace, anything to escape her gaze. I can’t stop thinking about Betsy running off into the woods, Laura keeling over the side of the canoe—that look on Kiersten’s face. Whether it’s true or not, she believes she killed them with her magic.

And she’s proud.

I try to shake it off, erase it from my memory, because no matter what happens, how things may appear, I need to keep a level head, my feet firmly rooted in the soil. No more superstition. No more fear.

As I gather my skirts to stand, I notice a tiny red bloom fighting against all odds to make its way to the surface. Reaching out, I touch the five petals, perfectly formed, just to make sure it’s real. Tears prickle the backs of my eyes. It’s the flower from my dream, the same one I saw in Mrs. Fallow’s hand as she stepped from the gallows, the same bloom that was threaded into the outskirts-woman’s hair. It’s beyond me how it got here, how it managed to survive on this well-worn path, but it seems like a truer bit of magic than anything I’ve seen thus far.

“On your feet,” Hans says as he wraps his arm around me, pulling me up.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper.

“I told you I would look after you,” he says. I don’t dare look at him, but I can hear the smile in his voice. “If there’s a breach in the fence, they’ll send for me. Do you understand? I will come for you.”

I nod. But I have no idea what he’s talking about.

As we approach the end of the path, we’re faced with a towering wood gate, hundreds of lifeless ribbons nailed to the rough-hewn wood. Some are tattered, long since faded to the softest blush, but others are still crisp, the sharpest of crimson. I want to pretend the girls put them here themselves, one last rebellious act before returning to the county, but I’m done pretending.

These are the ribbons of the girls who’ve been killed.

It’s more than a warning.

It’s a message.

Welcome to your new home.





“Are we just going to stand here?” Kiersten asks, tapping her boot impatiently in the dirt.

“One of you will have to open the gate,” the short, stocky guard says as he shifts his weight.

I can’t stop my eyes from veering between his legs. It makes me wonder if he feels the cut more deeply here at the encampment.

Without the slightest hint of reverence for the moment in front of us, Kiersten yanks open the gate.

As the creaky wood swings open, a high whinny of lament, we’re hit with an overwhelming burst of green wood smoke, burned hair, and the sickeningly sweet scent of decay. I can’t help breathing it in. I’m woozy with it. It’s so heavy, so deep, I swear I can feel it clinging to the tiny spaces between my ribs, almost as if it’s afraid to be named.

“You’ll need to take the supplies inside,” one of the guards says, a slight quiver in his voice, like we’ve just opened the gates to hell.

As the girls hop to, dragging the carts inside, the men edge away, never once turning their backs on us, as if just stepping over the threshold will unleash our magic, making us swallow them whole.

We wait for parting words … instructions … anything … but they just stand there in silence.

“Close it,” Kiersten says, eyeing the heavy rope mechanism connected to the gate.

Meryl and Agnes jump at the chance to be noticed and pull it shut.

At the last second, Hans reaches in to unsnag the end of my ribbon from the wood post, his fingers lingering.

Another guard yanks him back. “Are you crazy? The curse,” he reminds him. And I know this is his way of saying good-bye.

As the gate closes on the guards’ troubled faces, it’s clear they truly believe we’re loathsome creatures that need to be hidden away for safekeeping, for our own good, to exorcise the demons lurking inside of us, but even in this cursed place, anger, fear, and resentment boiling inside of me, I still don’t feel magical.

I still don’t feel powerful.

I feel forsaken.





This is the first time we’ve been alone. Unsupervised.

There’s a beat—a few weighted seconds—before it fully sinks in.

The energy swirling around us feels like a living, breathing thing.

As some of the girls rush off to explore, trills of excitement nipping through the air, others cling to the gate, weeping for the world that’s been taken away from them, but most of us, out of obligation or curiosity, inch forward, one foot in front of the other, edging our way into a vast but barren half-moon clearing that’s been carved out of the dense woods before us.

“It’s a lodging house,” Ravenna says as she peeks inside the long primitive log-cabin structure on the north end of the clearing. There are two small shacks positioned on either side, and beyond that, nothing but forest.

“This can’t be it,” Vivian says as she spins in a slow circle, dragging her veil in the dirt.

I gravitate toward the center of the clearing, to an old stone well and a lone tree, but that’s not what has my eye. Placed at the foot of the tree, there’s a pile of smoldering remains, a string of sumac leaves encircling it like a lewd gesture.