The Grace Year(36)

“Coming?” Martha says, holding the door open.

Gertrude hurries along, more than happy to end the conversation.

With the lanterns low, we settle into our beds, peering up at the spiderwebs clinging to the beamed ceiling, trying not to imagine what’s happening around the fire.

“What if it’s true?” Becca says, breaking the silence. “What if we’re wasting our time? You know what they’ll do to us if we come back without getting rid of all of our magic.”

“We just got here,” I say, trying to position my body around the springs. “There’s plenty of time for all that. They’re just trying to scare us.”

“It’s working,” Lucy says, pulling her blanket up to her nose.

“I for one am in no hurry to lose my mind,” Martha says.

“But I was a late bloomer,” Becca says, sheer panic in her hushed voice. “What if it’s the same with my magic? What if it comes too late and I can’t get rid of it in time?”

“It’s not the same thing,” Patrice says.

“How do you know?”

A low groan echoes through the woods, making us all hold our breath.

“It’s just another elk, right?” Nanette asks.

I nod, though I’m not entirely sure.

“Did you see the way Kiersten was looking at me tonight?” Lucy says from beneath her covers. “She’s always hated me. I have three younger sisters … if she makes me do something with her magic … if I walk into the woods and my body is unaccounted for—”

“We’re getting carried away,” I say. “This is what she wants. All we have to do is stick together. Be sensible.”

“But you saw what Ravenna can do,” Ellie says.

“All we saw was a girl holding an invisible ball,” I say.

“But I felt it.” Molly presses her palms against her lower abdomen. “There was a moment when I saw the sun in her hands. They were one.”

“I thought it was about to crack open between her fingers like a soft yolk,” Ellie whispers.

I want to say something, find a reasonable explanation, but the truth is, I felt it, too.

“Hey, where’s Helen?” I ask, noticing her empty bed, the absence of cooing.

“She stayed by the fire,” Nanette says, staring toward the door.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I swear I hear a hint of sadness in her voice, longing.

Maybe they all wish they’d stayed behind.

As much as I want to deny it, bury the thought, there’s a part of me that can’t help wondering if Kiersten was right … if I’m the one holding them back.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with the grace year. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.





In the weeks that followed, while we were busy clearing away the scorched debris, building a covered area for cooking, making rain barrels, chopping wood, divvying up chores, Kiersten was busy “helping” the veiled girls embrace their magic.

It started off with silly things, doling out little dares to try to jar their magic loose, singing hymns of Eve as they knotted flower crowns in the morning dew, sitting in a circle around the punishment tree telling cautionary tales, but what at first seemed like harmless tasks turned into something infinitely more dangerous. But isn’t that how every horrible thing begins? Slow. Insipid. A twisting of the screw.

Night after night, Kiersten returned from the bonfire with another convert, glassy eyed, hair cascading down her back, making some wild claim or another.

Tamara said she could hear the wind whispering to her, and Hannah said she made a juniper berry wither just by looking at it. I could chalk it all up to their imaginations, social conditioning, superstition gone awry, but they weren’t the only ones experiencing strange goings-on. Something was happening to the rest of us. Something I couldn’t explain.

Along with dizzy spells, loss of appetite, double vision, it seemed like our irises were disappearing, soft black eroding away any color, any light. I kept thinking it was just exhaustion, or maybe some kind of illness passing through the camp, but the more I tried to make sense of it, the worse things seemed to get.

And as the full moon drew near, we bled. All of us at the same time, even Molly, just like a pack of wolves.

I tried to tell the girls that just because you can’t explain something, that doesn’t make it magic, but one by one they inched their beds closer to the other side of the room, drawn to wild tales of magic and mysticism.

Honestly, I couldn’t blame them. I’d lived with these doubts about the grace year my entire life, and even I was starting to question things.

Question my sanity.

A few nights ago, as we were huddled around the fire, Meg swiped her hand through the flames. “I can’t feel it,” she exclaimed. As she looked to Kiersten, I felt something pass between them, a surge of invisible energy. Maybe it was all in my head, maybe it was Kiersten’s magic, a language I couldn’t understand, but in the next moment, Meg held her hand in the flames until her skin bubbled up like a hundred singing bullfrogs.

“What are you doing?” I yelled as I grabbed on to her, pulling her back from the heat.

Meg looked up at me, with those huge black eyes.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She laughed.