The Grace Year(60)

Instead, I vow to make it home, so I can tell him myself.





I wake to the sound of breaking bones.

Letting out a gasping breath, I start to reach for the knife, then realize the poacher’s clear across the room, sitting on a stool in front of the table, cutting away at something. I’m thinking the worst, wondering who it might be, when I catch a glimpse of a rabbit foot dangling over the edge of the table. Lurching to the side of the bed, I grab the pot, retching up everything in my stomach.

He doesn’t even flinch.

Wiping the bile from my mouth, I lean back on my makeshift pillow. “Is that where you go at night? To hunt?”

He grunts out a reply. Could be yes. Could be no. He’s clearly not in a mood to chat, but I can’t let that stop me.

“Is it just rabbit, or do you hunt other things?” I know the answer, but I want to hear him say it.

He peers back at me, his eyes dark and narrow. “Whatever’s careless enough to get in my path.”

“Prey,” I whisper, an icy current running through me. “That’s what you call us, right?”

“Better than poachers,” he says as he returns to his work, snapping the neck.

“Do you have a name?” I ask, trying to sit up, but the pain is still too much.

“Other than poacher?” he replies dryly. “Yes. I have a name.”

I’m waiting for him to tell me, but it never comes.

“I’m not going to beg you.”

“Good,” he says as he continues to work on the rabbit.

The sound of his steady breath, the constant drip of the icicles on the eaves, it’s driving me crazy—alone in the woods kind of crazy—only I’m not alone.

“Forget it,” I say with a heavy sigh as I turn my head toward the door.

“It’s Ryker,” he says softly over his shoulder.

“Ryker,” I repeat. “I knew that. I heard the other poacher call you that. It’s an old Viking name.” I perk up, trying to make a connection. “Det ere n fin kanin,” I say, but he doesn’t seem to understand.

My shoulder is throbbing now. A sheen of cold sweat covers my body.

“I think I could use some more medicine,” I say as pleasantly as possible.

“No,” he replies, without even looking at me.

“Why?” I blurt. “I’m in pain. Do you want me to be in pain … is that it?”

He turns to me, peeling back the rabbit fur in one long continuous stroke, as casually as if he’s slipping off a silk stocking.

“You don’t scare me,” I whisper.

“Is that right?” he says as he drops the rabbit and abruptly gets up, blood staining his hands.

As he sits next to me, I ease my hand down to the edge of the mattress, slipping my fingers beneath for the comfort of the blade, but there’s nothing there.

“Looking for this?” he asks, pulling the small blade from the sheath strapped to his ankle. “The next time you get out of bed to rifle through my things, you should make sure you’re not leaving a trail of blood on the floor.”

I reach out to hit him, but he catches my hand. “Save your energy. When you get well enough to return to the herd, you’re going to need it.”

I’m struggling to pull my hand free.

“You don’t need the poppy anymore,” he says as he releases me. “At this point, it will do more harm than good. It’s up to the Gods now. You’re either going to live or you’re going to die.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, tears streaming down my face. “I saw the notebook. You fulfilled your promise to my father, many times over. Why haven’t you killed me yet or just let me die?”

A deep ridge settles between his eyes. “I keep asking myself the same question,” he says, finally meeting my gaze. “But when I saw you … on the ice … you looked so…”

“Helpless,” I whisper, disgusted and angry by the idea of that being what saved me.

“No,” he says, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “Defiant. When you struck the ice with that axe … it was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.”





Stark white light bleeds through the fluttering edge of the buffalo hide covering the door.

“I see you survived another night,” he says as he stands over me, his clothes smelling of fresh snow and wood smoke. I can’t tell if he’s pleased or disappointed. Maybe he’s not even sure.

I lurch to my side to throw up. He nudges a bucket closer with his boot, but there’s no need. It’s just a small bit of drool and bile. My insides are rejecting even the smallest thing now. “What’s happening to me?”

“It’s the infection,” he says, sitting on the bench to inspect my wound. His fingers feel like they’re made of ice.

I glance over at the angry red flesh. “I don’t want to die here,” I say with a sharp inhalation of breath.

“Then don’t,” he says, squeezing my arm tight, drawing the pus from the sutures.

My head lolls forward. I feel like I might pass out at any moment.

“How did this happen?” he asks, his voice harsh in my ears, insistent.

For a moment, I can’t remember, maybe I don’t want to remember, but slowly it comes back to me, nothing more than a flash of images—Gertie’s scalp glinting in the moonlight. The woods. The seeds. The storm. Tamara’s twitching body being shoved out of the gate.