The Grace Year(78)

“Stop … stop.” Helen’s shoulders begin to shake. At first I think she’s laughing, like she did on that night they threw Tamara’s twitching body out of the gate, but when she glances up at me, I see wet streaks running down her dirty cheeks. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Maybe she can’t voice it yet, maybe she doesn’t know how, but I can see it on her face—the seed of regret.

Looking around the campfire, it’s hard to imagine that in a few short months, we’ll be going home to become docile wives, compliant servers, laborers. Maybe for some, the true believers, they’ll think nothing of it—that everything was God’s will, a necessary evil so they could come home as purified women. Most have had their first taste of freedom—they might even like what they’ve become—but what of the others, the ones who only wanted to sur vive. When the “magic” wears off, when the memories come pouring in, how will they make peace with what happened here? The horror we inflicted on one another.

But maybe the well water will make them think it’s all a hazy dream. They won’t be able to distinguish fact from fiction, dream from reality. Maybe that’s the look the women always get after they return, the one I can never decipher. Maybe they don’t even know what they’re feeling.

Desperately trying to remember, but blessed to forget.





After cleaning out the larder, I move Gertrude back inside. They made it clear they would make room for us in the lodging house, but I don’t trust the girls, not until they’re clear of the hemlock silt.

Settling in beside her, I feed her a special broth I made with yarrow, ginger, and the remaining bloodroot. I’ve seen my father make it for his infected patients a hundred times before.

“This should help ease your stomach, your fever.”

“It’s good.” She takes a few sips through her chattering teeth, and when she looks up at me, I notice the same chalky red residue clinging to the corners of her mouth that I saw on my mother the night before I left.

My mind stumbles over the memory. It wasn’t the blood of grace year girls, it was the broth. I remember the cold sweat on my mother’s brow, her trembling fingers, her near-fainting spell at the church. She must’ve been ill, but why would they try to hide it from me?

Gertrude reaches back to scratch her head; I catch her hand. “No more scratching.” Ripping off a strip of my underskirt, I wrap the linen around her hands, tying them off like mittens. “That’s why you’re sick. Your wound is badly infected.”

“Wound,” she whispers, the memory of what happened slipping over her like the darkest of veils. “How will Geezer Fallow like me now?” She tries to make a joke out of it, but it’s no use.

We sit in silence for some time before Gertrude speaks again.

“Kiersten…” She swallows hard. “I need to tell you what happened.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything, you don’t owe me any expla—”

“I want to,” she insists. “I need to.”

I squeeze her hand.

I had the same urge to speak when I was sick, the need to share my story … just in case.

“Kiersten found the lithograph in her father’s study. She asked me to meet her at church, in the confessional booth, before lessons so she could show it to me.” I wipe a cool rag over her forehead; she shivers. “It was the middle of July. Blistering outside, but the confessional was cool in comparison.” She stares at the flame of the candle. “I remember the smell of frankincense, the dark red velvet cushion pressing against the back of my knees. The ooze of beeswax dripping onto the pedestal.” A faint smile plays slowly across her lips. “Kiersten was squeezed in next to me so tight that I could feel her heart beating against my shoulder. When she pulled the parchment from her underskirt, it took me a minute to even understand what I was seeing. I thought…” Her eyes are on the verge of tearing up. “I thought she was trying to tell me something. I thought she was giving me some kind of a sign.” Her bottom lip begins to quiver. “I kissed her,” she says. “Like we’ve done a dozen times before. But we got caught. I wasn’t asking her to do those things in the lithograph. All I was trying to do was tell her that I loved her. It wasn’t dirty. I’m not dirty…”

“I know that.” I smooth my hand down her cheeks, wiping away her tears.

“When Kiersten threatened to tell you, I played along. I thought…”

“What?”

“I thought if you knew, you wouldn’t want to be friends with me anymore.”

“You thought wrong,” I say.

She studies me, a deep rift settling into her brow.

As she reaches up to try to scratch the back of her head again, I stop her.

“You need to heal.”

She stares at me intently, a haunted look coming over her. “Can we ever really heal from this?” she whispers.

I know what she means. I know what she’s asking.

Pulling the thyme blossom from my chemise, I offer it to her. Tears fill her eyes. Pawing at it, she tries to accept it, but it’s no use with the linen wrapped around her hands. We both start laughing. And in this tiny gesture, this minuscule moment, I know we’re okay … that Gertrude is going to be okay.