The Grace Year(8)

“I don’t want to think of you when I look at a damn carrot.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“No one will be there to protect you.” He starts pacing. “You’ll be open to the elements. I’ve heard stories. The fields are full of men … of bastards one step away from being poachers, and they can take you anytime they want.”

“Oh, I’d like to see them try.” I laugh as I pick up a stick, lashing it through the air.

“I’m serious.” He grabs my hand, midswipe, forcing me to drop the stick, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. “I worry for you,” he says softly.

“Don’t.” I jerk my hand away, thinking how strange it feels to have him touch me that way. Over the years, we’ve beat each other senseless, rolled around in the dirt, dunked each other in the river, but somehow this is different. He feels sorry for me.

“You’re not thinking straight,” he says as he looks down at the stick, the dividing line between us, and shakes his head. “You’re not listening to what I’m trying to tell you. I want to help you—”

“Why?” I kick the stick out of the way. “Because I’m stupid … because I’m a girl … because I couldn’t possibly know what I want … because of this red ribbon in my hair … my dangerous magic?”

“No,” he whispers. “Because the Tierney I know would never think that of me … wouldn’t ask this of me … not now … not while I’m…” He pulls his hair back from his face in frustration. “I only want what’s best for you,” he says as he backs away from me and goes crashing into the woods.

I think about going after him, apologizing for whatever I’ve done to offend him, take back the favor, so we can part as friends, but maybe it’s better this way. How do you say good-bye to your childhood?





Feeling irritated and confused, I walk back through town, doing my best to ignore the stares and whispers. I stop to watch the horses in the paddock being groomed by the guards for the journey to the encampment, their manes and tails braided with red ribbons. Just like us. And it occurs to me, that’s how they think of us … we’re nothing more than in-season mares for breeding.

Hans brings one of the horses closer so I can admire its mane, the intricate plaiting, but we don’t speak. I’m not allowed to call him by his name in public, just “guard,” but I’ve known him since I was seven years old. I’ll never forget going to the healing house that afternoon to find Father and instead finding Hans lying there all alone with a bag of bloody ice between his legs. At the time, I didn’t understand. I thought it was some kind of accident. But he was sixteen, born to a woman of the labor house. He’d been given a choice. Become a guard or work in the fields for the rest of his life. Being a guard is a respected position in the county—they get to live in town, in a house with maids, they’re even allowed to buy cologne made from herbs and exotic citrus at the apothecary, a privilege Hans takes full advantage of. Their duties are light in comparison to the fields—maintaining the gallows, controlling a rowdy guest or two from the north, escorting the grace year girls to and from the encampment, and yet, most choose the fields.

Father says it’s a simple procedure, a small cut and snip to free them of their urges, and maybe that’s true, but I think the pain lies elsewhere, in having to live among us—being reminded day in and day out of everything that’s been taken away from them.

I don’t know why I wasn’t afraid to approach him, but that day in the healing house, when I sat down next to him and held his hand, he began to weep. I’d never seen a man cry before.

I asked him what was wrong, and he told me it was a secret.

I said I was good at keeping secrets.

And I am.

“I’m in love with a girl, Olga Vetrone, but we can never be together,” he said.

“Why?” I asked. “If you love someone you should be with them.”

He explained that she was a grace year girl, that yesterday she’d received a veil from a boy and would have no choice but to marry him.

He told me that he’d always planned on working in the fields, but he couldn’t stand the idea of being away from her. At least if he joined the guard, he’d be able to be close to her. Protect her. Watch her children grow up, even pretend they were his own.

I remember thinking it was the most romantic thing in the world.

When Hans left for the encampment, I thought maybe when they saw each other, they’d run away, forsake their vows, but when the convoy returned, Hans looked as if he’d seen a ghost. His beloved didn’t make it home. Her body was unaccounted for. They didn’t even find her ribbon. Her little sister was banished to the outskirts that day. She was only a year older than me at the time. It made me worry that much more for my sisters, but also, about what would happen to me if they didn’t make it back.

Come winter, when I saw Hans alone in the stable, practicing his braiding, his cold fingers deftly weaving in and out of the chestnut tail with the ribbon, I asked him about Olga. What happened to her. A shadow passed over his face. As he walked toward me, he stroked his hand over his heart, again and again, as if he could somehow put it back together again, a tic he carries to this day. Some of the girls make fun of him for it, the constant rubbing sound it makes, but I always felt sorry for him.