The Grace Year(81)

Covered in mud and bark and leaves, I drag myself back up the incline, into the creek, letting the cool water wash over me.

An apple blossom drifts down to the surface, reminding me of the rose bath Ryker made for me. Flicking it out of the pool, I plunge myself under the water, trying to force the memory out of my head. As I come up for air, I hear the faint scratching sound again. Happy for a distraction, I jump out of the pool, following the sound all the way to the top of the ridge, to the girl’s remains—the tattered end of her ribbon rubbing against the bones of her neck. This can’t be the same sound I heard in the camp, or clear on the other side of the fence. The distance is far too great. But that’s not the only thing that has me on edge. There appears to be something wedged inside her rib cage. Something I didn’t see before.

Sinking next to her, I peer inside to find a flower. A red chrysanthemum. The flower of rebirth. My skin explodes in goosebumps. How did this get here? I reach in to grab it, being careful not to touch her bones. It’s a little tattered and bruised, but the stem is cut on the bias, with precision and care. I wonder if Kiersten did this to mess with me, but I’ve never seen a flower like this in the encampment before. I can’t help thinking of the bloom Ryker gave me—the one Anders helped him find—and I wonder if this came from outside the barrier.

“Stop it, Tierney,” I whisper to myself, pulverizing it between my fingers. “Don’t get paranoid. It’s just a flower.”

But a flower is never just a flower.

I blink long and hard as if I can somehow make things right in my head, but when I open them, nothing has changed.

Maybe it’s just traces of unpurged well water working their way through my system, or exhaustion, but there’s a part of me that can’t help wondering if by claiming the magic, telling them that I could communicate with the dead, I somehow raised her ghost.





SUMMER





The first few days with the girls are the worst—crying fits, bursts of anger, wanting to claw their own skin off. I remember feeling like that when I got banished to the woods, staggering around, trying to find my way back to some form of reality.

But in the passing months, we seem to settle into an uneasy routine.

On the first full moon, they all bleed at the same time—no punishments have been ordered, no new wild claims of magic have come forth, but I still feel out of sync. Out of time.

Though I haven’t had a drop of the well water, sometimes it feels as if I had. Little things: the scratching noise that seems to follow me wherever I go; the bones on the ridge that seem to shift a little every day, her head tilting more toward the sun, her toes pointing down toward the earth, the slight angle of her hip—as if at any moment, she could rise. Maybe it’s merely the power of suggestion making me feel this way. I’ve been telling ghost stories every night to satisfy the girls. Maybe I’m starting to believe my own lies, but nearly every morning, I wake to the smell of lime and bay leaves, my hair braided. I don’t mention it to anyone, because I don’t want to give Kiersten the satisfaction, but I can see it in her eyes, her growing frustration with me.

My biggest obstacle by far is keeping my thoughts from slipping under the fence, walking toward the shore, climbing the ladder to the best feeling I’ve ever known.

When I have the strength, I get up and move, find something to keep myself occupied—weaving rope, rebuilding the rain barrels, clearing the trail, leveling it off so it’s wide enough for the wagon to carry the water without spilling a drop—but at night when everyone is sleeping, and my body has failed me, I have no choice but to sit here, my mind playing through every detail of my last night with Ryker on a constant torturous loop. Sometimes, I close my eyes and try to meet him in my dreams, but I don’t dream anymore. Of anything. Even the girl feels like a distant memory, someone I used to know—just another thing that’s left me.

Although the girls have access to plenty of fresh water now, they still drink from the well on occasion. Maybe it’s self-preservation, knowing what their body needs.

I remember Father treating trappers from the north, feeding them thimblefuls of whisky on the hour. It wasn’t enough to satisfy them, but just enough to keep them from going into the throes of withdrawal. And that’s exactly what this is—a withdrawal. I can’t imagine going cold turkey from the hemlock silt, marching for two days straight while you purge everything from your body. No wonder the girls are so out of it when they return—they’re half dead, and the other half only wishes they were.

Doing it this way will take longer, but they won’t feel like their bones are being turned inside out. Hopefully it will feel natural, like their magic is slowly leaving them, which isn’t that far from the truth.

A few of the girls are well enough that they’ve shown an interest in helping me around the camp. At first, I found it unnerving, their dark beady eyes staring into me, but as they slowly come back to the world, I give them small tasks. One of them is minding Helen. She’s been following me around like a shadow, nicking whatever I’ve left behind. If a spoon is missing, I’ll find it under Helen’s bed. If a button has gone astray, I’ll find it in her pocket. It’s hard to get upset with her. She hasn’t recovered as well as the others. It makes me wonder if she ever will.

On a bright note, Dovey has resumed her usual cheery coo. Helen even offered to let me carry the bird around for a while, but it’s best not to get too attached. I remind Helen that we’ll have to leave her behind when the guards come for us, but she doesn’t want to hear it. The women aren’t allowed to own pets in the county. We are the pets.