The Grace Year(91)

Climbing back inside the pit, I take Hans’s knife and cut the shrouds from his body. I’m trying to pull the severed ribbon free, but he’s clenching it so hard in death that I end up having to break his fingers, one by one, in order to get it loose.

I’m happy to do it. I’d break every bone in his body if I had to. He doesn’t deserve to be buried with her ribbon. It doesn’t belong to him. Never did.

As I shovel heaps of mother earth over him, I don’t say a prayer. I don’t shed a tear. He’s nothing but another ghost to me.

Unsnagging the shredded ribbon from Olga’s vertebrae, I unite it with the other half and fold it in the bones of her hand.

One could look at it like she’s hanging on to it—one could look at it like she’s letting go.

I know what I see.

Tucking hawthorn branches, leaves, and herbs in the spaces between her bones, I work the flint until it catches. Hawthorn is seldom used in the county anymore, but in the old language, it signified ascension. A higher purpose. I have to believe that she’ll find peace.

As I fan the flames, they grow higher and higher, until I’m sure God himself can see the smoke.

I tend to her remains as if they belonged to one of my sisters, releasing her to the wind … the water … the air … wherever she wants to roam.

It’s a pyre fit for a warrior, which is exactly what she was.

With the sun melting into the horizon, the forest still tinged in bloodred glow, I wash the shrouds clean of every bit of hate, then hurry through the woods toward the eastern fence. This time, I’m not running from something, I’m running to, compelled forward by something much greater than fear.

Hope.

Wrapping myself in the torn shrouds, I peek my head out of the breach, making sure it’s clear, and then start to pull myself through. It’s harder this time. I have to contort my body differently, but as soon as I get my torso through, the rest comes easily. As I stand up and face the shore, the endless water stretched out before me, I can’t help thinking of the last time I did this. I was bleeding out, freezing to death, dying, and now I’m full of life.

I dart between the trees, trying to remember the way back to Ryker’s shelter, when I hear voices on the shore. Ducking behind a cluster of evergreens, I see men of all ages, getting into canoes, passing a bottle around.

“He was a good man,” a hunter with a fresh scar running down his neck bellows.

“He was a prick,” another man says as he climbs in, grabbing the bottle. “But no one deserves that kind of death. Not even Leonard.”

“And so close to the end of the season,” a boy says as he pushes them off.

“Poor bastard. Probably cursed his entire family,” another one says as he climbs into the next canoe.

I can’t figure out why they’re leaving. The guards don’t come back for us for another two days.

I’m getting ready to edge closer, see if I can spot Ryker among them, when I’m grabbed from behind, a hand over my mouth, jerking me away from the shore. My limbs are flailing, I’m trying to get away, but he’s too strong for me. When we reach the cover of a blind, he lets out a ragged whisper in my ear, “Tierney, stop. It’s me … Ryker.”

My whole body goes limp in his arms. I don’t know if it’s the sheer emotion of hearing his voice or knowing that he’s okay, but my chest is heaving … I’m trying to find the air. “I thought … I thought it was you in the camp … I thought you were dead.”

Spinning around in his arms, I pull the shroud from his face, kissing him with a fierceness that not even I recognize. He runs his hands down my body, over my waist, and then stops— “Tierney,” he says with a heavy breath.

I open my mouth to say something, but words fail me. For a moment, I’d almost forgotten. Forgotten how much time has passed. That I owe him an explanation for all of this.

Leaning my forehead against his, I say, “The day I left, Anders came to your shelter. He said if I didn’t leave by first light, he’d come back for me … that they would come for you, too. I wanted to save your life, the way you saved mine, and I realize coming back here now, like this, is the most selfish thing I’ll ever do…” My voice is starting to tremble. “But being without you isn’t an option anymore. If you don’t feel the same, if you don’t want to be with me, if this is too much, I’ll understand, I’ll turn around and—”

Sinking to his knees, he wraps his arms around me, pressing his face into my skirts. “We’ll find a way.”





Climbing the ladder to Ryker’s shelter feels like a choice this time, one that I would make again and again. Even the air smells like home to me—pine and lake water, sundrenched salty skin. My happiest and most painful hours have been spent here. It feels impossible to separate the two, and honestly, I don’t think I’d want to.

We’re more careful with each other now, but tonight, every kiss, every caress, every loving gaze feels weighted with the past, present, and future. No more floating among the stars; tonight I feel grounded to the earth, as if we’ve taken root in the soil.

Under the eyes of God and Eve, we open up to each other and accept our fate. But we face it together.

In this dark wood, in this cursed place, we’ve found a bit of grace.