The Grace Year(96)
“Better than last year. Remember the Barnes girl, the one with half her ear missing? She pissed herself before we even reached the shore.”
They snicker as they push past, but I don’t mind. Let them think I’m crazy.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a flash of red. As I walk toward it, my heart picks up speed. The flower. I’d almost forgotten about it. Pretending to trip, I crawl over to it, skimming my fingers over the perfectly formed petals, but now there are two. Maybe this is how it spreads. One at a time. Slow, but sure.
It’s easy to think of your life as being meaningless out here, a tiny forgotten imprint that can easily be washed away by the next passing storm, but instead of making me feel small, it gives everything more purpose, more meaning. I’m no more or less important than a small seedling trying to burst through the soil. We all play a part on this earth. And however small, I intend to play mine.
“On your feet.” Two of the guards pick me up by my elbows. I want to fight them off, but I force myself to go limp.
As they put us in boats and we cross the water, it’s impossible not to notice how much we’ve dwindled in size, not just from hunger, and supplies, but in sheer numbers. I count for the first time—eighteen of us have fallen. Out of those, four had veils, which means four men will be choosing new wives among the survivors. Even after everything that’s happened, I wonder how many of the remaining girls are still hoping for a veil. It was enough to get them to leave the camp untorched, but truly believing, giving up everything they were raised on, will take time. Something I’m quickly running out of.
The open water, the breeze, the unobstructed sun glaring down on us—it feels like freedom, but we know it’s a lie. This is how they break us. They take everything away, our very dignity, and anything we get in return feels like a gift.
In front of the guards, we’re silent; we don’t meet their gaze. I keep my cloak wrapped tight around me, our secrets even closer, but at night, with the steady purr of their drunken slumber, the girls whisper in the dark, about the black ribbons they’ll receive, what’s expected in the marital bed, which labor houses they’ll be assigned to, finally giving way to what the council will do to me after I tell them the truth … how I’ll be punished … how I’ll die.
The gallows would be a kindness. Most likely they’ll burn me alive, but at least my sisters won’t be punished in my absence. There will be a stain on my family name, but in time, it will fade. My mother will smile a little harder, my sisters will toe the line, play their part, and hopefully, by the time their grace year comes around, my treachery will be nothing but a distant memory.
On the second day of our march, as we approach the outskirts, the pit in my stomach begins to grow. I wonder if I’ll recognize Ryker’s family. I wonder if they’ve already gotten word of his death.
When I get my first whiff of wood smoke, musk, and flowering herbs, I trail behind the others. I’m suddenly painfully aware of my secret. Searching the sea of women, I stop when I see Ryker staring back at me—not Ryker, but a woman with his eyes, his lips, surrounded by six girls. It brings a fresh wave of pain to the surface, but also relief. In some way, he will live on.
There are so many things I want to say—how much I loved him. How he wanted a better life for them, how he died with his eyes wide open, under a northern star. But before I can gather the nerve to speak, his mother says, “It’s you … you look just like her.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but as I open my mouth to ask, a guard comes up behind me, grabbing my arm, pulling me away.
As I look back, she pulls her hair away from her shoulder, revealing a tiny red bloom pinned to her tunic.
“Wait…,” I whisper, but as I try to go back, the guard yanks me to his side.
“It’s too late to run. You belong to the county now. You belong to Mr. Welk.”
When we reach the gate, the guards hold the line. The church bell tolls for each one of us. We hear a gasp from the people of the county on the other side of the fence: it’s the bloodiest season in grace year history. Out of the thirty-three girls, only fifteen of us are coming home alive.
The clinking of coin cuts through the atmosphere, drawing my attention to the guard station, where men are lined up, the same as when we left for the encampment last year. It’s not until I spot a few heavy leather satchels among them that I realize they’re not here to watch the broken birds, they’re here for payment. For a brief second, I catch myself searching for Ryker’s face, but he’s gone now. And he’s never coming back.
The gates open, jarring me back to the present. As the new grace year girls funnel out in a prim line, it takes me by surprise. They look so young, so pretty, like dolls being dressed up for a dance—not being sent for slaughter. I think about the way the returning girls looked at us when we passed them last year, as if they despised us, and I wonder what these new girls see in us. I hope they know the leap of faith we’ve committed, that we tried to make things better for them.
Though my chin is quivering, I try to smile. “Take care of each other,” I whisper on the breeze.
And as the last girls disappear, I turn to face the open gate.
My eyes fill with tears, my body feels welded in place, but somehow I move. Maybe it’s the momentum of the crowd; maybe it’s something more primal than that.