The Hunger(41)

But when she said Halloran’s name, Tamsen’s face hardened. She seized Elitha by the shoulders.

“You must tell no one of this,” she said. “I never want to hear a word of it again. Swear it.”

Elitha had sworn, because she was frightened; Tamsen had gripped her so hard, she left bruises. Tamsen was frightened, too: because of what had happened with Halloran in the woods, and because of what people said about her now. Before Halloran’s death there had been whispers, hisses that followed Tamsen and even Elitha. But now the whispers, like the ones inside her head, had grown into a clamor. That she had bewitched him with her potions, turned him into a demon, made him her lover, turned him mad. She had killed him so she could collect his blood and drink it.

No one would speak to Tamsen now. Even Elitha felt the weight of everyone’s hatred. People drifted away when they saw her coming. None of the other girls, except for Mary Graves, would do their washing when Tamsen went down to the river, and when Elitha went in her place, she had to endure snickering and muttered insults.

Every bad thing that happened to the wagon train was laid at Tamsen’s feet, it seemed. Tamsen was good at pretending that it didn’t bother her, but at night, Elitha sometimes heard her weeping.

Elitha couldn’t pretend. She burned with shame. And still the voices crowded her head, whispering terrible things and leaving a deep tunnel of loneliness, as if their words were sharp and physical things hollowing out her center. She was desperate for quiet, for peace, for silence.

But Halloran’s voice was relentless—a low and nearly constant rhythm submerging her in a place of terror and guilt. He told her in detail things she did not want to hear. He told her of hunger that lodged not in his stomach, but his blood, an excavating hunger that festered like an unclean wound. He told her of the sweet smell of human skin, the deep flinty richness of human blood, the need for it that pulled at his whole being. He claimed to be ashamed but spoke of Tamsen’s body with longing, and in his darkest, angriest moments he whispered perverse, gross things to her that she couldn’t afterward forget.

I wonder what you taste like.

I wonder what it would be like to eat you.

I would start very small, a toe, or one of your soft, soft ears.

She began to think, increasingly, of wading into the river to drown herself. She began to dream of the cool dark silence of the water folding over her head.



* * *



? ? ?

AND THEN, SHE DID IT.

Tamsen had sent her to the river to do laundry when everyone in the family was busy unchaining the oxen and setting camp for the night. She had not planned to kill herself that night, but standing in the shade of the bank, watching the late sun play over the river, trying to ignore the continued abuse of phantom voices, she realized suddenly that there was only one solution, and it lay before her. The river looked to her like a bed made with clean linens. It looked like home.

She thought briefly about leaving her boots on the bank; footwear was expensive and there was no sense ruining them when her sisters might get some use out of them. But she was afraid that if she paused she would change her mind. She stepped off the rocks into the gently rushing water. It was colder than she expected but she kept walking. She kept going, to her waist now. She wondered whether she should have filled her pockets with rocks, but already her skirts were so heavy even walking was difficult. The current tugged at her. Farther out there were whitecaps; that was where the current was stronger. With any luck it would sweep her off her feet and carry her downstream.

It would not, then, be her fault. It would not be her choice. Her death would be in God’s hands, and she could still receive his mercy. She asked God to make it happen quickly.

The water reached her breasts and made her gasp. It was harder to keep her balance; the current kept snatching at her skirts and her ankles. Suddenly all of the voices in her head went silent, and in their place she felt a rush of panic. She thought of her little sister’s face, and Thomas. But it was too late for regrets; she was too deep, and could not make it back to the bank of the river, not in her sodden skirts, and the bodice that squeezed the air from her lungs. She thought of turning to call out for help but slipped on a rock. Her feet went out, and a rush of ice-cold water filled her nose and mouth and blinded her.

She could not kick out from the tangle of her skirts. She didn’t know which way the surface was. She was tossed in the currents and couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t at all like she imagined; it wasn’t peaceful, or like sleep. Her lungs cried out for air. Her throat closed around breaths full of nothing but water. Her whole body screamed in protest. She was in pain everywhere.

And the voices came back now, more furious than ever, an angry rush of them, until she knew they were the ones pulling her legs, drawing her under, turning her under the whitecaps.

Under the water, the voices were all that was left.

You’re mine now, girl. A stranger’s voice.

Join me, Elitha. Halloran, almost weeping. Tender sweet Elitha.

Then, suddenly, hands seized her. She came up gasping to the surface in Thomas’s arms. She had been carried downstream a hundred yards; he had edged out along a fallen tree to intercept her and now pulled her up beside him, grunting with the effort, as she cried and spit up water and the taste of vomit.

He didn’t say a word to her, not until they had inched along together back to the riverbank, not until she had finished shivering and coughing. He didn’t touch her, either, and didn’t look at her while she cried. But finally she was finished, and when she needed a handkerchief, he gave her a rag—wet, but clean—from his vest.