The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by Carrie Ryan

  The latch won't move and I'm suddenly not sure what I expected to find down here. Perhaps I hoped that Sister Tabitha had left the door unlocked. Perhaps I hoped it would give way to my sheer force of will.

  Instead, I let my head rest against the wood, pressing my ear against it as if I could hear anything on the other side. As if the door itself could whisper its secrets to me. I think about all these walls have seen and I wonder what it was like here when the Return struck. Did they know what was coming? Were they prepared? Did this village even exist before the Return, or was it created as a sanctuary? As a refuge hidden from the world?

  But the walls tell me nothing, do not betray their secrets and everything around me is silent—my own breathing muffled by the curtain separating me from the rest of the room. Sleeplessness causes my eyes to burn, my limbs to feel heavy. I want to stay here in the cocoon of this place forever. Not having to face Harry. Not having to wonder if Travis will come for me. Not having to acquiesce to the Sisters, to acknowledge that I'm wrong about them.

  I trace my hands along the pitted metal bands holding the wood of the door together, testing for weaknesses I know do not exist. I run my fingers over the hinges, my skin becoming slick with the grease they use in the Cathedral to keep the doors from creaking.

  Suddenly, I want nothing more than my bed. To enjoy my one last night alone before I am bound to Harry. My last night to languish and allow Travis to pull me into dreams. I push away from the door, am slipping the curtain back from my shoulders, wiping my fingers along its grubby surface when I realize how to get past. How to gain entrance to the tunnel and the hidden rooms beyond.

  I am instantly alert as I sweep the candle up from the floor by my feet. Its flame seems to throb with my heartbeat, the dull shadows it casts around me thrumming at the edges. My fingers shake as I feel along the wooden racks, testing for weakness. Finally, my finger catches the splinters of a split board and I grab it, twisting the wood until it pops and breaks, leaving me with a long narrow slat.

  I keep prodding the shelves until I find another, thicker scrap of wood to serve as a makeshift mallet and then trace my way back to the hidden door. I wedge the splinter of wood against the head of the pin holding the two wings of the hinge together and begin tapping the end with the other scrap. I keep the curtain tight around my shoulders, hoping to dull the sound of my hammering.

  At first the pin refuses to budge and I have to tap harder, until I'm swinging the mallet against the wedge of wood with all my strength, no longer caring about the echoes I'm creating around me.

  I can feel the pin slipping free from the barrel, beginning to wobble, and I pull at it with my fingers, using the hem of my gown to get a better grip on the smooth metal. With a final tug it comes free, dropping to the floor with a satisfying ping. Without hesitating I start working on the other hinge lower on the door.

  My nightgown pulls against my back, stuck to my skin with sweat by the time I've wrenched the other pin from its barrel so that the door is no longer connected to the wall by the hinges. I want to whoop and holler with satisfaction but instead wipe my arm across my brow and stretch the kinks from my back as I survey my progress.

  While the door is still locked in place by the latch on one side, it's free to move on the other now that I have dismantled both hinges. Taking a deep breath, I jam my fingers through the narrow gap under the door and tug until the door eases open slightly. I scrape at the narrow opening until I have it pulled free enough to squeeze through, the heavy wood tilting now that it no longer has the hinges to balance it in place.

  The air is damp, moldy, and my own breath sounds like a windstorm to my ears. I strain to hear in the darkness beyond my weak candlelight, suddenly terrified that there might be someone or something else down here. I have almost convinced myself that I can hear every earth bug moving toward me through the soil until I remember the small table of candles by the tunnel side of the door and I light them all, my body shuddering with relief as the small patch of light surrounding me grows.

  My entire body shakes now, whether from fear or the sweat soaking my thin gown I don't know. I wish Travis were by my side, someone to hold my hand, to keep at bay the terror at the edges of my imagination. I have thought of this tunnel and these rooms for so long and yet now that I am here I don't want to press forward.

  I'm not sure I want to know the truth anymore. To know what's kept hidden down here.

  With the candle held out in front of me I force myself forward, the packed earth of the ground smooth under my bare feet. I pass the racks of wine and remember Sister Tabitha telling me about the history of this building. I follow the curve of the tunnel to the left and stop in front of the first door.

  The wood is duller than I remember, the opening smaller. I trace my fingers over the splinters around the edges. I had forgotten about the rusted metal bolts thrust into the stone, keeping the doors locked, and I almost groan with relief and frustration. I tap against the wood and, when I hear nothing in response, knock harder.

  I feel like a neighbor come calling and it makes me giggle, the sound bouncing off the stone walls and echoing maniacally around me. The noise is discordant to my ears, causing shivers to trail down my spine.

  Trying to steady my breath, I set the candle on the ground, instantly missing the light and warmth. My body pulses with each heartbeat and my hands itch with fear. I take a bolt in each hand, tugging one back and up while pushing the other forward and down.

  I hear a click and then a creak as the bolts slide free, the door suddenly swinging open.

  A rush of air spills from the open room, dousing the candle at my feet and thrusting me into darkness.

  Panic sets in fast and hard and I stumble back until I am pulling at the wall behind me, my feet sliding out from under me. I imagine hands on my ankles and I bite my tongue to keep from screaming. I push up from the floor, stumble and hit the wall, hearing the sound of bottles falling from racks and cracking around me.

  Blind, I run. Behind me I hear the rip of fabric, the groan of wood against metal. I trip and fall, wincing as I crash against wooden steps and realize that I've gone the wrong way down the tunnel. The cavernous room under the Cathedral is at the other end and I am now under the Forest. For a heartbeat I consider running back through the tunnel, back to the Cathedral, but the darkness is too much. Too thick.

  I climb up the stairs until I am wedged against the wooden door leading aboveground and can go no farther. I pull myself into a ball, tucking my legs against my chest. My breath pounds from my body like a sob. I clamp my hand over my mouth, but it does nothing to muffle the noise, the high-pitched wheeze of my body seeking air.

  I try to hold my breath and listen to the stillness around me, between pounding heartbeats that cause my entire body to pulse. I hear the sound of liquid slugging from the broken wine bottles. Nothing else.

  A sharp pain pierces my panic and with shaking hands I pull a shard of glass from the side of my right foot. My cheeks are wet with tears. I don't want to be here. I don't want any of this. I no longer care about Gabrielle or the Sisters or Harry or Travis. I don't care about anything in this world.

  I imagine pushing open the heavy wooden door above me and slipping into the clearing. I imagine walking slowly toward the fences, my white gown billowing around my ankles as if I were floating. I imagine my mother waiting there on the other side. Her hands outstretched, ready for me.

  I let the sobs overtake me then. This was not the way I imagined my life. Crouched, dirty and terrified in a secret tunnel under the Cathedral the night before my Binding to a man I do not love. As a child I dreamed of love and sunlight and a world beyond the Forest. I dreamed of the ocean, of a place untouched by the Return.

  And suddenly I wonder what right we have to believe our childhood dreams will come true. My body aches with this realization. With this truth. It is as if I have cut something important away from myself. The loss is almost overwhelming. Almost enough to make me give up.
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  It is as if my bones can no longer support my body. As if I am nothing more than blood and tears and fear and regret, slipping into the world around me. I realize I have three choices: find a way through the door above my head and go into the Forest myself, stay here until Sister Tabitha finds me and sends me into the Forest, or finish the job I have started and return to my life.

  I push away from the stairs. Force myself to step back down the hallway that is so dark it's like swimming through thick black water. I feel the damp earth under my feet, the smell of the old wine, bitter and sour, sticking to the back of my throat. My body tenses as I pass the newly opened door in the darkness, my breath catches as I imagine hands grabbing me from inside the room and I give into the urge to run until, turning the corner in the tunnel, I see the tiny beacon of light from the rest of the candles next to the door to the basement under the Cathedral. I grab two and retrace my steps, picking my way through the broken glass, the candlelight glistening off the sharp edges.

  I hesitate in front of the room, my light not penetrating past the threshold. There is still time for me to turn back. To clean up the broken wine bottles, replace the hinges on the door and return to bed, pretending that this night has been nothing more than a dream.

  Instead, I take a deep breath and force myself to step forward.

  The room is tiny, the ceiling low. Against the far wall is a cot, an old faded quilt tucked tightly around it. To my right is a narrow desk, a thick book that could only be the Scripture resting on top of it surrounded by unlit candles. On the other side of the room a large tapestry hangs on the wall, His holiest words woven through it, a thin and well-worn pillow resting beneath it for kneeling and praying. In the center of the room a round braided rug that seems to be made from old Sisterhood tunics covers the floor.

  I am stunned by the ordinariness of this room, as if it were any other Sister's quarters in the Cathedral. As if it were a mirror of my own upstairs. I step farther into the room, my footsteps muffled by the rug. I trace a finger down the smooth fabric of the tapestry, wondering how many other hands have touched these words, have sought solace in their presence. The pillow on the floor is dented where two knees would have rested for hours.

  I sit on the bed and it creaks slightly beneath me, disturbing the dreamlike silence around me. I pull my feet close and lean back, wondering who was the last person to sleep here. Gabrielle? Travis when he was so ill? A Sister facing some sort of punishment?

  Restless, eager for answers, I move to the narrow table and light the candles that surround the Scripture. Though I am facing the thick book with its cracked binding, my gaze is unfocused, my thoughts turned inward. Absently I flip it open, flick through the pages, the sound of them turning like the hush of fall leaves settling to the ground. But I'm not looking at the words written on the page, I'm staring past them, lost in my own world.

  Until I realize that the words on the pages look wrong. That the pages themselves are too thick with writing. I bend closer and realize that all the margins, every blank space on every sheet, is filled with cramped writing. The words are so small that I can barely make them out, the ink from the other side of the page casting shadows, making the words essentially indecipherable.

  I flip back to the first page and struggle with the cryptic handwriting, blue ink on onionskin-thin yellow pages. In the beginning, it said, we did not understand the extent of it.

  I pull a candle closer but the rest of the writing is lost to me. I flip back through the book, watching as the handwriting changes, as the ink turns black, grows thicker and harder to understand.

  And then the writing stops halfway through the Scripture. I run my finger up the page to see what was written last: As expected, extreme and complete isolation was the cause of her immense strength and speed. God help us all, we will send her to the Forest to see how long she lasts, to better understand her. It is through her sacrifice that we grow stronger. It is through His glory that we survive.

  I do not realize that I am holding my breath until I gasp, choking for air. My body shakes, my mind whirling. I can't seem to swallow enough times to keep the tears from blurring my vision. Shoving myself back from the table and tripping over the rug behind me, I fall back against the door, causing it to slam shut, the sound echoing down the dark hallway.

  I am trapped, cut off. Everything inside me screams and I gasp again for air. Panic consumes me and then, out of habit and a sense of security, I run my fingers over the spot next to the door where the Scripture would be, where the Sisters have carved words on the inside and outside of every other doorway in the village. Usually the spot is smooth from so many hands touching it on a daily basis, but here the wood of the threshold is still rough and it pulls me back into the present moment.

  I peer closer at the words and realize that it's not Scripture quoted here, but a list of names. And at the bottom is written Gabrielle, the carving still deep and fresh.

  Suddenly, the wind around me shifts, almost like a pop in the air. As if there is a subtle current that has been introduced into the tiny room. My body tingles with the fear that somehow I am caught. That my fate will be the same as Gabrielle's.

  I tug the door and it cracks open. Relief that it didn't lock floods me and I peer into the hallway. It's still pungent from the broken wine bottles. I have no idea how long I've been down here. I'm desperate to read more but I know that doing so will risk being found.

  I contemplate taking the Scripture with me but I have no place to hide it. I creep from the little room, closing and securing the door behind me, and clean up the broken bottles the best I can, shoving the largest shards of glass behind the racks lining the walls. Then, with a promise to return, I make my way back to the hidden door and I pinch the wick of each candle on the table, plunging the tunnel into darkness as I slip out. The well-greased pins slide easily back into place in the door hinges leaving no evidence that I have ever been here.

  When I escape from the basement I see the dullest shade of pink breaking over the horizon outside the windows. I sneak back to my room and change into my tunic. I light a fire, tossing my dirty nightdress into the rising flames. After tomorrow I will no longer need it anyway.

  I stand in front of the open window by my desk, letting the chill spring morning air wash over me, cleanse the scent of must and old wine from my body. I stare past the graveyard at the fences, allowing my eyes to blur until the Forest is nothing but a smudge of fresh green, the Unconsecrated dull specks, the fence nonexistent.

  Nothing in life is clear to me anymore. Nothing makes sense and I don't know how to make it right.

  Tonight is my Binding with Harry. Today is the last chance for Travis to claim me. The celebrations will start up again this afternoon. But for now my time is my own and I sneak from the Cathedral and skirt around the edge of the waking village until I am back on the hill.

  Instead of looking to the Forest, to the edge of my world, today I look down on the village. At the cottages and houses that huddle against the earth starting at the bottom of the hill and spreading toward the Cathedral on the other side of the village. The Cathedral is a hulking shape, its wings spreading out like arms. Behind the Cathedral is the familiar sight of the graveyard and the small drop to the stream where Harry and I held hands the day my mother became infected. Dotted throughout are the platforms set into the trees, stocked and ready for our refuge if there is ever a breach.

  The fence surrounds all of it, tall intertwining links forever keeping us safe. I think about how fragile those fences are, how vines like to snake around them during the summer causing endless work for the Guardians who are always on patrol, always repairing and mending.

  It astonishes me how something so delicate, like lace metal, keeps us trapped in this world. Unhampered by the Unconsecrated, but also by our dreams. The sun slips across the sky, for a brief moment glinting off the fences protecting the path beyond the gate by the Cathedral.

  I spend the morning thinking about how together
Travis and I can make it all right. And I continue to pace at the top of the hill, waiting for Travis to come claim me, time slipping around me like water over a rock.

  When it is time to prepare for the Binding ceremony that night I sit on the bed in the small cottage near the Cathedral that will become Harry's and mine once our union is completed tomorrow. My hands lie limp in my lap as I realize that Travis may never come for me after all.

  A knock on the door triggers my heart and it pounds hard in my chest. I stand, hoping it's Travis. Knowing that this is our last chance. That once the Binding begins I will have to give myself to Harry or cancel the ceremony.

  And canceling the ceremony means throwing myself on the mercy of the Sisters. Begging them to allow me to rejoin their ranks even if it means being nothing more than their servant. A woman in our village is not given a second chance at marriage.

  I smooth my hands over the white fabric that drapes down my legs. My hands shake as I reach for the door. My stomach tenses, my whole body flooding with fear and hope and joy.

  The light outside the door is the blinding last gasp of the day, and for a moment I think it's Travis and that my life has finally fallen into place. That I finally understand where I belong in this world.

  And then I hear the rustle of skirts as Sister Tabitha steps through the doorway and stalks to the middle of the room. She turns to face me, looks me up and down with her sharp eyes.

  “I have come to prepare you for the Binding,” she says. “To give you the blessing of the Sisterhood.”

  I want to crumple right there, to fall into myself until I am nothing more than a heap of emptiness on the floor. My head feels light, my vision blurry. My throat burns to scream and cry. But I refuse to allow Sister Tabitha to see any of this and so I raise my chin, close the door and steady myself by placing a hand against the wall.