by Carrie Ryan
Harry waves at me and I wave back. We stand and look at each other for a while before I realize that I am rubbing my wrist where the Binding ropes once chafed me, where scabs still dot my skin.
He's trying to tell me something but I can't understand over the distance and the constant moaning of the Unconsecrated. I shrug my shoulders and put my hand to my ear. He shouts again, his fingers cupping his mouth, and again I shake my head. He waves his hand, giving up, as if what he has to say is not important.
After a while he walks back down the platform, back to his tree house where Cass and Jed and Jacob are waiting. Already I can see a plume of smoke rising from the chimney and I wonder if they too have created their own life. If they have found a way to be happy in this new place the way that Travis and I have.
I slip back inside the attic, my palm brushing against the smooth wall by the door. Habits die hard and absence doesn't stop my fingers from searching.
As the days pass Travis and I begin to belong to another world. We live most of our lives together upstairs where the windows are left open to the light and to the air. Once again the moans of the Unconsecrated become integrated into our every day, the constant noise relegated to a hum in the back of our minds.
Only rarely, when I climb to the platform to look at my brother, my betrothed and my best friend, do I wonder if they are living a life like mine, a domestic tranquility that belies the threat so immediate outside our doors.
Once I almost ask Travis why he didn't come for me back at the village. I'm sitting across from him at the table and there's a break in the conversation and I want so badly to know the answers, to know what my life would have been without the breach. I am gathering my thoughts, the pain of the waiting fresh in my throat. But then he smiles at me and takes my hand, the pads of his palms rough against my skin, and I realize that it no longer matters. Because we're together now. And I don't want to mar the harmony that we have found.
We settle into rhythms. Argos spends his days napping in various locations. Travis keeps our house fortified and I keep our bodies fed. The outside world ends at our door and this includes our commitments to other people. Here, in our house, it's only us and our life together and for a while it's bliss.
Until one day when I find myself coming in from the porch on the roof and facing the trunks lining the other end of the room. For the first time I'm drawn to them and I pass my hand over the smooth wood, the smell of cedar invading my head.
Even though I know there can be no one behind me, since Travis can't climb the ladder that leads here, I turn to make sure I'm not being watched. And then carefully I lift the latch from one of the trunks sitting on top of the stack.
It's filled with clothes and I break into a smile, happy to have found a diversion for the afternoon. One by one I pull out dresses that are intricately beaded and decorated with fancy stitches, each one very carefully folded for storage. They are all different colors, some bright and some muted—some shades I have never seen before. The material is soft and gauzy; fine stiff netting is stitched into the skirts to give them more bounce, more thickness and spin.
I hold each against my body, wondering what it must be like to be covered in such beauty until I'm compelled to try them on. Initially I feel a rush, a giddiness at the foreign material against my bare skin.
But then I start to wonder what woman once wore these dresses and why. For days I've lived in this house and have forbidden myself from imagining its former occupants. Since I dropped the baby from the window I haven't allowed myself to speculate about the children who once ate at the table downstairs, the men who crafted the weapons, the women who preserved each fruit and vegetable, meticulously planning for a siege they would never live long enough to endure.
And now I am wearing her clothes and I'm assaulted by her memories. I know that she was taller than I am because her gowns sweep over my bare toes and trail on the dusty floor. I know that her breasts were larger than mine, perhaps from the children. I know that her arms were flabbier than mine because her sleeves swallow my wrists.
But I don't know what dreams she imagined as she twirled in this dress. What man put his warm hand against the small of her back, making her skin tingle and her eyelashes flutter.
Suddenly, I'm dizzy. All my thoughts collide inside me at once and I must know these things. I run back to the platform, still wearing this woman's dress, and I kneel down and scout the Unconsecrated below. I examine each woman's arms, her waist, her hair, her wrists.
Which one of them slipped her head through this dress? Which one smoothed her hands over its fabric? Which one of them had the baby, raised the children, slept in the bed I sleep in now?
The Unconsecrated are almost impossible to differentiate in their unending hunger and drive, their slack skin and expressionless eyes.
None of the women below seems right and I run to the ladder, climb back down to the bedroom and look out each window. But it's too hard. They are massed too closely together; they crawl over each other, kicking up dust with their need to get into this house, to get to me and Travis.
Not even bothering to lift the skirt of my too-long dress I dart downstairs and grab one of the long-handled spears, startling Travis. I don't hear what he says as I stumble back up the stairs, the spear banging against the walls of the hallways. Its sharp rusty tip trails behind me, scraping against the scarred wooden floors as I race back to my window. I lean out over the edge of the ledge, straining against the seams of the dress and extending the spear out as far as possible. It's just long enough that I can reach into the fray from the second-story window and I prod apart the Unconsecrated, trying to get a better look at each woman's face.
It is like a hunger that I cannot satisfy, an unquenchable thirst: I have to know who lived in this house, whose life I have taken over. Which one is the wife and mother? I am almost convinced that I'll be able to tell just by looking into her eyes which one is banging on her own house, is seeking entrance back into her old life. The life I have stolen from her.
I'm in a frenzy, shoving my spear at the Unconsecrated with tears clouding my eyes, when Travis finally limps into the room, his breath heavy from the arduous climb up the stairs.
He puts his hand on my shoulder but I jerk away. Blindly I jab at each body, shouting, “Which one! Which one of you?”
Finally, he yanks the spear from my hands and pulls me away from the window. But by this time my mind has cycled on to other possibilities, other theories. “Maybe she got away,” I tell him. “Maybe she couldn't get back to the house but she was able to get to the gates,” I say. “Maybe she was like Gabrielle.”
I bring my hands to my cheeks, everything coming into focus for one brief moment. Maybe she escaped, maybe they're all out there, alone and searching. Maybe I'm the one meant to find them, to remember them, to carry them forward. I begin to pace, my mind tripping over itself. “I can get to the gates,” I say, my voice breathy and excited. “I can find her.”
“Who?” Travis asks me, his tone loud and firm as he grasps both my shoulders. “Who are you looking for?”
“Her,” I tell him, motioning to myself, to the dress I'm wearing.
“What are you talking about, Mary? You're not making any sense.” His grip keeps me from continuing my pacing but my feet tap against the floorboards, my toes digging into the wood with desire to move, to act on my need.
“Don't you see? Someone right now could be in our village, could be in one of our houses. They could find my clothes and think that I'm one of them, that I'm Unconsecrated, but I'm not. I'm here and they would never know.”
I pull my shoulders from his grasp and go back to pacing. I shove one hand into my hair and wave the other around as I think, trying to pull together the whirring thoughts in my head.
Who are we if not the stories we pass down? What happens when there's no one left to tell those stories? To hear them? Who will ever know that I existed? What if we are the only ones left—who will know our stories then? A
nd what will happen to everyone else's stories? Who will remember those?
“There is no one at our village, Mary,” he says to me. “And the woman who used to live here, why does she matter? She's no longer here. If she made it out alive, she didn't come down our path.”
I snap my fingers. “You're right,” I say, every thought in my head somehow clear. “She must have moved on. She must have gone down the other path, she must have continued away from here.”
Travis shakes his head. “Mary.” He takes my arm again to stop me from pacing. “Tell me why this matters to you so much. Tell me why now, all of a sudden this is so important?”
My feet fall still and I look into his eyes. His impossibly beautiful, calm eyes. “Because no one will ever know about her. And that means that no one will ever know about me.” My voice is a whisper. “When they come to our village, who will know about me?”
“I know about you, Mary.” He places a hand on my cheek, trails one finger along my jaw, and I'm forced to close my eyes so that he doesn't read in my expression the words that ring in my head but that I can't say aloud. That it is not enough.
That I am terrified he is not enough.
My throat burns with tears as he pulls me against his chest. “I know about you, Mary,” he repeats, the vibrations of his voice trembling through my body. His lips are on my ear and as if he can read my mind he says, “Is life with me not enough, Mary?”
I am filled with emptiness as I nod my head because I cannot bear to tell him the truth. Even as he reads my mind, as he proves to me how well he knows me. Even though he already knows my answer. Because I'm still hoping that he can fill the emptiness and the longing and that tomorrow morning I can wake up in his arms and it will be enough.
I have taken to spending most of my time up on the porch on the third floor, a place where Travis can't reach me because of his leg. I don't know what he does all day as I sit on the edge of the wooden boards, my legs dangling out in the air over the Unconsecrated below.
It's been a hot and dry summer, and every afternoon I wait for the rain that never comes.
I'm back to wearing my own clothes, all the dresses of the lady of this house folded neatly and packed into the trunk, the lid secured. When I walk through the attic space to get to my perch I try to avoid looking at those trunks stacked against the wall, but I always sneak a peek. I always wonder what other treasures are hidden inside.
I've promised Travis, if not out loud, that I won't take such risks again. That I won't do anything to endanger us both. That I'll try to be happy with our little life. And yet I can't stop my curiosity. I can't stop wondering what else I might find in those trunks.
And so one afternoon, when I can stand the boredom no longer, I slink through the attic and start to sift through their contents. The dresses I push aside, pausing only slightly to finger the softness of the fabric, the shininess of some of the buttons. There are more clothes—thick winter parkas, vests like the kind Gabrielle wore but in muted colors. I run my fingers over them and then force myself to set them aside as I begin to think about who must have worn these clothes.
I can't let myself think about the residents of this village and their lost stories.
At the bottom of one of the trunks I find a stack of books with cracked leather binding. I lift them out gently, flakes of leather crumbling as I maneuver them from their hiding place. I peel open the cover of the first book and run my fingers down the page. It's a photograph, yellowed around the edges, of a baby.
I've seen only one photograph in my life, the one that was lost to the fire in my village so many years ago, and I'm shocked again at how lifelike the image is. How the picture has captured an individual moment in life, frozen for all eternity. For strangers like me to wonder and ponder.
Carefully I turn the page to find more photos. Of a small room with the morning light slanting through the window. A young, unshaven man lounging on the bed, his hand hovering tenderly above the same baby from the picture before, now asleep in the covers.
Of a child sitting at a table, food smeared around her laughing face.
Of a child tentatively walking, her hand on a table, a faceless man behind her holding his hands out to catch her if she falls.
And then there are the photos taken outside. Of a child on a swing, a young woman watching from the side as the child flies high in the air. Of a child with pigtails, her cheeks puffed out, ready to blow on a cake studded with small thin candles.
Fascinated, I flip through the pages faster and faster, watching this child grow.
Until I come to one of a young girl with her long black hair wet around her shoulders. Her mother stands behind her, holding her in her arms. Around them the peaks of waves are eternally still, their soft whitecaps captured before the crash.
It is the ocean. Just like the picture of my many-greats-grandmother when she was a child. And for a moment my breath catches because the little girl in the picture looks just like me. And the mother resembles my mother.
Tears begin to choke off the air in my throat and my body shudders. Even as I see how this little girl could never be me: her limbs too long and gangly, the mother shorter and plumper than my own. But for a moment, for the heartbeat before my mind is able to discern these tiny differences, I'm lost in the idea of my mother and me and the ocean.
I flip through the rest of the book but the remaining pages are empty and bare. This is the last photo. A girl I have never met. Who existed before the Return. In the ocean safe with her mother.
Suddenly, the roof of the attic is too close. This house is not enough for me anymore. I know that this solitude will never settle through my bones and I realize that I still long for the ocean and it's not enough to just sit in this life and be safe.
My body aches with this realization and I shake my head as I try to convince myself that this cannot be true. That I am happy here with Travis. That this is what I have always wanted: safety and love.
The air is too thick around me, pressing me in and under, and I stumble to the door and out onto the ledge overlooking the others on their platform. I swipe at my eyes as the bright light nearly blinds me.
I spend the rest of the afternoon watching the others go about their day. Sometimes one of them will stop to wave at me and I will wave back, but more often they live their lives as if I am not there, hovering, examining it all.
Their house in the trees is cruder than the house Travis and I occupy, its walls made of rough logs, no glass in the windows. It sprawls over branches and it's difficult to tell where the tree ends and the house begins. A large porch surrounds it all, with wooden platforms and walkways spreading out into the surrounding trees to other houses and other platforms that form a grid over the village. It seems they have plenty of provisions, as I've seen them eating and laughing.
And while they have plenty of space if they want to spread out, it appears as though they prefer to stick together. All living under the same roof.
A happy family. Like the family in the photographs.
Harry and Jed pulled a table out from inside one day and they now eat their meals outside and I watch them throw their heads back with laughter. I watch the way Harry's hand has started to linger at Cass's waist. How he spends more time with Jacob, as if he were his own son.
Even though I can hear nothing from their world over the din of the Unconsecrated, it seems so much brighter and louder and fuller than mine. It makes my own house feel silent and empty.
It's not that Travis and I don't speak, for we do. It's just that it seems words have become unnecessary between us. We know at a glance, at a thought what the other desires. And so our world seems to have fallen silent.
We are each trying to determine the best way out of this house, out of this life. Wondering how we can reach the others and flee this village. Already my toes curl at the thought of walking down the path, searching for the next gate, the next village, the ocean. Looking for the woman who once lived in this house and telling he
r that someone still remembers her.
That her life holds meaning.
Late one morning I step out onto the porch, the boards already hot from the summer sun, and I see that Harry is standing at the end of his platform, the place closest to me. He waves to greet me and I wave back and then he spins his fingers in a circle as if to send me a message.
I raise my shoulders in a question, not understanding him. With his entire hand he draws a circle but still I'm lost. He continues the motions for a while and then gives up, his hands on his hips. Then he turns, his back to me, and looks over his shoulder. I do the same, keeping my eyes on him as I turn my back.
He shakes his head and I can see his shoulders lifting and falling as he laughs. Finally, he waves me away and goes back to join the others and I take my usual seat, feet dangling, and open a jar of fig preserves, spreading the sugary jam on fresh bread.
I kick my feet, letting the fresh air lift my skirt, and I contemplate the distance between our house and the fence. The distance between my porch and Harry's platform. The density of the Unconsecrated between us. And I look for ways to escape, my desire to continue searching for the ocean crawling at my skin as days slip past us.
I try not to think about the book full of photographs hidden in the trunk in the attic. I haven't mentioned them to Travis, afraid that he will think it's like the green dress all over again. That I'm somehow obsessed with the people who came before us and their stories.
I wonder if the girl in the picture knew what was coming. That the world would change so drastically. There's a part of me that wants to believe the photo was taken after the Return, that the mother and her daughter are still somehow safe enveloped in the waves of the ocean.
But there is no fear in their eyes. And no one lives after the Return without that fear. It's the fear of death always tugging at you. Always needing you, begging you.
To distract myself from such thoughts, I explore the village with my eyes. Wondering what it must be like to stroll along its streets, what it was like when it was full of life. Our house dominates the end of this street, with small but neat wooden dwellings stretching out from either side. Not too far away I can see the trade houses I noticed on our first day here, signs announcing wares for sale—clothing, food, services— swinging in the breeze, unharmed. It's an odd sight because in our village the Sisterhood provides everything and there's no need for trade.