The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by Carrie Ryan

  “Don't you know what this means?” I say to him. My body feels light. Suddenly, I'm the happiest I've been since my mother died.

  “We can go there,” I tell him. “If she went there then we can go there as well.” I begin to pace, the energy boiling inside my veins.

  “Did she tell you how far? Did she tell you how to get there?” I stop and walk over to face Travis, my chest barely brushing against his. “Did she tell you what it was like? About the waves? The smell?”

  Travis grasps my arms, pulling me in on myself and almost lifting me from the rough wood of the platform.

  “She told me it's dangerous, Mary!” I can see now that his chest is heaving, his breath fast, his face red and his jaw tight. He shakes me, just a little. “She told me it's dangerous,” he repeats in a softer voice. As if I would only understand if he continues to tell it to me over and over again.

  I feel my own face pinch in confusion. “Dangerous how?” I ask. I pull my arms from his grasp and cross them over my chest.

  “She told me that the Unconsecrated rise from the waters and still walk the beaches. That there's no way to fence it off— no way to protect yourself. She said pirates ravage the shores and no one could ever really be safe there.”

  I want to protest, to tell him that he's wrong. But instead I look out the window to the trees, to the leaves undulating out in the Forest. The only ocean I've ever known.

  “It can't be right,” I whisper.

  “It is,” he tells me. “You know that it's true. The ocean your mother used to tell you about was before the Return. Everything has changed since then. Everything.”

  “But the ocean is too big for that,” I protest. “Too vast, too deep. I don't understand how the Return can touch that too.”

  He waits for a moment before responding, “Nothing in this world is deep enough to withstand the Unconsecrated.”

  He looks me in the eyes, traces a finger along my jaw. “Not even us.”

  I almost believe him but then I shake my head, anger welling deep. “You are wrong, Travis. You are wrong.” I ball my hands into fists and punch at his chest. “I don't know why you're telling me such stories but you are wrong.”

  He takes my hands in his own, curling his fingers around my fists. “She told me that if I allowed you to go to the ocean I would never see you again.”

  “Then she was wrong too!” I yell. I pull away from him, backing toward the door so that we're no longer touching. “If you are telling me the truth, then why didn't you tell me this before? Why did you give me such hope and then tear it away?”

  “Because I thought I could protect you,” he answers. “Because I was hoping I would be enough.”

  “No.” I shake my head tightly. “I thought you wanted to see the ocean as well. I thought it was our dream. I thought…” I swallow and take a deep breath. “I thought you were coming for me.”

  He doesn't look at me as he shakes his head. It feels as if the world is falling away from me. The realization of what he's saying—what he's not saying—tunnels deep inside me. The words echo in my head: he was never coming for me, he was never coming for me.

  Everything spins; everything becomes unbearably bright and then dim. My world tilts and I step backward until my knees hit the edge of the bed and I'm sitting.

  My body hurts so bad I want to throw up. “You were never going to come for me, were you?” I ask.

  “I'm sorry, Mary,” he says and it's the same thing as a no.

  Everything is breaking inside me, shattering. “I don't understand, why are you telling me all this now? Why are you doing this to me?” I put my hands over my head, curling into a ball.

  “Because I…” He stops midsentence and is silent. A muscle ripples along his jaw. “Mary, I wanted you too much. And that day on the hill, it was everything. It showed me what life could be—what hope could be. I wanted to believe we could be together. I wanted to believe we could break our vows and that somehow everything would still be okay.”

  His gaze is distant and he shakes his head. “I was going to come for you, Mary. Even though I knew I could never be the type of husband that Harry could be. Even though I was a broken man I was going to come for you. I was going to let my passion overwhelm my common sense. But then seeing Gabrielle changed everything. I saw what happened to those who strayed from the Sisters' path. I saw what would happen to us—to you. And I couldn't bear it.

  “All I could see was you in that red vest, you tearing against the fences. I couldn't let that happen.” He drops his head to his chest.

  Agony of what could have been chokes my words. “We could have made it,” I say. “We could have escaped.”

  When he looks at me his eyes are wet with tears. “No, we couldn't have,” he says softly. “We never could have escaped.” He places a hand over his leg. “I'm too broken. They would have found us—we never could have gotten away.”

  He kneels in front of me, takes my hands and holds them in his. “Don't you see, Mary? Ever since Gabrielle I've done nothing but try to keep you safe because I was too afraid of losing you.”

  I shake my head, my thoughts swimming and swirling, tossing about wildly. “Why didn't you tell me all this before? Why are you saying these things now?”

  “Because I have been protecting you for too long. Gabrielle said the ocean was dangerous and I thought I could keep you from it. But then when I saw you yesterday drowning under the Unconsecrated I realized that I can't do it anymore. I can't be the one to make these decisions for you.

  “I realized yesterday that it doesn't matter about the ocean. Because even if we never find it you still no longer need me. Once I thought I could protect you. Could take care of you. But you're strong enough. I've never seen anything like what you did yesterday. I've never seen someone survive the way that you have. To fight the Unconsecrated and live!” He shakes his head, his eyes bright and wide. “I was in awe.”

  It's as though he's pulled a plug in my body and all the pain and anger is slipping out, leaving nothingness behind. “I will always need you,” I whisper. “All this time I've waited for you. And you were never coming for me. Why did you let me wait for you?”

  Travis sighs, flexes his fingers against the windowsill. “I think that even then I knew I wouldn't be enough for you, Mary. It's no longer about the ocean. It's about you and what you want and need. Maybe you'll be happy with me for a few years….”

  He pauses and I can see tears flooding his eyes again. “I can't be your second-choice dream.”

  I want to scream at what he's saying, to push him down and make him take back the words. Instead, I step past him and walk to the window. I lean out, my hips digging into the sill. For a moment I wonder if I would be able to smell the salt of the ocean from here. If I could close my eyes and concentrate hard enough, if I could discern the crash of the waves on the shore. If I could taste the air, taste the ocean.

  Ever since that day on the hill, ever since he promised he would come for me, this was always supposed to be our dream, together. It was never supposed to be about having to choose one or the other.

  “Mary,” Travis says, walking up behind me. He puts a hand on my shoulder but I shrug it off. I don't want him to be right. I don't want to believe what he's saying, that I could be so cruel and selfish. His heat radiates against me, trying to fill the emptiness inside, but I wrap my arms tight around myself as a shield.

  I turn away from him then and walk to the door. As I cross the threshold he asks, “Would you ever give up the ocean for me?”

  I hesitate, place a hand on the doorjamb. I had once hoped that, as it did for my mother, love would keep all other dreams at bay. The realization that it will not washes over me and I walk through the door, leaving him without an answer.

  It's difficult to find solitude in the platforms in the trees and so I walk along the rope bridges until I am as far away from Travis and the rest as possible. I sit and let my legs dangle, the scabs from the Unconsecrated itching as the
y heal. I want to cry but I can't find the tears. I want to yell but I don't want to cause a scene. And so I sit and stare at the Forest and think about Travis's admission that he was never going to come for me.

  That he was going to let me marry Harry.

  I pull out the slim book with the photograph of New York City. In the full light of day the colors of the picture seem duller than they did in the attic, but I don't care as I trace my fingers over the buildings, wondering about them. Wondering about the number of people it would take to fill them all and wondering what happened to those people. Of all the stories that have been lost.

  I set the photo aside and focus on the book. I've never seen one this small—the only books in our village were the Scriptures and the genealogy tomes. Carefully I flip back the red leather cover and trace the elegant letters on the first page, not understanding their meaning: Shakespeare's Sonnets. The paper is thick and yellow and I can feel the edges crumble under my fingers.

  Not able to resist, I flip through the book, page after page of carefully arranged text. And at the top of each page, a letter. My hands freeze, the wind flapping the paper in front of me. I swallow and turn back to the beginning of the book. There, over the first block of text is the letter I. On the next page, over the next block of text are the letters II.

  I am shaking as I follow the pattern, everything suddenly making sense. The letters are numbers. I flash back to what Gabrielle wrote on her window and turn to the corresponding block of text, skimming it quickly. It talks of judgment and plagues and good and evil and truth and doom.

  I remember the letters on the trunk near our village and turn the pages until I find XVIII, number eighteen. One line jumps from the page, making me catch my breath: “Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade….” I drop the book, too many letters and numbers and words swirling through my head.

  It's so clear to me now that I can't understand how I didn't realize it earlier. The paths were marked with numbers. And there must be a pattern to them, an order we have yet to figure out.

  I am so consumed by these thoughts that I don't register another person with me until he speaks. I tuck the photo in the book and push it under my skirt so that he doesn't see it.

  “Mary, are you going to die like the rest of them?” Jacob asks in his little-boy voice. “Are you going to turn and then come eat me?” He kicks his toe against the rough boards nailed to a thick branch.

  I can't help but laugh as I say, “No, honey. I wasn't infected. What made you think that?”

  He frowns and I realize that I shouldn't have laughed. “It was Aunt Cass,” he answers. “Uncle Travis told her what happened before, when you were escaping. She said she wondered why you didn't just die when all those Unconsecrated were all over you in the house. She thinks you must be sick.” With his slight lisp Cass becomes Cath and Unconsecrated becomes Unconthecrated.

  “But Uncle Travis said you fought off the Unconsecrated and that you were real brave. Is that true, Aunt Mary? Did you really fight them?” He pauses for a moment and if possible his voice becomes even smaller. “Can you teach me how to fight them too? Because they scare me.”

  I tug at his hand, pulling him into my lap. His lip trembles and I wrap my arms around him and squeeze. “None of us wants to be like them,” I say. “And I promise you that we will do everything we can to keep you safe.”

  “I don't mean to be afraid,” he says. “But sometimes I can't help it.”

  “I know, sweetheart. We're all afraid,” I tell him. And somehow holding him makes me less scared.

  “You know,” I tell him after a moment, “Argos is the one who really saved me. He's the one who rescued me when I fell.”

  He giggles. “I like Argos.”

  “Then he's yours.”

  He looks up at me with his large eyes. “Really?” I can hear the hope in his voice and it fills me with joy.

  “Yes, really. You can have him—with him around you can be less scared.”

  He hugs me, his little fingers fierce around my neck.

  I can feel the footsteps of someone approaching. “Jacob,” Cass says, “your uncle Jed is looking for you to help him prepare dinner. Do you want to go help him?”

  “Aunt Cass, guess what?” he shouts, jumping from my lap. “Aunt Mary said I could have Argos to protect me from the Unconsecrated!”

  Cass smiles and ruffles his hair. “I hope you thanked her,” she says and as his cheeks grow pink I say, “Of course he thanked me.” I wink at him and he skips back down the platform and across the bridges calling out for Argos as if there isn't a world of death below us all.

  “Thank you,” she says when he's gone and I nod my head.

  She comes to stand next to where I sit and leans against the railing as she scans the horizon. We haven't truly spoken since before the breach. Since she told me that I was to marry Harry.

  “You know,” she says, “it wouldn't be so hard if they didn't both love you so much. If it weren't always about you. Even growing up, it was always about Mary.”

  “That's not true,” I say. But my words don't sound convincing for I am too empty to put up much protest.

  “Oh, it is true,” she says. Her tone is light, contemplative, not angry. “Growing up, Travis always wanted to hear your stories. He wanted to know what your mother told you and you passed on to me. Harry wanted to know what you liked and didn't like. Always it was about you. What you wanted. What you knew.”

  “I'm sorry,” I tell her. Because I don't know what else to say.

  She shrugs. “I don't say it to pick a fight,” she says. “I just want you to understand me. Understand why I've changed. Why we've all changed. I guess I just want you to be my best friend again—but that can't happen if I'm angry at you and you pretend I don't exist.”

  “I've never pretended you don't exist,” I answer.

  She laughs, almost like breathing. “I don't blame you, but there was once a time when I would have come first with you, when I would have been more important to you than anything or anyone else. And when I no longer came first I got angry. Because not only had I lost Travis and Harry when they both fell in love with you, I lost you as well. Even before the breach. And it wasn't until I found Jacob that I understood. Because he comes first with me now.”

  I still don't know what to say to her.

  “I guess I'm trying to forgive you. And I'm telling you that I no longer care about Harry and Travis and all of that. I only care about Jacob and making sure he has a full life. That he can grow up and find his way in this world. Jacob is like a son to me now and all I have ever wanted was a family.” She shrugs. “Now that I have him everything with Harry and Travis seems meaningless. A useless waste of emotion.”

  I lie back against the platform, feeling the sun-warmed wood through my clothes. Large white puffy clouds slip through the blue sky, going along their way as if nothing has changed in the world underneath. As if the world is anything other than death and decay and pain.

  “It's just that sometimes when there's not much hope in the world it seems time to put things right,” she says.

  “There's still hope left,” I say. “They're working on a plan.” I try to find shapes in the clouds but everything eludes me.

  She laughs again. “You mean their plan to wait it out until winter and try to sneak to the fences? I don't put much faith in that. I think this will likely be the end of us, up here in the platforms.”

  The Cass I knew growing up was not so pragmatic. This world has changed us all, forced us to make terrible decisions when we weren't ready.

  “I'm not willing to give up hope,” I say eventually. “And I will not give up the ocean.”

  “I figured that would be the case,” she says. “But I just wanted to make sure you know that if it comes between you and your dream of the ocean and keeping Jacob safe, I will choose Jacob.”

  “I know,” I tell her. And then after a little while I add, “You make an excellent mother, Cass.” I want t
o add that it's my hope we'll find a way out of here, find a safe place where she can get married and have a big family. But I don't. Instead, I ask her if she wants to join me in finding shapes in the clouds and we spend the afternoon side by side looking at the sky as if the world around us is not as it has always been.

  “Fire!”

  I'm startled awake and I throw my arms out to the side, hands reaching across the sheets for Travis or Harry—anyone. But I'm alone and each breath sears into my lungs as I struggle to remember what broke me from my dreams.

  “Fire!”

  I hear the word again and then it's my brother in the doorway, Jacob slung over his shoulder, and I realize that he's hazy, the world is hazy, and that's when I begin coughing.

  “Mary, you have to come now,” he says and then the doorway is empty, tendrils of smoke curling in his wake as if they too are disturbed by the nighttime commotion.

  With a hand holding my shirt over my mouth I step from the bed and let my bare feet slip over the floor, looking for obstacles. Someone grabs me as I near the door and yanks me into the fresh air and before I have time to orient myself I'm pulled down to the platforms, where I see the others huddled.

  At my back I can feel the blaze, the hungry flames that are consuming our refuge bite by bite. Tearing through the other houses in the trees, growing bright as they eat away at the supplies and race along branches.

  We are all at the edge of the platform where I spent the afternoon cloud-gazing with Cass. She's now trying to hold Jacob, who is shuddering, sobbing and apologizing. Jed, Harry and Travis all stand with their sleeves rolled up, their foreheads glistening with sweat as they stare back at the flames.

  The air is so dry it crackles, drowning out the moans of the Unconsecrated.

  We are trapped, fatally so. Beyond us is nothing—the wide stretch of village below with puddles of Unconsecrated. Behind us is the fire, slowly eating its way down the long platforms.