The Outside

by Laura Bickle

  “Unlikely, but understood,” Alex said. I could see that he’d had enough of this place. I wished that I could have shown him the good in it, what was bright and shining. But it seemed that all he saw was the cloudiness.

  “When will you leave?” Herr Stoltz said.

  Alex squinted at the orange light. “Tomorrow morning, Herr Stoltz. If that’s all right with you.”

  The old man nodded. “Ja, that’s good. That will give me time to feed you properly. And to pray for you.”

  I reached out for the hands beside me, bowed my head, and began the Lord’s Prayer. For Alex and me, for the Hexenmeister and Elijah. And most of all, for my old home, which seemed so dark and so lost.

  ***

  There were few rooms in the Hexenmeister’s house, but they were by far the most comfortable accommodations I’d experienced since the lake.

  The old man had invited Elijah to sleep in his room. There were two other rooms, one with a guest bed, which was assigned to me, and one in which the Hexenmeister had set up a cot for Alex. Though we had been traveling together for months, Herr Stoltz wordlessly insisted that we maintain a sense of propriety. And I would not break the old man’s sensibilities in his house. Alex had been good enough not to grumble when he was half crowded out of the cot by Fenrir. The wolf was beginning to think he was human.

  But again, I could not sleep. I tossed and turned, and my glowing fingers chewed the edge of the blanket tugged up to my chin. I despaired of walking the open road again. Winter was upon us, and I had no idea of where we would go.

  Perhaps we could make our way back to the safety of the lake. Or perhaps we were meant to walk the earth as Elijah was going to, and spread the vaccine among the survivors who were left. We had not discussed or decided. It was only understood that we would go wherever we were going together.

  But I would miss this place, this last bastion of my hope. I rolled out of bed and stared out the warbled glass window tucked under the eaves. Snowflakes spangled the darkness, a veil against the stars.

  I gently worked open the window, lifting it up an inch. I wanted to smell the air of this place that I’d known as home. I wanted to feel it, unhurried, unwatched, to sense some of the joy that must surely still remain in it.

  I heard singing.

  My pulse quickened. It was a thin, faint sound, vaguely singsong and unaccompanied by instruments. I knew the song—my lips worked around the familiar words from the Ausbund.

  It must be Sunday night. I was ashamed to admit that I’d lost track of the calendar days in our time on the road, as obsessed as I’d been with the hours of sun and night.

  I bent closer to listen to that pure, joyful sound. Amish youth gathered on Sunday nights, unaccompanied by parents, to socialize at the schoolhouse or various barns. In summertime, we gathered in open meadows. The Singings, as we called them, were our magical hours of freedom. They were the times to find partners, to gossip and giggle and play among ourselves, under only the watchful eyes of God.

  I frowned. I knew that the soldiers had imposed a curfew. It was surely too dangerous to be roaming out at night. And yet . . . some of the young people must have rebelled, must have sneaked out of their parents’ houses to revisit this simple joy and normalcy. The Singings were a much-loved tradition, hard to abandon.

  I breathed deeply of the cold, clear air. A snowflake slipped past the window and melted on my glowing hand.

  I wanted to eavesdrop on this, just one last time. I wanted to know this fragment of joy again that would forever be taken from me. I would not hear those voices again in heaven, and the only time was now.

  I dressed quickly in the dark, snatching my shoes and my heavy English coat. I paused for a moment outside Alex’s door. I heard Fenrir snoring behind it. I thought to ask Alex to come with me, to experience this sublime thing that was part of me and part of this world.

  But I didn’t think he’d understand. He’d consider it to be an unnecessary risk, sentimentality. He would not want me to go. He would capitulate, finally, and come with me if I insisted. But this was something purely for me, something I wanted to do alone.

  I turned away. I padded down the stairs and jammed my boots on my feet. I tugged open the door and slipped out into the dark.

  Snow was falling fast, leaving more than an inch on the ground. I lowered the hood of my coat to cover my face and plunged my gloved hands in my pockets. Snowflakes became trapped in my eyelashes and stuck to the velvet interior of my hood. I had walked alone across this land many times without trepidation.

  But never with this sense of yearning.

  I made my way across a field, toward the old schoolhouse. It was a one-room structure, built with thick walls and heavy white wood siding to withstand the ages and the winters. Lights were on inside, warm and yellow lamplight. I approached, keeping to the shadows. Holding my breath, I peered inside a window.

  This was a much smaller group than usually attended the Singings. But there were still almost two dozen young men and women inside the blackboard-lined walls. The women sat on one side and the men on the other, with their Ausbund hymnals open on their laps. I saw girls I’d walked to school with and boys who’d helped my father harvest wheat and haul produce. I saw a girl who had wanted to become a schoolteacher making doe eyes at a boy who was apprenticed to the blacksmith. There was innocent flirting and blushing, surreptitious giggles and flashes of smiles.

  It seemed so ordinary. So lovely. I stood outside in the snow with my breath fogging the glass, wanting desperately to be that naïve again. I wanted to be on the inside, feeling that warmth and hope for the future. My fingers pressed against the cold glass, smearing light against the pane.

  There was no going back. I knew it. But this spark of warmth gave me some hope, hope to spark life into my memories and sustain me going forward.

  I turned away.

  And was confronted by the glimmer of red eyes in the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “The night belongs to us, little one.”

  Wind snagged in my coat, billowing it around me like a black flag. Red eyes converged in the white, embedded in shadows. I counted six, seven pairs of them. They were in Plain dress. I recognized them as members of a family who lived on the edge of the settlement—the father, mother, and four children. There had been a baby, I recalled, but I didn’t see it among them.

  “No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”

  I lowered my hood. Green light reflected from my skin. I could see it shining in the snowflakes.

  The creatures paused, squinting. This was something that they had never seen. I could sense their confusion.

  It gave me enough time to slip around the edge of the building, to the door. I burst inside like a gust of wind, a force of nature.

  The singing broke off abruptly. I slammed the door shut behind me, locked it. Eyes looked upon me in fear and trepidation. These young people knew me. They knew that I had done something terrible to myself. They knew that they should neither speak to me nor look upon me.

  But they were frozen in shock, in that moment, at my wild appearance, at my heavy breathing and panicked expression.

  “The Darkness,” I panted. “The Darkness is outside.”

  The silence fractured. Wails and chatter broke out. The young men and women rose from their benches, coming together in the middle of the room in a tangle of arms and voices. Some rushed to the windows.

  “No!” I shouted. “Don’t look at them. They will bespell you.”

  One of the young girls began to cry.

  I knew that it was only a matter of time before the vampires called to them, summoned them outside. They knew these people, could draw them out by that simple tie. I had to keep them from listening.

  I jammed an Ausbund under the nose of the nearest girl. “Sing,” I commanded. “Listen only to the words.”

  “What should we sing?” she gasped.

  “Start at the beginning. And don’t stop until dawn.”
/>   There was panicked murmuring. Copies of the Ausbund were gathered from the floor.

  Something scratched and growled at the window.

  “You must,” I said. “Sing to the Lord and pray that he keeps you safe.”

  One voice began, then others. The young men and women huddled in the center of the floor, far away from the windows. The song rose up, reaching up to the dark rafters.

  My heart hammered in my chest. I sang too, feeling the old songs swelling within me. I had always felt the most at one with God while singing. It was a sense of being a part of myself, part of a larger collective will.

  But I was not still. I scurried around the classroom. I snatched up yardsticks, ripped down a loose piece of chalk rail. Any piece of wood that I could find was torn free and gathered in my arms. I broke the edges of the yardsticks under my shoes, to make sharp points. I emptied a duffel bag full of volleyballs and jammed the stakes into the bag. The balls rolled around my feet.

  A girl tugged at my skirt. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  I lifted a jagged piece of chalk rail. “Going to fight the Darkness.”

  Eyes fell upon me.

  “Alone?” she gasped.

  “Stay here,” I said, loud enough that the others could hear. “Keep singing until the sun comes up. Lock the door behind me, and do not open it for anything.”

  I took my coat off, let it puddle in an inky shadow on the floor. I rolled up my sleeves. The sack of makeshift stakes swung over my shoulder, I opened the heavy door to face the Darkness.

  I slammed the door hard, heard the lock snap shut behind me, the sound of voices that shook the glass. I swallowed, feeling the cold cutting through my thin dress and realizing that the Darkness had gathered while I was inside.

  There was no longer just one family. I saw a dozen more pairs of eyes milling around the schoolhouse. I recognized a carpenter, a dairy farmer, and the daughter of the blacksmith.

  These were my people.

  And I meant to kill as many of them as I could before they got to the young people inside.

  I clutched a stake in my hand.

  The carpenter came to me first. I aimed for the space of white shirt beneath his arm. He reached for me, flinched, and I drove the stake deep into the ribs. Black blood stained snow as he staggered back, landing in the skiff of perfect white.

  I reached for the next stake. A stray nail cut my palm as I hurled it at the blacksmith’s daughter. She shrieked, clawed at my arm as I drove it into her right eye.

  Part of my soul collapsed in on itself and covered its head as I worked. But the rest of my soul needed to protect the people inside the schoolhouse. I was tired of fighting, of running, and wanted to simply make a stand. And there was no better place to do it than with God’s music ringing in the back of my skull. My lips worked around the song, and I tasted snowflakes.

  I kicked, fought, punched, and stabbed. The other vampires were wary, coming in twos and threes. They realized that they could not touch my skin, though they tried. The sleeve of my dress was torn from my shoulder, and my apron strings were snatched away. One of them grabbed me by the waist. I leaned back and pressed my cold, burning cheek to his. He screamed and let me drop like a hot coal, the side of his face smoking.

  But there were too many of them. The carpenter, still bleeding from his wound, ripped a loose brick from the foundation of the building and hurled it at me. I tried to duck, but it slammed into the side of my head. I landed on the ground, dazed, tasting dirt and snow and blood.

  A shoe pummeled my ribs. I felt something crack. I reached for a stake and thrust it into the leg of my attacker. He howled and leaped back, but the others swarmed me.

  If they couldn’t eat me, they were determined to crush me.

  I glanced up at the sky, feeling the music in the back of my skull and the blood pounding in it. I felt bright pain . . .

  . . . and saw bright light.

  A burning blue-white light washed over the land. I blinked against it, unable to see anything. There were men shouting, gunshots.

  I felt cold, glowing hands around my face. I looked up into Alex’s phosphorescent eyes.

  “Damn it, Bonnet. You are the most frustrating woman on earth!”

  I closed my eyes and fell into darkness.

  ***

  I awoke in sunshine.

  And I hurt. My head pounded, my ribs throbbed, and I felt as if I were covered by a single large bruise. I focused on the sharp pain that came with each inhalation, staring up at the ceiling.

  It was a familiar ceiling. I recognized the slant and light of my girlhood bedroom. I turned my head, taking in the plain closet doors, the chest of drawers with no mirror, and my sister’s bed across from mine. My hands smoothed the worn surface of the quilt pressed over my chest.

  I was home. The place I most wanted to be. My vision blurred with tears of joy.

  “Hi, Bonnet.”

  Alex sat in a rocking chair beside me, Fenrir and a heap of golden retriever at his feet. His fingers were interlaced in mine. I scarcely noticed him over the racket of the pain in my chest.

  “Hi.” My voice sounded weak and tinny. I began to form questions with my mouth, but my lungs wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Don’t try to talk,” he said soothingly. He poured water from a pitcher into a glass and pressed it to my lips. I drank a few sips, the liquid cold in my throat and tasting like familiar iron.

  “You got hurt pretty bad,” he said. “Broken rib, they think. Bruised lung. The medic sewed up your head.”

  I reached up to my scalp. I felt stubble and the prickle of stitches. I felt a pang of vague panic. I had been growing my hair since I was a child. Plain women didn’t cut their hair.

  My hand fell. It didn’t matter. A dog tongue licked my palm.

  “Frau Gerlach’s been feeding you some nasty-smelling tea. She says it’ll help you heal.”

  I swallowed, whispered: “The people from the Singing . . .”

  “They’re all right.” He stared hard at me. “I couldn’t sleep without you. So I got up in the middle of the night, then saw that you were gone. But you’d left tracks in the snow.”

  My face flamed. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t been honest with Alex, hadn’t tried to share what I felt, what I sought. Though we were different, there was no reason that he couldn’t have respected or understood my feelings.

  “I got the Hexenmeister and Elijah up. I thought that the vampires had glamoured you . . . taken you away.” He shook his head. “Elijah went to get the soldiers. Fenrir could find your tracks in the snow . . . and we saw you at the school- house, whaling away on those vamps.”

  “Did they get away?” I hissed.

  “Nope. Soldiers chased them down. Elijah actually did pretty good with the fighting thing, too. But the kids in the schoolhouse wouldn’t let anyone in. Not until dawn.”

  I cracked a smile. That hurt, so I stopped. I stared at the ceiling. “But we’re still under the Bann . . .” I didn’t understand how we were here. Home.

  “You’ve been out for a few days, Bonnet. There was something of a town meeting. The Hexenmeister got pissed as hell. As near as I can tell, the Elders got voted down.”

  I drew my eyebrows together. I didn’t understand how that could happen.

  “The Bishop got . . . I dunno what you guys would call it, but he got defrocked. The community voted to keep lodging the soldiers and to lift the Bann.”

  I blinked back tears. In the sunshine, they shimmered.

  A small knock rattled at the door. I turned my head to see Sarah rushing in, holding her doll. She pounced on my bed, causing my head to thud.

  “Katie.” She snuggled close, beneath my arm, slapping her rag doll down on my belly. “They said you fought the Darkness off. All by yourself.”

  “Not by myself,” I croaked. “With a lot of other people. And God.”

  I looked past her, at my parents in the doorway. My mother came to kneel beside my bed, kissed my fore
head.

  “Welcome back, liewe,” she said.

  Tears gathered in my father’s eyes. “I’m glad that you’re home, Katie.”

  And I was, in a way that I had never been before. In body and in spirit.

  ***

  The winter passed slowly. Storms moved in, blanketing the land in snow.

  The army set about offering vaccinations against the Darkness. Most of the Plain people and all the soldiers took advantage of it, except for the very old or sick. My parents took the serum. Even Sarah stood in line to get her shot. She was very brave, announcing that she didn’t cry and showing me the red spot on her arm where the needle had gone in.

  And after many Amish had been inoculated, something strange happened. We used fewer lights at night. We could see well enough to get around through our own light. Through my window, it was not uncommon to see soldiers on patrol, glowing like green plastic figures in the darkness. An old man who took the serum died. But no others. Those were acceptable risks.

  Alex slept in our living room until I was well enough to ambulate. When I was, he bundled me up in a wagon and took me to the Hexenmeister. I loved being home, eating my mother’s mashed potatoes and listening to my father read the Bible, but there was also something for me at the old man’s house.

  It was work. Strange work. I hunched over Herr Stoltz’s drawing table, with my bonnet covering my stubble and stitches. I traced the figures as he explained them to me, followed examples of his calligraphy in old letters. Sitting in his chair, he schooled me on how to mix the paints and inks, and I wrote down the instructions in painstaking detail. Alex worked around the old man’s house, feeding Horace and learning to hunt with Fenrir. He would disappear with the wolf for hours at a time, coming back with a string of rabbits for stew.

  The Bishop became a recluse. It was as if he’d imposed the Bann on himself, withdrawing into his house and speaking to no one. He refused the vaccine. One cold winter morning, someone went to check on him and found him frozen in his bed. He had not fed his fire for days.