The Grace Year

by Kim Liggett

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Please. Everyone knows. Besides, I’ve seen the two of you in the meadow.”

  A deep blush creeps over his collar as he pretends to clean off the pearl with the edge of his shirt. He’s nervous. I’ve never seen him nervous before. “Our fathers have planned out every detail. How many children we’ll have … even their names.”

  I look up at him and can’t help but crack a smile. I thought it would be strange picturing him like that, but it feels right. How it’s meant to be. I think he went along with me all those years mostly on a lark, something to pass the time, away from the pressures of his family and the grace year ahead, but for me, it was always something more than that. I don’t blame him for becoming who he was supposed to be. He’s lucky in a way. To be at odds with your nature, what everyone expects from you, is a life of constant struggle.

  “I’m happy for you,” I say as I peel a red leaf from my knee. “I mean it.”

  He picks up the leaf, tracing his thumb along the veins. “Do you ever think there’s something more out there … more than all of this?”

  I look up at him, trying to gauge his meaning, but I can’t get caught up in this again. It’s too dangerous. “Well, you can always visit the outskirts.” I punch him on the shoulder.

  “You know what I mean.” He takes a deep breath. “You must know.”

  I snatch the pearl from him, slipping it into the hem of the sleeve. “Don’t go soft on me now, Michael,” I say as I stand. “Soon, you’ll have the most coveted position in the county, running the apothecary, taking your place as head of the council. People will listen to you. You’ll have real influence.” I attempt a simpering smile. “Which brings me to a tiny favor I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  “Anything,” he says as he gets to his feet.

  “If I make it back alive…”

  “Of course you’ll make it back, you’re smart and tough and—”

  “If I make it back,” I interrupt, dusting off my dress the best I can. “I’ve decided I want to work in the fields, and I was hoping you could use your position on the council to pull some strings.”

  “Why would you want that?” His brow knots up. “That’s the lowest work available.”

  “It’s good, honest work. And I’ll be able to stare up at the sky anytime I want. When you’re eating your supper, you can look down at your plate and say, my, that’s a fine-looking carrot, and you’ll think of me.”

  “I don’t want to think of you when I look at a damn carrot.”

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “No one will be there to protect you.” He starts pacing. “You’ll be open to the elements. I’ve heard stories. The fields are full of men … of bastards one step away from being poachers, and they can take you anytime they want.”

  “Oh, I’d like to see them try.” I laugh as I pick up a stick, lashing it through the air.

  “I’m serious.” He grabs my hand, midswipe, forcing me to drop the stick, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. “I worry for you,” he says softly.

  “Don’t.” I jerk my hand away, thinking how strange it feels to have him touch me that way. Over the years, we’ve beat each other senseless, rolled around in the dirt, dunked each other in the river, but somehow this is different. He feels sorry for me.

  “You’re not thinking straight,” he says as he looks down at the stick, the dividing line between us, and shakes his head. “You’re not listening to what I’m trying to tell you. I want to help you—”

  “Why?” I kick the stick out of the way. “Because I’m stupid … because I’m a girl … because I couldn’t possibly know what I want … because of this red ribbon in my hair … my dangerous magic?”

  “No,” he whispers. “Because the Tierney I know would never think that of me … wouldn’t ask this of me … not now … not while I’m…” He pulls his hair back from his face in frustration. “I only want what’s best for you,” he says as he backs away from me and goes crashing into the woods.

  I think about going after him, apologizing for whatever I’ve done to offend him, take back the favor, so we can part as friends, but maybe it’s better this way. How do you say good-bye to your childhood?

  Feeling irritated and confused, I walk back through town, doing my best to ignore the stares and whispers. I stop to watch the horses in the paddock being groomed by the guards for the journey to the encampment, their manes and tails braided with red ribbons. Just like us. And it occurs to me, that’s how they think of us … we’re nothing more than in-season mares for breeding.

  Hans brings one of the horses closer so I can admire its mane, the intricate plaiting, but we don’t speak. I’m not allowed to call him by his name in public, just “guard,” but I’ve known him since I was seven years old. I’ll never forget going to the healing house that afternoon to find Father and instead finding Hans lying there all alone with a bag of bloody ice between his legs. At the time, I didn’t understand. I thought it was some kind of accident. But he was sixteen, born to a woman of the labor house. He’d been given a choice. Become a guard or work in the fields for the rest of his life. Being a guard is a respected position in the county—they get to live in town, in a house with maids, they’re even allowed to buy cologne made from herbs and exotic citrus at the apothecary, a privilege Hans takes full advantage of. Their duties are light in comparison to the fields—maintaining the gallows, controlling a rowdy guest or two from the north, escorting the grace year girls to and from the encampment, and yet, most choose the fields.

  Father says it’s a simple procedure, a small cut and snip to free them of their urges, and maybe that’s true, but I think the pain lies elsewhere, in having to live among us—being reminded day in and day out of everything that’s been taken away from them.

  I don’t know why I wasn’t afraid to approach him, but that day in the healing house, when I sat down next to him and held his hand, he began to weep. I’d never seen a man cry before.

  I asked him what was wrong, and he told me it was a secret.

  I said I was good at keeping secrets.

  And I am.

  “I’m in love with a girl, Olga Vetrone, but we can never be together,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked. “If you love someone you should be with them.”

  He explained that she was a grace year girl, that yesterday she’d received a veil from a boy and would have no choice but to marry him.

  He told me that he’d always planned on working in the fields, but he couldn’t stand the idea of being away from her. At least if he joined the guard, he’d be able to be close to her. Protect her. Watch her children grow up, even pretend they were his own.

  I remember thinking it was the most romantic thing in the world.

  When Hans left for the encampment, I thought maybe when they saw each other, they’d run away, forsake their vows, but when the convoy returned, Hans looked as if he’d seen a ghost. His beloved didn’t make it home. Her body was unaccounted for. They didn’t even find her ribbon. Her little sister was banished to the outskirts that day. She was only a year older than me at the time. It made me worry that much more for my sisters, but also, about what would happen to me if they didn’t make it back.

  Come winter, when I saw Hans alone in the stable, practicing his braiding, his cold fingers deftly weaving in and out of the chestnut tail with the ribbon, I asked him about Olga. What happened to her. A shadow passed over his face. As he walked toward me, he stroked his hand over his heart, again and again, as if he could somehow put it back together again, a tic he carries to this day. Some of the girls make fun of him for it, the constant rubbing sound it makes, but I always felt sorry for him.

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” he whispered.

  “Will you be okay?” I asked.

  “I have you to look after now,” he said, a hint of a smile in his voice.

  And he did.

  He stood in front of me in the square to block my vi
ew of the most brutal punishments; he helped me sneak into the meeting house to spy on the men; he even told me when the guards had their rounds, so I could steer clear of them when sneaking out. Other than Michael, and the girl from my dreams, he was my only friend.

  “Are you scared?” he whispers.

  I’m surprised to hear his voice. He usually isn’t brazen enough to speak to me in public. But I’ll be leaving soon.

  “Should I be?” I whisper back.

  He’s opening his mouth to say something when I feel someone tugging on my dress. I whip around, ready to clobber Tommy Pearson or whoever touched me, but I see my two little sisters, Clara and Penny, covered in goose feathers.

  “Do I even want to know?” I ask, trying to stifle a laugh.

  “You gotta help us.” Penny licks a sticky substance off her fingers. I can smell it from here: sugar maple sap. “We were supposed to fetch Father’s parcel at the apothecary, but … but—”

  “We got waylaid.” Clara rescues her, giving me that confident grin. “Can you fetch it so we can get cleaned up before Mother comes home?”

  “Please, pretty please,” Penny chimes in. “You’re our favorite sister. Do us this one favor before you leave us for a whole year.”

  When I look up, Hans is already at the stables. I wanted to say good-bye, but I imagine good-byes are harder for him than most.

  “Fine.” I agree just to get them to stop whining. “But you better hurry. Mother’s in a mood today.”

  They take off running, laughing and pushing each other, and I want to tell them to enjoy it while it lasts, but they won’t understand. And why taint the last bit of freedom they have.

  Taking a deep breath, I head to the apothecary. I haven’t been since that hot July night, but there’s a part of me that wants to face the ugly truth—to be reminded of where I could end up if I’m not careful. The bell jingles as I open the door, the tinny metallic sound setting my teeth on edge.

  “Tierney, what a pleasant surprise.” Michael’s father takes in an eyeful. When I don’t blush, stammer, or avert my eyes, Mr. Welk clears his throat. “Picking up your father’s parcel?” he asks as he fumbles with the packages lined up on the back shelf.

  Fixing my gaze on the cabinet, I feel the memory rising in the back of my throat like thick bile.

  I’d snuck out, like I did most every night to meet Michael, and on the way home, I noticed the soft flicker of candlelight coming from inside the apothecary. Creeping closer, I found Michael’s dad opening a hidden compartment behind the cabinet of hair tonics and shaving tools. My heart started pounding against my ribs when I saw my father step from the shadows to inspect the tidy rows of secreted glass bottles. Some were filled with what looked like dried bits of jerky, others a deep red liquid, but there was one in particular that caught his eye. Pressing my forehead against the warm glass to get a better view, I saw an ear, covered in small white pustules, suspended in murky liquid. I went to put my hand over my mouth, but I accidentally bashed my knuckle against the glass, drawing their attention.

  Though I denied seeing anything, Mr. Welk insisted that I be punished on the spot. “A loss of respect is a slippery slope,” he said. The heat of the switch coming down on my backside only seemed to cement the image in my mind.

  I never spoke of it. Not even to Michael, but I knew those were the remains of the girls who were poached during their grace year, their bits and pieces being sold on the black market as an aphrodisiac and youth serum.

  Father was a man of medicine, working on cures for disease. I always got the sense that he thought of the black market as superstition, nothing more than going back to the dark ages—that’s why I never expected him to be so vain, so low, so desperate, as to be a customer. And for what? So he could have the stamina to father a precious son?

  That earlobe belonged to someone’s daughter. Someone my father might’ve treated when she was ill, or patted on the head at church. I wondered what he’d do if I was the one in those little glass bottles. Would he still want to eat my skin, drink my blood, suck the very marrow from my bones?

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Mr. Welk says as he thrusts the rough brown-paper-wrapped package into my hands. “Happy Veiling Day.”

  Tearing my eyes away from the cabinet, from their dirty little secret, I give him my best smile.

  Because soon, I’ll be coming into my magic, and he should pray that I burn through every last bit of it before I come home.

  As the church bell tolls, men, women, and children rush toward the square.

  “It’s too early for the gathering,” someone whispers.

  “I heard there’s a punishment,” a man says to his wife.

  “But it’s not a full moon,” she replies.

  “Did they find a usurper?” A young boy tugs on his mother’s bustle.

  I crane my head around the crowd, into the square, and sure enough, the guards are rolling out the staircase for the gallows. The squeaky wheels send a jagged chill through my blood.

  As we gather around the punishment tree, I’m searching for a hint of what’s about to happen, but everyone stares straight ahead, as if transfixed by the dying light glinting off the cold steel branches.

  I wonder if this is what Hans was trying to tell me. If it was some kind of warning.

  Father Edmonds steps forward to address the crowd, his white robes clinging to his bulbous shape. “On our most sacred eve, a grave matter has been brought to the attention of the council.”

  I don’t know if I’m just being paranoid, but my mother’s eyes seem to dart in my direction.

  The dreams. I swallow so hard I’m sure everyone can hear it.

  Searching the crowd for Michael, I find him near the front. Could he have ratted me out? Was he so angry at me that he could’ve told the council about the girl from my dreams?

  “Clint Welk will speak on behalf of the council,” Father Edmonds says.

  As Michael’s father steps forward, it feels like my heart is going to burst through my rib cage. My palms are sweaty; my mouth is chalk dry. Penny and Clara must sense my distress, because they nuzzle in a little closer on either side of me.

  Standing before us, in perfect alignment with the punishment tree, Mr. Welk lowers his head as if in prayer, but I swear I catch the rise of his cheekbones—the hint of a smile.

  I feel sick. Every sin I’ve ever committed runs through my mind, but there are too many to count. I got too comfortable, careless. I should’ve never spoken of the dreams … I should’ve never had them at all. Maybe I secretly wanted this to happen. Maybe I wanted to be caught. Just as I’m getting ready to speak up, promise to repent, vow to rid myself of this magic and be good from now on, Mr. Welk’s lips part. I’m watching his tongue—waiting for it to move to the roof of his mouth to form a T, but instead, he presses his lips together to form an M. “Mare Fallow, come forth.”

  I let out a gasp of pent-up air, but no one seems to notice. Maybe every girl in the square did the same. Despite our differences, that’s the one thing we all share in. The fear of being named.

  As Mrs. Fallow walks to the front, the women push forward to spit and jeer, my mother always the first among them. I don’t know why she feels the need to rub salt in the wound. Mrs. Fallow was kind to me once. In my fourth year, I’d gotten lost in the woods. She found me, took me by the hand, and led me home. She didn’t scold my mother, she didn’t tattle on her that I was out where I shouldn’t be, and this is how my mother thanks her? It makes me feel ashamed to be her daughter.

  Focusing in on the gate, I try to escape in my mind, but Mrs. Fallow’s measured steps, the swish of her underskirts, burrow their way into my senses, like the softest of death knells.

  I don’t want to look at her. It’s not out of disgust or shame—I feel like it could just as easily be me. Michael knows it. Hans knows it. My mother, too. Maybe they all do. But I owe her my full attention. She needs to know that I remember … that I won’t forget her.

  She looks
like a ghost as she passes. Pale papery skin, salt-and-pepper braid lying limp against her curved spine, her husband shadowing her like a bad omen. I wonder if she knew her time was up. If she could feel it coming.

  “Mare Fallow. You stand accused of harboring your magic. Shouting obscenities in your sleep, speaking in the devil’s tongue.”

  I can’t imagine Mrs. Fallow raising her voice above a whisper, let alone shouting obscenities, but her season has changed. She bore no sons. Her girls have all been assigned to the labor houses. Her womb is a cold, barren wasteland. She has no use.

  “Well … what do you have to say for yourself?” Mr. Welk prods.

  Other than the thin stream of liquid trailing over the tip of her worn leather boot, she gives away nothing. I want to shake her; I want her to tell them she’s sorry, beg for mercy so she can be sent to the outskirts, but she just stands there in silence.

  “Very well,” Mr. Welk announces. “On behalf of God and the chosen men, I hereby sentence you to the gallows.”

  By law, the women—wives, laborers, and children—are required to watch a punishment. And choosing to do this on veiling day is no accident. They want to send us away with a message.

  Before climbing the rickety steps, Mrs. Fallow looks to her husband, perhaps waiting for a last-minute reprieve, but it never comes. And in that moment, I know if she had any magic left in her, she would use it. She would choke the life out of him, the entire council … maybe all of us. And I can’t say I’d blame her.

  When she finally reaches the top of the platform, and they place the rope around her neck, she opens her hand, revealing a small red bloom. It’s so tiny, I wonder if anyone else even notices it.

  Right before she steps off the ledge, it hits me like a cast-iron kettle.

  Scarlet red, five delicate petals. It’s the same flower from my dreams.

  I start pushing to the front. I need to stop this. I need to ask her where she got it, what it means. My mother grabs me, squeezing my hand. It’s not a nurturing squeeze. It’s rough and tight. Stand down, child. Do not bring shame on this family, it says.