by Kim Liggett
“So you’ve never…”
“Of course I have,” he says with a grin, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. “Who else do you think the women practice on?”
“I thought you weren’t allowed to breed.”
“There are plenty of other ways to be with a woman. Besides, they know their bodies. They know when they’re fertile.”
A searing heat takes over my face. I’m not sure why it bothers me. The girls in the county do the same in the meadow when trying to snare a husband. But this feels different. For some reason, I can’t stop picturing the girl in Gertie’s lithograph. Is that what he’s used to? What it’s like for them?
“We get to go home for a few days every year, between hunting seasons, but I’ll be going home to see my mother, my sisters. So the answer is no.” He looks at me intently, and my breath seems to catch in my throat. “There’s no one special waiting for me back home.”
I pretend to be interested in the stitching of my chemise, anything to divert my attention from the lawlessness I feel racing through my blood, but even the stitching reminds me of his hands, the fact that he sewed this back together for me to make me feel more at ease. I keep reminding myself that the only reason he didn’t kill me is because of the deal he made with my father, but the why doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Maybe it’s the close quarters, the fact that he saved me more times than I can count, or maybe it’s forbidden fruit that’s making me feel this way, but I don’t think about getting out of here anymore. I don’t think about going home. I think about what it would feel like … the touch of his lips … his skin against mine.
A huge gust of air blows through the chimney, sending a whoosh of blazing embers shooting toward us. Ryker scoops me up in his arms, flinging me onto the bed.
As he snuffs out the sparks on my skin, I don’t scream out in pain. I don’t make a sound. The only thing I feel right now is the weight of his body leaning against mine.
“Easy now,” he says as he lifts a stray damp strand of hair from my collarbone, gently blowing on my skin. I think he’s trying to cool me down, but it only seems to fan something deeper inside of me. It’s a different kind of heat. One that I don’t know how to quell. One that I’m not even sure I want to.
Dipping a cloth in a jar of aloe water, he runs it over the tiny burn marks on my neck, across my collarbone. I’m staring up at him, getting lost in the bones of his face, when he stops short of the lace edging of my chemise; a drop of water trails down my chest. There’s a weighted pause.
I want to ignore it, pretend this isn’t happening, but in this moment, I wish he hadn’t mended my slip. I wish there was nothing between us.
He stares down at me with the same intensity as when we first met, but what I once took as anger, I now know to be fear.
“Are you afraid of me?” I whisper. “My magic?”
“I’m not afraid of you,” he says, watching my lips. “I’m afraid of the way you make me feel.”
As we stare into each other’s eyes, the world around us disappears. I forget all about the girls at the encampment, the poachers hunting them down. I forget about my dreams, the world I’ll have to return to come fall.
I want to be lost.
I understand why the girls in the encampment cling to their magic. It’s the same reason I cling to this. We’re all yearning for escape. A respite from the life that’s been chosen for us.
Right now, there’s only this. And there are worse ways to pass the time.
I’m not sure if I’m lifting my head or if he’s leaning forward, but we’re so close now that I can feel his breath pulsing against my skin.
As he brushes his lips against mine, I feel a rush of heat move through my body, and when our tongues touch, something else inside of me takes over.
Threading my hands in his hair, wrapping myself around him, I’m pulling him closer … when he’s ripped from my limbs.
A boy with madness in his eyes stands at the end of the bed, holding Ryker back. His shroud has slipped from his face, revealing a spray of tiny scars covering his cheeks. Anders.
“I knew something was wrong,” he pants. “Did it bite you?”
“It’s not what you think.” Ryker gives me a pleading look.
“Don’t look at it. It must’ve used its magic on you. Get your shroud, hurry, before it does something worse.”
Ryker lets out a long sigh. “I’m getting my shroud.”
Anders releases him and pulls a blade from the sheath on his belt. As he stalks toward me, Ryker reaches for the charcoal gauze hanging next to the hearth. I wonder if he really believes it … that I’ve somehow bewitched him.
I’m scooting back on the bed, all the way against the wall, when Ryker steps behind Anders, ensnaring his wrist with the shroud, twisting his arm back, forcing him to drop the blade. Before Anders can even react, Ryker has his hands tied behind him, the blade at his throat. “Don’t make me hurt you,” Ryker says.
“What are you doing?” Anders struggles to get free. “I’m not going to take it from you. It’s your kill.”
Ryker kicks the stool away from the table full of knives to in front of the hearth. “I want to explain this to you.”
“There’s nothing to explain. It put a spell on you. Anyone can see that.”
“There’s no spell,” Ryker says, forcing him to sit.
Unfortunately, Anders is directly in my line of sight now, which he takes full advantage of by staring a million daggers into me.
“Her name is Tierney.”
Anders shakes his head violently. “It doesn’t have a name. It’s prey. Nothing more.”
“This is the daughter of Dr. James. The man who saved your life.”
“So?”
“So … we owe him.”
Anders lets out a strangled laugh. “You’re just going to keep it … like a pet?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.”
“Look.” Anders softens his tone. “I get it, you’re lonely. We’re all lonely. But you’re going to have to kill it eventually. Or you could let me do it.” His eyes light up. “You can keep it until the end of the season, and when you’re done—”
“I don’t want to kill her,” Ryker says. “I want to be with her.”
The admission stuns me almost as much as Anders.
“Y-you can’t be serious?” he sputters. “We’re poachers. We took an oath.”
“There are higher oaths.” Ryker glances back at me, and all I want to do is shrink into the wall. “We always said we’d leave if given the chance.”
“This is our chance,” Anders says, nodding at me. “If you skin it, we can take your family west, just like we planned. You can pick any girl you want from the outskirts—”
“There are other ways to leave,” Ryker says.
“Wait … you’re not…” Anders’s face goes ashen. “You’re not thinking of deserting, are you? What about your family? Your pay? They’ll starve—”
“Not if you claim them as your own.” Ryker leans forward, looking at him intently.
“You’re serious,” Anders whispers, his eyes tearing up. “What about the guards? Have you thought about that? I’ve seen one of them sneaking around. He’ll be dragging in timber to fix the breach any day now. If they catch her here—”
“They won’t.”
“Unless I tell,” Anders mutters.
Ryker springs on him, holding the knife so close to his jugular that I hear it scraping against his whiskers. “I will die before I let anyone hurt her. Do you understand?”
“What about me?” Anders looks up at him, and I can almost feel his heart breaking. “What about our plans?”
“You are my brother,” Ryker says, cradling the back of Anders’s head. “That will never change. Once we’re settled, I’ll send for you and my family.”
“You think you can just drift off into the sunset?” Anders’s nostrils flare.
“Why not? There’s plenty of land for the taking. I�
��m a good hunter.”
“Not good enough,” Anders says, staring at me.
“She’s with me now.” Ryker moves into his line of sight, breaking the fixation. “The question is, are you?” He tightens his grip on the knife. “I need to know right now where you stand.”
“With you,” Anders whispers. “I’ve always been with you, brother. Till the end.”
Ryker looks back at me as if he’s waiting for my approval. I nod. I don’t know what else to do.
Bending to untie Anders’s hands, Ryker says, “I know this is a lot to ask, but this is all going to work out. You’ll see.” He gives his shoulders a squeeze, before letting him go.
As Anders walks toward the door, I’m bracing myself for anything, but Ryker seems to have quelled his anger.
Anders pauses by the door. “I dropped a jar of hemlock silt around here somewhere. That’s why I came … I wanted to show you. The storm kicked up a whole mess of it.”
“That’ll fetch a great price,” Ryker says excitedly.
“There’s more down in the third cove,” Anders says. “We could haul it in together. Fifty-fifty.”
“Nah, you can keep it, but I’ll help you bring it in.”
“You’d do that?” Anders asks sheepishly.
“We’re still in this together,” Ryker says. “Now there’s just one more of us.”
Anders looks my way. He still can’t meet my eyes, but it’s a start.
“First light, I’ll meet you at the cove,” Anders says with a slight smile. And for a brief second I can see the sweet boy Ryker told me about.
Immediately, I start cleaning up the cabin. I don’t know what else to do … with my mind … my body.
Ryker leans against the wall, watching me. “Whatever you’re thinking—”
“Thinking? What could I possibly be thinking?” I pick up the shroud off the floor. “Oh, I don’t know … that maybe you just had someone tied up with this … someone who wanted to kill me, or you to kill me, or kill me together. I mean … kill it.”
A pained look crosses his face. “You have to understand,” he says as he moves toward me. “He was taken over the barrier by prey, they bit him, he believes his entire family was wiped out by the curse … but he’ll come around. Just give him a chance. He would never do anything to hurt me.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about.” I push past him, grabbing the stool, putting it back by the table. “And what’s this about being with me?” I scoff. “Don’t you think you should’ve at least asked me first? Or are you just going to claim me like the men in the county?”
“I just thought … okay … fine,” he says, following close behind. “We can get married, if that’s better.”
“No!” I yell as I storm off to another corner, but it’s only a few feet away. There’s nowhere to go. I accidentally kick something; it rolls under the bed.
“You don’t have to marry me,” he says, throwing his hands up in the air. “I just thought with the hair … and the ribbon … the way you were raised … that it would be … important.”
Getting down on my hands and knees, I reach under the bed to grab whatever it was that I kicked. It’s a jar. Holding it up to the light, my mind stutters.
“I’m trying to talk to you … will you please hear m—”
“Wait. Is this the hemlock silt Anders was talking about?”
“You found it,” Ryker says, reaching for it.
“Are you sure this is it?” I tug back on it, forcing him to meet my eyes.
“Positive,” he says, clearly taken aback by my intensity. “You can tell by the bright green color and the way the edges spread out like—”
“What would this do to a person?”
“I’ve never touched the stuff, but the old crones use it in the northern woods for scrying work. If you even put a drop on your tongue, you’ll have visions. They say it connects you to the spirit world, above and below.”
“What about prolonged use … like all day … every day?”
“You’d go insane.”
I put my hands over my mouth to stifle a sobbing gasp, but it leaks through my fingers. “I’m not crazy, then.” I let out a sputtering burst of pent-up air. “Don’t you get it?” With trembling hands, I grab on to him. “That’s what’s happening to the grace year girls. I knew it was something … the water … the food … the air … but it’s this … the algae … it’s inside the well. They all drink from it. When I was in the camp, I did, too. I was having dizzy spells, feeling things on my skin that weren’t there. But after I was banished to the woods and started drinking the water from high on the spring, I felt better. Clearer.” Fresh tears flood my eyes. “It’s not magic … it’s poison.”
I get up and start pacing the floor. “They need to know. Everyone needs to know.”
He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t make any difference.”
“How can you say that? It would make all the difference in the world. They wouldn’t be losing their minds … they wouldn’t be acting like this. The grace year could come to an end.”
“The curse. The magic. Even if they believed us, it wouldn’t really change anything,” he says. “As long as there’s a price on your flesh, there will always be poachers. There will always be a grace year.”
“There has to be something we can do,” I say, my eyes welling up.
“We can leave,” he says, wiping a tear from my cheek. “Last year, a trapper from the north brought us a message from a family we knew. They made it over the mountains, beyond the plains, to a settlement where men and women live side by side, as equals. Where they’re free.”
I’m trying to even imagine what that would be like. Everything in me wants to say yes, run away from the pain, but a horrible feeling spreads from the pit of my stomach all the way to my throat. “Our families—”
“Anders will take care of my family. They’ll get his pay, and as soon as we’re settled—”
“What about my family? If my body is unaccounted for, my sisters will be punished, sent to the outskirts.”
“If Michael is half the man you say he is, he would never let that happen.”
I bristle at the mention of his name. It feels wrong coming out of Ryker’s mouth. “Let’s leave him out of this.”
“Even if they were sent to the outskirts, my mother would take them in.”
“But would they be expected to…”
“Not until they’ve bled,” he says, matter-of-fact.
“And after that?” I ask, the realization gutting me.
“As soon as we’re settled, we’ll send for them.”
“And if we never settle?” I ask, but I mean live, and I’m tired of not saying what I mean, so I ask again. “What if we don’t survive? What happens to them?”
“We will … but why is it okay for my sisters to work in the outskirts and not yours?” he asks.
“It’s not…,” I say, completely flustered. “But when I think of my sisters having to receive a man from the county, a man like Tommy Pearson, or any other man who’s patted their head at church, watched them sing in the choir, watched them grow up, it makes me sick to my stomach.”
“When I found you on the ice that night, you were ready to take your own life rather than hand it over to a poacher. Your sisters would’ve been sent to the outskirts. Why are you hesitating now?”
“I wasn’t in my right mind.” I raise my voice. “You saw me … I was dying.”
He pulls me close, pressing his forehead against mine, letting out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
The nearness of him, the warmth, feels like a soothing balm.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply without hesitation.
“Then trust that we can do this,” he says. “We have time to figure all of this out, but in the meantime, know that I will find a way. For all of us.”
“Why do you want this?” I ask, searching his face for answers.
&nbs
p; He traces his fingers down my braid, all the way to the end of the red silk ribbon. “I want to see you with your hair down, with the sun on your face.”
Just before dawn, Ryker descends the ladder to meet Anders, and I feel hopeful for the first time in I don’t even know how long. Lying down on the bed, breathing in his heavy scent, I imagine what it would be like, being with him, as man and wife, away from the county, away from all of this. I always thought the best I could hope for was to work in the fields. I never imagined anything more than that. I can tell myself it’s because I’m a realist, but the truth is, I’m a coward. You can’t be hurt if you don’t try. I don’t know when it happened—when I stopped reaching for things. Maybe around my first bleed, that first heavy reminder of our place in this world. But I think I’m ready to start striving for something more.
When I hear Ryker’s boots on the ladder, I spring from the bed. He must’ve forgotten something, but I’m glad. I’m going to surprise him, tell him yes—but a dark-shrouded figure emerges through the door covering. Before I can grab one of the knives, he has me up against the wall, crushing the hilt of his blade against my windpipe.
“Anders…” I try to get free, but he only presses harder.
“Don’t talk. Listen. Tonight, when the moon is highest in the sky, you will leave.” I’m blindly groping the walls behind me, desperate to find something I can use as a weapon. “There will be a candle and a shroud waiting for you at the foot of the ladder.” I’m struggling against him, trying to grasp his arm, but it’s no use. “I will make sure your path is clear and marked to the breach in the fence. There, you will take off the shrouds, leaving them behind, and then slither back into your hole, where you belong.”
“Ryker…,” I whisper, straining to speak. “He’ll kill you first.”
“You need to know that I’ll be coming back here at first light with every poacher in this camp. If you’re not gone, and Ryker chooses to protect you, I won’t be able to stop them.”
“He’ll never forgive you for this.”
“If you breathe a word to him … if you don’t follow my exact instructions, I will kill you. And if you think you’re safe behind that wall, you’re wrong. Do you see my face?” he says, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “I’m the only person who’s ever survived the curse, which means I’m immune. If you try to get a message to him … if you try to lure him to the fence … if you so much as breathe in his direction, I’ll know. And I’d rather watch him die a thousand deaths than watch him betray his family … his oath.”