The Grace Year

by Kim Liggett

  “But you’re not supposed to be here.” I put my hands to my throat. I’m shaking so hard that I can barely speak.

  “Please, can you help me?” he whispers.

  “I’m so sorry … so sorry,” I murmur as I climb down the rope, carefully navigating around the spikes so I don’t cause him any more pain. “Where are you hurt?” I ask, kneeling as close to him as I can. He tries to move. That’s when I see the damage—a spike going through his groin, his right side, his left arm, and shoulder, pinning him down like a specimen in Father’s study. It’s a miracle he hasn’t bled out by now.

  “This wasn’t meant for you,” I try to explain, but I’m crying so hard, he probably can’t understand me. “There’s a poacher who’s been terrorizing the camp…”

  “My left arm.” He cringes in pain. “Can you take out the spike so I can move my arm?”

  I nod, quickly trying to pull myself together for his sake. The least I can do is try to make him more comfortable, hold his hand in the end.

  I’m leaning across his body, trying to figure out how to pry up the spike without hurting him any more, when I see the glint of a blade buried in the earth, the hilt in the palm of his clenched fist. Maybe he was trying to cut through the spike, but how could he have reached for it with his arm pinned like that, unless he already had it in his hand when he fell? Taking in a deep breath, I smell it—bay leaves and lime, the same odor I always detected in the larder when I woke up with my hair done up in elaborate braids. That’s the cologne Hans buys from the apothecary, but there’s something beneath that. Fetid meat and bitter herbs. Anders’s scent. I’m starting to recoil from him when I feel the scratchy fabric between my fingers. I know that sensation by heart. It’s the feel of a shroud. I look down to find he’s swathed in charcoal fabric. This is Anders’s shroud. But the most damning thing by far is the sound—the incessant scratching of the ribbon. Following the noise, I see him rubbing his hand over his breast pocket, the way he’s always done back in the county, but now I see the reason why—the frayed end of a faded red ribbon peeking out from his pocket, like it’s begging to be seen.

  The ribbon. The knife. The braids. The missing shrouds. The scent of his cologne. He said he’d come back for me, just like the girl warned.

  It was never Anders in the encampment. It was Hans, all along.

  My skin explodes in goosebumps.

  Glancing up toward the surface, toward the ridge, I know who the dead girl is.

  “Olga Vetrone,” I whisper as I sit up, rigid as a plank. “You killed her. Why?”

  Reaching out with his right hand, he tries to grasp my throat, but I’m just out of his reach.

  “She was a whore who deserved to die,” he says, veins bulging in his neck. “I faced the knife for her.” He’s trying to catch his breath, but I can hear the fluid filling his lungs. “And when I came back to get her, she acted like she didn’t know me. That what we had wasn’t real.” When he’s finally exhausted himself, he leans his head back, returning to the ribbon. The obsessive rubbing. He’s been doing it for so long now, I wonder if he even notices it anymore. “And when I came back for you…” A look of anguish passes over his face. “You’re just like her. You betrayed me.”

  “How did I betray you?” I ask, my body trembling.

  “You were supposed to be with me,” he says. “The first time I saw you … I knew what you wanted.”

  Tears are streaming down my face—not out of sadness but out of pure rage. “I was seven years old … trying to be kind.”

  “You wanted me,” he screams. “I know you did.” He coughs up blood. “You’re all a bunch of whores. And look at you now. You soiled your flesh with a poacher,” he whispers, blood bubbling through his teeth like venom. “That’s right. I heard you with him that night. And soon everyone will know exactly what you are.”

  There’s nothing I can say, nothing I can do, but climb out of this pit.

  I don’t belong here.

  But he does.

  I don’t mind the obscenities he screams at me, because the more he yells, the quicker he’ll drown in his own blood.

  I’m heading down the incline from the ridge when I see Gertie running up the path.

  “What is it?” I ask, rushing down to meet her. “Did they hurt you?”

  She’s shaking her head rapidly, struggling to take in enough air. “I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen … they took a poacher … he was lingering by the breach in the eastern fence. Tall. Dark hair.”

  “Ryker,” I whisper.

  Taking off back toward the camp, I don’t think about watching my step, I don’t think about Gertie struggling to keep up, all I can think about is what they could do to him. What I’ve seen them do to their own kind is horrific enough, but given the chance with a poacher, they’re capable of anything. God, please let me get there in time.

  As I break through the trees behind the lodging house and make my way into the clearing, it’s like coming upon a battlefield, long after the last cannon has been fired.

  Girls are standing around in a daze, some are throwing up, a few are down on their knees praying.

  Kiersten walks toward me, chin held high, a streak of blood across her face. “We took care of it for you,” she says, glancing back toward the punishment tree.

  Following her gaze, I see a man, stripped naked, lying still on the ground. Dead still.

  As I walk toward him, there’s a low thrum hammering in my ears. I don’t want to remember him like this, but I need to see him one more time … to say I’m sorry … to say good-bye.

  Kneeling next to him, I press my ear against his chest, hoping that by some miracle he’s still clinging to life, but there’s nothing. Only a cold bloody shell. But a shell belonging to a different man. Looking beyond the blood, the broken bones, I know in my heart this isn’t Ryker.

  As I get to my feet, I let out a burst of noise. I’m not sure if I’m laughing or crying, maybe something in between, but as I look around at their ravaged faces, I realize they’re looking at me like I’m the lunatic here. “I don’t know what to say…”

  “Thank you would be a good start,” Kiersten says.

  “The intruder is dead in a pit in the woods,” I say, enunciating each word. “You took this man against his will. His family will now starve because of you.”

  “Who cares?” Kiersten snaps. “He’s a poacher. Our enemy. He deserved to die.”

  “It’s murder.”

  “It’s the grace year!” Kiersten screams back at me.

  “Our magic made us do it,” Jenna adds, quietly.

  “There is no magic,” I yell, dragging my fingers through my tangled hair. “It’s the well water … the algae … it’s hemlock silt. That’s what’s been making you see things, hear things, feel things that aren’t real. And you’ve been nearly clear of it for months. You’re better,” I say as I look each one of them in the eyes. “But you don’t want to be better, because then you’ll have to face what you’ve done.”

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s poison,” Kiersten says. “I told you that from the beginning.”

  “Think about it,” Martha says, staring down at the well. “We only started feeling better when Tierney came back with fresh water.”

  “I knew this was wrong,” Hannah says, looking at her trembling hands, caked in blood. “I told you this was wrong.”

  “Hemlock silt wouldn’t give us powers,” Kiersten says.

  “No.” I raise my chin. “You did that all on your own.”

  “I’m not listening to this heretic anymore.” Kiersten starts to walk off, but no one seems to notice.

  “I understand how it happens now … how we become this,” I say as I walk around the clearing. “I thought it was just the water, but I was wrong. Even without the hemlock silt, there were times when I got so caught up in it that I nearly succumbed. I mean … who doesn’t want to feel powerful? Who doesn’t want to feel like they’re in control for once in their liv
es? Because without it, what would we be?” Looking up at the bloated limbs of the punishment tree, I say, “We hurt each other because it’s the only way we’re permitted to show our anger. When our choices are taken from us, the fire builds within. Sometimes I feel like we might burn down the world to cindery bits, with our love, our rage, and everything in between.”

  A few of the girls are crying, but I have no idea if I’ve really gotten through to them.

  And it’s not my problem anymore. Gertie’s right. I have other things to think about now.

  Tying my red ribbon to the punishment tree, I walk away.

  From all of it.

  I have no idea if I’ll make it back to Ryker’s shelter. If he’ll even have me. But I have to try.

  Just as I clear the perimeter, I feel someone lace her pinkie through mine. I don’t need to look to know who it is. “Gertie,” I whisper. Tears fill my eyes. My chin is trembling. “Please tell Michael I’m sorry. That he deserves so much better. But for everything we were, everything he wanted our lives to be, to spare my sisters. Please don’t punish them for my sins.”

  “You have my word,” she says without hesitation, tears running down her face. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  We embrace, and I realize this is probably the last time I’ll ever see her.

  I squeeze her tight. “I wish I could take you with me.”

  “I’ll be okay,” she says, but her entire body is shaking. “Knowing that you’re out there … knowing that you’re free is enough for me.”

  I want to believe her, but I’ve seen what the county does to us. “Don’t let them break you,” I whisper.

  She nods, burying her wet face in my neck. “At sundown I’ll create a diversion by the gate. Run and don’t look back,” she says. “Be well. Be happy.”

  There’s so much more I want to say to her … but I’m afraid if I start, I’ll never be able to stop … I’ll never be able to leave her behind.

  Climbing back inside the pit, I take Hans’s knife and cut the shrouds from his body. I’m trying to pull the severed ribbon free, but he’s clenching it so hard in death that I end up having to break his fingers, one by one, in order to get it loose.

  I’m happy to do it. I’d break every bone in his body if I had to. He doesn’t deserve to be buried with her ribbon. It doesn’t belong to him. Never did.

  As I shovel heaps of mother earth over him, I don’t say a prayer. I don’t shed a tear. He’s nothing but another ghost to me.

  Unsnagging the shredded ribbon from Olga’s vertebrae, I unite it with the other half and fold it in the bones of her hand.

  One could look at it like she’s hanging on to it—one could look at it like she’s letting go.

  I know what I see.

  Tucking hawthorn branches, leaves, and herbs in the spaces between her bones, I work the flint until it catches. Hawthorn is seldom used in the county anymore, but in the old language, it signified ascension. A higher purpose. I have to believe that she’ll find peace.

  As I fan the flames, they grow higher and higher, until I’m sure God himself can see the smoke.

  I tend to her remains as if they belonged to one of my sisters, releasing her to the wind … the water … the air … wherever she wants to roam.

  It’s a pyre fit for a warrior, which is exactly what she was.

  With the sun melting into the horizon, the forest still tinged in bloodred glow, I wash the shrouds clean of every bit of hate, then hurry through the woods toward the eastern fence. This time, I’m not running from something, I’m running to, compelled forward by something much greater than fear.

  Hope.

  Wrapping myself in the torn shrouds, I peek my head out of the breach, making sure it’s clear, and then start to pull myself through. It’s harder this time. I have to contort my body differently, but as soon as I get my torso through, the rest comes easily. As I stand up and face the shore, the endless water stretched out before me, I can’t help thinking of the last time I did this. I was bleeding out, freezing to death, dying, and now I’m full of life.

  I dart between the trees, trying to remember the way back to Ryker’s shelter, when I hear voices on the shore. Ducking behind a cluster of evergreens, I see men of all ages, getting into canoes, passing a bottle around.

  “He was a good man,” a hunter with a fresh scar running down his neck bellows.

  “He was a prick,” another man says as he climbs in, grabbing the bottle. “But no one deserves that kind of death. Not even Leonard.”

  “And so close to the end of the season,” a boy says as he pushes them off.

  “Poor bastard. Probably cursed his entire family,” another one says as he climbs into the next canoe.

  I can’t figure out why they’re leaving. The guards don’t come back for us for another two days.

  I’m getting ready to edge closer, see if I can spot Ryker among them, when I’m grabbed from behind, a hand over my mouth, jerking me away from the shore. My limbs are flailing, I’m trying to get away, but he’s too strong for me. When we reach the cover of a blind, he lets out a ragged whisper in my ear, “Tierney, stop. It’s me … Ryker.”

  My whole body goes limp in his arms. I don’t know if it’s the sheer emotion of hearing his voice or knowing that he’s okay, but my chest is heaving … I’m trying to find the air. “I thought … I thought it was you in the camp … I thought you were dead.”

  Spinning around in his arms, I pull the shroud from his face, kissing him with a fierceness that not even I recognize. He runs his hands down my body, over my waist, and then stops—

  “Tierney,” he says with a heavy breath.

  I open my mouth to say something, but words fail me. For a moment, I’d almost forgotten. Forgotten how much time has passed. That I owe him an explanation for all of this.

  Leaning my forehead against his, I say, “The day I left, Anders came to your shelter. He said if I didn’t leave by first light, he’d come back for me … that they would come for you, too. I wanted to save your life, the way you saved mine, and I realize coming back here now, like this, is the most selfish thing I’ll ever do…” My voice is starting to tremble. “But being without you isn’t an option anymore. If you don’t feel the same, if you don’t want to be with me, if this is too much, I’ll understand, I’ll turn around and—”

  Sinking to his knees, he wraps his arms around me, pressing his face into my skirts. “We’ll find a way.”

  Climbing the ladder to Ryker’s shelter feels like a choice this time, one that I would make again and again. Even the air smells like home to me—pine and lake water, sundrenched salty skin. My happiest and most painful hours have been spent here. It feels impossible to separate the two, and honestly, I don’t think I’d want to.

  We’re more careful with each other now, but tonight, every kiss, every caress, every loving gaze feels weighted with the past, present, and future. No more floating among the stars; tonight I feel grounded to the earth, as if we’ve taken root in the soil.

  Under the eyes of God and Eve, we open up to each other and accept our fate. But we face it together.

  In this dark wood, in this cursed place, we’ve found a bit of grace.

  * * *

  We stay up all night, talking, touching, basking in each other’s company, and when every last feeling has been revealed, he speaks to me of the future. Something I never allowed before. But instead of tensing up, I stay soft, like raw clay in his hands.

  “We’ll leave just before dawn,” he says, wrapping clean bandages over the open blisters on my hands. “We’ll take one of the canoes. Most of the hunters left today to get more time at home.”

  “They don’t stay until the end?”

  “A few of the first-years will stick around, hoping for a miracle, but it’s extremely rare to get prey this close to the end.”

  “What about supplies?”

  “Knives, pelts, food,” he says as he looks around the blind. “I’ve been preser
ving all summer for the next hunting season. We’ll take as much as we can carry. Go east. We’ll drift until we find an island of our own or a settlement where we can live as man and wife. Even if there’s nothing else out there, I’m a good hunter. You’re resourceful and sharp as a blade. If anyone can make it, it’s us.”

  “And what about Anders?” I ask.

  I feel his muscles tense at the mere mention of his name. “We were supposed to meet in two days to go back to the outskirts together. I’d like to tell him good-bye, but I’m afraid if I see him, I’ll have to kill him.” He lets out a deep sigh, leaning back on the bed. “He shouldn’t be a problem, though. He’s been preoccupied lately, spooked by a guard who’s been lingering between our territories.”

  “A guard?” I ask, my breath hitching in my throat.

  “Anders is convinced this guard knows about us, knows that I harbored a grace year girl. I thought he was just being paranoid, but now I think it was probably the guilt eating away at him.”

  Now it’s my turn to tense up.

  “Whatever we face out there, Anders or a guard, I can handle it. I will protect you.”

  Curling up in his arms, I let it go. Some secrets are best left buried.

  Just before dawn, we pack up whatever we can carry. While Ryker tends to the weapons, the heavy jars of food, I use my overskirt to bundle up the pelts and blankets, then hoist them onto my back. I can tell he doesn’t like me carrying anything, but he’s smart enough to keep it to himself.

  The sun is on the cusp of rising, the softest orange glow making the water look like it’s on fire, which seems fitting—Ryker and I running straight into the flames.

  As we walk toward the shore, I notice how much the leaves have changed; how much I’ve changed with them. Instead of thinking about all the ways I could die, I start planning for all the ways I want to live.

  I think about waking up alongside him, our children tugging at our covers, tending to our garden, laughter all around us, and at night, sitting around a roaring fire, telling long-forgotten tales of the grace year. I’ll miss my family. I’ll miss seeing my sisters grow up. But we’ve been given a chance at another life, and we have to take it. Sometimes I wonder if I’m so accustomed to struggling that anything else feels foreign to me, like something I’m not supposed to feel, but here we are. We’re really doing this. Together.