The Grace Year

by Kim Liggett

  “Are my sisters involved?” I ask.

  “June, yes, she’s a great help to me, but Ivy isn’t cut out for such things.”

  “How do I know who’s safe? Who’s one of us?”

  “You won’t,” she replies. “Start with those closest to you. Little confidences to test the waters, but nothing that carries a punishment more than a whipping. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself.”

  “I should’ve known it was you, behind everything,” I say, my eyes misting over.

  “I didn’t do it alone. Your father is a good man. But all good men need a helping hand sometimes. Like Michael, with the fire at the apothecary.”

  “What about it?”

  She smiles. “Curious how only one cabinet was affected by the flames.”

  I stare at the charred remnants of the campfire, trying to grasp her meaning, and when I look back to tell her I had nothing to do with that, my mother is gone. I turn just in time to catch the tail end of her black silk ribbon disappearing down the lane.

  I want to run, call out Michael’s name in the square, but my mother’s right, I can’t draw attention to myself. Using every ounce of restraint that I have in me, I shorten my gait, slow my pace, until it looks as if I’m out for nothing more than a bit of fresh air.

  I stop at the apothecary first, but he’s already locked up for the night, the CLOSED sign dangling from a thin silver chain.

  As I peek into the windows, the memory of catching my father buying one of the vials from Mr. Welk quickly rises to the surface, but now there’s only a charred shadow where the cabinet used to be.

  “It’s true,” I whisper. Michael did this for me and he didn’t even tell me about it. Then again, I never gave him a chance.

  For the past few months, all I’ve done is push him away, and for what? He saved my life, accepted another man’s child as his own, asking for nothing in return. I think I did it because I feel guilty for being so horrible to him when he lifted my veil. I feel guilty for betraying him by falling in love with someone else, and I feel guilty for not trusting him to be exactly what I’ve always known him to be—a good man.

  Choking back my emotions, I make my way home, with slow, measured steps, but as soon as the front door closes behind me, I tear off my wool cape and run through the house, smacking right into Bridget at the top of the stairs. “Where is he?” I ask. “Where’s Mr. We— where’s Michael?”

  “Council meeting,” she says, in a fluster. “He won’t be home till late. Is something wrong with the b—”

  “No … no … nothing like that,” I say, smoothing down my skirts. “It’s nothing.”

  She looks me over. “Why don’t you sit and rest,” she says, ushering me into the bedroom. “And I’ll bring up supper in a few.”

  As I sit on the edge of the bed, she bends down, silently digging cockleburs from the hems of my skirts. Just like the ones I used to find on June.

  I glance up at her, trying to figure out if she suspects anything, if I’ve somehow given myself away, but as she leaves, I notice the tiniest change. She doesn’t back out of the room anymore.

  When Bridget comes up with dinner, I pick at it, pretend nothing’s happened, but everything’s different now. I’m different. It’s not just the news of the fire in the apothecary that has me feeling this way, although the gesture means more to me than he could ever imagine; this is about growing up, accepting responsibility, accepting kindness, accepting love.

  As I step into the bath, Bridget fills the silence, babbling on and on about the flowers at church. I find myself leaning over the side of the tub to pluck a soft pink rose petal from the small arrangement on the tray. My mother told me to test the water with people who are closest to me. Who’s closer to me than Bridget? She was once a grace year girl, just like me. With deliberate intent, I drop the petal into the bath, watching it swirl around my ankles lasciviously.

  Bridget stops talking. Her breath halts in her chest. I look up at her, waiting for her to snatch it out of the water, run and tell the head of the house of my transgression, but instead, I see the faintest rise in the corner of her mouth. And I know this is a new beginning. For all of us.

  * * *

  Tonight, as the clock strikes twelve, I descend the stairs, my silk robes swishing against the thick rugs, and curl up on the settee and wait. Michael hardly makes a sound when he comes in, but I know he’s there; I can smell his amber cologne. Matching my breath to his own, I will him to enter, but when he turns to leave, I whisper, “Please. Join me.”

  He clears his throat before stepping into the room as if he’s making sure that I was speaking to him.

  He sits beside me, being careful not to get so close as to make me skittish. We stay like this for a long time, staring at the flames, and I remember Ryker telling me that Michael sounded like a decent man. I think he said that, or maybe that’s what I need to tell myself to make peace with this. Taking in a deep breath I say, “I owe you an explan—”

  “You owe me nothing,” he whispers. “I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you. I only hope that in time you will grow to love me, too.”

  My eyes begin to well up. “The fire at the apothecary … I know it was you. I know you did that for me.”

  He lets out a burst of pent-up air. “For someone who’s right about so many things, when you’re wrong, you’re spectacularly wrong.”

  I look up at him, trying to understand.

  “I did it for me,” he says, his brow knotting up. “All those years we spent together as kids, running around the county, trying to figure out clues about the grace year, it meant something to me. The girl from your dreams … she meant something to me, too. I always believed, in you, in her, in change, you just didn’t believe in me.”

  Tears are searing down my cheeks now.

  Tentatively, he places his hand next to mine on the settee, the heat of his flesh drawing me in. I stretch out my fingers to take his hand in mine. At first, I flinch at the full weight of his palm, the weight of this moment, but it feels good. It feels real. Not a betrayal of Ryker, but that my heart is big enough to love two people at the same time, in two different ways.

  And this is how it starts, how we grow our friendship into something more.

  More than I ever expected.

  Through the winter, Michael and I ease into our expected roles, until it doesn’t feel like a role anymore. We eat together, stroll through the market, attend church, go to social functions, arm in arm. On occasion, I’m allowed to help him in the apothecary, which has given me purpose, something to do, but also given me insight into the women of the county. It’s a delicate negotiation, trying to suss out who is amenable to change and who would sooner cut my tongue out if given the chance. But all of this will take time. Something I’ve finally come to accept that I have plenty of.

  In the meantime, we enjoy each other’s company. I no longer flinch when he touches me; instead, I lean into him, for comfort and warmth. At night, we speak of everything under the sun, but never the grace year. That is the one vow I will never break. It doesn’t belong to him.

  As the full moon of my ninth month draws near, I feel it in my body, the duality of wanting to hang on but needing to let go.

  I used to dread the full moon. I saw it as a dark, wild place where madness dwells. But I think the full moon shows us who we really are … what we’re meant to be.

  Tonight, when I open my eyes, the girl is lying beside me. I haven’t dreamt of her in so long, it startles me. She looks different … worried.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” I tell her, but when I reach out to touch her face, my hand goes right through her.

  A jolt of pain shoots through me, making me crunch up in a tight ball. It starts in my lower abdomen, radiating throughout my limbs. It’s so intense, so sudden, that I let out a sharp scream.

  “What is it?” Michael bolts up in bed. “Another nightmare? I’m here. You’re safe. You’re home.”
/>   I try to stand, but the next wave of pain hits me like a runaway colt. “Whoa,” I manage to exhale.

  “What can I do?” he asks.

  I lean forward, trying to ease the pressure, when I notice tiny specks floating outside the window.

  “Snow,” I whisper as I peer through the gap in the heavy damask curtains.

  “Do you want me to open the window for you?” he asks, easing his warm hand over my lower back.

  I nod.

  As he opens it, the blast of freezing air brings me right back to the encampment—facing Ryker on the frozen lake. A fresh wave of pain comes over me, but it’s not physical this time. I try to get up so I can see the snow more clearly, but when I rise from the bed, Michael stammers, “Tierney … you’re bleeding.”

  Without taking my eyes off the falling snow, I say, “I know.”

  As he bolts out of the room, yelling at the maids to fetch the midwife, I can’t help wondering if this is a sign. A late snow sent by Eve. But what is she trying to tell me?

  Another surge of pain comes, making my knees buckle.

  Michael bursts into the room, dragging the midwife with him. She still looks half asleep, but once she sees the state I’m in, she snaps to.

  “Dear child,” she says, pressing her hand to my forehead. I’m sticky with sweat and burning up with fever, but I try to smile. Another wave of pain hits, and I let out a deep groan.

  As she helps me to the bed to examine me, I watch my stomach roiling in the lamplight. Tiny elbows and knees, struggling to get out.

  “I need towels, hot water, ice, and iodine,” she barks at Michael. “Now.”

  “What’s wrong?” I pant. “Is there something wrong with the baby?”

  As he rushes out of the room, hollering at the staff, I’m asking a million questions, but she just ignores me, removing the tools from her satchel. It reminds me of Ryker, the tools from his kill kit.

  There’s a commotion downstairs. The midwife props up my body with the pillows. Even this small amount of jostling is excruciating. I have to bite down on a rag to stop myself from screaming out.

  People are racing up the stairs; my mother and two older sisters barge into the room. Clara and Penny aren’t allowed, not until they’ve bled.

  As they hover around me, I hear my father outside the room, trying to calm Michael down. “It’s going to be okay. Tierney is as strong as they come. She can do this.”

  My mother presses a cool cloth to my head.

  “I’m scared,” I whisper.

  She pauses, her face ravaged with worry. “Frykt ikke for min kjærlighet er evig.”

  “Fear not, for my love is everlasting,” I whisper back. It brings fresh tears to my eyes. It reminds me of a time when I was small, curled up next to my mother in her room after Penny’s birth, the smell of blood and freesia hanging all around us. She was burning up with fever, and I knew by the look on my father’s face that it might be the last time I’d see her. As I clung to her soft warm flesh, burrowing my face in the musky linens, she told me to be strong. She pressed my hand over her heart. “There’s a place inside us where they can’t reach us, they can’t see. What burns in you burns in all of us.”

  I ran to the woods that night, hiding in the tall grass. Hiding from all my fears.

  The fear of growing older, the shame of not bearing sons. The wounds the women held so close that they had to clamp their mouths shut for fear of it slipping out. I saw the hurt and the anger seeping from their pores, making them lash out at the women around them. Jealous of their daughters. Jealous of the wind that could move over the cliffs without a care in the world. I thought if they cut us open they’d find an endless maze of locks and bolts, dams and bricked-over dead ends. A heart with walls so tall that it slowly suffocates, choking on its own secrets. But here, in this room, my mother and my sisters gathered around me, I understand there’s so much more to us … a world hidden in the tiny gestures that I could never see before. They were there all along.

  As my mother pulls away to help the midwife, June and Ivy step in to comfort me. “We’re here,” June says, taking my hand.

  “It’s okay to scream,” Ivy says, taking my other hand. “I screamed my head off with little Agnes. It’s the one time we’re allowed, might as well make the most of it.”

  “Ivy,” June hisses, but she can’t stop the small smile taking over the corner of her mouth. “We can scream together … if you’d like,” June adds.

  I nod, a hazy smile coming over me as I squeeze their hands.

  As the midwife presses down on my belly, she shakes her head.

  “What is it?” my mother asks.

  “The baby’s in a bad position. I’m going to have to reach in and turn it.”

  My sisters hold on to me even tighter. We’ve all heard the stories. Childbirth is dangerous business under the most normal of circumstances, but rarely do babies make it out of a breech.

  “Brace yourself,” the midwife says as she grips my belly with one hand and reaches inside me with the other.

  The pain is cutting at first, but it quickly shifts to something dull and deep. A guttural moan escapes my lips as I bear down.

  “Don’t push,” she says.

  But I can’t help it. The pressure is unbearable. I’m exhausted. Panting. Sweat seeping from every pore, my hair soaking wet, the bedsheets stained with blood. I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. And then I look outside at the gently falling snow and I think of Ryker. He would never let me give up. He would never let me be weak. Or I would never want to seem weak in front of him. I close my eyes and imagine he’s here with me, and maybe I’m delirious, on the edge of bleeding out, but I swear I can feel his presence.

  I hear the men outside my room, glasses clinking, the faint hint of whisky seeping from beneath the door. “May you be blessed with a son,” Father Edmonds bellows.

  “We should pray,” Ivy says, fear in her eyes.

  As my mother and sisters gather round, they join hands. “Dear Lord, use me as your holy vessel to deliver thy son—”

  “No. Not that.” I shake my head, my breath shallow in my chest. “If you feel the need to pray, then pray for a girl.”

  “That’s blasphemy,” Ivy whispers, looking back at the door to make sure the men didn’t hear.

  “For Tierney,” my mother says.

  The women look at each other, an unspoken understanding falling over the room.

  They rejoin hands. “Dear Lord, use me as your holy vessel to deliver thy … daughter—”

  As they pray, I bear down.

  “Feet,” the midwife calls out. “Legs. Arms. Head.” But her tone grows more somber in the end. “The child is clear.”

  “Can I see?” I cry.

  The midwife looks to my mother. She gives her a stern nod.

  As the midwife lays the child on top of me, the tears come. “It’s a girl,” I say with a soft laugh.

  But she just lies there completely still.

  “Please breathe … please,” I whisper.

  As I wipe the blood from her perfect little face, I note that she has my eyes, my lips, Ryker’s dark hair, the slight dimple in her chin, but there’s a spot that won’t come clean. A small strawberry mark below her right eye.

  And in the second of her first weighted breath, I realize it’s her—the girl that I’ve been searching for.

  Letting out a sobbing gasp, I hold her close, kissing her softly.

  The magic is real. Maybe not in the way they believe, but if you’re willing to open your eyes, open your heart, it’s all around us, inside us, waiting to be recognized. I’m a part of her, as is Ryker, and Michael, and all the girls who stood with me in that square to make this come to pass.

  She belongs to all of us.

  “I’ve dreamed of you my whole life,” I say as I kiss her. “You are wanted. You are loved.”

  As if she understands, she wraps her tiny fingers around mine.

  “What’s her name?” my mother
asks, her chin trembling.

  I don’t even have to think about it; it’s as if I’ve always known. “Her name is Grace,” I whisper. “Grace Ryker Welk. And she’s the one who’s going to change everything.”

  My mother leans over to kiss her granddaughter, slipping a small red flower with five petals into my hand.

  I look up at her and whisper, “My eyes are wide open, and I see everything now.”

  With tears streaming down her face, my mother smooths her hand down my braid, releasing me from the black ribbon. And everything it means.

  As I close my eyes and let out my next endless breath, I find myself walking in the woods, weightless, free.

  I’ve been here before. Or maybe I never left.

  A shadowy figure emerges on the trail ahead, dark shrouds billowing around him like smoke. With every step forward, he comes into clearer focus.

  Ryker.

  I can’t tell if he recognizes me or not, but he’s walking straight toward me.

  Holding my ground, I wait to see if he’ll take me in his arms or simply pass right through me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Three years ago, 10:00 A.M., Penn Station:

  I’m staring up at the board, willing my train to arrive, when I notice a girl in front of me. Probably thirteen or fourteen, long and lean, bouncing on the tips of her toes, thoroughly annoying her parents, grandparents, and younger siblings. She has the nervous energy of a girl on the verge of womanhood. Of change.

  A man in a business suit walks by, instinctively looking her way, stem to stern, as they say. I know that look. She’s fair game now. Prey.

  And then I notice a woman pass, drawn to that same energy, but I imagine for entirely different reasons. As she surveys the girl, a look of sadness, possibly disdain, clouds her eyes. Maybe it’s a reminder of everything she’s lost … everything she thinks she’ll never get back, but this girl is now competition.

  As the family’s train is announced, they rush to the gate and say their goodbyes. They’re clearly sending the girl back to boarding school. She waves the entire escalator ride down, and I can’t help but notice the look of relief on her parents’ faces. For another year, she’ll be tucked away from the world. Safe.