by Amy Lukavics
The sound of Hannah’s off-key screams and yelps begin to pour from the open cabin door. Pa calls for Ma impatiently from inside. Emily emerges from the doorway with a clean dress on her arm for Ma and a rag for me. Ma dresses quickly as Hannah’s cries escalate, and the circles beneath her eyes look even darker than usual. She refuses to go back inside until I assure her three more times that I feel all right.
“What is happening?” Emily asks me after Ma has retreated into the cabin. I take the rag from her and wipe my face, as well as the back of my neck.
“The breakfast plates,” I say instead of answering. “Is there still enough food to go around? I don’t have to eat. And Joanna and Charles—”
“—can share a plate without raising a concern.” Emily cuts me off impatiently. “But forget about the food. Sister, you’re ill!”
“You just heard me say that I feel much better now,” I insist and take her hand. “Let it pass. I really don’t believe it’s anything to get concerned about.”
“Your behavior is what’s to get concerned about,” Emily snaps. “You said you wouldn’t hide things from me anymore.” She crosses her arms over her chest.
I’ve been sleeping with a boy you’ve never met, over and over, and you never even became suspicious about it. No matter how hard I try to say it, my lips remain closed.
“Amanda,” Emily says again and steps closer. “You can tell me. Did it happen again? Are you starting to—”
“It’s nothing, I said!”
Hannah’s cries finally cease. The difference in sound is startling, and I take the opportunity to leave my sister behind so she won’t have the chance to break me down.
“Amanda,” Emily calls after me, but I keep walking. Pa is about to depart, to hunt some furs to sell. He doesn’t ask me if I’m all right.
The vomit-speckled plates are piled in the dirt next to the water trough just outside the cabin. Tiny winged bugs crawl over the shiny slime that coats the cornmeal cakes, and I plead with God in my head to let the water in my stomach stay down.
When I enter the cabin, Ma is with Hannah on the rocking chair that Pa built for her as a wedding present. Everyone has finished eating already, and there is half a plate waiting for me. The smell of the meat is too atrocious for me to even consider it.
The baby’s head is pressed against Ma’s neck while she hums an old hymn, a dwindling tune that creeps up and down the scales in a lazy, sweeping motion. The vibration of it against Hannah’s face puts her into a daze. The tune is an old one that I recognize from when I was a child. The baby’s jaw slacks open, and she makes low, flat hooting sounds.
Thickened spittle oozes from the corner of Hannah’s mouth as she stares through me and through the rest of the world. It soaks into the shoulder of Ma’s dress, and I shudder at the knowledge that I wish her dead.
Ma motions for Joanna and Charles to scram after the baby’s eyes finally begin to roll back in her head. Her eyelids have sunk into sleepy half-moons, a sure sign that she’ll be out soon. The children and I leave the cabin quietly, careful not to stomp our feet upon the hard wood of the floor panels. I set Ma’s Bible in her free hand before I go, and she mouths me a silent thanks.
“Are you sure you’re all right, daughter?” she whispers again, but I wave her off with a small smile. Leave me alone, Ma. Nobody can help me now.
As soon as I step outside and close the door, the forest begins to echo with the sound of the children’s excited yells as they chase each other through the trees. Emily calls out for Charles to be careful after he slips on a patch of pine needles and nearly collides with a mossy tree stump.
I tell Emily that I need to do my business and make my way around the opposite side of the cabin. When I’m sure she’s stopped looking nervously after me, I loop around to an especially twisted tree trunk, once alive but now blackened and gnarled by a lightning bolt that nearly caused our cabin to burn down when I was ten.
I lift a rogue shrub branch from its resting place at the foot of the tree. Sure enough, a peppermint-flavored candy stick is tucked beneath. Its shiny finish, perfect white-and-red swirls that drip down the length of the sweet beneath twists of waxed paper, is stark and brilliant against the dark, muddy earth. A red ribbon is tied carefully around its middle.
Henry is already here, waiting for me in our secret place, no doubt with a blanket strewn over the dead leaves and needles of the forest floor. My hand finds itself over my lower belly before I even realize what’s happening. The very thought of telling Henry about the baby is staggering, but it’s something that I know I must do if I want him to consider marrying me.
“Come here, sister!” Emily calls to me from the forest once I return from the dead tree, the sweet in my pocket. Her face is smiling, and her cheeks are rosy from chasing Joanna and Charles. “The children have decided that they want a new pet. We should find something furry and pleasant before they set their minds on a snake again!”
I slide my hand into the pockets of my skirts and wrap my fingers around the peppermint stick. I cannot risk showing up too late and having Henry be gone already.
I cannot make it another fortnight.
“Apologies, Emily.” I make a vague gesture around my middle, then point to the trees behind me. “I think that maybe I will take a walk instead. Some fresh air, perhaps, for my stomach.”
The disappointment shines in her dark eyes. The corners of her mouth turn down, and she crosses her arms. “Shouldn’t you feel like resting after what happened this morning?”
“I feel well enough,” I say. “Just need to breath, I think. Enjoy the silence.”
“Right.” Her voice is cold. She is upset that I would rather be alone than be with her. I wish I could tell her the truth. “See you when you return then, I suppose.”
And she turns away.
The idea that this is how it ends, this is the last conversation I will have with my sister before I run away to give birth like an animal in hiding, is more than I wish to endure. I want to hug her, promise her I’ll come back for her, lie to her that everything will be well and that I’m only going on a journey to find her a better dearest friend.
I don’t, of course. Instead, I walk away from my sister without even saying goodbye.
Copyright © 2015 by Amy Lukavics
ISBN-13: 9781460399057
The Women in the Walls
Copyright © 2016 by Amy Lukavics
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
0%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share