by Alyssa Cole
I can’t. I can’t. I should give up now. How can this succeed?
“I told you I’ve done my fair share of escaping,” he said, and then had the audacity to smile. “I don’t think it would be incorrect to call myself an expert. Trust me, Marlie.”
She wanted to, but this was more than a kiss. It was her life.
“We have to go now, before Cahill arrives,” he said calmly as he tied one end of the rope to a solid support beam. He tested that it could hold their weight by planting one foot on the beam and tugging at the makeshift rope with all his might.
“Sturdy as an oak. All right. Remember something, now.” Marlie looked up at him, tearing her gaze from the window and the forest beyond. “Two things: First, don’t look down. I’ll go before you, and direct you if need be. Second: You’re in control here.”
“Excuse me?” She didn’t hide the agitation in her tone. This wasn’t the time for a philosophy lesson.
“Melody wishes to master you, and in this house she has that power. But this?” He walked over to the window and opened it. “Climbing out of this window, down this rope, and heading into the woods? This is in your control.”
“What about when we get outside?” she asked, taking a step toward the window and faltering.
“I will never make you do something you don’t want to do, Marlie.”
Marlie looked at him, then past him at the stars studding the night sky and the full moon that glowed bright amongst them.
Full moon means a parting of ways.
She didn’t know where Sarah was, and trying to reach her would lose valuable time. She blinked against the tears in her eyes and bit back the sob rising up in her. Sarah was her aunt, not her sister. Sarah had withheld the truth for years. But that didn’t mean Marlie didn’t love her.
“Let’s depart at once,” she said. Ewan hung his sack around his neck and shoulders, tested the give on the tied-together fabric one last time, and shimmied through the window. The rope was pulled taut over the sash, and bounced with his movement as he climbed down. Then he was gone.
Marlie took a breath and stepped forward, and Ewan’s ginger head popped up above the sash again. “Remember, don’t look down!” And then he was off.
Marlie took hold of the rope.
Ancestors, help me.
She threw her legs over the sash, planted her feet against the wall, and let the rope take all her weight. The wind whipped about, blowing her hair into her face and tugging at her skirts. At her back she felt the awful press of nothingness. She closed her eyes tightly.
She carefully slid one foot down, and cringed at the noise she made. She fought against the cry of fear rising in her throat, lifted a foot, and placed it firmly but quietly down. She needed her hands to follow suit, but they held on to the rope and refused to budge as if they had their own free will.
You are in control. You are in control.
She thought of Melody walking around the house and finding her frozen with fear, of the way the woman would laugh and sneer. Marlie’s hands loosened one at a time and she began to move. After a few steps she had a rhythm. Left hand, right foot; right hand, left foot. She focused only on finding a stable place with her foot, and on the reverberation of the rope that transmitted Ewan’s own climbing rhythm to her. His words echoed in her head with each sure jerk of the rope.
You are in control.
It was when they were halfway down the house that another sound filtered in: hoofbeats. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw scattered torchlights jumping down the road in the distance, moving at a good clip. Cahill and his men were returning from their marauding. They had no care for the upkeep of the lawn, and would sally up to the area of the yard where Ewan and Marlie were descending.
The rope gave a violent jolt. “Hurry!” Ewan’s agitated whisper pulled her senses back to her. She was no great adventurer, but she was certainly not going to allow herself to be caught if she could help it. She began climbing down again, trying to recapture the rhythm she’d had, and then increasing the pace.
Her breath came as a rasp in her ears and throat, the sound unbearably loud to her, but less disquieting than the approaching hooves. Now she could hear the yells of the men, the snorts of their horses.
God, God, God. I won’t make it.
Marlie broke a cardinal rule and looked down. Ewan was already on the ground, his gaze pulled in the direction of the arriving militiamen. His fists were balled, his stance solid—he was unarmed, but prepared to fight instead of flee.
He looked up at her, and the truth of their situation was clear: She wouldn’t make it at her current rate. Despite that, Marlie no longer felt afraid. Calmness overtook her, and she felt the sensation of rightness that always came to her when she got the measurements for a tincture just right by sight alone.
She closed her eyes and released her grip on the rope.
CHAPTER 16
The situation was decidedly not good. The Home Guard was closing in, and if Ewan could see them, they would soon see him—and Marlie, who dangled halfway down the entirely too large Lynch home. He looked up at her, expecting to see her scrambling or showing some other sign of fear. Instead she released her grip on the rope and began plummeting down. For a moment he thought she would simply crash to the ground, but then she slowed. He realized she hadn’t released the fabric completely, but was letting it pass through her hands and holding tight when she began to lose control.
She wore no gloves, and Ewan could only imagine how painful it was—the friction of the rough fabric would be tearing at her skin. But then she was on the ground before him, her objective attained.
She stood still for a second, as if adjusting to solid ground beneath her feet, then looked up at him with a wild-eyed grin of success that dashed away his fear like summer rain on dusty stones. But they had no time to dawdle.
He eyed the telltale rope hanging from the house. If he left it, the soldiers would be able to tell something was amiss as soon as they arrived. He grabbed a fair-sized rock along the side of the house and wrapped the end of the fabric around it, then lobbed it up into a nearby tree. The fabric could be noticed if anyone looked up, but he’d have to hope that the men wouldn’t. He didn’t put much truck in hope, but it would suffice just then.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
She winced as she attempted to curl her palms, and her shoulders hunched as if she fought the urge to cry out. That was an expression Ewan knew all too well. “Yes.”
“Then let us make haste,” he said, accepting her lie.
He started to move forward but Marlie surprised him. “Follow me.” She adjusted the bag over her shoulder and took off at surprising speed for someone who had skirts to contend with. She stopped at the corner of the house, peering around to make sure no one was about. After looking back to check that he was following, she moved, keeping close to the house, where shadows lurked and no one looking through a window would catch sight of them. They passed under the kitchen window, where a woman was singing a doleful song. Marlie paused and looked up, but then kept moving forward. She crouched now and again as she walked, and he realized she was snatching up leaves from the garden plants growing behind the house, tucking them away into her apron pockets.
When they got to the edge of the next corner, she looked back. “We have to run that way.” She held bunches of leaves between her fingers, but they didn’t obscure the direction in which she pointed. It was the same direction he’d arrived from—or there was a shed similar to the one he had stayed in. But other than that, there wasn’t much cover. Anyone looking from the house or who walked around it would see them.
The shouts of the men grew louder, the clap of their hooves announcing their arrival on the property.
Marlie’s and Ewan’s gazes met and held for a long moment.
“Now.”
They took off, Marlie ungainly as she held up her skirts with her fingertips, Ewan’s long legs outpacing her by double, even with his ten
der ankle. He slowed and tried to take her hand but she snatched it away before he could, stretching her legs farther and trying to keep pace. Behind them there were whoops and shouts, but Ewan couldn’t stop to see what the racket was about. They ran, the woods getting closer, their path to freedom almost secured.
Joy surged through Ewan as they entered the copse of trees, but diminished when a shadow stepped toward them, metal glinting off the weapon in its hand.
Marlie gasped and Ewan stepped in front of her.
“Marl?”
“Tobias!” She breathed his name in relief.
“What you doin’?” His gaze latched on to Ewan, and instead of Get in line, son, there was something much more menacing.
“You don’t know?” Marlie gasped, still trying to catch her breath.
“Been out at the farm,” Tobias said. “Got held up helping birth a calf.”
“Melody discovered that Marlie is Stephen’s daughter and intends to sell her into prostitution with the help of Cahill. To avoid that unfortunate outcome we must flee. Now.” Ewan looked back over his shoulder. “Forgive me for not being more polite, but the militia just arrived and her absence could be discovered at any moment.”
Tobias’s expression was sober. “You leaving us?” he asked.
“I have to,” Marlie said. “I’d die before letting Cahill sell me off.”
Marlie spoke the words with a vehemence that rocked Ewan. After seeing her defy Cahill, a man whom he knew to be intimidating in the extreme, he didn’t think her soft, but to hear her speak so fiercely reminded him that Marlie contained depths that were still unknown to him.
Tobias looked at Ewan again, and then extended the butt of his rifle in Marlie’s direction. “Take this.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“You need protection,” Tobias insisted.
“I do, but my hands aren’t quite up to the task. Please give it to him.”
She held up her hands and Ewan could see the bloody pink of her palms now.
“We have to go. Tobias, tell Sarah . . .” Her voice broke then, and the tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I will,” he said, wiping away the tears. He handed the gun to Ewan. “Keep her safe. And if you have any designs, redraw them.”
“Tobias! Enough.”
The man pulled her into a gruff hug. “I’ll hold ’em off from getting to your room for as long as I can. Go on, now.”
And then they were running into the night again. Beneath the cricket song that filled the night air, Marlie’s breathing occasionally hitched with a sob. She didn’t stop running, though.
They slowed as they moved deeper into the forest, the undergrowth making a faster pace impossible.
“Do you know where we’re going?” he asked. He looked about at the kudzu-covered trees looming like ancient giants around them. Everything was dark shadows and leaves rustling in the wind—there was no sign of what direction they should turn.
“I have a general idea,” she said. “The road is running alongside us over through those trees, and that’s the road I take to get to the small farms every few months. I’m usually in a carriage, but the road runs northwest.”
The smell of something fragrant and savory hit Ewan’s nose, and he looked in her direction to find her running her teeth over a bundle of leaves before clasping them in her fists. “Sage. Good for cleaning wounds.”
“And parsley?” He nodded at the curly leaves that peeked out from the pocket of her apron.
She nodded. “Helps with swelling.”
They walked in silence, the kind that Ewan hated. He grasped about for some subject to engage her in, but could find none, and the silence stretched taut between them. The easy conversation of days past had left them, in part because of his careless words. He hadn’t thought past getting her out of Lynchwood. Now she was by his side, but may as well have been back in her rooms, as she seemed entirely unreachable. Ewan felt an uncomfortable tightness at his neck.
Is there any way to make things right?
“I can’t believe no one told me,” she finally said. “Now I look back at all those interactions and realize that everyone in the household knew who my father was but me. He sat in the same room with me, and said nothing. He watched Melody—his wife!—make me feel unwanted in my own home, and allowed it.”
Ewan realized that while he was fixated on her silence, she had been mourning her life. He chastised himself. His perspective had narrowed to a tiny window when he needed to be surveying the wide vista of what Marlie might need from him.
“Surely everyone wasn’t aware,” Ewan said, and Marlie cut her gaze in his direction.
“Tobias didn’t even blink when you told him,” she said.
“Ah. Correct.” They walked on. “Do you think you would have preferred knowing?”
Marlie chewed on her parsley a bit and then mashed that in her fists as well. “I’m not sure. But anything would have been better than finding out like this.”
Ewan heard her breath hitch, and couldn’t tell if it was anger or sadness or both.
“I have to say that if Stephen is your father, which appears to be the case, and he allowed you to be treated in this way, he was not worth your mother or you.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” She stopped and faced him. “You may not have liked your father, but he was there! He claimed you!”
Ewan couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his lips. “You think I merely didn’t like my father? I hated him. I wished him gone, and the best thing that ever happened to my family was the day he took his own life.”
Marlie gasped. “You can’t mean that,” she said.
“I’ve had the good part of a lifetime to reflect upon it and my opinion hasn’t changed,” he said. He understood most people valued blood relations, as if that link magically allowed for all types of transgressions. That was not a part of his philosophy. “I do not say this to diminish your pain and anger, but to remind you that Stephen is weak, as was my father. You have already been made to suffer for his weakness—you are here with me right now, driven from your home, because of it.”
“How could he pretend I wasn’t his daughter? All these years of him barely speaking to me. I thought it was because I reminded him of his father’s misdeeds . . . I feel like such a fool.” Marlie bit her lip, but that didn’t stop the tears from spilling from her eyes. This time Ewan didn’t restrain himself. He brought his hands to her face and brushed his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping the tears away.
“Don’t you wish your father had been kind to you?” she asked.
“Wishing is for fools,” he responded reflexively, and for some reason that made her laugh.
“So my point stands,” she said. “I am a fool.”
He’d never met a person the term applied to less, and in that moment he added Stephen to the list of men he wanted five minutes alone with.
“Mourn your father. Or hate him. But be sure that you know he is the one who should be ashamed and feel foolish, and not on account of your mother or you. You are perfect, despite his part in creating you, which means your mother must have been magnificent. His shame lies only with himself.”
She stared back at him for a long time, silent as the hot tears ran over his fingers.
“We have to go,” she finally said. She patted his hand, then turned and began walking.
They walked, resting every now and then, and Ewan began to worry about where they would pass the day. Spending the daylight hours unprotected with the Home Guard around would be asking for trouble. There was also the risk of Rebel pickets and Secesh neighbors who would turn them in as easily as breathing.
“We’re almost there,” Marlie said as if reading his thoughts.
The trees began to thin, and a small, fallow field opened up before them. On the other side of it was a less than modest home. Even in the predawn darkness, Ewan could see that it was in need of serious repair.
“Will we be welcome here?”
; “There’s only one way to find out.” Marlie marched up to the porch and Ewan followed.
CHAPTER 17
Marlie told herself that she was not afraid as she approached Hattie’s door. That was partially true; the flight from her home had left her too tired and sore for fear. She was mostly angry and disappointed, the feelings mixing into a toxin that seeped into her veins, willing her to give up. Those feelings should have been familiar to her, given her race and sex, but she’d been shielded from so many of the ugly truths of the world. Every shield has its breaking point, and the fragments of the lies that had been protecting her had been raining down since Melody had arrived. A shield, once broken, was only so many splinters, and Marlie was discovering just how sharp those splinters could be.
She felt Ewan’s rangy presence next to her, and took some comfort in that, even though she shouldn’t have. She harbored no fantasies of protection, but Ewan was reliable, and that was one thing she needed just then. And he was honest, to a fault. He said what he was thinking, even if it was rude, as she’d learned. She didn’t always like it, but she’d take his lack of etiquette over the polite lie she’d been living for so many years.
They stepped onto the rickety porch and Marlie took a deep breath, then rapped lightly on the door. She winced against the pain of closing her hand into a fist. In the trees, the birds that signaled the first stirrings of dawn began to tweet. She knocked again, a bit more urgently.
There was movement, shuffling about, and then a trembling voice asked, “Who is it?”
“A friend in search of shelter,” Marlie said. “A friend who needs a hero.”
Marlie hoped she’d said the right thing. She wasn’t sure what passcodes the Heroes of America were using now, but that was a close enough approximation, it seemed. The door creaked open and a sallow face peeked out: Penny, Hattie’s daughter.
“Miss Marlie?” She looked back over her shoulder, then opened the door wider. “Get in, now.”
She closed and latched the door after Marlie and Ewan had entered.