The Grace Year: Winter

I'm thinking it’s just a piece of shell that broke off, but as I spit it out into my hand, I realize it’s a river clam pearl, just like the ones from my veiling day dress. Turning it over in my hand, I study every facet, every hint of iridescent color, every dent and rise.

I know it’s against the law to fraternize with the guards, but Hans is my friend. He’s always protected me in the county as much as he could.

I can’t believe I used to love this time of year—all bundled up in woolen cocoons, to the point where no one could discern one child from the next.

The wives scarcely went outdoors during those months. But come spring, when they emerged, it was like watching butterflies shake free of their chrysalis.

Occasionally, I’d see one of them slip off her shoe, placing an unstockinged toe into the freshly sprung grass. A hint of wild decadence, a secret place within her heart that could never truly be tamed.

The nursery rhyme that Ami was singing lilts through the trees.

At first I think it might be the ghost, the girl buried on the ridge, but the footsteps are too heavy, the deep huffing of air too loud, the scent too foul. This is something entirely corporal. Animal.

At the first hint of cold gray dawn, I brace my hands on the frozen ground to get up, then notice small flecks strewn all around me.

I’d thaw by the hearth, sipping mulled cider, peeling off one layer at a time, with the sound of my mother taking out her frustration on her knitting needles, the crinkle of Father’s paper, the serene voices of Clara and Penny taking turns reading a chapter from a book.

Using sharp rocks and sticks, I burn through the daylight, I burn through every last bit of my energy, tilling that soil, until I can no longer feel my hands.

I’m rushing around the ridge, digging my freezing hands into the dirt, manically trying to push the soil back together, but it’s disintegrating beneath me. Scrabbling upward, I manage to hold on to some vines as half of the ridge breaks off, thundering to the bottom of the ravine.

A burst of thunder seems to answer back, louder than lions, and I can feel her power, her ire, and it makes me angry—somehow I feel betrayed by her, but there were no promises made, no secret pacts to be broken.

Crowding against the fence, the girls press their faces against the gaps in the splintery wood, vying for a glimpse.

Leaping over a fallen cedar, I scoot back into the dark recess to catch my breath.

Soon, this place will be teeming with poachers.

Maybe it’s Eve slipping under my skin, maybe it’s the moonlight, or my feminine magic making me cruel and wily, but all I want to do in this moment is take him down with me.

As if sensing my intentions, he holds his hands out in front of him, the way you’d try to calm a skittish horse before ensnaring it with a bridle.

As if sensing my intentions, he holds his hands out in front of him, the way you’d try to calm a skittish horse before ensnaring it with a bridle.

Tightening my grip, I heave the axe into the ice.
At first, there’s nothing, only the shock of impact reverberating up my arms, settling in my wound, making it throb with every beat of my heart, but then I hear it, a dull pop followed by a long continuous crack, as if my bones are being split in two.

My heart thrums in my ears, my throat, the tips of my fingers, like a funeral dirge.

There are long strips of sinewy meat hanging from hooks. Tanned hides drying on a crudely made rack, and knives...so many knives, splayed across a rough butcher block table.

I wonder if the skin is gone from my entire body now, if beneath the covers I’m only a tangled labyrinth of veins and severed nerves being held together by congealed blood.

Noticing my agitation, the poacher emerges from the shadows, covered in charcoal-gray shrouds.

He forces more of the noxious fluid down my throat. I’m choking on it, but he doesn’t care.

“First one lasted a couple of days, had burns on its back and chest, but Daniel was able to render most of the flesh.”

The only time I’m sure he’s not watching is when he tends to the hearth, which he does with an almost religious fervor. It tells me he’s disciplined. Careful. Vigilant.

The fetid smell of the insipid honeycomb used to mask the bitter taste of the poppy makes me gag, but nothing comes up anymore.

I count the steps that it takes for him to walk to the doorway. I imagine doing it myself, over and over and over again. Sometimes, I wake from a fitful sleep to think I’ve already done it, that I’m free, but the blur of gauzy charcoal fabric in my peripheral brings everything back to me...why I'm here.

Slipping the blade under the pelts, I start working on the restraint holding down my right arm. I’m prepared for a long arduous fight, but the blade slices right through, as if I’m cutting into a fresh block of lard.

I try to scream, but the pain is so eviscerating that it robs me of my breath.

“I didn’t brand you,” he snaps. “I had to cauterize the wound, which you’ve probably ripped open again.”

I don’t like that I can’t see his face. It’s disconcerting, but maybe that’s the whole point. The same way the veils dehumanize us, the shrouds do the same for them.

Biting into soft wood when he cuts away decrepit flesh. The woozy droplets of blood being wrung from a bandage into a worn copper bowl. The steady sound of a thick needle.

"Then why?" I ask, fighting to stave off the lull of the poppy.

I wince as he smears a dark green poultice over my wound.

My head lolls forward. I feel like I might pass out at any moment.

I don’t remember telling him about her; it makes me wonder what else I’ve told him in my addled state, but what does it matter anymore.

“We’re not poaching anything,” he snaps. “We’ve been sanctioned to cull the herd, paid handsomely to deliver your flesh back to the county. Your fathers, brothers, husbands, mothers, sisters...they are the ones who consume you. Not us.”

Thin lips pressed together, dark hair curled up haphazardly around his shoulders. Is he handsome? Maybe not by the standards of the county, but I can’t stop staring at him.

I could still be delirious from the fever breaking, or high on the fresh air, but when he pulls his hand away, my fingers seem to hang there in the ether, as if longing for his return.