Travis is holding his hand out to me and even though I know I'm tempting fate I go back to him. “Will I see you again soon?” he asks. The flame from the candle next to his bed whips around in the draft from the window, sending his face into shadows.
“I don't know,” I tell him truthfully. “I'm not sure I can risk it.”
He nods. He understands. And then he takes my hand and presses his lips against my palm. It feels like fire entering my bloodstream and laying siege to my body. He kisses my wrist, and I am an inferno. He starts to move up my arm, his breath tantalizing, and I almost give in as he pulls me to him.
But instead I step back, cradling my arm to my chest. “Be well,” I tell him because I don't know how to explain what I really want to say. And then I slip out the window and am covered in snow that instantly douses my skin, which just moments before had been aflame.
Afraid of being seen by the people in the room next to Travis's, I sprint through the graveyard toward the fence line and into the shadows near the edge of the Forest. I kick my feet as I go, trying to make it look not quite so obvious that a human has walked away from under Travis's window, but before long my feet begin to freeze, the thin slippers I'm wearing no protection against the snow.
I am as close to the Forest as I dare for nighttime when I begin to circle around so that I can enter the Cathedral through the front door. My mind wanders back to Travis, back to his bed and the feel of his skin. My body shivers from the memories, the desire, the frigid air. And so at first I don't realize that I am following in someone else's footsteps in the snow—not just one person's footsteps, but many.
I pause. There is nothing behind me but the Forest, and my heart begins to pound. What if these are the tracks of the Unconsecrated? What if the fence is breached and there is no one to sound the alarm? Terror bolts through me, but I slip and slide in the snow as I scramble to follow the tracks back to their source.
They stop at the fence. At the gate to the path that leads out of our village and through the Forest of Hands and Teeth. I kneel in the snow and look through the gate. Glistening under the moon I can see one clear set of footprints that lead to this gate. They stretch out, through the broken brambles and back down the path into the Forest for as far as I can see. They are not the shuffling footprints of the Unconsecrated, but the strong and distinct prints of the living, as if someone was walking purposefully down this path toward us.
The path is forbidden to everyone: villagers, Sisters, Guardians. Never have I seen this gate opened, never have I seen someone use this path.
Someone from Outside has come to our village.
Which means that there is an Outside—something beyond the Forest.
Excitement, fear, curiosity, panic well up my throat, making me almost giddy before I swallow hard and pull my mind back to the present moment. Leaning over the snow, I trace the outline of the Outsider's print. It is petite like mine but the steps are wide—either a small boy or a woman.
Someone from Outside has come to our village!
The wind begins to blow now, scattering the freshly fallen snow and obscuring the footprints. I'm almost skipping as I follow the prints back to the village, up to the front of the Cathedral. I am about to throw open the door in excitement, my entire being bursting with energy, when my mind catches up with my body.
No one sounded the siren; no one rang the village bells. It may be night but something like an Outsider is news to wake the village for. Yet the Sisters have kept the Outsider a secret. They dragged him up to the room next to Travis's and they locked him in there. And I heard one of them say that they wouldn't tell the village until the Sisters were ready to do so.
Suddenly, I understand that I am not supposed to know about the Outsider and I wonder to what lengths the Sisters will go to keep this secret. I think about the tunnel under the Cathedral and the clearing in the woods and wonder what other secrets they might be keeping.
I duck into the shadows thrown by the walls of the Cathedral under the moon. With my hands against its formidable stone face, I creep through the bushes and around the snowdrifts until I am under my window. I reach up, slide it open and slip inside, wet and shaking, my fingers and feet numb.
After stoking the embers in my fireplace I undress and hang my clothes over the chair to dry. I sit on the hearthrug, my blanket pulled over my shoulders, my body still cold inside. As I hear the wind pick up outside I am grateful that my footprints will be erased, but know that this will also mar the Outsider's footprints to the gate.
Someone from Outside has come to our village and as I sit and stare at the flames I know deep in my being that this is what I have been waiting for, what I have wished for even though I never realized it before this moment.
The Outsider is my excuse to leave this village. Now that there's proof, now that our entire village will know that there is more, that we are no longer an island, now is our time to reconnect with the Outside world.
Nothing can contain us any longer. Not when word of the Outsider gets out. And I will be the first through the gate. I will be the one to lead us to the ocean. To the place untouched by the Unconsecrated.
Chapter 8
Three days pass and I am desperate. There has been no word of the Outsider, no mention at all. Finally, in frustration I go to see Travis but Sister Tabitha is in the hall outside his door, and she tells me his fever has returned and he has been moved and they are not allowing visitors for fear that he will not be able to fight off any other infections. I will not be allowed in to see him until they are sure he is well.
“We cannot have you and him be the reason that we all fall ill this winter, Mary,” she says.
I look past her shoulder and into Travis's empty room. “Where is he?” I ask. I feel I have a right to know.
“He is safe,” she answers. “And he is none of your concern.” She looks down her nose at me, her eyes narrowing. “Mary.” Her voice is firm, authoritative. She pauses and brings a finger up to her lips as if trying to decide what she wants to say next. “Mary, you are inquisitive, and that can be a dangerous trait. What do you think has brought us to this moment? What do you think caused the Return and brought about the Unconsecrated?”
My breath is shallow. Even before I was taken to the clearing in the Forest, I have been afraid of Sister Tabitha, the oldest Sister, the leader of the Sisterhood. “I—I—” I stammer. “I thought we didn't know what caused the Return.”
Again, I wonder at the knowledge that the Sisters possess that the rest of us do not. They have, after all, been the one constant since the Return, or so we are told. They have been the driving force behind the village—the ones who created the Guardians and the reason we still exist and are all still alive.
Theirs is the word of God, not to be questioned. They are the ones to teach us in school, who tell us that we are all that is left of the world and that the time of the Return is behind us and unimportant in our new world. They are the ones who teach us not to second-guess their proclamations, not to second-guess our survival after the Return and the new world they have built for us.
Sister Tabitha smiles in a way I imagine a mother would smile to indulge a child and his fancies. “We know enough.” She takes my arms and pulls me into Travis's old room with her. Her grip is firm but it does not hurt. She leads me to the window until we are standing in front of it looking out at the fence line and the Forest.
“The exact cause of the Return may be shrouded in mystery, but we do know that they were trying to cheat God. Trying to cheat death. Trying to change His will.” She holds her hand out toward the Forest. As always the Unconsecrated pull at the links in the fence. “This is what happens when you go against God's will. This is His retribution. This is our penance.”
She speaks with such authority and fervor. Her hand is a closed fist now and she pounds against the windowsill to make her point.
“You must remember, Mary, that you live for God now. We all live for God. It is only through His grace that we survive.” She turns toward me with a fierce, almost frantic expression. “Remember where we came from, Mary. Where we all came from. Not the Garden of Eden, but the ashes of the Return. We are the survivors.” She grabs my shoulders now, shakes me. “We have to continue to survive. And I will allow nothing to jeopardize this.”
Looking into her eyes I know that she will not hesitate to sacrifice me to the Forest if it means saving this village or even just saving her position within it. She is a zealot, she is so filled with the passion. For the first time I truly understand the world I live in. Not the world that is always on the edge, on the verge, living under the constant weight of the Forest. But the world beyond that, ruled over by the Sisterhood and their duty to protect and preserve us.
It is in realizing this that I truly understand our fragility.
Sister Tabitha is expecting me to say something but I don't know what to tell her. I don't know how to respond. She must understand what I now finally know—that I will never truly fit in here. As a Sister, as a wife, as a villager.
The Sisters may have knowledge and power, but Sister Tabitha has made it clear that such things will never be within my reach. To her, I am not to be trusted because I didn't come to the Sisterhood willingly and because I ask too many questions and seek too many answers.
I will never be admitted into the elite, I will never be told their secrets: why they have a tunnel into the Forest and what the rooms off the tunnel are used for. My duties here will never be more than tending the sick, cleaning the Sanctuary, reading the Scripture and praying for our souls.
My life will never be my own.
This is a terrifying revelation and I want nothing more than my mother, to run to her and bury myself in her arms, in her safety.
But now my mother is a part of the world that Sister Tabitha is speaking about. She is part of what we fight against every day.
As if she reads my mind she says, “You must find your place here, Mary. You must give yourself over to God and stop looking for something else.” She is leaning over me as she speaks so that I am forced to bend away from her hot breath as she rants on. “You think you want answers to your questions but you do not. And you will not. Because it is our sworn duty as Sisters to ensure that such questions are not asked. You must understand—there are no answers for you.”
She traces one long finger down my cheek, her fingernail sharp against my skin. “You will be the end of us if you keep following this path! I can feel it, I can see it in you.”
A spark of alarm sets fire inside me. Her words echoing loudly in my head, that I will be the end. It's like a puzzle piece clicking into place, a sudden understanding of why Sister Tabitha has been keeping me so close, why she doesn't even allow me to leave the Cathedral.
“What are you asking me to do?” I whisper. I think of Cass and her blond braids and the way she smells like sunshine and the way she sobbed over Travis when he was hurt. I can't be the end of her, the end of such sweetness and light.
“Stop looking for answers to questions you should not even be asking! Embrace your life here. Why do you think this village has survived while the rest of the world perished? Why do you think we have lived so long without a breach? Why do you think we are safe from the Unconsecrated? It is because we do not tempt God's wrath. We do not tempt the Unconsecrated. We do not take stupid risks, but rather dedicate ourselves to God and each other.” Her face is close, her eyes wide and white.
“We have survived because the Sisterhood has done what was necessary. We keep order in the village.” She stares out the window at the unending view of the Forest. “Imagine this village without order.” She bangs her hand on the sill again. “Imagine people breaking vows and oaths. Stealing from each other. That was the world before the Return. And look at the result.” She tosses a hand toward the Forest and then turns, her eyes searing over me.
“That is why you must leave Travis alone. I have watched the way you covet him. But he is not for you.”
Everything around me seems to be crumbling, my knees weak and barely able to support my weight. I don't know what to say or how to respond and so I nod, the pain inside me too intense. She is asking me to give up the only thing I have left.
She grips my shoulders, her long bony fingers digging through my tunic. “When you leave this room, you will rededicate yourself to the Sisterhood and to this village. To every person here and our continued survival. You will repent!”
Her body heaves as she gasps for air, her teeth gritted and muscles straining. She takes a step away from me and turns to the window. For a moment in her reflection in the glass I think I see sorrow on her face, in the heaviness of her skin on her skull. “I know I must sound harsh, Mary,” she says, her voice suddenly calm again, measured. “That the rules of the Sisterhood are harsh. But what is a village without order? Without rules and people to enforce them?”
She places a palm against the window, fingers splayed, and I see that she is shaking ever so slightly. “The Sisterhood carries a sacred burden. We carry it so that the villagers do not. So that we can forget what came before, can heal, become reborn without the weight of our sins before the Return.”
My body burns—all this time we have been kept in the dark and the Sisters have known. “Why do you keep such secrets?” I ask. “Why not trust us?”
She turns to me and for a moment her eyes see through me, as if looking back a long distance into herself. As if remembering. I see a ghost of a smile around her eyes, old laugh lines crinkling again faintly.
I begin to realize that I may be pushing her too far. That I may be pushing her to toss me into the Forest to keep from revealing what I have learned: that the Sisterhood is keeping secrets from us all. I take a step back, but her voice stops me.