We’re all yearning for escape.
A respite from the life that’s been chosen for us.
Right now, there’s only this.
And there are worse ways to pass the time.
I’m not sure if I’m lifting my head or if he’s leaning forward, but we’re so close now that I can feel his breath pulsing against my skin.
As he brushes his lips against mine, I feel a rush of heat move through my body, and when our tongues touch, something else inside of me takes over.
Threading my hands in his hair, wrapping myself around him, I’m pulling him closer… when he’s ripped from my limbs.
A boy with madness in his eyes stands at the end of the bed, holding Ryker back.
His shroud has slipped from his face, revealing a spray of tiny scars covering his cheeks.
Anders.
“I knew something was wrong,” he pants.
“Did it bite you?”  “It’s not what you think.” Ryker gives me a pleading look.
“Don’t look at it.
It must’ve used its magic on you.
Get your shroud, hurry, before it does something worse.”  Ryker lets out a long sigh.
“I’m getting my shroud.”  Anders releases him and pulls a blade from the sheath on his belt.
As he stalks toward me, Ryker reaches for the charcoal gauze hanging next to the hearth.
I wonder if he really believes it… that I’ve somehow bewitched him.
I’m scooting back on the bed, all the way against the wall, when Ryker steps behind Anders, ensnaring his wrist with the shroud, twisting his arm back, forcing him to drop the blade.
Before Anders can even react, Ryker has his hands tied behind him, the blade at his throat.
“Don’t make me hurt you,” Ryker says.
“What are you doing?” Anders struggles to get free.
“I’m not going to take it from you.
It’s your kill.”  Ryker kicks the stool away from the table full of knives to in front of the hearth.
“I want to explain this to you.”  “There’s nothing to explain.
It put a spell on you.
Anyone can see that.”  “There’s no spell,” Ryker says, forcing him to sit.
Unfortunately, Anders is directly in my line of sight now, which he takes full advantage of by staring a million daggers into me.
“Her name is Tierney.”  Anders shakes his head violently.
“It doesn’t have a name.
It’s prey.
Nothing more.”  “This is the daughter of Dr.
James.
The man who saved your life.”  “So?”  “So… we owe him.”  Anders lets out a strangled laugh.
“You’re just going to keep it… like a pet?”  “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.”  “Look.” Anders softens his tone.
“I get it, you’re lonely.
We’re all lonely.
But you’re going to have to kill it eventually.
Or you could let me do it.” His eyes light up.
“You can keep it until the end of the season, and when you’re done—”  “I don’t want to kill her,” Ryker says.
“I want to be with her.”  The admission stuns me almost as much as Anders.
“Y-you can’t be serious?” he sputters.
“We’re poachers.
We took an oath.”  “There are higher oaths.” Ryker glances back at me, and all I want to do is shrink into the wall.
“We always said we’d leave if given the chance.”  “This is our chance,” Anders says, nodding at me.
“If you skin it, we can take your family west, just like we planned.
You can pick any girl you want from the outskirts—”  “There are other ways to leave,” Ryker says.
“Wait… you’re not…” Anders’s face goes ashen.
“You’re not thinking of deserting, are you?
What about your family?
Your pay?
They’ll starve—”  “Not if you claim them as your own.” Ryker leans forward, looking at him intently.
“You’re serious,” Anders whispers, his eyes tearing up.
“What about the guards?
Have you thought about that?
I’ve seen one of them sneaking around.
He’ll be dragging in timber to fix the breach any day now.
If they catch her here—”  “They won’t.”  “Unless I tell,” Anders mutters.
Ryker springs on him, holding the knife so close to his jugular that I hear it scraping against his whiskers.
“I will die before I let anyone hurt her.
Do you understand?”  “What about me?” Anders looks up at him, and I can almost feel his heart breaking.
“What about our plans?”  “You are my brother,” Ryker says, cradling the back of Anders’s head.
“That will never change.
Once we’re settled, I’ll send for you and my family.”  “You think you can just drift off into the sunset?” Anders’s nostrils flare.
“Why not?
There’s plenty of land for the taking.
I’m a good hunter.”  “Not good enough,” Anders says, staring at me.
“She’s with me now.” Ryker moves into his line of sight, breaking the fixation.
“The question is, are you?” He tightens his grip on the knife.
“I need to know right now where you stand.”  “With you,” Anders whispers.
“I’ve always been with you, brother.
Till the end.”  Ryker looks back at me as if he’s waiting for my approval.
I nod.
I don’t know what else to do.
Bending to untie Anders’s hands, Ryker says, “I know this is a lot to ask, but this is all going to work out.
You’ll see.” He gives his shoulders a squeeze, before letting him go.
As Anders walks toward the door, I’m bracing myself for anything, but Ryker seems to have quelled his anger.
Anders pauses by the door.
“I dropped a jar of hemlock silt around here somewhere.
That’s why I came… I wanted to show you.
The storm kicked up a whole mess of it.”  “That’ll fetch a great price,” Ryker says excitedly.
“There’s more down in the third cove,” Anders says.
“We could haul it in together.
Fifty-fifty.”  “Nah, you can keep it, but I’ll help you bring it in.”  “You’d do that?” Anders asks sheepishly.
“We’re still in this together,” Ryker says.
“Now there’s just one more of us.”  Anders looks my way.
He still can’t meet my eyes, but it’s a start.
“First light, I’ll meet you at the cove,” Anders says with a slight smile.
And for a brief second I can see the sweet boy Ryker told me about.
Immediately, I start cleaning up the cabin.
I don’t know what else to do… with my mind… my body.
Ryker leans against the wall, watching me.
“Whatever you’re thinking—”  “Thinking?
What could I possibly be thinking?” I pick up the shroud off the floor.
“Oh, I don’t know… that maybe you just had someone tied up with this… someone who wanted to kill me, or you to kill me, or kill me together.
I mean… kill it.”  A pained look crosses his face.
“You have to understand,” he says as he moves toward me.
“He was taken over the barrier by prey, they bit him, he believes his entire family was wiped out by the curse… but he’ll come around.
Just give him a chance.
He would never do anything to hurt me.”  “It’s not you I’m worried about.” I push past him, grabbing the stool, putting it back by the table.
“And what’s this about being with me?” I scoff.
“Don’t you think you should’ve at least asked me first?
Or are you just going to claim me like the men in the county?”  “I just thought… okay… fine,” he says, following close behind.
“We can get married, if that’s better.”  “No!” I yell as I storm off to another corner, but it’s only a few feet away.
There’s nowhere to go.
I accidentally kick something; it rolls under the bed.
“You don’t have to marry me,” he says, throwing his hands up in the air.
“I just thought with the hair… and the ribbon… the way you were raised… that it would be… important.”  Getting down on my hands and knees, I reach under the bed to grab whatever it was that I kicked.
It’s a jar.
Holding it up to the light, my mind stutters.
“I’m trying to talk to you… will you please hear m—”  “Wait.
Is this the hemlock silt Anders was talking about?”  “You found it,” Ryker says, reaching for it.
“Are you sure this is it?” I tug back on it, forcing him to meet my eyes.
“Positive,” he says, clearly taken aback by my intensity.
“You can tell by the bright green color and the way the edges spread out like—”  “What would this do to a person?”  “I’ve never touched the stuff, but the old crones use it in the northern woods for scrying work.
If you even put a drop on your tongue, you’ll have visions.
They say it connects you to the spirit world, above and below.”  “What about prolonged use… like all day… every day?”  “You’d go insane.”  I put my hands over my mouth to stifle a sobbing gasp, but it leaks through my fingers.
“I’m not crazy, then.” I let out a sputtering burst of pent-up air.
“Don’t you get it?” With trembling hands, I grab on to him.
“That’s what’s happening to the grace year girls.
I knew it was something… the water… the food… the air… but it’s this… the algae… it’s inside the well.
They all drink from it.
When I was in the camp, I did, too.
I was having dizzy spells, feeling things on my skin that weren’t there.
But after I was banished to the woods and started drinking the water from high on the spring, I felt better.
Clearer.” Fresh tears flood my eyes.
“It’s not magic… it’s poison.”  I get up and start pacing the floor.
“They need to know.
Everyone needs to know.”  He shakes his head.
“It wouldn’t make any difference.”  “How can you say that?
It would make all the difference in the world.
They wouldn’t be losing their minds… they wouldn’t be acting like this.
The grace year could come to an end.”  “The curse.
The magic.
Even if they believed us, it wouldn’t really change anything,” he says.
“As long as there’s a price on your flesh, there will always be poachers.
There will always be a grace year.”  “There has to be something we can do,” I say, my eyes welling up.
“We can leave,” he says, wiping a tear from my cheek.
“Last year, a trapper from the north brought us a message from a family we knew.
They made it over the mountains, beyond the plains, to a settlement where men and women live side by side, as equals.
Where they’re free.”  I’m trying to even imagine what that would be like.
Everything in me wants to say yes, run away from the pain, but a horrible feeling spreads from the pit of my stomach all the way to my throat.
“Our families—”  “Anders will take care of my family.
They’ll get his pay, and as soon as we’re settled—”  “What about my family?
If my body is unaccounted for, my sisters will be punished, sent to the outskirts.”  “If Michael is half the man you say he is, he would never let that happen.”  I bristle at the mention of his name.
It feels wrong coming out of Ryker’s mouth.
“Let’s leave him out of this.”  “Even if they were sent to the outskirts, my mother would take them in.”  “But would they be expected to…”  “Not until they’ve bled,” he says, matter-of-fact.
“And after that?” I ask, the realization gutting me.
“As soon as we’re settled, we’ll send for them.”  “And if we never settle?” I ask, but I mean live, and I’m tired of not saying what I mean, so I ask again.
“What if we don’t survive?
What happens to them?”  “We will… but why is it okay for my sisters to work in the outskirts and not yours?” he asks.
“It’s not…,” I say, completely flustered.
“But when I think of my sisters having to receive a man from the county, a man like Tommy Pearson, or any other man who’s patted their head at church, watched them sing in the choir, watched them grow up, it makes me sick to my stomach.”  “When I found you on the ice that night, you were ready to take your own life rather than hand it over to a poacher.
Your sisters would’ve been sent to the outskirts.
Why are you hesitating now?”  “I wasn’t in my right mind.” I raise my voice.
“You saw me… I was dying.”  He pulls me close, pressing his forehead against mine, letting out a heavy sigh.
“I’m sorry.
That wasn’t fair.”  The nearness of him, the warmth, feels like a soothing balm.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply without hesitation.
“Then trust that we can do this,” he says.
“We have time to figure all of this out, but in the meantime, know that I will find a way.
For all of us.”  “Why do you want this?” I ask, searching his face for answers.
He traces his fingers down my braid, all the way to the end of the red silk ribbon.
“I want to see you with your hair down, with the sun on your face.”        Just before dawn, Ryker descends the ladder to meet Anders, and I feel hopeful for the first time in I don’t even know how long.
Lying down on the bed, breathing in his heavy scent, I imagine what it would be like, being with him, as man and wife, away from the county, away from all of this.
I always thought the best I could hope for was to work in the fields.
I never imagined anything more than that.
I can tell myself it’s because I’m a realist, but the truth is, I’m a coward.
You can’t be hurt if you don’t try.
I don’t know when it happened—when I stopped reaching for things.
Maybe around my first bleed, that first heavy reminder of our place in this world.
But I think I’m ready to start striving for something more.
When I hear Ryker’s boots on the ladder, I spring from the bed.
He must’ve forgotten something, but I’m glad.
I’m going to surprise him, tell him yes—but a dark-shrouded figure emerges through the door covering.
Before I can grab one of the knives, he has me up against the wall, crushing the hilt of his blade against my windpipe.
“Anders…” I try to get free, but he only presses harder.
“Don’t talk.
Listen.
Tonight, when the moon is highest in the sky, you will leave.” I’m blindly groping the walls behind me, desperate to find something I can use as a weapon.
“There will be a candle and a shroud waiting for you at the foot of the ladder.” I’m struggling against him, trying to grasp his arm, but it’s no use.
“I will make sure your path is clear and marked to the breach in the fence.
There, you will take off the shrouds, leaving them behind, and then slither back into your hole, where you belong.”  “Ryker…,” I whisper, straining to speak.
“He’ll kill you first.”  “You need to know that I’ll be coming back here at first light with every poacher in this camp.
If you’re not gone, and Ryker chooses to protect you, I won’t be able to stop them.”  “He’ll never forgive you for this.”  “If you breathe a word to him… if you don’t follow my exact instructions, I will kill you.
And if you think you’re safe behind that wall, you’re wrong.
Do you see my face?” he says, forcing me to look him in the eyes.
“I’m the only person who’s ever survived the curse, which means I’m immune.
If you try to get a message to him… if you try to lure him to the fence… if you so much as breathe in his direction, I’ll know.
And I’d rather watch him die a thousand deaths than watch him betray his family… his oath.”  “You mean, betray you,” I manage to get out.
He gets so close to my face that I can smell the bitter herbs clinging to his breath.
“I would love nothing more than to peel the skin from your face like an overripe peach.” He takes in a deep breath through his nostrils, regaining his composure.
“But I don’t want to hurt him.
And I don’t think you want to, either.
Play nice, play by my rules.
Or I will come for you.”        I don’t know how long I sit there, running through every possible scenario, but by the time I find the will to move, the day has passed me by.
The sky is smudged in pinks and purples—not unlike the colors my neck will be, come morning.
Hearing boots on the bottom tread of the ladder, I start rushing around, gathering my meager belongings, my cloak, my boots, my stockings.
I don’t know what I’m going to say to him, but I don’t even know if it’s Ryker.
What if it’s Anders coming back to finish the job… or the guards… Even if it’s Hans, how could I begin to explain this?
Grabbing a knife, I crouch next to the table.
My hands are trembling.
A shrouded figure steps inside.
I’m ready to slice his tendons wide open.
“Tierney?” Ryker calls out.
I let out a shuddering breath; he turns to find me crumpled on the floor.
“Hey… hey… it’s okay,” he says.
“I’m here.
I’m not going to let anything happen to you.
I told you that.”  As he pries the knife out of my hand and pulls me to my feet, I hold on to him, tighter than I’ve ever held on to anyone.
“Everything’s good now.
I talked with Anders.
He’s on our side.
You have nothing to fear from him.
He wants to help.”  I’m opening my mouth to try and tell him what happened when he says, “I have something for you.
Anders actually helped me find it.
He knows a place.”  He takes a piece of linen from his pocket, holding it as gently as if he’s carrying a butterfly.
Peeling back the layers, he reveals a tattered deep blue pansy.
I feel a distant memory tugging at me.
My veiling day.
I was on my way to meet Michael when I stopped to look at the flowers… there was a woman working in the greenhouse who told me that one day someone would give me a flower—that it would be a little withered around the edges, but it would mean just the same.
A wave of raw emotion rises inside of me.
What she didn’t tell me was that it would mean so much more.
Looking up at him, I have to blink back the tears.
I doubt Ryker knows what it means—he probably just thought it was pretty, but it’s hard not to see it as a sign.
“This is the flower of good-bye,” I whisper.
“A bittersweet parting.”  “I thought it meant everlasting love,” he says.
“That’s a blue violet,” I explain.
“I guess Anders isn’t as good with flowers as he thinks he is.”  “It’s a tricky one,” I reply.
But I think Anders knew exactly what he was doing when he picked this.
“Can we just pretend it’s a violet?” He smiles.
Desperate to hide my feelings, I nod, and quickly turn away, placing the bloom on the edge of the table.
As he takes off his shroud, I realize how good I’ve gotten at pretending.
Pretending not to notice the knives covering nearly every surface—knives that were specially designed to peel my flesh.
Pretending that eating preserves out of the same kind of jar they use to store our body parts in to sell back to the county is perfectly normal.
Pretending this isn’t crazy… that we could actually get away with it… live happily ever after.
But there’s one thing in all of this that’s not pretend.
I’m in love with him.
I may not be able to spend my life with him, grow old with him, but I can choose to give him my heart.
My body.
My soul.
That’s the one thing they will never be able to control in me.
Untying the bow from my ribbon, I wait for him.
He swallows hard before stepping toward me.
Taking in slow, measured breaths, he twirls the strand around his finger.
Our eyes meet.
The energy radiating between us is so intense it feels like we might burn down the world.
As he pulls the strand, releasing my braid, I know I should avert my gaze, turn my eyes to God, the way we’re taught, but in this moment, all I want is for him to see me.
To be seen.
As he lifts my slip over my head, it’s like lifting my veil.
As I unbutton his trousers, I’m accepting his flower.
When he presses his skin against mine, the bloom he chose for me opens up, filling the space with a heady perfume of longing and pain.
Entirely ephemeral.
Absolutely forbidden.
And completely out of our control.
Dropping the ribbon to the floor, the last confine the county holds over me, I lead him to the bed.
He’s a poacher.
I’m prey.
Nothing will ever change that.
But in this small treetop cabin, away from our home, and the men who named us, we are still human beings, longing for connection, to feel something more than despair in this bleak year.
With nothing but the moon and the stars as our witness, he lies beside me.
Pressing our palms together, entwining our fingers, we breathe in time.
This is exactly where we need to be.
There’s no second-guessing, no thinking.
And when his lips meet mine, the world disappears.
Like magic.
Tonight, as I lie next to him, I memorize every inch of him with my fingertips.
Every scar.
Every chiseled ridge.
I whisper secrets into his skin, everything I’ve longed to tell him, and when I run out of breath, I place the deep blue flower in the palm of his hand.
He’ll know what it means.
As bittersweet as it is, I can’t help thinking that maybe it survived for exactly this occasion.
Because words would fail me, my lips would betray me.
But this flower will tell him everything he wants to hear, everything he needs to tell himself.
He can read into every petal, every fall, every rivet in the stem, but the meaning will remain the same.
Good-bye.
He’ll probably be wondering if he did something, said something to make me leave, or maybe he’ll just think I was spooked by Anders.
No matter the cause, no matter the pain, he’ll understand it was for the best—inevitable.
He saved my life.
And now it’s time for me to save his.
Gathering my things, I descend the ladder.
I see Anders was true to his word, placing the candle and the shroud beneath the blind, but the candle has burned down to the quick, leaving nothing but a pool of soft wax.
As I look up at the sky, a feeling of dread presses down on me.
I thought it was just before dawn, but the sun has been up for hours, hidden beneath thick dark clouds.
I stayed too long.
Wrapping the shroud around my body, my face, I smell fetid meat and bitter herbs.
It smells of Anders.
Bumping into something hanging from the ladder, I grab on to it to stop the noise.
I know that sound.
It’s the wind chime Anders made.
I can’t help wondering if these are the discarded bones of grace year girls.
If that’s what will happen to me.
Stepping away from the shore, back toward the barrier, feels wrong.
Like something my body isn’t supposed to do.
He said he’d mark the trail.
I’m searching for a pattern, anything that stands out, when I spot the orange-yellow leaves of the butterfly weed marking the trail.

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