I allow myself to collapse, to fall to the ground while the water washes over me. Jed comes to kneel by me. He lays a hand on my cheek, asks me what I'm doing.
I grin, wide and strong. I tell him to leave me be.
He looks at me for a long moment, the water dripping from his hair and nose and chin.
And then he leaves me alone, for he understands my loss.
Water pools around me; I become part of the flow. I imagine myself in the ocean, every breath of air tinged with water. My lungs revolting as if I'm drowning.
The path beneath me softens into mud and I roll, allowing it to coat me, thrashing in the water and muck and tears.
I yell at the thunder. Shout at the lightning. I scream at the Unconsecrated, demanding to know why they have taken everything from me.
But the Unconsecrated only moan and paw at the fences.
I stand, race up and down the path, waving my fists. Baiting them. But they drop their hands. They wander away, shuffling down to taunt Harry and Jacob and Jed with their hunger.
Angry, I race to the fences, thrust my fingers through the links and shake with all my might. I bang against the metal.
But they leave me be. The Unconsecrated slip past me as if I'm not even there. The water and mud masking my scent.
Finally, Harry braves the rain again and comes to me where I'm slumped against the fence. He pulls me back just as Unconsecrated fingers slip through my hair like a fleeting memory.
With gentle movements he wipes the mud from my face. And then he pulls me to his chest and as the storm rages around us and the Unconsecrated beat at the fences he whispers in my ear, “I miss him too.”
For a moment we are one in our grief, and then we hear the shouts.
I look up to see Jed skidding down the path, waving his scythe in the air above his head. When my eyes meet his he stops and motions us forward. I can't hear what he is shouting.
Harry and I stand, find our footing and follow.
We pass Cass and Jacob shivering under a wide bush. Argos begins to trail after me and I hesitate and then push him back toward Jacob. The little boy grasps at the dog's scruff, burying his head in the fur at his neck. Argos looks up at me and whimpers slightly. I flip one of his ears through my fingers, scratching the tip, and his eyes relax into contented slits as he slides to the ground against Jacob. Absently the little boy rests a hand on the dog's tummy, fingers drumming, causing Argos's left hind leg to twitch. Cass glances up and mouths “Thank you” and keeps her arms tight around Jacob, returning her lips to his ears as if recounting some secret story.
I run to catch up with Harry and Jed where they wait still and silent. Here the path is wide enough for us to stand shoulder to shoulder all in a row, Jed taking center position.
He lifts the scythe, pointing down the path, and then lets it drop as if the effort is too much.
I take a step closer, not sure of what I am seeing, not sure if my eyes betray me. I can hear Harry's breathing, ragged from running all the way down here.
I sink to my knees; the sharp sting of a rock digs into my flesh, causing a small trickle of blood to mix with the rain slipping down my shin.
It's the end of the fence. The end of the path. There's nothing beyond but Forest. Another dead end.
My shoulders slump, my fingers trailing in the mud.
“I'm sorry, Mary,” Jed says. Because he knows that this was my hope.
“I guess we wait through the rain,” Harry says. “Hope that it kills off the fire. And then retrace our steps, go back to where the path splits and take another route.”
I shake my head, drops of water falling from the ends of my hair and my ears.
“This was the path,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
“We will find another one,” Harry says, trying to calm me. Trying to make me feel better. But it doesn't help.
I believed so strongly that this was the correct path. That this would lead me out of the Forest and to the ocean.
“Maybe …,” I say, standing and wincing as the pain from my knee slices up my leg. I take a step forward.
“Don't do anything stupid, Mary,” Harry says. “This is just another dead end. We've encountered them before. No doubt we will again. This path wasn't anything special. None of them is.”
I shake my head again. There is something about this path that's different—something about this dead end that looks different from the rest.
I trace my fingers around the edges of the fence until they brush against the metal bar. “It's a gate,” I say as thunder booms overhead. I turn back to Harry and Jed, their figures obscured by the thick rain.
“It's a gate!” I shout. I feel for the metal bar to find the letters and turn it until I can read what it says: I for the number one. This is the first gate.
They glance at each other and then come to stand beside me.
“But the fences don't continue past the gate,” Harry says. “It just opens into the Forest—why would there be a gate if this is the end of the path?”
My heart hammers hard in my chest, thumping so fiercely that my breath comes out in puffs at the same rhythm. If this is the first gate it has to be the beginning and the end.
“Because we're supposed to go out into the Forest,” I say. With every beat of my heart I know this to be true.
But Harry just laughs. “How ridiculous,” he says. And then he sees my face. Sees me calculating the Forest past the fences. He grabs me by the shoulders. “You don't honestly believe that, do you?”
My breaths come rapidly now and I nod my head.
Jed steps in at that moment. “Mary, you cannot be serious!” He pulls me away from Harry. “Why would anyone expect someone to go out into that?” he says, waving a hand at the deep dark Forest.
“I don't know,” I tell him. “But it does not matter. This is the gate that will take us to the ocean. To the end of the Forest.” I point to the metal bar. “It's marked with the number one. The letters correspond with numbers and this is the first gate. This has to be the way.”
Hearing me, Harry throws his hands into the air and turns his back, his fingers massaging his temples as if that will help him control his apparent anger.
“Mary,” he says. He turns back to me and places his hand against my cheek and it slips down my face in the slick rain. He then takes my hand in his. I look at our twined fingers and it reminds me of the day down by the river when all of this first started.
Of the time we held hands under the water of the stream and he asked me to be his. All at once I realize all the pain I have caused him since then. The betrayal, the uncertainty.
“I'm sorry,” I tell him. The rain drips into my mouth as I talk. “I am so sorry for everything.”
He tilts his head. “Why would you be sorry?” he asks.
“You would have been a good husband to me,” I tell him.
The truth dawns on him that I plan to go through the gate and leave him and his grip on my hand tightens. “I always cared for you, Mary.”
I smile then, just a little. I wonder for a moment what my life would have been like if I had never held Harry's hand under the water that day. If I had finished the laundry on time, joined my mother on the hill while she looked for my father. Kept her from straying too close to the fences and getting infected.
I never would have joined the Sisters, I never would have fallen in love with Travis or met Gabrielle. I never would have learned their secrets and pined for a life outside the fences. I would have married Harry; our children would have grown up knowing Cass and Travis's children, Jed and Beth's.
I could have been content. Maybe even happy.
But fulfilled?
Harry drops my arm from his grasp. “But we both know you didn't want to be with me.”
I open my mouth to protest but he shakes his head. “You never did,” he adds.
I shake my head to clear it. “That world no longer exists,” I tell him. “We have to find our own way now. And for me that means going through the gate.” I glance over at Jed before continuing. “Please,” I tell Harry. “Go back to Cass. Stay with her and Jacob now. You know she hates the thunder.”
“But what if we're the last people?” he asks. “What if we are all that's left? If you leave us you aren't just damning us but all of humanity.”
“If we are all that is left,” I tell him, “then maybe we weren't meant to survive. Maybe we've only been postponing the inevitable by staying trapped in our village.”
“Cass was right—you're only chasing stupid bedtime stories and it's selfish,” he says as he throws his double-bladed ax to the ground and turns on his heel and walks away from me, back down the path into the damp darkness.
I pick up the ax, test its heft in my hand, the handle slippery with rain and mud.
“There's another way,” Jed says as soon as Harry is out of earshot. “There are other paths, probably other villages. This can't be the only way to the ocean, if it even exists.”
I watch the water trail down his cheeks and drip from his jaw. “No, this is the one.”
Again I see Jed's irritation flash across his face. “But how can you know, Mary?” he shouts. His muscles seem tight with frustration.
I throw my hands in the air, equally frustrated. “Because I figured out the code and it works. Because according to the code this is the first gate,” I shout back. “Because They wouldn't have put a gate here for no reason—”
“We don't even know who They are, Mary! How can we trust that They put a gate there for a reason? They've built these fences, these paths everywhere. Don't you think that if there was something important out there that They wanted us to find They would have just built a path there?”
“Jed, all I know is that—”
“You don't know anything! You asked us to take it on faith that we were following the right path and it led us to that village—”
“But it was the right path. And it was not on faith. I knew where we were going, I knew how to read the signs on the path. It led us to Gabrielle's village.”
“It led us to a death trap, Mary.”
“We had no other options, Jed!” I am panting now, my chest heaving and hands clenched into fists. “Why do you even care if I go through that gate?” I ask him. I can see that he's taken aback by the question. “You turned me away after our mother died!”
He steps back, his shoulders slumping a bit. He looks off into the Forest and for a moment we listen to the rain crash down around us. “Because you are all I have left of family,” he says.
Chapter 34
“Mary, we can still go back,” Jed says, rain flying from his fingers as he waves his hands. “We can let the rain douse the fire. Backtrack, take another path. The fire would have killed most of the Unconsecrated. We have a few weapons, we could get through it.”
I can see how his eyes shine with the possibility.
“We might find another village, a healthy one. We could have a life….” He lets his voice trail off. “It's what I have wanted.” He speaks so softly I almost miss his words as they slip under the thunder. “Mary, why chase old dreams? What can the ocean give you that we cannot?”
I wonder if he's right. If my dreams of the ocean are only that: childhood dreams. Fancies. I wonder how I could have ever believed there was a place untouched by the Return. A world alive outside the Forest.
I think about turning back, of sliding back down the path and following its twists and turns, never knowing if we are going in the right direction.
“At least wait until morning before making a decision,” Jed says, his voice gentle, sensing my hesitation. I can feel his hands around my wrist, tugging me back down the path. And a part of me wants to give in.
I hear a moan; I hear the familiar sound of bones breaking as Unconsecrated force their fingers and hands through the fence links.
“But tomorrow will be too late,” I tell Jed, jerking my wrist free. “The Unconsecrated will surround us tomorrow. Will surround the gate.”
Jed sweeps a hand at the fence, water flinging from his fingers. “They surround us now and you want to go out there?”
“But it's raining now, Jed. It will throw off my scent. This is the only time I can go.”
I can already feel my limbs begin to shake in terror and so I place one fist on my hip, hoping he won't notice how the ax trembles in my free hand. I wonder if he thinks I don't have the courage to follow through. If I will go to the gate and hesitate. Lose my nerve, turn back.
“Mary, it won't work. I tried that with Beth in the rain but she was still attacked.”
“She was attacked by Gabrielle,” I counter. “And Gabrielle is gone.” I think of her desiccated body the last time I saw her. I wonder if she has finally found peace or if she lives on, unable to move, staring into the sky.
Jed still shakes his head no but I stand straight, throw back my shoulders. I resist the urge to close my eyes as I place my hand on the latch holding the gate locked.
“I promised Travis that I wouldn't give up hope,” I tell him. “I promised him that I wouldn't accept safe and calm. Not at the expense of my dreams.”
“What are your dreams worth if you're dead?” he asks, his voice soft.
In response I turn the latch and slip through the opening. I'm already a few paces away when I hear Jed call out to me but I don't stop.
I am in the Forest of Hands and Teeth now. No longer protected by fences. There are no Unconsecrated by the gate and none that I can see or hear anywhere in the immediate darkness.
For the first time in my life I am the one on the other side of the fence.