The Forest of Hands and Teeth

His eyes become harder, deeper, and he shakes his head. “No,” he says. And then he leaves and I'm escorted back to my room where I collapse and sob. I pull at my hair and pound my fists against my thighs and throw myself onto the ground in front of the dying fire.

Once upon a time life with Harry might have been acceptable. Once upon a time my mother's stories were only fancies and my world was sunny and warm and full of love and friends. But there was never excitement. There was no such thing as life beyond the village. Before I may have had a crush on Travis, but it was a simple childish longing that could have easily been erased by the contentment of being asked to marry Harry.

But all that has changed now. Both Mother and Father are Unconsecrated, Travis is broken, Cass is absent, Jed no longer cares enough to even speak to me when he comes to the Cathedral for worship.

And there is life outside the Forest.

I can hear the Unconsecrated moaning. The sound carries over the old dingy snow and through the window. I think again about how uncomplicated their life is, how much easier. I wonder why we all fight against it, why we have struggled against them for so long rather than just accepting our fate.

No longer caring about the consequences, I slip out of my room and march down the hall and up the steps toward where the Outsider is being kept. I am about to shove someone out of my way when I realize who it is: Cassandra.

She is coming out of Travis's old room.

“Cass?” I ask. “What are you doing here?” I reach out for a hug and she obliges but her arms are weak and limp around me. It has been weeks since we have seen each other, months since we have spent time together as friends the way we used to before my mother became Unconsecrated. For the first time I realize just how far we have drifted apart and how much I have missed her friendship, missed having someone to confide my fear and pain and confusion in.

She lets me go first and pulls the door behind her until she hears the click, cutting off the only source of light in the narrow hallway. “I am here for Travis,” she tells me.

My breath catches in my throat, thoughts of the Outsider suddenly eclipsed. “He's well? He's back upstairs?”

She nods and tugs on her long blond braid and bites her lip with her top teeth. “Travis is mine now, Mary. Just like Harry is yours.”

“I…” I want to tell her that she's wrong and that Travis loves me and will always be mine. But of course that's not true. Travis was never mine. Even during those long nights praying together I knew Travis belonged to someone else. He was always Cass's. Just as I am now Harry's.

She lets go of her braid and places a hand on my arm and I have to force myself not to wince. “You must let him go, Mary,” she tells me, her fingers digging into my skin. “He would follow you anywhere and he cannot. He just cannot.”

“But…”

“You know, I fell in love with Harry. Just in the last few weeks, when Travis's pain was too much for me.” She looks past my shoulder, as if she is somewhere other than in a hallway deep in the Cathedral. “We spent so much time together. He held my hand. I was certain he was going to ask for me.” She is back to tugging at her braid. “I was so certain that he loved me.” Her gaze lands on me, narrow and sharp. “But then he asked for you instead.”

Too many thoughts swirl in my head. “I thought you were being courted by Travis. I thought he asked you to the Harvest Celebration.” I think back to all the times Cass visited Travis, all the times she knelt by his bed and comforted him and I took her dedication as love and possession. “How could Harry ask for you if you were already pledged?”

She cocks her head to the side as if she is seeing me for the first time in ages. “Sister Tabitha gave me the option of ending the courtship,” she tells me. “They weren't sure that he would survive the infection and even if he did they assumed he would be crippled and therefore not a suitable husband able to physically care for a wife. I came to visit him out of loyalty and friendship. Just like you.”

Of course Cass would visit Travis in his time of need, courtship or not—all of us have known each other our whole lives, have grown up together almost as if we were our own family.

“Then what happened?” I ask her.

Her eyes harden. “Harry asked for you instead of me.”

“But why?” My voice is shallow, desperate.

A muscle ripples along her jaw. Slowly, she shrugs, tilting her head toward her shoulder as she does.

“It doesn't have to be this way,” I tell her. I've never seen Cass like this—so serious and resolute and somber.

“It does,” she says.

“But if you love Harry and I…” I stop but we both know what I am about to say.

“You love Travis,” she finishes for me. I can only stand in silence, my hands hanging by my sides. I let my head drop. Not for the first time today my legs feel weak and I am empty inside. How can everything have gone so wrong so quickly?

“I'm sorry,” I finally whisper.

“I know you didn't mean it,” she says, placing a hand on my arm. “Just as I didn't mean to fall for Harry.” I can't look into her eyes, I can't let her see my hesitation. Because I know that I did mean it. Never did I stop in my desire for Travis, even when I saw Cass with him and how she had cried by his bed. All this time I knew they were pledged. That I was tempting Travis to break his word, to reject my best friend in order to be with me and that he loved me enough to do just that.

I place my hand over hers but she pulls away, her cool flesh slipping from mine. “I just don't understand why we can't change this. If this isn't the way things should be, if this isn't what we want—”

“Harry spoke for you, Mary,” she says through her teeth. “He has made his choice. He has chosen you over me. And if he intends for me to marry Travis, then that is what I shall do.”

Cass is so fervent in her proclamation that it scares me. She has always been the carefree girl, the happy one who pushes worries and problems to the side.

“But we can still change this, Cass.” I lean toward her. “I will talk to Harry, I will tell him that I do not want to be with him—”

Quick as a snake she reaches out her hand, grabs my shoulder, pulls me to her until our faces are close. In the dimness of the hallway she seems to be nothing but shadows, her eyebrows drawn together in a fierce scowl. “You will do no such thing. You will not break his heart like that.”

“But this isn't the way things should be. If I want to be with Travis—”

She cuts me off again by shaking my arm, pushing me back against the wall of the hallway. “If you break Harry's heart, I promise that I will never let go of Travis. You will be alone. You will be sent back here to the Sisters.” She pauses and as if reading my mind adds, “And don't think that Travis will reject me for you. He would never do that to his own brother. You must realize that anything he may have once felt is gone now that Harry has officially spoken for you. Now that you are to be his brother's wife.”

Her words pierce through my body. I have never seen her like this, so bitter and sharp and stormy. “But, Cass, don't you see? You don't love Travis. And he doesn't love you!” I know I am being harsh and cruel but she must face the truth.

She looks at me as if she doesn't understand and then laughs. “Marriage is not about love, Mary,” she says, like a teacher talking to a student. “It is about commitment and compromise and caring. None of this has ever been about love.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “But you said that you loved Harry and yet you are willing to set him aside. Why?”

Once again she shrugs. “I'm doing what is best for him. And for the village. This is the way it has to be, Mary. This is the way it will be.”

I want to shake her, to make her understand. She sounds exactly like Sister Tabitha, as if she doesn't comprehend the choices she's making for all of us. I realize just how strong the Sisters' influence is, how tightly they have bound us in their beliefs.

I open my mouth to continue arguing with Cass, but the look in her eyes, the ferocity, is too unnerving. For the first time my best friend terrifies me.

But she is also right. Even if I reject Harry, Travis would never speak for me in his place. He would never cause his brother such embarrassment or pain. It is as if every door in my life has been slammed shut, every window boarded up until there is only one path for me to take. My choice is either Harry or the Sisterhood.

And so, as my shoulders fall, I relent. “Okay,” I tell her.

She nods once. And then says, “You must let Travis go now. Today. Here.”

A protest hovers at my lips but her eyes scare me into silence. I wonder if we'll ever be friends again or if this will be the end of us. Of course we'll always be civil—the village is too small to feud—but will we share ourselves fully with each other as we did before?

Suddenly, in this moment I feel as if I have no ground, as if I have lost everything all at once and I need something to hold steady. I see my life in a flash, Cass always by my side, always listening to my stories and laughing with me and sharing our lives. Memories of our friendship fill me and tears prick my eyes. I need Cass now; I cannot lose this last tie to everything I have ever been.

“Promise me,” I tell her. “Promise me that we will still be friends, will continue to be there for each other.”

She smiles, a hint of the old Cass, the scent of sunbeams floating through the air. “Yes,” she says. And all I can think is, if it were only that simple, as I remember how it was always someone else she came to visit at the Cathedral and never me.

I look back down the hallway, past Travis's room to where the Outsider was being kept. Her door is open barely a crack, a sliver of light slipping through. Pushing past Cass, I run to the room but it's bare, no linens on the bed or any other evidence that a guest has recently occupied this space. I should have known. The window has been dark for days.

Cass stands behind me in the doorway, clearly confused. But rather than explain anything to her I walk to the window and tilt my head at an angle until I can see a handprint, the pads of the fingers clearly visible. I step closer and my breath hits the glass and words suddenly appear in the mist it leaves behind.

Gabrielle, it says, followed by a series of letters: XIV. Other than this echo, there is no evidence that she ever existed. I trace my fingers over the letters, effectively obliterating them.

“What do you see?” Cass asks, coming to stand beside me.

“Do you ever wonder if there is an end to the Forest?” I ask her. I have asked her this before and I already know what her answer will be.

She giggles, fully herself now. “You never do give up your fancies, do you, Mary?” she asks. “You know, like the ocean?”

I smile a little. Still uneasy around my friend. Still afraid of her. “Probably,” I tell her. But if there is no end to the Forest, then where did Gabrielle come from?

Even though I am a pledged woman I still live with the Sisters in the Cathedral. Sister Tabitha explains that my brother is unwilling to take me in due to his wife's delicate health during her pregnancy. But a part of me wonders if that is only a pretext and Sister Tabitha is keeping me close in order to watch me. To see if I have given up my quest for answers.

I have not. Over the next week I find excuses to enter every dwelling room in the Cathedral. There is no sign of Gabrielle. It is as if she never existed.

Chapter 10

Spring in the village means rain, baptisms and marriages. It means Edenmass, the celebration of having lived another year, of triumph over the Unconsecrated and prayers for the years to come. The centerpiece of Edenmass is the marriages. Marriage in our village is a sacred bond and the three ceremonies that cement husband and wife together are called Brethlaw—a weeklong event beginning with the Troth, leading to the Binding and ending with Vows of Eternal Constancy. It is a culmination of the winter courtships that began at the Harvest Celebration.

The most important and sacred ritual of Brethlaw is the Vows of Eternal Constancy, which forever unites the couple together as husband and wife. The night before the Vows is the Binding ceremony, in which the Sisters tie the bride's right hand to the groom's left hand and the couple spends the night in their new dwelling. They are left alone together and are given a ceremonial blade they can use to cut their Binding. It is an opportunity to air any grievances between them and their last chance to reject each other as spouse.

The days of Edenmass between the Brethlaw ceremonies are a time to christen the children born of marriages from the year before and to celebrate the conception of those yet to come. It is the village's most solemn and joyous time, honoring our survival, our existence, the continuation of our people since the Return. It is a commitment to perseverance and dedication.

As one of only two brides this year, I am dressed in a white tunic that I will wear every day this week. Early spring flowers are woven through my hair. There are four of us getting married and pledging our Troth: me and Harry, Travis and Cass.

We are standing in a row on a dais in front of the Cathedral, its hulking shape throwing shadows over us. We face our intendeds with Sister Tabitha at our side, the entire village in attendance on our other side. The spring sun is especially harsh today, moist heat rising in waves from the ground and thickening the air so that breathing is like swimming.

Sister Tabitha speaks of obligations. Of sins and life and commitment and vows. Of how we signal the constancy of our village. She reminds us of our fragility, of the dangers not just from the Unconsecrated outside the fences, but from the threats within: disease, sterility, miscarriage. She points to the four of us and talks of how sometimes generations fail us in numbers and how it is our duty to grow our ranks, add to the community's larger families. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">