“Theo came to Pastoral two winters ago; it was his truck he found down the road, and I—” Her voice breaks off, and suddenly I don’t want her to continue; I don’t want to hear what she’s going to say next. I have the feeling it’s going to break me open, sever me into more halves. “I used to live on the outside,” she says, each word a tiptoe, a creeping dance around the truth of what she’s getting at. “My name was Maggie St. James. I was a writer, but then I came here. It was many years ago, five… no, seven years now, I can’t really remember, but I know—” The bathwater has gone cold, and I don’t want to be in this room, I don’t want to hear the rest. “Bee, I’m not…”
I know what she’s going to say, because somewhere in the faltering cracks of my mind, I think I’ve always known. I feel it in the cold water pressed against my skin, the bitter sharp line of truth and lies has been threatening to split me apart for too long—a calloused wound I’ve been rubbing over and over again, trying to peel it open, to see what’s beneath, but also afraid it would hurt too badly. A knowing that something isn’t right in this house, that at times, Calla and Theo have felt like strangers. And yet, also two people I couldn’t possibly live without.
Calla is not my sister.
And I’m not hers.
But I don’t want to hear her say it, because I remember summers with her when we were kids, I remember when our parents died and she ran out to the pond and I sat alone in the house, crying silently by myself.
Or maybe I cried alone, because she wasn’t out at the pond, because she wasn’t there at all. Because they weren’t her parents and I had no sister and I was always alone. I press the heels of my palms to my eyes—my mind a mess of too much noise.
Before she can say the words aloud, I ask, “Why do we remember things that didn’t happen?”
Her breathing is low, strange. “I don’t know, but I do know Levi has lied to us, and we can’t stay here. Not anymore.”
I turn my head away, toward the window, listening for the birdsong, for the insects tapping against the glass, needing a reminder of why this place is my home. But my heartbeat is too loud in my ears, the blood roaring now, as if it’s looking for a way out. “I’m pregnant,” I say.
Calla is quiet, and then she says, “I know.”
And I know my sister is right: We can’t stay here. Levi has broken me, and I won’t raise our child and watch him look at her with bland indifference, as though she means nothing to him. I won’t watch him raise a family and feel the blotting out of my soul as he slowly forgets about me. I think of Colette, how Ash went over the boundary to save their child. He loved her enough to risk his life, while Levi doesn’t even love me enough to raise the baby growing inside me.
The idea that’s been taking shape in the far back of my mind, finally rises to the surface. “I won’t leave without Colette and her baby,” I say. She deserves more than this place, more than what’s happened to her. She’s already lost her husband; I won’t let her stay and watch her child die too.
Calla fidgets with something, a small metal sound tink tinking, as if she’s wearing a bracelet or a necklace I can’t see. “We’ll leave tonight,” she answers.
CALLA
What does a person pack when they’re leaving their home and likely not coming back?
I stand at the back door, the small cotton sack filled with a loaf of bread, a jar of sweet blackberry preserves, two candles in case it gets dark (I have no idea how long the trip out of these woods will take), and my best sweater—no holes at the collar or hemline. But somehow, they feel like the wrong things.
Nerves wind their way up my tailbone, and I touch the necklace around my neck. It belonged to me once: the old me, the watercolor me, forgotten, dripped from canvas onto the floor and faded into the cracks. Only a smear of gray colors now. I recall opening a black box with gold ribbon, and inside lay the necklace with a single charm hanging from the end. I held the chain up to the afternoon light, through a window that overlooked a city and a bayfront in the distance. I wrote five books in the Foxtail series, and I received five silver charms, each sent to me from my editor—a women whose name I can’t recall—once the books were published.
“You ready?” Theo asks, his voice breaching my mind, pulling me back. He stands at the front door, holding it open for me.
Bee has already left the house, gone to get Colette and the baby, while Theo and I will go to Levi’s and retrieve the keys to his truck—which he believes are in a drawer in Levi’s office—then we will all meet on the road near the gate, where we will flee together.
I nod at Theo, releasing the necklace—the cut on my forearm throbbing—and when he closes the door behind us, I look back over my shoulder. The life we built in this house felt real, a lifetime’s worth, but it was never ours to begin with.
“You okay?” Theo asks.
“We might never come back here,” I say, choking on the words.
He touches my hand, tightens his fingers through mine, and we walk away from the house. But I don’t look back again, for fear I’ll change my mind.
PART FOUR THE ROAD
BEE
The knife is tucked into the waistline of my skirt.
I didn’t mean to hurt Calla, but now I know the feeling of flesh peeling open beneath the weight of the blade. And it wasn’t so bad. I could do it again—if I needed to.
I make my way up the path to the birthing hut, my skin still damp, but my body buzzing. I don’t fully understand why my sister is not my sister, why my memories feel clotted with moss and dust, but there is also a clearing away, a sharpness to my thoughts that I haven’t known in years. Like the broken memories are being swept out by a sudden autumn wind, and I’m finally beginning to separate the fairy tales from the truth.
When I reach the birthing hut, I can hear the voices inside: Faye and Colette, even the soft whimpering of the baby who has yet to be given a name—Colette too afraid to name her, knowing she might not last long enough to bear it properly.
I stand outside the closed door of the small domed building, not knowing what I’ll say when I enter. I need to convince Colette to come with me—make her understand. I touch the knob, about to push the door inward, when it swings wide and Faye steps out—I can smell her lemony scent.
“Bee,” she says, startled. “Where’ve you been?”
Sleeping in the trees, past the perimeter where I shouldn’t go.