If Levi catches me, I doubt he’ll believe whatever lie I tell—not now, after everything that’s happened. There is a part of him that fears me—and always has. He knew I would betray him someday, that he would lose control, and he was right. A fury boils up inside me, embers that smoldered for too long, and now have been set ablaze.
The house is quiet—vacant. I’m sure of it.
Even if he and Alice were asleep—which they wouldn’t be at this evening hour—I would hear their breathing through the walls, the weight of them lying in bed, and the pressure through the floorboards. The house would tell me if they were here.
I hurry through the kitchen into the living room. I touch the walls only a few times, to be certain of where I am, but otherwise I move without need for markers. I know this house nearly as well as my own.
Inside the pocket of my skirt, I pull out the dried daffodil.
I plucked it from between the pages of the dictionary in my bedroom before I left the farmhouse. At first, I thought maybe I would take it with me, the one thing of value I didn’t want to leave behind, but as I strode up the path toward the birthing hut, I realized it wasn’t that at all. I needed to give the flower back. At one time, it meant something to me, the first thing Levi gave me when we were young and clear-eyed with our hands always woven together, our mouths pressed as one.
But now, the delicate white petals only remind me of what Levi has done: broken me. So I will leave the dried daffodil behind, placed in his house, a symbol that I am leaving and never coming back. That I don’t love him anymore.
My fingers trail along the edge of the couch, considering where to leave the flower. Maybe I should climb the stairs and place it on his pillow, where Alice would see it when they slid into bed, a tiny perfect daffodil pressed flat, left for them to find. She would ask questions, she would demand to know who left it.
But somewhere in my gut, I know it doesn’t matter what Alice thinks, if she leaves him or not. Because I’m leaving and not coming back.
I walk to the fireplace and feel the wood mantel, a good place to set it, a fitting place. He might not notice it tonight, it might take him a day or two, but that would give us time to get far away from Pastoral before he realizes the truth.
I’m about to place the daffodil on the mantel, when I hear the back door off the kitchen swing open. Levi’s returned. And he’s not alone, there’s another voice—his wife. I can smell her clove and sugar-sweet scent.
I freeze, a stone sinking into my gut—but I need to move, get out of here before they see me. I drop to the floor and scramble behind one of the chairs.
Alice whispers something I can’t make out, then laughs. She doesn’t know the awful, traitorous things he’s done to me. That someday he might do to her. But hearing them together, causes a new rage to simmer up into my throat. I want to cry, I want to wail from some primal part inside myself. But most of all, I want to hurt him.
Their footsteps carry across the kitchen. More furtive words, vows of devotion, I’m sure. I hate him.
I wait for the sound of their feet moving up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom. For the rush of clothes being peeled away. For the heaviness of their breathing. But none of it comes. Instead, I hear the soft click of the back door again. And then nothing.
Maybe they only slipped inside to steal a kiss away from the eyes of the others, and now they have returned to their evening chores—Alice to prepare the yeast in the community kitchen for tomorrow’s loaves, Levi to survey the daily routines of the community. Perhaps they have left.
But I stay crouched, listening, wanting to be sure before I rise and bolt from the house. I draw in a tight breath, holding it in so I can better hear. But my heartbeat is too loud, hammering wildly against my eardrums, making it impossible to pick out distinctive sounds.
And then… a hand is on my arm, yanking me upright.
I cry out, the breath leaving my lungs in one shuddering exhale.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Levi’s hands grip my upper arms, squeezing so hard I let out a small cry of pain, dropping the dried daffodil to the floor. He doesn’t even see it—doesn’t notice. He pulls me away from the chair, away from the flattened little flower. “Why are you in my house?” he barks, his voice so close to my ear it feels hot, sharp against my skin, and I smell the alcohol. He’s been drinking again.
“I’m leaving Pastoral,” I spit. They are words I shouldn’t say, but they feel so good when they leave my lips, the defiance tucked under each one. The betrayal.
His breathing turns shallow and he tightens his hands on me, dragging my face close to his. “You’re not going anywhere.” This is the anger I’ve always known was inside him, bottled up, kept hidden. And even if he doesn’t want me anymore, he won’t allow me to leave Pastoral. To leave him. Not because he’s worried about me crossing the border into the woods and catching the pox, but because he needs control. Always control—especially over me.
“You thought you could leave and I wouldn’t find out,” he says, his teeth mashing together. “That I wouldn’t come after you?” He laughs, quick and serrated, then yanks me toward the stairs.
Alice is no longer in the house, the sound of the back door shutting moments ago, was her leaving—maybe she really has gone back to finish up her work.
“I always knew you would try to leave,” he says, words mumbled, hardly making any sense. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long.” He drags me up the stairs, my legs giving out, unable to keep up when I can’t see each stair before it comes. I fall to my knees but he doesn’t slow; he keeps pulling me up, my shins banging against each step, tearing open the flesh. “You probably thought you’d take Colette and her baby with you too.” His hands pinch into my flesh. “You wanted to get help for her from the start; you never trusted my decision.”
“Levi,” I plead. “Stop.”