“Why not?” says Janey. “All the others have.”
Amanda starts to cry softly, her mouth gasping and twisting and her brows knotted into a tangle, hating herself for looking weak and foolish. “Janey, I can’t do it again. I can’t watch her go through everything I went through. When I married, I thought, okay, it’s over, I’m free. But I’m not free. She’s pulling me back. Seeing it happen to her will be ten times worse than going through it myself. And you know I barely made it through myself.”
“Everyone makes it through,” says Janey softly.
“I hate it,” says Amanda savagely, clenching her fists in the cloth of her dress. “I can’t even look at little girls sometimes, knowing what’s happening to them. I’m so tired of what they do to us.”
“What do you mean?” asks Janey carefully.
“You know what I mean! Since I was a girl. The love, the love that felt…wrong. It made me sick. Mother hating me, blaming me like it was my fault! The first time it happened, I hurt so badly I thought I was going to die. I thought he was killing me, that I’d done something terrible and was being punished for it. I didn’t know what I had done. And then it was over, and I realized I would live, and I thought, at least I’ll never have to do that again. And then every night. Or almost. The nights it didn’t happen, I wondered if I was dead, if I had finally been able to die. There was nobody to help, nobody to save me. It became normal, like putting on my shoes or washing my face. And yet every time I lay down I would remember the first time, and I would freeze, and shake, and stare at the ceiling crying, and he didn’t even notice. And then I realized that it happened to others—that it was supposed to happen, that it wasn’t a punishment for anything, it was just how things were. And nobody else even seemed to mind, the girls, they didn’t seem to care. And so I started running away, so I didn’t turn into them. So I didn’t stop caring, because that just felt…wrong.”
Amanda wipes tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands and dares a glance at Janey. Janey’s eyes are sharp and clear, but her dirty face is lined and heavy, like an old woman’s.
“They care,” Janey whispers.
“I saw how different it could be during the summer of fruition, I thought okay, now I’m free. It’s over. It will never happen again. And then I did the ritual and found out it’s a girl. And I’ll have to watch, and to know. Maybe I can slip her a sleeping draft or try to distract Andrew but not all the time. I love him.” Amanda is sobbing so hard she can barely speak. “I love him and I’m going to hate him, or worse I’ll love him and hate her, and this man, this good man is going to turn into…turn into Father…” Her voice trails away in hysterical crying. Taking a deep breath, she tries to halt her sobs. “I love her—I already love her, I don’t even want to but I do, and I can’t stop it.”
“So you want to leave?” asks Janey, staring intently at her.
“Maybe to the wastelands. I know they’re terrible and burning and whatever Pastor Saul says. But they have to be better than here.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know,” she says, starting to cry again. “If I had a wanderer father, or knew somebody, someone. I know there’s a ferry, that has to mean something. Maybe we can swim, who knows? Nobody’s ever tried. But one thing is certain, I’m leaving. And I want you to come with me.”
“Amanda, I can’t leave Mary.”
“So bring her with us.”
“I know you want to leave, but—”
“I will leave. I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll kill people if I have to. I’ll kill the ferryman. And if I can’t find a way, I’ll kill her. And myself. I don’t care.”
“Amanda,” says Janey, suddenly stern, like she is the adult and Amanda is a wayward child. Amanda looks at her stubbornly. “You will not kill yourself, or your baby.”
“No,” whispers Amanda. “I’m too scared of the darkness below.” She laughs mirthlessly. “Everything I’m saying would put me there anyway. But I’m still scared. Isn’t that stupid?”
Janey sighs. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Will you help me search? For a way out? I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll threaten the wanderers, talk to their wives. Someone must know something. Will you help me?”
After a pause, Janey nods.
Leaning forward, Amanda kisses Janey, like she is placing an imprint on Janey’s dirty lips; a seal or some kind of vow. Janey sits up straight, her eyes turning to dark gray, flickering in the candlelight. Then suddenly they are black pits as her pupils dilate in alarm. Someone is there.
Amanda hears footsteps. A cough, a shuffle, the thump of something being dropped. Terrified, she leaps up from the table and runs into the main room. There is a pile of wood on the floor—a delivery for Andrew. She can smell unfamiliar masculine sweat, sawdust, leather boots. Dashing to the door, she sees a man in netting jogging away from the house.
“Janey?” she calls in a sudden panic. “Janey, it’s not Andrew. Someone’s been here, someone…” She trails off, and hears only silence.
Breathing quickly, she runs to the kitchen, but Janey isn’t there. Through the window she can just make out a tall, gaunt figure blending deeper into the night.
Chapter Seventeen
Amanda
One day toward the end of summer, Amanda is standing in the kitchen when she hears someone run up, panting, and slap something against the door. When she cracks the front door open, four or five mosquitoes hum in before she snatches the scrap of paper and slams the door shut. The note is written on the terrible, flaky paper they have this year. From the way it’s falling apart, she can tell it’s already passed through a number of hands. Squinting, she moves to a window to read the smudged charcoal.
Friends, let us meet before we die of loneliness. Bring something to eat. Wednesday at five in the afternoon. Come to Mrs. Betty Balthazar’s. Chaperoned by Mr. Balthazar. Pass to your nearest neighbor.