“Janey,” whispers Mary, “now how will you find out about the wastelands?”
Janey shakes her head. “I don’t know. Please stop asking me questions. I just want to go home too.” They stagger toward their house, feeling contaminated by their new knowledge. It drags on them like shackles as they try to forget it ever happened. For days after, Mary wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, from nightmares of rank, infested earth slowly opening up beneath her to swallow her whole. And Janey simply doesn’t sleep.
Chapter Thirty-One
Caitlin
Caitlin is eager for the next time Janey will call the girls together. She’s not the only one; Rosie tells her that a few hopeful girls even went to church the next night, but were met with only darkness inside. After a few days pass, it seems like a dream: Janey behind the altar, everyone looking at her, the captivating notion of new islands. Caitlin feels a little foolish to have thought she knew something exciting.
But then, about two weeks after the first church visit, Rosie taps on her window again. This time, Caitlin doesn’t even crawl out on the roof, she just opens the window and nods. She puts on her shoes, recalling the freezing ground, and then takes them off again, remembering the tap they make on the floor. She remembers to bring a blanket, though, and Rosie has a shawl.
This time, nobody hesitates at the church door; they can see the soft, coral glow filtering up through the dark stairway and hovering faintly in the night air. Janey is at the altar already, pacing like a skinny, freckled Pastor Saul, scowling fiercely at them. Mary hovers near her, quiet as a graceful shadow. There are more girls here this time. You can tell the new ones, because they’re only in their nightgowns, while the girls who attended the last of Janey’s sermons are wrapped up and shod. Clutching one another and hopping up and down, the underdressed girls giggle and wince at the cold on their skin. Their collective breath turns into fog, wisping up toward the black, invisible church ceiling. There’s a smell in the air Caitlin’s never noticed before, a smell of rich earth and dank wetness. She wonders if the walls are slowly caving in. Suddenly she has a vision of all of them writhing under a pile of rubble like trapped white worms.
Janey says, “Diana, you can’t bring your brother.”
“But he’s only three,” says Diana Adam, who is holding a sleepy William in her arms.
“He can still talk.”
“He cried every time I tried to leave the room. What was I supposed to do? Look, he’s falling asleep already.”
Janey frowns at her for a moment and then says, “Make sure he keeps quiet.”
Diana shrugs, bouncing William on her hip.
“Last time, I was trying to talk about an idea, but it didn’t go how I wanted. I feel—well, like I’m running out of time. But there are some things I do know, and even if…Well, if I tell you, you’ll know them too. I want to talk about Amanda Balthazar,” Janey says. “She didn’t bleed out.”
Caitlin’s skin freezes and crawls. She feels like she’s been dragged out of the shadows for everyone to see. Slipping into a pew, she sits down, touching her chin to her chest and wrapping her arms around herself. What has she started? Why couldn’t she stay quiet?
She thought everyone had heard about the dead girl in the water, but apparently not. Gina frowns and says, “What do you mean? She bled out. She’s dead.”
“She is dead,” says Janey. “But she didn’t bleed out. I think she was murdered.”
There’s a long silence. “By Andrew?” whispers someone in a tone of scant belief.
“No. By the wanderers. They pulled her body from the water. Caitlin saw them,” Janey says. Caitlin shrinks into herself even more and suppresses an urge to crawl under the pews on her belly. Heads swivel to look at her and she pretends she isn’t here, she is somewhere else, asleep in bed with Mother, perhaps, or walking the shore in summer. She has never had so many eyes on her.
“Caitlin could be lying,” says Gina. There’s a murmur of agreement.
“I don’t think so,” says Janey. “Caitlin saw what she saw. She isn’t a liar.”
“How do you know?” demands Gina.
“Because if she was, she’d make up something about the wastelands. Something she remembered from when she lived there. But she never has.” Caitlin remembers her vision of the dead woman, but she would rather die than tell a soul.
“Maybe she isn’t smart enough,” remarks Harriet Abraham.
“She is plenty smart!” cries Rosie, and Caitlin feels a warm glow in her chest at the unexpected defense. “She’s memorized Our Book and everything Pastor Saul ever said.” This isn’t quite true, but Caitlin would never correct a whole roomful of people.
“Let’s have her recite it, then.” Harriet laughs, and Janey glares at her until she looks down, cowed.
“So I was wondering,” says Janey, her voice louder, “if Amanda was murdered…how many other women have been murdered?”
She looks at everyone expectantly, as if she’s asked a simple question. There’s some shuffling and glancing, and finally Violet says, “What do you mean?” Pressed breast to breast for warmth, she and her sister Sarah have their arms twined around each other like slender ropes.
“I mean that if Amanda really was killed and didn’t bleed out, maybe the other women who supposedly bled out were killed too.”
“But I’ve seen someone bleed out,” objects Rosie. “In front of me. She died. It was disgusting.”
“Me too,” says Harriet. “I saw Mrs. Jacob die. Anna Jacob, the soapmaker’s wife. Or, she was his wife.”
“But sometimes you can’t find anyone who saw them die,” says Brenda Moses. “If it happens at home, or…” She gestures. “Like, Mrs. Gideon the farmer’s wife, the young one, she bled out at home, but her daughter Kelly said she didn’t see it, and Mr. Gideon didn’t see it, she was just home alone and then she was dead and there was no blood anywhere and her body was ready to be buried. Kelly said it was very strange.” Kelly Gideon is now Kelly Abraham, married and unable to be useful to them.
“That doesn’t mean she was murdered,” says Lillian Saul. “That doesn’t mean anything, maybe they just cleaned it up real well. Even if she didn’t bleed out, how does it mean she was murdered?”
“But what if she was?” says Fiona. “Remember, she was one of those who used to say that girls and men should have their summers of fruition when they were both the same age. Nobody listened, but she said it.” Someone giggles shrilly at this notion.
“But if they were killed, then…” mutters Diana.
“Who killed them?” says Letty just as Fiona asks, “What if she just fell into the water?”
“Wait,” says Rosie. “It’s not like the sea is full of dead women. It’s just Amanda who was in the water.”