And this realization sparks deep inside my body, heat raging through me until I feel as though my fingertips are on fire. Fury pulses through me. At my mother, at myself, at our very existence that has always been constrained by the Unconsecrated.
I take a deep breath and then pull a blanket from the basket by the crib and lay it on the floor. Gently I pick up the baby, supporting her head, and for the briefest moment she turns her face to me as if she were healthy, as if I were her mother, and I feel tears begin to slip down my cheeks.
This child could be my brother's. It could be my mother's. It could be Travis's and mine. Someone was her father. Someone once held her as I do now.
I kneel next to the blanket and place her in the middle, my tears creating dark circles as they fall on the fabric. I am humming as I carefully fold the corners tight, swaddle the infant and hug her to me, trying to give her comfort.
Once, back in the village, I imagined my children with Travis. They would have my dark hair and his green eyes and they would be strong and healthy. They would be nothing like this child and yet the feel of her, heavy in my arms, is just as I imagined.
I run my finger down her forehead and over the bridge of her nose. Cass taught me this with her younger sister, this trick to make an infant sleep. But this child will never sleep, will never dream, will never love.
I am shaking as I hear Travis limp down the hallway. “The others made it to the platforms and are safe,” he's saying as he enters the room. He stops when he sees me, sees what's in my arms. His face constricts in horror as the reality of the situation sinks in.
“Mary,” he says, holding a hand out, beckoning me into the hallway. His tone is taut though he tries to sound gentle and soothing. I can feel his hesitation, almost hear him screaming for me to come to my senses.
But I cradle the child to me and hum and rock her and she wails her silent scream.
“Mary,” he says again, this time a plea. He steps toward me to take her from my arms.
But before he does I walk to the window, pressing her soft weight against me. I tuck her in the crook of my arm as I use my free hand to push open the sash. I let the cool fresh air roll over me, wash the stench of death from the room. I lean out, let the sun burn at my skin, scorch my tears.
And then I let the newborn drop.
It falls into the mass of Unconsecrated below and I don't see or hear it hit the ground. I hope that its delicate head didn't survive the two-story drop and that it's finally, fully dead. But I also know that even if the creature survived that it won't be a threat to us any longer.
A deep shiver presses through my body.
Travis comes up behind me and places his arms around my shoulders, his hands shaking.
I raise my fingers and place them against his cheek, feeling the strong pulse of his heart thrumming under his skin. The warmth. “We're safe now,” I tell him.
“Tell me a story, Mary,” he murmurs against my ear, his breath tender and moist and alive. He pulls me to the small bed against the far wall.
“I'm not sure I remember any.” I'm still crying and he sits and pulls me down next to him.
“Tell me about the ocean,” he prods. His hand covers mine and he pulls my fingers to his mouth. His lips close over the flesh of my thumb. I remember the first night he came to the Cathedral and how I fed him snow and the feel of his searing mouth against my frigid fingers. I remember the feeling of my body thawing for the first time. Of truly feeling alive. I allow myself to let go of the tension and fear and pain of the past few days as I slump against his strong body.
I allow myself to fill with hope again.
“I'm afraid it might not exist.” My voice cracks.
He slides to the other side of the bed and pulls me down next to him until I'm cradled against him, his breath hot on the back of my neck, his lips trembling against my skin. His arms hold me tight, my hands grasped in his, his thumb caressing the inside of my wrist.
I allow myself to forget about the world that we live in. I forget about our village and this new village and the Sisterhood and the path and the Forest. I don't think of the Unconsecrated or of my brother, of being bound to Harry or of my best friend.
We are alone in a house that could have existed before the Return and could exist after. It exists in a time that is normal and not burdened by death and survival and fear.
For just this moment I want to think about life and us and nothing else.
Chapter 23
It appears as though the founders of this village truly understood the nature of the threat that existed outside the fences. Whereas the platforms in our village were small and stocked with meager supplies, the platforms here are almost a village in and of themselves. Houses almost as large as the one I grew up in are nestled in the crooks of thick branches and rope bridges connect the platforms. Even though we can't communicate across the distance from our house to the platforms except for waves, it's clear that the rest of our group are happy and healthy in their tree houses.
Similarly, even though our little sanctuary is surrounded by unrelenting Unconsecrated, we seem to be safe inside, thick shutters reinforced by bars covering each window downstairs. While the Unconsecrated never cease to push themselves against the walls and doors, we are tucked away inside and safe until their persistence overwhelms the strength of our fortifications.
It feels as if this house was built for such a siege and it makes me wonder how and why our own village was so ill-prepared. Makes me wonder why this village differs so much from my own. Why their houses are so much bigger and more sophisticated.
Downstairs is taken up with one immense room that serves as the kitchen, dining and living area. A large wood-stove sits in the middle of the room and taking up most of one wall is a cooking fireplace that is almost big enough for me to stand up in.
There is a dining room with a long table bounded by benches—enough seating to feed a large family and plenty of neighbors. Lining one end of the living area is a wall covered with weapons. Some are long spears, some are long-handled axes and some I have never seen before; all have sharpened blades. There are crossbows and trunks filled with arrows. And placed in a position of honor over the fireplace are two gleaming swords with curved blades and intricately carved hilts.
In the back of the house, tucked away behind the stairs, is a tidy room filled with food. Stacked three or four deep along wide shelves are jars and jars of preserved fruits and vegetables. Dried herbs and meat hang from the ceiling, and large barrels with flour and meal line the walls.
This pantry has enough food to keep the two of us alive for years, it seems. It is more food than I have ever seen and I wonder if even the Cathedral had such stores.
Just outside the small pantry door is a tiny courtyard enclosed by a thick brick wall. A few pots ring the perimeter, ready for planting. In the middle is a pump that brings fresh water to the house and garden. There is just enough cleared ground for Argos to sleep his afternoons away in the sun.
It's apparent that the original owners of this house were expecting this, were expecting the inevitable breach that would leave them stranded. An island in the sea of Unconsecrated.
Upstairs are four rooms: three bedrooms and the nursery, the door of which we closed that first day here and haven't opened since. Just like my old shack of a house back in our village, this grand house has a ladder bolted into the wall at the end of the hallway upstairs. I climb it and push against a trapdoor that leads into a large space that spans the length of the house.
Up here there is more food lining the walls and more weapons amassed in neat piles. There are trunks stacked at one end that I don't bother to explore. At the other end of the room is a small white door. I flip the latch and struggle against it and finally it shudders, the vibrations moving up my arms as it jolts open.
Outside is a small porch with thick railings on the left and right and nothing across the front. As I step into the bright sunlight I caress the threshold to the right of the doorway, habit causing me to rub my hand over the Scripture that is always carved there.
But these walls are bare and smooth. Nothing written on the wood, no reminder of God or His words. I think back to all the other doorways I've walked through here and realize that they too have all been bare.
I wonder why the Sisterhood of this village didn't compel the people to inscribe the Scripture and then I realize that there is no kneeling bench in this house. No tapestries on the walls containing His prayers. This house contains nothing of God. The realization startles me—how could a structure in this village be allowed such blasphemy? Such freedom?
And I wonder, for the barest moment, if the Sisters of this village didn't control as tightly. Or perhaps didn't control at all.
I lean against the porch railing, staring down at the throng of Unconsecrated over two stories below. I notice that none of them wears the garb of the Sisterhood, none of them wears a tunic. I glance at the buildings around me: none bears the trappings of God. As far as I can see there's no Cathedral.
My head spins, trying to understand this new village. Trying to figure out if it was a place absent of God or just the Sisterhood. Trying to figure out if it's possible to still believe in God without the Sisterhood.
Dizzy, I sit down, my feet hanging off the edge of the balcony and swinging in the air, making me feel even more groundless. I have never known a life without the Sisterhood, without their constant presence and vigilance. It has never occurred to me that God could be separated from the Sisterhood, that the two had not always been so intimately intertwined that one could exist without the other.
The thought startles me, making my breaths come short and shallow.
Something flickers at the corner of my vision, pulling me from my revelations, and I recognize Harry standing at the edge of his platform in the trees a short distance away. The world around me falls back into focus as I stand up, placing a hand over my eyes to block the sun so that I can take in my surroundings.
I notice a huge tree lying not too far away across the dirt road in front of the house, between Harry's platform and the porch where I am standing. I see that it used to be part of the elaborate system of tree houses and that there are ropes hanging from boards at my feet. They dangle from the edge of the porch where there is no railing down to the ground where the Unconsecrated tread on them.
It looks as if the ropes used to be part of a bridge spanning the gap and I realize that this house, our house, was probably the anchor to the entire system. And now, for some reason either natural or unnatural, we have been cast off, left adrift.
I wonder if there's any way for Travis and me to make it across to the others or for them to find a way to the house—if there's a way to repair the bridge broken by the felled tree. My heart stumbles at the thought, unwilling to give up my solitude with Travis so soon.
Harry waves at me and I wave back. We stand and look at each other for a while before I realize that I am rubbing my wrist where the Binding ropes once chafed me, where scabs still dot my skin.
He's trying to tell me something but I can't understand over the distance and the constant moaning of the Unconsecrated. I shrug my shoulders and put my hand to my ear. He shouts again, his fingers cupping his mouth, and again I shake my head. He waves his hand, giving up, as if what he has to say is not important.
After a while he walks back down the platform, back to his tree house where Cass and Jed and Jacob are waiting. Already I can see a plume of smoke rising from the chimney and I wonder if they too have created their own life. If they have found a way to be happy in this new place the way that Travis and I have.
I slip back inside the attic, my palm brushing against the smooth wall by the door. Habits die hard and absence doesn't stop my fingers from searching.
As the days pass Travis and I begin to belong to another world. We live most of our lives together upstairs where the windows are left open to the light and to the air. Once again the moans of the Unconsecrated become integrated into our every day, the constant noise relegated to a hum in the back of our minds.
Only rarely, when I climb to the platform to look at my brother, my betrothed and my best friend, do I wonder if they are living a life like mine, a domestic tranquility that belies the threat so immediate outside our doors.
Once I almost ask Travis why he didn't come for me back at the village. I'm sitting across from him at the table and there's a break in the conversation and I want so badly to know the answers, to know what my life would have been without the breach. I am gathering my thoughts, the pain of the waiting fresh in my throat. But then he smiles at me and takes my hand, the pads of his palms rough against my skin, and I realize that it no longer matters. Because we're together now. And I don't want to mar the harmony that we have found.
We settle into rhythms. Argos spends his days napping in various locations. Travis keeps our house fortified and I keep our bodies fed. The outside world ends at our door and this includes our commitments to other people. Here, in our house, it's only us and our life together and for a while it's bliss.
Until one day when I find myself coming in from the porch on the roof and facing the trunks lining the other end of the room. For the first time I'm drawn to them and I pass my hand over the smooth wood, the smell of cedar invading my head.
Even though I know there can be no one behind me, since Travis can't climb the ladder that leads here, I turn to make sure I'm not being watched. And then carefully I lift the latch from one of the trunks sitting on top of the stack.
It's filled with clothes and I break into a smile, happy to have found a diversion for the afternoon. One by one I pull out dresses that are intricately beaded and decorated with fancy stitches, each one very carefully folded for storage. They are all different colors, some bright and some muted—some shades I have never seen before. The material is soft and gauzy; fine stiff netting is stitched into the skirts to give them more bounce, more thickness and spin.