The Forest of Hands and Teeth

I push away from the stairs. Force myself to step back down the hallway that is so dark it's like swimming through thick black water. I feel the damp earth under my feet, the smell of the old wine, bitter and sour, sticking to the back of my throat. My body tenses as I pass the newly opened door in the darkness, my breath catches as I imagine hands grabbing me from inside the room and I give into the urge to run until, turning the corner in the tunnel, I see the tiny beacon of light from the rest of the candles next to the door to the basement under the Cathedral. I grab two and retrace my steps, picking my way through the broken glass, the candlelight glistening off the sharp edges.



I hesitate in front of the room, my light not penetrating past the threshold. There is still time for me to turn back. To clean up the broken wine bottles, replace the hinges on the door and return to bed, pretending that this night has been nothing more than a dream.



Instead, I take a deep breath and force myself to step forward.



Chapter 12



The room is tiny, the ceiling low. Against the far wall is a cot, an old faded quilt tucked tightly around it. To my right is a narrow desk, a thick book that could only be the Scripture resting on top of it surrounded by unlit candles. On the other side of the room a large tapestry hangs on the wall, His holiest words woven through it, a thin and well-worn pillow resting beneath it for kneeling and praying. In the center of the room a round braided rug that seems to be made from old Sisterhood tunics covers the floor.



I am stunned by the ordinariness of this room, as if it were any other Sister's quarters in the Cathedral. As if it were a mirror of my own upstairs. I step farther into the room, my footsteps muffled by the rug. I trace a finger down the smooth fabric of the tapestry, wondering how many other hands have touched these words, have sought solace in their presence. The pillow on the floor is dented where two knees would have rested for hours.



I sit on the bed and it creaks slightly beneath me, disturbing the dreamlike silence around me. I pull my feet close and lean back, wondering who was the last person to sleep here. Gabrielle? Travis when he was so ill? A Sister facing some sort of punishment?



Restless, eager for answers, I move to the narrow table and light the candles that surround the Scripture. Though I am facing the thick book with its cracked binding, my gaze is unfocused, my thoughts turned inward. Absently I flip it open, flick through the pages, the sound of them turning like the hush of fall leaves settling to the ground. But I'm not looking at the words written on the page, I'm staring past them, lost in my own world.



Until I realize that the words on the pages look wrong. That the pages themselves are too thick with writing. I bend closer and realize that all the margins, every blank space on every sheet, is filled with cramped writing. The words are so small that I can barely make them out, the ink from the other side of the page casting shadows, making the words essentially indecipherable.



I flip back to the first page and struggle with the cryptic handwriting, blue ink on onionskin-thin yellow pages. In the beginning, it said, we did not understand the extent of it.



I pull a candle closer but the rest of the writing is lost to me. I flip back through the book, watching as the handwriting changes, as the ink turns black, grows thicker and harder to understand.



And then the writing stops halfway through the Scripture. I run my finger up the page to see what was written last: As expected, extreme and complete isolation was the cause of her immense strength and speed. God help us all, we will send her to the Forest to see how long she lasts, to better understand her. It is through her sacrifice that we grow stronger. It is through His glory that we survive.



I do not realize that I am holding my breath until I gasp, choking for air. My body shakes, my mind whirling. I can't seem to swallow enough times to keep the tears from blurring my vision. Shoving myself back from the table and tripping over the rug behind me, I fall back against the door, causing it to slam shut, the sound echoing down the dark hallway.



I am trapped, cut off. Everything inside me screams and I gasp again for air. Panic consumes me and then, out of habit and a sense of security, I run my fingers over the spot next to the door where the Scripture would be, where the Sisters have carved words on the inside and outside of every other doorway in the village. Usually the spot is smooth from so many hands touching it on a daily basis, but here the wood of the threshold is still rough and it pulls me back into the present moment.



I peer closer at the words and realize that it's not Scripture quoted here, but a list of names. And at the bottom is written Gabrielle, the carving still deep and fresh.



Suddenly, the wind around me shifts, almost like a pop in the air. As if there is a subtle current that has been introduced into the tiny room. My body tingles with the fear that somehow I am caught. That my fate will be the same as Gabrielle's.



I tug the door and it cracks open. Relief that it didn't lock floods me and I peer into the hallway. It's still pungent from the broken wine bottles. I have no idea how long I've been down here. I'm desperate to read more but I know that doing so will risk being found.



I contemplate taking the Scripture with me but I have no place to hide it. I creep from the little room, closing and securing the door behind me, and clean up the broken bottles the best I can, shoving the largest shards of glass behind the racks lining the walls. Then, with a promise to return, I make my way back to the hidden door and I pinch the wick of each candle on the table, plunging the tunnel into darkness as I slip out. The well-greased pins slide easily back into place in the door hinges leaving no evidence that I have ever been here.



When I escape from the basement I see the dullest shade of pink breaking over the horizon outside the windows. I sneak back to my room and change into my tunic. I light a fire, tossing my dirty nightdress into the rising flames. After tomorrow I will no longer need it anyway.



I stand in front of the open window by my desk, letting the chill spring morning air wash over me, cleanse the scent of must and old wine from my body. I stare past the graveyard at the fences, allowing my eyes to blur until the Forest is nothing but a smudge of fresh green, the Unconsecrated dull specks, the fence nonexistent.



Nothing in life is clear to me anymore. Nothing makes sense and I don't know how to make it right.



Tonight is my Binding with Harry. Today is the last chance for Travis to claim me. The celebrations will start up again this afternoon. But for now my time is my own and I sneak from the Cathedral and skirt around the edge of the waking village until I am back on the hill.



Instead of looking to the Forest, to the edge of my world, today I look down on the village. At the cottages and houses that huddle against the earth starting at the bottom of the hill and spreading toward the Cathedral on the other side of the village. The Cathedral is a hulking shape, its wings spreading out like arms. Behind the Cathedral is the familiar sight of the graveyard and the small drop to the stream where Harry and I held hands the day my mother became infected. Dotted throughout are the platforms set into the trees, stocked and ready for our refuge if there is ever a breach.



The fence surrounds all of it, tall intertwining links forever keeping us safe. I think about how fragile those fences are, how vines like to snake around them during the summer causing endless work for the Guardians who are always on patrol, always repairing and mending.



It astonishes me how something so delicate, like lace metal, keeps us trapped in this world. Unhampered by the Unconsecrated, but also by our dreams. The sun slips across the sky, for a brief moment glinting off the fences protecting the path beyond the gate by the Cathedral.



I spend the morning thinking about how together Travis and I can make it all right. And I continue to pace at the top of the hill, waiting for Travis to come claim me, time slipping around me like water over a rock.



When it is time to prepare for the Binding ceremony that night I sit on the bed in the small cottage near the Cathedral that will become Harry's and mine once our union is completed tomorrow. My hands lie limp in my lap as I realize that Travis may never come for me after all.



A knock on the door triggers my heart and it pounds hard in my chest. I stand, hoping it's Travis. Knowing that this is our last chance. That once the Binding begins I will have to give myself to Harry or cancel the ceremony.



And canceling the ceremony means throwing myself on the mercy of the Sisters. Begging them to allow me to rejoin their ranks even if it means being nothing more than their servant. A woman in our village is not given a second chance at marriage.



I smooth my hands over the white fabric that drapes down my legs. My hands shake as I reach for the door. My stomach tenses, my whole body flooding with fear and hope and joy.



The light outside the door is the blinding last gasp of the day, and for a moment I think it's Travis and that my life has finally fallen into place. That I finally understand where I belong in this world.



And then I hear the rustle of skirts as Sister Tabitha steps through the doorway and stalks to the middle of the room. She turns to face me, looks me up and down with her sharp eyes.



“I have come to prepare you for the Binding,” she says. “To give you the blessing of the Sisterhood.”



I want to crumple right there, to fall into myself until I am nothing more than a heap of emptiness on the floor. My head feels light, my vision blurry. My throat burns to scream and cry. But I refuse to allow Sister Tabitha to see any of this and so I raise my chin, close the door and steady myself by placing a hand against the wall.



We are alone in the little one-room cottage that will house Harry and me, until we have children and need more space. The thought of children with Harry falls like a stone inside my stomach.



In the last few days I had already begun to imagine what Travis's and my children would look like, how their tiny hands would curl around my finger. I had already dreamed an entire life between Travis and me. And now that was the only life that we would ever lead together—the one in my dreams.



Sister Tabitha and I stand facing each other, our backs rigid until she smiles just a little, releasing a breath as if on a laugh.



She shakes her head. “There are things we must accept in this world, Mary. Things that may not make sense to us now, but that we must adhere to. That we must keep sacred if we hope to persevere.”



She walks over to the narrow bed and sets a basket down on the white quilt. As she continues to speak she starts to unpack its contents. “Take for example the Unconsecrated. We do not understand them. We only know they hunger. But we know to leave them be. No one in this village even bothers to question their existence anymore, although I am sure our ancestors wasted a lot of time doing so.”



She sets down a delicate-looking white braided rope and then pulls the Scripture from the basket. She winds the rope around the book as she continues with her speech.



“It is the same with marriage. Our ancestors knew that in order to survive we had to persevere. They knew to keep strong bloodlines. That creating each new generation was the most important task beyond keeping the village safe and fed.”



She brings the bound Scripture to the small table on my side of the room and sets it down. Then she turns to the fireplace and stirs the embers while adding small strips of dry wood until the logs begin to crackle.



The flames eat at the bark, curling it into red-rimmed tendrils but the heat cannot penetrate me, cannot warm me. “There is something you need to know about your mother, Mary,” she says, kneeling by the hearth. “You should know that she lost children.”



Chapter 13



I fight to keep my face passive, swallowing my gasp of shock. I can only think of my brother and me when we were young, sitting by my mother and father in front of the fire. I hear the lullaby that my mother used to sing to us at night.



I am at war with myself. At once desperately needing to know more and detesting myself for giving in to Sister Tabitha. For giving her what she wants, which is my obedience to her will. To her superiority.



“When” is all that I say. I swallow, clear my throat. “When did my mother …” I can't finish, fearful of bridging this gap between my mother's life and my own.



“Before you,” she tells me. “And after you.” I can't see her eyes but I wonder if there is sympathy there. If she is sad for the babies that my mother lost and if she feels futile that she couldn't stop it even though she is the healer among us.



For a moment it is as though Sister Tabitha and I are connected through my mother's grief.



She rises and then turns to me. “Many, many times. So much that it seemed you were never supposed to have been born.”



Any sympathy I may have had for Sister Tabitha shatters; the sound of my mother's moans the day she turned comes screaming into my ears. It washes over me until I feel nauseated and unable to stay in this room, to be near this woman.



But still I stand my ground, unwilling to let her see the effect she's had on me. She walks back over to the table and lays her hands on the Scripture. Then she comes to stand before me.



Her eyes meet mine as she reaches down and grasps my right hand. She then unwinds the rope from the Scripture and wraps it around my wrist as she goes. Each time she completes a circle she knots the rope in a complicated pattern, forcing me to repeat Vows Of Fidelity. Three times we repeat this, three circles of rope, three knots, three vows.



With each twist, each tether, each word, I feel myself falling farther from Travis and I must bite my lip to keep from weeping.



“You are a Bound woman now, Mary. And you have a duty to your husband, to God and this village. It is time to own up to that duty, Mary. It is time you stopped playing by the fences. There is nothing out there. Your mother found that out the hard way and you would think that you would have learned your lesson from her.”



I try to yank my arm back but she keeps a tight hold on my wrist.