“Tell your friend thanks, but no thanks,” I said to Doug, once he’d welcomed me in. “I’ll find Caleb something better.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. It’s my job, anyways. I’m his wife.” Then I added, before I lost my nerve, “You’re wrong about Caleb, you know. He’s not a man yet, but he will be.”
Doug let out a bark of surprised laughter. “It kind of sounds like you’re making a bet, Miss Natalie.”
I held out my hand. “May the best man win.”
19
Well.The worst possible thing to happen has happened—worse, even, than having a foot caught in a steel trap.
The bread I made was bad.
Actually, bad is an understatement. It was completely inedible. Hard like a rock in some places, mealy and soft in other places. No flavor whatsoever, even though I remember—Iremember!—sprinkling my regular amount of salt into the bowl.
Mary told me to make another boule. She said it doesn’t matter, thatfood is food,and I should get over it. And in response, I told her—at a decibel level that I really do now regret—that something is wrong, wrong, wrong,something is terribly and utterly wrong,and really, how many times do I have to explain this to her before she understands? Then she yelled at me to go to my room until I could control my temper, and I yelled at her toLEAVEMEALONE,STUPIDLITTLEGIRL,and so she screamed for me toGETOUTOFTHISHOUSERIGHTNOW.
So now I’m standing on the front porch, fighting tears, feeling sorry for myself, when suddenly the front door opens and the two girls step outside.
I glance over my shoulder at them. They’re wearing coats, which are worn and stained and covered in patches. Mary is fastening a hand-knitted cap on Maeve’s head. Maeve says, “We’re gonna find flowers, Mama!”
I turn away to face the mountains.
“We’ll be back in an hour,” Mary says to my back. “In the meantime, why don’t you go take a nap inside?”
I roll my eyes and hiss over my shoulder, “Wouldn’tyoulike that.”
Mary sighs loudly. “Come on, Maevie.”
I stare firmly out at the mountains, listening to the tip-tap of their footsteps down the stairs. Maeve’s chattering voice carries them farther and farther away. I turn around right as their figures are disappearing over the nearest hillside. It’s quiet now, except for the occasional clanging from the barn. The boys and Old Caleb have been in there all morning.
I cast my gaze beyond the barn. Even the farm animals seem distracted today. The chickens are huddled quietly in one corner of the coop, all staring blankly in one direction; the horse is walking slowly away from me, up the shadowy hillside toward the sliver of sunlit paddock.
The air is brisk, but there’s no breeze. The sun is still rising.
Go.Run. Now.
I stare at the fields, considering this intrusive thought. I wonder where it comes from, if the voice in my head that is telling me to run is the Lord, or my gut instinct, or a byproduct of an undiagnosed concussion. It’s foolish, anyways. A terrible idea. I’ve tried it twice now, and received a beating for it both times. And besides: running is no longer an option. The best I can manage is a slow crawl.
No reason to try to escape right now,I think, leaning on my walking stick.Might as well just … stay … here.
I rock back and forth on my one good heel. Yes, I should stay here. That’s what a good Christian woman would do: bake another loaf of bread, and then maybe wash the floors, and then start preparation for dinner, and then scatter more feed across the coop, and then check the chickens’ feet and feathers for any sort of disease, and then ask them if they’re bored, and then give the cow a bubble bath, and then—
Wait, I suppose. That’s what I’m meant to do. Wait here on this porch, day in and day out, until someone—orsomething—saves me.
And yet.
At this very moment, I feel my mind repelling itself from the house, pushing me backward, like a magnet with incompatible charge.
No need to run away—but I could always go for a walk, couldn’t I?
I limp down the front porch stairs.
This time my pace is calm, my walking deliberate, the kind of movement that doesn’t trip a single sensor. Right down the road, too—none of that nonsense of darting into the woods and getting shot down like some moronic woodland creature. No. I am ahuman,andhumansare meant to walk downroads,and so I am walking when a voice stops me from the barn.
“Where’ya going?”
