The Women in the Walls (21 page)

I must take control of my fate. Tomorrow is the first of the new month, and Henry will surely show up for a secret visit. So tomorrow, I will tell Henry about the baby. If he really loves me, as he's claimed breathlessly over and again during our nude entanglements in the forest, he should be happy. Maybe even more encouraged to bring me home with him this time.

With the resolution bound in my mind, I begin to cry into the pillow that I am still biting on as if my life depends on it. I will never see my dearest friend again. I imagine Emily alone with Joanna and Charles and Hannah. I imagine her taking a walk through the misty woods after finding out that I have gone missing, just so that she can cry and curse privately over her loss, and my heart aches unbearably.

This is when I identify the part of my resolution that I could never follow through with, and I adjust the plan accordingly by swearing to myself that I will come back for Emily, after the baby is born and I am married and can offer her someplace to live, along with a proper explanation of why exactly I had to do this.

I had to go away
, I imagine myself telling her in the future.
You know why
.

And that is how I make myself comfortable with it, that is how I stop the tears and cool my face of its shame and uncertainty. I stop biting my pillow and lie on my back and fall asleep to the sound of Pa's serrated snores for what may very well be the last time. Emily sighs beside me and pushes her ice-cold feet against my calves to warm them.

I will miss her so much.

I dream about darkness and punishment and something that is squirming inside of me, writhing, growing bigger and stronger with every cursed, miserable heartbeat.

* * *

Emily asks me what's wrong again the next morning, this time with more urgency.

“You
know
I'll find out eventually,” she challenges with a forced smile. “I am your sister. It's part of me to know when something is wrong with you.”

She molds small discs of cornmeal batter with her hands and places the cakes on the large skillet that is already sizzling with strips of boar bacon, still fresh from Pa's catch yesterday evening. The fragrance of the breakfast and the black coffee bubbling over the fire just outside the cabin is wonderful in the early morning of these woods, before the baby is awake and screaming and reacting violently to anybody who attempts to touch her except for Ma. A family of deer graze around the trees nearby, slurping up the cold, dew-soaked grass that blankets most of the mountainside.

I turn the hot, spitting meat strips with caution while I try to think of what to say to Emily.

“If you'll find out eventually,” I tease, no longer able to keep up with the
nothing
s, “then I might as well wait until you do.”

“Oh, please!” Emily pinches me playfully on the elbow. “Just skip to it.”

Emily deserves everything and more for still treating me like me, no matter what, even after I broke down to her about the truth of what happened to me in the cabin when Hannah was born. She promised to take my secret to the grave, but still I found that everybody else in the family was different around me once the winter was gone; they were hesitant, cautious, almost as if they were
afraid
. Joanna and Charles started to prefer Emily to oversee their games instead of me, although I suppose I couldn't blame them for it.

I would be afraid of me, too.

“It's nothing, sister,” I insist, willing her to just believe me and move on from it. “Truly.”

A wave of nausea overcomes me, and suddenly the smell of the food is too much to bear. I place my sleeve over my face and feign a cough so that Emily thinks it's just the smoke from the fire.

“You're acting very curiously,” she observes as I take small gulps of the fresh morning air to fight the roiling in my gut. “You almost look ill, or something.”

“I am just fine.” It comes out with far more bite than I intend. “You do not need to worry about me, Emily.” I manage not to wretch up any bile, and before I know it the moment of sickness has passed. I load a plate for Pa and try to ignore how my sister watches me from the corner of my eye.

“Joanna and Charles asked me to take them into the forest while Hannah naps,” she says, and clearly this means she has given up on pestering me for now, for which I am relieved. “I'd ask you to come along, but something tells me that this is going to be one of those days where you disappear into the woods for hours.”

She is frowning as she speaks. In the past when I've met up with Henry, I'd tell Emily that I felt like taking a long private walk to gather my wits and enjoy the silence away from the baby. From the beginning she insisted that she understood and never questioned me about it, her own way of proving that she was ready to forget about the past, I suppose.

I think about how Emily's face looked when I promised that I wouldn't hide things from her anymore.
You are
sure
you're going to be all right, Amanda?
she had said with tears in her eyes after I'd finished telling her about the devil in the woods.
You're certain?

Yes
, I had replied, about a week or so before I went on the supply run to the settlement with Pa on a whim and met Henry for the first time.
I swear it, sister
.

The thought saddens me so much that I seriously consider telling her about the baby for just a second. I refrain, of course. Emily carelessly tosses pieces of cornmeal cake and meat strips over the various plates, then pours some coffee for Ma.

“I still think you're hiding something,” she grumbles and makes her way to the front door of the cabin, plates of breakfast carefully lined over her forearms. I grab the last two plates and follow after her, my breath caught in my chest.

Ma shuts the cabin door behind me, as softly as possible, and motions for me to keep my feet light as she nods to my baby sister. Hannah is still sprawled motionless on Ma and Pa's bed, but any excess vibrations could wake her in an instant. Ma takes the plates from me and nods her thanks, just as I realize what's about to happen. Sadly, the warning does not come soon enough.

The burning vomit sprays from my mouth and nose before I even have a chance to turn, splattering over the plates and Ma's arms and the wooden floor of the cabin. I cry out in horror and turn to push the door back open.

“Amanda!” Ma nearly drops the plates as she follows me to the well outside. She peels the wet stinking sleeves of her dress down her arms. “Are you falling ill, my dear? It's been too long for it to be the sickness from last winter.” The last bit ends up sounding more like a paranoid confirmation to herself, and I feel wretched for stirring up the memory.

We get to the rain barrel, and I splash my face with the cold water. I swish some of it around in my mouth and spit into the bushes while Ma washes her arms.

“I'm so sorry, Ma,” I finally manage after I've finished. I take a few sips of the water and it tastes terrible, sour and rancid. “Maybe I am. I feel well enough now, though. And I'm not feverish, so please do not worry. I will be fine.”

The sound of Hannah's off-key screams and yelps begin to pour from the open cabin door. Pa calls for Ma impatiently from inside. Emily emerges from the doorway with a clean dress on her arm for Ma and a rag for me. Ma dresses quickly as Hannah's cries escalate, and the circles beneath her eyes look even darker than usual. She refuses to go back inside until I assure her three more times that I feel all right.

“What is happening?” Emily asks me after Ma has retreated into the cabin. I take the rag from her and wipe my face, as well as the back of my neck.

“The breakfast plates,” I say instead of answering. “Is there still enough food to go around? I don't have to eat. And Joanna and Charles—”

“—can share a plate without raising a concern.” Emily cuts me off impatiently. “But forget about the food. Sister, you're ill!”

“You just heard me say that I feel much better now,” I insist and take her hand. “Let it pass. I really don't believe it's anything to get concerned about.”

“Your
behavior
is what's to get concerned about,” Emily snaps. “You said you wouldn't hide things from me anymore.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

I've been sleeping with a boy you've never met, over and over, and you never even became suspicious about it.
No matter how hard I try to say it, my lips remain closed.

“Amanda,” Emily says again and steps closer. “You can tell me. Did it happen again? Are you starting to—”

“It's
nothing
, I said!”

Hannah's cries finally cease. The difference in sound is startling, and I take the opportunity to leave my sister behind so she won't have the chance to break me down.

“Amanda,” Emily calls after me, but I keep walking. Pa is about to depart, to hunt some furs to sell. He doesn't ask me if I'm all right.

The vomit-speckled plates are piled in the dirt next to the water trough just outside the cabin. Tiny winged bugs crawl over the shiny slime that coats the cornmeal cakes, and I plead with God in my head to let the water in my stomach stay down.

When I enter the cabin, Ma is with Hannah on the rocking chair that Pa built for her as a wedding present. Everyone has finished eating already, and there is half a plate waiting for me. The smell of the meat is too atrocious for me to even consider it.

The baby's head is pressed against Ma's neck while she hums an old hymn, a dwindling tune that creeps up and down the scales in a lazy, sweeping motion. The vibration of it against Hannah's face puts her into a daze. The tune is an old one that I recognize from when I was a child. The baby's jaw slacks open, and she makes low, flat hooting sounds.

Thickened spittle oozes from the corner of Hannah's mouth as she stares through me and through the rest of the world. It soaks into the shoulder of Ma's dress, and I shudder at the knowledge that I wish her dead.

Ma motions for Joanna and Charles to scram after the baby's eyes finally begin to roll back in her head. Her eyelids have sunk into sleepy half-moons, a sure sign that she'll be out soon. The children and I leave the cabin quietly, careful not to stomp our feet upon the hard wood of the floor panels. I set Ma's Bible in her free hand before I go, and she mouths me a silent thanks.

“Are you sure you're all right, daughter?” she whispers again, but I wave her off with a small smile.
Leave me alone, Ma. Nobody can help me now.

As soon as I step outside and close the door, the forest begins to echo with the sound of the children's excited yells as they chase each other through the trees. Emily calls out for Charles to be careful after he slips on a patch of pine needles and nearly collides with a mossy tree stump.

I tell Emily that I need to do my business and make my way around the opposite side of the cabin. When I'm sure she's stopped looking nervously after me, I loop around to an especially twisted tree trunk, once alive but now blackened and gnarled by a lightning bolt that nearly caused our cabin to burn down when I was ten.

I lift a rogue shrub branch from its resting place at the foot of the tree. Sure enough, a peppermint-flavored candy stick is tucked beneath. Its shiny finish, perfect white-and-red swirls that drip down the length of the sweet beneath twists of waxed paper, is stark and brilliant against the dark, muddy earth. A red ribbon is tied carefully around its middle.

Henry is already here, waiting for me in our secret place, no doubt with a blanket strewn over the dead leaves and needles of the forest floor. My hand finds itself over my lower belly before I even realize what's happening. The very thought of telling Henry about the baby is staggering, but it's something that I know I must do if I want him to consider marrying me.

“Come here, sister!” Emily calls to me from the forest once I return from the dead tree, the sweet in my pocket. Her face is smiling, and her cheeks are rosy from chasing Joanna and Charles. “The children have decided that they want a new pet. We should find something furry and pleasant before they set their minds on a snake again!”

I slide my hand into the pockets of my skirts and wrap my fingers around the peppermint stick. I cannot risk showing up too late and having Henry be gone already.

I cannot make it another fortnight.

“Apologies, Emily.” I make a vague gesture around my middle, then point to the trees behind me. “I think that maybe I will take a walk instead. Some fresh air, perhaps, for my stomach.”

The disappointment shines in her dark eyes. The corners of her mouth turn down, and she crosses her arms. “Shouldn't you feel like resting after what happened this morning?”

“I feel well enough,” I say. “Just need to breath, I think. Enjoy the silence.”

“Right.” Her voice is cold. She is upset that I would rather be alone than be with her. I wish I could tell her the truth. “See you when you return then, I suppose.”

And she turns away.

The idea that this is how it ends, this is the last conversation I will have with my sister before I run away to give birth like an animal in hiding, is more than I wish to endure. I want to hug her, promise her I'll come back for her, lie to her that everything will be well and that I'm only going on a journey to find her a better dearest friend.

I don't, of course. Instead, I walk away from my sister without even saying goodbye.

Copyright © 2015 by Amy Lukavics

ISBN-13: 9781460399057

The Women in the Walls

Copyright © 2016 by Amy Lukavics

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