I’m about to place the daffodil on the mantel, when I hear the back door off the kitchen swing open. Levi’s returned. And he’s not alone, there’s another voice—his wife. I can smell her clove and sugar-sweet scent.
I freeze, a stone sinking into my gut—but I need to move, get out of here before they see me. I drop to the floor and scramble behind one of the chairs.
Alice whispers something I can’t make out, then laughs. She doesn’t know the awful, traitorous things he’s done to me. That someday he might do to her. But hearing them together, causes a new rage to simmer up into my throat. I want to cry, I want to wail from some primal part inside myself. But most of all, I want to hurt him.
Their footsteps carry across the kitchen. More furtive words, vows of devotion, I’m sure. I hate him.
I wait for the sound of their feet moving up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom. For the rush of clothes being peeled away. For the heaviness of their breathing. But none of it comes. Instead, I hear the soft click of the back door again. And then nothing.
Maybe they only slipped inside to steal a kiss away from the eyes of the others, and now they have returned to their evening chores—Alice to prepare the yeast in the community kitchen for tomorrow’s loaves, Levi to survey the daily routines of the community. Perhaps they have left.
But I stay crouched, listening, wanting to be sure before I rise and bolt from the house. I draw in a tight breath, holding it in so I can better hear. But my heartbeat is too loud, hammering wildly against my eardrums, making it impossible to pick out distinctive sounds.
And then… a hand is on my arm, yanking me upright.
I cry out, the breath leaving my lungs in one shuddering exhale.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Levi’s hands grip my upper arms, squeezing so hard I let out a small cry of pain, dropping the dried daffodil to the floor. He doesn’t even see it—doesn’t notice. He pulls me away from the chair, away from the flattened little flower. “Why are you in my house?” he barks, his voice so close to my ear it feels hot, sharp against my skin, and I smell the alcohol. He’s been drinking again.
“I’m leaving Pastoral,” I spit. They are words I shouldn’t say, but they feel so good when they leave my lips, the defiance tucked under each one. The betrayal.
His breathing turns shallow and he tightens his hands on me, dragging my face close to his. “You’re not going anywhere.” This is the anger I’ve always known was inside him, bottled up, kept hidden. And even if he doesn’t want me anymore, he won’t allow me to leave Pastoral. To leave him. Not because he’s worried about me crossing the border into the woods and catching the pox, but because he needs control. Always control—especially over me.
“You thought you could leave and I wouldn’t find out,” he says, his teeth mashing together. “That I wouldn’t come after you?” He laughs, quick and serrated, then yanks me toward the stairs.
Alice is no longer in the house, the sound of the back door shutting moments ago, was her leaving—maybe she really has gone back to finish up her work.
“I always knew you would try to leave,” he says, words mumbled, hardly making any sense. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long.” He drags me up the stairs, my legs giving out, unable to keep up when I can’t see each stair before it comes. I fall to my knees but he doesn’t slow; he keeps pulling me up, my shins banging against each step, tearing open the flesh. “You probably thought you’d take Colette and her baby with you too.” His hands pinch into my flesh. “You wanted to get help for her from the start; you never trusted my decision.”
“Levi,” I plead. “Stop.”
“I’ve done everything for you,” he says. We’ve reached the top of the stairs and he yanks me forward. “Since we were kids, I’ve taken care of you. And now you just want to leave me?” Each word lashes from his mouth, and he doesn’t sound like himself.
I hear the quick unlatching of a lock and a door swinging open. I know where I am, in the hall just down from his bedroom. This is the closet—the one he keeps locked for reasons I’ve never understood. He releases his hold on my arm, and I feel the white-hot pain of circulation rushing back down to my fingertips. Then… he shoves me inside the closet. I stumble and reach out to brace myself for whatever is in front of me, but my forehead slams into a sharp wood corner. Blood seeps into my eyes.
And for the first time, I think: Maybe he’s going to kill me.