I
Wherever You Are
MY NAME IS UNIMPORTANT.
The name my dead mother gave me is not really mine, not I who will today be made a saint of Haven. I am not like other girls. My father tells me so. He tells me I am greater than any plain girl walking, and now the other elders say it too. They heard it straight from God.
Never mind what my mother did.
Never mind that there are still some in our village who look at me and my father and my sister—the Barrow family—and wonder if we are Devil-touched, same as Mother was.
Never mind what I did that day five years ago, what I saw, what I said.
No, today marks a new beginning for us Barrows. The elders have deemed me worthy of my true name at last.
But when I wake on this day of my anointing, a great black bird sits just outside my window. A chill rushes through me. First hot, then cold, it steals away my wits.
This is not just any bird, but a mottled creature with ratty feathers and scaly skin. A jagged toothy beak hanging open, unblinking white eyes like big twin moons. Very still, it watches me, and I watch back.
Mother always told us of the frights, the little creatures sent by the Devil that swarm inside a girl and bring fear, doubt, dark thoughts. They claw and nibble, rake your skin with cold, tie your belly into knots.
Not once did I see a fright outside of Mother’s stories until this winter past. For weeks now I have seen them in trees, real and perched and leering. In shadows, skittering. Overhead, fluttering like bats. More and more, they come.
And when they do, death often follows close behind.
And when they come, it seems that only I can see them.
But whatever of my mother’s rot lives inside me, it shall not drag me down to Hell as it did her. She brought our family low.
Today, I shall raise us high once more.
“You do not frighten me,” I whisper to the bird, and what a lie it is. “Leave us. Go away. This is a holy day.”
The bird pecks twice at the glass with that horrible gaping beak, full of fangs that should not be. Its white eyes, so still and bright and clever.
My sister, Blessing, shifts and mumbles in her bed across the room.
Sitting up, I glare at the bird and whisper harshly, “Begone, Devil.” Then I strike the window’s cool glass with my fists.
The bird flaps away. Our gray cat, Shadow, hisses from her hiding spot under my bed. Shadow always hides if a fright is about. She loses her courage. Her hair stands on end.
Blessing turns over, her voice thick. She sleeps like a stone, my sister, and wakes slowly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I paint a smile over my racing heart. “Nothing, sister. A fly on the window. I killed it. Rest, now.”
She obeys with a grunt, curls up beneath her quilt.
I slip out of my bed and dress quickly—my long white dress with tiny blue flowers, my brown wool cloak, my boots. I quietly climb out the window. Behind our white house with its blue trim, my garden shivers in the morning air.
I close the window and wait a moment to be certain Blessing does not wake again. I stare and hardly breathe. Women and girls in Haven are not allowed to hold or possess or look upon mirrors. Mirrors show God’s truth, too mighty for our eyes to bear, and they turn our weak hearts vain. The only mirror I have ever glimpsed is the small square one with the plain wooden frame Father keeps locked away in his bedroom—and this mirror, here, in the dark glass of my window. I take a moment to stare at myself, my skin prickling with shame. There I am—thin and straight up and down, with long brown hair and skin white as river foam and sixteen years of prayers in my eyes. Heart pounding at the back of my tongue, I shake my head and look past the strange sight of my sinful staring self.
Past that thin dark-haired girl are the pale curtains in our window and the flat wool rug. The walls of red and blue flowers painted by my own hand, and my sister’s too. Beside her bed, a yellow vase of blue and orange wildflowers. And there is my sister, the younger Barrow, her hair spilled honey on her pillow. Sleep on, sweet Blessing.
I gather a small bunch of flowers and creep through the garden gate on mouse feet. Bell chimes fly on the wind, for every rooftop in Haven has been strung pretty in honor of the winter’s dead. There is Elder Joseph’s house, across the dirt road. I walk by it and hold my breath. I do not once look at its shivering bells.
Granny Dale’s house next, then Benjamin Grainger’s, the Abbott house, the Everett house. I turn right onto a narrow road where the oaks arch overhead like raised arms. The Ames house, the Gray house. Nine hanging bells, then nine more, and nine again.
Widow Woodworth kneels at her front steps, where a white wooden cross stands stuck in the ground. Her little girls—Abigail, Patricia—dress the cross with fresh flowers while their mother watches.
I hurry past. I am not meant to be seen before my anointing. I should not even be out of my house.
But Widow Woodworth catches sight of me. Her eyes widen, bright with tears.
“Saint Amity,” she whispers, reaching for me with a shaking hand. “Girls, come. Put those down. Saint Amity will bless us now.”
I shake my head, try to step away. “Widow, I am not yet anointed. That is not my name.”
“Please, only a small prayer. A tiny blessing. ’Tis all I ask.” She and her daughters clasp their hands, turn their faces up to me. Auburn-haired, the girls too small to truly understand. The gaunt widow’s cheeks wet from tears.
She has not eaten much since her husband, Clarence, was found in the meadow in January. Limbs splayed, white and limp and strange. All the blood drained from his body, though the elders could find no holes in his flesh.
I glance at the little white cross, then look around at the dim road, the dark windows in every bell-strung house. If an elder sees me bestowing a blessing before my anointing, he could bring word to the others. They might return to their seclusion, ask God to tell them a
different name.
What would Father do then?
Such a betrayal would eat away at him from the inside, devour whatever Mother left behind.
But if I leave the widow here, she might tell on me for unkindness.
“’Tis our secret,” I whisper.
“We shan’t tell a soul,” says Widow Woodworth eagerly. “Isn’t that right, girls?”
The girls nod. One wrinkles her nose and sneezes.
“Dear Lord,” I mutter, “please look upon this family that has lost so much and grant them and their neighbors kindness and mercy as we, the good people of Haven, look to warmer days with hope in our hearts. Protect us from further evil and from the Devil’s cruel works. Amen.”
“Amen,” say the Woodworth girls along with their mother. I rub hasty crosses on their foreheads in the name of the Lamb, God’s own son, and hurry away.
Elder Peter sits on his porch around the corner, waiting for me, as he does on every holy day. ’Tis our own small tradition. He raises his hand and smiles. His skin is a pale carpet of wrinkles, his hair only thin white tufts. His eyes are kind, and he never shouts.
“Blessed morning,” he says to me, and then my given name, which I pretend was not said. “You are early today. Usually you come with the sun.”
“Samuel wishes to pray with me in the meadow before everything begins.” I touch my fingers to my forehead, my lips, my chest.
Elder Peter echoes the greeting, his shining eyes on my flowers. “A sunrise vigil. Samuel is good to offer you this.”
I glance toward the meadow, which stretches green and fresh beyond the wall. Something twists in my stomach. Not unpleasant, not altogether. A tadpole wriggling through a pond.
As if it heard me thinking this, the wicked bird returns, alighting upon the railing of Elder Peter’s porch. It folds its scabby wings and stares at me.
“Samuel is good to me indeed,” I say, my voice unsteady. “For God’s gifts I am grateful.”
“Most importantly, you’ve brought fresh blooms for my table!” Elder Peter looks up at me with a child’s joy. “I love them. They are cheerful as summer clouds.” He buries his face in the blue iris petals. “And thank you for freshening my linens yesterday. I was able to find sleep quickly for once.”
“What an odd bird,” I say lightly. “Don’t you agree?”
Elder Peter turns in his creaking chair and looks right at the awful creature, his mouth a mere breath from its open beak. “What bird, child?”
I swallow hard. “It must have flown away.”
I grab the flowers from him and hurry inside to find water and a vase, keeping the bird always in my sight. Its white gaze follows me, pins me through the window.
“I am not afraid of you,” I say quietly to my hands as I work. “Once I am anointed, God will banish you from this land.”
When next I look up, the bird has gone.
“Your gift is a welcome reminder that spring comes after winter, that life comes after death,” Elder Peter says as I help him to his feet. He waves his hand at the bells hanging from the scalloped rafters on blue ribbons. Nine golden bells, standing guard alongside the large silver one that hangs near every elder’s door. His voice wavers. “Nine men and boys of Haven, all of them gone to God.”
“A hard winter,” I murmur.
“A distant memory after today.” Elder Peter touches my cheek with his wrinkled fingers. “Your anointing will be a celebration. Our people will feel hope again. Spring, and flowers, and a new saint at last. God has spoken, and He has spoken your name. Your father is so proud of you.”
Feeling the sting of tears, I fold Elder Peter’s hand into mine and press it gently. May God bless this kind old man for saying nothing of my dead mother or her sins.
“Thank you, Elder Peter,” I whisper.
A cheerful light twinkles in his eye. He heaves himself toward the steps. “Off I go, then, shall I?”
I watch him shuffle toward the high wall that circles Haven. Never do I see Elder Peter walk so quickly as when he goes to trick the watchmen so I can slip outside the wall unseen.
It amuses him to play tricks as he did when he was a boy. Girls are not meant to roam beyond the wall unless a man is with them, but Elder Peter will point the watchmen’s eyes elsewhere.
Besides that, I know a place they cannot see.
Samuel showed it to me the day Mother died, so I could watch her run.
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