The Forest of Hands and Teeth (24 page)

I
t appears as though the founders of this village truly understood the nature of the threat that existed outside the fences. Whereas the platforms in our village were small and stocked with meager supplies, the platforms here are almost a village in and of themselves. Houses almost as large as the one I grew up in are nestled in the crooks of thick branches and rope bridges connect the platforms. Even though we can't communicate across the distance from our house to the platforms except for waves, it's clear that the rest of our group are happy and healthy in their tree houses.

Similarly, even though our little sanctuary is surrounded by unrelenting Unconsecrated, we seem to be safe inside, thick shutters reinforced by bars covering each window downstairs. While the Unconsecrated never cease to push themselves against the walls and doors, we are tucked away inside and safe until their persistence overwhelms the strength of our fortifications.

It feels as if this house was built for such a siege and it makes me wonder how and why our own village was so ill-prepared. Makes me wonder why this village differs so much from my own. Why their houses are so much bigger and more sophisticated.

Downstairs is taken up with one immense room that serves as the kitchen, dining and living area. A large wood-stove sits in the middle of the room and taking up most of one wall is a cooking fireplace that is almost big enough for me to stand up in.

There is a dining room with a long table bounded by benches—enough seating to feed a large family and plenty of neighbors. Lining one end of the living area is a wall covered with weapons. Some are long spears, some are long-handled axes and some I have never seen before; all have sharpened blades. There are crossbows and trunks filled with arrows. And placed in a position of honor over the fireplace are two gleaming swords with curved blades and intricately carved hilts.

In the back of the house, tucked away behind the stairs, is a tidy room filled with food. Stacked three or four deep along wide shelves are jars and jars of preserved fruits and vegetables. Dried herbs and meat hang from the ceiling, and large barrels with flour and meal line the walls.

This pantry has enough food to keep the two of us alive for years, it seems. It is more food than I have ever seen and I wonder if even the Cathedral had such stores.

Just outside the small pantry door is a tiny courtyard enclosed by a thick brick wall. A few pots ring the perimeter, ready for planting. In the middle is a pump that brings fresh water to the house and garden. There is just enough cleared ground for Argos to sleep his afternoons away in the sun.

It's apparent that the original owners of this house were expecting this, were expecting the inevitable breach that would leave them stranded. An island in the sea of Unconsecrated.

Upstairs are four rooms: three bedrooms and the nursery, the door of which we closed that first day here and haven't opened since. Just like my old shack of a house back in our village, this grand house has a ladder bolted into the wall at the end of the hallway upstairs. I climb it and push against a trapdoor that leads into a large space that spans the length of the house.

Up here there is more food lining the walls and more weapons amassed in neat piles. There are trunks stacked at one end that I don't bother to explore. At the other end of the room is a small white door. I flip the latch and struggle against it and finally it shudders, the vibrations moving up my arms as it jolts open.

Outside is a small porch with thick railings on the left and right and nothing across the front. As I step into the bright sunlight I caress the threshold to the right of the doorway, habit causing me to rub my hand over the Scripture that is always carved there.

But these walls are bare and smooth. Nothing written on the wood, no reminder of God or His words. I think back to all the other doorways I've walked through here and realize that they too have all been bare.

I wonder why the Sisterhood of this village didn't compel the people to inscribe the Scripture and then I realize that there is no kneeling bench in this house. No tapestries on the walls containing His prayers. This house contains nothing of God. The realization startles me—how could a structure in this village be allowed such blasphemy? Such freedom?

And I wonder, for the barest moment, if the Sisters of this village didn't control as tightly. Or perhaps didn't control at all.

I lean against the porch railing, staring down at the throng of Unconsecrated over two stories below. I notice that none of them wears the garb of the Sisterhood, none of them wears a tunic. I glance at the buildings around me: none bears the trappings of God. As far as I can see there's no Cathedral.

My head spins, trying to understand this new village. Trying to figure out if it was a place absent of God or just the Sisterhood. Trying to figure out if it's possible to still believe in God without the Sisterhood.

Dizzy, I sit down, my feet hanging off the edge of the balcony and swinging in the air, making me feel even more groundless. I have never known a life without the Sisterhood, without their constant presence and vigilance. It has never occurred to me that God could be separated from the Sisterhood, that the two had not always been so intimately intertwined that one could exist without the other.

The thought startles me, making my breaths come short and shallow.

Something flickers at the corner of my vision, pulling me from my revelations, and I recognize Harry standing at the edge of his platform in the trees a short distance away. The world around me falls back into focus as I stand up, placing a hand over my eyes to block the sun so that I can take in my surroundings.

I notice a huge tree lying not too far away across the dirt road in front of the house, between Harry's platform and the porch where I am standing. I see that it used to be part of the elaborate system of tree houses and that there are ropes hanging from boards at my feet. They dangle from the edge of the porch where there is no railing down to the ground where the Unconsecrated tread on them.

It looks as if the ropes used to be part of a bridge spanning the gap and I realize that this house, our house, was probably the anchor to the entire system. And now, for some reason either natural or unnatural, we have been cast off, left adrift.

I wonder if there's any way for Travis and me to make it across to the others or for them to find a way to the house—if there's a way to repair the bridge broken by the felled tree. My heart stumbles at the thought, unwilling to give up my solitude with Travis so soon.

Harry waves at me and I wave back. We stand and look at each other for a while before I realize that I am rubbing my wrist where the Binding ropes once chafed me, where scabs still dot my skin.

He's trying to tell me something but I can't understand over the distance and the constant moaning of the Unconsecrated. I shrug my shoulders and put my hand to my ear. He shouts again, his fingers cupping his mouth, and again I shake my head. He waves his hand, giving up, as if what he has to say is not important.

After a while he walks back down the platform, back to his tree house where Cass and Jed and Jacob are waiting. Already I can see a plume of smoke rising from the chimney and I wonder if they too have created their own life. If they have found a way to be happy in this new place the way that Travis and I have.

I slip back inside the attic, my palm brushing against the smooth wall by the door. Habits die hard and absence doesn't stop my fingers from searching.

As the days pass Travis and I begin to belong to another world. We live most of our lives together upstairs where the windows are left open to the light and to the air. Once again the moans of the Unconsecrated become integrated into our every day, the constant noise relegated to a hum in the back of our minds.

Only rarely, when I climb to the platform to look at my brother, my betrothed and my best friend, do I wonder if they are living a life like mine, a domestic tranquility that belies the threat so immediate outside our doors.

Once I almost ask Travis why he didn't come for me back at the village. I'm sitting across from him at the table and there's a break in the conversation and I want so badly to know the answers, to know what my life would have been without the breach. I am gathering my thoughts, the pain of the waiting fresh in my throat. But then he smiles at me and takes my hand, the pads of his palms rough against my skin, and I realize that it no longer matters. Because we're together now. And I don't want to mar the harmony that we have found.

We settle into rhythms. Argos spends his days napping in various locations. Travis keeps our house fortified and I keep our bodies fed. The outside world ends at our door and this includes our commitments to other people. Here, in our house, it's only us and our life together and for a while it's bliss.

Until one day when I find myself coming in from the porch on the roof and facing the trunks lining the other end of the room. For the first time I'm drawn to them and I pass my hand over the smooth wood, the smell of cedar invading my head.

Even though I know there can be no one behind me, since Travis can't climb the ladder that leads here, I turn to make sure I'm not being watched. And then carefully I lift the latch from one of the trunks sitting on top of the stack.

It's filled with clothes and I break into a smile, happy to have found a diversion for the afternoon. One by one I pull out dresses that are intricately beaded and decorated with fancy stitches, each one very carefully folded for storage. They are all different colors, some bright and some muted—some shades I have never seen before. The material is soft and gauzy; fine stiff netting is stitched into the skirts to give them more bounce, more thickness and spin.

I hold each against my body, wondering what it must be like to be covered in such beauty until I'm compelled to try them on. Initially I feel a rush, a giddiness at the foreign material against my bare skin.

But then I start to wonder what woman once wore these dresses and why. For days I've lived in this house and have forbidden myself from imagining its former occupants. Since I dropped the baby from the window I haven't allowed myself to speculate about the children who once ate at the table downstairs, the men who crafted the weapons, the women who preserved each fruit and vegetable, meticulously planning for a siege they would never live long enough to endure.

And now I am wearing her clothes and I'm assaulted by her memories. I know that she was taller than I am because her gowns sweep over my bare toes and trail on the dusty floor. I know that her breasts were larger than mine, perhaps from the children. I know that her arms were flabbier than mine because her sleeves swallow my wrists.

But I don't know what dreams she imagined as she twirled in this dress. What man put his warm hand against the small of her back, making her skin tingle and her eyelashes flutter.

Suddenly, I'm dizzy. All my thoughts collide inside me at once and I must know these things. I run back to the platform, still wearing this woman's dress, and I kneel down and scout the Unconsecrated below. I examine each woman's arms, her waist, her hair, her wrists.

Which one of them slipped her head through this dress? Which one smoothed her hands over its fabric? Which one of them had the baby, raised the children, slept in the bed I sleep in now?

The Unconsecrated are almost impossible to differentiate in their unending hunger and drive, their slack skin and expressionless eyes.

None of the women below seems right and I run to the ladder, climb back down to the bedroom and look out each window. But it's too hard. They are massed too closely together; they crawl over each other, kicking up dust with their need to get into this house, to get to me and Travis.

Not even bothering to lift the skirt of my too-long dress I dart downstairs and grab one of the long-handled spears, startling Travis. I don't hear what he says as I stumble back up the stairs, the spear banging against the walls of the hallways. Its sharp rusty tip trails behind me, scraping against the scarred wooden floors as I race back to my window. I lean out over the edge of the ledge, straining against the seams of the dress and extending the spear out as far as possible. It's just long enough that I can reach into the fray from the second-story window and I prod apart the Unconsecrated, trying to get a better look at each woman's face.

It is like a hunger that I cannot satisfy, an unquenchable thirst: I have to know who lived in this house, whose life I have taken over. Which one is the wife and mother? I am almost convinced that I'll be able to tell just by looking into her eyes which one is banging on her own house, is seeking entrance back into her old life. The life I have stolen from her.

I'm in a frenzy, shoving my spear at the Unconsecrated with tears clouding my eyes, when Travis finally limps into the room, his breath heavy from the arduous climb up the stairs.

He puts his hand on my shoulder but I jerk away. Blindly I jab at each body, shouting, “Which one! Which one of you?”

Finally, he yanks the spear from my hands and pulls me away from the window. But by this time my mind has cycled on to other possibilities, other theories. “Maybe she got away,” I tell him. “Maybe she couldn't get back to the house but she was able to get to the gates,” I say. “Maybe she was like Gabrielle.”