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Ash smiles. “No one’s in charge. It’s not like Westfall.” She glances at Caleb. “But people respect his opinion. Just like they did my dad’s. But everyone’s free to make their own decisions, so long as they don’t hurt the group.”
I nod, although it’s hard for me to fathom a place where the final say in everything you do isn’t dictated by someone else. In Westfall the hierarchy was so well-defined: President Lattimer, my father, Callie, Bishop…and finally, me, always last to be given a voice. Even though Bishop didn’t play by those rules, it didn’t change the fact that I was on the bottom rung of the totem pole in everyone else’s eyes. It will take time to adjust to making decisions based solely on what I want, not on what is expected of me, on what other people think is best.
I let my eyes roam around the ring of faces, none of them familiar although I know at least some of them have to be from Westfall originally. I don’t see Mark or the two men who were put out with him. The three of them were the only people sentenced after I married Bishop, so there’s no one here who can contradict my story about why I was forced to leave Westfall. Maybe there will come a time when I’ll feel safe enough to tell Ash the truth. But it’s too big a risk to take now.
“Have most of these people been with your group a long time?” I ask Ash.
“It’s a mix,” Ash says. She’s cutting into an apple and holds out a slice for me. “Some have been here since before I was born, some are from Westfall originally, and some come from other places.”
My gaze falls on an older couple next to us, and the man gives me a friendly smile but the woman only stares. I turn back toward Ash, but I can still feel the woman’s eyes on me.
“Who is that?” I whisper to Ash, tilting my head toward the woman.
“Who?” Ash leans back and looks to my right. “Oh, that’s Elizabeth. She’s from Westfall, too.”
Just as Ash’s words register, the woman, Elizabeth, calls out. “You’re a Westfall, aren’t you?”
I pretend I don’t hear her, my heart slamming against my ribs as I keep my gaze on the dancing flames. There’s a rustle of cloth as Elizabeth stands, the shuffle of feet through grass as she moves closer. Around us the voices have grown quiet. “You’re Justin Westfall’s daughter,” Elizabeth says. “The youngest one.”
Ash looks at me, and I meet her eyes. “Ivy Westfall?” Ash whispers.
I nod because I can’t find my voice.
“She was supposed to marry the president’s son,” Elizabeth says and my head jerks toward her. She must have been put out in the last few years if she knows that.
“That’s why they put you out?” Caleb says from my left. “Because you wouldn’t marry him?”
“I already told you that,” I say, voice harsh. “Remember?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Caleb says. “But you left out your last name. And who your groom was supposed to be.”
“What does it matter?” I say, turning to look at him. His eyes are bright in the glow of the fire, watching me. I can feel that old reckless side of me starting to wake up, waiting for Caleb to push me into saying something I won’t be able to take back. A part of me hopes he will.
I startle when I feel a hand on my head, whip around too fast and almost send Elizabeth spilling backward from where she’s crouching next to me. She reaches forward again and her hand smooths down my hair. It’s a gentle touch, what I imagine a mother’s touch must be like.
“You sweet girl,” she says softly. “Such a brave, sweet girl.” She leans forward and enfolds me in her arms, kisses my cheek. I catch a glimpse of Ash’s smile as I close my eyes and allow myself to be held by this stranger. So now I know the answer. Maybe my father gave me something worth having after all, because being Ivy Westfall is to my advantage here.
The fact that I’m actually a Lattimer is just one more secret I will have to keep.
Chapter Six
I’ve been living in Ash’s tent for five days, and I’m still confused every time I open my eyes. It takes me a second, my mind scrolling through the possibilities: my childhood bedroom, my bed with Bishop, the hard ground and long grass, the empty house in Birch Tree, before settling on the correct one. And every morning, when I figure out where I am, the pain hits all over again, a violent punch right to my heart.
Growing up, our next-door neighbor lost her six-year-old son to the flu one particularly harsh January. I lay in bed on those ice-blue winter mornings and listened to her scream out her grief. Each rising of the sun reopening her wound. Now I understand—how sleep allows you to forget, but your pain wakes with the dawn, worse because for a split second you don’t remember what you’ve suffered. It’s a trick made even crueler by the fact that it happens over and over again. I can’t stop the hurt from washing over me, but I don’t let myself dwell on what, and who, I’ve lost. I don’t hope for things that aren’t meant to be mine. I tell myself never, not maybe someday, and try to remember that it won’t always hurt this much—one day the pain will fade to the mellow ache of memory.
Today Ash is already gone, but she’s left a bowl of berries and a hunk of corn bread next to my cot. She always brings me breakfast, whether I’m awake or not. Always greets me with a smile and glowing eyes. She is probably the most open, kindest person I’ve ever known. It’s no wonder Caleb hovers, worried her kindness might be her downfall. I wish I could be honest with her, tell her my true story, especially when late at night she speaks about her childhood, the pain of her father dying, her fear of losing Caleb, too. But I don’t know if there’s a limit to her goodness. Maybe her affection for me ends where my allegiance to Bishop Lattimer begins.
I eat my breakfast while pulling on my clothes. Over the past few days, Ash has managed to gather up a respectable pile of clothing for me, including a second pair of shoes. I untangle my hair with the brush we share and tie it back in a ponytail. This morning we’re helping to wash clothes down at the river, a task that caused Ash to wrinkle her nose when she told me about it. But she promised that tomorrow we’d do something more exciting, like Caleb teaching me how to snare small game. I’m not sure about spending a day with Caleb, but being able to catch my own dinner, something beyond lizards, is a skill I’d like to have.
Although fall is tiptoeing up on us, the daytime temperatures don’t yet reflect the change, and the air is already thick and sticky when I step out of the tent, pausing to stretch my good arm high above my head. I don’t feel comfortable here yet. Maybe it won’t ever happen. Maybe no place will ever feel like home to me again. But I’m slowly learning the rhythms of this life, the way everyone follows the cues of sun and moon, how tasks are divvied up based on what needs doing, not the gender of those doing the work, how people are accepted so long as they don’t cause trouble and they pull their own weight. It’s a harder life than the one I knew, but in a lot of ways it’s a freer one, too.
Caleb’s tent is right next to ours, and as I pass, raised voices drift out from inside it. Caleb’s and another man’s. I take a step closer, not eavesdropping exactly, but definitely curious. I hear Caleb’s voice. “I’m just telling you what she said.”
“Well, she’s lying,” the other man says. Before the sound of his voice can register, Caleb’s front tent flap is thrown open and I’m once again face-to-face with Mark Laird.
I stumble back a step and we stare at each other. It feels like those first few seconds by the riverbank, only this time he’s not smiling. And his face and hair are still streaked and matted with clumps of dried blood, his temple a mottled purple. I glance down and see shredded, bloody socks. All of which sends a thrill of brutal satisfaction through me. Belatedly, I notice that he has his bag gripped in one hand. Caleb took it from me whe
n we got to camp, said he would return it to its rightful owner if he ever showed up again. Mark lifts the bag and shakes it in my direction. “Told him you found this?”
