Page 12 of The Invisible Hour

“I’m fine,” Mia insisted. “I’m good.”

She certainly didn’t sound it. On impulse, Sarah wrote down her phone number and passed the note to Mia. “In case you ever need anything.”

Mia smiled faintly. “Thanks, but I don’t have a phone. I couldn’t call you.”

Sarah opened the desk drawer, then handed Mia a key to the library. “Call me from here.”

“You shouldn’t trust me,” Mia said. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know what you like to read.” Sarah shrugged. “That’s good enough for me.”

Mia remembered that Ivy had once said she’d been given a key she’d never used and she seemed to regret it, so Mia took the key. She didn’t wish to be rude, but she had to hurry. If someone from the Community thought to ask where she was, Tom Miller might figure out that he’d best come to look for her. “Thanks for the offer,” Mia told Mrs. Mott.

When Mia slipped out the rear door, the sunlight was blinding, but as soon as she stepped into the woods it was dark. Instead of heading toward the dirt road that curved up into the mountain, as she usually did to reach the Community, Mia cut through a field rife with wild thimbleberry, low-growing plants filled with tiny snow-white blooms. There were two rivers nearby, the Eel River, said to be haunted by the Apparition, and the Last Look River, which had taken the lives of several boys who leapt into the water without looking and were swept away by the rising spring flow. Mia was approaching the Last Look River. There were wild ox-eye daisies attracting masses of bees, and when Mia lay down in the grass, the sound of their droning filled her head. The Last Look River was running fast after a series of thunderstorms and the water was nearly overflowing its banks. Mia was a good swimmer, but she intended to load stones into her backpack, which she would then slip over her shoulders to weigh her down. If they had left the night before the accident, none of it would have happened. They might be in California right now, looking at the Pacific Ocean, three thousand miles from here.

Mia held up a hand to shield her eyes so she could look around one last time. Gazing down, she noticed that when she’d flung herself onto the ground, the library book had tumbled into the grass, and when it fell open, there was the inscription. She hadn’t imagined it.

To Mia, If it was a dream, it was ours alone and you were mine.

The cloth cover was frayed at the edges and the title was a tarnished gold. It looked like a book that mattered, one that might have belonged in the rare books collection. The Scarlet Letter. Was it meant for her, or for someone else? Mia thumbed through the pages.

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.

Here was the story of a young woman who had a child out of wedlock, shamed and judged by those closest to her, married to a man who was evil, and in love with one who was weak, forced to wear a badge with the letter A for adultery. It was the story of a woman who loved her daughter more than anything, more than life itself.

Mia paged through the book, then stopped and read again.

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

She felt her heart hitting against her chest. She had been a sleepwalker, and now, on this afternoon when she meant to do away with herself, she had awakened with a start. Whether or not the inscription was directed to her, she felt as if the author knew her, and was speaking directly to her, for the tale he told of the Puritans and the story of life in the Community were so alike. In that moment, she felt closer to him than she had ever felt to anyone. The lemon-colored afternoon light was filtering through the branches above her. The peepers in the shallows were calling, a soft watery song. The rocks were gray shale, an ancient mix of mud and clay, and it was possible to find plant fossils, along with fossils of tubeworms and primordial insects. Mia was a born reader, just as her mother had been, and once she had begun, she couldn’t stop.

She lay on her stomach, propped up on one elbow, quickly turning the pages, falling in love with both the author and the book. By the time the lilac-colored dusk clouded the sky, Mia was halfway through the novel. She had forgotten about gathering rocks, and drowning seemed a foolish waste of a life. She’d thought her only choice was to leave this world, but now she had discovered how terribly alive she was. She’d had a tingling feeling, as if she’d been stung by bees. This was how it felt to want more than being invisible.

As the dark pitched down in splotches, Mia shoved on her boots and raced to the farm, where, luckily, no one had missed her. When she saw that newcomer Tom Miller unloading the truck, she explained that she’d had female problems and had to run home. “Please don’t tell anyone,” she begged, and because he was embarrassed by the topic of conversation, he was willing to oblige.

That night Mia left the book in the barn beneath some old boards. She had books hidden all over the barn, nearly two dozen volumes that were extras Mrs. Mott had given her. She finished The Scarlet Letter when she returned the next day in the pale morning light, sitting in the musty barn, her back against the splintered wood. She felt the book inside her heart, for the story so reminded her of the life she and Ivy had been leading. When Mia was done reading, she hid the book in her special place alongside her beloved painting, up in the hayloft behind a board she had pried off the wall.

At the end of the day, Mia went up the hill to the cemetery. The last of the sunlight was so bright, the air was so soft, and her pulse created such a steady rhythm in her head. She began to weed around her mother’s grave, leaving the ferns she had planted there. She had been reminded of all there was to look forward to—books, sunlight, stories, the scent of the ferns. She wished that Ivy could see the sky and the clouds over Hightop Mountain. Oh, glorious world. Oh, day that would never come again. How could she have ever thought of leaving it behind?

IT HAPPENED A WEEK after Mia had decided she wanted to be alive. She often went to visit the cemetery and had sat there a few times, rereading The Scarlet Letter, wishing she could tell her mother about the book. We should have gone off to live in the forest. We should have never bowed to Joel’s vision of what life should be like.

In the dining hall, there was vegetable stew and biscuits and a salad made with the last of their lettuce and kale for dinner. It seemed like another uneventful Thursday, until Mia noticed the girls were all looking at her as she went to get a dinner tray. Evangeline was standing by the door watching her as well, her mouth set in a harsh line. Mia went on to pick up her silverware, but she had begun to feel a chill. What did they know that she did not? Before Mia could get her food, Tim Hardy and another man came up to her.

“He’s waiting,” Tim said, and that only meant one thing. Mia had broken the rules. There was no one to protect her. Ivy couldn’t dissuade him now, and Mia would have to pay for her actions. She was no one special anymore.

Mia’s thoughts were racing as the two men took her out to the cow field. There were torches burning, and on the grass she spied a pile of her books. She hadn’t realized she had so many that she hadn’t yet returned to the library. By now, everyone had followed them out of the dining hall. Joel was waiting, wearing a white shirt and black trousers, a badge in his hand. A for acts of wickedness. He came to hang the badge around Mia’s neck. The moon was already rising over the field, a thin, pale sliver of light.

“Is this how you repay my kindness?” Joel asked in his dark, quiet voice. It was the voice he used right before he punished someone, soft and dangerous. “With such shameful behavior?”

Mia stared at him with an unwavering gaze, even though she was terrified, her knees shaking. “What kindness?” she said, for she felt she had never known any.

The bonfire had been lit, the flames rising high, the night flickering with heat. They had used old wood, chopped from apple trees taken down in the wet gusts of a storm, good for burning. The books were flung into the blaze one by one as Mia watched, half dazed, her hands and feet feeling numb. Joel insisted that the children do it, and each boy and girl who came up to the fire was solemn as they tossed books into the pyre. Pages fluttered like doves aflame, the burned bits of paper soaring into the dark, silent night. In the morning, Mia would be branded with an iron in the shape of an A. She would carry it with her all her life.

“Think about that,” Joel said, as she was led to the sheep barn and locked inside. She sat down in the dark and she thought about it. She listened to the hissing sound as the bonfire burned out, and she decided the time had come. Hidden beneath the hay was the hammer she’d taken from the men working in the field. Just in case I ever need it, she had thought then. That was how she broke the lock, and she had never in her life felt more alive.

THERE WAS STILL A sliver of the yellow moon in the sky on the morning Mia left. It was pitch dark, but she could see through the gloom; she was used to going out to the barn to do her chores before dawn, when the mist was rising. When she crossed the field, the dogs didn’t bark; they were all used to Mia, who always tried to save some of her supper for them. One, a collie named Jester, followed her through the tall grass. He was a good dog, friendlier than the others, and she might have cried at the thought of leaving him behind if she’d been a different sort of person, but she wasn’t. She was someone who knew that the only girls who survived were the ones who saved themselves.

“Hush,” Mia told the collie when they reached the fence. “Go home.”