Page 44

“Together?”

“Yes, together. We’d go to Chicago. Now that you can read and write, and even do some math, you can work in a department store.” Miss Lambert’s fingers brush over Jo’s lips. “Sell pretty shoes to pretty ladies.”

“What would you do?”

Miss Lambert winks at Jo, a sly smile playing on her lips. “I have a plan, but I don’t think you’d like it.” She tucks Jo’s curls behind her ears. “I’ll share it with you when the time is right.” She lies down on the blanket and pulls Jo with her. “We’ll tell them you’re my younger sister, and we must live together.”

“Tell who?” Jo laughs, rolls her eyes. “Stop teasing me. Tell me your plan.” Here, in the sunlight, letting the grass gently brush against her skin, listening to the river and pressing herself against the warmth of Miss Lambert, it is easy to imagine their new life together in some unknown world.

“Stop by my place tomorrow morning. I’ll tell you everything,” Miss Lambert says. There is something in the teacher’s voice that Jo doesn’t like. A slight pause between the words, as if the teacher’s hesitating. As if she’s lying. “Everything.” Miss Lambert brings her face down to Jo’s lips.

Jo’s breath hitches. Miss Lambert’s kiss is deep and slow. She tastes like forest and fresh grass. Her hands slide to Jo’s hips, spreading her legs, but Jo’s already moaning and opening herself up. Miss Lambert’s mouth is on Jo’s breast, her tongue circling Jo’s hard nipple, sending Jo to the places she never wants to leave. Her body’s all nerves and electricity and heat. A deep and almost painful desire throbs between Jo’s legs, forcing her to arch into Miss Lambert’s touch, and it doesn’t take much for Jo. Just a few strokes of Miss Lambert’s thumb, a few rhythmic circles between her legs, and she’s shattering, coming undone. Jo’s body is still shaking from the release when she snakes her arms around Miss Lambert’s shoulders, pulling her closer, as if Jo wants to melt into her. And she does. She wants to merge, dissolve, become one being made of flaming heart and twitching muscles and unyielding heat.

A branch snaps. Then another.

Both of them freeze.

“Get dressed. Now.” Miss Lambert jerks away, but Jo is already pulling her brown cotton dress over her head with trembling hands.

Jo’s father steps into the clearing. His hands are rolled into fists. A heavy leather belt is dangling from one of his hands. “You.” He points at Miss Lambert. “You’re an abomination. A sickness.” Jo’s stomach and most likely her soul plummet to the ground. Her knees start to wobble.

Three more men step out from the trees. One of them is the reverend. The other one is the local shopkeeper, the burly man in his sixties with only a few yellow teeth left and mud-crusted hands. The third one is a new arrival in town—a former miner with a limp in one of his legs, crushed by a mining accident, and dark eyebrows that are always furrowed. He’s holding a dog collar in his hands.

The men circle them, the stench of manure rolling off them in nauseating waves.

Jo steps closer to Miss Lambert, who stands silent and straight, her chin lifted defiantly.

“Your mother must’ve never prayed for your soul,” the reverend says, his eyes boring into Miss Lambert. “Raised you godless.”

“Whore,” the miner says under his breath but loud enough for everyone to hear.

Jo flinches at the word. Fear and shame wipe her mind blank. She doesn’t know what to say or what to do to make this situation better. To make these men less angry, less dangerous. Much later, when she looks back at this moment, she realizes that there was nothing—not a word, not a plea—that would’ve changed anything.

“I’ve been called worse before,” Miss Lambert says, her eyes narrowed on the men. Unlike Jo, who’s trying to shrink, to disappear, she looks a bit taller. “Usually, the use of such foul language indicates illiteracy and an extremely limited vocabulary.”

“Shut your mouth.” Jo’s father spits at Miss Lambert, and the spittle lands on Miss Lambert’s right cheek. She wipes it off with the sleeve of her dress, her lips pinched tight.

“Daddy—” Jo begins but is cut off by the belt that wooshes through the air and lands on her shoulder. Her father strikes her twice more, quick and powerful slaps of his belt across the abdomen and thighs, and she howls, her cry echoing through the trees. She falls to her knees, slamming hard into the ground. The pain is like a hot poker branding her skin, cutting to the bones. She scrambles backward, clumsy and unbalanced on the grass. As her father lifts his hand again, Jo shields her face.

“Stop it,” Miss Lambert says and steps in front of Jo. “It’s me you want. Not her.”

Before Miss Lambert, before the reading lessons and their mornings together, if anyone ever asked Jo what she wanted from her life, she would have said not to hurt ever again. Maybe to meet a kind man who doesn’t get violent and doesn’t drink much. Maybe to have a couple of children. But no one ever bothered to ask her, and so she didn’t acknowledge these wishes even to herself. But today, when her body is screaming in agony, she wants just one thing. She wants to save Miss Lambert from the men in front of them. But she doesn’t know how. And there’s so much pain in her, she can’t move, can’t speak. All she can do is cry.

“Indeed,” the reverend says. “We’re going to cleanse you. Rid you of your sins. When you come out of this river, you’ll be reborn.”

“Let her go.” Miss Lambert nods at Jo.

“I’ll take her home.” Jo’s father takes the dog collar from the miner. “Drag her to her cage like the stray that she is.”

Jo whimpers and tries to crawl away from her father, but his hand swings, and the blow to her head sends her into a daze of red and black. The world fades in and out. She cannot see Miss Lambert anymore or hear the men. She feels her father’s rough hands around her neck, securing the leash. She feels the grass and then the pine needles and roots of the trees scratching and cutting her as she’s being dragged away.

At some point, everything goes dark.

The air is cool on her skin.

Jo groans and slowly opens her eyes. Her head pounds. Her whole body is in agony, but she carefully pulls herself up to a sitting position. She’s in her father’s shed, behind her father’s mill. He must’ve brought her here and dropped her on the dirt floor. The leash pulls on her neck, grazes her skin. Her hands shake, her fingers clumsy and weak when she unclasps the leash from her neck. Her breathing is painful. Her throat is raw.

The walls spin. Jo closes her eyes and waits, and when she opens them again, the walls are spinning faster. She leans over and vomits, her breakfast splashing on the floor, thick drops landing on her dress and her shoes. Wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her dress, she tries to get up.