Page 54

She’s running toward the river. For the first few seconds, she doesn’t understand why she is in the forest and not in the courtyard. She trips and goes down hard, slamming her knees and the palms of both hands onto the roots of a tree. Her head rings out, the pain sharp in her scraped knees. Her wrists scream from the impact.

Find her. Find her. Find her.

Those whispers from the shed again. What are they?

Fear and pain course through her blood as Jo fumbles to her feet, calves tense and shaky. Slowly she looks around, wiping her bleeding palms on her skirt. She’s alone. The woods are dark. The narrow path beckons her to the rushing water. To Miss Lambert.

Jo lurches between the trees to the river.

She doesn’t stop until she is at the clearing. There, she stands still, rooted to the grass underneath her bare feet. Her heart is pounding like a war drum. Her lungs scream for air, but Jo cannot bring herself to move. The trees are quiet. The birds don’t sing their evening songs. Everything is suspended in time and space. As if the world paused as well.

She must go to the shore. To the water. She must find Miss Lambert. To see. To know. Her jaw clenched, she forces herself to move. Her steps are slow and heavy. Beneath her weight, a twig cracks, and she startles at the sharpness of the sound.

Finally, the riverbank.

She walks to the place where Miss Lambert was earlier today, but there are no signs of her or the men that came later. Jo steps closer to the river, peers into the dark waters. There’s a moment, an awfully slow piece of time, when she’s certain Miss Lambert’s amber eyes peer at her from the bottom, her features distorted, rippling in the moonlight, shifting into something monstrous.

She shrieks.

But there’s nothing in the water. She pulls her skirt up and wades farther into the coldness that seeps into her bones like poison. The river carries no trace of the teacher. Jo frantically turns, checking the bank, the trees in the clearing, squinting into the shadows under the trees. The world remains silent, and whatever secrets it’s keeping, they’re not for her to know.

Jo walks back to the shore, listens to the sounds for a few shallow breaths, and walks into the woods, heading in the direction of the school.

The light of an oil lamp flickers inside Miss Lambert’s shack. Miss Lambert moves in the window, seemingly unharmed. Her hair is pulled back with a colorful scarf. She’s wearing her Sunday best. There are shadows beneath her eyes that weren’t there this morning. Her skin is paler, but she doesn’t wince when she moves easily around the room, throwing books and clothes on the bed. An open trunk lies by the wall.

Jo pushes the door open. There’s a groan of old, rusty hinges, and Miss Lambert whirls around at the sound.

“Thank goodness it’s you,” Miss Lambert gasps, clutching at her throat.

Jo steps inside the cabin. “Did they hurt you?”

Miss Lambert shakes her head. “I’m all right.”

The relief is a tidal wave that sweeps over Jo, bringing her to her knees. She’s on the floor, her lips moving silently. She tastes the words on her tongue, even though she cannot say them out loud.

Miss Lambert towers over her. She grazes Jo’s face with her fingertips, her touch gentle. “My darling girl, what’s wrong? Why are you on the floor? Can you stand?” She pulls Jo up to her feet and leads her to the bed by the window. “Sit. Breathe. Let me get you some water.”

“What happened?” Jo’s voice disintegrates and gets stuck somewhere between her teeth. “By the river?”

Miss Lambert takes a glass by the washstand and pours water into it. She turns to face Jo, and a grin stretches her lips. The gap between her front teeth looks bigger. “Why, I got baptized, of course. The river washed my sins away, and I’m newly reborn.” She scoffs. “Bastards.” She winks at Jo. “If it was that easy, we’d all be saints.”

“I thought . . . I thought you were dead.”

Miss Lambert shrugs. “There was a moment when I was under the water, and they were holding me down, not letting me come up. And I wondered. Really wondered if they wanted to drown me.” She hands the glass to Jo. “Here, drink. You look dreadful.”

Jo’s hand trembles so violently, she spills water over her muddy frock. She takes a careful sip. Then another. And as the water soothes her throat and drops into her stomach, she asks, “You’re packing. Are you leaving?”

“I can’t stay in this town. Surely, you understand. After everything that happened. The reverend told me I cannot teach here anymore. You should’ve seen the look he gave me when he was saying that. The regal supremacy of him.”

“I’ll come with you.” Jo empties her glass. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

“Do what alone? This?” Miss Lambert waves at the trunk. “I’ll leave you my books. Read them. Learn from them. I’ll write when I settle, and you’ll come.”

Jo detects the uncertainty in Miss Lambert’s tone. The hesitation, as the words pour from her mouth. The lie of her promise to write. “I can’t stay here.” Jo touches her raw throat. The bruise from the dog collar is swelling. “Not with my father. He’ll kill me.” She cannot catch Miss Lambert’s fleeting gaze. “He almost killed me tonight.” She wants to add about the voices she hears now, but something sharp in Miss Lambert’s face stops her.

“No need to be so dramatic, my darling girl. He won’t kill you. You’re his daughter, and he just taught you a lesson. All you have to do now is to be obedient. Follow his lead. With me gone, it won’t be that difficult.” Miss Lambert comes up to Jo, close enough for Jo to inhale her scent of the fresh grass and river. She neither looks nor smells like a person who was dunked into the river and held down by three men. She must’ve taken a bath afterward. “Those animals.” Miss Lambert reaches out and untangles the twigs from Jo’s hair. She brushes Jo’s messy locks away from her bruised forehead and pushes on a bruise that swells on Jo’s cheekbone. Jo winces. “I’ll write. Wait for me just a bit longer.” With those words, she turns away and goes on folding her clothes and books and hats into the trunk. There is something distant yet determined in the way Miss Lambert moves. In the way she avoids looking at Jo.

“You told me you have a plan. You said we’ll leave together.”