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She killed Miss Lambert.

She’s just like her father—a violent, angry beast. Jo closes her eyes and tries to pray for forgiveness, but all the words, sentences, and thoughts stay trapped inside her mind. She cannot utter a sound.

What is she supposed to do? Go to the reverend and ask for mercy? She doesn’t deserve mercy.

Jo lowers herself on the floor, pulls Miss Lambert close, cradles her head on her lap. Jo’s fingers trace the shape of Miss Lambert’s brows, her nose, her lips. The scent of her—the grass, the river, the woods—is still strong. Jo inhales it deeply and holds it inside her lungs as long as she can. When she finally exhales, she looks into the dead eyes and tries to remember how they twinkled in the sunlight, how they sparkled when she smiled. She’ll remember their mornings by the river forever.

Jo’s fingertips press lightly on Miss Lambert’s eyelids, closing them.

If people discover what Jo has done, will they hang her? She imagines the reverend leading her to the gallows before the townsfolk, her frock whipping around her knees, the crowd whooping and shouting “murderer.” The reverend tightens the thick rope around her neck—another leash—adjusts the knot tighter. She looks at the crowd, searching for her father, but he isn’t there. The rope tightens around her neck. The world blurs.

She’ll be dead at twenty. Is this what she imagined her life to be?

Jo jolts. No, she doesn’t want to die. She needs to hide Miss Lambert’s body. Let them think she left. No one can know what happened in this cabin.

When she gets to her feet, she has to steady herself against the wall. Her fingers leave bloody trails on the wallpaper. She pulls the sheet off the bed and rolls Miss Lambert into it. The agony of the loss and the terror of her acts stab at her in a million different ways, but she bites down on her lower lip until it bleeds and tells herself she’ll deal with her feelings later. Her legs feel like rubber, and her head is full of cotton as she drags Miss Lambert down to the water. As the river gets closer, her heart shrivels. Her soul darkens. And her determination to live strengthens.

Everything clenched inside her as hard as she can manage, she collects the rocks on the riverbank and shoves them into Miss Lambert’s dress pockets.

Together they enter the river.

Back in Miss Lambert’s cabin, Jo sits on the bed for a long time, staring at the wall, trying not to unravel. She needs to finish packing. After all, the teacher left the town.

Jo walks over to the trunk full of Miss Lambert’s clothes. Without realizing what she’s doing, she shuffles through the skirts and blouses and undergarments, imagining what life would be like if they left together. If the promises of love were not hollow. If Miss Lambert’s heart was not rotten.

She finds a stack of letters on the bottom of the trunk.

She reads them all.

Her thoughts are broken into pieces, and those pieces float freely in her mind. Until she tries to string them together, and they transform into something solid. The idea takes shape. It acquires a sense of wonder. Then, the thoughts surge forward all at once, flooding her mind as though a dam has broken.

Jo takes off her bloody clothes and chooses a green cotton blouse and a brown woolen skirt. She pulls on white cotton stockings and slides her feet into Miss Lambert’s patent leather slippers with a Cuban heel. On her way to the mirror, Jo brushes her unruly curls and pulls her hair away from her face. Meeting her own reflection, she studies the shape of her lips, the sharpness of her cheekbones, the lines of her skull. She stands very still, attempting to convince herself she can be a new person. She can have a new life. A future away from Millville.

“You know,” she says softly. “I can change my hair. I can wear your clothes. I can be you.” It’ll take time and a lot of effort, but with some patience and precision, her plan could actually work. “I won’t be a miller’s daughter anymore.” She smiles at herself, and a monster inside her smiles back. “Hello, August. My name is Josephine Lambert, but please call me Jo.”

She wipes her tears, closes the trunk, and heaves it off the bed. She walks to the door, and before she opens it, she glances over her shoulder for the last time. Then, taking a deep breath, she pushes the door open. As she steps outside, there is a whisper behind her.

You can never be me, my darling girl.

A Train Station

Clutching at the edges of the wall, Jo hauls her upper body from the well.

She braces herself upon her aching elbows, half of her still submerged in the water. Straining to pull herself the rest of the way, her elbows slip, and she’s about to fall back into the well, but someone’s skinny arms haul Jo over the edge. She falls heavily on Millie, and both of them sprawl on the white cobblestones.

The horse snorts.

Jo rolls over to her back.

“Took you a while,” Millie says. She remains lying on the ground, looking up at the cloudless sky. Her sharp cheekbones press dangerously against her translucent skin. “How does it feel to face the moment when you became Josephine?”

Jo doesn’t know how to answer Millie’s question. If you don’t face your sins long enough, they fade away. Unlike the guilt, which always has a physical weight and a physical presence. Can you forget the sin but still feel the weight of your guilt? She doesn’t say any of this. It doesn’t seem appropriate for some reason. Especially in front of Horace, who’s staring at Jo with his big brown eyes. Judging, most likely.

Jo closes her eyes and tries to figure out what it’s like to remember things she worked so hard to forget. What does it feel like to let the lies eat at her hopes and her life? At her soul? There’s no relief. Just a rock in her chest, solid and heavy, dragging her down into the well.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Jo says, opening her eyes. She has spent years becoming someone else, freeing herself of the past. She’s a survivor, isn’t she? She’s also a murderer. But despite the guilt, despite the loss, and definitely despite all the violence, she didn’t allow herself to be consumed by darkness. “It was the night I started hearing the dead. My father must’ve tightened the dog collar around my neck too tightly. I think I almost died.”

“You’ve crossed the realms, and you survived.”