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We both freeze. My heart pounds so fast I’m dizzy. Long minutes pass while we wait for another sound. Finally, I hear a low growl.
I exhale in relief. A wolf or coyote, maybe.
They’re not who I fear.
Starla squeezes my hand again. “Go,Eden. Go!”
We’ve been planning this for months, for me to escape and get what I need to buy us both freedom — a home, money, and whatever else I can earn as quickly as possible. If I don’t go now, I may not get another chance for a year or more… or ever.
But when the time comes — when I have to actually leave my sister alone, knowing the punishment she’ll face if anyone ever suspects she helped me escape — I can’t move.
“Eden,” she says in an impassioned plea. “Please.You have to.” She gives me a quick embrace, holding me to her. I can feel the bones in her back, her rib cage pushed up against mine. So thin and frail, she feels as small and fragile as a child even though she’s almost eighteen.
I kiss her cheek. My lips are damp with her tears.
I love you,I think, but I don’t say it out loud, because speaking those words to her could send her into a tailspin. We’re not allowed to love anyone but God. It’s heretical, a damnable offense to tell her I love her. And I’ve already given her enough reasons to face the worst penalty.
But I hope she feels it.
I hope sheknowsit.
One day, I’ll tell her.
But for now, I have to show her.
It’s a scary place to be, when you’re afraid of what lies ahead of you but terrified of what’s behind you. But I love my sister.
So I run.
* * *
The bus station looms ahead of me with the bright lights of a promise of things to come. I feel a lightness in my chest I haven’t felt in so long, it’s foreign to me, though it’s still tainted with the fear of being found. Cloaked in darkness, I walked through the forest like a woman on a mission.
“This is it,” I whisper to myself, hoping that the sound of my own voice gives me more courage.
It doesn’t work. I tremble as if angelic messengers from heaven itself will come down and block my way.
But no one — or nothing — does.
I’d mapped out the way. I’d taken notes and planned my route, and one day, when we got a shipment of goods, on a day when Seth was actually out of sight for a minute, I asked the delivery boy casually where the nearest bus station was.
“Oh, not far,” he said nonchalantly, waving in the general direction of the woods. “It’s only a few miles from here.”
My mind began to swim with possibilities.
“Oh?” I asked, while I stacked the bags of flour and beans, sugar and oats on a shelf in our stock room. “How much would a ticket cost then?” I wondered, not making eye contact with him, as if somehow that would prevent him from understanding my motives. I liked to pretend I was invisible, sometimes.
If only I could be invisible to Seth.
“Oh, a hundred dollars or so,” he said, when heavy footsteps warned us that Seth was approaching.
Our conversation came to an abrupt halt, but I had all the information I needed.
So I made my plans.
I forged my way.
I traded a few of my handmade items Seth didn’t know about, and socked away every penny I could. I made everyone pay me in dollar bills, and when Seth wasn’t home, and when I was feelingverybrave, I would count the bills, one at a time.
