Nameless

by Marni MacRae

“He let me name them.” Eve shakes her head and chuckles softly.” I would name them after flowers. The pigs were Snap and Dragon, the goat was Daisy, the chickens I named Clover, Rose, Buttercup, the rooster Sweet William. Then we killed them, of course. Or ‘harvested’ as Linda drilled into me. I didn’t name them after that.

  “Linda had been a school teacher once. She taught me to read and write. To do math. She taught me music, how to play the piano, that it was a Christian skill to create music. She read the Bible to me until I could read and then my lessons were reading passages aloud. Every night. She reminded me I was to be grateful.”

  Eve pauses and I see a pained expression cloud her face.

  “To always be grateful.” She almost spits it out. Raising her eyes, she looks around the room at us and her face softens. “I tried. I knew that God had given me the gift of life. That I was fed and clothed and that I was loved. Arthur loved me. And I was grateful. Without him, I don’t believe I would have survived.”

  Eve takes a long breath and gazes back into her tea that no longer produces steam.

  “Over time, I worked alongside Father and Linda. We awoke at dawn and tilled the earth, planted, weeded, fed the animals, mended clothing, knitted in the winter from the wool sheared the prior spring.

  “Once a month father would leave. He would be gone for days, taking our car, and going for supplies. Things we needed but couldn’t grow. Wheat. Buckets and buckets that were ground into flour and made into bread. Yeast, too, fabric to sew for clothing, salt, or an axe-head when he lost ours one fall, cutting a tree near a rocky cliff. Linda had been angry about that. Linda often was. As much as she insisted I be grateful, I never saw an example of it in her.

  “As a girl, I recall her brushing my hair.” Eve’s fingers lift to touch hair at her shoulder that was no longer there, cut short now. But her fingers caress the memory of long strands, running down her chest to join her other hand still grasping her mug. “She would spend an hour washing and brushing, teaching me math or quoting verses by heart. But she was kinder then. She loved my hair.”

  Eve had been whispering, but she shakes from the reverie and her voice hardens again.

  “But that Linda is a memory. Over the years she became harsh. Cold. I enjoyed our lessons and excelled at what she taught, but it didn’t feel enough. I always had questions, and Linda hated it. I wanted to know about people, about the world, I wanted to know about God and Jesus, but I was not to ever question the Bible. I was to be grateful and hold my tongue.

  “As the distance grew between us, Arthur and I grew closer. He was protective and gentle and patient. He would take me fishing in the deep creek. He taught me to swim in a lake it took two hours to walk to.” At this, she smiles at Laurel and gives a little nod. “When I was ten, he gave me a set of three books he had brought back from one of his supply trips. They were called Nancy Drew. I loved them.”

  Eve’s eyes light up as she says the name, Nancy Drew, almost reverently.

  “She was like me, Nancy. Curious and inquisitive and the world inside the books was full of people and mysteries, friendship, and family. I read them and re-read them. I hid them under my mattress, knowing even at ten that Linda would condemn me to hell for tainting our pure world with Nancy Drew.

  “But she did find them. I was twelve then. I had them memorized, the pages worn from reading over and over. And when she discovered the books she fought with Arthur. It wasn’t unusual for them to disagree. But he was a peacekeeper, a gentle man. She attacked him with harsh words and a volume I thought surely God would hear and strike her down for accosting such a perfect soul. But God didn’t strike her down. And Arthur…left.”

  Eve pauses, and I see her face crumple, her shoulders fall, and she swallows. I reach for her hand, and she lets me hold it, but she is not in the room with us. Tears track lazily down her cheeks, and we all sit in silence as she lives through the loss of a father she loved.

  “He never returned.” Eve whispers. “And Linda burned the books.”

  Eve wipes her cheeks with her free hand and gives me an embarrassed smile.

  “I missed them. They were my friends. But two months before, Arthur had created the space beneath my bed. Linda had been gone for the day, a rare trip to gather mushrooms, and he had taken the opportunity to make the safe place for me. He had brought the encyclopedias from behind the wood shed where he had hidden them and stored them in the space.

  “Never let her find them,” he had said. “And never stop being curious, Alice.”

  “The day he left, after Linda made me watch the books burn, she locked me in the room. For three days I lay on my bed, not knowing then I would never see my father again, not knowing that Linda had left, had driven away. I cried and waited. On the second day, I dared to knock at the door, hoping Linda had forgiven me. I was so thirsty, I was hungry, I had used the corner to relieve myself, knowing I would be struck for it, but too terrified to ask to be let out.

  “Knocking brought no answer. And I began to listen harder. There was no movement, no creaking of floors. I could hear the cow bellowing to be milked, and after a few hours, the sound was tearing at me. I opened my window, it took over an hour to release the rusted hinge lock and then push up the old swollen boards, but the bellowing spurred me to not give up—that and the fear that I would be trapped forever in that room. Finally, I got the window open enough to crawl through and ran to the barn.

  “I was a child.” Eve looks to me for understanding. “I didn’t think it through, I couldn’t know the repercussions. I milked the cow, drinking from the pail every few minutes, feeling stronger and more sure as I felt the warm cream fill my blood. I fed the chickens, the pigs, set the goats to pasture. I did the chores that for two days had been left. And then I crawled back through my window. I couldn’t shut it. It was stuck at the half-open spot, and I wasn’t strong enough, didn’t weigh enough to make a difference in my struggle to shut it.”

  “I pulled out an encyclopedia and escaped into the stories. They weren’t written like Nancy Drew, they didn’t have color and life. But they had information, and I was able to lose myself in the pages. I was careful to return the book when I felt myself grow tired, then I curled up and slept, the third night alone. Completely.”

  “The next morning I awoke to Linda standing over me.”

  “You milked the cow.”

  “She said it like I had committed a great sin. She could see that the window was open, had to have noticed the fed animals along with the empty udder of the jersey. But she didn’t say, ‘you escaped,’ or ‘you got out.’ I think she didn’t want to incriminate herself to God, to admit she had caged me or trapped me. I said ‘yes,’ not knowing what would come.

  “Linda had never struck me. She had been cruel with her words, had been cold in her teaching and treatment of me, but up until that day, she had never harmed me. Physically.

  “I saw she had a rope in her hand. The lead rope for the cow. She leaned down and pulled me from the bed by my hair. The hair she had loved to brush and braid. She wrapped the rope around my hands and dragged me as I stumbled to keep up. Out the door, into the yard, to the barn. She forced my arms around the main center beam, I was so little I couldn’t reach all the way around it, but she tied them, pulling them tight so that my shoulders hurt, and my wrists stretched with the strain.”

  “And then she beat me.” Eve’s voice was distant. Almost robotic. “I don’t know what she used. A stick, or a board. It never broke the skin. I didn’t bleed.” Eve looks at her hands, the fingers clenching her cup. “She said I was to never disobey. To never question her. I was to be grateful.

  “She left me there. All day, until the sun was setting. My back bruised and welting so that I couldn’t lie on it for a month. My hands stretched so tight I no longer felt my fingers.” Eve’s voice is soft. Her words spoken gently almost in defiance of what they described. “At sunset, she untied me. I fell, screaming with the pain when I landed on my back. She didn’t help m
e up, but she leaned over me her eyes empty, like I was just a dog, whining at a kick.

  “Get up. Take what I give to you with gratitude, girl, your tears mean nothing, your pain is the lesson God meant for you to learn.

  “When I stumbled to my room, the locks were there.” She looks at me from below wet lashes. “It had only been one when I was little, just to keep me from wandering off into the woods if I awoke before Father and Linda. But now there were three. I knew I would never break them. I knew I would never try. The window was boarded over. And when she closed the door behind me, I sat on my bed in the dark, waiting for her to sleep, knowing my life had changed.”

  “I stayed in the room for a week. She never opened the door. There were two pitchers of water, a loaf of bread I had baked the day Arthur left. And a pot in the corner. After two days, I realized I should ration the food. The water. I had been able to move the bed the night before and found all my books still in their spot. And so, although hungry and healing, I took the week to read. Always with an ear for the door, the locks, ready to hide the book in hand if Linda came in.

  “It was one of the better weeks I ever had. I read non-stop, curled by the window till the last scrap of light turned to darkness. Awake with the dawn to read again. I learned about machinery, wars, textiles, animals, plants, people from history who did remarkable things. And I realized I had only ever met Linda, Arthur and a few other people who had come by for trades over the years. I wanted to meet more, to see more, to experience the world.

  “Then Linda released me. I was set to chores. I was not to speak unless spoken to. I was called ‘Girl.’ No longer Alice. And I waited for Father to return.

  “Years passed. Father never came back. Linda now took the monthly trips for supplies. She would lock me in and drive away. I began to look forward to it. My room became my sanctuary, my place to visit the world through pages.

  “When Linda was home there was a darkness there, a weight that ate at my soul. I would forget sometimes, early on, and speak or ask a question, and she would tie me to the beam, teach me God’s lesson with a stick, then lock me in my room. I slowly learned to exist. To wake, to work, to mend, sew, cook, plant, harvest. And never to speak. But no matter how she insisted, I couldn’t learn to be grateful.

  “Arthur’s gifts had shown me there was so much more than the pittance of the life I was made to live. But I had no way out. I had nowhere to go, no concept of how to break free, not only from the life I was in, but from the…rhythm of it. It was what I knew. It was all I knew. The outside world was fascinating, yes, but also terrifying. And I couldn’t take my friends, my books. Small, perhaps, as an excuse to stay, but to me, they were my world.

  “Then Linda grew ill. I was no longer a girl. Twenty now and almost mute for the little speaking I did. I think Linda only tolerated my existence because I did the labor. Like a slave. And when she grew ill, she became even more dependent on me. It sounds sad now as I say it, but that she needed me was another tie to that place. Who would milk the cow? Feed the animals? The rhythm of that life was in my bones, the day to day, season to season, year to year.

  “And so, I began to care for Linda. The threat of beatings was removed, yes, but her tongue was still sharp. I was an ungrateful sinner, and she reminded me of that daily. Over the next few years, she grew worse. I didn’t know what I was to do if she died. I began to worry on that, to wonder about my future alone. Supply runs had stopped the year before. Linda was too ill to drive, and the car hadn’t been running well for more than a year before that anyway. We were short on most things and out of luxuries such as salt or sugar. Without yeast, I made flatbread. Unleavened, and Linda said it was holy. Holy to suffer, to starve, to struggle. But one day…”

  Eve stops. The room is still, no one is breathing it seems, and Eve raises her head. I see her face change. Strength, determination, and relief all mixes there, and she looks at me.

  “Two weeks ago, I decided to ask. I spoke before being spoken to.” She smiles. “I questioned her. I was ungrateful. I broke all the rules.”

  Chapter 30

  “Linda had wasted away. It had been slow at first. She ailed over the course of years, weakening, then becoming incapable of helping at more than the most basic chores. My days became longer, rising to begin with the sun, and as the days grew shorter, staying out past sunset to finish. Stopping only long enough to eat, to make food for Linda or stoke the fire to keep her warm.

  “But the winter had been hard. I couldn’t fell large trees. I would forage for wood, trekking deep into the forest and hills, pulling back loads through the gullies on a makeshift sled. Sometime around Christmas, she fell. I had been gone, out all day after the chores, dragging back logs, cutting them with a hand saw and out again to find fallen tree limbs or deadfall that wasn’t too large, too rotted for burning.”

  “When I returned, she was there, lying half inside the door, chilled through. I think it was her hip that broke. She screamed something fierce when I moved her, and all I could think of was the words she had said so long ago to me. ‘Your tears mean nothing, your pain is the lesson God meant for you to learn.’

  “I managed to get her to her bed. She screamed the whole way. I straightened her legs, propping them with pillows, knowing I had no way to see the bone, set the bone. No medicine or knowledge beyond Arthur’s books. So, I made her as comfortable as I could.”

  “She railed at me.” I shake my head in wonder of the memory. “She cursed me to hell, she threatened a beating, demanded I serve her, jump to her bidding. And I realized then that she had lost her power. That she had only ever had it because at first, I had been small, a child, and then, because I had given it to her. She had trained me, like an animal, and I had submitted. Standing in that small room, seeing her spit at me with threats of hell I suddenly knew I was free.

  “But I loved God. I knew I was a good person, no matter Linda’s claims. She could quote the Bible, but so could I. I understood she used it as a weapon as if I were ignorant and she knew better. But I knew who God really was. A loving father, a forgiving creator. And I couldn’t turn away from her. She would die without me. So, I was trapped once again. Finally free of the abuse, free from locked doors, but chained to that place. Doomed to work to live, to survive and to keep her alive.

  “For months I fed her. It began to warm, but the fall and time spent in the cold never left her. She began declining, running fevers, losing weight. I knew in my heart it was only a matter of time. Some nights I would read from the Bible to her, from chapters of my choice rather than what she demanded. And after a time, she came to learn she had lost her control. She would listen to what I read, eat what I made for her, and the fire soon began to seep from her venomous tongue until finally she stopped cursing me altogether.

  “During one of her fevers, I sat by her bedside late into the night. She began muttering in her sleep. Fitful with pain and heat. Her skin burning up. When she cried out, I reached for her to calm her, cool her brow, but she grabbed my arm and her eyes flew open. She looked at me, a glassy stare that didn’t see me and her words froze me— ‘You will never take her, Arthur. I’ll send you to hell first.’

  “I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know if it was a dream or a memory or if her fever had her ranting. When she awoke, I asked the question I had been waiting thirteen years to ask— ‘Where is Father?’

  “I had cleaned her up from her morning meal. Set a pillow behind her before I went out to the chores, but I had decided I would get this one answer before my day began. I would make her answer me. I didn’t know how, but my freedom from her was useless, my future bleak, and I knew I couldn’t stay there for the rest of my life. Alone in the woods with no one. If she died, I wanted to find him. Go to him. The one person in my whole life who loved me, had been kind to me. So, I stared at her.

  “She didn’t answer. She pressed her lips together and refused to speak. And I made a decision. I would give her some of her own medicine. It is not in me to hurt
a person, but she had starved me, imprisoned me, beat me. I would let her taste that suffering until she understood she was not in control of her life. Just as she had taught me.

  “I took her food dish, her water pitcher, set a bowl on the bed for her to use to relieve herself and went out to do the chores. At lunch, I returned. I let the fire die out, and the house was cool. I made a plate of food and went to see her. She lay there, huddled beneath the blankets, glaring at me, the bowl tipped over on the floor. I sat beside her and asked again. ‘Where is Father?’

  “Still, she sat silent, her eyes piercing me with hatred. I ate my lunch there beside her, and when she offered nothing, I left. I repeated this at every meal. I gave her no water, no food. It was the cruelest thing I have ever done. And the hardest.

  “I asked calmly, and she refused to speak. That night I stoked the fire and took a book from beneath my bed, and for the first time, read outside of my room. I closed her door to deny her the heat I had worked for. Let her huddle in her blankets. It wasn’t freezing but chilly enough I knew she would hate it. I slept in the chair by the fire, book open in my lap, and the next day I repeated my question.

  “It took much longer than I thought. I finally gave her water but no food. And for four days she refused me.

  “On the fifth morning, I scrambled eggs, and sprinkled goat cheese atop it, one of her favorite morning meals. I took it to her room and sat beside her bed. ‘Where is Father?’

  “And she fastened her eyes on me. She pushed against the pillows, sitting up, as much as she could, and I had hope. I believed I had finally broken her, got her to share, to submit. I had no idea the gates that would open.”

  I feel my chest tighten and my throat close and almost can’t go on. I almost want to ask Ezra to take me home. To not make me say it all. But I have come this far, and I already know the truth. Speaking it won’t make it any worse than knowing.

  “‘Dead.’ She hissed it. Like a weapon, a dart straight into me. And I dropped the plate of eggs. ‘Your Arthur is dead.’