The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by Carrie Ryan

I clutch at him and begin to sob. I sob for my lost family, for betraying my best friend, for not having been spoken for and for falling in love with Travis so deeply. I sob because my life is nothing like I imagined it would be. I sob for the way we all live and for the Unconsecrated and the Forest of Hands and Teeth and the Sisters and the Guardians. And for me and for Travis and his broken leg and the thought that he may never recover or if he does he may never walk right again and how tomorrow I start my next stage of studies and I am afraid that I won't be allowed to come see Travis anymore.

  I sob because this is not a life. This is not the way life should be and because I don't know how to fix any of it.

  My tears soak into the pillow. Travis's cheek and neck and hair are wet now but I cannot stop and I go on until I am heaving, trying to suck air into my lungs as my body convulses.

  And then I feel a hand on my head and I look up. It's Travis and he is awake. For a moment I wonder if he's confused as to what I'm doing here instead of Cass. It's Cass who had been keeping vigil by his bed and it's Cass to whom he responds.

  But then he whispers, “It will be okay, Mary.” He pulls my head down to his chest and he wraps both his arms around me and all I can think is why can't life just stop here and now and leave us be in this moment.

  Instead, I hear a shuffle at the door and I look up and it is Sister Tabitha and she is bringing Travis his supper. She raises an eyebrow at my appearance: disheveled and raw. I stand and step away from the bed and wipe at my face with my sleeve.

  Travis is back asleep, his body limp, his arms by his side, and I am left to wonder if I just imagined the whole thing.

  Sister Tabitha says nothing as I leave the room and run back down through the maze of the Cathedral to the sanctuary of my own solace. But a few hours later she's there at my door and she tells me that my new studies will take up all my day and so I will no longer have the time to go and pray for Travis.

  I spend the night sitting at my desk with the window open, the frigid air blowing over my numb body. I look to the Forest, to the fence line, and I wonder about my mother and father. Is their life any easier now? Is there fear in the Unconsecrated? Is there loss and love and pain and longing? Wouldn't a life without so much agony be easier?

  Sister Tabitha is correct: with my new studies there is no time to visit Travis during the day. Instead, the Cathedral's needs dominate my time. In the mornings I sweep the snow away from the walks, and I dust the pews and arrange the books for services. I make the sacred candles for the altar, chanting the special prayers for each layer of wax. I cook the meals and clean the dishes. But I'm not allowed outside the Cathedral walls. I can't go to the well or to the stream or to the fields.

  And so I don't see anyone from the village unless they come to the Cathedral.

  Throughout the next weeks Cass and Harry come to sit with Travis. Sometimes they are together and sometimes alone. It is terrible of me, but I hide when I see Cass approach. I just can't stand to face her knowing that she is the one Travis has chosen and I can't bear to think that even though he said my name that night that he may have meant Cass instead.

  When I can stand it no longer I creep out of my bed at night and wrap my quilt around my shoulders. I slip out of my room and down the hallway back toward the center of the Cathedral. Through the years the village has added wings to the building, halls that twist away from the main Sanctuary at odd angles, some intersecting and some not. My little room is part of the old structure, built of stone rather than wood, dank and dark. Most Sisters choose to live elsewhere in the Cathedral, in the newer rooms facing the village, preferring not to overlook the cemetery and the Forest. Perhaps Sister Tabitha meant my room as a punishment, meant to enforce my isolation. But I haven't protested—I prefer the silence and solitude of my empty hall.

  As I near the Sanctuary, the ceiling soars into blackness, the room opening to reveal rows of pews. I press myself against the wall so that the Sisters keeping night vigil cannot see me. I pause to watch them as they kneel with their heads tilted toward each other, candlelight casting shadows around their faces. They are whispering furiously and I assume they are praying until one of them hisses and says in a low tone, “It is the way that it has been and will be and the Sisters will not allow you to presume otherwise. You must not think such things, let alone speak them.”

  Without thinking, I sneak closer in the darkness, trying to hear more. But then Sister Tabitha sweeps into the Sanctuary and I scurry away. Silently, I slip through a door, down a hall and up the narrow stairs and down another hall until I am pressing my hand against Travis's door. My breath comes in pants, my body tingling that I have escaped Sister Tabitha's notice and found my way to Travis. I slowly turn the knob.

  There is a candle on the table by his bed and it flickers as the door opens and the draft from the hallway sweeps through the room. I close the door quickly. He is propped up on pillows and facing me, as if he's been waiting.

  It takes a moment to realize that he is awake. He holds out a hand to me. It's shaking ever so slightly. “Mary, come pray for me,” he says and I run to the side of the bed and kneel down and bury my head against him.

  The stench of sickness is gone and his face is no longer pale and sweaty. He places his fingers under my chin and I know that my skin is slick with tears. “Pray for me, Mary,” he says.

  “I… I can't,” I tell him. “I don't know any prayers.”

  “Tell me the one about the ocean,” he says and I laugh. He smiles and slides gingerly back down on the bed and I lean in and begin to whisper into his ear. His hand is tight around mine and I can't help but allow my heart to beat faster than it ever has before.

  I've come to Travis's room every night for the past week, repeating for him the stories that my mother used to tell me. I am exhausted but deliriously happy. At night we are in our own universe, we belong only to each other, as if we have thrown off every other obligation.

  Tonight my body pulses with awareness as I kneel by his bed, our fingers intertwined. We've been sharing each other's breath for what seems like weeks now even though it's only been a few moments. It's as if there is infinity between our lips and we will never actually touch. Like math, where dividing by half can last for eternity.

  My lips almost brush his and I forget about Cass and Harry and Jed and our village. At night, here in this room, it is only Travis and me and our first kiss.

  It is in this moment that I realize something isn't right. Perhaps a shift in the drafts around the room, maybe my ears popping as a door somewhere is opened, but I pull back a bit and meet Travis's eyes. I can see that he also feels the difference.

  “Shhhh,” I say, placing a finger between our lips, surprised there is space between us for even a finger. I strain to hear more and then there are feet—many feet—coming up the steps and starting down the hall. I rear up in panic and Travis flings back the covers and takes my body and slides me over his and pushes me between him and the wall, pulling the blanket over us both.

  I hold my breath and wait.

  There are whispers in the hallway as a group of people shuffle past the door. Then the door to our room opens, the hinges groaning faintly, and sweat breaks out all over my body. Travis's heart beats in the moments that mine does not and I know that whoever is at the door must hear our combined percussion. From my position I can't tell what Travis is doing but he breathes deep and even as if he is asleep. I squeeze my eyes shut and berate myself for taking this risk.

  I hear the person at the door take a step into the room. “Travis?” she asks, as if testing to see if he is awake. I bite my lip, recognizing Sister Tabitha's voice. Travis doesn't move, doesn't react.

  Finally, the door closes with a click, the bolt of the lock sliding into place, the sound muffled by the covers. We wait. Travis pulls the sheets down, crisp clean air flowing back into my lungs, but I do not move from my position.

  The walls are thin up in this hallway and we hear people begin to move around in the ro
om next door. There is a scrape of furniture on the floor and then someone hisses, as if to make the noise stop.

  Travis and I stare into each other's eyes. All we can hear is mumbling, the cadence of voices rising and falling, over lapping and rapid. “Do you think someone is hurt like you were?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. “I would think we'd be able to hear them if they were in pain.”

  I shrug. Maybe they fainted.

  “Why would they lock me in if it was just someone hurt?” he breathes.

  Turning my head back, I place my ear against the wall. I hear a sudden and sharp rebuke, uttered in harsh tones— “No, we will not tell them until the time is right. You keep your mouth shut about this”—and then whoever was speaking must have moved away from the other side of the wall and the voices fall back to murmurs.

  While I'm puzzling over what's going on, I suddenly realize that I am lying in bed with Travis, my body squeezed between him and the wall, our combined warmth enveloping us both. His breath shifts ever so slightly, heavier now, laced with longing, as if he has realized the same thing.

  Every inch of my skin is instantly awake, the hairs on my body searching for movement, as if they are antennae. Travis is lying on his back and my back is against the wall so that I am facing him.

  My hand has been resting on his chest and something inside me urges me to press my fingers against his skin, to press my body against his. My breath comes out shaking. Everything, all of this, is almost too much to bear.

  “I should probably leave in case they come to check on you again,” I say, and he swallows and nods his head. I can hear the way the air enters and leaves his lungs, as if it is an effort for him to breathe.

  I begin to slide back across his body. Before I hadn't paid attention because of the adrenaline, the fear of getting caught. But this time everything inside me understands what is going on here in this bed. Mindful of his healing thigh, I slip one leg over his hips, leveraging myself against the wall until I am kneeling, hovering over him with a leg on either side of him.

  He closes his eyes and leans his head back into the pillow, his lips slightly parted as though in pain. Startled, I lean down to him to whisper, “Am I hurting you?”

  His eyes still closed, he shakes his head back and forth and reaches his hands up and places them on my hips, his hands so large on my skin, holding me in place for a heartbeat, the two of us almost one as we press against each other from hip to chin. My mind swirls with the knowledge that my nearness affects him, that I am not the only one who feels this heat.

  There is a thump in the room next door and I quickly finish slithering over Travis and slip to the floor, ready to wedge myself under the bed if necessary.

  Keeping my head cocked to the wall to listen for change in the movement in the next room, I scurry to the door and test the knob. Locked. There's no way I will be able to open it.

  Travis is now propped up in his bed, leaning back on his elbows. By the moonlight I can see that his face is flushed with heat.

  I will have to climb out the window. I cross the room and struggle against the sash until the window is open enough for me to fit through. Cold air invades my thin nightgown, fighting with the residual heat from Travis's bed, and I pull the quilt that I brought with me tight around my shoulders. Thankfully it's been a heavy winter and there is a substantial snowdrift below to catch my two-story jump. I'm about to make my escape when I hear my name.

  Travis is holding his hand out to me and even though I know I'm tempting fate I go back to him. “Will I see you again soon?” he asks. The flame from the candle next to his bed whips around in the draft from the window, sending his face into shadows.

  “I don't know,” I tell him truthfully. “I'm not sure I can risk it.”

  He nods. He understands. And then he takes my hand and presses his lips against my palm. It feels like fire entering my bloodstream and laying siege to my body. He kisses my wrist, and I am an inferno. He starts to move up my arm, his breath tantalizing, and I almost give in as he pulls me to him.

  But instead I step back, cradling my arm to my chest. “Be well,” I tell him because I don't know how to explain what I really want to say. And then I slip out the window and am covered in snow that instantly douses my skin, which just moments before had been aflame.

  Afraid of being seen by the people in the room next to Travis's, I sprint through the graveyard toward the fence line and into the shadows near the edge of the Forest. I kick my feet as I go, trying to make it look not quite so obvious that a human has walked away from under Travis's window, but before long my feet begin to freeze, the thin slippers I'm wearing no protection against the snow.

  I am as close to the Forest as I dare for nighttime when I begin to circle around so that I can enter the Cathedral through the front door. My mind wanders back to Travis, back to his bed and the feel of his skin. My body shivers from the memories, the desire, the frigid air. And so at first I don't realize that I am following in someone else's footsteps in the snow—not just one person's footsteps, but many.

  I pause. There is nothing behind me but the Forest, and my heart begins to pound. What if these are the tracks of the Unconsecrated? What if the fence is breached and there is no one to sound the alarm? Terror bolts through me, but I slip and slide in the snow as I scramble to follow the tracks back to their source.

  They stop at the fence. At the gate to the path that leads out of our village and through the Forest of Hands and Teeth. I kneel in the snow and look through the gate. Glistening under the moon I can see one clear set of footprints that lead to this gate. They stretch out, through the broken brambles and back down the path into the Forest for as far as I can see. They are not the shuffling footprints of the Unconsecrated, but the strong and distinct prints of the living, as if someone was walking purposefully down this path toward us.

  The path is forbidden to everyone: villagers, Sisters, Guardians. Never have I seen this gate opened, never have I seen someone use this path.

  Someone from Outside has come to our village.

  Which means that there is an Outside—something beyond the Forest.

  Excitement, fear, curiosity, panic well up my throat, making me almost giddy before I swallow hard and pull my mind back to the present moment. Leaning over the snow, I trace the outline of the Outsider's print. It is petite like mine but the steps are wide—either a small boy or a woman.

  Someone from Outside has come to our village!

  The wind begins to blow now, scattering the freshly fallen snow and obscuring the footprints. I'm almost skipping as I follow the prints back to the village, up to the front of the Cathedral. I am about to throw open the door in excitement, my entire being bursting with energy, when my mind catches up with my body.

  No one sounded the siren; no one rang the village bells. It may be night but something like an Outsider is news to wake the village for. Yet the Sisters have kept the Outsider a secret. They dragged him up to the room next to Travis's and they locked him in there. And I heard one of them say that they wouldn't tell the village until the Sisters were ready to do so.

  Suddenly, I understand that I am not supposed to know about the Outsider and I wonder to what lengths the Sisters will go to keep this secret. I think about the tunnel under the Cathedral and the clearing in the woods and wonder what other secrets they might be keeping.

  I duck into the shadows thrown by the walls of the Cathedral under the moon. With my hands against its formidable stone face, I creep through the bushes and around the snowdrifts until I am under my window. I reach up, slide it open and slip inside, wet and shaking, my fingers and feet numb.

  After stoking the embers in my fireplace I undress and hang my clothes over the chair to dry. I sit on the hearthrug, my blanket pulled over my shoulders, my body still cold inside. As I hear the wind pick up outside I am grateful that my footprints will be erased, but know that this will also mar the Outsider's footprints to the gate.

  Someone fro
m Outside has come to our village and as I sit and stare at the flames I know deep in my being that this is what I have been waiting for, what I have wished for even though I never realized it before this moment.

  The Outsider is my excuse to leave this village. Now that there's proof, now that our entire village will know that there is more, that we are no longer an island, now is our time to reconnect with the Outside world.

  Nothing can contain us any longer. Not when word of the Outsider gets out. And I will be the first through the gate. I will be the one to lead us to the ocean. To the place untouched by the Unconsecrated.

  Three days pass and I am desperate. There has been no word of the Outsider, no mention at all. Finally, in frustration I go to see Travis but Sister Tabitha is in the hall outside his door, and she tells me his fever has returned and he has been moved and they are not allowing visitors for fear that he will not be able to fight off any other infections. I will not be allowed in to see him until they are sure he is well.

  “We cannot have you and him be the reason that we all fall ill this winter, Mary,” she says.

  I look past her shoulder and into Travis's empty room. “Where is he?” I ask. I feel I have a right to know.

  “He is safe,” she answers. “And he is none of your concern.” She looks down her nose at me, her eyes narrowing. “Mary.” Her voice is firm, authoritative. She pauses and brings a finger up to her lips as if trying to decide what she wants to say next. “Mary, you are inquisitive, and that can be a dangerous trait. What do you think has brought us to this moment? What do you think caused the Return and brought about the Unconsecrated?”

  My breath is shallow. Even before I was taken to the clearing in the Forest, I have been afraid of Sister Tabitha, the oldest Sister, the leader of the Sisterhood. “I—I—” I stammer. “I thought we didn't know what caused the Return.”

  Again, I wonder at the knowledge that the Sisters possess that the rest of us do not. They have, after all, been the one constant since the Return, or so we are told. They have been the driving force behind the village—the ones who created the Guardians and the reason we still exist and are all still alive.