Hanna Who Fell from the Sky

by Christopher Meades

  The house faded from view and Hanna came to a trail leading into the woods. Here she had a choice: to continue down the street or cut through the forest. Were Hanna to stay on her current course, her journey would last over an hour. Were she to traverse the woodlands, it would take closer to thirty minutes. She pictured the wolves in her mind’s eye, their spindly legs and sharp yellow teeth. The wolves were nocturnal. They commenced hunting at dusk and Hanna’s chances of crossing their path at this hour were slim. Moreover, Hanna had been through these woods hundreds of times. She knew them better than she knew Clearhaven’s tangled tapestry of semi-paved streets. In the daylight, she could better sense danger. She could stay close to the riverbed and brave the freezing water, wade to the other side if the wolves appeared.

  Hanna stepped into the forest. A mere ten yards in, where the trail splintered into several paths, a predator appeared. A white owl sat on a perch so close Hanna could almost reach out and touch it. The late-winter mist weaved through the trees, camouflaging the creature. It was still early and the sun had yet to reach its full zenith in the sky. The owl was awake, its wings pulled in tight, its front feathers forming a single white plume streaked brown on either side. Hanna passed by slowly. The owl’s head didn’t move. Its dark eyes darted within the wide discs on either side of its face.

  Years ago, Kara had told Hanna that white owls were capable of sensing motion imperceptible to the naked eye, that they could hear a rodent crawling underneath three feet of snow, that their wings made not a sound and their talons were inescapable. Were Hanna small—perhaps the size of a beaver kit—she might have reason to be afraid. But she was ten times the owl’s size. And it looked so calm and peaceful, like in a painting; the crowned king of the woodlands, its fierce talons dormant for the moment.

  Hanna saw no other creatures, not a sparrow or a crow, during the rest of her walk. She steadied her feet across an arid creek bed and advanced along the river, past the small pool where at summer’s end the trout came to their final resting place, their slick bodies beaten and bruised by the rocks. Hanna ran her boot along the icy rime underfoot. Just because the frost hid the ground from sight, it didn’t mean the trees weren’t busy. Underneath, their roots were growing, entwining, grasping hold of anything and everything within their reach. These woods were different than when Hanna last set foot in them. Hanna was different. Change, however gradual, had proven inescapable. It had proven real.

  Above, the sun was rising. Hanna was due at Edwin’s soon. She had little time to spend imagining tree roots interlinking and coronating birds of prey. Hanna secured the cloth over the salad bowl, buttoned up her jacket and pressed on.

  It had been years since Hanna last crossed Edwin’s doorstep. She could remember visiting often as a young girl. Back then both families breakfasted together, they gathered wild berries on the day of the Creator’s birth and, in the warmest of months, played shuttlecock in Edwin’s backyard. Eleven-year-old Hanna had joined Edwin’s wives in making wine, squeezing the grapes with her hands, her arms elbow-deep in the cask. Hanna would leave Edwin’s home with her skin stained red and Jotham wouldn’t say a word. He even participated once, picking up a ladle and stirring the grapes until their form faded into mire and the purples and reds melded into one nebulous color. Together, Edwin and Jotham used an apparatus to test how much sugar was in the juice. The two old friends stood side by side, quite serious about their task, exchanging the kinds of whispers patriarchs don’t share with their families.

  Hanna distrusted those memories now. She wasn’t sure when things changed. Perhaps it was as recently as this past autumn, perhaps earlier. But when she recalled those times, all she saw was her youthful naiveté, her inability to judge the intentions of grown men.

  After that last trip to make wine, Jotham’s family never visited again. No one, not even Kara, said a word on the subject. Hanna was left completely in the dark and she would have stayed that way had she not overheard one of Jotham’s late-night drunken ramblings. It was two seasons ago, as summer wound down, the air still warm late into the day, the sun hanging in the sky long after the children’s bedtime, when Hanna heard yelling downstairs. She crept out of bed and tiptoed to the top of the stairwell, where she heard Jotham’s voice. Hanna couldn’t tell if he was alone or if his wives were listening, and she dared not creep any farther down the stairs to find out. He was more intoxicated than usual, his speech slurred, monologuing in aimless, erratic sentences. Fragments rang out.

  “He’s a damn thief! We’d be rich now. I’d be rich now if Edwin would have acted with a little honor... I was a man of opportunity and now look at me... You can tell everything about a man by the way he conducts business.”

  The yelling stopped. Jotham’s irate words still rang in Hanna’s ears when she heard him collapse heavily into a chair. His voice softened. It was barely audible, almost pensive. “I’m going to make everything right... Paul will see. Edwin will see... I didn’t do this all for nothing. The world is at the feet of he who holds the gold.”

  That was all Hanna could make out before Jotham stumbled toward the liquor cabinet, sending her dashing down the hallway and back to bed. What Jotham meant by he who holds the gold, Hanna didn’t know. But one thing was clear: Jotham and Edwin had once been business associates, their affiliation having fallen apart years ago, resulting in Edwin thriving and Jotham’s family living in squalor, their friendship growing sour, setting invisible barriers between their two families. For Hanna and her siblings, it was simply understood that they would no longer visit Edwin’s home. That understanding lasted six long years, six years in which the two families saw each other only at church and the marketplace, the children meeting up only on the school yard. The families had once been so close that Hanna had considered Edwin’s children to be her cousins, none of whom she regularly spoke to now, some whose names she couldn’t recall. The older children would not be attending lunch at Edwin’s home that afternoon. It would be Hanna, Edwin and his four wives.

  Hanna finally arrived at Edwin’s property. His residence was four times the size of Jotham’s house, perhaps more, and it had a modern look, with a large, looming archway over the front door, brick pillars securing it to the ground and three chimneys that reached into the sky. Fresh caramel-colored paint coated its wooden exterior. Hanna counted eleven windows at the front of the house and, she imagined, dozens more on the other sides. Outside, hand-painted lanterns bookended the front veranda.

  Perhaps it was the brightness of the lanterns or maybe it was the sheer size of Edwin’s home, but there was a warmth to this house. Hanna imagined it had central heating and vents that pumped in warm air like those in Clearhaven’s new church. Jotham’s house had radiators in most of its rooms, some which routinely malfunctioned, others which had stopped working altogether. These radiators had long been the bane of the family’s existence, shutting off inexplicably in the middle of the night or refusing to function at all, leaving Kara and Belinda to worry about the pipes freezing in the dead of winter. Hanna was often tasked with running the water every hour as Belinda hammered away at the base of the kitchen radiator with a mallet, while Jotham—hobbled by his bad back—stood over top of her and barked out counterintuitive instructions. Oddly, the radiator in the children’s bedroom worked only when the one in the living room downstairs had been turned off completely. Hanna discovered this through trial and error and would often find herself enduring the lighthearted teasing of her siblings as she fiddled with the radiator upstairs while waiting for the downstairs one to grow cold.

  Edwin’s house looked like it experienced no such problems; even outdoors, where three cars were lined up along the gravel road, there was order and cleanliness, a lack of the ramshackle that was apparent with a passing glance. Past the vehicles was a pond with its edges frozen over and clear black water in its center. The veranda extended from the side of the house all the way to an enclosed gazebo where Hanna count
ed six claw-footed wicker chairs, each wrapped in heavy blankets to preserve them from the cold. She pictured this place in the summer, with the little ones splashing knee-deep in the pond as Edwin’s wives kept a close eye from under the gazebo’s shade. It was not an unpleasant thought: the life this family must lead.

  Hanna walked up to the doorstep, her heart surprising her by pacing in her chest. She knocked three times and then stepped back. Edwin’s first wife, Fiona, opened the door.

  “Come in. You brought a salad? How thoughtful,” Fiona said. She took the salad bowl and Hanna stepped inside, the heat enveloping her as she crossed the threshold. Her winter coat suddenly felt too warm. The lights inside too bright.

  Fiona embraced Hanna, shoulder to shoulder. “You know everyone, don’t you?”

  Behind her, Edwin’s three other wives were waiting, one holding a baby with a belly the size of a watermelon. First, a tall woman named Sage gave her a cold embrace. Then a short woman (whose name Hanna couldn’t remember) introduced Hanna to her baby, a little boy with cookie crumbs on his cheeks and fingernail scratches across his forehead. Hanna wasn’t sure whether to hold the child or take his little hand. All she wanted to do was take off her coat. She was just about to unbutton it when Paedyn, the woman who’d been so interested in her wedding dress, approached—arms outstretched—and enveloped Hanna in a tight embrace. She held on for quite some time before saying, “Welcome to our home,” and assisting Hanna with her coat.

  Hanna finally felt like she could breathe when four toddlers approached, three boys and a girl all too young to go to school. Each presented her with artwork they’d made that morning. Hanna took the pages covered in paint and pastels and oohed and aahed at each one. “A whole family of budding artists,” she said. The little girl insisted on holding Hanna’s hand and leading her to a playroom at the back of the house where children’s toys were scattered about. The girl hopped on a rocking horse and beckoned Hanna to join her.

  “I can’t,” Hanna said. “I weigh as much as a giant boulder. I might crush your toy.”

  Little Celeste looked at her, stone-faced, and said, “Cake makes you fat,” to which Hanna was too stunned to reply. She placed her hand on her stomach. Hanna certainly wasn’t fat. There was hardly an extra ounce on her body. But she could imagine how life in this place, with summers spent sitting by the pond, might make her so.

  Hanna watched the little girl rock back and forth. Celeste reminded her so much of Ahmre that she couldn’t help but think that many of the things she would miss from home might be almost identical in Edwin’s house. The little girl hopped off her rocking horse and picked up a stuffed bear. “Do you like it here?” Hanna said. When Celeste didn’t respond, Hanna said, “I remember your father from when I was a little girl. He used to do silly things to make me laugh, like pushing carrot sticks up into his nose.”

  Celeste smiled. “He still does that.”

  “What about your mothers? Are they nice?”

  “I only have one mother.”

  “Your sister-mothers, then. What are they like?”

  Celeste picked at her stuffed bear’s ear. “Mostly they’re nice.”

  Hanna glanced down the empty hallway. She sat cross-legged next to the girl. “But...?” she said, leading her along. Celeste still didn’t respond. “You can tell me. I’ll keep it a secret,” Hanna said, crossing her heart. “I promise.”

  “It’s my sister-mother. Sometimes she—”

  Fiona appeared in the door frame, startling Hanna and silencing the girl. Hanna wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there, how much of their conversation she’d overhead. “Celeste, I have to steal your playmate away. There will be time to play with Hanna next week.”

  The little girl shook her head no. Her eyes quivered and her cheeks puffed up.

  Hanna took her hand. “Did you know I’m going to live in this house?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to marry your father. I’m going to marry Edwin,” Hanna said. As the words left her mouth for the first time, she realized the inescapable reality of her engagement. Hanna was surprised how readily it slipped off her tongue.

  Celeste tilted her head to the side. “Why?”

  Hanna paused, unsure of the answer herself. A truthful response would require a conversation about the birds and the bees, reproduction, the Creator and Brother Paul, whatever Edwin had promised Jotham. She ran her hand through the girl’s hair, gently, maternally. “I like your bear,” she said, changing the subject.

  Celeste grinned and squeezed her stuffed bear tightly. “Let’s have a tea party.”

  Hanna could feel Fiona’s gaze in the back of her head. “Next week,” she said.

  “Do you promise?”

  “I promise,” Hanna said quickly, without a thought as to what the promise meant. “Also, I’ll make sure I say goodbye before I leave today.”

  The girl turned to play with a puzzle in the corner, and Fiona walked Hanna down the hall. “I must apologize for the state of that room,” she said. “In every home there must be a single spot of disarray so order may reign over the rest. Now, let me take you to your bedroom.”

  Hanna followed Fiona through a sitting room and down a hallway. Along the way, it occurred to her how fresh the air smelled. Back at home, Jotham’s house held a veritable motley of aromas: the living room smelled of campfire and tree bark, the upstairs bathroom of mildew, the pantry of dew and the stairwell of crushed charcoal. Edwin’s house didn’t have a discernible odor. This is what cleanliness smells like, she thought. Perhaps this is what wealth smells like.

  As she walked, Hanna peered in three open doorways, briefly, so as not to have prying eyes. All three contained a bed and a night table. The beds were made, the hardwood floors swept. “Whose rooms are these?” Hanna asked. But while Fiona was a few steps away and could clearly hear her, she didn’t respond. Fiona ran her finger along the hallway’s crown moldings and examined them for dust.

  “We try to keep the hallways uncluttered and encourage the children to limit noise to their playroom and the backyard,” Fiona said. She paused to briefly make eye contact and then kept walking. “Keeping children well behaved isn’t always practical, but in this house we aspire to a certain amount of structure.”

  Fiona led Hanna into the downstairs sitting room, which was tidy as well, its walls lined with mounted animal heads: a massive moose surrounded by four deer, the creatures stuffed, faces intact, their dim gray eyes equal parts knowing and naive. The moose’s fur was surprisingly smooth, like brown silk, and the deer to its left had its head tilted, looking away, as though searching for something. Underneath the animals, a shotgun sat unfastened in its mount.

  Hanna leaned against the sofa. The upholstery felt new, the fabric smooth to the touch, in stark contrast to the tattered couches in Jotham’s house. Since the tour began, the only item she’d noticed out of place was a single teething ring lying next to the leather ottoman at her feet. Hanna took in the expansive room with its simple yet elegant decor. The size of Edwin’s home was daunting, the thought that soon she’d be walking these halls each day overwhelming.

  “There are six bathrooms in the household,” Fiona said and opened a closet door to show Hanna where the toiletries were kept.

  “Which bathroom will I use?”

  Fiona gave Hanna an icy look. “Patience, child,” she said, her expression thawing slightly. “We’ll get to that soon enough.”

  She took Hanna on an extensive tour of the pantry, where she described the organization and arrangement of the family’s dried goods before finally leading Hanna up a stairwell and down another hallway. Fiona opened a door to reveal a rectangular room with a bed and a lamp and a bookshelf. A wide window overlooked the backyard, with a neighbor’s house nearby and, in the distance, the marsh; its lily pads looked like little green pebbles fr
om this far away.

  “This will be your room.”

  “My room alone?”

  “Yes,” Fiona said.

  Hanna found herself speechless. She stepped inside and spread her arms. Hanna imagined waking up to the sunlight, lying in bed alone with her blankets to herself.

  “This is your linen,” Fiona said, pointing to a stack of sheets and a sashed four-patch quilt folded neatly on a chair in the corner. “We wash the bedding on the first of every month and I do ask that you keep the room tidy in the interim.” Fiona motioned toward an empty corner. “There’s room in here for a bassinet, should you prove fertile.”

  Hanna’s heart dropped into her stomach. In the events surrounding her engagement to Edwin, in the private meeting in Brother Paul’s office, in Jotham’s lectures on how she was to behave, in her mother’s quiet, consoling words—not a single person had expressly told her it was her job to get pregnant. That she was expected to be fertile. To multiply. To push little Edwins out of her womb and into the world.

  Hanna twitched in her skin. Since the moment she set foot in Edwin’s house, Hanna had been tiptoeing around Fiona, daunted by the authority in her voice and her position in the house, when all along she should have been peppering Fiona with questions, probing this stiff, imperious woman for insight into what life was really like here. Hanna longed desperately to make herself heard, to stop following Fiona around like an obedient basset hound and force the woman to be honest with her. Only, Hanna couldn’t find a break in the conversation, a suitable opportunity to speak up. And now to hear Fiona casually state what everyone else had long implied—that she was to lie with Edwin as husband and wife, that Hanna was to make as many babies as Edwin saw fit—it was all too much.

  Hanna searched the woman’s heart-shaped face. She tried to get behind Fiona’s eyes, to see whether Fiona wanted her here; whether she’d been dreading Hanna’s visit or looking forward to it; what was to come when they inhabited the same walls, when they ate together, raised children together, became accustomed to each other’s moods and mannerisms. Fiona might have felt just like Hanna did on the inside, biting her tongue, fighting the urge to speak her mind with every fiber of her being. Only, the woman’s gaze was like a wall.