Hanna Who Fell from the Sky

by Christopher Meades

  “It’s not what you wear. It’s how you wear it,” Makala hissed.

  Hanna yanked the bowl out of Makala’s grasp. She squinted and crinkled her brow. “Why are you doing this?” she said, her tone wounded on purpose, to let the woman know the damage she was causing. But Makala’s glare never wavered. She stood up straight and adjusted her glasses, sovereign ruler over this small trailer and all the papers and flags and ceramic owls within. Her contempt surrounded her like a fog.

  “Because you are the town whore, little girl. Because of the way you look at men and because of the way you make them look at you. You think you can flutter about, twirling your hair and bouncing your little body around town and the decent-minded amongst us won’t have the courage to say anything? How dare you perform this lost-little-girl act? Everyone knows what’s really going on.”

  Makala wasn’t done. She was just warming her resolve. The words swelled inside her, like a dam about to burst. Hanna turned to leave.

  “I’m not finished with you yet,” Makala said.

  Hanna pulled on the trailer door and bounded down the steps. She hadn’t gotten very far when Makala opened the trailer door behind her. The woman was too large, too out of shape to give chase. Makala called after Hanna. She yelled at the top of her lungs, the billowing words engorging her.

  “Your mother is barren now because she gave birth to such a dirty little whore!”

  Hanna wasn’t sure who else could hear. The marketplace was so close. She kept her eyes glued to the ground and put one foot in front of the other as Makala’s malicious taunts rang out. A wave of dizziness overwhelmed her. Hanna took a step and almost tumbled onto the gravel road. She righted herself only to find the trees amassing overhead, their famished limbs clawing at the air. The ground shivered beneath her feet. Hanna gasped for breath, unable to fill her lungs. Above, a watery silver glow enveloped the windswept sky and all around were menacing streaks of color: barbaric blues and shocking scarlet reds. Storm clouds swirled in Hanna’s mind. She was certain that, were she to turn around, Makala would be standing right behind her, howling, enraged, heaving her wicked words into the air.

  It took every ounce of strength she had, but Hanna trekked down the pathway until the weight on her legs relented, until the clouds in her mind dispersed and her pace recovered. The silver glow dissipated from the sky. The marketplace was far behind her, Makala’s voice a memory, the only sound a lone chipmunk chirping at the side of the roadway.

  * * *

  As Hanna walked, she couldn’t stop her mind racing, wondering what others really must think of her. The other day at church, when the seven men stepped forward and Brother Paul made a faint showing of pretending to consider them, Hanna didn’t think to look at the crowd. She was too focused on Brother Paul in his spotless white robes, on the faces of the men who’d stepped forward, on Edwin and Jotham. She’d never stopped to consider what the women were thinking.

  Years ago, on the eve of her eleventh birthday, Kara had pulled Hanna aside to explain how relations work between men and women. She’d gone into great detail about reproduction, monthly cycles, the private areas between the legs (snakes and flowers, she’d called them). She’d spent fifteen minutes explaining how love differs in real life and storybooks. At the end of their talk, Kara ran her fingers through Hanna’s hair. “You look different than the other women here,” she said. “Don’t be surprised if they hate you for it.”

  Hanna remembered thinking Kara was being too candid and that hate was too strong a word. Hate meant loathing and revulsion; it meant seething with anger and craving vengeance. It had to be rooted in some kind of truth. To think that others would hate her because her hair was blond and her features soft and symmetrical—it didn’t make sense to her then and it didn’t make sense to her now. Hanna struggled to recall what injustice she might have incurred on Makala over the years. Had she really twirled her hair and cast come-hither looks at the men? Had she been vulgar? Had she put her body on display? Perhaps. Perhaps Hanna had done shameless, sinful things without realizing it. But then, Daniel told her she always looked down at her feet. And Hanna almost always had a young child with her, a child she nurtured, a child she focused all her attention on. Hanna didn’t know what to think.

  She fought to stop herself from crying. Hanna wiped her eyes and kept trekking through the woodlands. With each step, another tear threatened to flow. Hanna gritted her teeth. After what Makala said, Hanna should have been furious. She should have been irate and exasperated and intent on attaining some manner of revenge. Instead, an aching melancholy enveloped her. Hanna thought about the way people saw her and she wanted to cry. She thought about how, days from now, she would be forced to live with Edwin and his overbearing wives, and she wanted to cry even more. Hanna thought about Emily and how in a short while she might be powerless to protect her, and she could barely keep the tears from flowing.

  Hanna stopped in the middle of the forest. She looked up at the trees and at the stream in the distance. Hanna turned in a circle. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. She’d been traveling in the opposite direction of Jotham’s house. Without realizing it, she had walked east, toward the old Grierson place, toward Daniel. Rather than turn around, she kept going. She doubled her pace. Hanna lifted her knees and ran toward Daniel as fast as she could. She cut across a thicket of trees and ascended a rocky embankment at the river’s edge to come to the grove of weeping willows adjacent to the old Grierson place.

  She rounded the front of the house, hoping to find Daniel at the pier. Hanna was startled to see Daniel’s brothers standing with him next to their father’s shiny blue truck. Instantly, she regretted everything—her clumsy approach, the way she stumbled through the trees like a big blind bear, her hubris in expecting to find Daniel outside alone, waiting for her. She regretted having spent time brooding on Makala’s cruel words and not constructing an elaborate excuse were she to be discovered trespassing on the Rossiters’ property.

  Quickly, Hanna slipped behind a tree. She kept low, her dress concealed by dangling leaves. Hanna could hear Daniel and his brothers talking. They were so quiet at first and their voices so similar that it was difficult to tell who was speaking, but it was clear they were in the middle of an argument. One of the brothers raised his voice. “You don’t have to listen to him!” Another brother cursed and raised his voice right back. “Yes, I do. And so do you. Don’t pretend we don’t!” This went on until Hanna heard the sound of the truck doors slamming shut and the engine starting up. Hanna peered out from behind the tree trunk. Daniel was standing by himself, his brothers speeding away in the truck. He turned to walk back inside.

  “Daniel,” Hanna whispered. He kept walking, so Hanna called out. “Daniel!”

  He glanced around and then stopped when he saw her. Daniel looked shaken, harried from his conversation. He stepped behind the tree, next to Hanna.

  “Shh! What are you doing here?” he asked.

  His tone was sharp; Hanna didn’t know what to say. She’d clearly come at a bad time. Perhaps she shouldn’t have come at all.

  “I should go,” she said.

  “No, please. I’m sorry.” He moved his hand toward Hanna’s cheek. “Are you okay? Have you been crying?”

  Hanna flushed with embarrassment. “No,” she said as convincingly as possible. “I ran here. I slipped on an embankment. But I’m fine.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Daniel said. “It’s just—my brothers left a few seconds ago, and they’re not coming back.” He glanced at the street they’d driven down. “I thought James and Kenneth were going to live with us until summer, maybe even the fall. But they had a huge fight with my dad last night. James said he couldn’t spend one more second in Clearhaven.”

  “Where did they go?” Hanna said.

  “I’m not sure. They said they’d call and give me a phone number to reach t
hem.”

  “Are they ever coming back?”

  “I don’t think so. Probably never.”

  “What about you?”

  They were so close that Daniel’s arm grazed her jacket. “I’m not sure,” he said. “My dad’s taking me to meet with Brother Paul later this week to talk about my future. He says he has plans for me. Big plans. He says—”

  “Daniel?”

  It was a woman’s voice, coming from Daniel’s front steps.

  Daniel stepped out into the open. “They’re gone, Mom,” he said.

  “But you’re staying,” his mother said, her inflection flat, her tone devoid of any emotion.

  Daniel rubbed his neck and looked up at the gray sky. “For now,” he said and then walked toward her.

  Hanna couldn’t hear what they were saying. All she could see was the back of Daniel’s head. She imagined his mother openly sobbing, distraught that her sons had left, begging Daniel to talk to his father, to find some way to convince him that James and Kenneth should stay. Or perhaps she had her arms crossed, her posture rigid, her foot slowly tapping on the concrete steps, wondering why Daniel’s brothers hadn’t left sooner, furious that Daniel had argued with them instead of encouraging them to leave. Hanna couldn’t tell.

  Eventually, his mother went back inside and Daniel returned to the tree line. His skin was pale and his expression had grown serious. He placed his hands to his temples as though to block a stabbing pain inside his head. “My mother wants me to come inside, to talk some more.”

  “Oh,” Hanna said, surprised their interaction was over so soon. “I’ll leave.”

  “Wait.” Daniel touched her arm. He glanced back at the house and then turned to face Hanna. Their eyes met. “I’ll come see you later.”

  Hanna’s brain flooded with an image of Daniel approaching Jotham’s front door. She pictured her father reaching for his shotgun, Daniel fleeing into the woods, Belinda and Jotham giving chase. The wolves. Hanna put up her hands, as if to stop him from suggesting it again. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” she said.

  “It’s probably not the worst idea ever. You live close to the marshlands, right? It’s not so far away.”

  “Are you serious?” she said.

  “I’m dead serious,” he said. “I’ll come by after nightfall.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  The door of the house opened again. Hanna wasn’t sure if it was Daniel’s mother or his father. She just knew she couldn’t be discovered. She backed away toward the street.

  “I’ll see you tonight. I promise,” Daniel said.

  He walked toward the house, looking back only once to smile out of the corner of his mouth. As Daniel reached his front step, the trees obscured Hanna’s view. She heard voices, but they were distant and indecipherable. Hanna hurried along the path into the woodlands, butterflies turning circles in her stomach. A brisk breeze swept through the trees and Hanna held her jacket up to shield her neck. She marched quickly, the frosted earth crunching under her feet. With each step, Hanna replayed Daniel’s words in her head. She pictured his confident smile.

  Hanna still couldn’t believe what he’d said. She couldn’t imagine what would compel him to propose such a thing. Daniel must have forgotten where they lived, who their fathers were, that Hanna was about to get married. He must have forgotten who ran Clearhaven, what the punishment was for insolence in this town.

  What was that young man thinking...that he could walk straight up to her front door?

  16

  Hanna examined the assortment of dried flowers Katherine had arranged on the living room floor. There were pink roses, red roses, assorted carnations and daffodils. A month ago, Katherine had hauled a sack of oats over to a neighbor’s greenhouse. She must have bartered well because she came home with handfuls of flowers and a bag of powdered crystals for drying them. The crystals had been used many times before and were massed in clumps. Katherine baked the crystals in the oven to separate them and spent days methodically drying batch after batch of flowers. Now Katherine’s cheeks were glowing, her smile spread from ear to ear.

  “You can’t avoid this forever,” she said.

  “I trust you to do the task,” Hanna said.

  “Ah, but it’s your task. I’d be doing you a disservice if I sent you to live at Edwin’s home without teaching you a little personal responsibility first.”

  Hanna shuffled her feet. She glanced over her shoulder, hoping one of the children would rush in and create a distraction. Only, they were all outside, helping Kara search the deck for woodlice. Hanna couldn’t avoid this any longer. Her wedding was only five days away and she still hadn’t selected the flowers for the ceremonial wreath that would sit upon her head. It was a bride’s responsibility. The flowers she chose were supposed to represent her character, to let her husband know the kind of woman he was marrying. A half dozen times this past winter, when the snow drifts had risen waist-high and the family was cooped up inside, Katherine had cornered Hanna and insisted they flip through a book on flowers together. Hanna knew most of their symbols by heart by now. Pink carnations represented gratitude, red roses embodied passionate love, red and white roses together signified unity. There were many choices.

  Hanna picked up a dried daffodil. “What does this symbolize again?”

  “Chivalry.”

  “Chivalry?” Hanna said.

  “Yes. It means valor. Or being gallant.”

  “As in gallant in the face of adversity?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Hanna brought the white daffodil up to her nose. Any aroma it once possessed had been stripped during the drying process. The daffodil’s center cup was pink like a strawberry, fading into a peachy-orange as its petals spread, while the white outer shell was so delicate that it felt like it was made of air. Valor and gallantry. Two qualities that did not exist in Jotham. Two qualities Hanna had yet to see in Edwin. Two qualities to symbolize who she was as a bride.

  Hanna twirled the dried flower in her hand. “I choose daffodils.”

  Katherine clasped her hands together. “Excellent! But what color—yellow or white?”

  “The white ones are perfect,” she said.

  Katherine started sorting the daffodils. “I’m so excited. Now let’s get started.”

  Hanna and Katherine sat on the living room floor with the fireplace burning bright in the corner, attaching dried greenery to a wire Katherine had measured atop Hanna’s head. It was hard to get anything done, what with the children constantly poking their heads in the room, offering to help, wanting to make their own ceremonial wreathes, feeding Hanna questions about what her dress would look like and what their roles would be in the event.

  Hanna couldn’t focus on anything: her task, Katherine’s instructions, her sisters’ queries. She kept peering out the window, wondering whether Daniel would appear on their front step. Every sound—every crackle of the fire, every chance melody from the neighbor’s wind chimes—sent Hanna’s mind racing. She pictured Daniel standing on her porch with a bouquet of wildflowers in his hands, and Kara—or, worse, Belinda—answering the door. Hanna envisioned the chaos that would ensue.

  Edwin would learn of his visit. Brother Paul would too; and he’d make sure Hanna felt the Creator’s wrath. She’d heard tales of Brother Paul taking the lash to his daughters for the slightest infractions: dereliction of household chores, speaking out of turn at the supper table, even for casting an impudent look. At school a few years ago, one of his daughters showed Hanna the welts on her back, her arms and legs. Her flesh was covered in purple bruises.

  Still, Hanna couldn’t help but think that, no matter the consequences, seeing Daniel would be worth it for the momentary escape of fate’s tightening grip on her. So Hanna waited. And waited. And she waited some more. She an
d Katherine paused their wreath-making to eat supper with the family. Jotham emerged from his room at mealtime. His cheeks were ruddy, and the monster had yet to climb out of his belly. At times he was downright jovial, engaging Kara in conversation, even embracing Katherine before she sat down to eat.

  The whole while, Hanna felt like she might burst with anticipation. As she returned to the living room after supper, as she finished her wreath and modeled it for Emily, as her sisters tried it on one after another, walking arm in arm through the hallway, playing the part of a blushing bride, her excitement faded. Night overtook the day. The sunset turned the sky amber and then pink and finally mulberry red before collapsing into darkness, and eventually Hanna stopped gazing out the window. She retired upstairs. She read the little ones a book from church, a story about a sheep who told a lie and the righteous man who taught the sheep the virtue of truth and understanding. Slowly the realization set in that perhaps Daniel wasn’t going to show up after all.

  As Hanna changed into her nightclothes, she thought perhaps Daniel’s parents forced him to stay home. There was always a chance he’d followed his brothers out of town, never to return. Maybe he simply changed his mind. She couldn’t be sure. Their conversation that afternoon had been so quick, the fear of getting caught so great, that Daniel’s words escaped her. Did he really promise to visit? Hanna thought he did. Perhaps, she thought, this is what young men do: they promise in the moment, only the moment fades and the promise becomes a suggestion and then just a whim and finally an afterthought.

  After Kara came into the children’s bedroom and sang a good-night song, Ahmre climbed into Hanna’s bunk and leaned in close. Hanna played with Ahmre’s hair and watched the half-moon through the window as, one by one, the children slowed their breathing into a steady nocturnal rhythm. The room grew cold. Too cold.