Kim Liggett

Maybe there is a beast … maybe

it’s only us.

But I don’t feel powerful.

I don’t feel magical.

Speaking of the grace year is forbidden, but it hasn’t stopped me from searching for clues.

A slip of the tongue between lovers in the meadow, a frightening bedtime story that doesn’t feel like a story at all, knowing glances nestled in the frosty hollows between pleasantries of the women at the market. But they give away nothing.

The truth about the grace year, what happens during that shadow year, is hidden away in the tiny slivers of filament hovering around them when they think no one’s watching. But I’m always watching.

I used to think that was my magic—having the power to see things others couldn’t—things they didn’t even want to admit to themselves. But all you have to do is open your eyes.

My eyes are wide open.

Today, we’re expected to parade around town, giving the boys one last viewing before they join the men in the main barn to trade and barter our fates like cattle, which isn’t that far off considering we’re branded at birth on the bottom of our foot with our father’s sigil. When all the claims have been made, our fathers will deliver the veils to the awaiting girls at the church, silently placing the gauzy monstrosities on the chosen ones’ heads. And tomorrow morning, when we’re all lined up in the square to leave for our grace year, each boy will lift the veil of the girl of his choosing, as a promise of marriage, while the rest of us will be completely dispensable.

I keep my mouth clamped shut, but inside, I want to scream. Being married off isn’t a privilege to me. There’s no freedom in comfort. They’re padded shackles, to be sure, but shackles nonetheless. At least in the labor house my life will still belong to me. My body will belong to me.

All the women in Garner County have to wear their hair the same way, pulled back from the face, plaited down the back. In doing so, the men believe, the women won’t be able to hide anything from them—a snide expression, a wandering eye, or a flash of magic. White ribbons for
the young girls, red for the grace year girls, and black for the wives.

Innocence. Blood. Death.

They call us the weaker sex. It’s pounded into us every Sunday in church, how everything’s Eve’s fault for not expelling her magic when she had the chance, but I still can’t understand why the girls don’t get a say. Sure, there are secret arrangements, whispers in the dark, but why must the boys get to decide everything? As far as I can tell, we all have hearts. We all have brains. There are only a few differences I can see, and most men seem to think with that part anyway.

I’m leaning in for a closer look when she says, “Don’t worry bout it none if you don’t get a veil, Tierney.”

“H-how do you know my name?” I stammer.

She gives me a winsome smile. “Someday, you’ll get a flower. It might be a little withered round the edges, but it’ll mean just the same. Love’s not just for the marrieds, you know, it’s for everyone,” she says as she slips a bloom into my hand.

Uncurling my fingers, I find a deep purple iris, the petals and falls perfectly formed. “Hope,” I whisper, my eyes welling up. I don’t hope for a flower from a boy, but I hope for a better life. A truthful life. I’m not usually sentimental, but there’s something about it that feels like a sign. Like its own kind of magic.

“My dear, Miss James, you’re in a hurry.”

“Is that really her?” Tommy Pearson calls out from behind me. “Tierney the Terrible?”

“I can still kick just as hard,” I say as I continue to gather the berries.