I run without seeing where my feet are heading and am deep into the forest before I stop and it breaks out of me.
At last, I weep: for everyone I’ve lied to, stolen from, sneered at, tricked, cheated, crushed, kicked, used, fucked, run from, spat on. I vomit out my hatred and watch it coil at my feet, slick as an eel. Then I retch some more.
When I am emptied of remorse, I find what’s left of myself at the bottom of the well: I am a lump of wizened meat with snapped teeth and broken claws, shrinking, black and shit-filled. This ugly monster stirs, unglues an eye and squeals. I weep for it also. It is a long time before I am done.
I rub the heels of my hands into my eyes until green stars blur my vision. If I was the same creature of a quarter-year ago, I would keep running and not stop. I would find a new village, a new Thomas, a new Anne. But there is no other Anne, and I am not the same woman. There is only one place I wish to be.
I turn and pick my way back through the trees towards the village, and it is only by chance that I come upon the ruins of Knot-Beard’s camp. Their fire is cold, the ashes wet and half-covered with earth, the hearthstones scattered. They have not been here for days, perhaps weeks. I tell myself they have been captured. But I know the truth: it was not the Sheriff who caught up with them. On one of their farming raids they found more than food. The pestilence snatched them away. I shall not see them again.
Above my head a magpie sets up a clack-clacking. It sounds uncommonly like Death rattling His jaws as He laughs at the joke: I’ve been saving money to pay men long gone. I could have run away weeks ago.
I stop at the well and wash my face in the cistern. I wait for the water to settle and peer at my reflection. I look the same and yet am different; not that I am sure what I looked like before.
I find her in the stable, soaking rags and folding them neatly to distribute to the villagers. It makes my heart clench, my breath halt. She looks up as my shadow fills the doorway. Neither of us says a word. I hold out my hand. She rises, approaches. I lead her to the back, where the hay is heaped for winter forage and I draw her down on top of me. I cannot say love. It is a foreign tongue and I do not know if I will ever be able to speak it. But I can say her name, and I do so softly.
‘Anne.’
I kiss her face with the same gentleness. I hope she can hear the words I cannot say in the touch of my mouth and hands. She says nothing, still, and I am grateful. I draw her hand between my legs and hold it there. At first she does not move.
‘Yes?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I say, and close my eyes.
‘Keep your eyes open, my love,’ she murmurs. ‘Know it is Anne who touches you and makes your body sing.’
She moves her fingers, slowly at first and my belly lifts into the caress. Despite the sweetness that trembles my body, I do not cry out her name, nor tumble the stable walls with shrieking.
‘Am I too quiet?’ I whisper.
‘You are who you are, which is all I wish. I need no fancy show to dazzle my ears.’
I watch as she tends to the desires of my body and those of her heart; see my pleasure bloom in her eyes, hear her breath catch in tune and rhythm with mine. As the joy begins to mount, I am struck with a sudden terror that I will fly away, as I have always done. I look into her eyes and they hold me steady. I ascend, not out of myself but into a shuddering brightness. Delight seethes through my flesh and bursts my body into light and I am in that light and of that light and—
I may not draw down the sun and stars, but I fall further than I thought possible into the rapture of another’s touch. Afterwards, I lie against the warmth of her body and could not run even if I wanted to, not that I want to at all. Gradually I gather myself together, not into the hardness of stone but something far more malleable. I run my hands over my limbs. It would not surprise me to find I am a different shape, just as beeswax forms to the shape of a new mould.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks drowsily.
‘I feel different,’ I say. ‘I wonder if some great alteration has been wrought while we have been lying here.’
‘Perhaps you are changed.’
She gazes at me with the tenderness I have seen before, but even that is changed. She is in possession of herself. I should like that also, and not merely to be in possession of clever disguises.
‘You are right, Anne. All those masquerades – they were better than being my own vile self. They were my protection. I have played so many parts that I am unsure where they end and I begin. They are become as much a part of me as my own skin. Who am I if I strip them all away?’
‘You are this woman, lying beside me. You are my beloved.’
I chew the flesh on the inside of my cheek. ‘You say you love me.’
‘I do not say it. I live it. I breathe it. That is far more than words.’
‘How can I know?’ I say.
I hear my voice, so small I wonder if I am still a child. Perhaps all the years between my childhood and now are a dream, and in a moment I shall be shaken awake and find … No. I speak again, voice so husky it could be the scratching of the paddles when she is carding wool.
‘I will try to be myself, Anne. I wish to try.’ I swallow, past the anger, past the fear. ‘I am yours.’ It is a terrifying confession. ‘I cannot promise,’ I say, more boldly, for breaking promises is what I am used to. ‘I promise nothing.’
For the first time in my life I have stopped running. It may mean death, but I was never more alive.