Katherine

Katherine was starting to get antsy.

The persistent fear had largely gone. She still had moments where she couldn't breathe, but they were growing less frequent. She still woke some nights, bathed in sweat, with Jacob's voice ringing in her ears, but most nights she slept soundly. She still stiffened at a knock on the door, sure he had found her, but she no longer collapsed into herself from the terror.

She was stronger, now, and with the return of her strength came an itch to move. The plans had all been laid and she wasn't so much fearful of staying as she was excited to be leaving. This little town in the mountains was the only place she had ever known. She had heard stories of cities. Of deserts and damp forests and seas that stretched out so far you couldn't see the land on the other side. But she had never seen them.

She felt like she had as a little girl, sitting with her truest friend on the bank of the river and pondering the Bridge.

"Do you think they speak another language on the other side?" she asked, nudging Gabe with her shoulder.

"Dunno. Don't think we want that. We'd have to learn a new language and I don't know how. Do you?"

"Nah."

"Maybe they just have funny accents."

"Like that fella from Mississippi who came and preached at Papa's church last year?"

"Yeah, like that." He hopped down and she followed him, walking so close to the river the water licked their toes. It was deceptively shallow near the edge, and in the warmth of summer, they could see yellow pebbles through the crystal clear water. "Wanna try again?"

"Yeah!" Usually she was the one pressing him to try. He was always scared she was going to fall in. She gathered up the skirt of her dress and tucked the hem into the thin leather belt she wore around her waist. "You're lucky you get to wear trousers."

"Yeah, yeah. I'd run faster than you even if you weren't in skirts."

"No you wouldn't. I'm faster."

"No, you're not. You're a better balancer but I'm faster."

Ignoring him, she leaped from the bank to the nearest rock, her arms held out to her sides as her feet slipped a little on the slick gray surface. Already, the water was deeper. She peered down at it, and the yellow rocks were tinted an undulating blue by the crisp water. She leaped again, landing steadily on the next rock which was much easier to balance on. It was broad and flat and high enough out of the water the surface was dry. She looked down again and the rocks were dark blue. Again, and the rocks were black. Again, and she couldn't see them at all. Just rushing, bubbly black water that flecked her bare legs with icy pinpricks as it smashed against the rock.

"Wait up!" Gabe hollered from behind her, perched precariously two rocks back. "You're s'posed to let me go first!"

"Nu-uh!" she yelled back over the rush of the river. The sun beat down on her head, and she felt funny with her feet pricked by icy water and her hair warmed by the burning sun. "I'm a better balancer. You said so, remember? I should go first."

He didn't respond, preoccupied with his effort to catch up with her. His face was twisted with concentration as he stepped one foot forward, rocked back, and launched himself to the next rock. He landed awkwardly, wobbling with his arms outspread and a look of pure panic on his face. For a second, she panicked with him. If he fell in he'd be swept away! But he found his balance and she laughed at him while he glared at her.

"Just slow down, would you?" he grumbled. "It's hard to keep up."

"Cuz I'm faster."

"Just slow down, Katie."

"Okay, okay."

Rock by rock, they picked their way closer to freedom. Then they reached the halfway point, which was as far as they'd ever gotten. Because everything had a name, they dubbed the halfway point 'The Island,' even though it was little more than two broad, flat rocks with a massive felled tree wedged against them. The water was wild in the middle, frothy and white and loud.

Katherine scrambled on her hands and knees along the length of the tree to the second rock, which was wide enough for both of them to sit if they squeezed tight. She liked to sit on the Island because she liked when Gabe sat close to her and she could feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt. She didn't know why she liked it so much, and supposed it was because of the way her tummy fluttered inside when he was near. It was a nice feeling.

She sat on the Island, and a moment later Gabe joined her. He pulled his knees up to his chest like she had to keep his feet dry and they studied the next big leap.

"It's too far," he said solemnly, his voice raised over the roar of the rapids.

"I think we could make it," she said, but she knew he was right. It was twice the distance all the other jumps had been, and the rock on the far side was rounded and sat low in the water. And the water itself was so wild, they couldn't afford to miss it or topple off.

He didn't respond to her lie, and they sat for a long time, pondering the distance. Katherine dreamed of the adventure on the other side of that expanse. If she could just be brave for a minute, she could land on that rock and reach the other side of the Bridge and live in a fantasy land where everyone spoke in funny accents and she and Gabe could be best friends and nobody would look funny at them and her folks wouldn't be mad.

"Do you think there's weird animals over there?" she asked, leaning close so he could hear her.

"Yeah, definitely," he said, but his voice sounded a little sad.

"What kind?"

"I dunno. Giraffes?"

"What's a giraffe?"

"I think it's like a horse with a long neck."

She laughed. "What else?"

"Elephants."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I want to see elephants. And rhinoceroses. I bet there's rhinoceroses over there."

"Rhinoceroses are the ones with the horns?"

"Yep."

"They might jab you."

"No, they wouldn't," she said confidently. "You'll protect me."

"They'll jab me, then."

She laughed again. "Yep."

"Gee, thanks."

But she knew rhinoceroses wouldn't jab Gabe with their horns, and she would never see giraffes. Probably on the far side of the river there were just more pine trees and bears and deer. Nonetheless, she still wanted to see it. Simply because there was different from here.

There, she and Gabe could be friends. Here, they were forced to hide in the woods.

There, she could wear trousers and maybe say a bad word. Here, she had to wear a dress and she wasn't even allowed to say God's name unless it was prayerful.

There, she could get dirty without being punished and she could talk as loud as she darned well pleased! Here, she had to have freshly-scrubbed cheeks and well-brushed hair and she was made to sit quietly in corners while the grownups talked.

There sounded an awful lot like Heaven. Papa said Heaven was where all the good souls went when they died. Gramma went there, and Pops a few years after, and her baby brother Eli who died when he was two months old. Papa said nobody was ever hungry or sad in Heaven, and that God walked among the souls and that happy music was always playing.

Katherine thought that Papa's Heaven sounded very boring. She listened to music every Sunday in church and she wasn't hungry very often. She'd like to see Gramma and Pops and she wanted her ma to see Eli so she wouldn't cry so much. But overall, she hoped Heaven was more exciting than he made it out to be. Papa also said that Heaven was in the clouds, but she hoped he was wrong about that too. She liked the thought that Heaven was just across the Bridge. That she could see it from the Island.

"Hey Gabe?"

"Hm?" He lay back across the broadest section of the rock, his head touching the edge and one arm hanging over so his fingers brushed the water.

"Where do you think we go when we die?"

"I dunno. We get buried, I guess."

"No, not your body, stupid. Your spirit."

"My spirit?"

"Yeah."

"Like a ghost?"

"No, like... well, I guess. The ghost that's in your body now is gonna get freed when you die. Where do you think it'll go?"

"I dunno. Here, I guess. I'll haunt the Bridge and push off silly little girls who think they can cross it."

She shoved him, but not so hard he fell off the rock into the churning water. "I'm being serious!"

"I dunno, Katie. Where do you think we go?"

"Across the Bridge."

"Well, hell. We oughta stop trying so hard to get across it, then. I'm not quite ready to die."

"Don't say that word."

"What word?"

"You know what word."

"No I don't. You have to say it. Remind me."

"No!"

"Then I don't know what word you're talking about."

Huffing, she leaned back on her arms, gritty stone digging into her palms, and raised her face to the sun. It hung high overhead, and her belly was starting to rumble from hunger. She'd be expected home, soon enough.

"I don't think Heaven is in the clouds," she said crossly.

"Huh?"

"Papa says Heaven is in the clouds. He makes it sound really boring. I think I'd miss you and going on adventures, and I wouldn't be happy, and Papa says everyone is happy in Heaven."

"Maybe everyone is drunk there and they don't remember to be sad."

"Drunk?"

"Yeah like they drank too much whiskey. Folks always come in to Ma's place all sad and then they drink whiskey until they can't talk and they just laugh and go to sleep. Maybe that's what it's like."

"That doesn't sound nice."

"Nah."

"I don't think that's it. I think Papa's just wrong. Heaven must be more exciting. Like an adventure, but you don't have to worry about dying. You get to see new things every day and go swimming in the river but it never sweeps you away. What do you think?"

"I already told you what I think."

"Okay, fine. Don't tell me what you think, then. Tell me what you want. Maybe that's how it works, is whatever is the best Heaven for you as a person, that's the Heaven you get sent to. So... if you could have anything at all after you die, what would it be?"

"I dunno," he sighed, sitting up and wrapping his arms around his upturned knees, studying the far bank of the river. "Same as you, I guess."

"Really?"

"Well, yeah. You'd be there, right?"

"Sure."

"Then that's where I wanna go."

Katherine stared down at the clothes she'd been scrubbing, her hands gone still in the soapy water. The memory wasn't revelatory so much as jarringly unextraordinary. It was easy to take something for granted when she scarcely remembered life without it. They had been no more than children at the time, if she remembered correctly. It must have been around the time they had first kissed. Perhaps the summer before, or maybe after. She'd been so young, she hadn't really understood the meaning of devotion. Then again, she was only just now realizing how deep and how far that devotion ran.

Gabe had never really been one for adventure. He wasn't sedate, by any stretch, but she couldn't remember a time he'd dragged her into a mess. He was always behind her, following her into chaos, and dragging her out when she went too far. And now she had the itch for another adventure and she wondered anew if he was accompanying her or following her.

Her hands were pruny from the water as she scrubbed the last of the laundry and wrung it out, soapy droplets splattering into the washwater. Then she shifted on her knees to the rinsing water and dunked the little nightgown, one of Isobel's, under the surface.

She also wondered if she was really itching for adventure, or if she simply wanted to flee. Even here, in the sanctity of the Tuckers' ranch, she suffered the ever-present whisper of fear. Was this tug in her chest the pull of exotic locales and strange, new faces, or was it the draw of safety in anonymity?

She felt less torn apart than boxed in, pressed upon on all sides by conflicting forces. Jacob, scowling and bearing down on her from above. Love and fierce protectiveness for Isobel shoving up beneath her feet. Gabe at the small of her back, nudging her forward. Safety in familiarity pushing back on her chest. The ever-present side-to-side jostle of society, disapproval and friendship knocking her to and fro. And of course, deep inside her chest, that fist that wrapped around her heart and squeezed tighter with each passing day.

God's disapproval of her love for Gabe. Her broken promises and shattered vows.

"I'm sorry," she said to God as she swished a cloud of white cotton around in the water, scrubbing loose the last of the soapy residue. "I know I'm a sinner, but I feel like I was trapped between two sins. It's wrong to run away from my promises and make a new life, but I hope you would agree that the greater wrong would have been to stay and let Isobel suffer. She's innocent."

But you're not, she imagined God saying to her, stern and challenging.

"I'm not," she sighed, lifting the nightgown from the water and wringing it dry. Her hands ached from the task. She hated laundry. Water splattered and dripped, and she shook out the garment, refolded it, and wrung it out again. Plink, plink, plink as little droplets landed on the murky surface of the rinse basin. "But I can't unmake my past mistakes. All I can do is do my best not to make more."

So you'll remain faithful to your husband, even while you run away with another man?

Now the imagined voice held a tinge of wry amusement. In her head, the voice of God always sounded like her father, and her father had always possessed an uncanny ability to convey two messages at once. Disapproval and affection. Pride and exasperation. Love and anger. She tried, when she spoke to Isobel, to speak the way her father had spoken to her and she wondered if she succeeded. She wondered if Isobel would talk to God, and if the voice who talked back would sound like her... or if it would sound like Jacob.

"No. Maybe. I can try..." She tossed Isobel's wrinkled, damp nightgown into the pile of dripping clean clothes and shifted on her knees back to the washbasin. She grabbed a shirt and dunked it into the soapy water, her back complaining from her bent-over position. As she slapped the sodden cloth against the washboard and began scrubbing, she shook her head. "No. No, I don't think I will be. I can't lie to you. I don't even want to be faithful. I want Gabe."

That's a little selfish, don't you think?

"Yes. No." She scrubbed furiously, gnawing on her lip. "If I wanted him because of what he gives me, I think it would be selfish. And I do. He makes me feel safe, and he makes me laugh, and he's so good to Isobel. I do want him. But I also want him because he wants me. Sometimes I even think he needs me. I try to think of how I'll feel, standing before You after I die, justifying my actions to You instead of to this bucket of dirty water."

What will you say if you remain faithful to Jacob?

She swished the shirt about before wringing the soap out and shifting back to the rinse basin. "I'll be angry," she said frankly. "Because I'll have done it just because someone told me it's what You think is right. I'll be angry because I had to watch a good man suffer and be alone because of rules that I have to just trust are Your will." She was angry just thinking about it. Just talking about it! Water sloshed over the edges of the basin from her jerky movements and stained her skirt at the knees. "I'll tell you that I'm angry," she said conclusively.

Isn't that what faith is? Trusting rules even when you yourself can't hear the voice that spoke them?

She harumphed and wrung out the shirt. "Maybe. Or maybe faith is doing what I feel is right and trusting that Your hand, and not the hand of the devil, is guiding my heart."

And what will you say, Katherine, if you break your vows? If you are turned away at the gates of Heaven because you followed your heart instead of your Savior?

Her hands had fallen still, the damp shirt in her lap, water soaking into her skirts. She stared down at the fabric. The shirt had been crisp white linen, a few years ago when Jacob had purchased it for her. Pure white, and starchy against her skin. Now it had gone a bit yellow with time and use, frayed at the edges, marred by stains that had faded from dozens of washes. She'd been wearing this shirt the night she escaped. It had torn and been mended, a small line of clean stitches near the shoulder and one elbow.

"I'll say..." she held up the shirt and shook it until the damp folds of cloth fell away from each other. She studied the faint speckled blood stains near the neckline. "I'll say that if Heaven doesn't have him in it, then I don't want to be there," she said, raising her chin as if God actually stood before her and could see her defiance. Perhaps He could. "I'll say that I may not have done what was proper, but that I did what was right. I'll say that I'm sorry, not for breaking my promise to Jacob but for making it in the first place. It can't have been Your will to bind me to a man who wears righteousness like a mask to hide his cruelty. And if it was... if it was, then Your Kingdom is not a place I want to be."

Silence descended as her words fell away, not trailing into nothing but rising in a crescendo and ending with the strength of a declaration. When she'd started having this imaginary conversation, she had muttered her pieces of the dialogue beneath her breath, just as she sent forth all her prayers. She had ended, she just now realized, speaking clearly, practically yelling the words into the empty washroom. Good thing Melissa and Isobel were out with the goats, or her friend would have her carted off to an asylum.

She wasn't crazy, though. She was the sanest she had ever been. The proudest and strongest and most sure. Thoughts were simmering in her mind, excitement and hope a wriggling happiness beneath her skin.

Two days later, when she saw the outline of Gabe's figure ride up the hill, silhouetted against the driving snow of a late winter storm, she left Isobel in Melissa's care and dashed outside to meet him. He was dismounting by the barn as she ran up, his face and clothing caked with snow. He took one look at her, standing in her boots and dress and coat and welcoming smile-- no hat, no scarf, no gloves-- growled under his breath, grabbed her hand, and pulled her with him into the warmth of the barn.

"What are you thinking?" he admonished once he had lashed Reaper to a nearby support beam, ripping off one glove and carefully brushing the snow from her hair, his thumb wiping at the flakes that had already melted off her brows and eyelashes and the ringlets of her hair, sending droplets down her temples and cheeks.

"I'm just happy to see you," she said, throwing herself forward into his arms. She kissed him hard, his lips and face frigid against her passion-warmed skin, melted snow trickling over her bare hand as she threaded her fingers into his hair. "I've missed you."

"It's only been a few days, Kat," he said as she dropped down off her toes, falling away from the kiss but still holding herself tight against his body. His words were bemused, but his eyes sparked with want and his hand had found its way to her back, pressing her to him.

"I know." She rose back up to her tiptoes and kissed his icy cheek. "Too long."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Because two days ago I decided that I want to marry you and I've been waiting ever since to ask you. And two days is an awfully long time to sit on something so important, don't you think?"

He just stared at here, his head falling a little to the side and his brow furrowing as his eyes searched hers.

"You wanna marry me, huh?"

"Yes." She jerked her chin in a nod and lifted up to kiss his other cheek. Then the firm line of his lips. "I know part of the plan was that we get documents to say we're married, and that we live together like we're married. But I've decided that I want to marry you. I want to make vows to you and promise myself to you before God and whoever else will listen. I don't want to do it because it's convenient to combine our efforts at a new life, or because Izzy deserves a whole family, or because it's improper for us to live together without the certificate. I want to marry you because I want to marry you. Because I love you. Because I know you love me. Because..." she bit her lip and smiled up into the warmth of his eyes. "Because I want to be where you are... forever."

If she didn't know him better, she'd have said his eyes went glassy with tears. Perhaps it was just the dim light of the barn. Or maybe his eyes were watering from the driving wind he'd ridden through to reach her. Whatever their source, he blinked and they disappeared like flecks of gold beneath the sheltering shade of his wry smirk.

"Pretty sure it's my job to propose marriage," he said gruffly. There was movement behind her as he tugged off his remaining glove and tossed it onto the worktable beside the door. Then his hands were on her face, and the protective shadow of his arrogant expression faded. The sun came out, and the flecks of gold were dancing once more as his eyes traced the lines of her face. She felt his gaze as if he was touching her with his fingers, trailing over her brows, her cheeks, her lips. Like the truth of her words was written in the shape of her face, in a language only he could read.

That wasn't so crazy, was it? After all, she was doing the same. As he held her face between his palms and read her heart, she wrapped her arms around his waist and read his. Melted snow pasted short strands of hair to his brow and temples, and she knew he would brave snow and sleet and heat and death itself to be with her. His hands were gentle on her face, not caging but cradling, and she knew he would never hurt her. His eyes weren't whiskey or honey or amber but the warm coppery glow of a lantern left on in a window at dusk, and she knew he loved her down to the marrow of her bones. He loved her so much that it hurt him.

And there where she had drawn him so tight against her their clothing seemed inconsequential, she felt the press of his need against her belly and knew that his body wanted her as much as his soul. So much that it hurt him.

She swallowed and forced her own smirk, struggling to remember the last thing he had said. It was a joke of some kind. She needed to answer with a joke.

"It is your job to propose marriage," she agreed slowly, trying to find humor and failing miserably. "And you did. And I was a fool. And I said no. And now it's my turn." She punctuated each statement with a jerky nod of her head, feeling the light scrape of his calloused hands against her cheeks. Then she dove deep into his eyes—that warm lantern drawing her in from the cold—and she came home. "So will you? Marry me?"

Silly to ask, when she already knew the answer.

His soft expression shifted, bypassed smirk and smile, and split into a sweet, happy grin.

"Yeah," he said, bending until their faces were so close she felt the gusts of her own breath curl against his wind-chilled cheek. "Yeah, I guess I will."

* * *

Hey all!

I'm finally where I have been trying to go for the last three weeks, hahaha. [undisclosed location in Africa] is absolutely beautiful and I am so, so happy to be here. If only I could stop pooping! But hey, nothing like a good ol' traveler's colonic to kickstart a diet, right? Maybe by the time my gut clears up I'll be able to see if I have abdominal muscles?!

Now that I am here, and have more regular access to the interwebs, I will be better about answering comments and stuff like that. So if you have felt at all neglected, I am ready to be less of a deadbeat writer. Horay?

Alright. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Love

Liz

* * *