Amara shrugged. “Notmystory, anyway,” she said, and turned to cut a hay bale and strew fresh straw in the sheep pens.
“You are so rude. I’ve done nothing to deserve it. All I did was ask if you wanted to take a walk. All I did was offer to help.”
“Why?”
“Because Ilikeyou,” Kacey said. “Or at least I did.”
“You should not like me,” Amara told her. “I should not like you.” Her voice lowered. “You are here only because you are bored and lonely.”
“Iambored. Iamlonely. But I could choose to do lots of things to not be. I could drive to the city and go shopping. I could swim in the pool. I could visit my family. Instead, I came here to be with you.”
Amara’s large, black eyes were thoughtful. “And now you regret it?”
“Maybe!”
Amara placed a rake in Kacey’s hand, her rough fingersbrushing, for an instant, Kacey’s own before sliding away. An echo of the sensation caressed the base of Kacey’s throat, as though a phantom feather had brushed across the hollow just above Kacey’s breastbone. Amara smiled. “We need to clean out all the pens for the new lambs.”
The moon was high when they left the barn. No other servants were out. Owls called, hunting in the nearby fields, but aside from them, it felt like she and Amara were alone in the world. Amara led her to a pond that resembled a bowl of silver light, broken by the splash, here and there, of a frog. They found a log by the water’s edge and washed their hands in the cold, bright water. Kacey, watching Amara’s strong hands lift out of the water, as though trailing jewelry, was distracted by a sudden unpleasant thought. “Are there snakes in the pond?”
“Are you afraid of snakes?” There was a smile in Amara’s voice.
“Um,yes. Aren’t you?”
“No.”
“You’re afraid of nothing, I guess.”
“Kacey, I would not let you wash your hands in a pond full of snakes.”
They were silent. It seemed to Kacey that Amara had fallen silent first, as if surprised by her own words. Then Amara said, “I am afraid of my master.”
The silence stretched out over the surface of the water asKacey thought about what Amara was telling her, and what she already knew, in an unregarded corner of her heart. Flatly, Kacey said, “You mean my husband. Why do you saymaster, and notemployer, orboss?”
“You should leave this place. Take your mother and brother and go.”
“What has he done to you?”
“Nothing yet.”
“If I should leave, so should you.”
The moon silvered Amara’s somber face. She shook her head. “I signed a contract. We all did, we who work for him. It is not a contract you can break, and if I tried, he would find me.”
“Why did you sign it?”
“There was a famine in my homeland. Vegetables withered in the earth. Grass turned to dust. Deer and rabbits starved. I was so hungry. I thought,I would do anything for a bowl of stew. And here he was, this great lord. He promised I would never go hungry again so long as I worked for him.”
“When was this?”
“Long ago.” Amara said it not as if years had passed, or even decades, but centuries. Which was impossible, of course, but the oddness (“great lord”?) of the conversation made Kacey feel a relief as clear as the moonlight. Something had been—was still—wrong with her husband. Something off. She had felt this for a long time, yet no one else did. Everyone’s approval of him was so strong and sure that Kacey felt thatshewas wrong. “Tell me more.”
“I can’t,” Amara said. “It hurts to talk about him.” Amara’s hand lifted to close around her throat, as though it were sore, or she might strangle herself. “I can only speak the words because he is far away. It helps that we are not near the house and are by water. But trust me.”
Her words were strange, but not so strange as what Kacey realized: that she had married a man she did not love only to be drawn to the girl who worked for him, who now looked at her in anguish. Kacey lifted a hand to Amara’s silver cheek. As her fingers trailed down Amara’s braid, feeling the rise and fall and fold of each strand woven into each other, Amara sighed. Kacey leaned to kiss the dark flower of her mouth.
The morning was sunny, almost summery. The light glazed Kacey’s bed as though it were a cake. She stretched, happy before she could remember why she was happy, and that it was the first time in a while since she had felt this way. Then she remembered: the moon on the pond, the kiss, how Amara had kissed her back, touched her with cold hands that made her shiver with pleasure. Then Amara pulled away and said, fear in her voice, “We shouldn’t.”
Of course they shouldn’t. Kacey was married. But she was eighteen. She was young and had made a mistake. What if she had lived in a time when divorce wasn’t an option? Itwas, though. Maybe even an annulment? The marriage had never been consummated. And they had been marriedfor only a couple months. How had she made this decision? How had she let everyone else’s opinions take the place of her own? “Don’t worry,” Kacey told Amara. “I’ll take care of everything.” Amara had looked worried but said nothing to dissuade her, not even during their silent walk to the barn, where they parted ways.
