Free Rain Village by Carolyn Turgeon Page B

my hands and under my skirt. How had I let this happen? I knew he would punish me. I could already feel his hands coming down.
    I ran from the house and out into the road. Just outside our property I knelt down to bury the book, but then thought better of it. My father’s eyes seemed to follow me, wherever I went, and I could think of only one place to go where things would be okay.
    I ran to the herb garden in back of Mercy Library, dug out the silver key Mary hid there, and let myself in. I must have been a sight tobehold: ragged and out of breath, a mashed-up book in my hands. I made my way into the dark space, hoping Mary would still be there.
    The whole place was dead quiet. I felt funny and started tiptoeing through. I passed the little kitchen, and the herbs seemed spooky in the dark, roiling around in their glass jars, glittering and smoking as if they were all dreaming in there. I slipped past, through the stacks and into the main part of the library. Mary wasn’t anywhere. It was so dark I could barely see.
    I tiptoed to the basement door and cracked it open. “Mary,” I called. There was no answer. I peered down but couldn’t make anything out.
    Sighing, I headed to Mary’s desk and sat down, cradling the book in my lap. A power seemed to surge from Mary’s seat and rush through me, up my back and arms, to my face.
It’s okay,
I thought.
Shhh.
But the panic took hold in my gut and wouldn’t leave. Never in my life had I so openly disobeyed my father. I felt tears rush to my eyes and wished Mary were there to comfort me. My father was capable of
anything.
This, I knew to my bones. Could I just stay here? I wondered. It was the first time the thought had truly seized me: maybe I could stay here forever, never go home. Maybe I never needed to see my family again.
    And then I heard it: Mary laughing. She must not have heard me before. I swung open the basement door and ran down the steps, toward her room. A faint light shone through the crack beneath her door. How hadn’t I seen it before? I almost forgot everything, my relief was so strong.
    I pushed open the door and gasped. Mary was crouching on top of a naked man, her body bare and slick with sweat. Her breasts were full and round, her hair nearly wet, sticking to her neck. The man’s skin was paler than hers. His hands gripped her hips. I didn’t recognize him.
    I felt completely shattered. Mary looked up at me, and her mouth dropped open, her hands rushed to her breasts. “Tessa!” she said, andquickly rolled off the man, to her side. She grabbed for her clothes on the floor next to the mattress. The man sat up and looked at me, annoyed.
    “What is this?” he asked.
    In its way, it might have been worse than seeing my father looming before me, holding the book in his hand. This was Mary, acting like a
slut.
My mother’s voice echoed in my head:
a tramp,
she’d said,
a black-haired Jezebel.
I had never felt so betrayed, in all my life.
    “You’re a slut!” I screamed, my teeth mashing together. “How could you?” My insides were teeming, boiling. I had no idea what would come out of me next, what I would do. “A goddamned whore!”
    Tears nipped at my eyes, but I fought them back, translated them into rage and heartbreak.
    “Tessa!” Mary cried. “Tessa, stop!” Her face looked crushed with worry. “Tessa, come here!”
    She reached for me, but I backed away. “Don’t come near me!” I turned then and ran: up the stairs, through the basement door, the stacks, the back door. I heard her calling out for me, but I trampled straight through the herb garden, into the grass. Past the lumberyard, through the town square, and onto the road that led to home. The air was like fingers swatting my face. The moon was like an assault. I thought of Sister Carrie in her factory, longed for the world to be as flat and dull as that, a place where I would never have to feel anything at all.
    I cut through one of the farms near my house and then slowed,