Free All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry Page A

chance, it’s in Mother’s hands.
I couldn’t talk sense into Darrel even if I had a tongue, so I sit behind him on the bed and wrestle his arms to his back so he’ll stop thrashing at Mother. He’s stronger than me, but I grind my chin into his back.
“That’s the way,” Mother says, approving.
Darrel retaliates by flopping back suddenly and smacking my skull against his headboard.
“Now you’ve gone and splashed me.” Mother is indignant. My head hurts so badly, I can’t even feel the pain.
I can save a village, I can surrender my heart’s desire, but neither I nor Mother nor all the homelander fleet can make my brother do what he doesn’t want to.
The battle for Darrel’s foot has begun.
    XIX.
    The touching grew worse. I learned to prevent it, to some small degree, by making myself hunched and still and small. But it didn’t matter. His eyes never left me, not even for sleep. He gave up drink so he could stare at me, day and night. There was never a time when I looked at him when I did not find him looking back. The fear that clenched my stomach never grew easier to bear for its familiarity.
    One day he sprang from his chair as I walked past his bed. He pinned me there, pressing his stale mouth against my lips. His hands ripped at my dress, savaged my breasts, then hoisted the hem of my skirt up high.
    Here it comes, I thought, with a numb calm that I cannot explain.
Then he stopped as if seized, and tore himself up with a roar. He burst out the door, bellowing.
I sat up and plucked at my ruined dress and planned in my head the stitches to mend it.
I heard a splash and a bubbling sound. The door was yanked open, and there he stood, dripping, greasy, streaming with rain-barrel water.
He spoke of the Blessed Virgin.
Then he pinned me once more, pried open my mouth, swept out his knife, and silenced me, crying, “No more, no more!”
    XX.
    You came and got Jip when I wasn’t aware. I must have been indoors scrubbing the wash.
    “We can’t afford a horse,” Mother announces at supper. Supper—three roasted potatoes. That’s all we have the stomach for. And Darrel won’t touch his. The skins are burnt, and they smell. So do the herbs Mother’s been mucking with for Darrel’s foot. It makes my headache throb.
    “Where did you get a horse, anyway?”
    When she does this, she always pauses as if waiting for an answer, then sniffs just a little, as if I’m to blame for my silence. A perpetual reminder of my flaw and its aggravation to her.
    “I won’t have someone coming after us for horse thieves.
    Was it one of them fighters from Pinkerton?”
“No, Mother, it wasn’t,” Darrel says.
It takes all my strength to hide my surprise.
“The horse is Worm’s now if she wants it.”
How does he know? What did he see?
“Well, she doesn’t want it,” Mother says, “for we can’t
    afford to keep it, and that’s that.”
    Smoke and dusty herb scents are so close, they suffocate me.
Darrel thrashes in his bedsheets, grumbling. “Fine animal. Shame to part with it. Might be useful with my bad foot come winter.”
She glowers at him. “And I suppose you’ll be handling its keep?”
She doesn’t look up to see me leave.
    XXI.
    It’s full dark, but I have to get out of the house. I’d rather sleep in the straw beside Phantom than listen to Mother anymore tonight.
    The sky is bright with stars, the air cold and clean. It calms me. I lean against our fence. Some of my ire floats away on the breeze.
    The wheelbarrow. I never fetched it.
Are you back?
Some others, at least, must be. Could the wagons have
    returned already? The rescue work must be done.
    I don’t need to see my way to find my way. I should have taken a shawl but I won’t go back in for it.
Your house is dark. Surely you’re not in bed yet. Perhaps I’ll find you in town. This puts a spring in my steps.
I hurry into town. Lights are on in many windows, including Melvin Brands’s. He’s doctoring someone on his kitchen table. I can’t