The piece is part of River’s Rowan, the upcoming book that will be released this Winter. In this piece, Sage escapes an abusive home. She meets Jonathan instead.

***

I ain’t been out of the holler, not ever. If there’s natural scents other pine, or honeysuckle growing on the vine, I’ve never smelled it. What I know about the world comes from the woods behind the house. I know different kinds of flowers grow (and smell different from each other). I can tell you the difference between deer and rabbit tracks, and I know which plants I can eat, which berries won’t kill me. The sounds of the woods at night don’t scare me because I know what’s making them. The darkness used to scare me, but you can get used to anything. I like the darkness now: darkness can help you hide. Scents scare me now, especially cigarettes: their ashy smell lingers in the room even when he’s gone. When someone smokes, you not only live with that person, you live with that person’s ghost, too. Their smell stays even when they don’t. The scent of sweat scares me. And sawdust: he uses the saw to make things. Ever piece of furniture we got came from his saw, everything we’ve got, we make. I make the clothes, the pillows, anything that needs sewing. Your turn’s a-comin’, he always says, one day, that hair of yours will make fine stuffing for a pillow; you know you can use skin to make pouches. Bet yours would make me a fine bag to carry skinned rabbits in.

I sit in the corner of the room, the far corner, my legs bent, my arms curled around my knees, watching him eat. Every day is the same. He don’t shave much; his scratchy beard is long enough to pull; his eyes are like the dark side of the moon: narrow and black. I made the stained shirt he wears from ones that had too many holes in them. For most my life, whenever I’ve looked at him, or smelled him, I’ve felt fear explode throughout my whole body. My lip is busted; there’s a cut above my eye and, worst of all, my right wrist. I can move it, so it’s not broken like it was the last time, but it hurts real bad. The pain throbs, and turning it in any direction makes me bite my lip to keep from crying out. It worries me because, when it’s broken, I can’t do things as good. I can’t carry things as good or climb things as well.

And I have plans.

I dreamed last nights about the ants. The ants that live inside me, I dreamed about them. They swelled. I lay on the floor, naked, and I was in so much pain. I could feel the pain in the dream. I was wriggling on the floor, trying to get away from the pressure. It felt like bricks, like a ton of bricks, holding me down, but I didn’t scream. Not until I saw the bubbles on my skin. It was the ants inside my veins swelling up. The bubbles got larger and larger, stretching my skin until it was as black as the ants’ bodies. There were bubbles up and down my arms, my legs, all over my face. All at once, the bubbles burst. Pop! Blood squirted out…and hundreds of ants. They crawled up my nose, into my eyes, all over me, some of them crawled back in the holes made by other bubbles. I was a mess of blood and ants. The ants were worse than the blood. They crawled all over me until I woke up, drenched in sweat, and moaning. I haven’t screamed in years, but my whole body trembled after the dream.

I stopped being scared of him a long time ago. I stopped being scared of most things a long time ago. Besides, even if you are scared of something, I just don’t think about it and then it’s not scary anymore. It isn’t the weight of him on top of me that I can’t handle. It isn’t the stabbing pain of him hurting me. It’s not the broken bones or the bruises. It’s not even the thought of dying like Mama cause, sometimes, I think dying is the best way out. There’s been nights when I’ve wished he’d slam my head a little too hard against the wooden planks of the floor. It’s not dying. It’s the ants. I’m afraid of going crazy. I’m afraid of losing my mind. I can’t stay here because, if I do, I will go crazy.

The only thing to do is leave the holler.

I don’t know what’s out there and I don’t know if it’s any better than here. But you can only bear that kind of pressure so long before you stop breathing. I’ve tried to think of a way to stop breathing. I could use the knife–I don’t have the razor anymore, since I threw it in the pond. I could use the knife but, if I failed, if it didn’t kill me… I don’t know what he would do, but I am a little scared to find out. The easiest thing is just to leave. Sometimes easy things are the hardest ones to do. I have to wait, wait until he’s asleep; it’ll be dark then, so I won’t be able to see. But the darkness hides you. In case he comes looking for me. If I leave this shack, he cannot find me. Dying doesn’t scare me. How he might kill me does. The nerves somersault in my belly; they feel like the dandelions turning upside down as the wind pushes them upward toward the sky. If he catches me, I will die tonight. If he don’t catch me… I’m not sure what will happen. Either way, though, tonight is different, tonight is one to remember.

My heart has never beat so fast. I can feel it galloping in my throat, so loud I’m sure it’s going to wake him up. I was born here, right here in this shack fifteen years ago. Not that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a thing that happened, me being born. This dark shack that’s lit only with candles and sunlight streaming through the windows has been the only place I’ve ever seen, the only place I’ve ever slept. I can survive here: I can eat the berries and drink the creek water. I can climb the trees. I can stay out of his way; he loses interest quick these days. Except there’s a choir of crazy, mad lions in my head and all they do is roar. I hear the screams all day long, every day, and it’s making me crazy. What happens to crazy people?

He’s asleep. He has to be asleep. I’ve waited and waited and waited some more. It has to be now. I climb up on my knees, then slowly to my feet. I know where the planks are that will make a sound; I’ll count the steps. I don’t make a noise but I’m humming a song in my head. It’s not a song you’ve or anyone’s heard about; it’s one I came up with. I’ve thought about how to get out before; I’ve even come up with a plan. When I was ten, I tried. I ran. I waited til he was asleep, opened the door and ran. I didn’t even get up the hill before I heard him behind me. I didn’t even see the other side of the hill before I was jerked back by my hair, slammed into the ground. I don’t remember all of that night, only that when I woke up, both eyes were swollen shut, so the whole world was black, and I thought I was blind. It was enough to keep me from running again.

Until now.

So I’ve thought about how to get out. If I use the front door, he might hear me: there are three places that creak in the floors inside the shack and the first step off the porch squeaks, too. The only other option is to climb through a window. I don’t know which would be quietest but, in the end, I open the window. It’s the option I haven’t tried. The window is easy to open; we have to have it open during the Spring and Summer months or it would be unbearable, the heat. Since we use the window a lot, it’s not squeaky, it’s quiet. I am short and it takes me two tries to lift myself to the window’s edge but, once I do, I easily slide through the opening, falling to the ground below. It crushes my left arm, and I am glad it’s not my right wrist.

I don’t walk: I run.

I’ll run as far as I can before I stop; I won’t stop. The nighttime noises are so loud–everything seems so much louder than it usually does. So loud I can’t hear whether anyone is behind me or not and I am scared to look. His face, dark with rage, flashes through my memory. He’s inches from my face, looking down at me, his eyes narrowed, his mouth firm, as he pounds inside me, waking up the ants. Fear traces a path down my spine. Sometimes, when he hurts me, I cannot walk afterward. Sometimes I can walk, but I can’t make myself move, can’t make myself roll over. It’s like I’m paralyzed. It pushes me on, up the hill.

I’ve never seen the dirt road beyond the hill. I’ve never seen the ditch on the other side of the road, but I like that it puts me below ground level. I slide into the ditch, my bare feet slipping on the rocks at the bottom. I almost fall, but catch myself. Walking in the ditch is hard because the rocks are sharp and cut my feet. When blood spills, I look for the ants, but I don’t see any. It is dark outside: the dark hides things. Only when I am sure I am far enough way that he wouldn’t find me tonight do I stop sprinting, slow my pace. Only then do I stop looking over my shoulder. There is nothing to do but walk. I cannot go back and I’m not far enough away to stop.

You’re not even real girl, he’d say laughing. You don’t even know what a real girl is. A real girl. Are there other girls? Where? I walk until the blisters on my feet pop, oozing blood again. That makes me think of the nightmare and that forces me to stop walking. I sit on the road, bending my head to look at my foot. The crunching of gravel and the bright lights make me look up. I’ve been walking for so long the sky is a magenta color now; the sun gets closer to us. It will be sunrise soon.

An old truck pulls up alongside me. The man inside wears a pair of jeans and a white cotton shirt; his eyes are blue and his face clean shaven. He looks nothing like Dad. This gives me comfort.

“Hey there,” his voice is deep, his eyes shifting to look up and down the road. He frowns and says, “Are you alright?”

I stare back at him, silent.

“You don’t look alright — with your lip busted and that — that cut on your eye looks pretty nasty, too.”

I drop my head, rubbing my foot.

“Walking without shoes? Seems like you’re running from something?”

I don’t answer him. I hear him shifting and look back up in time to see him hold out a water bottle. I suddenly feel the scratchiness of my throat, how dry it is and how long it’s been since I’ve had water. Come get it…. oops, look at that, I ate it instead. Dad did that a lot. I expect this man to do the same, to pour the water out or drink it in front of me, but I so want it that I don’t give him the chance: I spring up from the roadside, grab it out of his hands and then step quickly out of his reach. I drink the water so fast I start coughing, sputtering it out. He laughs. “Slow down, slow down. Look, we’re all running from something. You want a ride to Nashville? That’s where I’m headed. There’s a bus station there, get you as far away as you want to go.”

I stare at him, my hands clutching the water bottle, my wrist throbbing, my mind foggy as a misty morning in the holler. “A ride?” I ask.

He shifts the stick on the side of the wheel, hops out of the truck. My breath stops. He cocks his head at me, wanting me to follow him. I look behind me towards the holler. Dad could catch up with me if he wanted to, if he tried hard enough. And if he did… before the thought finishes, I’m on my feet, following him to the other side of the truck. I climb in, staring at the radio, and looking in the floorboard. There’s nothing there. A click clack noise jerks my head to the side in time to see a small, silver thing on the door drop down. “Wouldn’t want you falling out,” he says, winking at me. “What’s your name?”

“Sage.”

“Sage, I’m Jonathan.” He pauses and says, “Don’t worry, you won’t ever be going back there again.”