The Grace Year

by Kim Liggett

We all have brains. There are only a few differences I can see, and most men seem to think with that part anyway.

I don’t blame him for becoming who he was supposed to be. He’s lucky in a way. To be at odds with your nature, what everyone expects from you, is a life of constant struggle.

“Do you ever think there’s something more out there … more than all of this?”

but he couldn’t stand the idea of being away from her. At least if he joined the guard, he’d be able to be close to her. Protect her. Watch her children grow up, even pretend they were his own. I remember thinking it was the most romantic thing in the world.

I wondered what he’d do if I was the one in those little glass bottles. Would he still want to eat my skin, drink my blood, suck the very marrow from my bones?

Because soon, I’ll be coming into my magic, and he should pray that I burn through every last bit of it before I come home.

After all, it’s just a flower. And I’m only one girl.

Of course, some men like breakable things. They like to break them.

This is the one night a year the women are allowed to congregate without the men. You’d think it would be our opportunity to talk, share, let it all out. Instead, we stand isolated and petty, sizing each other up, jealous for what the other one has, consumed by hollow desires. And who benefits from all this one-uppery? The men. We outnumber them two to one, and yet here we are, locked in a chapel, waiting for them to decide our fate.

I wonder what would happen if we all said what we really felt … just for one night. They couldn’t banish us all. If we stood together, they’d have to listen. But with rumors swirling about a usurper among us, no one is willing to take that risk. Not even me.

I can’t help thinking the men might be right. Maybe we’re incapable of more. Maybe without the confines placed upon us, we’d rip each other to shreds, like a pack of outskirt dogs.

Tonight, I became a wife. All because a boy claimed it so.

And I wonder if this is the magic taking over. Is this how it starts—the slip of the tongue? A loss of respect? Is this how I become a monster the men whisper of?

I try to tuck away the gauzy netting in my cloak, but it’s too late. To them, we must represent everything they’ll never have, everything they think they want. Legitimacy. Stability. Love. Protection. If they only knew.

“But who’s going to do the punishing?” Hannah asks. “At home, the punishers are men, chosen by God.” “Look around,” Kiersten says as she stares me dead in the eyes. “We are the only Gods here.”

“What sins? The sin of being born a girl?”

The winter that came in like a lion has gone out like a lamb.

“I don’t want to kill her,” Ryker says. “I want to be with her.”

becuase of the circumstances i'll let the insta love slide

Instead of thinking about all the ways I could die, I start planning for all the ways I want to live.

the silly work of women, but they must not think it’s all that silly or they wouldn’t be working so hard to stop the usurper.

It’s easy to think of your life as being meaningless out here, a tiny forgotten imprint that can easily be washed away by the next passing storm, but instead of making me feel small, it gives everything more purpose, more meaning. I’m no more or less important than a small seedling trying to burst through the soil. We all play a part on this earth. And however small, I intend to play mine.

i love deep thinkers cause me too

And in the second of her first weighted breath, I realize it’s her—the girl that I’ve been searching for.