After a few seconds, the door barely squeaks open. Holly’s surprised face when she sees me catches me off guard because I’m as surprised to see her.
“Holly?” I mutter.
“You’re here,” she says, and now I’m even more confused.
“Where is she?” my mother asks, peeking inside.
Holly opens the door wider. “There.” She points at a woman huddled close by the fire with a blanket covering her body.
My mother quickly passes Holly and walks straight toward the woman, going to her knees in front of her. I can’t see who it is, and I don’t know if I want to know.
Why did my mother bring me here?
What’s going on?
“C’mon in,” Holly says. She cocks her head when she sees my hesitation. “My husband’s gone. Out hunting boars with a few others. It’s safe.”
I frown at that statement. Safe. I wouldn’t ever guess her to use that word in relation to her husband. How odd.
After I step inside, she closes the door behind us, but I stay put near the entrance in case I need to flee. It’s forbidden for women to have get-togethers without the consent of their husbands, and it’s expressly forbidden at night. If any guards discover us here, we’re dead.
“Are you okay?” my mother asks the woman in the chair.
She doesn’t respond, but she’s shaking vehemently.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask.
My mother looks up at me. “This is why I asked you to come. She asked specifically for you.”
My eyes widen, and I almost get the urge to point at myself. “Me?”
She nods and swivels the chair around just enough for me to see who it is.
Emmy.
But it’s not the cheerful, smiley Emmy I remember from before, nor the hopeful but anxious Emmy that came with me to my apartment.
This Emmy … is broken.
Like a stuffed doll ripped apart at its seams.
“How did you find her?” I ask my mother swiftly.
“Holly had talked to Agatha about her after Emmy came running to her doorstep every night.”
Holly makes a face. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“Does anyone else know?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “And Agatha promised not to tell anyone else.”
“She’d better not,” my mother growls. That definitely sounded like a threat.
But I’m far too busy with Emmy to be bothered by that. Her face is covered in bruises and scratches, lips torn, hair a muddled mess, eyes watery, red blotches on her arms and chest.
“I did everything right,” she murmurs, looking at me with doe-like eyes that make my knees buck. “I did what he asked. I did everything. I cooked. I cleaned. I gave him my heart. My body. I gave him everything.” Tears stream down her face. “But it wasn’t enough …” She bursts out into wailing and covers the blanket around her body as a comfort.
I immediately wrap my arms around her, holding her tightly against me as she weeps against my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I’m so sorry.”
“Shhh … you don’t have to say anything,” I whisper, petting her back.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She keeps on saying it like a record stuck on repeat.
It kills me to see her like this. We went through so much together. She wanted to belong so desperately. She always believed this community was amazing, that it would make her happy to get married … and then her husband turned out to be just as cruel as the patriarchs themselves. She was young and hopeful, and got so little in return.
I don’t know what I can say or do to make this feeling go away.
“It was supposed to be good. We were supposed to be happily married,” she mutters between her tears.
“I know they told you that,” I say. “I’ve been told the same lies.”
“I believed everything!” she shouts as I lean back to look her in the eyes. “I believed he’d make me happy!”
I grab a strand of her wild hair and tuck it behind her ears. “And he gave you scars instead.”
Her lips quiver again. “It’s not fair.”
“It isn’t,” I reply. “It never was.”
She looks down at her shaky hands. “I wish he’d never come to find me. It was so much better with you in your apartment,” she says under her breath.
“Is he the reason you came with me when I escaped?” I ask.
She nods faintly. “I didn’t want to admit it.”
I swallow. I knew it. Something about her behavior was off, but I could never put a finger onto it, and of course she’d never tell me why until it was too late.
“He was never kind or gentle,” she says. “Not at all like the elders teach us.”
“There’s a lot that isn’t what they teach us,” my mother interjects. “They expect us to be willful victims in our own narrative. Not anymore.”
I turn my head and look up at my mother who stands there with her arms crossed. All she gives me is a look, but that one look … it could start a revolution.