The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

walk right again and how tomorrow I start my next stage of studies and I am afraid that I won't be allowed to come see Travis anymore.
    I sob because this is not a life. This is not the way life should be and because I don't know how to fix any of it.
    My tears soak into the pillow. Travis's cheek and neck and hair are wet now but I cannot stop and I go on until I am heaving, trying to suck air into my lungs as my body convulses.
    And then I feel a hand on my head and I look up. It's Travis and he is awake. For a moment I wonder if he's confused as to what I'm doing here instead of Cass. It's Cass who had been keeping vigil by his bed and it's Cass to whom he responds.
    But then he whispers, “It will be okay, Mary.” He pulls my head down to his chest and he wraps both his arms around me and all I can think is why can't life just stop here and now and leave us be in this moment.
    Instead, I hear a shuffle at the door and I look up and it is Sister Tabitha and she is bringing Travis his supper. She raises an eyebrow at my appearance: disheveled and raw. I stand and step away from the bed and wipe at my face with my sleeve.
    Travis is back asleep, his body limp, his arms by his side, and I am left to wonder if I just imagined the whole thing.
    Sister Tabitha says nothing as I leave the room and run back down through the maze of the Cathedral to the sanctuary of my own solace. But a few hours later she's there at my door and she tells me that my new studies will take up all my day and so I will no longer have the time to go and pray for Travis.
    I spend the night sitting at my desk with the window open, the frigid air blowing over my numb body. I look to the Forest, to the fence line, and I wonder about my mother and father. Is their life any easier now? Is there fear in the Unconsecrated? Is there loss and love and pain and longing? Wouldn't a life without so much agony be easier?

S ister Tabitha is correct: with my new studies there is no time to visit Travis during the day. Instead, the Cathedral's needs dominate my time. In the mornings I sweep the snow away from the walks, and I dust the pews and arrange the books for services. I make the sacred candles for the altar, chanting the special prayers for each layer of wax. I cook the meals and clean the dishes. But I'm not allowed outside the Cathedral walls. I can't go to the well or to the stream or to the fields.
    And so I don't see anyone from the village unless they come to the Cathedral.
    Throughout the next weeks Cass and Harry come to sit with Travis. Sometimes they are together and sometimes alone. It is terrible of me, but I hide when I see Cass approach. I just can't stand to face her knowing that she is the one Travis has chosen and I can't bear to think that even though he said my name that night that he may have meant Cass instead.
    When I can stand it no longer I creep out of my bed at night and wrap my quilt around my shoulders. I slip out of my room and down the hallway back toward the center of the Cathedral. Through the years the village has added wings to the building, halls that twist away from the main Sanctuary at odd angles, some intersecting and some not. My little room is part of the old structure, built of stone rather than wood, dank and dark. Most Sisters choose to live elsewhere in the Cathedral, in the newer rooms facing the village, preferring not to overlook the cemetery and the Forest. Perhaps Sister Tabitha meant my room as a punishment, meant to enforce my isolation. But I haven't protested—I prefer the silence and solitude of my empty hall.
    As I near the Sanctuary, the ceiling soars into blackness, the room opening to reveal rows of pews. I press myself against the wall so that the Sisters keeping night vigil cannot see me. I pause to watch them as they kneel with their heads tilted toward each other, candlelight casting shadows around their faces. They are whispering furiously and I assume they are praying until one of them hisses and