“I ain’t running.”

“What do you call what we’re doing back here?”

“They don’t—” she began, turning once more to make sure they weren’t being followed. “It’s just that—”

But up ahead the crowd appeared at the end of the alleyway. One by one they came out from behind the rotting wood. They walked slowly, limping and dragging their uneven legs, holding on to the side of the building with their only hands. They walked silently, cracking the dry gravel beneath their feet.

“Come on.” Arbuckle tugged at her hand, pulling her back in the opposite direction.

“No.” She took her hand out of Arbuckle’s. “I ain’t scared.” Her dark curls lifted softly in the wind, and she tucked her hair behind her ears as her heart rushed quietly in her chest. Her mother’s warnings held strong in her mind, as if her mother herself were where Arbuckle stood. She heard them all those years later still, but she was tired of taking the long way into town and the fear that pressed down on her as she returned home each night.

Is this it, Mama?

Might be if you let it, my girl.

“We don’t want no trouble,” Arbuckle said.

“Maybe I do.” She put both hands on her hips. “Maybe it’s time I do.”

“What are you saying, Lady Mae?”

“Tell me about them hills.”

From the middle of the crowd ahead, which was then five or six residents deep, a handful of children appeared. She could see them clearly, their little bodies and small heads and tiny feet. Aside from those still upon their mother’s breast, they were the youngest in the settlement. But they were no longer children, not really, having been warned about the butcher from creation, having grown up on bedtime stories of Lady Mae and her mother, having wakened in the night to see their mothers changing their fathers’ bandages, throwing the soaked and soiled rags into the fire.

“The hills?”

“Up there,” she whispered and tilted her head toward the eastern mountains. “Think we could?”

“Lady Mae, what are you asking?”

The crowd grew nearer, and Lady Mae began to make out the singular features of the residents. She tried to remember their faces from time spent in her chair. But she couldn’t, for they were strangers to her despite the settlement having only three hundred residents. They had become unrecognizable, a result of a life spent in solitude. They recognized her, however, and she saw upon their faces the pious hatred she’d never escape.

Lady Mae remained still despite the crowd flowing toward her. Her mother had said forgiveness, but she’d also said didn’t question and do better and now Arbuckle was back, and his own thoughts had unearthed something she hadn’t known was buried. It rose up like a blade, and though she heard his voice calling to her from behind, she couldn’t reply, her mind too muddled to fathom the danger that was headed her way.

“Lady Mae, come on. Let’s go back the other way.” Arbuckle tugged at her hand.