Finally, he yanks the spear from my hands and pulls me away from the window. But by this time my mind has cycled on to other possibilities, other theories. “Maybe she got away,” I tell him. “Maybe she couldn't get back to the house but she was able to get to the gates,” I say.

“Maybe she was like Gabrielle.”

I bring my hands to my cheeks, everything coming into focus for one brief moment. Maybe she escaped, maybe they're all out there, alone and searching. Maybe I'm the one meant to find them, to remember them, to carry them forward. I begin to pace, my mind tripping over itself.

“I can get to the gates,” I say, my voice breathy and excited. “I can find her.”

“Who?” Travis asks me, his tone loud and firm as he grasps both my shoulders. “Who are you looking for?”

“Her,” I tell him, motioning to myself, to the dress I'm wearing.

“What are you talking about, Mary? You're not making any sense.” His grip keeps me from continuing my pacing but my feet tap against the floorboards, my toes digging into the wood with desire to move, to act on my need.

“Don't you see? Someone right now could be in our village, could be in one of our houses.

They could find my clothes and think that I'm one of them, that I'm Unconsecrated, but I'm not.

I'm here and they would never know.”

I pull my shoulders from his grasp and go back to pacing. I shove one hand into my hair and wave the other around as I think, trying to pull together the whirring thoughts in my head.

Who are we if not the stories we pass down? What happens when there's no one left to tell those stories? To hear them? Who will ever know that I existed? What if we are the only ones left—who will know our stories then? And what will happen to everyone else's stories? Who will remember those?

“There is no one at our village, Mary,” he says to me. “And the woman who used to live here, why does she matter? She's no longer here. If she made it out alive, she didn't come down our path.”

I snap my fingers. “You're right,” I say, every thought in my head somehow clear. “She must have moved on. She must have gone down the other path, she must have continued away from here.”

Travis shakes his head. “Mary.” He takes my arm again to stop me from pacing. “Tell me why this matters to you so much. Tell me why now, all of a sudden this is so important?” My feet fall still and I look into his eyes. His impossibly beautiful, calm eyes. “Because no one will ever know about her. And that means that no one will ever know about me.” My voice is a whisper. “When they come to our village, who will know about me?”

“I know about you, Mary.” He places a hand on my cheek, trails one finger along my jaw, and I'm forced to close my eyes so that he doesn't read in my expression the words that ring in my head but that I can't say aloud. That it is not enough.