The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

me and yet I can't stay still, can't stop my curiosity. In an attempt to avoid her detection I have slipped out the window and gone to stand underneath Gabrielle's room, hoping that I will figure out a way to climb the two stories and get inside. But the window is always dark, the curtains tightly drawn.
    Since that first day when she stood by the window in her strange red vest I haven't seen her again and I begin to worry if she is well. But I know she is still here in the Cathedral. I can see it in the way the Sisters whisper among themselves and eye those of us who are uninitiated into the inner sanctum. The air is tense here, like a cord pulled taut.
    I have grown reckless in my attempts to speak with Gabrielle and I know that I'm tempting Sister Tabitha's wrath if she finds out. But I can't help it. It is like a fever. Now that I'm no longer allowed to see Travis, Gabrielle is all I can think about.
    I've decided that it is worth Sister Tabitha and the Unconsecrated if I can at last find out what is past the Forest.
    A knock at the door startles me from my thoughts. It's a young Sister sent to bring me to see Sister Tabitha. She leads me back toward the Sanctuary in the heart of the Cathedral and through to another wing that is off-limits except to the most elite Sisters.
    I wonder if this is it. If these steps will be the last that I will take. If I am finally paying for my curiosity and stubbornness and impetuousness. I wonder if I will beg for Sister Tabitha's forgiveness when she leads me through the tunnel back toward the old well house and abandons me in the Forest.
    But Sister Tabitha is not alone when I enter her office, sharp sunlight stabbing my eyes as it pours through three large windows that overlook the village. Harry is there with her, his arms straight by his sides, hands clenched into fists. Travis is dead, I suddenly think. I was told he had turned for the worse and here is his brother looking solemn and sad and I almost sink to my knees.
    “I have news,” Sister Tabitha tells me and I nod because my vocal cords are being eaten away with acid tears.
    “Harry has spoken for you, Mary,” she tells me.
    I whip my head around to face Harry. I can feel my eyebrows draw together with shock and anger. I cannot believe this could be the truth. Why would he speak for me now when he hadn't done so before, when it would have mattered and when I could have said yes and meant it? Back when I didn't know love and could have been happy with admiration and acceptance?
    “But the Sisterhood,” I stammer. This cannot be happening.
    “I have given him my blessing. So has your brother, Jed,” Sister Tabitha says. “You are needed more out there as a wife and mother than in here as a Sister.” Her sharp eyes bore into me. “We both know you are ill-suited for the Sisterhood.”
    The world swirls around me and I have nothing to cling to in order to make it right. All I can think about is Travis and how it felt to press against his body that night. How can I ever be with his brother after that?
    “You will marry at Brethlaw in the spring,” she continues. “With Travis and Cassandra,” she adds as if she doesn't know that she is breaking my heart.
    “My duties to God…,” I begin to ask, even though I don't believe in God.
    “Will be served by doing His will and making sure our village thrives through another generation,” she finishes.
    She means having children with Harry. My stomach clenches at the thought of it. I think of his hand holding mine under the water the day that my mother was infected. I think about the way his flesh looked, puffy and white and wrong.
    I open my mouth, ready to reject his courtship. But then I realize that doing so will tie my fate to the Sisterhood forever, will condemn me to a life inside these walls in service to God and Sister Tabitha.
    My mind whirls, trying to determine which is the better choice, which the better fate: life as wife to Harry or life as a Sister. Neither