Page 92 of The Narrow

“Eden, Grace knew that she could trust me because she knew about me,” Oster says. “She knew I was gay. I was in a relationship with another teacher at the school at the time. It’s why shefelt safe telling me. I was worried for her, but I was happy for her, too. Until I realized what was happening.”

“He wasn’t her friend. He wanted to control her. To do her parents’ bidding,” Maeve spits out, but I’m transfixed. It’s never occurred to me to wonder about the dean’s sexuality. He isn’t married, has no partner, and never, to my knowledge, discusses it with the student body.

But Atwood is certainly a safe place to be queer. And it hadn’t always been—Grace’s story is proof enough of that. I’ve always assumed the change was a natural result of society’s progression, but Atwood is its own world, isn’t it? It changes slowly. Unless there’s someone to push it along.

“Then, why?” I ask. “Why did you tell Maeve to leave her alone?”

“Because she was hurting Grace,” he says gravely.

“Liar!” Maeve shrieks, and now my outstretched arm does nothing to stop her. She blinks out, reappearing on the other side of me as she throws herself at Oster. He lifts his arms protectively, shouting in alarm. She stops abruptly in front of him. Her hair moves as if underwater, and beside us, the sound of the Narrow swells. Oster lowers his arms.

“You know it’s true, Maeve. You were controlling. Jealous. Abusive. You made her think she was all alone, and that no one else would love her or want her or help her. And you hurt her. I saw the bruises. The marks you left on her skin and the ones beneath the surface. It took everything she had to come to me for help. Everything she had to walk away from you when she loved you so very much. But you didn’t love her enough to let her go.”

I look between them. Oster, with nothing but sorrow on his face. Maeve’s expression contorted in anger. I remember her cold touch, the bursts of pain that came with it. Every touch reawakening the pain that was inflicted on me.

Not her fault. Never her fault.

Like it wasn’t Luke’s fault. My body is collateral damage, the sacrifice offered up on the altar ofnot his fault.Not his. Not hers.

“You killed me,” Maeve says, her voice a gurgle of pain and rage.

“I didn’t,” Oster says. “I went home. Grace was supposed to be waiting for me, but you were both gone. Did she come here, Maeve? Did you argue?”

I feel like I can’t breathe. This can’t be true.

“No,” Maeve says, shaking her head.

“Then how did she end up in the Narrow with you?” I ask, stepping closer. Because that was the thing we still didn’t know, wasn’t it? “Grace was here.” And I was wrong about everything.

Maeve turns toward me slowly. Her expression is blank, scarlet tendrils spreading slowly through the white of one eye. “Grace was here,” she repeats. Then, a whisper. “I never meant to hurt you.”

Her eyes flick up. She stares at me, water trickling from the corners of her mouth. I was wrong. Oster is not the monster. Maeve is not the victim. I’ve told myself that she doesn’t mean to hurt me, even as every wound she leaves on my skin makes her stronger. I’ve told myself she can’t help her cruelty and her rage, but I was wrong.

“I have to fix it,” she says—and vanishes—and reappears rightin front of me. I yelp in surprise and stumble back. She catches me. Hand knotted in my hair. Eyes fixed on mine. Her fingers sliding over my throat as she looks down at me with a cold gaze, empty of mercy.

She kisses me—an icy, brutal kiss of teeth and pressure, of hunger and anger and want and need, of the current dragging us both down. Oster is shouting. He runs forward, but it’s too late. I can’t breathe. I can’t break free.

I’m—

MAEVE

30

OSTER’S HANDS CLOSEaround my arms as my knees give way. He lowers me slowly to the ground, murmuring Eden’s name.

I cling to Oster, gasping. And then a wild sound tears free of me—laughter. I clutch at Oster’s arm and laugh, and the laughter turns to weeping, and he holds me.

“Eden,” he says urgently. “We need to get out of here. Before she comes back.”

Before she comes back.I almost laugh again and catch the sound in my teeth, biting down with vicious pleasure. What an idiot. He was a young idiot and now he’s an old idiot.

“Please,” I say, teeth chattering. I let him help me up. I need it—my limbs feel strange, not quite my own, and the water soaking through me leaves me chilled and shaky. He takes off his coat and puts it around my shoulders, and together we stagger away from the Narrow.

Come back, it calls, as it calls me every time I claw my way free of it. But now I feel no urge to follow.

“Let’s get you home,” Oster is saying. Yes, home. I want to go home—and home is Grace. My thoughts come easily now. Not dragged up from the silt like they were when I lurched on a broken leg, wandering in the dark. What did Eden say? She claimed that Grace and Delphine were the same girl, the two of them swirled together like ink in water until no difference remained between the two.

But that isn’t the only option, I know now. Icouldsurrender the borders of myself, let Eden seep in and mingle with me, but I don’t have to. She’s still here. I can root around in her memories; I know she’s experiencing everything I am. Experiencing it asme. But I don’t have to let her will or her personality bubble up. I can keep her suppressed. Take what I want and bury the rest.

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