Part of the reason I didn’t like sleeping at home was the silence. Aside from the house settling and the quiet shuffling of servant skirts, there was no noise to keep me company as I fell asleep. So when the clink of pebbles against my window came minutes after I blew out the candle on the bedside table, I welcomed it, though I usually disapproved of him approaching me instead of the other way around.

  I kicked the duvet off my legs and shivered as my feet touched the cold wooden floor. My rarely-used nightgown was terribly thin and far too large, offering no protection from the chilly midnight air. I tiptoed over to the window and looked down.

  Moonlight illuminated the shape of a familiar man, a shadow against the pale, frost-kissed ground. He waved uncertainly, probably unable to see my face in the darkness, but lighting a candle would draw too much attention. I waved back and put a finger to my lips, then pointed off into the distance to our usual meeting spot up the hill, an abandoned barn. He shook his head, then waved for me to come down. I sighed and nodded before leaving the window to get dressed.

  We’d been having these nighttime visits for a little over a year and a half, and he’d only gotten more and more careless. This wasn’t the first time he’d visited me without warning, and I wouldn’t care so much if his reputation wasn’t at stake.

  Reese Brennan’s “courtship” began years ago, months of longing glances and “accidental” meetings culminating in him asking for my hand in marriage. I’d refused, of course. I’d never seen myself as a wife or a mother. But I liked him well enough, and had offered him something else. Though reluctant at first, thinking it wouldn’t be proper to sleep with a woman without having married her, he’d accepted.

  I quietly left my bedroom and sneaked through the dark hallways, all the way down to the vacant kitchen, still warm from the day’s work. I slipped through the door leading to the backyard and made sure it was firmly closed behind me.

  Reese was waiting with his back against the wall, still right below my window. Eager to get caught, apparently.

  I approached him with the most disappointed expression I could muster, but his smile was so wide I could see it even in low light, and his immediate embrace was welcome in the frigid air.

  So much for that.

  “There you are,” he whispered against my shoulder. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

  “A little over a month,” I replied. “What did I tell you about coming here unannounced?”

  “Rather late for a visit, wouldn’t you say?”

  I sighed, “You know what I mean.”

  “I missed you. Is that so bad?”

  “I’d say disturbing my sleep is pretty bad.”

  He pulled away, though his arms remained around my waist and he held me pressed against his chest.

  We regarded each other in coy silence; he was lithe and a head taller than I, and handsomer than I deserved, if I were to believe the gossip.

  “Alma told me you were back and I wanted to speak to you as soon as possible,” Reese replied, feigning innocence.

  I reluctantly untangled myself from him. “Go on, then. Why did you come here, since you’re not in the mood for the usual?”

  The following silence and his meaningful stare meant he was certainly in the mood for something.

  “Will you walk with me?” he offered. “I think this will be a long discussion.”

  Reese took me on a slow stroll across the fields leading up to the dark tree line of the forest. He didn’t hesitate to give me his coat, thankfully, and held my hand tightly as we walked.

  “I know you don’t want to marry me,” he said, raising his voice to speak over the wind. “But I’ve been thinking: what if I come to live with you in the woods?”

  Ah. So it had finally come to this.

  I’d thought about it too, of course. I’d almost suggested it myself on several occasions, but always found a reason not to. What would his peers think of him? How would it affect his future? Would he have a future at all? And how would he survive in the wild without the proper knowledge?

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  He deserved a normal, respectable life. Once his affection for me cooled, he should be able to return to civilization without any consequences.

  Besides, I knew myself well enough to understand that these were only excuses. The real reason I never suggested it was because I enjoyed my isolation.

  I decided to be honest with him; he deserved that much. He’d been a dear friend, perhaps something more, and I was always happy enough to return to him after weeks or even months of absence.

  But if I was never absent, would I learn to miss him? Did I care for him so deeply that I’d stand having him around, constantly invading the space I’d made mine over the last five years since Mother died?

  The answer was no. It was cruel how quickly it came to me.

  “I’ve been alone for so long, I don’t know how to be anything else. And I worry you might grow tired of me if we spend too much time together.”

  “I would never grow tired of you. But will you at least think about it? We could try it for a few weeks, and if we don’t like it, we’ll continue as we have?”

  “And what will people say when they see you return from the woods after weeks of living with me as if we were married?”

  “Let me worry about that, alright? You worry about letting me try.”

  I nodded but decided against making any promises.

  “What even inspired this? You’ve never expressed an interest in the wilderness. Wanting a life with me is not the same as living like me, you know. What will you get out of it besides my constant company?”

  My question made Reese fall silent as he stared at me, almost waiting for something. “We’ve been stagnant. We can’t be doing this”— he gestured between us —“forever. I want … more.”

  More.

  The hope in his eyes was suffocating.

  I knew what he meant. And he knew I couldn’t give it to him. He’d always known, because I’d never lied. The only reason I found comfort in his arms was because it was the only thing I’d ever searched for in the first place.

  “I’m sorry. I have nothing more to give,” I said.

  “What about us, then?” he asked. I breathed deeply to calm my nerves, knowing what was coming. “If our paths lead in different directions, maybe there’s no point to this anymore.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “What do you want, Sidra? Do you know?” Reese asked with a gentle smile. “Do you want to live alone in the forest, wild and free for the rest of your life?”

  He made it sound so aspirational. I appreciated that. Most people in town spoke of me like one would about someone with a particularly disgusting disease, as if my partly self-imposed isolation was something that should be corrected, and if not that, shunned.

  “If you’re not sure you want the life you have right now, how can you be sure you don’t want a life with me? Or let me in to share yours?”

  What he suggested wouldn’t be much different from marriage; we’d simply live in a forest instead of an estate. Inevitably, I’d get pregnant, and I’d give birth for his sake more than my own.

  I tried — like I’d done many times before — to imagine our wedding. I pictured myself in a beautiful white dress, twirling with Reese in our first dance as a married couple. The image changed to show a faceless child on my hip and two more beside me, pulling at the hem of my shirt. This Sidra smiled at them to hide the pain in her eyes, so they wouldn’t know their mother had never wanted their existence.

  My lungs felt like they’d shrunk, like there wasn’t enough air to breathe. I lifted my gaze to the trees on the distant hill, hiding the wall of iron that separated this world from the other, and reminded myself that this future would never come true and that the woodland, with its fresh winds and eternal solitude, was the only place I could truly call home.

  “I belong in the forest,” I mumbled. “I don’t know anything else.”

  “Sidra, that’s—”

  “And you belong here, where you can live the life you want.”

  Reese came closer, taking my hands in his.

  “If the forest is your only choice, have you really made a choice at all? What if you’re detaching yourself from the rest of us for no reason? If you tried, you might find yourself enjoying a life here.”

  “It’s too late. People have already made up their minds about me.”

  “Who cares what they think? You have your family, and you will have mine, that’s all you need!” he insisted.

  That may have been true, but it didn’t matter. My mother had taught me how to live and survive alone in the forest, where nobody else was around to help. She hadn’t taught me how to live among others, a skill which came naturally to her, but not to me. After she died, my last connection to the proper world was severed. Poor Father had always been distant, awkward, and became even more so after Mother’s passing.

  The time when I could live like a human being had long passed. All that was left of me was a husk that knew only how to survive. I wouldn’t subject Reese to a life with me, no matter how much he thought he wanted it. And I wouldn’t subject myself to a life with him, either. Even his warmth would suffocate me one day.

  “Think about it. You don’t have to marry me, but making yourself live out there in the woods isn’t the solution. The folk here are not as bad as you think we are.”

  I knew that, and I’d never implied they were. My isolation was entirely my doing.

  “You need to return to the world, Sidra,” Reese said.

  I nodded without meeting his gaze. Entertaining the idea that he could be right, I wondered what would happen if I tried coming back. I could follow in Father’s footsteps, inherit his land and manage farmer salaries. Or I’d join Sinéad and Clara in society. I doubted I’d be good at either of those things. The only obvious option, one others would insist I choose, would be to marry Reese. No other man in Dorotea wanted me, and he was already far better and more respectable than I deserved.

  I didn’t have to worry about these things in the forest. All my thoughts revolved around surviving the next day and preparing for the winter. It was an empty existence, but I preferred it to a miserable one.

  Reese squeezed my hands and gave me a tentative smile. “I won’t keep you any longer, but I promise, I’ll prove to you that life here can be good.”

  It was good. But it wasn’t for me.

  I hoped, sooner or later, he’d understand.