The Forest of Hands and Teeth Read Online Free PDF Page B

back on her. “They had to stomp on the grapes, which is messy and attracts bugs, and so they had a separate well house for that. They used this tunnel to transport and store their reserves. Eventually, when the soil failed, the winery was abandoned. The old wooden well house fell apart and collapsed. But the winery itself, our Cathedral, remained standing because it was made of stone.”
    Sister Tabitha climbs the stairs slowly, her body hunching as she nears the door in the ceiling. She uses three keys to unlock it and then comes back down, leaving it closed. “This is where the well house once stood,” she tells me, pushing me up the steps so that I almost trip. I crouch, my back against the rough wood door above me, its metal bands digging into my skin. I have known the Sisters to be stern before, doling out physical punishment when necessary during our lessons. But I've never known them like this, rough and distant and frightening.
    “Open it, Mary,” Sister Tabitha says. Her voice is terrifying with its low pitch and ominous tone and I realize that I have no other choice. I heave my body against the heavy wood until the door flips open, swinging wide and falling to the ground outside with a thump that rumbles around us.
    From behind I feel Sister Tabitha pushing against my legs so that I will lose my balance unless I climb through the opening, out of our little tunnel. I straighten and stretch, seeming to rise out of the ground, and then I feel a shove against my back. Suddenly I'm on my hands and knees in the fresh air, pine needles digging into my palms. I hear birds, I feel dry grass under my bare toes and I'm disoriented—confused— until the first moan begins. The sound falls and swells inside me—too close, too loud, too dangerously near.
    Instinctively I jump up and then crouch, my hands out in front of me. Ready to defend myself. I spin left and right, my surroundings passing in a blur. Frantically I turn back toward the hole I climbed out of, back to the safety of the underground tunnel, but Sister Tabitha is blocking my way.
    “What are you doing to me?” I shout. My voice is harsh and scratchy with fear, my words almost choking me as I gulp for air. I grope along the ground, searching with my fingers for a stick or a weapon or anything as the moans get louder, and then I hear a familiar clank. It is the sound of the Unconsecrated pulling at the fence.
    Looking around, I realize that I have come up in a small clearing far away from the village that is protected by a ring of fence twice as tall as I am. The Unconsecrated are beginning to swarm around me. Two steps in any direction and they could reach me through the metal links. Blood hammers through my body, panic clouding my vision, making my hands shake and pound with the rhythm of my heart.
    I try to look everywhere at once. And then Sister Tabitha stretches out her hand, a finger slipping out of her black tunic, to point past me toward the trees. I had not seen the gate but it is there—the same complicated set of gates that is used in the village when someone is damned into the Forest. All Sister Tabitha has to do is pull a rope that lies on the ground by her hand. The gate will open, she and the other Sisters will slip back down into their secret passage and I will be alone to face the Unconsecrated.
    “What are you doing?” I try to scream but my voice is too weak, too breathy. “Why are you doing this to me?” I hiccup as I try to draw in air. The Unconsecrated are so close. Everywhere I turn they are desperate for me, writhing against the fence.
    Tears pour from my eyes, drip from my chin. “Please,” I whisper, slipping back to my hands and knees, crawling toward Sister Tabitha, grasping at her black tunic. “Please don't leave me here.” I am like a child begging her mother.
    “There is always a choice, Mary,” Sister Tabitha says to me, standing with her feet braced against the steps, the lower half of her body still concealed