Grace
Iapproach Mihi’s house, trying not to dwell on Nate’s plans to leave me alone again tomorrow.
I’ll have to convince him to take me along; there’s no way I can stand a repeat of last week.
Besides, feeling well has given me the urge to get back into the world beyond Horseshoe Manor.
I want to feel the city air, enjoy a bit of noise, and see how my body reacts to more stimulation than I’m used to.
I want to prove that I can handle it—to myself as well as to Nate.
Mihi meets me at her front door with some sad news about the herd in the eastern paddock: a couple of the ewes died while lambing. I’m shocked, but she isn’t.
“Death is part of farming,” Mihi says as we prepare a few bottles of milk for the motherless lambs. “The main thing is securing the next generation, cause there aren’t any foster mothers to take on these little ones.”
As we head outside, I think back on the history of the property Mihi shared when we first met, remembering the neglect these poor animals faced before she took over.
“How long has it been since Nate bought the land off your father?” I ask, fumbling with the latch on the paddock.
“Almost five years. And every year marks fewer dead ewes.”
We move to the shed where the babies huddle beneath a heat lamp, the surrounding straw scrupulously clean. We each take a lamb and sit down.
“How are things at the big house?” Mihi asks, petting her lamb as it gulps milk. “Hadley being good to you after that not-allowed-to-go-into-town bullshit last week?”
I shrug. “He’s being his usual self, I guess. I had a good appointment with Eileen today, though.”
At Mihi’s prompting, I spill the news about my newly-issued bill of good health. We’re shifting to the second pair of lambs when her eyes turn shrewd, her expression hardening.
“How are you going to handle this new state of affairs, Grace?”
“I’m not sure there’s anything new about it.”
I lean down and kiss my lamb’s downy cheek, pulling back when it butts forward for more milk.
“Kisses at the wrong time cause a broken nose, girl.” Mihi reaches out to correct the angle of my bottle. “And I disagree with what you said just now. Everything’s new when someone who’s been sick all her life suddenly isn’t.”
Mihi’s words should be reassuring, but somehow I find myself shrinking. “I’m still having some off-days here and there, and—and…”
I can’t find a way to voice my doubts, but Mihi nods. “It’s okay if the recovery doesn’t feel real yet. It can’t be real until you’ve lived it long enough to feel it. Hell, your body is probably still making up for everything it’s been deprived of—literally.”
I know she means nutrition, but the image that comes to mind is Nate, his eyes on mine as he touches me, offering me the endless physical love I never even glimpsed during my marriage to Nick.
Get your mind out of the gutter, Grace.
“Right,” I say. “I guess it’ll feel real when I’m healthy for longer than a few days at a go.”
“Yep. And someday soon you’ll realise your last bad day was ages ago.”
I glance sideways, seeing the distant expression in her eyes. “Was it like that for you, when you were recovering?”
“Sure was, though I reckon my issues were more mental than physical. I didn’t even know which of my emotions were real and which were just my motherfucker of a thyroid being a dick again.”
That makes me laugh so loud that I startle my lamb. I comfort her with another kiss and hold her for a while afterwards, thinking over what Mihi said.
“Do you still have bad days?”
“Everyone has bad days,” she says. “But we’ve got to sort the bad of one kind from the bad of another. Sorting of all sorts—sorted?”
I laugh at her wordplay, as I’m sure Mihi meant me to, some of my tension melting away.
We spend the next few hours mucking out sheds and checking on the rest of the flock. It's hard work that would have left me with aching joints and a foggy brain a few weeks ago, but all I feel now is satisfied with a job well done.
We’re heading back to her house for a quick bite when my phone rings.
An unknown number shows on the screen. I answer right away, thinking it’ll be an automated message with some lab results Eileen requisitioned.
I expect to hear a robotic voice on the other end, and I feel myself go still when there’s an indrawn gasp.
It’s Mother. I know it even before she speaks.
“Graciously?” she says, then continues without waiting for an answer. “I know it’s you, lovey. I need you to listen before he blocks this number, too! Are you listening, Graciously?”
“Yes,” I whisper, clutching the phone to my ear. Acid ignites in my belly, horribly familiar, like magma sliding along well-worn grooves.
“I need you to know that you’re not alone up there, even though that man is keeping you from me. It’s not your fault, Graciously. I’ve been researching everything, and I’ve found out that his plans go right back to the start—even before the start.”
“The start?” I close my eyes and speak through the tension in my jaw. “Mother, I don’t understand what you’re—”
“I have proof of what he's done—I sent everything up to the office, care of Nick’s name. I doubt that disgusting man would have the nerve to open something addressed to the brother he killed, so you can go collect it yourself.”
“K-killed,” I stutter, unable to process what she’s saying. The paddock around me is verdant with spring, and it all goes grey when I realise what Mother is telling me. “What do you mean, ‘the brother he killed’? Are you talking about Nate?”
“Yes! Who else? He murdered Nick, then stole you away before I could even—”
Two things happen at once: Mihi puts a strong hand on my shoulder and my mother’s voice cuts off mid-sentence. My phone vibrates and I stare at the screen. It flickers then goes blank.
“Grace,” Mihi is saying, her voice low and concerned, “Christ, you’ve gone pale. Do you need me to take you home? Or I can call Hadley to—”
“No.” My voice is vehement with panic. I turn into Mihi’s embrace, hugging her close. I breathe through my body’s reaction to hearing Mother’s voice for the first time in over a month.
“Okay,” Mihi continues, “no calling Hadley, got it.”
“He must have turned it off remotely,” I say, pulling back as my phone vibrates once more, restarting on its own. “He cut her off on purpose. He knew she—”
“Woah, slow down. Let’s get you into the house, all right?”
“No!” I stare at my phone, watching apps appear on the home screen. “I need to get back. I need to ask him—”
“Grace, let’s get you a glass of water and sit down a minute, eh? Hadley’ll never let you come back here if I send you home in this state.”
Her words make it through my fog of panic, and I allow Mihi to guide me into her house. The familiar space brings me back to something like calm. She nudges a glass of water into my hands and I sip it, swallowing around the lump in my throat.
I finally meet her eyes.
“You with me?” she asks, regarding me closely.
“Yes.”
I take another sip, actively reminding myself of the lambs in their safe little den, of Eileen’s jubilant words at our appointment, of Nate’s face when he softens infinitesimally.
The acidic heat in my belly subsides, the panic diluted by water and Mihi’s presence.
My attention drifts to the front-facing windows.
“I should go home before you get tangled up in this, Mihi.” But I stay where I am, my body refusing to heed my own words.
“You don’t have to go home if you don’t want to. Not now. Not later. You can stay right here, Gracie-girl, if that’s what you need.”
I give a hopeless scoff. “He’d just come get me.”
Mihi’s kindly expression freezes. When she speaks, her voice is low and cool. “You think that man would trespass here? This is my whenua, Grace. He knows better.”
“He’s your boss,” I whisper, as if Nate might burst in at any second.
“That arrangement goes two ways. I’ve worked this land since before either of you walked on this planet. If Hadley wants my help keeping this place and every living soul on it from falling into the sea, he’d best keep me happy. And he bloody well knows it.”
Relief sweeps through me as I realise she means what she says, and that she might be right. Nate, omnipotent as he might be within my life, doesn’t control everyone.
“It was my mother,” I say, “on the phone. It was her.”
“Oh Grace… come on, girl. Sit yourself down.”
She gestures at the comfortable chairs in the lounge area, and I sit. We’ve touched on my relationship with Mother before, but I’ve not let Mihi see the true depth of the wounds inside me.
“You want to tell me what she said, Grace?”
I shake my head. I can’t voice it, not when it carries an accusation that could destroy everything around us—cast it all into the sea.
“It was just… a lot. Hearing her voice.” Swallowing another mouthful of water, I meet Mihi’s dark eyes. “She h-hurt me. All my life. On purpose.”
My friend doesn’t look away. She simply nods, taking in a slow, deep breath before she speaks.
“No wonder you went white as a sheet when she called.” Mihi points to the northern window over her kitchen sink, where the rolling hills are cast in shadow by the setting sun. “You know how many sheep are out there, Grace?”
I shake my head, a little nonplussed by the question.
“Two thousand. Two thousand ewes, that is. All of them mothers in their own good time.” She leans back in her chair, a tiny smile on her lips.
“Any one of those ewes would drop dead before she’d let her lambs come to harm.
I’ve seen it more than once. When there’s a threat to the flock, the ewes circle around the lambs to keep them safe.
A stray dog in the paddock, they protect the lambs, even if their throats’ll be ripped out.
And they don’t hesitate about it, Grace.
They’re docile and silly, sheep are, but they protect their babies. ”
I realise I’m crying at the image of fluffy ewes being collared red by a bad dog. I wipe my cheeks, unsure of what to say. Mihi goes on, her voice as soft as sun-warmed wood.
“That’s how it’s meant to go, Grace. What your mum did to you—that was backwards. Insane. Totally against the laws of nature itself.”
“I didn’t…” I swallow hard. “I should have just hung up.”
“You froze. A predator had you in its sights and you froze. Now you need to get past that freeze instinct and remember what you are in the larger order. I might not understand Hadley, but I do know this: he’ll have given you some teeth of your own, intentionally or otherwise.
” She nods when I stare at her. “Maybe it’s time to draw back your lips and give everyone a wee taste of what they taught you.
Because you’re no sheep, Grace. Not anymore. ”
It’s an allegory of my life, but I’m not sure whether it’s true. I don’t know if Nate has taught me the strength Mihi claims on my behalf. Not when simply hearing Mother’s voice brought me so far back into pain and fear.
We sit quietly for a few minutes and my mind turns to what Mother said—that Nate killed Nick.
That she sent proof of some kind to the office under Nick’s name.
I can picture it now: a neat envelope slipping past Nate’s awareness because he won’t be checking for handwritten attempts at contact.
A shudder runs through me. If there’s any proof that Nate was involved in what happened to Nick, I need to see it.
A phone rings.
“Speak of the devil,” Mihi mutters, putting her mobile to her ear. “Hadley? Yes, she’s still here.”
I listen to Nate’s voice, incomprehensible through the phone, feeling the last of my pain fade.
Could he have hurt Nick? He was up in the North Island the morning of the accident, but Mother said he’d been planning to take me all along.
And he got to Dunedin so fast—he was at the police station within hours of Nick’s death.
He had the paperwork all set for our wedding that afternoon.
Not only that, he also somehow secured a celebrant and witnesses.
I think of his fierce attachment to me over the years, all the ways he inserted himself into my life.
His secret resuscitation of my studies. His insistence on paying for everything from HVAC filters, to my tuition, to my AutoDesk subscription.
Beneath everything, there was an underlying promise I didn’t register before now: I’ll take you away.
I’ll fix what’s wrong. I’ll protect you from your mother—and my brother—even if it costs everything. Especially then.
What if he got tired of waiting, and somehow arranged to—
Mihi interrupts my spiralling thoughts. “Grace?”
“I—what?”
“Hadley wants to come and get you, but I said we needed a few more minutes to relax after all that work.”
Mihi—bless her—is covering for me. She probably doesn’t realise that Nate already knows a call came through because of his spyware, though I’m not sure if his tech allowed him to hear the actual conversation. Regardless, he’s right that it’s time to go home.
“Tell him I’m heading back soon.”
I don’t bother to listen to the rest of her exchange with Nate.
I need to get that so-called proof. I need to verify Mother's claims. And that means I need to get Nate to take me with him to Auckland tomorrow morning.
There’s a stretch of silence, with only the quiet sighs of the sea, and I realise Mihi has already rung off. I try to smile.
“Is he on his way?”
“No, I said I’d take you home myself—if that’s okay, Grace?”
“Of course,” I say gratefully. I’ll have a few minutes to get my head in order for what I need to do.
Mihi and I walk slowly, taking our time on the cooling sand, the waves lazy and low beside us. I tell her more about Mother. The telling hurts, but it feels good, too. My friend hugs me tight when we arrive at the cove, and I thank her for everything.
“Gracie-girl,” she murmurs, pulling back just enough to offer me her forehead. I close my eyes and lean in. We let our noses touch in ancient acknowledgement, sharing breath for a few moments.
“You’re stronger than Hadley knows,” Mihi murmurs. “Or that wretched mum of yours.”
Drawing back, I nod. Not in thanks, but in the beginnings of acceptance.
Then I see the tall man standing at the top of the cliffs, and my entire body heats with dread—and hunger.