Archive of Our Own ^beta

Time is Fed

Gradually, she becomes acclimated to her new posting. The Commander's house was something from a New England fever dream. It reminded her of the catalogues she once read at the Dentist, back when Architectural Digest had been consumable and not combustible. 

The Eye who escorts her to her new stately prison is tall and fine-boned like a bird of prey; something is pointed in him. He keeps looking in the mirror, catching her eye. He isn’t allowed to speak to her. They never are. They still all stare, though, despite everything, there is still room for more scrutiny.

In her plainly appointed room, there's an angel figurine at the head of her bed. It leans precariously low, wings stooped under their weight. Its face is impassive, her silent sentinel. She strokes its cheek and lets her tears fall onto its snowy head. Despite not believing, she prays that they will be able to hide themselves here. 

He is her master. His wife, her mistress. She cannot say who she is or how she got here. Sometimes, she finds him staring at her between thresholds, and a feeling grips her throat, but she is not allowed to speak. She wants to shout. To peel back his spectacles and the frock coat and make him remember. Instead, she must continue to chop potatoes for the stew. 

He plots, and the revolution continues to take root. She knows what he is planning. She tries to help where she can. It was easy to hide the first Handmaid, the second, and the third. She wonders if he knows what she has helped him do. He must, she tells herself. He must. She can’t stop for anything. She won’t stop without him. 

One Summer, two years after she'd come, a bowl of cherries is left on her cot. Her name is buried under the weight of their flesh. The juice covers her skin, staining her lips and teeth red. She bares them in the reflection of the cooker, the sin of vanity, but still, another found its way into her mouth, and she bites down hard and let one seed chip her tooth. Penance for her indulgence. She spits the rest of the seeds into the garden precariously. She mashes them into the ground with the heel of her boot. She tries not to hope they will grow. 

His wife's body lies tangled in their bed. The Handmaid and the other staff bicker about her mistress’ condition. She rages, burns her hands on the fire, and screams into the night. Then, she sleeps—Boneless, dreamless, drugged sleep. The Handmaids always say she is crazy, but as a Martha, she has seen tenderness there. A touch, a whisper. The promise of what she once was rising to the surface like the belly of a dead fish. 

As the days pile on and the leaves turn, she bears her mistress’ scar like a meteor; it burns across her thigh, and the mark is bright against her pale skin. She holds her hands to it each night, feeling the topography like a map. It should have gotten her out of this place; she knows her mistress meant the mark as a kindness. The fire had licked her clean of the desire to disappear, and she couldn’t leave him behind anyway. 

When she’s been there six years, and there’s still no baby. She finally learns that everything takes and is taken. 

When his wife's silent and cold body is carried down the stairs and out of their carnivorous house, he takes her hand. It's away from the Handmaid's eyes, but she feels her whole body burn again, but this time, it’s a white heat that curls around her stomach and settles. She cannot look him in the eye. 

He says her name just once; they're standing in the garden, and the wind blows her head covering away from her face, letting precious blonde tendrils escape. She hastens to hide them from him, the Eyes, and Gilead. "Donatella,” he says, and when she lifts her hand to her cheek, it comes away wet. 

The sun is shining, and it feels like the world has tilted on its axis again. She remembers who she once was to him. 

"They'll be fruiting soon," he says to her quietly, gesturing to the long fingers of the cherry tree. 

"I know,” she replies.

“Thank you for them, Donna.”