The Handmaid's Tale Graphic Novels & Stories

"For your hand, this is the only one. I've already made my decision." His sacrifice warmed a part of my heart I thought had turned to ice. A month later, I could hold a pen. Alexander handed me a charcoal pencil. My hand shaking, I drew a single, clean line. A symbol of my rebirth. Tears blurred my vision. "I can draw again..." "I knew you could," he said, his smile genuine. "I'm your anonymous patron, you know. A.R. Alexander Reed. I've been buying your work for five years."

"And it's the only shield strong enough to stop a man like Liam Cross." She pulled up a series of images on a projector. They were black and white. Stark. High contrast. Image 1: Ariane, in her studio, back to the camera, pinning a dress on a form. The lighting was dramatic, casting long shadows that looked like bars. Caption: Art is not a luxury. It is a survival mechanism. Image 2: A close-up of her hands. Scarred from the "broken glass," calloused from the needle. They were strong hands. Working hands.

Our breathing stays heavy but slowly begins to calm, our hands are still grasped together tightly. And only once the swishing of wind begins to dissipate from my ears can I fully begin to focus on her eyes, their wide, just as wide as mine. Her gaze is penetrating with concern and a thousand questions all at once, I know because mine are the same. We are both still trembling as we turn our heads towards our hands, still clenched tightly together, the burning now a distant memory as we slowly open up and losen our grip pulling our fingers apart. And that’s when we see it, the Gaia symbol is burnt into the palm of my hand, just like Rainn’s.

There, hidden behind a curtain of weeping carbon-fiber vines, was a small, dilapidated shack. "What is this?" I asked. "The only place the grid can't see," Xander said. He pulled back the vines, and I saw a wall covered in jagged, hand-drawn charcoal sketches. I gasped. The sketches weren't of buildings or machines. They were of us. There was a drawing of a man and a woman standing in a mountain of gold; a drawing of a girl with a wooden ring; a drawing of a man with orange eyes holding a woman in the rain.