Chapter 1
one
PRESENT DAY
The pictures on these walls tell a story no one will ever read.
Ironically, it’s some of my best work.
That’s just my luck, though, isn’t it? A year of being locked up here, with nothing but time to perfect every stroke and shadow… and I’m pretty sure it will all remain entirely unseen.
Just like me.
I tamp down the dread sinking through my middle and ignore the jagged twist in my gut. Focusing on this last portion of my room’s fourth wall. Filling in the final corner.
And not a moment too soon, if the woozy numbness throbbing in my skull is any indication.
The trusty pencil clutched in my right hand has been whittled down to a nub. It’s my most treasured possession, though—and, thankfully, there’s enough lead left for me to finish this. The small implement traces my last line seven times before I let it drop, falling to the scuffed floor.
Exhaustion immediately turns my limbs to lead. Hunger and fear form a nauseous tangle in my gut as I blink, turning my head to take in my work. Reading the twisted tale.
There once was a girl locked away in an attic…
It wasn’t her first prison. Just the most recent—and possibly the least dignified.
She watched life pass her by through a slim crack of light, humming and scribbling. Stitching and knitting. Reading the same sets of worn pages, drawing on the walls because she couldn’t bring herself to desecrate any of her few, precious books.
They were her portals, after all—windows to the world that couldn’t be boarded up.
And those glimmers of the outside let her wonder.
Were all the things in them as big and beautiful as she imagined?
Could reality really be better than her story had always been?
Were there tranquil fields of flowers, and good people, and peaceful moments in the sunshine, somewhere?
Did her lost sister ever find any of those things?
The girl in the attic could not escape to find out. So she wondered and waited. Then, when no one came back for her, she cried until she was sure she’d never shed another tear. Mourning people and things she wasn’t sure she believed in, anymore.
Were they ever real? Or was she always here, in the dark?
Did it matter?
Her body withered. Her hair grew longer than she ever imagined. She faded, like her crumpled memories and the books she kept for company.
Until the only thing left to wonder… was when she’d disappear altogether.