Chapter 17
I don’t know what time it was when I woke up. It wasn’t a restful sleep, more like a fitful doze where you are thinking something and then you wake, still thinking about the same thing, and aren’t certain whether you slept or not.
Certainly I had no shortage of things to occupy my mind. I kept reliving the sensation of stepping on the larvae. It had felt exactly like stepping on a grape and feeling it pop underfoot. I was never going to eat grapes again. Possibly I was never going to eat anything again.
When I did dream, it was an endless sensation of things crawling on my skin, jerking me awake to slap at something that wasn’t there.
They can’t get into your nose or mouth, I told myself. You don’t have any open wounds. You’re as safe as you can be.
I only wish that I believed it.
When the shed door opened, it took me a moment to realize that it was really happening. I scrambled to my feet as light filled the narrow space and threw a hand over my eyes, blinking back tears.
“Wha…?” I said. For a moment I thought I was back at the school and expected Headmistress Silverton to scold me for oversleeping.
“Miss Wilson,” said Phelps, and memory crashed back down over me.
He stood in the doorway watching me uncertainly, as if I was the dangerous one.
I wished like hell that I was. I should have taken the metal pan and lain in wait and bashed him over the head with it.
Granted, there was only about a three-inch clearance between the door and the drape and he would probably have been expecting it, granted he was a great deal stronger than I was and that I was coming off a malaria flare-up and had just witnessed a baffling horror …
fine, okay, perhaps that was an unrealistic expectation. Still.
“Did you bring water?” I croaked. My throat was very dry, but no power on earth would have induced me to drink the water pooling in the room below.
Phelps had a lantern in one hand and … was that a picnic basket looped over his arm?
It was. There was even a gingham cloth over the top.
Dear god, this must still be a nightmare.
Surely real life is never this surreal. Phelps hung the lantern on the wall and closed the door, then pulled a flask from the basket and offered it to me.
I unscrewed the top and drank greedily through the mesh, soaking it.
Water hit the back of my throat like a benediction.
“Thank you,” I said, lowering the bottle, then grimaced at my own reflexive courtesy. No, it’s good to stay polite. There is no point in antagonizing him. Phelps nodded.
“Brought you food,” he said, clearing his throat. He flipped the cloth back and offered me the basket, which held biscuits and cheese.
The thought of food was utterly revolting, but I was going to have to eat if I wanted to keep my strength up.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I’d eat them later, but it occurred to me that I would have to remove the netting in order to eat, and if Phelps wasn’t here, I’d have to do it in the dark.
I retreated to the far corner with the basket, picked up a biscuit, thought I will never be able to eat this, then took a bite and realized that my body was ravenous, even if my mind wasn’t.
I looked in vain for a knife to cut the food, but of course Phelps hadn’t provided one. I settled for alternating bites of cheese and biscuit, washed down with sips of water, while Phelps leaned against the wall and silently watched me eat.
The biscuit was very crumbly and fell apart when I bit into it.
I brushed the crumbs off the front of my dress self-consciously, annoyed with myself.
If you are kidnapped by a strange religious fanatic who is holding you captive in a shed with horrors below it, it seems like you should not have to worry about your table manners, and yet …
When I had finished, I carefully wiped my mouth with the cloth, folded it neatly, and deliberately met my captor’s eyes. “Thank you,” I said again.
He looked away. “I regret the necessity, Miss Wilson.”
“Ironically,” I said, “there wasn’t one. I had thought that all this”—I waved toward the stairs—“was part of the delirium from the malaria. It did not seem possible that it was real.”
Phelps blinked at me. “Truly?”
“Truly.”
He winced. “Ah,” he said. He lifted a hand and scratched at the back of his head, where the bandage hung askew. “That explains it.” He took a deep breath. “My apologies then, Miss Wilson. It seems I’ve made a mess of things.”
There was genuine anguish in his voice. Could I use that? I chose my words carefully. “I don’t know what is going on,” I said, “or what Dr. Halder is doing down there.” I thought I had, until the squirrel. Now I couldn’t even begin to guess. “Obviously you do, Mr. Phelps.”
“I don’t understand all the science of it,” he said cautiously.
“I’m not concerned with the science,” I said, which was only partly a lie. I would probably have found the science fascinating if I had been reading about it in a journal in the sunlight a long way away. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“The Devil,” he said. “It’s the Devil down there.”
“I believe you,” I said. Normally this would be a lie, but given that I had just seen a man eat a live rodent like an apple, all bets were off. Anyway, I wasn’t planning to argue with Phelps if I could help it. “I was skeptical before, but—err—my eyes have been opened.”
“Yes,” he said distractedly. “I wired the doctor.”
I honestly wasn’t sure if Halder’s presence was going to help me or not. He’d already shot one man, maybe he’d just shoot me too. Could I pretend interest in the science?
Of course there was no telling how soon Halder would return either. I’d much rather not spend a week down here while the doctor finished up his business in Raleigh.
I tried again. “You have always struck me as a godly man, Mr. Phelps.” A pained expression crossed his face, and I hurried on. “You must have a good reason for doing this. If you explain it to me, you may find that I agree with you. It may be that none of this is necessary.”
He stared at the wall over my head for a long moment. I picked at a loose thread on my skirt, wondering if I should push him further or not.
“Have to wait for the doctor,” he said finally. “The doctor will know what to do.”
“Mr. Phelps,” I said desperately, “we can go back to the house together right now. I’ll tell the Kents that I was lost in the woods and you found me. Then we can wait for the doctor together.”
Silence welled up between us as I waited. He scratched the back of his head again, and the scruff-scruff-scruff of his nails against his scalp rang in that small space like words.
“Miss Wilson,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. My heart sank. His tone had gone stiff and formal.
“Please,” I said, cutting him off. “Please just think about it.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered, half to himself. “I don’t know.”
“Think about it. That’s all I ask.”
He nodded distractedly and reached for the lantern on the wall. I jumped. “Wait! Please!” I fought back my flare of terror. “Please leave me the light. It’s … it’s very bad in the dark.”
A startled look crossed his lean face. “Oh. Yes. It would be, I expect.” He took down the lantern, glanced around at the shed, then handed it to me. Our fingers met briefly, and I was startled by how cold his were to the touch.
“I’ll bring you more food tomorrow,” he said gruffly.
“Thank you,” I said. And then, as he stepped outside and I saw the door start to close, I tried one last time. “I don’t believe you’re a wicked man, Mr. Phelps.”
He paused on the threshold. “‘Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.’”
If I had a better grasp of Bible verses, perhaps I could have offered something that would have swayed him to my side, but all I could think of was, “Jesus wept,” which, while apropos, did not seem persuasive.
My father’s transcendentalist philosophy seemed unlikely to work.
I said nothing, and after a moment he shut the door.
I listened for the click of the padlock and closed my eyes briefly when it came.
My first act was to turn the lantern down as low as I could to save oil.
Judging by the slosh, it was less than half full.
Five, maybe six hours, if I was lucky. Certainly not enough oil to burn down the shed, which I admit, I considered.
(I suspect that Phelps had thought of it too, and probably would not have handed the lantern over if he’d thought I might succeed.)
I felt a little better though. It may have been the food and the fitful sleep, but I suspect that the lantern had as much to do with it. I wondered what time it was. Late, probably. I hadn’t seen any light when he opened the door, and Phelps would hardly have returned in broad daylight.
Had the Kents discovered I was missing? I hadn’t heard anyone calling for me. Could I have slept through it?
If it was off in the distance, probably. But I’d have heard them if they were up close. I’m sure of it.
Surely they’d check the shed, wouldn’t they? They must know it’s here, even if they think it’s something innocuous.
I drank another sip of water, wondering when my captor was likely to return. There was still a biscuit in the basket. I wrapped it up in the cloth, hoping that would keep anything from laying eggs on it. It didn’t seem that he intended to starve me, anyway.
Too late it occurred to me that perhaps I should have worried about the food being drugged. I put a hand to my mouth, then snorted at myself. Why would he bother to drug me? What was I going to do? I had nowhere to run. It wasn’t as if there was another way out.
And then I froze.
I’m an idiot. An absolute stone-cold dyed-in-the-wool idiot.
I’d seen the light coming in. Those animals had come from somewhere, which meant that there was another way into the room, and that meant that there was another way out.