Chapter 9 #2
The six-foot antique baroque frames lining the walls either side of me hold paintings of old stuffy men in suits, that ‘I rule the world’ glint in their beady eyes present and in keeping with the ‘I have more money than God’ smirks etched on their faces.
It’s men like these that haunt my dreams—the ones who believe they can do anything to anyone with zero repercussions.
The littering of trauma I hold with me every day, both on my skin and in my mind, are my reminders to be cautious with men so enamoured with their own inflated egos.
Lost to thoughts of my past, I don’t realise I’m once again approaching a dead end.
The creaking wheels of what I believe to be a maintenance trolley in the distance behind me has me dashing into the closest room in a panic, holding the door ajar as the noise gets clearer with each passing second.
The fact that it could be Simon is enough to have me hiding.
Being lost down here and trying to outrun him are not on my to-do list today.
Plus, you’re not wearing the right shoes for sprinting, my brain adds unhelpfully.
She isn’t wrong, I concur as I glance down at my black leather ankle boots.
A grey-haired man slumped over a mop bucket moves painfully slowly at the end of the corridor, running a dusting cloth over the part of the frames at head height with a lacklustre enthusiasm as he goes.
Once the creaking dies out, I decide this is as good a room as any to explore.
Windowless and with no natural source of fresh air, the dank cloying mustiness attached to every surface fills my nose.
The subtle hint of lilies from the vases dotted around the room doing nothing to mask the odour.
Spinning on my heels, my eyes meet hers, that disapproving scowl ever-present on her slim, stoic face.
I stand before the painting of Lenora Blackwood, hanging on the wall lower as it connects with the skirting board.
It doesn’t suprise me that it is twice the size of the others out in the hall.
Metal shelving units stacked high with papers and boxes alphabetically arranged stretch the entire far wall.
A battered desk sits at an odd angle in the corner, it’s top caved in and a leg snapped almost in two.
The shabby chair that has seen better days propped up against it.
Every item of furniture in here looks like it would crumble into ash if you breathed on it a little too vigorously.
I set down my satchel on the floor, running my finger over the shelves, my gloved finger now coated with a thick layer of dust.
On the wall behind the door is a collection of black and white photos, a group of people in each standing proudly at the entrance of Blackwood.
The dates scrawled in marker on each one providing a timeline that spans sixty years at least. Each group shot has young women like me in the same striped uniform that I’m wearing.
The men I’d seen in the portraits along the hallway stand front and centre dressed in their finest suits, those who have hair have it tidily slicked back, those who have clearly already gone through the balding process sporting a groomed moustache to compensate.
Their wives hold babies, toddlers sitting on the steps at their mothers’ feet patiently.
The eerie familiarity with the lanky orderlies that stand emotionless at the edges of each frame like living statues gives me the creeps, as though they have been copied and pasted into each one, their distorted forms highlighted with a haze as though the camera can’t quite catch their image like the others.
Lenora had said that Blackwood was a family-run business, so I’m not overly surprised.
It isn’t until I get a few rows down that I recognise a face staring back at me.
A younger, slender Lenora sporting the Blackwood uniform, with that same disinterested ‘my shit don’t stink’ glower I know only too well, plastered on her face.
She stands stoically beside a heavy-set balding man with shiny dress shoes, so clean you can see the reflection of the fountain in the leather.
He’s impeccably put together, a darkness swimming in his dark brown eyes, a mischievous tilt to his lips beneath a well groomed stache.
I remember his portrait in particular from the hallway—the one that screamed affluence and unbridled power in the thickest gold gilded frame.
Flanking his other side is Lenora’s double.
The only difference is that this woman is wearing a floral knee-length dress, her hair loose rather than scraped back into a severe bun.
Holding her hand is a scruffy-haired little boy, her belly swollen with another baby.
It isn’t the family that holds my attention though, or the fact that Lenora clearly has a sister.
No, my focus is pulled to the young woman in her early twenties, sadness hiding behind her taut smile, worry filling her gaze, her Blackwood uniform slightly askew and torn at the hem.
Leaning in, I see the edge of a tattoo emblazoned on her chest, no not a tattoo – a brand of sorts – the skin raised like a scar.
It’s tucked enough away behind her uniform that I can’t make out exactly what it is.
The shadow remnants of a bruised cheek and dark rings around her wrist have all the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention.
Glancing around at some of the women in the other photos, all wearing the same uniform as I have on now, they too bear the marks of abuse.
Under Doc’s rule, I had to cover up my fair share of brutality.
My eyes track back to the young woman with the branding, melancholy, and the way her gaze is targeted at Lenora beside her is what has piqued my interest. I scan the photos to see if she appears again but come up short.
The young women don’t seem to last long enough to get a second stab at family picture day.
“No. You can’t do this!” The shrillness of a woman’s voice bounces down the hallway and into the room.
That familiar shiver climbs my spine like a contorted beast awakening under the full moon.
Each laddered rung of bone twisted and knotted as I scan the room for an escape.
Popping my head out of the doorway, I see two orderlies fumbling to drag a young woman between them, heading my way.
I run over and grab for my satchel on the floor, snagging the strap on a vase of fresh lilies propped up in the corner, and it falls against the rug, quiet enough under the raucousness outside that I silently thank the patient they are manhandling.
“Of course, these ones aren’t glued to the fucking floor,” I whisper yell, panic clawing at my throat.
Hurrying to gather up the flowers, I stand the vase upright as quietly as I can with my teeth clenched.
I consider for 0.3 seconds the validity of climbing inside the vase and hiding, but unless I’ve gained the power of rodent transformation in the time I’ve been in this room, that isn’t going to work.
The voices get closer, one of the orderlies grunting and yelling out in pain as the young woman cackles maniacally.
I don’t know what she’s done, but it was enough to get a rise out of the living statue, so it can’t have been her playing nice.
The familiar whipping sound of a large hand backhanding someone’s face rings out.
It doesn’t take a genius to fill in the blanks.
I hear the tinny splash of dripping water, my years of being locked in Doc’s dungeons when I didn’t behave like the model whore he’d trained me to be, the sound alerts me to a possible escape route.
I kick up the edge of the rug and drop to my knees to see if there is a hidden hatch in the wooden floor, but that would be too serendipitous even for me.
You’re shit out of luck, Cara.
At this vantage point, crouched on my knees, wishing I was anywhere but here, luck flips the coin and shines her grace down on me—for once. I see a sliver of light creeping through, behind the edge of Lenora's portrait on the wall, and scramble into action.
“Put me down,” the woman in the hall shrieks, close enough now that I can hear her fingernails scraping against the papered wall just outside the room.
I pull at the painting with everything I have, feeling for a latch behind the frame flush with the wall.
My chest heaves when my frantic fingers feel a strip of metal; unhooking it, it swings open like a door and grants me entry.
I jump inside and pull it closed behind me, leaving a gap so I can still see into the room, my heart in my throat as I try to calm my erratic breathing.
The orderlies enter the room and dump the girl on the floor, not caring how she lands as she hits the rug in a crumpled mess, her blue patient scrubs torn and bloody exposing her battered skin beneath.
Rising onto her feet, henchman number two filling the doorway in case she tries to escape, the guy in charge levels her with a punch to her gut.
She doubles over, her knees hitting the floor, her cheek now resting against the ground as she spits out a mouthful of blood.
Her once white teeth are stained pink, her maniacal smile still set in place as her piercing grey eyes meet mine through the gap. She sees me.
“Stay down bitch,” the guy guarding the door bellyaches with a booming voice as though her mere existence is an inconvenience on his day.
He turns to step outside, glancing down the hall while the other man rummages around in the boxes on the shelves, loose papers littering the floor around his feet, no care for the mess he’s making.
I don’t know what I’m going to do once I get out, but I can’t wait back here when she clearly needs help.
Pushing the frame open, she shakes her head at me, mouthing the word no sharply, insisting I listen as her eyes bulge in warning.
I pull it closed again, suffocating under the urge to help where I’m not wanted.
When it’s closed enough to hide me again, she smiles genuinely and rests against the carpet, the will and fight for herself beaten out of her, but her noble attempt to save me alight in her gleeful expression.
“Got it,” the man at the shelves hollers, signalling for the other guy to come and pick up the young woman and haul her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Grabbing her chin between his fingers, the orderly waves the file at her.
“Transfer papers all in order, Monica; that will be the last time you bite me, bitch,” he seethes, and then they are gone, stomping off down the hallway until I’m left alone again with the wild thump of my overworked heart filling my ears.
As my panic dies out, and my heart stops trying to cleave its way out of my chest, the soft rumblings of music fill the air.
However, they aren’t coming from the room behind the painting shielding me, but rather from below, down the stone steps I’m crouching on that lead down into darkness.
The outline of a door below in the distance is my only sign that the carved-out brick tunnel I can feel beneath my fingers isn’t bottomless.
My mother used to warn me that curiosity killed the cat, and as I contemplate seeing where these stairs might take me, I conclude that I am in fact the cat in this scenario.
Does this realisation stop me? No, of course it doesn’t; tenacity always has been my most annoying personality trait.
The one most likely to get me in trouble.
Be the cat, curious Cara.
My feet are descending the stairs before I’ve even had a chance to weigh up the cons of such a monumentally stupid decision.