Chapter 3 #2
Closing her eyes tightly, hoping they survived the ordeal, she had to wonder why she hadn’t seen Bear covered in such muck when he was in the pillory. Perhaps the rain had washed his shame away, that or the inmates were too afraid to pelt him with anything, which seemed more likely.
As soon as the jeers and laughter faded, she peeked with one eye first. The coast was clear, so she flicked off the slimy cabbage leaf from her fingers and tried to shake her head to dislodge whatever sludge was on top, but someone tugged her plait, banging her head against the edge of the small hole.
‘Who’s there?’
No one answered, but the movement told her whoever they were, they were sawing away at her hair.
She tried to kick back, but caught nothing but air, then part of her plait was waggled over her head, the black tip still tied at the end, and she just caught the familiar colour of amber on a cuff before footsteps hurried away.
Judging by how much of her hair she had seen, her locks would now be just below her shoulders, and questions would be asked in a few days when the ends of her hair darkened to black once more.
A sliver of tomato skin slowly slid down her cheekbone, leaving a trail of slime like a slug, and she jerked to help it on its way.
At least the inmates were locked in their blocks now, she hoped.
All she had to do was not let her emotions crumble and put all her energy into her legs.
Her body already ached, and perhaps her soul died many years ago, because no pity party came for her, nothing to prove she was human. Just blankness with a smidge of anger.
Trying to nod off was futile, as the pillory was designed to be uncomfortable, and the bitter cold had numbed her within an hour, but still she tried to rest, as unused muscle started to make itself known. Had she not had the silent system today, she would handle the pillory a lot better.
A dark cell sprang to mind. Was it any worse? It was indoors, for a start. At least Kylar was warm. Stupid bitch!
So much of Scarlen wanted to scream, but nothingness took hold once more, controlling all thought and feeling.
The lights in the canteen went out, and complete darkness surrounded the courtyard, not that it made any difference to the fear levels in Scarlen. Along with numbness, the jittery feeling crept onto her skin, prickling, burning, unable to make up its mind what to do under the circumstances.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it felt like she had been confined for hours. It was definitely going to be a long night. One filled with cramps, stiffness, ice burns, and hunger pangs.
‘Hey.’ Bear’s face came into view, unless she was dreaming. He gently wiped a warm cloth around her face, then used another to dry away the dampness.
Blinking hard, she simply stared, as all words were as frozen as the rest of her.
‘Eat this,’ he whispered, placing a pork sandwich to her chapped lips. ‘Try,’ he urged when she failed to open her tight jaw.
Scarlen bit into the food, chewing slowly, unsure what was happening or how he was there. A jolt to her memory reminded her who he was, so she spat the remaining food, in case poisoned, as her mind was too fatigued to think clearly.
‘I know you’re hungry. Just eat.’
She had to wake, have a word with herself. He didn’t know who she was, and in his own warped way, he’d made her his own, so it was highly unlikely he would try to kill her, right? With that firmly in place, she took another bite, not tasting much but cold air with each mouthful.
Once the sandwich was finished, a cup of water was offered, which was hard to sip, as she couldn’t tip her head up too much, but somehow they muddled through.
‘More.’ She wanted some more water, as that had slipped easily down her throat, replenishing at once.
‘No. The last thing you need is a full bladder.’
Good thing she went to the toilet chamber on her way to dinner. It wasn’t something she had thought about until now. ‘Why are you here?’ There were other questions, but that one would do.
Silver eyes, the only twinkle of light in the blackness of night, shone like the moon. ‘Have to take care of my girl.’ A definite jest was in his tone.
She would have snarled had her face not been frozen, not that it mattered, because he had gone, leaving her every bit in the state of confusion she had been in when first locked in the pillory.
Bear paid Mr Lackly on his way to his ground-floor cell, then watched as the bars locked him in for the night. He was still questioning why he had bothered to go above and beyond. It wasn’t part of the plan.
‘Oi, Bear,’ whispered Raven, his voice close to the bars in the cell next door. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Business,’ was all he was willing to share while ears were awake all around. He would have to tell his family the truth at some point. They were already suspicious, and he couldn’t keep his secret about Scarlen from them forever.
Darkness was all around him as the guards mooched to the main door for a quiet chat, allowing the inmates to sleep.
Bear puffed up his bedding to make it look as though he were in bed, then slipped low to the floor and used the tip of his finger to lightly peel away the papier-maché wall around the small air vent, something he’d made months ago to hide the hole he’d dug that was just big enough for him to crawl through.
All was quiet outside his cell, so he slipped through the hole, carefully replacing the false wall, then shimmied along a narrow shaft that led to a metal grate, already prised open by him, then he slowly climbed down an iron ladder fixed to the wall that went all the way to the aqueduct, reaching for a small ledge so he didn’t step on any dampness lining the ground.
It wasn’t just having wet footwear to explain, he was wary of the prison witch, Jesserlie, somehow sensing the water she used around the building had been touched.
She held such strong magick, there was no telling what she could sense.
One thing she hadn’t picked up on was Bear’s nightly dig into the ground in the nook to one side.
Two months after he had arrived at the prison, his job had taken him to Red Block Two and a crazed inmate three days from hanging.
The man came from a village not far from Bear’s own and had rambled nonsense while sedated of smugglers’ coves and weakened rocks beneath the prison.
‘One day someone will escape Horstal to prove it can be done,’ the prisoner told Bear, creating all sorts of ideas.
Bear had been using a spoon to scrape into the ground ever since, in hope there was such a cove below.