Chapter 8 Below
Below
I heard a voice. But I hear voices all the time, and none of them are real, so how is this one different?
I should have called out—-should have screamed or struck something, made noise however I could, but instead, I’ve just been frozen here, huddled on the ground.
For once, the dark is quiet around me, and empty.
As if the intrusion of the voice made reality snap back into place.
My hands shake. I strain to see the others, but I’ve lost the trick of it.
“Focus,” I whisper to myself. With one fingertip, I trace words on the cool skin of my forearm. Don’t cry. One of the first rules. It should have been hard to follow, but I’ve always been good at giving people what they want. I haven’t cried in weeks. Months, maybe. I’m not sure I even can anymore.
Amid all the instructions written beneath the bed, there are no words of comfort or affirmation. None of the girls before me have been foolish enough to write anything as laughable as It will be all right. They were smarter than that, and so am I. I don’t need to hope; I need to act.
Before, survival meant making myself into another person.
Playing a part. I was good at it. Better than some of the others, I think, because by the time I found their words, I had already learned my rules well.
What to say, who to be. When to smile and when to flinch, when a soft voice would spare me pain and when I had to be forceful.
Now survival means something entirely different.
Focus. Think. These are the words I would write if I thought another girl would come after me. But there won’t be. Not if the door has truly stopped opening. One way or another, I’m the last, and every hope of every girl finds its end with me.
The voice is gone. The chain remains. It’s time to get back to work.
Pulling a chair over is easy. I hook the leg with my pried--off board.
The chair scrapes across the floor, and then it’s in my hands.
I spare a few seconds of battery, training the flashlight at the bottom of the chair.
I’ve gotten lucky. The legs simply screw in place, and they’re loose enough I can turn them with my fingers.
A few minutes of careful work later, I have two of the legs free and in my hands.
The edges of the legs are squared. They fit against the flat sides of the nut threaded onto the toilet bolt. I can do this.
Focus.
It’s something I’ve always lacked. Impulsive, my dad called me.
Right around the time I gave myself a haircut with cheap scissors, hacksaw bangs, a disaster that made me look feral, made me grin.
You never think, you just do, he said. Like everything he did was logical.
Like I didn’t see the absolute anger in his eyes, as if he never wept drunkenly and begged for forgiveness for all his screwups, for every raised fist.
I’m so sorry, I can’t help myself. He disgusts me. He always has.
I’ve never been anything but a liability to him. When Mom was around, that was one thing. But once she was gone, everything changed.
That’s not the life I want to go back to. Not that, and nothing like it. I’ll make myself anew.
A caterpillar destroys itself into a slurry and builds itself again, not one part repeated. I’ll emerge into the light and spread wings that gleam like oil slicks. I’ll walk down the road and no one will know me. Not my friends, not my father, not a soul.
But first I have to survive. And then I’ll live—-
I’ll live—-
I’ll live—-
And all the gossamer girls will boil out, take flight, and they’ll be a storm in the sky. They will be lightning.
I set my makeshift tool into place and begin to work.