Chapter 36 Before
Before
It’s a few hours before Liam returns. I’m hungry again. My food sits piled in front of me, but I don’t eat yet. I don’t know when I might need to ration again.
They might still decide to leave me down here. It’s not hard to imagine it emerging as a solution: murder by passivity and feigned ignorance. But that possibility vanishes at Liam’s appearance.
“Stranger?” he calls, as if I might have decided to nip out while he was gone. He comes down the stairs two at a time with a wild look and a pair of bolt cutters in one hand.
“Liam,” I say, infusing his name with all the hope and relief I can muster.
“I told you. I’m going to get you out. Right now,” he says, breathless.
“Where are the others?” I ask.
“Andrew and Melinda went into town. We’ve got a little while,” he assures me, coming swiftly forward to examine the chain.
“An hour,” Emily says. She descends the stairs more slowly and stands at the bottom, thin arms crossed over her chest. Her hair is back in a tight ponytail. It makes the angles of her face more severe. She looks between us, biting her lip. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”
“We have to, Emmie,” he says. He turns to me. “I figured you’d want that chain off properly.”
My mouth is so dry I have to wet it twice before I can speak properly. “Thank you,” I say. “Really.” My heart hammers. This is it. They’re going to let me go, and it won’t matter what Andrew says—-as long as I can get away.
Please. Please, I think, imagining with every breath the thunder of feet. In my mind, it isn’t Andrew appearing at the top of the stairs to blot out the light. It’s his father.
Dead, he’s dead, I remind myself, and then I have to remind myself to breathe, too, because I’ve suddenly misplaced the habit.
“Okay. This should do it. Hold still, I don’t want to hurt you,” Liam says, and despite his words—-because of them—
-I flinch.
I don’t want to hurt you.
They meant something else when his father spoke them.
He doesn’t notice my reaction, but Emily does, a faint frown dragging at her lips. Liam sets the bolt cutters carefully at the small padlock that secures the manacle. He braces himself and squeezes.
With a jolt, the jaws of the thing snap shut.
The chain falls, snakes to the ground with a clatter.
I grab at the manacle eagerly and pry it open—-I’m loose.
No more dragging this thing around. He’s done what took me hours and days, blood and tears, done it better than me and with hardly a thought, and he stands there grinning like a hero.
I throw the manacle aside. It hits the wall with force and rebounds, clattering to the ground. My teeth are bared, my breath ragged. Liam’s smile turns a touch uncertain.
“There,” he says.
I seal my lips. Still my face. “Thank you,” I whisper.
Emily steps forward. The manacle has landed nearly at her feet. She picks it up, staring down at it with a mix of fascination and disgust. She wraps the chain around the manacle slowly, and then sets the whole thing on the table.
“Emily?” Liam prompts.
She tears her eyes away, clears her throat. “Right,” she says, and reaches into the small backpack she’s carrying. “I brought you a few things.” She pulls out a sweatshirt and a pair of flip--flops.
My heart sinks. If they were letting me go, they’d give me proper shoes. These were chosen because there’s no way to run in them. They’re as good as a hobble.
So I’m being moved, that’s all.
But that’s something. That could be everything. So I force myself to smile. “Thank you. I know I keep saying that. Thank you so much.”
Emily doesn’t meet my eyes. Her fingers twitch and leap on the backpack strap. She slinks back to the stairs, but Liam stays as I struggle to put on the sweatshirt and slide my feet into the sandals. He puts out a hand to help me stand.
I wish that I didn’t actually need his help. I wish that I was faking how much I need to lean against him as I limp toward the stairs. The food has made me stronger, but I’m still so weak.
Liam puts an arm around me to help me up the stairs, one at a time. Emily watches with discomfort, leading the way by a few steps.
At the top, I have to stop, gasping, with a hand shielding my eyes from the direct glare of the sun.
“Are you okay?” Liam asks earnestly.
“Too bright,” I manage. It’s like a blade straight through my skull. I shut my eyes entirely, hand covering them, and still I think I might faint.
Liam waits. He hardly moves as the seconds drag on.
Finally I drop my hand, and then carefully ease my eyes open.
The light is still painfully bright, but the world comes into focus.
It looks unreal at first—-the sky above so open I’m gripped with the fleeting certainty that I’ll fall up into it.
It’s terrible and beautiful, and part of me wants to fall, is hungry for it, to become untethered from the ground and wheel away on crooked wings.
“We should go,” Emily says.
I nod. “Okay. We can go.” I tear my eyes from the sky reluctantly, my gaze falling on other strange things—-branches, trembling leaves, the bright bodies of birds.
Sticks and rocks jab at my feet as we walk, but the rough floor below has left them thick and callused.
It’s a long walk at my stilted gait, but at last a house comes into view.
It’s a single story, the exterior dark wood.
They bring me around to the back door, which leads first into a garage where a car sits under a cloth cover, and then into a hallway carpeted in a yellow--green color like dry grass.
My eyes settle again, adjusting to the gloom inside. It’s a welcome middle ground.
“What now?” I ask. It comes out gravelly and demanding. Emily’s jaw tightens.
“You can stay in my room,” she says.
“Stay,” I repeat.
Liam swallows. “We still need to convince Andrew and Melinda. But it’ll be easier. Once you’re here and cleaned up . . .”
“It’ll be harder to kill me,” I say. The blunt words make his cheeks flame.
I want to rake my nails down their faces and scream at them to let me go. My body shakes with the effort of containing my desperation and my rage. I can’t let it out. I can’t let them think I’m anything but grateful. I’m closer than I’ve ever been to free.
Hold on, I think, and bite down hard on the inside of my cheek. I let out a long, slow breath. “Okay,” I say. It’s the best I can do. I touch my hair. It’s stiff with grease and grime. “Can I take a shower?”
Liam looks surprised. “Of course,” he says, like this shouldn’t be in question.
“I’ll take care of it,” Emily says, drawing forward. “Liam, you should make us some lunch or something.”
“Yes. Okay,” he says. He reaches out to touch my arm. “You’ll be okay?”
Somehow, I manage to smile. “Better now,” I whisper.
He leaves at last, and Emily ticks her head down the hall. “This way,” she says. “And I’ll, um—-I’ll get you some better clothes while you’re getting cleaned up.”
“I appreciate it.”
“You don’t have to keep thanking us,” she says, shaking her head quickly.
“Don’t I?” We stare at each other. I can’t read those eyes. Wide and frightened and fascinated and maybe even angry. Her movements remind me of a bird deciding whether to take flight.
“Everything you need should be inside,” she says abruptly, and steps back.
I step past her into a cramped bathroom. She shuts the door behind me. I hesitate, then push the button to lock it. It feels impossibly strange to be the one locking a door.
“Well,” I say quietly to myself. “Here we are.” I turn toward the sink, and I freeze.
The girl who stares back at me in the mirror is violent proof of the name I’ve claimed.
I don’t know her at all. Her hair is a wild thicket.
Not matted—-not much—-but tangled and filthy and dulled to a dingy brown.
Before I was alone with the gossamer girls, I washed regularly in the sink on the other side of the room, but it’s been weeks.
My skin is a gray patchwork of dirt scabbed over gaunt, jutting cheekbones and a sharp jaw—-I always hated my rounded face, the kind of cheeks that get pinched when you’re a kid, but now they’ve melted away and what’s left is deprivation.
It leaves my eyes too large for my face, and the color of them too intense.
My hands claw at the sides of the sink. I look like a creature.
Like the witch in the woods. I bare my teeth.
My ferocity pleases me.
I strip off my clothes. Borrowed sweatshirt, tank top.
I had to keep my sweats and underwear on since I wasn’t able to remove the chain to change, and I’m glad to peel those off.
My nose has long since gotten used to the smell, but I’m sure to the others I reek.
I stuff the clothes in the trash can. No point in even thinking about salvaging them.
Nude, I examine myself again. I can count my ribs easily, which once I would have considered an accomplishment.
We try so hard to be small all our lives.
Well, here I am. Like a doll made of sticks with shiny stones for eyes.
I crook my elbows, tilt my head. I have a scarecrow look, twig--doll angles; I’m the thing stuck in the corner to scare you.
I turn my back and flare my shoulder blades.
They heave outward, spade--like, hard--edged.
I pull down my lip to examine my blood--tinged gums and dig my broken fingernails into my hair to find its knots, and I think I’ll never tire of looking at my monstrous self.
I want to laugh and I don’t understand it, how there is not one hint of horror in me at seeing myself this way.
I look half dead, and that’s amazing, that’s wonderful, because halfway dead isn’t dead at all.
The gossamer girls get to glimmer and shift.
I’m not like them—-not thin like onionskin, but like a knife blade.
I’m solid. I’m dirt and puke and blood still pumping.
I haven’t faded at all. I’ve withered down. I’ve become something dangerous.