The walls of the cellar are brick, buried within the foundations of the house. My eyes travel along each side, searching out a difference in the gloom, looking for black against the gray.
There!
She’s on the stairs: a child-shaped shadow crouched on the top step, where the faintest of light bleeds from the kitchen beneath the door. It flickers, like a bulb close to exhaustion. Slowly, my eyes adjust.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?”
Sophia’s legs are drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them and her head buried in her knees. I pull uselessly at the metal bar behind me. Whatever Becca gave me is wearing off, the brain fog slowly clearing. There’s a sharp pain around my ribs, and every time I yank my wrists forward, it takes my breath away. The only way Becca could have gotten me into the cellar is by dragging me to the steps and letting me fall, and every inch of my body feels as though that’s exactly what she did.
“I don’t like it here, Daddy.”
“Me neither. Are you hurt?”
“My tummy feels funny.”
“Did she give you anything, Sophia? Anything to eat?” I yank hard at the cuffs, angry with Becca, with myself, with the bloody pipe that won’t. Give. An. Inch. “Did she? It’s important!” Sophia buries her head again, and I bite my tongue, soften my tone. “Sweetheart, did Becca give you any medicine?”
She makes a movement, but I’m not sure if she’s nodding her head or shaking it.
“Is that no?”
“Yes.”
“No medicine?”
“No medicine.”
I breathe out. “But your tummy aches?”
“It feels funny. Like when you spin me around, or when the bath monster comes, or when I play flying with Mummy.” Her voice is thin and scared.
“Ah. Mine feels a bit like that, to be honest.” The radio phone-in segues into the weather report, which warns of more snow overnight and a drop in temperature to minus three. Damp from the stone floor seeps into my bones. I’m wearing suit trousers and a collared shirt; Sophia’s in her pajamas and dressing gown. At least she has slippers on—my socked feet are numb with cold.
I listen for sounds in the house beyond the radio, but there’s nothing. Has Becca gone, or is she still in the house?
“Sweetheart, is the door locked?”
“Yes.”
“Could you try again? Really rattle it, so I can see?” Slowly, Sophia gets to her feet, and the slice of light from beneath the door widens. She twists the doorknob, then rattles it hard. The door doesn’t give.
“It’s stuck.” She rattles the handle again.
“Bang on it. Make a fist and bang as hard as you can.”
She hits the door, over and over, so loud down here in the cellar that by rights, the whole town should hear it. Becca said that if Mina’s plane didn’t change course, she’d harm Sophia, but Sophia’s here safe with me—if you can call being locked in a cellar “safe.” Does that mean Mina followed instructions? Has Flight 79 been hijacked? Fear grips me, colder than the stone beneath me.
Has the plane crashed?
“Sophia, I want you to scream, okay? As loud as you can. I’m going to shout too, so cover your ears and scream as loud as you can. Ready? One, two, three!”
The noise is deafening. It ricochets around the cellar, Sophia’s high-pitched scream and my furious Becca! I don’t want to shout help!—don’t want to make Sophia any more scared than she already is.
“Okay, now shhh—listen.”
But all we can hear is “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” The flickering light is the digital radio, I realize, pushed close to the other side of the door; the faint fluorescent one is from the kitchen ceiling behind it. I’m trying to fathom why Becca chose to give us the questionable comfort of a radio, when I hear the words…inaugural flight to Sydney.
Concern was first raised when air traffic control operatives were unable to contact the pilots, despite communication channels appearing to be in place. Pilots are required to inform ground control when entering and leaving foreign airspace…
“I can scream even bigger than that.” Sophia opens her mouth.
“Let me just listen to this.”
Shortly after eleven p.m. in the UK, a tweet was sent from an account belonging to the Climate Action Group, alleging that members of their group had hijacked Flight 79 in a protest against climate change.
Climate change. Mass extinction. That’s what Becca was talking about. I struggle to make sense of it. Planes are hijacked by terrorists. Terrorists are religious extremists, not