a moment and let my eyes adjust to the dark. There should be a window, but instead there is only tiny slits of light on the wall. Where the broken window had been the last time I was here, there is now boarded up planks of woods. The mattress I can just barely make out, but there is no one atop of it. There is the crookedly hung closet door, it looms at me, but it is only a door, not a person. Not Rose.
With my heart beating so loudly and my breath so labored it is a wonder I can hear anything at all, but I do.
I hear the unmistakable sound of a key in the lock of the door that had slammed shut behind me as I foolishly rushed in, the scratching sound of a deadbolt being slid into place. The very, very soft sound of someone’s dreadful laughter.
Chapter Seventeen
It has been hours. I know because the moonlight visible through the slats of the planks nailed to the window became sunlight hours ago. It has also been hours since I bothered banging on the door, or kicking, or shouting, or whimpering. The rest of the time has been spent staying awake, which is getting more and more impossible by the ticking of my body’s clock. I am terrified to sleep; yet I want to sink into that blissful oblivion more than anything. My body aches and my head pounds and everything that dwells within me, from my kidneys to my heart to my lungs, feel as though they are stuffed with sand and weighing me down from the inside out. Even my hair feels heavy and oh, what a lovely pillow it would be…fan it out around my face and sleep…
Stop it, Sonnet. Your family is far from here. This is no time for slumber. My thoughts take on a stern, reproaching tone, as if I were my own mother. I stretch my fingers, clench and unclench, watching my knuckles, chewing my nails, anything to stay awake. I stand. I sit. I don’t lie down. And to keep my mind busy, I remember.
The monk, my favorite monk at the monastery, was young, surprisingly so. In my small child’s mind I had imagined monks to be old and wizened, stooped over and wrinkled. But this monk was young; he still had baby fat in his cheeks which were as smooth as the perfectly carved statue I sat on the floor playing with. I never knew his name, at my age I never thought to ask. I was still young enough to make friends with anyone who would have me, who would pay attention to me, and names or ages or genders didn’t factor. Prue had fallen ill the moment we’d arrived here and had been in bed since, and Dad was around, but not around for me. We had awoken to the sound of a flock of birds and our faces pressed to the very dewy grass. I remember opening my eyes, knowing I would not see what I had fallen asleep seeing, but instead something new, some place new. I could tell by the wet grass pressed beneath my cheek and the new smells that weren’t the same. Would it be nice? I wondered. Would I like it here? I spent so much time lying there, my eyes squeezed shut, imagining my new surroundings - a castle with a princess? A farm with horses for me to ride? – that I very lately became aware of breathing on my face. I lay very still, pondering if this hot stinky breath could be Dad or Prue, and then I heard a snort. With startled reflexes my eyes flew open of their own accord and I was face to face with a huge cow. I screamed like a baby and woke up Prue and Dad.
We were in a field in springtime and later I would learn it was twelfth century Spain. After the initial shock wore off and after I had apologized most sincerely to the cow, we walked until we found the monastery. They welcomed us politely enough. Visitors were not uncommon; hungry, lost strangers were not uncommon either. We could speak their language – not that much conversation went on in that place – and we blended in as seamlessly as we always had. The lies dripped from our lips as easily as they had dropped from our own Lost ancestor’s lips. I didn’t even feel guilty for