Among the Shrouded (13 page)

CHAPTER

20

THOMAS

His fingers moved across the keys in slow waves of black and white.  Without thinking about which notes he was actually playing, his mind was squarely focused on Mia and the bizarre information she had disclosed to him the night before.  He didn’t realize his melody was winding its way through the house, into the back hallway and up the stairs.  He was unaware it had woken Mildred from her sleep.

She appeared behind him in her robe and slippers and placed her hands
gently on his shoulders.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, her voice thick with both worry and fear
.

“Nothing,”
he responded without removing his fingers from the keys.

“Thomas
Pritchett, I have been your mother for eleven years now and in all that time I’ve only heard you play this piece twice before.  Once when you arrived and once when Dad died.  So when I wake up this morning to this melody again, don’t you tell me nothing’s wrong.”

He
stopped playing and turned on the piano bench to face his mother.  Although he had always been grateful for her well placed concern, he was, at the moment, unable to explain to her what he was feeling.

“Is this about the girl?  Mia?  Did the date go poorly?
”

He
shook his head, upset at himself for being unable to shrug free of his strange connection to her.  As much as he had tried throughout the night, he found he was unable to unwind himself from her.

“Thomas?” Mildred said, lifting his face to meet hers.

“The date was good.  Great even.  She’s an amazing woman.  She’s smart.  She’s funny.  She’s courageous.  She’s beautiful.”  He stopped, unable to go on.

“It sounds like you are really falling for this girl.  So what happened?”
Mildred asked, sitting on the bench beside him.

“She’s a fraud.”

“A fraud?”

“Yeah.  A fraud.  A phony.  A liar.”

“What would make you say that?” Mildred asked.

“She told me she can see people’s
‘auras.’  She says when she looks at people she can see if they are good or bad by what kind of light they have around them.  It’s so much crap.  I don’t know why she would say something like that to me.  She’s no better than Madame Freakshow.  They’re liars, both of them.”

Mildred was quiet for a moment and
he watched as she ran her fingers over the veins in her aging hands.  He knew she was choosing her words carefully so as not to upset him.  Finally, she spoke, quietly but with unwavering resolve.

“Why do you think she would tell you that?”

“Exactly!  Why would she feel the need to lie to me?”

“Has it occurred to you that maybe she’s not lying?  Or at the very least, that maybe she believes what she’s saying is true?”

He considered his mother beside him on the bench.  He knew she was a religious woman and had always warned him of being wary of those who claimed to have what she called supernatural powers.

“Are you suggesting she can actually tell if someone is good or bad just by looking at them?  That’s crazy!  I won’t allow people in my life that can’t be trusted.  N
ever again.”

“I’m just saying that
it sounds to me like she has no reason to lie to you.  That’s all.  Nothing more.  What do you think she was hoping to gain by telling you about this ability of hers?”

“I don’t know?  Maybe she wanted me to think she was
special or something.”

“Does that sound like something she would do?”

“No,” he admitted.

“And b
efore this admission of hers, did she give you any reason at all for you to believe she was untrustworthy in any way?” Mildred asked.

“No.”

The two sat in silence for several minutes.

“Faith,” Mildred said finally, “involves believing in things you cannot see.  And sometimes it involves believing in people.  So until this Mia of yours gives you a
reason to believe she is not a trustworthy person, perhaps you should give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Really?”

“Really.  Thomas, you bought a new shirt for this girl for crying out loud.  She’s got to be pretty special,” she said, smiling warmly at him.  The sincerity of her smile crinkled the skin at the corners of her eyes and lit up her entire face.  Slowly, he could feel that she was beginning to tear down his self-made wall.

“She is
, Ma.  She’s an incredible woman.  But why in the world would she go all paranormal on me?  You know what my life was like with The Freakshow.  I can’t go through that again.”

“So have faith in Mia.  She’s not that woman.  She’s not.  She’s a girl who thinks for whatever reason she can do something that seems improbable but that you have no way of verifying one way or another.  So, for now, for
argument’s sake, assume she’s telling you the truth.”

“Can I do that?”
he asked.

“Can
’t you?” Mildred replied.

“Yes,”
he answered, surprising himself with his acknowledgement.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he said, standing from the bench and walking toward the steps.

“What are you doing?”
Mildred asked.

“If I hurry, I can still make it to
work at Belinda’s on time,” he called over his shoulder, taking the steps two at a time. Halfway up he stopped, turned on his heel, and headed back down the steps to where Mildred was still perched on the piano bench. He bent down to give her a hug and placed a quick kiss on her cheek.

“Thanks
, Ma,” he said, “you’re the best.”

Mondays were always busy at Belinda’s.  He was happy for the distraction the steady flow of patrons provided.  He passed from one table to the next, an invisible entity among the customers.  As he cleared dishes and swept crumbs from the tables, people would continue their conversations, oblivious to his presence.

He
was always amazed by the discussions he was privy to over the course of the years.  He had heard women discussing intimate details of their sexual liaisons with men who weren’t their husbands.  He heard businessmen discussing illegal stock transactions.  He had watched patrons drink from other people’s glasses and steal from their friend’s wallets. 

As he was clearing one of the last tables
of the afternoon, he noticed a group of unfamiliar men sitting at a four top in the corner of the restaurant.  Most of Belinda’s weekday customers were regulars who he knew by face if not by name, so it seemed strange that he had never seen this particular group of men before.  They were laughing amongst themselves and had grown increasingly boisterous with each bottle of wine they had uncorked.  By the time the bill was paid, he was relieved for the peace that was restored as the last of the men left through the main entrance.  He quickly locked the doors behind them and reversed the sign which hung on the glass to ‘closed.’

It was customary for
him to finish his assigned closing duties, clock out, and then linger with Belinda and some of the other staff while they prepared the dough for the following day.  On this day however, after he’d reset all of the tables for the following morning and emptied the trash, he punched his time card and headed out the door.

The
bus ride to the police station would prove to be the longest twenty-five minutes of the day.

C
HAPTER

21

KATE

The
flight to America was long.  And loud.  And cold.  There was no heating system on board and without their luggage, the three women had only the clothes they were wearing for warmth.  Kate eventually convinced the others to risk unbuckling themselves from their seats so they could huddle together on the floor. However, their attempt at using one another’s body heat to stay warm proved to be only moderately successful.

During the course of the
ir ten hour trip, it was as if the girls had established an unspoken pact to ignore the strangeness of their situation.  They chose instead to discuss the future their American adventure was going to provide.

“What do you think our apartment will be like?” Lera asked as she rubbed her hands together.

“I saw on an American television show that all of their apartments have stone floors and walls made of marble.  And there are crystal chandeliers and huge bathrooms and rooms to put your clothes that you can walk inside!  Can you imagine having a whole room just for your clothes?” Anya gushed.

“I can’t imagine having
so many clothes that I would need an entire room for them,” she said.  “My sisters and I have one wardrobe for all three of us.”

“How many people do you think will be there?” asked Anya.  “Do you think it will just be the three of us?”

“That would be nice, but I bet there will be others.  I was hoping there would be a few boys,” Lera said smiling.

“Speaking of boys,” Anya added, “what do you think the chances
are that I will be able to meet an American boy and secure a green card so I will never have to go back to the Ukraine again?”

“I’d say pretty
good if that’s what you want,” she said.

“That’s what I want,”
Anya said.  “If I never step foot in the Ukraine again, it will be fine with me.  My future is in America.”

“Henry and Patrick are expecting us to return home so we can improve our country,”
she said.  “You won’t be helping your family if you never go back.”

“My family never helped me,” said
Anya frankly.  “I don’t owe them or the country anything.  Everything in my life, I’ve earned on my own.”

“Well, I’ll be going back,” she said
.  “My sisters and my parents are counting on me.  And I owe everything I have to them.  So, American boy or not, I’ll be going back home.”

“Me too,” said Lera.  “I have three little brothers
who need me.  My father died six months ago.  I was able to finish out this semester because it was already paid for, but without my father’s income, there is no more money for school.  There is really no more money for anything.  I’m going to save everything I can to send home to them.  And please don’t tell, but I won’t be using the money I earn for school.  I can’t.  Not when my brothers need to eat.”

“I won’t tell,”
she said.

“Me neither,” agreed Anya.

The girls struggled to keep warm and leaned against one another for support as the plane sped toward America at forty thousand feet.  At some point during the trip, the adrenaline of the day having long since worn off, she found she could no longer keep her eyes open.  Mercifully, she drifted off to sleep.

Hunger woke Kate
, her stomach cramping in painful spasms.  She realized it had been over twelve hours since she had eaten breakfast with her family.  The cold seemed trivial as now all she could think of was food.  Her movements roused the other girls.

“How much longer do you think it will take to get there?” Lera asked as she stretched her arms far above her head in an attempt to
unfold herself from her crouched position.

“I don’t know, but I’m hungry,” said Anya.  “Do you think there is any food
here on the plane?”

“Maybe, but it’s not for
us if there is.  I’m sure we’ll be there soon,” she said brightly, the tone of her voice masking the true feeling of desperation that was beginning to seep into her bones.

“I bet they will have a grand buffet to welcome us when we arrive,” said Lera.

“With dessert!” cried Anya.

“I’d be happy with some
plain toast and tea right now,” she said.

“My ears are popping,” Anya exclaimed.  “Perhaps we are landing!”

The plane began its steady descent and the girls returned to their seats and buckled their safety belts in preparation for the landing.  As the wheels of the plane met the tarmac, the girls held hands and braced themselves against the terrific force of the plane as it slowed down.  They sat together quietly as the plane maneuvered around the runway, none of them wanting to break through the silence which accompanied the heavy anticipation of the moment.  When at last the plane came to a stop and the cargo door was opened, nothing about the strangeness of the situation improved.

T
wo men appeared at the opening, burly and unshaven.

“Let’s go,” the
larger of the two called across the expanse of the cargo bay.

She
hesitantly unbuckled and rose to her feet, unsteady from the many hours of sitting huddled together with the others on the floor.  The men were certainly not the welcoming party she had expected and she was immediately disappointed by their appearance.

“Quickly!” the man called again.

She made her way with the others out of the plane, down the steps and onto the ground.  After having spent the better part of a day trapped within the dim confines of the plane, she squinted at the blinding sun, shielding her eyes with both hands.  The noise of the surrounding planes was deafening and she yelled loudly to the closest of the men as they crossed the tarmac.

“Are Henry and Patrick meeting us?” she called.

She didn’t know whether the man was unable to hear her or was simply choosing not to respond.  She increased her stride and caught up beside him, pulling at his arm to get his attention.

“Are Henry and Patrick meeting us?” she repeated.

“Yeah.  Sure, Honey,” he replied.  “You’ll see them when we get there.”

“When we get where?  To the apartment?”

“Yeah.  To the apartment.”

She
turned to Lera and Anya and took their hands.  They followed the men, weaving through the sea of cargo planes and shipping freights until they came to a van on the edge of the airport grounds.  She stopped, not knowing what to do.

“Get in,” came a voice from behind them. 
She turned to see that a third man had joined the group.  Dressed in work overalls and a heavy hooded red sweatshirt, the expression on his face was less than welcoming.

“I believe there has been a mistake,” said Anya
cautiously.  “We are students from the university in Kiev.  We are here on a work visa and are meeting our sponsors to take us to our apartment.”

“
There’s been no mistake.  Get in the van.”

The girls
filed into the windowless van one after the other.  There were no seats and they were forced to sit directly on the cold metal floor.

“Do you have our luggage?” Lera asked.

“We’ve got another van bringing it,” said one of the men as he got into the front of the van.

The doors we
re slammed shut and locked.  Within moments the girls were on the move once again.  They sat in silence, unable or unwilling to acknowledge the graveness of the situation aloud to one another.  Anya and Lera appeared frightened and she imagined that her face wore the same grim expression.

After several minutes
, Lera whispered, “This is not at all how I imagined it was going to be.”

“Me neither,” said Anya.

“Me neither,” she said.  Her thoughts were racing, struggling to understand what was happening around her.  Doubt was creeping into the recesses of her mind as she tried to piece together what she knew.  Henry and Patrick had not yet made an appearance.  Their baggage was missing.  They had flown somewhere in a cargo plane and were now being taken in a van to another undisclosed location.  They had not been offered food or water or an opportunity to use the bathroom.  She decided it was time to ask for what she wanted.  She crawled to the front of the van and knocked on the partition which separated them from the men.  A small door slid open.

“What?”
the driver asked.

“Sir, we are quite hungry.  We haven’t eaten in
hours.  Also, we need to use the restroom.  So I was wondering if we could stop.”

“We’ll be there soon.  There’ll be food.  And a bathroom.”

“How much longer?”

“Soon,” the man replied
without hiding the annoyance in his voice.

True to
his word, the van stopped five minutes later and she allowed herself to feel excitement for the first time since boarding the plane.  However, as the door slid open to reveal the inside of a large abandoned warehouse as well as yet another man who greeted them with a sneer, her stomach lurched when she realized he was carrying a gun. 

Lera grasped
her arm tightly and cowered behind her.  Anya, on the other hand, moved swiftly to the doorway.

“I don’t know who you think we are, but you are clearly misinformed.  We are students.  We’ve come here to work.  You need to take us back to the airport at once so we can clear this up because there has obviously been a mistake.”

“Feisty, that one is,” said the man in the red sweatshirt who appeared behind the one leveling the gun in the girls’ direction.  “Listen up, Missy.  Let me tell you how this is all going to go down.  I need all three of you to turn around and put your hands behind your backs.  We’re gonna restrain you for now, in case you get any funny ideas.  After you’re in your rooms, we’ll take off the ropes, but only if you do just as you’re told.  Nod your heads if you understand, but don’t open your mouths again unless you have permission.”

She
and Lera nodded and turned around as they’d been instructed, but Anya inched closer to the open door.

“Ta
ke her,” the man in the red sweatshirt said to the one with the gun.  The armed man threw himself at Anya, easily pinning her to the floor of the van where he quickly bound her arms behind her back.  Anya was lead from the van into the basement of the warehouse and she could hear her screams echoing as she felt the ropes being tightened around her own wrists.  As tears streamed down Lera’s face, she watched her being lead out of the van in the same direction Anya had been taken only moments before.

She
turned to face the two men before her and she willed herself to remain stoic.  She avoided making eye contact and kept her head high as they closed the van door behind her.

“Good lookin’
group this time,” the man with the gun commented as they descended a set of concrete stairs into the basement of the warehouse.

“Yeah, t
oo bad about the tall one’s attitude.  I hope she doesn’t make trouble.  Boss won’t like that.”

“This one though,” the gunman said, poking the weapon into
her back, “she’s a beauty.  Steak dinners for everyone tonight!”

As they reached the foot of the stairs,
she was overcome by the stench and the thickness of the air.  She gagged, thankful for the first time since her trip began that there was nothing in her stomach.  She looked around the dimly lit room.  The ceiling was low, only a couple of inches above the heads of the men leading Lera and Anya in front of her.  The walls were solid concrete, as were the floors.  The room was divided into about a dozen cells, not much larger than cages.  Each cell had a small mattress on the ground and a makeshift toilet that was little more than a hole in the floor.  That was all. 

As she was led down the
narrow walkway that ran between the two rows of cells, she looked into the eyes of each of the women who were already trapped inside.  She counted eleven in all and each one she passed caused the feeling of desperation to grow inside of her.  The women were filthy, reeking of their own excrement.  Several looked severely malnourished to the point of starvation.  But it was their eyes that haunted her as she passed before them.  Their eyes were hollow.  Empty.  Devoid of hope or desire.  Dead.