Chained (9 page)

“You're going to have to rinse it yourself.  I can't do it for you.”

Jenny didn't bother to pinch her nose before sliding down until her entire body was submerged under the water.  She stayed down so long that I had to put my hands under her arms and haul her back to the surface.  “None of that.  Are you crazy?”  But the dead look in Jenny's eyes made the question unnecessary.  Of course she was crazy...that irrational madness that comes from a mother losing her child. 

Eventually the water ran cold and I got the unresisting Jenny out of the tub.  She walked over to her bed and buried herself in the blankets again, not bothering to get dressed.

Then began the process of trying to force my friend to eat.  I poured my anger at our captors into my determination to keep Jenny alive until she could see her daughter again.

Chapter 11: 
Life and death

Day 59: 
After doing what I could to help Jenny, I spent the rest of the morning working on the window.  The snow is piled so high that all I can see through the glass is darkness, even during the day.

Sophie still yells and hits her door a lot.  She's got a lot of anger and very little fear.  Jenny seems to feel nothing at all anymore.  I think she wants to die. 

I didn't realize how much it meant to have that tiny bit of sunlight through my window...until it was gone.  I miss the sun.  I miss it so bad I feel like I can't breathe.

These walls are pressing in on me.  Time is running out. I think whatever part of my brain produces fear has stopped working.  I should still be afraid.  I'm the captive of a man that could kill me on a whim.  Why am I not afraid? 

All I feel is a breathless urgency to find a way out before it's too late.

Day 60: 
Essie has started coughing.  I am praying that it's not what her mother had.  She cries if I'm not holding her and she feels feverish.  Today she has spent all of her time in the sling I made from my blanket. I keep refilling her sippy cup and encouraging her to drink as much water as she will take.

On a gamble, I told Travis that my feet were cold even through my socks.  He gave me some house shoes.  They aren't much, but at least the soles are solid.  I don't know how far I would get with them in the snow.  It's got to be better than just these stupid fuzzy socks that probably came from a Christmas clearance rack somewhere.

He also gave me a sweater.  He said to hide it on days Master is here.  Not that Master ever comes in my room anymore.  Guess he's too scared of killing his spawn.

Jenny still will only eat if I sit there and force her to take each bite. 

That night Jenny was wailing, calling out for her daughter.  She pounded on her door, crying out to God for help.  I prayed too, either silently or whispered into the ears of the sick little girl that was cradled against my side.  I swaddled her in my sweater, hugging her frail body to my chest as I listened to the frantic beating of her heart.  Essie's breath rattled in her throat between coughs.  Her pitiful wails joined those of Jenny in the other room.

A few hours into the night, Jenny became silent.  I slept fitfully, holding onto Essie as if I were her only lifeline to this world.  Travis had refused to give her any medicine, and I had refused to let him take her away.  If she was going to die, it would be in the arms of someone who cared about her.  As the hours passed and the little girl struggled to breathe, my tears joined the beads of sweat that ran down her porcelain face.

***

61 days into my captivity.  I will never forget that day.

It was the day that Travis let me into Jenny's cell and I knelt down by her cot.

That was when I came face to face with the eyes of a corpse. 

I stared into eyes cloudy and glassy with death, into a face as cold as the air around us.  I stared at hands pressed to the blue lips, clutching a tiny curl of baby hair.  I stared at the shoulder of the gown that showed from beneath the blankets, still damp from when I had washed it two days before.

I rose silently. I backed up until my spine hit the wall.  Maybe my heart stopped.  I know my mind did.  There was no thought, no emotion, just a shock like that of a lightning bolt, so sharp and overwhelming that for that single, agonizing moment, nothing in the body will respond. 

Travis saw.  He knelt in front of the body that had once housed Jenny's soul.  He smoothed her hair back gently and looked at me with a strange expression in his eyes.  Then he stood and gathered Jenny's body in his arms.  When he left, he didn't lock the door, but I didn't care.  I just stood against the wall and stared at the cot where my friend's body had laid. 

After a while, maybe minutes or maybe hours, Travis returned and beckoned for me to come.

I crossed to the door.  Once in the hallway I walked straight into my cell where I climbed into my cot and enveloped Essie's tiny, wheezing body with my own.  I think Travis said something, but I don't remember what it was.

I lay there with Essie in my arms, breathing for both of us.  When Travis brought my lunch he tried to take her from my arms, but I only held on more tightly.  For every struggling breath she took, I inhaled deeply, as if to show her how to breathe.  Every cough was like an electric shock in my body.  He cries sounded like the mewling of a newborn kitten.  She burned with the sort of fire that no human body could withstand, much less that of a fragile one year old.

God, please ease her pain,
I prayed. 
Please let her rest.

And He did.  For a few more hours, tiny Essie struggled to breathe, her cries growing weaker and more desperate.  Her little fingertips turned blue and her striving muscles grew limp in my arms. 

I was shocked out of a doze when Essie gasped suddenly.  She pushed herself upright in my arms, her face so pale I could trace the veins beneath her skin.  Her wide eyes looked into mine and she reached up to lay a hand on my cheek.  She smiled.

Then she laid her head on my chest and put her arms around my neck.  She sighed, long and deep. 

She didn't breathe in again. 

Slowly the muscles relaxed. The frantic, fevered fluttering of the tiny heart slowed and ceased.  The intense heat of her skin began to cool.

I lowered Essie's head into the crook of my elbow and cradled her like a baby, staring down at the delicate features.  She was indescribably beautiful, like a porcelain doll or a baby angel.  There was a peace on her face that nothing in this world could bring. 

Essie had died in the arms of the only person in the world that loved her.  Her last moments had felt the only tenderness that still existed in this place.  At the last, God had given her peace and rest.  No one could ever hurt her or abuse her.

In a strange way I envied her.  She was free.  She would never be troubled again. 

Something changed within me that day.  For the first time I understood.  God had granted little Essie death, something we human beings hate and consider to be the worst thing that can ever happen to someone.  God had known what was best for that little girl--to fly home and into His arms.  In that moment I had an intense longing to die, not because I had no hope, but because I desperately wanted to see the face and feel the embrace of One who loved me enough that His son had died for me.  I longed to see the face of Him who had gone through worse than I ever could, and had done it all out of love for me.

I gently took Essie's body and wrapped it in a blanket, the teddy bear tucked within her arms.  And I held her like that, cradling her in my arms until Travis came with my dinner. 

“Is she gone?”

“
Yes.”

I kissed Essie's forehead gently as Travis took her from my arms.  As he bore the tiny body from my cell I felt as if he took a large portion of my heart with him as well.

When he was gone I lay down on my cot.  I couldn't eat.  I lay there, staring at the wall. 

God, I want to go home.  Please take me home.  I want to be with Jenny and Essie.

But no matter how much I prayed, I guess it wasn't my turn yet.  I lay in my cot, unable to move, barely able to breathe.  I don't know how long I lay there.  I had no will do do anything.  A hole gaped in my heart where Jenny and Essie had resided, threatening to swallow me whole.  I stood on the edge, unable to jump but unable to step back either.

I ate when Travis made me.  I slept, I went to the bathroom when the pain became too great. I bathed when I could no longer stand the dirt.  My journal lay on my desk, ignored and unused.  My hair grew matted and unmanageable without the aid of a brush.  I stared at the box of Essie's toys until one day Travis took them away.

The only words that formed out of my mind were prayers.  I prayed for God to take me.  I prayed for Him to close this hole of pain that yawned in my heart.  I prayed for the sort of peace that Essie and Jenny now had. 

I know none of my thoughts made sense.  I had new hope in God, yet I had no hope at all.  I wanted desperately to live, and longed just as intensely for death.  There was a hunger in my belly that matched only that in my soul.  A coldness in my bones echoed by the ice in my mind.  Even as I prayed for God to forgive my hopelessness, I prayed for Him to end my suffering.  There was no fear, no joy, no sorrow.  Only this all-consuming confusion of hope and despair.

Some nights I heard Sophie scream.  Sometimes I heard her pounding on the door.  Some days she called my name, and some she was silent.  I never answered, not her, nor Travis.  I didn't even respond one day when the Master came into my cell and stood there staring at me, fists on his hips and disapproval on his face. 

After a while, Travis started talking to me.  He would come into my room and force me to eat my food.  As I slowly ate each bite, he would talk.  I tried not to listen but it was impossible.  He talked about his family, his work (He really had once been a nurse in the NICU), about some book he was reading.  He told me how sorry he was about Jenny and Essie.  He talked about other girls that had once been here.  None had ever escaped.  He said they buried them in the shadow of the mesas.  He told me that if I didn't try to escape again, maybe he would take me to visit the graveyard once the snow had melted. 

If he hoped to encourage me with this promise, it didn't work.  I had no energy left to respond.  I had no energy left to feel.  I was numb. 

Then one day, I woke from an uneasy doze to a strange sensation in my belly.  It was like the flutter of butterfly wings on the inside of my skin.  Like the feeling of soap bubbles popping against your palm when you try to catch them. 

I sat bolt upright in bed, my hand going to the bump of my lower abdomen.  The movement stopped, and I  thought I must have imagined it.  After a moment though, the sensation started again.

Like butterfly kisses. 
That's what Mom had always told me.  Some people said it was like gas bubbles, but Mom said that was far too crude a name for such a glorious feeling.  She described those first flutters like the feeling of a butterfly as it lighted on your hand, only to fly away a moment later. 

I clutched my belly, staring at the faded fabric of my gown.  I imagined it was my baby letting me know he or she was still alive, even if everyone else around me was dying. 
I'm here, Mama.  Don't forget about me.

For the first time since Jenny and Essie's death, I cried.  Huge tears rolled down my cheeks to splash on the space where my hands caressed the life within me.  I wept until the fabric was soaked, great wracking sobs that left me breathless and my head throbbing with pain.  I wept until my mouth was dry.  I cried until I was exhausted and shaking.

And then I slept.  For the first time since I had entered this place of nightmares, I slept peacefully and without dreams.  No Master to chase me through the dark corridors of my mind.  No Travis plunging that needle into my neck over and over.  None of the most painful sort of dreams—those when I imagined myself escaping, running free over the plains, climbing the mesas to dance on their flat tops, free and exhilarated until the moment I opened my eyes.