Escape (Chronicles of Hart)

Chronicles of Hart:

ESCAPE

Kat Murray

Copyright © 201
4 Kat Murray

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1495943072

ISBN-13:
1495943070

For my Dad, who read this first.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to my family for their devoted support, to my parents f
or encouraging me to imagine. To my husband, Al, for his patience and artistic inspiration and to Al Murray Sr. for his assistance with the final read; without you all this book would be quietly collecting dust on my shelves. You gave me the courage to share my stories with the world, I am eternally grateful.

Prolog
ue

It all started with a letter, tucked away neatly where only the right person would find it:

“You always played the Princess, n
ow it is your turn to play the Prince. A damsel in distress waits in a tower for a knight in shining armour.”

It read in a delicate scrawl, sealed in a small frail envelope that looked as though it would crumble to dust at the slightest touch. Luckily it hadn’t, for the series of events that were to follow rang similar in severity to the fabled tales heard in childhood. Sadly when momentous events like these occur in the real world they are less filled with flowers and fauna and more engulfed in smoke and fire. The delicacy of human nature is a raw thing, often overlooked in the span of a story. Sometimes however
, it is the things that we overlook that are the most important in the end.

TOWER

Ten years had passed since the fatal day on the school yard that had changed her future forever. She was sure she had once had hopes of being a mediocre student, going to a mediocre college and perhaps even getting a job she liked. Maybe she had hoped to move out of town on her own, but really she hadn’t thought that far ahead and her chance to dream had been cut short with her kidnapping. She was now locked in the bell tower of an abandoned church. The walls of her cell were rough and worn from her pacing and their former abandon. Grace had been moved every couple of years until settling down in the tower, usually whenever she tried to escape. For some reason this place had stuck. She was approaching the five year mark. It had become a familiar place to her. For the first two years in the tower the windows had been boarded over and it had been gloomy. Grace had lived in a constant darkness, relying on her other senses and the thin lines of light that escaped through the boarded windows to get through the daily routines she kept. Grace had tried to pry the boards loose after two years of darkness and had been caught as the first draft of fresh air washed through the window. They had locked her in a cage in the cellar for a week and replaced the boards with one way coated glass, unbreakable. Only then had she finally had a view of the world again. After that she could see the sky. Light would filter through the windows during the day and at night the stars and distant city lights were usually enough to give her sight. At first the wonder had hurt her eyes as she became familiar with the stars in the sky. She could sit there for hours counting the stars or making shapes out of the clouds. It was only the frivolousness of wasting her time that stopped her from sitting at the window staring at the sky all day every day. She longed to one day be out on the other side of the glass looking up. That kept her motivated enough to stay away from the looking glass. She paced her small tower room day in and day out, watching the outside world enviously as she worked. Her hopes of being rescued were long gone after endless sunsets had come and gone on the other side of the mirrored windows that the world saw from outside her tower. She had long since relied only on herself. Even the guards that watched her tower door were not dependable for providing her with food on a regular basis. She had come to discover that
“Nine am”
was just an expression the guards used when they remembered that she hadn’t been fed yet. Still, to her it remained an alarm of sorts. Letting her know when she was being monitored and when they were “just there” absorbed in their own lives.

She spent most nights working through her own escape plans while enduring a series of trials she had developed to help build her strength and stamina up. She knew that with her minimal diet and the living condition she was trapped in, she needed to work twice as hard to obtain the endurance that would be necessary to enact her own escape. She would recite the guards’ shifts for the week under her breath while sprinting on the spot, keeping her pace fast and steady until she could breathe through the week schedule without panting or breaking a sweat. She would practice tying knots with sheets and escaping from them in less than ten seconds, just in case she was tied and dragged between dungeons again in the future. She had every intention of fighting back for her freedom. She would often find herself lost in thoughts of her old life aimlessly doing crunches or push
-ups tirelessly while the moon swept across the towers floor in the dead of night. On the little food she was provided with she remained quite scrawny in appearance, though most of her mass was wiry muscle. When the guards would switch for the evening she would begin, choosing to spend most daylight hours doing more productive escape preparations that required the light to see. At dawn Grace would take a moment to admire the sun hanging low on the horizon and then toss her tired body at the lumpy mattress on her old tattered bed frame and sleep soundly until the nine a.m. alarm of the guards shoving food through the door. With their accuracy, some days she got more sleep than others. She could tell if they were on time or daftly late by the shadows across her walls. The routine worked quite well for her and kept her on her toes as she gave herself a purpose behind the tower walls. She looked forward to a life with more meaning, a life beyond the gates and the enslavement of the church.

The church that held her above the land of the living
, in its decrepit bell tower, had stood abandoned to the outside world for decades. It had crumbled under the years of abandonment and neglect, much like the life that it held fast in its embrace. No one bothered to take note of the flurry of activity that took place twice a day as the guards would change shifts, scurrying out to their cars as the newcomers dawdled on their way in. Cars would whip from the parking lot like they were destined for the Grand Prix as they shot through the gates and back into the world. Construction signs sat unused inside the church gates, proof that the town had forgotten the monumental landmark that had once glistened on the hill above them. It had provided them a refuge and home in times of need. The neglected church had been replaced like so many other things by a newer, bigger and better model, full of technology; leaving the heritage and history in the dust as people moved on. Asides from the sparkling new windows in the bell tower where Grace resided, the rest of the building had fallen into a dangerous state of disrepair. Trees leaned on the tall stone wall surrounding the property, leaving boulders teetering on the edge of the precipice waiting to fall wayward as the trees decayed and more weight pressed against the crumbling mortar of the old walls. Some boulders had already fallen, rolling across the lawn and at the church walls like bowling balls trying to take out the building. She had watched as stones rolled against the main building sending cracks spreading across the already worn foundation. Holes were visible in the main building roof and presumably in the tower, which leaked heavily whenever it rained. It would drip in a stream onto her bed making the floors slippery for days at a time. She would curl up in the corner farthest from the door where the floor seemed to be raised up on a strange angle and wait out the water, shivering as the air became stagnant and mouldy. Grace had grown accustomed to the crumbling building, passing her more tedious hours counting the cracks and missing stone on the exterior that was visible from her vantage. On particularly windy days she would watch as the shingles slid off into the sky. Some days she half expected that the building itself would decay and crumble away with her inside, blowing away into the adjacent trees and disappearing forever in the wind. At this point she only hoped she would make it out alive when the building gave up on her.

Grace would watch the sun set over the town and the sun rise over the forest. The glow always gave her hope as she fought through her mediocre days. She watched the guards leave and come for their shifts, noting which way they turned at the end of the drive each day as though it were an indication of whether or not they were coming back. She made up stories about their social lives outside the church based on the direction they took at the end of their shift. When they turned to the forest she imagined them driving a winding scenic route taking them to their imma
culate homes and happy families. When they turned to the town she would imagine them in a tavern letting loose with their buddies, leaving the details of their secret job to the fates as they pretended to be spies and heroes rather than kidnappers and dungeon guards. Grace felt like a spy sometimes, watching the outside world change as buildings popped up on the horizon, all from her secret room. She remembered every detail as though it were life threatening. She could never be sure what information could help lead to her escape. She imagined herself as a pedestrian walking by the church sometimes, wondering what it looked like to the outside world. Did they see it as she did, like a decaying prison? Or was it something more; a monument, a castle or something spectacular? Would anyone ever notice that she was up there?

She had been plotting since the moment she had been thrown into the small room, mercilessly colliding with the splintered wooden floorboards as her bound hands were unable to break her fall. The door had slammed and locked behind her as she struggled to get free of her bindings through the chloroform haze that had kept her under for the transfer in the form of a pillowcase tied over her head. She had been caught trying to escape from the basement of another property, where they had held her before the dark days of the tower. They had drugged her and brought her here like any other transfer. She had been treated like a bag of potatoes, tossed from car to car, bag over her face, drenched in toxic chemicals to keep her hazy. She would never know where she had come from and until the windows had been installed in the tower, she had never known where she had been taken
to
. In her mind the tower had been another underground prison, all the same musty mouldy smells had mingled in the walls and floors. The dampness had been the same, the leaking and the darkness fooling her and coercing impossible escape plans. Until the day she had discovered how high up she really was. She analysed her failed attempts over and over again in the dark of night. Pinpointing the things that had gotten her caught the why’s and the how’s, trying to ensure that her next escape stuck.  The first two years she had tried to visualize the room based on feel. The darkness seemed a punishment for trying to run away. When the windows had been put in place things had become easier for her, the height had been her biggest obstacle to overcome. How would she get down from the tower unscathed and
able
to get help? Patience, she hoped, would ensure that her fifth escape attempt would be a success.

She stood by one of the windows, watching the city as she tirelessly chipped away at the seal inside the trim. It was autumn now, another year locked away, alone. Her red hair had matted into a tangled sheet down her back. She hadn’t seen her own face since she was ten, save for dusty reflections in pools of water that often collected on the floor in the spring. At nearly twenty one now, she was unaware of her delicate beauty and the way she looked like a princess even under the grime and tangles. Her clothing was simple, drawstring pants and a shirt, baggy and oversized. At least over the years she had somewhat grown in to them. She could tell they were not new and rarely washed properly. The fabric was worn thin at the knees, ready to rip at the slightest touch.

Every two weeks she was asked to place her hands out the hole in the door where her meals came through to be hand cuffed. She would then turn to the wall and the guards would come in and replace her linens and toiletries, only the bare minimum. She suspected it was an order to be rude to her. They usually didn’t even bother acknowledging her existence, save for the days when they had to come in. When they had completed their inspection, they would lock the door and un-cuff her hands through the door when they were ready. They would often leave her sitting with her arms dangling out the door slot for hours on end waiting. Grace was cautious to hide the chips from the window trim, along with anything else that may be suspicious and draw unwanted attention. She needed to be here long enough to escape. She needed them not to move her again. But the guards had grown lazy over the years and she could hear by the shuffles of their feet and the squeaking of the floorboards that they now only tossed in the new sheets, clothing, and soap, without searching. They let the items scatter across the floor like an explosion of supplies. She now spent more time finding pieces of soap than she did using it. A toilet and sink sat against the wall closest the door and that was where Grace washed herself, using her fingers to comb through her unruly hair. She was rarely given a chance to speak, unless it was to herself. The guards wouldn’t answer when she called. She preferred it that way. It gave her more time to think. The odd conversation she would hear outside the door in her silence proved to be entertainment enough for someone so accustomed to silence.

Grace fondly remembered a time when she had hot water, bubble baths and showers. She missed the little things more; noise, laughter maybe even ice cream. Here her meals were simple; rice, protein shakes and water from her tap. The shakes wouldn’t be so bad, if the guards didn’t drink them half up before giving them to her when they forgot their own lunches. She had never thought as a child she would one day wish for vegetables. Even broccoli would be a welcome addition to the slop she ate daily. The texture alone was enough to put her off of eating. It was always room temperature and stale. It wa
s like the years supply sat pre-made on a shelf outside the door, just waiting to be served to her and each day it got worse as it grew closer to its expiration.

“This is the year,
” Grace muttered, as she chipped away another piece of trim. She hoped the guard wouldn't hear the noise she was making. “They never come in here anyway”, she whispered in a quiet sing song voice. Still, she wished she could be quieter and held her breath hoping to compensate by not breathing loudly for a moment. Grace watched the town as she worked. It looked small and fake, like the buildings were meant for little dolls and fancy wooden furniture you could hold in your hand. It reminded her of a dollhouse she had once had and as the light hit each of the gleaming windows of the village at the bottom of this hill she couldn’t escape the feeling that she was in a fairytale; locked in a castle tower, awaiting a prince. It was a feeling that had left her bitter inside. The children’s’ stories she had loved in her youth had mislead her. They always depicted the rescued princesses as being happy or content with what they had, even before their prince arrived. Grace struggled with the concept that they had really been as miserable as she was, trapped in their own nightmares. They were probably tired of waiting when their princes
did
arrive. Grace wasn’t going to wait. She would not leave her freedom up to chance or in someone else’s hands. She would just have to save herself or die trying.