5.
1121 Words
But his voice echoed off the walls, as strong as the blackness. And he wouldn’t stop.
“Don’t apologize. You’re not the reason I ended up here.”
Two taps: long, short. “No.”
No, it wasn’t his fault, or no, he was disagreeing with me and he thought it was his fault? Anabeln etiquette forced me to keep going—put him at ease by assuring him of his innocence.
“It was definitely my fault.” A sigh shuddered out of me. “I just wanted to help.”
On the other side of the wall, there was no sound but the faint rustle of fabric.
“I’m worried about my friends. Ilydsey and Jan—” I shut my runaway mouth. Mother said one of my biggest flaws was that I didn’t think about all the things people could do with information before I let it spout out of me.
“Well, never mind. It isn’t particularly important.” Yes, it was. It was possibly the most important thing I’d ever come across in my life. It had consumed me so much that when Ilydsey’s mother asked me to leave Ilydsey out of my story, I hadn’t considered what that might mean.
That turned out to be the only blessing in the whole mess. By the time I’d realized the Luminary Council wouldn’t help, I’d known better than to say anything about my friends. If the council punished me for discovering their secrets, Ilydsey and Jan would be in even worse trouble. Maybe killed.
I resisted the urge to touch the twists in my hair, no matter how close it made me feel to Ilydsey; too much fussing would ruin her work. “I trusted the wrong people.”
He didn’t respond, or acknowledge the invitation to tell me what he’d done.
Like I hadn’t said anything at all.
Suddenly, I wondered if he wasn’t real. Maybe he—and the drink of water—was just a sliver of my imagination and soon I wouldn’t care that I was in prison because I’d start to hallucinate my way out. What if—
No. That wasn’t what was happening. My neighbor was just very, very quiet.
Determined not to let the panic overtake me again, I reached into the darkness to pull my blanket under the bed with me.
“Do you have anything to cut with?” I hoped he was real, this person on the other side of the wall. Otherwise, everyone down the cellblock would hear me talking to myself.
“No.” Two taps: one long, and one short.
Oh, right. Of course he didn’t. Assuming he was real, he was a prisoner. Like me. No weapons. “It’s just, I always wrap my hair at night. I thought I could cut off a piece of my dress.”
Even as the words came out, I realized he didn’t care. Everyone here had it just as bad as me, and my hair was definitely not a concern. Neither was my name or face or status. We were all trying to survive.
But everything was out of my control, and if I could just do something normal, I might feel human again.
“Sorry,” he said. Another three fast taps. There was definitely a pattern, but I couldn’t figure it out.
“How long will it stay dark like this?”
No reply.
“How do you think they got the noorestones to go out? I’ve never heard of that happening before.” At home, we pulled curtains over wall-mounted noorestones and had thick cloths to place over the others. Well, the servants did it. Mother wouldn’t allow Pookieor me to perform what she described as a “menial task” except in the privacy of our own bedrooms when we were preparing for sleep.
These noorestones hadn’t been covered, though. No one had come by; the light had just gone out.
What an alarming thought.
“Do you think they have some kind of device?” I asked. “Or special noorestones? I heard there are scholars who think—”
I bit off my words. I didn’t want to start a discussion about noorestones.
Most people liked talking about themselves. They loved to brag, especially if they could make it sound like they weren’t bragging. I had tons of practice encouraging these kinds of conversations. It kept people from noticing my shortcomings.
I started with something basic. “What’s your name?”
Silence.
“Are you a real person?” Did those words really come out of my mouth? “I—Sorry. I just meant I didn’t see you when I walked through.” Which probably gave credit to the imaginary-person theory.
I sounded like a dolt, but if I was talking, I wasn’t panicking.
“Real.” There, that sounded like faint annoyance. “Hidden.”
He was real, but he’d been hiding when I’d walked by his cell? That sounded like something a hallucination would say. “You’re awfully quiet.” Which meant he probably wasn’t from Anabel.
He grunted.
At least he agreed.
Well, I’d have to take his word that he was real. I was still thirsty, but I did feel like I’d had a drink of water. And I’d felt his breath on my knuckles when I’d inspected the hole in the wall. Those two things would have to be proof enough.
“What did you do to get here?” Ilydsey might have laughed at this one-sided conversation, but Mother would have died of mortification.
He sighed.
That was probably rude to ask. I was doing such a wonderful job of making a fool of myself.
This was getting uncomfortable, like a pressure building in the hollow of darkness between us. And yet, the questions kept falling out of my mouth. “How long have you been here? When do they feed us? Do we really just sit here for the rest of our lives and wait to die?”
That was a terrible thing to ask, probably, but I needed the distraction. From the panic. From the fear.
My heart thudded. Five times. Ten times. Twenty. I shifted around, trying to ease the tightness in my chest. Nothing helped. And I hated that he wasn’t talking to me. The Book of Love told us to seek friends everywhere we went. It said we should form bonds, and that those bonds would strengthen us in our time of need.
I didn’t want to be this stranger’s friend, exactly, but I did want to learn about my neighbors. I wanted to be a Drakontos mimikus.
“What’s your name?” I asked, one more time.
- Writer
