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"Yes, Queen Six," Violet said in a voice choked with tears.
As Six started to march away, dragging Violet along, she slammed the bedroom door closed behind her.
In the sudden silence, Rachel held her breath, wondering if they would remember her and return. She waited, but then finally had to let the breath out. Violet had replaced the lock, so she probably wouldn't give Rachel a second thought. Violet had a lot bigger problems, now, than worrying about letting Rachel out.
Rachel feared that she was going to die in the cursed box. Would anyone ever let her out? Would Six return and put Rachel to death? After all, Rachel had only been kept around for Violet's amusement. There was no longer any reason for Six to keep up the pretense.
Six was in charge, now.
Rachel knew most of the people who worked in the castle. She knew that none of them would dare to say a word when Six told them that she was now the queen. Everyone was afraid of Violet, because she had people punished and put to death, but everyone was more afraid of Six because she was the one who enforced Violet's whims. Besides, when Six said things to people, they just seemed to lose their ability to do anything but what she'd told them to do. Those who crossed Six seemed to vanish. It occurred to Rachel that the hogs looked well fed.
Rachel thought again about how when Six was slapping Violet, Violet didn't even make an attempt to protect herself with her hands. Rachel knew that Six was a witch woman. Witch women had a way of making people forget how to fight against what was happening. They just did as she said, no matter how much they didn't want to. Like the two guards. They saw the queen on the floor with a bloody nose, calling for help, but they quickly chose to do as Six told them, not Violet.
* * *
CHAPTER 51
Rachel sat in her iron box for a while, thinking, worrying, wondering what would become of her.
And then she had a thought.
Carefully, quietly, even though there was no one in the room and the door was closed, she pressed herself tight up against the door. She put one eye right up to the slit. First, she looked around, fearful that the witch woman might somehow be watching her. The witch woman sometimes came to her in the night… in her dreams. If Six had materialized in the center of the room, Rachel wouldn't have been at all shocked. There were plenty of whispers among the staff of the strange things that had been happening at the castle since the woman had arrived.
But the room was empty. There was no one there, no tall figure in black robes.
Confident that she was alone, Rachel peered over at the lock. She had to stare awhile, because she wasn't sure that what she was seeing was real.
The lock, hanging in the hasp, wasn't locked.
Rachel remembered Violet pushing at it as Six knocked on the door, but in her haste she must not have gotten it locked. If Rachel could get the lock out of the hasp, she could open the door. She could get out.
Six had taken Violet to the cave. Violet and Six were gone.
Rachel tried to reach through the slit to pull the lock off, but it was too far. She needed a stick, or something to reach it. She cast about inside her sleeping box, but there was nothing. There was no stick just lying around. There were plenty of things outside the box that she could have used, but they were outside the box.
As long as that lock was hooked through the loop of steel sticking out through the slot in the hasp, there was no way Rachel could push open the door. The lock might as well have been locked.
She flopped back down on her blanket, dejected, her hope gone. She missed Chase. For a time her life had been a dream. She had a family, a wonderful father who watched over her and taught her so many things. Rachel idly pulled on the loose end of the coarse thread that had been used to sew the edging on the blanket. Chase would be disappointed to see her giving up so easily, to see her moping, but what was she to do? There was nothing she had in her box that she could use to get the lock off. She had on a dress, and boots. Her boots wouldn't fit through the slit. The only other thing she had was her sleeping blanket. Violet had taken everything away from her. She had nothing.
As she pulled, more of the heavy thread unraveled. As Rachel looked down at the thread looped around the end of her finger, inspiration struck.
She started pulling at the thread, pulling out the stitches, pulling more of it free. She soon had the entire end of the blanket undone and she had a long length of thread. She doubled it over and rolled it between her palm and leg, twisting it into a heavier thread. It was long enough to make several layers, all rolled together into a sturdy string. She made a loop in the end and then went to the slit.
Carefully, she cast out the string, trying to get the loop over the lock so that she could hook it and pull it up, out of the hasp. It sounded a lot easier than it was. The string wasn't heavy enough to throw with any accuracy. Rachel tried several different ways of doing it, but it always fell short or, if it did get over the top loop of the lock, it just slid off over the side. It just didn't want to go down over the far side to hook the lock's shank. The string was too light to throw well, but at the same time it was too stiff to drape over the lock those times when it did land where she wanted it.
Yet again, she managed to get the end of the string to land over the lock. The end, though, dangled out at an angle rather than lying down where she could slip it over the open shank of the lock.
She brought the string back in and wet it with spit, then tried again. The wet string was a little heavier. She was able to throw it with a little more accuracy. Her hand was getting sore and tired from trying because she had to twist it sideways to cast the string. It seemed she had been at it all morning. The string kept getting dry.
Rachel brought the string back in and wet it in her mouth, getting it good and soaked. She went to the slit and cast it. The first time it landed over the lock. The loop of the string was just below the end of the lock's shank.
Rachel froze. This was as close as she'd ever gotten it. It was difficult to have her hand out of the slit and then to be able to see through the little space that was left over. She could see, though, that if she pulled, the string would be pulled up and not hook over the shank where she needed it to hook.
The string, as wet as it was, was adhering to the long bar that latched when it was locked. Rachel had an idea. She carefully began to roll the string between her finger and thumb. With the string stuck with her spit to the metal, it rolled, sticking, until the end flopped over. Rachel blinked as she stared. It looked like the loop was right where she needed it to be. She was afraid to move, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to lose her chance, afraid to make the wrong move because she hadn't thought it through well enough.
Chase had always told her that she had to use her head—her judgment, he called it—and then act on that judgment.
By every measure she could judge, the loop was in the right place. If she pulled, and the string stayed stuck with her spit to the shank of the lock, the loop would hook over the end of the bar. Her heart pounded in her chest. She realized that she was panting.
Holding her breath, Rachel began ever so carefully to pull the string. The flat end of the metal caught the loop. If she pulled too hard, it might just pop off.
She lowered her fingers to change the angle of the pull, to help it pull the loop over the end, rather than slip off.
The loop stretched tight and then slipped over the end of the lock's shank. She could hardly believe it. Carefully, steadily, she pulled the string upward, sliding the lock up out of the hasp. When it was almost out of the loop of metal, the notched end of the bar on the lock caught the hasp. She tried pulling just a little harder, but with the way it was caught it only made the lock twist at an angle, rather than lift. Rachel feared to pull too hard. She was afraid that the string would break.
She had doubled the thread over several times, making the string several layers thick. She figured that it was probably pretty strong. The question she couldn't answer was how strong it was, and if it was st
rong enough if she pulled harder. She released some of the tension and let the lock lower, then jerked it a little, twitching it rapidly up and down, trying to jiggle the shaft of the metal bar up through the hoop.
Suddenly, the lock jumped up out of the hasp and fell. It dangled from the string, swinging back and forth beneath Rachel's hand sticking out of the slit.
She pushed, and the door squeaked open. With the backs of her hands, Rachel wiped the tears of relief from her cheeks. She had gotten herself free. If only Chase could have seen what she had accomplished.
Now she had to escape the castle before Violet or Six returned. Rachel didn't know if Violet was aware that she hadn't latched the lock. If she knew she hadn't locked it, and she mentioned it to Six, they would be back.
Rachel immediately headed for the big door, but then she remembered something important. She turned and ran to the desk in the corner. She pulled the angled lid down into the position Violet used when she wrote notes on who was to be punished or put to death. Rachel grabbed the gold knob on the bottom, center drawer and pulled the drawer out. She set it aside, then reached her hand way into the back and felt around. Her fingers touched something metal.
She brought it out. It was the key. Violet hadn't taken it out yet. It was still there, where she kept it for the night.
Relieved, Rachel slipped the key down into her boot and then replaced the door and shut the lid of the desk.
Remembering her sleeping box, she closed the door and put the lock through the hasp. She pushed the lock, making sure it latched closed. She tugged just to make sure that it was secure—something Violet had failed to do. If anyone came in the room they might suspect that Rachel was still safely locked in her box. If she was lucky, Six or Violet wouldn't even look and by then Rachel would be long gone.
