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“Here’s what we need, and fast,” Julia said. “Bars—skinny ones—on the window, so she can see outside but can’t escape, and a dead bolt for the door. We need to cover every scrap of shiny metal with adhesive tape—the faucet, the toilet handle, the drawer pulls; everything except the doorknob.”
“W
hy?” Peanut asked.
“I think she’s afraid of shiny metal,” Julia answered distractedly. “And we’ll need a video camera set up as surreptitiously as possible. I’ll need to record her condition.”
“I thought you said no pictures,” Ellie said, frowning.
“That was for the tabloids. This is for me. I need to observe her 24/7. We need food, too. And lots of tall houseplants. I want to turn one corner of the room into a forest.”
“Where the Wild Things Are,” Peanut said.
Julia nodded, then went to the bed and sat down beside the girl.
Max followed her. Kneeling beside the bed, he checked the girl’s pulse and breathing. “Normal,” he said, sitting back on his heels.
“If only her mind and her heart were as easy to read as her vital signs,” Julia said.
“You’d be out of a job.”
Julia surprised him by laughing.
They looked at each other.
The bedside lamp flickered on and off, sparking electricity. The girl on the bed made a whining, desperate sound.
“There’s something weird going on here,” Peanut said, stepping back.
“Don’t do that,” Julia said quietly. “She’s just a child who has been through hell.”
Peanut fell silent.
“We should go to town. Get supplies from the lumber store,” Ellie said.
Max nodded. “I have time to put up the bars before my shift.”
“Good. Thanks,” Julia said. When they were gone, she remained at her place by the bed. “You’re safe here, little one. I promise.”
Julia said it over and over again, keeping her voice as gentle as a caress, but through it all, there was one thing she knew for certain.
This girl had no idea what it meant to be safe.
GONE IS THE BAD SMELL AND THE WHITE, HISSING LIGHT THAT STINGS her eyes. Girl opens her eyes slowly, afraid of what she will see. There have been too many changes. It is as if she has fallen in the dark water past her place, that pool in the deep forest that Him said was the start of Out There.
This cave is different. Everything is the color of snow and of the berries she picks in early summer. It is morning outside; the light in the room is sun-colored. She starts to get up but can’t move. Something is holding her down. She panics, kicking and flailing to be free.
But she is not tied.
She moves out of the soft place and crouches on the ground, sniffing the scents of this strange place. Wood. Flowers. There is more, of course, many smells, but she doesn’t know them.
Somewhere, water is dripping; it sounds like the last rain falling from a leaf to the hard summer’s ground. There is a banging, clanging sound, too. The entrance to this cave is like the last one, a thick brown thing. There is something about the shiny ball on it that is the source of its magic; she is afraid to touch it. The Strangers would know then that she was wide-eyed. They would come for her again with their nets and their sharp points. She is safe from them only in the dark time when the sun sleeps.
A breeze floats past her face, ruffles her hair. On it is the scent of her place. She looks around.
There it is. The box that holds the wind. It is not like the other one, the trickster box that kept the outside out, through which you couldn’t touch.
She moves forward, holding her stomach tightly.
