The Last House on Needless Street(70)

Oh Lord. I wriggle but I can’t move. I think we’re restrained, tied up maybe. All around, there is sound. Leaves, owls, frogs. Other things I don’t know the name of. It all has a clarity I have never heard before. The air is different too. I can feel that, even through the bag. It’s cooler, sharper somehow – and it’s moving.

Lauren sobs, and I feel it burst up through my unfamiliar chest, my cavernous ribcage. I feel the tears coming from my tiny weak eyes. It’s just as horrible as I thought it would be.

I made it, I tell her silently. I’m in the body.

‘Thank you, Olivia.’ She squeezes me tightly, and I squeeze back.

Lauren, why is the air moving, like it’s alive?

‘It’s wind,’ she whispers. ‘That’s wind, Olivia. We’re outside.’

Oh my goodness. Oh gosh. For a moment I am too overwhelmed to think. Then I ask, Where are we?

‘We’re in the woods,’ she says. ‘Can’t you smell it?’

As she says it, the scent hits me too. It is incredible. Like minerals and beetles and fresh water and hot earth and trees – God, the scent of the trees. Up close, it’s like a symphony. I could never have dreamed it.

‘He has the knife,’ Lauren says. ‘Can you believe it? He buried it.’

Maybe he’s just taking us for a walk, I say, hopefully. Maybe he’s got the knife because he’s scared of bears.

‘Kittens don’t come back from the woods,’ she says.

We are quiet after that. More than anything I want to go back inside. But I can’t leave Lauren alone. I have to be brave.

He walks for an hour on rough ground. He climbs steep rock faces and wades across streams, goes through valleys and over hills. Very quickly we are in the wild.

He stops in a place that smells of stone where trees speak to one another in the night, over the sound of running water. From what I can see through the tiny opening at the neck of the sack, we’re in a shallow gulley with a waterfall at the end. Ted makes camp with a lot of rustling and groaning. Light flickers through the dark fabric that contains us. Fire. Overhead, I can hear the wind stroke the leaves.

I can’t see much but I can feel the vastness of the air. Wind crashing into clouds. I wish I’d never known the truth, I say to Lauren. The outside is terrifying. There are no walls. It goes on and on. How far does it go, the world?

She says, ‘It’s round, so I guess it goes on until it comes back to you again.’

That’s terrible, I say. I think that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Oh LORD, preserve me …

‘Focus, Olivia,’ she says.

Is he going to let us out of this bag? I ask. To pee or whatever?

‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t think he will.’ I can hear her mind running furiously. ‘It’s a change of plan,’ she whispers. ‘That’s all it is. We pivot. We adjust. He has the knife. I felt it against his hip. So you get it from him, is all, and kill him. Same plan. Better, actually, because we’re in the middle of nowhere and no one will come to help. We can make his plan work for us, see?’ I wonder if she’s been at Ted’s bourbon because she sounds exactly like he does when he’s drunk. Fear can make you slur your words as badly as drink does, I guess.

I think of the body, our weak, thin body, against Ted’s bulk, his might. The wind strokes my fur with cold fingers. I breathe it in. It is both ancient and young at once. I wonder if it is the last thing I will feel.

Wind is lovely, I say. I’m glad I got to feel it. I wish I had got to taste real fish, though.

‘I wish you had too,’ she says.

I can’t do it, Lauren. I thought I could but I can’t.

‘It’s not only for us, Olivia,’ Lauren says. ‘It’s for him. Do you think he wants to be like this? Do you think he’s happy, being a monster? He’s a prisoner too. You have to help him, cat. Help him one last time.’

Oh, I say, oh dear …

‘OK then,’ Lauren says, soft and resigned. ‘Maybe it won’t be so bad.’

I think about the round world, which if you travel far enough, only brings you back to the same place.

Be a brave cat, I whisper to myself. This is why the LORD put you here. I take a deep breath. I’ll do it. I’ll get the knife, and then I’ll kill him.

‘Clever cat,’ she says. Her breath comes fast. ‘You have to be quick. You only get one chance.’

I know.

Beneath, in the dark, Nighttime growls. I feel his great flanks writhing as he strains against his bonds.

What is your problem? I ask, terse. I’m busy. I don’t have time for you right now.

His answer is a roar that rings in my ears, sends shocks down my spine. It is my time, it is my time, it is my time, he roars. But I have him pinned down tight; he won’t get free.

Ted is restless. He keeps us close, tied up against his back. The fire glows hot, sending red needlepoints of light through the sack. I feel the rumble of his voice as he speaks softly to himself.

‘Mommy, are you still here?’

As dawn is about to break he drifts into an uneasy doze. I feel the deep give and take of his breath. He is at peace. Above, the sky holds its breath.

Can you see anything? I ask.

‘It’s in his left hand,’ she murmurs. I reach out with ours. It is revolting, using the hand – like wearing a glove of rotten meat. I take the knife from his loose palm. It is lighter than I expected.