Then She Was Gone(56)

In time.

Ellie struggled against the glue. Nothing moved.

‘The effects will wear off soon. Or, well’ – Noelle laughed – ‘at least I hope they do. It said on the internet three to twelve hours. And you’ve been out for twelve. So.’ She laughed again and Ellie thought, It’s 11 p.m. I’ve been away from home since ten o’clock this morning. My mum.

Her eyes had started to lose their heaviness and she could make out parts of the room now. The cool glow of moonlight through a narrow window set high in a wood-clad wall, a toilet and sink in a recess behind a curtain, empty shelves on a wall, a small wardrobe. And there, in front of a closed door, the outline of Noelle Donnelly, legs crossed, hands in her lap.

Ellie tried again to lift her head and this time managed to move it a millimetre or two.

‘Oh, there you go,’ said Noelle. ‘You’re coming through it now. That’s great. I’ll just sit here with you for a while longer and then when you’re sitting up I’ll get you something to eat. You missed your lunch and your dinner and you must be ravenous. What would you like? Maybe just a sandwich? I have some good ham. I’ll do that for you.’

She stood then and picked up a cup from the table by the bed. ‘Here.’ She angled a bendy straw towards Ellie’s mouth. ‘Drink some water. You must be parched.’

Ellie sucked at the straw and felt the tepid water spread across the dry towel of her tongue and the papery roof of her mouth.

‘My mum,’ she croaked, ‘my mum.’

‘Ah, now, don’t you worry about your mum. She probably just thinks you’re off canoodling somewhere with that boy of yours. It’s a lovely evening. Just like last night. Summery, you know, the sort of evening you want to go on for longer.’

‘No,’ Ellie said through a parchment throat, ‘she’ll be scared. My mum.’

And she felt it then, like a needle in her heart, the love her mother always talked about. ‘You won’t understand how much I love you until you’re a mother yourself.’

But she felt it now and all the pain in her heart was for her mother, her mother who she knew would be crying and worrying and feeling the meaning of her life slipping away from her. She couldn’t bear it. She truly couldn’t bear it.

‘Of course she won’t be scared. Don’t be daft. Now, let’s see if we can sit you up. Can you move your fingers now? Your toes? Your arms? Ah, yes, there you go. Good girl. That’s great, that really is.’

And then Noelle Donnelly’s arms were around her waist and she was being pulled gently up the bed and she could see more now, she could see that she was in a room lower than ground level, walls clad with dirty gold pine.

‘Where am I?’

‘In the basement. Which makes it sound worse than it is. It’s my guest room, really. Not that I ever have any guests. But I used to keep all my overspill in here, you know, bric-a-brac, but knowing you were coming I had a good clear-out. Took it all to the Red Cross shop. So now we’re very minimal. There now.’ She adjusted the pillow behind Ellie’s head. ‘All comfy. I’ll go and get you that sandwich. You just rest a bit. But don’t try and get up. You might fall out of the bed and hurt yourself, being a bit woozy as you are.’

She smiled at her indulgently, like a kindly nurse. ‘Good girl,’ she said, running her hand down Ellie’s hair. ‘Good girl.’

Then she turned and left the room.

Ellie heard one lock click into place. And then she heard another. And then one more.

Ellie didn’t eat her sandwich. Despite the pain of an empty stomach, she wasn’t at all hungry. Noelle silently removed it and said, ‘Ah, well, I’m sure you’ll be hungry in the morning. We’ll try again then, eh?’

Then she looked fondly at Ellie and said, ‘Oh, it is a treat to have you here, it really is. Now you sleep tight and I’ll see you bright and early.’

‘I want to go home!’ Ellie yelled out at Noelle’s back. ‘I really really want to go home!’

Noelle didn’t reply. The three locks clicked into place. The room turned black.





Thirty-seven


Then


The sun came up early. Ellie took the chair that Noelle had sat on the night before and pulled it across to the window. She climbed on to it and peered through the grimy glass. She saw a tangle of undergrowth, a brick wall painted cream, a water pipe streaked green. If she peered upwards she saw the pink clouds of the cherry blossom tree, the blue sky, nothing more. She realised immediately that the only way anyone would see her in here would be if they were looking for her and she wrote the words ‘help’ and ‘Ellie’ into the dirt. She stood on the chair for more than an hour, her face pressed up against the glass. Because people must be looking for her. They must be.

She jumped down from the chair at the sound of the locks being turned on the door and she picked it up with both hands. At the sight of Noelle in a green polo neck and faded jeans a surge of horror and anger coursed through her and she grabbed the chair hard and swung it at Noelle. It glanced off the side of Noelle’s head, but she caught it before Ellie was able to properly hurt her with it, caught it and threw it across the room. Ellie jumped on her then, jumped on her back, her arms around Noelle’s throat as she tried to bash her head against the wooden wall. But Noelle proved herself to be stronger than she looked and manhandled Ellie backwards and against the wall where she strangled the breath out of Ellie, strangled her to the point of light-headedness and stars and then let her fall to the floor.