All These Things I've Done (Birthright #1)(36)

‘Medieval?’ She laughed. ‘You’re a strange one, aren’t you?’

I said nothing.

A woman with a camera walked by and asked, ‘Photograph for our donor newsletter, Mrs Cobrawick?’

‘Oh, my! Well, I suppose one can never escape the demands of the public.’ Mrs Cobrawick put her arm around me. The flash went off. I hoped I looked halfway decent, though I doubted it. I knew how these things worked. The picture would be sold, and I suspected it would only be a matter of days, if not hours, before this image ended up on the news right alongside my school photo.

‘How much do you think you’ll get for it?’ I asked.

Mrs Cobrawick fidgeted with her string of pearls. ‘Get for what?’

I knew I should probably stop, but I continued. ‘The picture,’ I said. ‘Of me.’

Mrs Cobrawick looked at me with slit eyes. ‘You’re a very cynical young lady, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I probably am.’

‘Cynical and disrespectful. Perhaps those are things we can begin to work on while you’re here. Guard!’

A male guard appeared. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘This is Miss Balanchine,’ Mrs Cobrawick said. ‘She has led a very privileged lifestyle and I think she could benefit from spending some time in the Cellar.’

Mrs Cobrawick walked away, leaving the guard to deal with me. ‘You must have really pissed her off,’ he said once she was out of earshot.

I was led down several flights of stairs into the basement of the building. It smelt putrid, a winning combination of excrement and mould. Though I could not see anyone, I heard moans and scratching, punctuated by an occasional scream. The guard left me in a tiny, dirt-covered room with no light and little air. There wasn’t even space to stand. You could only sit up or lie down, like in a dog kennel.

‘How long will I be in here?’ I asked.

‘Varies,’ said the guard as he closed the door and locked me in. ‘Usually until Mrs Cobrawick thinks you learned your lesson. I hate this job. Try not to lose your mind, girl.’

Those were the last words spoken to me for a very long time.

The guard had given me good advice, which turned out to be nearly impossible to follow.

In the absence of visual information, your mind invents all manner of intrigue. I felt rats running across my legs and cockroaches on my forearms and I thought I smelt blood and I lost feeling in my legs and my back hurt and I was just plain scared.

How had I even ended up here?

I had nightmares too awful to describe. Natty getting shot in the head in Central Park. Leo slamming his head over and over again on the steps at Little Egypt. And me, always behind bars, unable to act.

Once, I woke up because I heard someone screaming. It only took me a minute or so to figure out that it was me.

Although I doubt this had been Mrs Cobrawick’s point, I did learn something about insanity while I was down there. People go crazy not because they are crazy, but because it’s the best available option at the time. In a way, it would have been easier to lose my mind, because then I wouldn’t have had to be there any more.

I lost track of time.

I prayed.

I lost track of time.

Everything smelt like urine.

I suppose it was mine, but I tried not to think about that.

The only human contact I had was when a stale dinner roll and a metal cup with water would be slipped through the panel in the door. I didn’t know at what intervals the rolls were coming.

Four rolls passed.

Then five.

On the sixth roll, a different guard opened the door. ‘You’re free to go,’ she said.

I didn’t move, unsure if the guard was a hallucination.

She shined a flashlight at my face and the light hurt my eyes. ‘I said, you’re free to go.’

I tried to push my way out, but I found that I couldn’t move my legs. The guard pulled me out by my arms, and my legs woke up a little.

‘Just need to sit down,’ I croaked. My voice didn’t sound like me. My throat was so dry it was hard to speak.

‘Come on, honey,’ the guard said. ‘You’ll be OK. I’m taking you to clean yourself up and then you can leave.’

‘Leave?’ I asked. I had to lean on her. ‘You mean, I can leave the Cellar?’

‘No, I mean leave Liberty. You’ve been exonerated.’

I X. i discover an influential friend & then, a foe

MY CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE for how long I’d been in the Cellar would have been a week though I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear it had been a month or even longer.

In reality, it had only been seventy-two hours.

Turned out that a lot had been happening in that time.

The climb up from the basement was far more exhausting than the climb down had been. It seemed strange that being confined to sitting and lying positions could be so physically debilitating, and I felt a newfound empathy for Nana.

The guard, who told me her name was Quistina, led me to a private shower. ‘You need to clean yourself up now,’ she said. ‘There are people waiting to speak to you.’

I nodded. I still felt so unlike myself that I couldn’t even be bothered to ask who was waiting for me or how all this had come about.

‘Is there a time limit on the shower?’ I asked.