Mud Vein(10)

“Isaac, what happened on the carousel was … personal. I don’t tell people things. You know that.”

“Okay, let’s forget how this … this … person knows. Let’s assume he does. Maybe it’s a clue.”

“A clue?” I say in disbelief. “To what? Our freedom? Like this is a game?”

Isaac nods. I study his face, look for a joke. But, there are no jokes in this house. There are just two stolen people, clutching knives as they sleep.

“And they call me the fiction writer,” I say it to make him angry, because I know he’s right.

I make to stand up, but he grabs my wrist and gently pulls me back down. His eyes travel across the span of my nose and my cheeks. He’s looking at my freckles. He always did that, like they were works of art rather than screwed up pigment. Isaac doesn’t have freckles. He has soft eyes that dip down at the outer corners and two front teeth that overlap slightly. He’s average looking and beautiful at the same time. If you look close enough, you see how intense his features are. Each one speaks to you in a different way. Or maybe I’m just a writer.

“We are not here for ransom,” he insists. “They want something from us.”

“Like what?” I sound like a petulant child. I lift the back of my hand to my lips and bite the skin on my knuckles. “No one wants anything from me—except more stories, maybe.”

Isaac raises his eyebrows. I think of Annie Wilkes and her rooty-patooties. No way.

“They didn’t leave me a typewriter,” I point out. “Or even a pen and paper. This isn’t about my writing.”

He doesn’t look convinced. I’d rather steer him toward the carousel, especially if it mean he’ll stops looking at me like I have the magical key to get out of here.

“The carousel is creepy,” I say. That’s all it takes to get his theory fuel going. I half listen to his surmisings—no, I don’t listen at all. I pretend to listen and count the knots in the wood walls instead. Eventually, I hear my name.

“Tell me how you remember it,” he urges me.

I shake my head. “No. What good will that do?”

I am not in the mood to revisit those instances of my life. They trudge up the other stuff. The stuff that landed me in the plushy couch of a therapist.

“Fine.” He stands up this time. “I’m going to make dinner. If you’re staying up here, lock the trapdoor.”

This time he doesn’t stay to check if I do. He’s all over the place. I hate him.



We eat in silence. He defrosted hamburgers and opened a can of green beans. He’s rationing our food. I can tell. I push the beans around and eat hamburger by using the side of my fork to cut it into pieces. Isaac eats with a knife and a fork, slicing with one, spearing with the other. I asked him about it once, and he said, “There are tools for everything. I am a doctor. I use the right tool for the right purpose.”

He is aggravated with me. I shoot him a look every few bites, but his eyes are on his food. When I am finished, I stand up and take my plate to the sink. I wash and dry it. Put it back in the cabinet. I stand behind him as he finishes up his meal, and watch the back of his head. I can see grey in his hair, it’s mostly at his temples. Just a little bit. The last time I saw him there had been no grey. Maybe in vitro put it there. Or his wife. Or surgery. I was born with mine, so who knows? When he pushes back from the table, I turn around quickly and busy myself with wiping the counter. Three wipes in and the chore seems foolish. I’m cleaning my captor’s house. It feels a little like betrayal: live in filth or clean your prison. I should burn it to the ground. I finish wiping, rinse the rag, fold it neatly and hang it over the faucet. Before I go back upstairs, I grab an armful of wood from the wood closet. We all but collide at the foot of the stairs.

“Let me carry it for you.”

I cling to my wood.

“Don’t you have to stay to guard the door?”

“No one is coming, Senna.” He looks almost sad. He tries to take the wood from me. I yank my arms out of reach.

“You don’t know that,” I retort. He looks at my freckles.

“Hush,” he says, softly. “They would have come by now. It’s been fourteen days.”

I shake my head. “It hasn’t been that long…” I mentally do the calculations. We’ve been here for … fourteen days. He’s right. Fourteen. My God. Where are the search parties? Where are the police? Where are we? But, most importantly, where is the person who brought us here? I yield my wood. Isaac half smiles at me. I follow him up the stairs and climb the ladder to the attic room so he can hand me the logs.

“Night, Senna.”

I look at the bright sun streaming into the window behind me.

“Morning, Isaac.”





We are nowhere.

Isaac is losing it. Most days he paces in front of the kitchen window for hours, his eyes on the snow like it’s speaking to him. It looks like he’s seeing something, but there is nothing to see—only mounds of white in the middle of white, spread out over white, covered in white. We are nowhere and snow doesn’t speak. I hide from him up in my attic bedroom, and sometimes when I’m tired of that I lie on the floor in the carousel room and stare at the horses. He doesn’t come in here, says it creeps him out. I try to hum songs, because that’s what one of my characters would do, but it makes me feel nutty.