Mud Vein(44)

When he stopped kissing me I felt the loss. His lips, for a brief moment, touched my darkness, and there was a glimpse of light. His hands were still in my hair, touching my scalp, and we were only a nose apart as we looked at each other.

“I’m not ready for this,” I said softly.

“I know.”

He shifted positions until he had me wrapped up in his arms. A hug. This was far more intimate than anything I’d done with a man in years. My face was underneath his chin, pressed to his collarbone.

“Goodnight, Senna.”

“Goodnight, Isaac.”

He let me go, took a step back, and left. His impressions were so short and so acute. I listened to the hum of his car as it left my driveway. There was a small kick of gravel as he pulled onto the street. When he was gone everything was still and quiet as it always was. Everything but me.





Part Three





Anger and Bargaining





Out of the walls, music begins to play. We stand frozen, looking at each other, the whites of our eyes expanding with each beat. There is an invisible chord between us; there has been since Isaac saw my pain and accepted it as his own. I can feel it tugging as the music accelerates and Isaac and I stand immobilized by shock. I want to step into the circle of his arms and hide my face in his neck. I am frightened. I can feel the fear in the hollows of my mind. It’s pounding like a doomsday drum.

Dum



Da-Dum



Dum



Da-Dum



Florence Welch is singing Landscape through our prison walls.

“Get warm clothes,” he says, without taking his eyes from mine. “Layer everything you have. We are getting out of here.”

I run.

There are no coats in the closet. No gloves, no thermal underwear—nothing warm enough to venture into negative ten-degree weather. Why didn’t I notice this before? I push through the hangers in the closet, frantic. The music plays around me; it plays in every room. It’s making me move faster. Those songs Isaac gave me, who knew about them? They were private … sacred to me; as unspoken as my thoughts. There are plenty of long-sleeved shirts, but most of them are thin cotton or light wool. I pull each one over my head until I have so many layers I am too stiff to move my arms. I already know it won’t be enough. To get anywhere in this weather I’d need thermals, a heavy coat, boots. I pull on the only pair of shoes that looks warm: a pair of fur-lined ankle boots—more fashionable than practical. Isaac is waiting for me downstairs. He is holding the door open like he’s afraid to let it go. I see that he doesn’t have a jacket, either. He’s wearing a pair of black gum boots on his feet. Something for rain or yard work. Our eyes lock as I walk past him, through the door and into the snow. I sink into it. Right up to my knees. Knee-high snow, that can’t be good. Isaac follows me. He leaves the door open and we make it twenty feet before we stop.

“Isaac?” I grab onto his arm. His breath puffs out of his mouth. I can see him shivering. I am shivering. God. We haven’t even been outside for five minutes.

“There’s nothing, Isaac. Where are we?”

I spin in a circle, my knees brushing a pathway through the snow. There is only white. In every direction. Even the trees seem to be far off. When I squint I can see the glint of something in the distance, just before the tree line.

“What is that?” I ask, pointing. Isaac looks with me. At first it just looks like a piece of something, then my eyes follow it. I follow it until I spin and come back, full circle. I make a sound. It starts in my throat, a noise you’d make when surprised, and then it changes into something mournful.

“It’s just a fence,” Isaac says.

“We can climb it,” I add. “It doesn’t look that high. Twelve feet maybe…”

“It’s electric,” Isaac says.

I spin to look at him. “How do you know?”

“Listen.”

I swallow and listen. A hum. Oh God. We couldn’t hear that from behind the three inch plated windows. We are caged in like animals. There has to be a way around. An electrical wire we can cut… something. I look at the snow. It covers the trees beyond the fence and falls in a graceful white skirt down a steep ravine that drops off to the left of the house. There are no roads, no houses and no breaks in the cover of white. It never ends. Isaac starts walking back toward the house.

“Where are you going?”

He ignores me, his head down. The effort it takes to walk through the snow makes it look like he’s climbing stairs. I watch as he circles around the back of the house, not knowing what to do. I linger for a few more minutes before following him, grateful for the path his struggle has cut for me. I find him facing what looks like a shed. Since there are no windows facing this way, it’s the first time I am seeing what’s back there.

There is a smaller structure to the right of it. The generator, I realize. When I look at Isaac’s face I see that it’s neither the shed nor the generator he’s looking at. I follow his eyes past the structures and feel my breath seize. I stop shivering, I stop everything. I reach for his hand and we plow together through the snow, our breath returns, laboring from the effort. We stop when we reach the edge of the cliff. Laid out in front of us is a view so sharp and dangerously beautiful I am afraid to blink. The house backs right up to a cliff. One that our captor—our zookeeper—didn’t give us windows to see. It seems like he’s trying to tell us something. Something I don’t want to hear. You are trapped, maybe. Or, You’re not seeing everything. I’m in control.