Long Live the Queen

by Ellen Emerson White

  No water.

  No god-damn water. The inside of her mouth tasted terrible—blood and dirt, mostly—and she swallowed yet again, the muscles in her throat noisy in protest. Damn it, she had to think. Maybe she could dig for water. Maybe—she fumbled around until she found a fairly sharp rock, and began using it to scratch a hole in the dirt, her fingers cramping with the effort. She would dig as long as she could stay awake—which wasn’t going to be long—and then, when she woke up, maybe water would have seeped into the bottom of the hole, and she could drink it.

  Yeah, chalk up another one for Nature Girl.

  The ground was hard and rocky, but she was so relieved to be doing something that she kept digging. One inch. Another. The dirt felt very cold. Damp? Maybe. But, definitely cold.

  Energy ebbing, she dug another half inch, then was too exhausted to continue and let the rock drop out of her hand. She tried leaning her head against the wall, but it was too uncomfortable, so she curled up in the dirt, trying to find the least painful position, using her right arm as a pillow.

  Too tired and afraid to think, she closed her eyes.

  “MEG, ARE YOU all right?” she heard someone saying.

  A nice voice. She was safe! The whole thing had been a—she smiled, opening her eyes—except, she couldn’t see anything. Oh, God, she was blind. She raised her hand in front of her face, trying to see it. She was blind! She couldn’t—

  “Where are you?” she asked, her voice barely working. “I can’t see you!” She didn’t hear anything. She didn’t see anything. “Talk to me! Where are you?”

  As she tried to sit up, she heard the chain clank—and both the relief, and fear, went away, as she realized where she was. That there was no one there. Unless he was in here, unless he was trying to—

  “Where are you?” she asked, trying to look in every single direction at once. “Are you in here? Are you trying to scare me?”

  Trying? Yeah, right. Succeeding, and then some. Except, she didn’t hear anyone. She didn’t hear anything at all. The wind again, maybe.

  She rubbed her hand across her face, feeling dirt, and a thick crust below her nose and lips that could only be dried blood. Her nose was stuffed up—also with blood?—and she was having to breathe through her mouth, which was even drier than it had been before. She licked her lips, feeling more than one crack. Oh, boy. This was getting more and more serious with every—the hole! She felt for the hole in the darkness—so black that she couldn’t see her hand moving—but, finally found it.

  An empty hole. A dry hole.

  Serious, serious trouble. And her mind just felt numb. Blank. Stupid. She eased herself back against the wall, gripping her ribs with her free arm, and focusing in the direction of the boards. The only thing she could think of to do was wait for morning.

  DAYLIGHT ONLY MADE things seem worse. More hopeless. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t just sit here and wait for something to happen. She had to do something. To think of a way out of this place.

  The only possible solution was to break the chain, somehow. How, being the operative word. She didn’t have much energy, so she had to choose. She could chip away at the stake, and the rock wall, trying to loosen it, or she could choose a weakest link, hammering on it until the chain broke. She pulled on the stake, then pulled on the chain. The chain. It wasn’t as thick. She felt for a rock, then pounded at the place where the chain and stake met. Double her odds, that way.

  Hammer, hammer, hammer, rest. Hammer some more. And some more. As many times as not, she would miss, scraping her knuckles against the rock wall. When her left hand hurt too much to continue, she switched to her right, hammering and hammering, not sure if ten minutes—or ten hours—were passing.

  Her sweatshirt was damp, and her arms were so heavy that it felt as if her strength was draining out, along with the perspiration. But, she kept hitting the chain, trying not to perspire, to lose liquid. Each time she lifted her arm, she wasn’t sure if she could do it again, but she kept going, on the theory that it was keeping her sane. Oh, yeah, terribly. Although there was nothing in there to vomit, her stomach was upset and she wished she could swallow more easily. More often.

  Hammer. Hammer. Hammer again. What time was it? What day was it? It had been dark—twice? More times? She’d slept so much that it was hard to tell.

  Her hair seemed like a great weight, and she pushed it off her neck and shoulders. It felt disgusting—dirty and sticky, hanging in damp clumps. Talk about gross.

  “I’m going to get out of here,” she said, needing to hear a voice. Even a voice that pathetic and hoarse. “I swear to God I’m going to get out.” Which seemed kind of melodramatic. “I’ll never go hungry again,” she said, being Scarlett O’Hara. She laughed weakly. Might as well make jokes. Nothing else to do.

  Her hands were numb from hitting the wall by accident so many times, and she dropped the rock, giving up for a while. She should probably sleep. If she was going to have to die, she’d prefer to have it happen as soon as possible. Survival was too god-damn tiring.

  Maybe she was cracking up. Then again, the last few days had been pretty rough—she was entitled.

  “Miss Powers, I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re going to have to be put to sleep.”

  Sleep. Good idea. She fell forward into the dirt, with barely enough energy to turn her face out of it. She wanted to cry, but couldn’t get any tears out. Jesus, she must be really dehydrated. If she was longing for death, maybe she was getting her wish.

  She should sit up. Go out fighting. Try and make herself keep going, no matter how awful she felt.

  “‘You’ve got to have heart,’” she sang, and laughed. Could she possibly be getting a little—punchy? Just maybe?

  With more effort than it was probably worth, she managed to sit up, but then couldn’t figure out what to do next. She puzzled over that for a minute, then decided to finish the song. It couldn’t hurt. Other than her throat. Which already hurt, so what the hell.

  Singing the song cheered her up, so she went into “I Whistle a Happy Tune” from The King and I. “Tomorrow,” from Annie, was probably a little obvious—but, hey. She sang it with enthusiasm. With gusto, even.

  Andrea McArdle’s reputation was safe.

  Before going on, she suddenly imagined some poor hiker going by, hearing a squeaky little croaking of “Tomorrow”—and being absolutely terrified by the sound. Then, she thought of Bill Murray in Ghostbusters saying, “What a lovely singing voice you must have,” and laughed again.

  Not that she had ever been able to sing. She was always threatening to sing for people, but she never did. Except for Vanessa, who would yawn—if, in fact, she woke up, in the first place.

  In junior high, she had once cut through what she thought was a vacant lot near the school, singing “I Have Confidence” at the top of her lungs, when she came upon a group of the very coolest kids in her grade, all of whom were standing around, ineptly smoking cigarettes. They looked at her; she looked at them. She considered her options—die from mortification, or shrug self-deprecatingly and continue on her way, and with her song. To maintain her last vestige of cool, she chose the latter, escaping with the tatters of her dignity. “If you’d been singing ‘The Seven Deadly Virtues,’ you might have pulled it off,” Beth had said later, after laughing for about twenty minutes. “Mmm,” Meg had said, less amused.

  But, she would sing it now. What the hell. In fact, since The Sound of Music was her favorite movie in life, she sang several songs from it. Did her imitation of the Mother Superior singing “Climb Every Mountain,” even. The trick, was the quaver.

  Gosh, time flew when you were having fun. She looked at the boards, seeing very little light left. Another day over. Christ, was this ever going to end?

  “Yes, sports fans,” she said through her teeth, speaking to an imaginary audience. “It’s … Your Musical Journey to Hell. And coming up next, we have—” what?—“that old, that unforgettable favorite, ‘Tea fo
r Two.’” She sang it very sweetly, remembering being on vacation when she was about eleven—her family, on vacation? Unbelievable—and seeing No, No, Nanette in summer stock up in Vermont somewhere. Her father had sung “Call of the Sea” for about the next year. When Meg suggested to her mother that this was very embarrassing, her mother reminded her of the year he’d spent singing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” “Next year, we’ll find a production of My Fair Lady somewhere,” she said, “I promise. We could live with that, right?”

  The next year, naturally, had been an election year. Translation: no vacations.

  Okay, okay, there wasn’t much point in getting angry. None of this was her mother’s fault. It was just—bad luck. If she’d had any idea that this could happen, she never would have—why did she think Meg and her brothers had Secret Service protection, for Christ’s sakes? Decoration? If she really cared about them, she—no. Damn it. That wasn’t going to help.

  It’d be interesting to know if the country thought she was a selfish, bad parent, or if they thought it was such a terrible thing that they felt sorry for her.

  Tough call.

  Angrier every second, she picked up the rock she’d been using, taking advantage of the energy to hammer at the chain. And hammer and hammer and hammer. It was almost completely dark now, and she missed practically every time, hammering until her hands were so numb and bruised that she had to stop, loosening her fingers from around the rock with some difficulty.

  Her face felt wet and she touched her forehead. More perspiration. Terrific. How much time was that going to cut off her life? Minutes? Hours? She felt new, furious energy and yanked at the chain, using all of her weight, bracing her good leg against the wall. If her stupid hand were smaller, she could pull it through the cuff and—but, it wasn’t. She fought the chain until her muscles wouldn’t work anymore, making no progress, then slumped into the dirt to try and catch her breath, her ribs damn near on fire from the effort.

  All she had accomplished was more perspiration. Swell.

  She lay in the dark for a long time, too exhausted to think about being angry, or scared—or anything.

  Except that death was sounding better and better.

  12

  SHE FELT COLD—or hot—it was hard to tell. Cold, mostly. She curled up in the dirt, arms wrapped around her body, hugging the thin sweatshirt closer.

  Water. What she wouldn’t give for a glass of ice-cold water. She licked her lips, her tongue feeling almost as dry. Coke, lemonade, iced tea, milk, orange juice—liquid. A Slushie. Oh, Lord, her kingdom for a Slushie. The water left over from a can of green beans, prune juice, anything.

  It was dark, and scary, and she tightened her arms around herself, the chain heavy across her body. Christ, if she could just sleep, and not have to lie here and—footsteps. Hundreds of footsteps. She sat up in instant terror—pain suspended—shrinking back against the rock wall. An army of them, coming to get her. To hurt her.

  It took almost a minute for her to realize that the sound was only rain.

  Rain. She was dying of thirst, and water was only about fifteen feet away. Jesus Christ. She stared at the boarded-up entrance, hearing blessed, noisy rain. Christ, how was she going to get to it?

  She had to think, god-damn it. She crawled as far as the chain would allow, dragging her bad leg, but was still a good ten or twelve feet short. Damn it, damn it, damn it. She tried to think, tears of frustration starting. Ten feet would save her life. Damn it to hell.

  The hole. Maybe water would soak into the ground, end up in the hole she’d dug, and—she felt for it in the darkness, scraping her hands on small jagged rocks in the process. Finally, she found it—as cold and dry as it had been before. She dug some more, using both hands until she was too tired to keep on, but the hole stayed dry.

  She leaned against the wall, still crying, listening to the rain. Would water condense on the rock, maybe? Moisture she could lick off? Eagerly, she felt the wall. Cold, dirty rock. Dry rock. But, it would take a while, right? Okay, so she’d wait.

  Like she really had any other options.

  She slumped there, using her arm as a headrest, trying to think. Ten feet. Ten god-damn feet. If she had a rope, she could tie some cloth to the end, throw it out there, let it get soaked, and—wait, could she make a rope? Maybe, if she—what, and throw it through those damned boards? She’d spent enough time staring at them to know that there were only a few chinks where light came in. And she was going to throw her wad of cloth—in the pitch dark—through one of them? Yeah, right.

  Not that trying would kill her. She felt for a rock and tossed it at the boards, hearing it bounce back towards her. Only, what if she used a bigger rock? Maybe, if she threw hard enough, she could knock a couple of the boards off.

  She threw rock after rock, trying to tell by the sound of each what had happened. Nothing, apparently. And the bigger ones she found didn’t even seem to go as far as the boards. Terrifying to be so frail that she couldn’t even throw a rock ten feet.

  After a while, she gave up, slouching down to think. Maybe she should go ahead with the rope-making plan. Then, once it was light out, she would be able to see the best place to throw it, and—what if it stopped raining? What if—making a rope would give her something to do, at least.

  The drawstring in her sweatpants was the logical place to start, but they were way too big, and would fall down if—not that she was going anywhere.

  Apples. When she was little, Trudy had taught her how to peel an apple, starting at the top and slowly working her way down. Trudy had always taken a great deal of pride in completing the job with one long, impressive strip, instead of lots of smaller pieces. Meg hadn’t been very good at it, but if she could rip her sweatshirt sleeves off, and then carefully tear them in a slow, circular pattern, she might end up with a decent rope, after all.

  “Oh, good plan,” she said aloud, rather pleased by her ingenuity. Less pleased by the sad little rasp of a voice.

  She felt for a sharp rock, trying to use it as an awl or something, to separate her left sleeve from the sweatshirt at her shoulder. The whole operation would have been a lot easier if she took the sweatshirt off, but—what if someone came, and—what if he showed up, and saw her, and—besides, it was cold. And the chain would prevent her from getting it off completely, anyway. And—Jesus, her life must have really gotten out of control if she could be chained up inside some godforsaken mine shaft in the middle of nowhere, and still not feel alone. Safely alone.

  It was a pretty cheap sweatshirt, and she was able to rip the sleeve off without much trouble. Starting at the ragged end, she tore it once around, careful to keep the strip at least an inch or two wide, working very slowly and patiently. After all, she had all night. In fact, if one chose to look at it that way, she had the rest of her life. She chose not to.

  The rain seemed to be stopping, but doggedly, she kept ripping. Nothing better to do. She ended up with a piece of cloth about five feet long, the cuff dangling at one end. Hanging on to the other end, she threw the cuff towards the boards, hearing it land about halfway over. Not bad. If she weren’t nailed in, the damned idea would actually have worked. Although the rain sounded more like a sporadic drizzle at this point.

  “Damn,” she said aloud.

  With much less enthusiasm this time, she started ripping at her right sleeve.

  IT WAS LIGHT again. Big fucking deal. A nice, bright sunny day. At least, as far as she could tell through the cracks. No fucking way could she have thrown her rope through one of those tiny openings. So now, not only did she have a dumb cloth rope she didn’t need, but without sleeves, she was that much colder.

  What a stupid waste of effort that had been. Taking her time—why not?—she wrapped the cloth rope around her neck. Now, she had a very long and ugly scarf. Swell.

  She stared at the widest crack, at the beauty of the sunlight, then down at the chain on her wrist. Christ. She gave it a halfhearted yank, a couple of tears rolling
out.

  God, she was tired. Unbelievably fucking tired. Every bone in her body hurt from being on the hard, rocky ground for so long and she shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. Or, at least, a less agonizing one.

  She hadn’t felt hungry for what seemed like years—sometimes, her stomach hurt; mostly, it was upset—but maybe she was losing weight, and that’s why her bones ached so much. That is, the ones that weren’t already broken. She touched her hips, surprised by how sharp they felt. And her ribs. And her collarbones, and—well, if she got out of this, she’d be able to eat any damned thing she wanted. As much as she wanted. Whenever she wanted.

  If she got out of this.

  SHE TOOK SLOW deep breaths, trying to stay very calm. Panic would come from nowhere—jarring, paralyzing panic—and she’d hear her heart against her eardrums and feel her fingernails cutting into her palms. But, she had to stay rational and logical and—what if her throat closed? Everything felt so dry and swollen that she could barely swallow at all anymore, and—what if it just sealed up? Then, she wouldn’t be able to breathe, or—oh, Christ, what a horrible way to—tracheotomy. She could do a god-damn tracheotomy with—with what? The end of her shoelace. Which there was a word for, not that she could remember the stupid thing. But it was plastic-encased, pretty solid, and if she had to, she could jab it right into her windpipe. Okay. Yeah. She relaxed.

  One worry down.

  “With millions rising up to take its place,” she said, her voice not quite working.

  What time was it? What day was it? Was it day? She squinted at the boards. Yeah, there was some light out there. Christ, even her eyes hurt when she tried to move them, her eyelids scratchy and dry.