‘We was sleeping. Well, we was pretending we were anyway, but we weren’t. He carried us and it was awful cold ’cause it was … it was winter.’
And I’m there, in His arms – one under my back and the other under my knees. And I’m kind of sleepy and also kind of scared, but Zeb is there with me so I’m not too afraid. His extra-skins feel all scratchy on my cheek, but I don’t want Him to know that I’m awake.
No. That’s not right. I do. I want Him to stop and put me down. But I can’t tell Him. I can’t move. I’m all heavy, and my body has been locked up tight and I can’t do nothing.
‘And He brought us here to the Tower and locked us up tight for His own. And my hair weren’t big enough to be let down, and there weren’t no windows anyway. He used the magic door with the flat key that makes the light turn green. And He used His magic to make the food come down and the water rain and the sun bars go on and off. He wants to keep us here forever.’
Bee’s breaths are getting all fast. She loves herself a story.
‘And how did I get here? And the Others?’
She ain’t never asked me that one before. I lick my lips and think real quick.
‘You were always here. But we’ll get out. We all will.’
Bee don’t say nothing to that. I feel her shaking beside me, like she does when I read her the stories with the Giants in. Well, when I used to anyway. We ain’t read no story together in so long that I almost forget what it feels like to have her stroke her hands through my hair. I’d read lying down, my head in her lap, and she’d stroke her fingers from the back of my ears all the way to the ends of my hair.
I turn away from her and close my eyes. It ain’t fair for her to be over here asking for stories she don’t believe in. Stories are truth, and she just sees them as things to pass the time.
She dithers beside me, still shaking. Then, in the quietest of whispers, she says, ‘I’m pleased you came to be with us, Ele.’
Then she leans forward and kisses me on the cheek. It’s only quick, but enough time for me to feel the soft skin of her nose on my nose, her chin on my ear.
All that badness balled up in my chest melts away.
She scurries back over to the Others to join their pile of sleeping bodies.
I stay up for a while after that, feeling her wetness disappear from my skin slowly, slowly, and thinking of all the ways I’m going to escape with them.
They might not say they believe in the Outside, but I reckon that kiss says otherwise. Bee believes me. She just needs someone brave enough to take her there.
Someone like me.
Seven
The sun bars come on in the morning and I’m up and running in my spot with a skip in my step. I don’t quite manage to push myself up twice again, but I did it before and nothing really matters today anyway.
The feed comes down and I leap over to the bowl real quick, even before Cow makes it over. I ain’t eaten in a few days and I’m about as hungry as a Bear. I get a good load stuffed in my cheeks before I scurry back to my corner to eat it all up in peace.
I try to catch Bee’s eye as she eats, but she don’t turn round. That’s OK, though, ’cause I know. I’m still feeling her kiss on my cheek, like it’s burning bright and it’s telling me that she believes me.
I set to giving myself a clean-up. The Others are mighty good at using their tongues, but, mine being so small, I usually go over to the water tap and give myself a rub-down. I splash water over my face and down my arms, and it feels mighty good – much better than the rain when it falls, as that burns something awful if you blink it into your eyes. I spend time getting between all my fingers and all my toes ’til I’m near spotless.
We used to be much better at filling our days when we was young. We’d fall about chasing, wrestling and playing games that Queenie always seemed to win no matter what. Our favourite game was called Three Bear Shuffle. We’d all have to lie down sleeping, like we were trying out beds, and then the one who was playing the Bear would turn round and try to gobble us all up. We’d all shuffle around screaming as Queenie got every one of us.
It was fun – all of it. But it weren’t real.
Since I stopped playing with them, they’ve stopped playing together, too. They sit staring at nothing, or fighting about stupid things. Most of the time, though, they’ll just be sleeping.
Not me, though. If you ask me, there’s plenty of things to be doing around here, one of which is finding all the proof I need of the Outside.
Mornings are spent looking at the text. Reading each book front to back, back to front, upside down, and in all the ways to try to find the secret code that’ll get me out of here. Today I try reading every fifth word backwards, but ain’t nothing making no sense. Mostly I look at the pictures. There’s plenty of those, especially in the fairy-stories book. My favourites are the trees and the house made of gingerbread. The Others are in the book too, in the story about the Goblins. They’re scurrying about in the forest at the bottom of the page, looking just like the Others, even down to their knobbly knees and pointed ears.
I’m in there, too. I’m the Princess and Goldilocks and the Peasant Girl. I’m running and swimming and talking to the other Outside People.
Yeah – that comes next. I got to practise my talking. It won’t do to go Outside speaking the click-clacking language of the Others. I got to speak how He talks.
I read all the words in the book out loud, just how they’re written. Outside-People talk needs a lot of lips and tongue, not like the Others’ language, which sounds like feed rattling down pipes in your throat. I can speak Other better than I can speak People, but that’s gonna change.
‘Once upon a time, there was a Princess who lived in a Tower, and she was alone.’
Queenie starts growling from behind me, so I lower my voice some.
‘She spent all day and all night looking out of the window at her Kingdom below.’
The growling is getting louder, but I can’t read much quieter. Instead, I turn round, hold the book between us and read off by heart.
‘But the Princess had no way down, for the door to the Tower was locked and guarded by a fierce Witch.’
Cow is looking at the book, all wide-eyed like it’s the first story he’s ever been told, and I can’t help but smile. That boy’s heard this story so many times he’ll be able to read it with his eyes closed just like me, but you wouldn’t know it from his face.
Queenie leans over to me, scowling hard. Bee’s just trying to keep out of it by facing the wall.
‘Meanwhile, a Prince was on a quest hunting Ogres when –’
‘Stop talking Witch, Ele.’
Queenie is mighty mad. She sees me speaking like an Outside Person and it makes her remember that I am one. Her mouth is so open that you can just about see right through into her. My hands are sweating and slipping on the book. Some of me don’t like making her like this. But it’s the truth, ain’t it?
‘When he heard the Princess sing.’
‘Stop –’
‘What’s a “sing”, Ele?’
Cow’s either so wrapped up in the story that he’s forgotten what the deal is or he’s mighty brave.
I plain ignore Queenie. ‘A “sing” is a sound a cooking pot makes, Cow.’
Cow’s eyes go wide. ‘What’s it sound like?’
Now, I don’t know the answer to this much, but I’ve thought about it often enough to be able to deduce. I shuffle myself over to the bowl and scrape at the sides with my hands.
Cow’s mouth hangs open. ‘How’d the Princess –’
But Queenie pounces right round and holds the top of his ear in her teeth, getting everyone screeching. I drop the book and back myself up against the wall. Cow’s hollering and cowering himself into a ball, and it’s only when everyone gets quiet that Queenie spits him back out again. Half her face is still cracked up with anger, but I can see her eyes feeling bad for what she just did.
She holds herself high, but
her voice shakes. ‘We ain’t speaking Witch. And we definitely ain’t listening to no Witch talk no Witch lies.’
My heartbeat just about fills my ears, making me feel funny.
I ain’t no Witch, I think. But I’m feeling too bad at myself to make a noise.
She’s still speaking to them, but turns to me to say it. ‘Witches want to leave us. Witches tell lies to make you scared. And Witches shoot people in the head.’
I see all that hurt in her. And I feel it in me, too, like I’ve bitten a poison apple.
Cow’s whimpering in the corner, but I can see his ear is fine. I reckon he’s whimpering ’cause he’s replaying that day back in his head again – seeing that gun go up behind Zeb’s big blue eyes, and the whole Tower disappearing in one second of red and sound so loud that we’re still hearing it ringing.
I still hear it ringing.
I shuffle back into my corner. I shut myself up.
Bee covers her eyes with her hands. Cow tries to lick his ears. Queenie curls up to sleep.
As I watch them, I think about Queenie. I ain’t so good at remembering too far back. It all gets to be bright lights. There was a time, though, when we was all the same size – when I was smaller than now. And it was around this time that Queenie and I were pretty much the same person.
She’d shuffle around after me, copying every little thing I did. If I was eating, she’d be eating. If I was reading, she’d be reading. And if I was crying – and I remember there was an awful lot of crying back then – she’d be right next to me, crying out with those big eyes of hers. We’d play all sorts of games together, and with Bee and Cow too. And we’d all sleep in a pile together.
Not Zeb, though. He ignored them like they weren’t even there, sleeping all on his own, keeping to himself. When I was small, I used to pull on his arm so hard to get him to play with me. But all he wanted to do was pound on the door and search for a way Outside.
Queenie knew I loved him more than her. She din understand, though. Zeb was mine, and I was his. It’d always been that way.
When he got taken, I could see her happiness in her eyes like a rotten bruise. She wouldn’t have to share me no more. I guess that was what made me say it. That and the hurt ripping at my insides so hard that I’d soon have nothing left inside me but pain.
‘I’m getting out too.’
I might as well have shot her clean in the head for the way her face split.
She din believe me at first, but my need grew. It weren’t safe in here no more, not without Zeb. And it’s what he would’ve wanted. I know it.
We weren’t the same no more. She was an Other, and I was an Outside Person.
I tried to get her to copy me again – to run like I did and speak like the people do in the books. But her little legs weren’t made for standing, and she can’t speak so good without lips.
One day, she got fed up with it. She took on the role of the Queen of the Tower and banned all talk of the Outside. Anything that weren’t Other weren’t allowed. Bee and Cow listened to her. The Outside was scary. What happened to Zeb was even more so. Best to pretend all that din exist.
I reckon Queenie thought that would bring me back closer to them. But it din do nothing but push me further away.
I miss her following me around, but not as much as I miss Zeb. That boy was my whole world before he was taken, and it feels awful empty without him.
That’s enough thinking, anyway. Sometimes these things are best squeezed down into the pit of your belly where they can’t hurt no one. Brains are made for facts, and I’m in the business of finding them.
When the sun bars go out and the Others settle themselves down, I get to knocking. But it ain’t to Jack. It’s all in the same place, with all my muscles, until my knuckles are wet with what I guess must be blood.
That wall is breaking open for me, though. I know it.
Eight
I wake up to the sound of footsteps.
The sun bars are still off. My hands are ringing with pain, but I shove them between my legs and clamp them shut.
Footsteps.
I sit myself up, pressing my back against the wall, and listen as much as my ears let me with all the blood panicking in them.
Ain’t no whistling, though. And these footsteps are different from usual. Not one after the other, but a quick step and a dragging and a dull thudding noise.
My heart is matching those footsteps beat for beat.
‘Bee?’
No answer.
‘Cow?’
Nothing.
‘Queenie?’
‘Shhhh,’ I hear, and I look over to see Queenie’s eyes all red in the door light, looking right at it.
‘Is it Him?’ I say, though more to myself than her.
‘Shhhh,’ she says again.
The footsteps get louder before they stop, then something thuds into the door.
Silence.
He don’t come in the dark. He don’t come today.
My mind is racing and all I can think of is the Prince, right atop his steed, all fresh from killing himself some Ogres.
‘This is it,’ I say, my hands shaking despite being clamped up tight between my legs. ‘We’re being rescued.’
We hear a beep, and the light goes green. Then I hear it.
‘Aw, shit.’
And my whole body turns to water, as there ain’t no mistaking that voice. That’s Him all right.
He kicks open the door, bringing in a smell real strange, like strong rain. It makes my eyes water, sends Queenie coughing and wakes the Others up, both of them hollering.
‘Shut your hole,’ He shouts at them, all shadow, as the yellow light behind Him blinds out at us. I look over at the Others in the yellow, and they shut themselves right up, though Cow’s looking like he wants to ask a lot of the same questions that I’m having myself.
Why’s He here today?
Why’s He here in the dark?
Why are the sun bars Outside?
But I shake my head at Cow and he don’t move.
‘Where are you, you goddamn sonofa–’
He falls into the Tower. The door slams shut behind Him, making the walls shake, and we all get swallowed up into the black.
‘Shhhhit.’
His voice sounds strange, like He’s forgotten how to talk properly and is sounding out words for the first time.
I open my eyes as wide as they go.
He’s stumbling around near the bowl and we hear a big ol’ crash as He trips Himself over, cussing loud. I can see the top of His head all green as He tries to haul Himself up again.
Then I blink. I blink again. But it’s still the same, no matter how hard or how many times I blink.
Green. The light above the door is green.
Trees start flashing about in front of my eyes, too quick to even think about naming them, like I’m falling down and all the leaves are throwing themselves right into my face.
I put my hands on the floor and I lift myself slowly, slowly to my feet.
He’s back on His feet too now, cussing some more and swaying His arms about, trying to feel me out. He falls sideways, banging into Jack’s wall, and that ringing is back, as that light is green and I got myself a clear path right towards it.
My leg takes a step forward. Then another. And another, and I can hear Him puff Himself over into my corner behind me.
And my arms are out, too, reaching for that green light.
But something catches my eye. Green light in three pairs of eyes, watching me walk right over to the door.
I stop.
I reach out for them, feeling for their bodies in the dark. And all the eyes get wide, wide. I find a hand, I don’t know whose. I pull it up as hard and as quiet as I can.
You need to come with me.
The hand wriggles away.
‘COME HERE!’
He shouts so loud that I feel His voice rattling around in my body.
I reach for the hand again, searching
around blindly, but not finding nothing. Panic starts biting at my ribs.
You need to run. You need to run now.
But it’s too late.
I hear a shuffle behind me and fingers on my back, and I’m pulled back so hard by my hair that I’m swung right into my corner again. The breath is pushed out of me.
My legs won’t hold me no more and I fall down, scrambling around, hoping to find some air on the floor.
He’s laughing to Himself and He gets down on the floor with me and all I can think about is how He’s in my space – my space – and ain’t no way He can do nothing to me here, as where will I go to be on my own if it’s smelling of Him?
I scramble up as quick as I can, but He’s faster. He clamps a hand round my arm and pulls me right back, dodging my feet as I kick out one, two, three.
He laughs again. ‘Stupid slut, stay still. I gotta – I gotta do this, else they’ll find you. They will. They’ll see you and … THEY’LL TAKE ME AWAY. You want that, eh? You wanna know what it’s like without me feeding you, you ungrateful little bitch?’
I kick out some more and He’s hitting me hard, fists like metal. He lets go of my hair and is scrambling around for something, making more cusses and heavy breaths. Then something clicks on Him and, just like that, the sun bars come on.
My legs stretch. I jump. I’m up and running before I even know what’s going on. It’s what I do when the sun bars come on: I run.
The Others holler at the light, diving for cover. He’s squinting and blinking and trying to hide His head, still cussing away. He don’t see me move. He don’t see that His gun is just pointing at an empty space now.
BANG.
Noise. Noisenoisenoise. A ringing that turns the whole Tower on its head, and I feel the floor come right up and smack me in the face. Louder. Louder than anything I ever heard.
Everything is red and I’m seeing –
‘STUPID GODDAMN –’
Blue eyes go real wide and –
‘BITCH! I’LL GET –’
Seeing the red rain down the drain and –
Outside Page 3