Mother Loves Me

by Abby Davies

  Hope flickered in my chest and I glanced up at her.

  She smiled. ‘I’m going to let you go outside. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  All hope vanished. She was smiling the smile that didn’t meet her eyes and it struck me that she was enjoying herself. She smoothed back my hair from my face. I flinched but she didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Get up,’ she said softly.

  I did as she said, watching the knife, which she moved out of the way to allow me space to stand. She stood too, grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the back door.

  The door was unlocked. She opened it and we walked out together, hand in hand. The day was overcast and muggy. I stared at trees and overgrown grass and mottled, grey sky as she pulled me round to the back of the cottage.

  ‘This is the back garden you’ve always wanted to see,’ she said, gesturing with the knife to a jungle with a large brown square in the centre.

  ‘My grandfather spent many hours out here, you know,’ she said dreamily. ‘He made me and Olivia come out here too.’

  We walked forward into the overgrown garden. The grass was as tall as my waist and so bright it made my eyes sting. Enclosing the garden was a fence and beyond the fence stood the woods.

  ‘We spent a lot of time out here as children, you know,’ she said.

  She stopped and stared down at the brown square on the ground. I followed her gaze and frowned, confused. The brown square looked like two rusted, metal doors. Two doors in the ground.

  Mother pushed me onto my front on top of the door. She knelt down, resting one knee on my back to keep me still. Holding the knife between her teeth, she pulled a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door.

  I suddenly realized what she was going to do. I struggled to get up but she crushed me against the ground with her knee.

  ‘I’m only giving you what you’ve always wanted,’ she said in a sing-song voice.

  She flung open one of the doors and a foetid stench filled the air. She seized my shoulders and pulled me onto her lap, holding the knife to my cheek. I stared down at the hole in the ground, unable to believe what was happening.

  ‘Be a good girl and you’ll get all the food and water you need,’ she whispered.

  ‘No! Please – don’t!’ I screamed and swivelled round, pleading, begging her with my eyes.

  With a distant smile she pushed me off her lap. I rolled through the doorway down some steps. Above me the door slammed, and I was swallowed by darkness.

  Chapter 38

  It was the kind of blackness where it was impossible to see anything, even the faintest hint of your own hand an inch from your face. I had known darkness but never darkness this thick. Like tar. Like a demon’s blood. I lifted my hand and held it in front of my face. Nothing. Just black. Black and an awful smell of grime and poo and urine and mould and rot all rolled into one gut-wrenchingly hideous stench. A smell so revolting that I retched continuously for about five minutes, but brought up nothing. My tummy was empty. Horribly so.

  When my stomach felt calmer, I sat up. Trying to breathe through my mouth, I felt the step around me. It was made of bricks. Dust or sand or dry crumbs of soil lay on the brick surface. Steps meant man-made, which meant this was not a simple hole in the ground. This hole was more than that. But what was it? Why would someone dig a hole in the ground, build steps leading down into the earth and place doors on top? The Wizard of Oz jumped into my head. When the tornado had struck, the characters had hidden in the ground. Perhaps this hole was like that. A place to escape terrible weather. But I had never known weather bad enough to destroy a house. England didn’t have tornadoes. I would have heard a gale of that force even through the wooden boards that blocked every window in the cottage.

  So what was it?

  If I could understand what kind of place I was in, maybe I could find a way out.

  Stretching out one foot, I felt the ground in front of me. It was another step. I slid onto it, staying on my bottom. I slid down another three steps until I felt hard, solid ground. To my surprise, the ground was smooth, like plastic. Another clue, yet I still couldn’t work out what type of cage held me its prisoner. Fearful of bumping into something, I got down on all fours and edged forward an inch at a time, feeling the ground with my hands. Every few inches I stopped and felt the air around me, searching for more clues.

  My stomach grumbled. Dot’s sandwich was the last thing I’d eaten, but I hadn’t managed to digest that – I had thrown it all back up. My heart began to race; what if Mother forgot to bring me something to eat and drink? I hadn’t drunk anything for ages either.

  Telling myself she would remember, I crawled on, feeling the ground. I felt brick. My hands moved upward, trailing up a solid, brick wall. I rose to my knees and reached up. The wall continued upward. I stood up slowly, worried I might hit my head if the ceiling was too low, but I was able to stand up. I felt for the ceiling, but couldn’t reach it. The hole was deep.

  Relieved to be able to stand up straight, I moved to the right and reached another brick wall, which I followed round until I came to the steps that led down here. I retraced my steps, moving back round to the left, hands trailing the brick wall. My feet collided with something hard and I jumped at the unexpected object. It was a bookcase. I felt the spines of books, my heart lifting a notch. If I could persuade Mother to bring me a light of some kind, at least I could read until I could work out a way to escape.

  I didn’t let myself consider the possibility of never escaping. I told myself that Mother would let me out eventually or I would escape. I would get out of here, one way or another. I had to.

  Emma’s big eyes flashed into my mind. Emma was still out there somewhere. Hot shame swept over me. It was my fault she was out there all alone. Mother would never have put Emma down here. If I had helped her find Emma, Emma would be safe and sound in the cottage – as safe as she could be with a kidnapper.

  I closed my eyes, forced myself to focus on now. Focus on where I was, what I was doing.

  The air was warm and thick. Too warm. I yanked on the collar of the stupid doll dress and blew air down my front, but my breath was hot and did little to cool my skin.

  Tears welled up, but I gritted my teeth, determined not to give up.

  I edged past the bookcase and felt the wall again. Nothing. I sidestepped to the left, trailing my fingers across the bricks. My hands bumped into something else – something metal that rose as high as my waist. I moved my hands from the wall to the metal object and quickly worked out that it was a metal bed frame. Bending over, I felt bedcovers, a mattress and a sheet. There was a bed down here. At least if Mother did leave me here for a while, I would have somewhere to sleep. A dirty bed was better than a dirty floor.

  I felt my way to the end of the bed and my hands landed on a thin pillow. Kneeling down, I tentatively felt under the bed, but there was nothing there except for dust and grime. Wiping my hands on my dress, I stood up and turned. Again, I felt brick wall and trailed my hands along the rough surface as I inched to the left. I bumped into a small table. There were no chairs near the table and nothing on the table.

  Using the tabletop as a guide, I edged round the table until I came to the wall again. When the rough texture of bricks beneath my fingers changed to the smooth feel of wood, I realized I was standing in front of a wooden door. Hurriedly, thinking I’d discovered an escape route, I felt for a handle. Finding one, I pushed down and pulled. Pulling didn’t work so I pushed the door open. I gagged as the stench increased tenfold. Still, I edged forward and felt all around me. My hands touched brick wall on either side and my leg collided with something hard. I was in a tiny room. I reached down, my fingertips outstretched. My fingers touched a brick table of some kind. I trailed my fingers along its surface and they fell into a hole in the brick. This was where the stench was strongest. A fly buzzed around my head. Another fly landed on my hand.

  Unable to bear the smell any longer, I turned and shuffled back towards th
e door using the side walls as my guide. I reached the doorway, hurried through, turned and grappled for the handle, pushing the door shut, desperate to put a barrier between myself and the stench.

  So the small room was a bathroom of some kind. My whole body jolted. If the bathroom smelled that bad, the stench so fresh … someone was using it.

  I leaned against the wall, the wind knocked out of me.

  I wasn’t alone.

  A stranger was down here with me.

  Chapter 39

  In the total darkness I stood still and listened. Listened for the sound of someone’s breathing. If I was right, and I was sure I was, a stranger was sitting in the darkness listening to my movements. This stranger must have heard me. They must have heard Mother push me down here. They must have heard me tumbling down the steps, getting up, moving around the space like a blind girl. This stranger had listened to my terror and said nothing. Why? Were they too afraid to make themselves known? Did this stranger expect to remain unknown to me – was that what he or she wanted? Did they want to attack me, take me by surprise?

  Scenarios whizzed around my head like bees in a box, my imagination frantic. Spiders were down here – huge ones – vengeful spiders like Deadly with fangs and eight beady eyes and a savage hunger for human blood. And rats. There were bound to be lots of rats. Rats were attracted to foul, reeking places and this place reeked. And the stranger – the stranger would be worse than Mother. They would be rabid with starvation. To them I would be nothing more than a way to keep themselves fed.

  My hands found my head. My temples throbbed against my palms. Dizziness danced behind my eyes. My stomach rippled with anxiety.

  Stop it. Think. A wild bird never feels sorry for itself.

  I listened hard. I could almost picture my ears perking up, twitching at the ends. But I heard nothing. The silence was as contained and absolute as the dark. All-consuming. I remembered a day Mother and I had played hide and seek. We had laughed and chased one another. Mother had caught me and tickled me. There had been few days like that. Few moments when Mother had relaxed and let me behave naturally, but those moments had been the best … and now she had locked me in a hole in the ground in complete darkness with a stranger. Had this always been coming? Would things have stayed the same for ever if Mother had never taken Emma, or would she have taken another girl later on? Was I going to die down here?

  A wild bird never feels sorry for itself.

  I took a deep breath. Counted to ten. My breathing slowed.

  If she wanted me dead, she would have killed me instead of putting me down here. And if the stranger wanted to hurt me, they would have acted by now.

  I told myself this but I didn’t believe it.

  Time stood still. I opened my mouth to speak then shut it again. If I was quiet and hid, I would be safer – unless the stranger was some kind of supernatural creature – which of course they couldn’t be – they were as blind as I was down here, which meant silence was my weapon.

  Mentally, I retraced my path, recalling the table I had bumped into. I wanted to get back to the bed. The space underneath had been wide enough for me to fit. If I could hide there, I could wait him or her out. They might even give themselves away if they needed to cough or sneeze.

  Using the wall for guidance, I turned around and inched back the way I had come. Trying not to think of spiders or rats or the stranger in the room, my fingertips scraped brick and I hoped, even as I tried not to think about them, that any spiders or dungeon-type insects would sense my fingers coming and dart out of the way.

  Sweat trickled down the side of my face as I eased myself around the table and edged in the direction of the bed. I closed my eyes against the blackness and willed myself to believe it was black because of my choosing. I had chosen to rest my eyes, to plunge myself in inky darkness. My eyes had been dazzled by the sun and they needed a break …

  But I could feel a strange heaviness dragging down the space behind my eyes. Blinds were being pulled down. Boards were being nailed over the gap between the backs of my eyes and my brain. It was such an overwhelming sensation that I opened my eyes and almost gasped. How long had I been down here? I couldn’t work it out. An hour? Five hours? Or was it only minutes? Panic made my insides crawl and my breaths grow ragged.

  Trembling, I silently repeated my saying over and over as I edged, inch by inch, towards my goal.

  A wild bird never feels sorry for itself. A wild bird never feels sorry for itself.

  Then I realized the stupidity of what I was saying: I was not a wild bird; I was a caged one. I was not free. I had never been free, not really, not even when I left the cottage.

  My leg hit the bed and I almost cried out. Hastily, feeling like it was the only thing that would save me, I got to my knees and felt the bed frame with my hands then the space between the frame and the floor. Yes. I would fit. I would definitely fit.

  I lay down on my front, turned onto my back and shuffled sideways under the bed, cursing the faint scraping of fabric against ground.

  I had moved about three inches into the space when I smelled something odd. A different smell. A smell like bad breath.

  And then I heard it. Breathing. Low, ragged breathing. Breathing that wasn’t mine.

  A hand squeezed my arm and I screamed.

  Chapter 40

  ‘It steals from you. The darkness.’

  The voice was harsh. Fast. A woman’s voice. A voice that produced hot fumes of the grossest kind.

  I pursed my lips together and held my breath. Our faces could not have been more than an inch apart. If she wanted to, she could bite off my nose or push her fingers deep into my eye sockets, into my brain. She could kill me in a heartbeat if she chose to.

  Her fingers dug into my arm, holding on too tightly – so tightly I wanted to ask her to let go, but I didn’t. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak; I ought to have been relieved the stranger was female, but I wasn’t. The craziest person I knew was a woman; a woman had shut me down here in the dark; kidnapped me and Emma; shot a man in the head. A woman I had known for most of my life had rejected me, turned on me, locked me in a black hole in the ground. If Mother could treat me like that, what could this woman do to me?

  ‘I see things. Lights. In the corners. Lights in the corners,’ she sounded rushed, like she had to get the words out or they would choke her.

  ‘Then blackness. Nothing else. Just a tunnel. Are you really here? Are you?’

  Her hand clenched, squeezed tighter, dug in to my skin and she began to shake my arm. My heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. I tried to pull my arm out of her grasp, but she clung on, grabbing at my chest, my face, my hair.

  ‘Are you real? Speak! Speak to me!’

  ‘Stop!’ I blurted as she shook harder.

  Abruptly, taking me by surprise, her hands stilled. One hand still gripped my arm while the other lay flat against my cheek.

  ‘Say something,’ she whispered.

  I hesitated, took a breath. ‘Let go of me.’

  I waited, tense, readying myself for another attack. Her breaths were ragged, louder than mine. A bark of laughter escaped her lips and spittle landed on my cheek. She patted my chest then removed her hand from my pounding heart. Her other hand loosened on my arm, but remained in contact with my skin. With one hot finger, she stroked my arm. I longed to move out of reach but feared what she might do if I moved suddenly.

  ‘Are you really real?’ she breathed.

  ‘Yes.’ The sounds I’d heard from the house. They came from here. From her. I hadn’t imagined them.

  ‘Hah! Prove it.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘How? I’m already talking to you, aren’t I? And you can feel me, can’t you? You can probably even smell me.’

  She didn’t say anything for a long time – just breathed against my cheek and stroked my arm, drawing a figure of eight on my skin with her finger. It was creepy and weird but kind of soothing at the same time. I listened to her b
reaths grow steadier and felt my own heartbeat slowing.

  After a while, she stopped stroking me and removed her hand from my skin. Her breathing quietened and for a few seconds, I thought she was dead.

  ‘Miss?’ I said. ‘Are you OK?’

  She began to cry, quietly at first, then loudly and wretchedly. Beside me, I could feel her body shaking. Her sobs swallowed me whole. She sounded so lost and hopeless that I felt for her hand in the dark and slipped my hand into hers.

  ‘You’re not alone any more,’ I said, ‘I’m real. I promise.’

  She allowed me to hold her hand, though hers was floppy in mine. She sniffed and cried, sniffed and cried. For a long time, I said nothing. Sometimes it was good to cry. I tried to think of a word that meant letting out all of your emotions, but my mind felt heavy and blank, as blank as the darkness around us. I stared into the black air. After a while, her hand responded in mine.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out from under here. You can lie on the bed and rest.’

  ‘Yes, yes. You’re probably right.’

  I slipped my hand out of hers and shuffled my body out from under the bed. Glad to be off the hard ground, I stepped back to give her enough space then felt for the bed frame and guided her onto the mattress. Through the thin material of her clothing I felt a bony rod on her back, which I assumed was her spine. I couldn’t help wondering if she had always been so skinny or if being down here had turned her into a skeleton. Had Mother been starving her? Would she starve me too? Mother had said that if I was good, she would bring me food and water. Had she said that to the lady too?

  ‘I need to sleep,’ she said, her voice thick from crying.

  I nodded, then realized I had to speak or she wouldn’t have a clue about my response.

  ‘Of course. Lie down and have a rest. I’ll sit on the edge of the bed, if that’s OK?’