Dark. Very, very dark.
Abby blinked her eyes open, and then closed them again. Her body tried floating into even deeper blackness, and she welcomed it; sharp pounding pain in her head brought her back. Moving from side to side intensified the pain, and the bright stars returned, then faded, as she drifted into a restless stupor.
She dreamed of Jack, sitting across from her in a Chinese restaurant that looked like the porch at Bikers’ Rest. He held out a bouquet of roses to her in his left hand, a gun in his right. He wore a T-shirt that read “Big Brother.”
“Sorry, Cherie,” he said, a tender smile on his face. “You are sweet and sour, don’t you see? I only want what is right, for I have a curious smile and a mysterious nature. Are you wearing your best pants as you go to fight for freedom? The fortunes from our cookies told the tale.”
Dream-Jack laughed, and his face morphed into a demon face, pale, frightful, and deathly. He shot the gun, and roses came from the barrel. He lifted the bouquet and a bullet traveled across the table in slow motion, aimed at Abby’s heart.
“Abigail …”
Abby moaned and struggled to awaken, to respond to Silas’s call. Once she opened her eyes, she wished for sleep again, remembering the gun at her head and the pain in her heart.
She peered into the dark. Not a speck of light pierced the gloom, as if her eyes were closed. She brought her bound hands to her face and touched her eyelids. Open. “Silas? I need you. Please.” He didn’t materialize.
Trying to ignore the headache, she sat up, slow and easy. She felt the back of her head and winced. Her fingers were wet and sticky, smelling of blood. The pry bar had done some damage. Nausea hit her full-force, her fingertips began to tingle, and she experienced an odd sense of detachment. She thought she might faint and lay down again until the feeling went away.
After the sickness passed, she sat up for a second time, listening for any sound that might be a clue of her location. Not a whisper, no insects, no running water, nothing to tell her anything. And still Silas didn’t come to her rescue. She lay back down again, exhausted, and drifted to sleep, hoping she hadn’t died. Because if she had, she should be with the man she loved—and instead she was alone.
When she came fully awake, her body went into heart-pounding, breath-grabbing, sweaty-cold panic that wrapped its hands around her throat.
Where am I? What am I going to do? Silas, someone, help me.
She became aware of the futility of her fear and focused on her body instead of her surroundings. Consciously slowing her breathing, she tried the relaxation exercises the nurses had taught her father to use when the pain meds no longer worked.
Breathe. Slow. Arms and legs heavy, limp, floating on a cloud. Imagine sun on the ocean, birds in the sky, warm breeze. Feel good, relaxed, well, strong.
It didn’t work, and she started to hyperventilate.
“Abigail, don’t fuss. I am here.”
Silas. Her words didn’t make it through the gag, but the terror receded, and her head felt better. The sense of being closed in remained overwhelming. She reached out with her bound hands and found empty space. Not buried alive. A good place to start.
Taking a deep breath, she inhaled the musty essence of soil, damp and loamy. A sickly-sweet stench, like dead mouse, lurked under the surface.
Abby got on her knees, and then pushed to a standing position. Struggling with the tape on her wrists did no good. She reached up, unable to touch the ceiling, then extended her arms in front of her body and inched forward. When she hit a barrier, she turned left and walked as far as she could, arriving at a corner. Packed dirt met her fingertips. She bent down and found a small pebble. By twisting and turning it, she embedded it in the edge of the dirt wall at shoulder level.
Abby took five steps. Dirt wall. Turn. Five steps. Dirt wall. Turn. Five steps. Dirt wall. Turn. Five steps. Dirt wall. Turn. Back at the pebble. The room measured about five feet square. She surmised it must be underground; Jack had somehow transported her and put her in. Which meant she could find a way out.
She dropped back to her knees and began a circuit around the room again, clumsy with her wrists taped together. Her knee landed on something hard. Reaching down, Abby ran her hands over a piece of cold metal, long and bent at one end. The pry bar Jack had used, the evidence of his attack buried with her. But maybe now she would find it useful.
She worked the bar between her knees to brace it, and ran the duct tape along the edge in a sawing motion. Her hands and knees became sweaty, and the bar slipped. She repositioned it and worked until, with a rip, her hands were free. She tore the tape off her wrists, wincing as it stuck to her arm hair, then jerked the gag from her mouth.
“Help. Help me!” Her voice cracked like a very old lady, as her words were sucked into the packed earth surrounding her. She stood and moved to the wall. At each stop on the perimeter, she systematically shoved the metal into the dirt, until her arms ached. She found no exit.
“Try again,” Silas whispered into her ear.
“Silas, please, don’t leave me.”
“Never, Abigail. Never.”
On her second trip around the room, the metal rod moved with more ease and force, guided by Silas’s hands. It hit the wall and sunk in, the dirt spongy and pliable. Using the bent end, they dug at the soft spot.
“This has to be the way out. I’m afraid I’m running out of fresh air. What if I suffocate in here?”
A gentle touch wiped away tears she hadn’t realized were on her cheeks. A puff of breath entered her nostrils, sweet and refreshing. “Love is stronger than fear.”
“We can do this together. Right?” Abby waited, but Silas’s presence had gone. And yet the worst of the fear seemed to be gone, too.
Abby went back to work. The humidity made her sweat, intensified by hard labor. She dug for what seemed like hours, until she sunk to the floor, unable to continue. Thirst and exhaustion overwhelmed her. Panic and doubt nibbled at her mind, taking sharp little bites of her confidence. She tried gouging at the dirt wall with arms as rubbery as cold spaghetti, even while her thoughts traveled down their own path. How long had she been entombed? If she died, would she be with Silas? Wouldn’t that be her dream, to love and to be loved for eternity? Why didn’t it feel that way?
The bar slipped in her sweat-slick hands and fell forward. She dropped to her knees and groped for it, reaching through an opening in the wall, clearing away as much rubble as possible. She breathed deeply. The air, although stale, seemed fresher than in the room. But still no light. What if she got wedged into the small space?
Abby bent over and crawled through the opening. She was in a tunnel, unable to stand. The walls hugged her on both sides, suffocating instead of comforting. Would the dirt collapse? Did an opening or a dead end await? The absurdity of the phrase “dead end” in the current circumstances reverberated. She giggled, suspecting that she had almost reached her breaking point.
Silas whispered in her ear. “This way.”
“I’m afraid.” Abby choked back a sob.
“You ain’t afreed of death, but of dying. The tether that joins us ain’t gonna sever until your time comes.” The essence of Silas let go.
Abby continued on her hands and knees. Spots floated in front of her eyes, and she had to stop to take deep breaths every few feet. She grasped the metal bar and dragged it along in case Jack showed up again. The added weight made it hard to crawl. The sweat from her palms combined with the dirt floor, making mud that caused sucking sounds in the narrow enclosure. Her knees scraped on small stones, her back ached, and the darkness continued, unabated.
With a sigh, she stopped, unable to go any further. She knew ‘her time’ must have come. Why fight the inevitable?
“Abigail, follow the path. Your purpose is mine.”
Refreshing coolness wound around her shoulders. Her panic subsided. She lost all sense of time, concentrating on moving her hands and knees together, one at a time, as though a baby learning to crawl. She tried to think, to plan, but the whole of her reality became the slow progress through the tunnel. Then it stopped, at a solid wall.
Abby poked the metal bar against the end of the tunnel, making a small dent. The narrow space gave almost no leverage, and her arms were weak. She tried to turn but couldn’t, and instead crawled backward, intending to return to her starting point.
“Keep going.” Silas’s voice beckoned to her.
“Silas, I’m sorry. I don’t want to die. Not even to be with you.” Tears ran down Abby’s cheeks as she collapsed on her stomach in the dirt. At the touch of a cool caress against her cheek, her fear subsided again, even as a shower of dirt fell into her hair and onto her back like raindrops.
The pry bar appeared in her hand from where it had fallen, without her even reaching for it. She thrust the curved end into the packed soil with supernatural strength. With a sudden jolt another space opened. She cleared enough room to squeeze through. Collapsing on the floor, panting, she remained still until her heart stopped pounding and she could breathe again.
“You are safe, dear one.” Silas whispered, feather-soft, into her ear.
Abby sensed he had left her. She stood. This place seemed larger than the first room; she couldn’t touch the ceiling and had no sense of the walls. Pacing the perimeter confirmed it to be bigger in diameter. It remained dark but not pitch-black. She sunk in exhaustion onto a waist-high rough plank shelf attached to the wall.
“A platform?” Abby took a fresh look at the dim surroundings. She remembered being in the barn with Jack, the sharp pain to her head, the pitch black, and then the tunnel. Which she opened with the metal bar she had abandoned on the floor.
“I’m home. Silas, I’m home.” Although she received no answer, she kept talking, hoping to lure him from wherever he had gone. “This is the room Morton and I found at the bottom of the hidden staircase.”
Above her head a glimmer of light came through the broken step in a jagged shaft. She turned her face to it, reveling in illumination from the real world. So she’d found home and light. But no ladder to get her out. She balanced on tiptoes at the edge of the wooden shelf and stretched toward the opening, but couldn’t reach.
She hopped off the shelf and picked up the pry bar. Holding onto the flat part of the tool, Abby waved the curved end toward the steps above, jumping to reach it. After several failed attempts, the curve caught on a solid piece of wood. Careful not to dislodge it, Abby grasped the bar with both hands. Her feet swung off the platform and she dangled in space, wishing she’d done better in gym class.
Using more strength than she knew she had, Abby pulled herself within reach of the steps. Just as her fingers slipped on the bar, cool arms scooped her up. She grabbed onto the wood. The pry bar fell to the floor below as she was lifted to an intact step.
In the dim light, Silas smiled. “Welcome home, Abigail.”
Abby threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in the coarse weave of his jacket. Her voice came out muffled against the wool. “You saved my life.”
“No, you dun good. And love finished the rest.”
They stayed melded together for many moments while Abby’s emotions settled into something resembling normal. “Where do you go when you leave me?”
“It’s like drifting on the river, dozing in the sun.” Silas stroked her hair. “When you stir my dreams, I wake up and come to you.”
“Will you ever stay ‘awake’ with me? Or will I die and be with you?” Once she got this close to him, death held little menace or fear. “And why are you sometimes a spirit and at other times flesh and blood?”
“I waited these long years for you, Abigail. But in all that time, the answers still ain’t mine to know.”
“What do you mean, that you ‘waited’ for me? I’m not the Abigail you used to ... love.”
Silas silenced her with a deep kiss, his lips chasing any questions. She clung to him, willing him to stay with her, demanding in her brain that whatever or whoever guarded the universe would understand and be merciful.
But with a final stroke to her hair, Silas slipped away.
Abby ascended the steps to where Jack had boarded up the opening. She pushed against the lumber and plaster, but it held firm. The metal pry bar, which might have worked, lay out of reach in the underground room far below.
Sinking down on the top step, Abby rested her head in both hands and sobbed.