The first item, constructed of glazed ceramic, is impossible to identify. Its base resembles a steep-sided saucer from which rises a moulding like a honey pot. The top flares outwards, forming a second saucer smaller than the first. In the centre is a raised socket. A curved handle connects the upper and lower sections.
Elissa’s hands move blindly across the surface, hunting for further clues. The underside is the only area unglazed. She thinks something’s been scratched there – perhaps the potter’s initials – but they’re too faint to identify by touch.
Placing it down, she investigates the other items removed from H7: a box of matches and a larger box containing dinner candles. Immediately, the glazed pot’s purpose becomes clear: it’s a holder, the upper dish designed to catch drips of wax.
Lifting a candle to her nose, Elissa inhales. The wax smell triggers memories of Christmas. Last year, they had a box of these at home – dark-green ones they burned in pewter candlesticks at each end of the mantelpiece. On Christmas Day they put them on the table. Elissa recalls the dinner with her Nana and Grandad, the conversation and laughter.
Now, with memories of that day swelling in her mind, she hunches over, arms wrapped around her head. She begins to weep, and all her tears are for her mum, and her grandparents, and what they’ll have to endure thanks to the deviant who snatched her. At some point, still curled foetus-like, she slumps on to her side. When her last, weary shudders dissipate, she closes her eyes and sleeps.
IV
An urge to pee awakens her. At first, she doesn’t remember what’s happened, where she is, or why it’s so dark. Far too soon her awareness floods back, along with recollections of her new world: the manacle; the chain; the buckets; the matches and candles. Something has changed in here, while she’s been sleeping, but she can’t work out what.
Has night fallen? Has her jailer visited? Is there a breeze, now, where earlier, there was none?
With a lurch, Elissa wonders whether she’s being observed. The darkness is absolute, so if anyone is watching, they must be using special equipment. She slows her breathing, straining to listen. The silence is that of a vault; she cannot even detect the earlier drip of water.
The discomfort in her bladder grows. Soon, it’s all she can think about. Calling up her mental chessboard, she crawls to the waste bucket in B3 and rises to a crouch. Warily, she straightens. It’s the first time she’s tried to stand. She’s relieved to find there’s enough space.
With her unshackled hand, Elissa reaches under her dress and tugs down her underwear. She scowls into the darkness. If someone is watching, let them get an eyeful if they want: she can think of few things more pathetic than a man who gets his kicks from spying on girls peeing into buckets.
For a moment her anger burns white hot. ‘You’re a dick bag,’ she hisses. ‘A stupid, worthless dick bag.’ It’s not the worst insult she knows, but she won’t demean herself with something fouler.
The bucket might slip if she puts all her weight on it, so after removing the toilet roll, she rolls up her dress and gathers it together. Then, squatting, she holds her breath.
Initially, despite her aching bladder, Elissa is unable to go. Just as she’s about to give up, her muscles relax and she hears the urgent rattle of urine against hard plastic. It sounds like she’s spraying seeds or pellets, but the smell is eye-watering, unmistakable. Left alone, the air will grow thick with it, so after pulling up her knickers she goes to the second bucket and pours some of the cleaning solution into the first. All this she does blind. The chain tethering her to the floor scrapes and clinks, a constant companion.
Calling up her schematic, she crawls across the floor to G7, avoiding the pool of cold vomit at F5. She’ll have to deal with that soon, before its stench grows any stronger. First, though, a little light.
Elissa pauses at F6, one square from her destination. If the candles and matches have gone, it’ll mean someone visited while she was asleep. Abruptly, a more frightening thought surfaces: What if, when she reaches out, she touches some part of her abductor? A warm foot, perhaps. Or a hand.
Her skin crawls. She’s never had a wild imagination. This is the last place on earth she should cultivate one. Fearing that paralysis will strike if she delays, Elissa lunges forward, arm outstretched. The movement is clumsy, spasmodic. Her knuckles strike the candle holder and it skitters across the floor.
Idiot!
Reining herself in, Elissa reaches out once again. If she’s knocked away the candles or matches, she really will lose it. Fortunately, she finds both boxes right where she left them. Shaking out a candle, she lifts it to her nose. If she hadn’t acted so rashly, she’d have somewhere to set it down. Instead, she grips it between her knees. Then, holding the matchbox with her shackled hand, she removes a match.
Elissa pauses to catch her breath. The moment she strikes this light, the full gravity of her situation will become clear. There’s a good chance she’ll discover something horrifying. Already, some strange inkling of intuition tells her she’s not the first resident of this hole. Perhaps the light will reveal something of her predecessors’ fates. So far, she’s managed to maintain a tiny flame of hope. Ironic if the next one she creates extinguishes it.
Still, she has to know. Knowledge is power, and although her power, here, is almost non-existent, she’s duty-bound to try and increase it. Right now, she’s panting for breath, which means she might snuff out the match before it can take. To calm herself, she decides to inventory the contents of each box. After half a minute of steady breathing, Elissa’s counted ten candles and thirty-seven wooden matches.
She recalls something she learned at Christmas, from the box of dinner candles her mum bought: each stick, with dimensions almost exactly matching these, had an eight-hour burn time. It means she has the potential, here, for eighty hours of continuous light. The candles offer something else, too, should she wish: a means to measure time.
With a rasp and a hiss, her match flares into life. At first, the light’s so bright that she’s forced to shield her eyes, but she can’t afford to waste it. Quickly, she touches it to the wick.
The flame dips so low she thinks it’ll go out. It bobs, a watchful blue eye, and then it takes. A yellow light swells. The darkness recedes.
Elissa holds up the candle and looks around.
V
The first thing she ascertains is that she’s alone.
No one lurks outside the limits of her chain. Neither does she see any remains of previous residents – earlier, she was so worried by that prospect she could hardly acknowledge it.
Before her stands the stone wall she discovered while lying on her belly. Looking around, she sees the other walls that form her cell. Two are identical to the first. The fourth is constructed from plywood sheeting. A door has been cut into it, but there’s no handle on this side, just a few deep scratches that look deliberate. Above her head, the ceiling’s pine planking appears newer than the stone walls.
Overall, the cell’s dimensions aren’t much larger than the virtual chessboard she created to map it – she needs just three extra columns and four extra rows. She can either resize her board to fit the revealed floor space, or adopt the additional columns and rows into an expanded grid.