Elissa
Day 7
I
Lying on the cell floor, shivering from fever, sweating despite the cold, Elissa listens to the bronchial rattle of her breathing. At her side, her right arm feels like it’s metamorphosing into something unspeakable, a process of atrophy busily transforming the flesh.
Earlier, she scraped together enough energy to light a candle. Now, watching it, she concedes there’s something wrong with her vision. One moment, the flame fills her view; the next, it accelerates away until it’s nothing but a distant pinprick.
On the walls of her cell, bodachs cavort and chitter. She knows they’re not really there, but in their whispered conversations she hears echoes of the ghoul: Down here, if you don’t keep yourself clean, injuries like that can get infected. First thing you’ll feel is the skin getting itchy, getting hot. The flesh will swell, start to suppurate, like it’s a piece of fruit someone trod on and left out in the sun … You’ll begin to feel dizzy, confused. You won’t even be able to trust your own thoughts.
Regardless of the motive, his warning was accurate – right now, she can’t even trust her own eyes.
The candle flame rushes close. Pumpkin light fills her head. On the wall, one of the bodachs transforms into Andrea from Wide Boys: You should see me on Hallowe’en. I wear a pair of eyes that’re bright orange, slitted just like a cat’s. Scares the bejesus out of people.
The flame bobs and swells. It dives and pirouettes. There’s something deeply compelling about its dance, almost as if that yellow teardrop of fire, growing from a blue nimbus, is the periphery where the physical world meets the divine. For a moment, watching it, Elissa feels she’s within touching distance of a revelation, an epiphany. Then the light falls away, leaving her desolate.
Already, she’s past the peak of what her mind and body can endure. The damp, the lack of food and the ghoul’s filthy drugs have all exacted a toll. She’s too exhausted to load her memories of Elijah into the virtual chessboard, too punch-drunk to search for more answers. Her attempts at coercion have failed, as have her attempts at subterfuge. Worst of all – worse, even, than her infected wound and her ever-loosening grip on reality – is the knowledge that somewhere, out there, her mum is all alone. Lena Mirzoyan doesn’t deserve to lose a daughter, and yet that outcome now seems inevitable.
When Elissa hears the deadbolts rattle in their housings, she wonders if her greatest torment is yet to come.
Who are you kidding? You know it is.
II
There’s no voice, no torch beam, and the boomeranging candle doesn’t illuminate her guest, but she knows, somehow, it’s Elijah. That’s neither good nor bad; it just is. She hasn’t managed to decipher his involvement. She probably never will.
He hesitates at the threshold, as if he’s building his courage. When the silence gets too much, she croaks, ‘Hansel?’
Feet slither across stone. Something emerges from the gloom. Elissa squints, trying to focus, but it’s no use – the candlelight has retreated again, leaving a miasma of smeared greys.
By degrees, the light returns, but now her vision is skittering, like she’s watching images through an old movie projector where the film has slipped from its reel. Out of the mess swims a fleshy blob hosting two dark circles.
Elijah takes a forward step. In the skip-snatch jerkiness of Elissa’s perception, it’s impossible to stitch together the frames and form a coherent whole. Elijah shrinks and swells in size, a restless bodach whose dimensions are constantly in flux.
One thing she does notice – from the seething shadows that comprise him – is a hand, buried in a jacket pocket. From the angle of his elbow, it appears he’s clutching something; whether a knife, or some other weapon, she cannot tell.
Elissa’s mouth runs so dry she can barely speak. ‘Elijah?’
He sways on his feet. ‘Gretel.’
‘Has something happened?’
‘I … I think.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Not really. I don’t … I just can’t …’
Elissa’s pulse is racing, her breathing too, but she tries to keep her voice steady. ‘Did you want to talk about it?’
The muscles of Elijah’s forearm tense inside his jacket, as if his grip on the hidden object has tightened. His lungs fill. His breath judders out.
The candle flame dips low, its tip flickering like a reptilian tongue. Again, Elissa’s world contracts into darkness. When she hears Elijah crouch down opposite, it’s all she can do to resist scrabbling away. One thing she knows, beyond doubt: she must maintain the pretence of trust. ‘Why did you come back?’
‘I wanted to see you.’
‘But not to talk?’
‘No.’
Elissa waits a beat. ‘What, then?’
‘I wanted to play,’ he says. ‘With you.’
There’s an edge to his tone that she doesn’t recognize. It sounds like he’s talking about a doll, a toy, an object constructed purely for his gratification.
Something sharp and painful blossoms in her chest. Summoning all her strength, she pushes herself halfway up. ‘Elijah,’ she begins. ‘When this is—’
‘I want to play chess.’
It takes a moment for his words to register. Such is Elissa’s relief that she closes her eyes. When she opens them, something about the shifting shadows tells her he’s moved a fraction closer.
‘I want to play chess too,’ she tells him. ‘I want that more than anything. But I told you before, we don’t have a—’
‘I brought a phone,’ he says, and suddenly everything is different.
III
At first, Elissa thinks it’s a trick, a cruel raising of her hopes. But when Elijah takes his hand from his pocket, the cellar is bathed in blue light.
Her chest grows tight. She can’t breathe – doesn’t want to breathe – worries if she breaks this spell of silence between them that Elijah will come to his senses.
She can’t make sudden movements, can’t appear too keen, can’t afford to let a single ounce of hunger or cunning show in her face. The phone offers a chance of salvation, but she hasn’t won it yet. And Elijah, in the past, has proved far more immune to deception than she’d hoped.
You’re trying to trick me. Aren’t you? You want me to bring you a phone so you can call someone to come down here and get you.
Why, then, has he done exactly that?
A thought strikes her, contracting her skin into gooseflesh. Perhaps this is the test for which he’s been preparing her.
At last, her oxygen runs out and she’s forced to breathe. It’s vital she steadies herself. If Elijah notices her agitation, he’ll likely turn and run. Her fingers have become claws. Her leg muscles, previously too weak to support her weight, quiver with adrenalin. Could she scratch out his eyes, if it saved her life? Probably. She’d never forget the horror of it, but she might see her mum again. That alone would make it worthwhile.
Elijah, still nothing more than a monstrous grey smear, leans away from her. ‘What’s wrong?’