Stolen Souls

31

GALYA HAD LISTENED to him sing for at least an hour before she fell asleep again. She heard words like “Jesus,” “savior,” and “almighty” creeping up through the floor, while occasionally the other voice, the animal voice from above, provided a skewed harmony as it wailed.

She had crawled back into the bed, wrapped herself in the blankets, and prayed to Mama. Sleep took her as she mouthed the words against the pillow.

A sound awoke her: the slamming of a door. She sat up, listened. The metallic sound of a lock. Galya squeezed her eyes shut and strained the limits of her hearing. There, maybe, the noise of an engine first clattering into life, then dissolving into the surrounding quiet.

It had been so faint, she couldn’t be sure if she’d heard anything after the door being locked. It could have been her own sleep-addled imagination.

The painted-out window only allowed the thinnest slivers of light into the room, but Galya could tell by the movement of the shadows that some time had passed. Her temples pulsed, and her tongue rasped the roof of her mouth. She pushed the blankets back, and the air crept cold and damp around her. Her breath misted. She smelled the decaying blood on her clothes, like metal and ripe meat.

The wailing from above had stopped. Quiet hung over the place, the world heavy with silence. Was she alone in this house? Had Billy Crawford, if that was really his name, left her here?

She climbed out of the bed and picked her way through the remnants of the drawer she had smashed. Once more, she pressed her ear against the door and listened.

Galya leaned her forehead against the smooth paint and commanded herself to think. Not panic like before, not cry in fear, but think until she found a way out.

She stepped back from the door and surveyed the room. The bed, the chest of drawers, a closet in the far corner, and the cheap carpet. Nothing else. She went from wall to wall, tapping each with her knuckles. All solid.

The pieces of the smashed drawer lay scattered at her feet. She dropped to her knees and peered under the bed. Dust scratched at her lungs and nasal passages. She reached for the drawer front, its handle still attached. It felt solid in her hands. She got back to her feet and dropped it on the bed.

A single painted door sealed the closet. She opened it. Empty, save for the spiders and their webs. It was perhaps sixty centimeters wide, and the same in depth, with bare floorboards at its bottom. She stepped inside, felt the rough wood on her feet.

The smell in here was different. Cleaner.

No, not cleaner. Newer. She smelled paint, not brand new, but not long applied.

She ran her fingertips over the surfaces of the walls, felt the almost imperceptible ripples left by a paintbrush. If the rest of the room was so old and worn, why paint the interior of a closet?

Galya explored further with her hands, letting them skim the walls and up into the darkness over her head. She couldn’t reach the ceiling, but her fingers found something hard and cold.

A hook.

She stretched up until she found the chain it hung from, pulled, and found it fixed solid to the closet’s ceiling. It was strong enough to support her weight, her toes skittering across the floorboards until her knees hit the rear wall with a hollow thud.

Hollow?

She released the hook, let her feet settle on the floor. With one knuckle, she tapped the left wall.

Solid.

The right wall.

Solid.

The back wall.

Hollow.

Again, Galya tapped, exploring the surface, listening as she went. She worked left to right, an inch at a time. Every gentle knock resonated until she got halfway. A solid part, perhaps two inches wide, then hollow again all the way across.

She stepped out of the closet and lifted the drawer front from the floor. Its corners were blunted from being rammed against the glass, but it was all she had. She moved back into the closet and raised the drawer front to shoulder height. Putting her weight behind it, she drove the wood into the rear wall.

The torn animal voice rose somewhere above. Galya closed her eyes and prayed once more to Mama’s spirit.

Again, she struck the wall. A sprinkling of dust fell away. The voice called in response.

Another strike, all her strength channeled through her shoulders, and a small square of plaster fell away to reveal thin wooden slats.

“Thank you, Mama,” Galya whispered.