Stolen Souls

26

THE ACHE EBBED and flowed behind Galya’s eyes. At times it felt like the heavy blankets held her down, at others like they carried her aloft on some warm updraft. Her consciousness came and went this way for what seemed like days. Deep in the waking part of her mind, she knew it must have only been a few hours.

When at last she could lift her eyelids, they let in a painful sliver of weak light. She closed them again, but not before she took in a little of her surroundings.

A darkened bedroom, but not the one she had been held in for almost a week. This was somewhere different. But where?

Then she remembered.

The hot blood on her hands, fleeing through the night, cold tarmac tearing at the soles of her feet, the white van and its strange, kind driver coming for her.

The coffee and the sour-sweet smell of the buttermilk shandy. Galya’s stomach flexed at the memory of the odor, and she rolled to the edge of the bed, the blankets knotting around her legs. She retched, bringing up only thin splashes of a dark and bitter liquid.

The coffee he had given her.

Had it been drugged? Or had she simply been so tired that she could remain awake no longer? She was still fully clothed, save for the shoes she had stolen, so she hoped he hadn’t touched her.

Galya sat up in the bed, but the pain followed her movement, shifting inside her skull. She brought her palms to her temples.

When the pulsing in her ears abated, she held her breath and listened to the house.

Quiet, not even the ticking of a clock.

She pushed the blankets away and lowered her bare feet to the floor. The coarse fibers of the carpet tugged on her tender skin, and the sting caused her to hiss through her teeth.

In the dimness, she picked out the features of the room. Decades-old floral wallpaper, peeling at the corners. A cheap chest of drawers against the wall. The air smelled of damp and something lower, something faded.

Galya pushed upward, got to her feet, and fell against the chest of drawers. She leaned against it for a time, allowing her balance to return, before going to the window and pulling aside the thin curtain.

A single pane with no handle. Black paint coated the inside of the glass. Tiny gaps at the edges of the pane let in a small amount of light. Here and there, the paint had been scraped by what looked like fingernails. Without thinking, Galya touched those places, tested the paint’s consistency with her own nail.

Who would paint out a window? Why?

Someone with things to hide, she thought.

Fear rose inside her, a small bubble of it, but growing.

Galya crossed the room, using the wall to support herself. She knew before she tried it that the door would be locked. It stood solid in its frame, not even a millimeter of give. She ran her fingertips along its edge, felt the scratches in the thick paint.

She put her ear to the cold, slick surface and listened again. Still and silent beyond the door.

Galya took a breath, held it in a moment of indecision, then called, “Hello?”

Quiet like a graveyard, not even the sound of traffic in the distance.

She placed a palm against the painted wood, held it there as if she might feel the heartbeat of the house, then pulled it back and slapped the door twice.

“Hello?” she called again, more strength behind it.

Something answered.

Galya stepped back from the door.

The howl came from somewhere above, the sound of a wounded dog, or a beast awaiting its turn in the abattoir.

Galya did not call again.

Instead, she returned to the bed and sat on its edge. She chewed her thumbnail as she thought, fighting to keep the fear down in her belly, not letting it climb to her mind where it would drive all reason from her.

This man, Billy Crawford, did not mean to help her, that much was obvious. So what was his intention? The scratches on the windowpane and the door—someone had been locked in here before. Someone had clawed at the paintwork trying to find a way out.

And what had happened to that person?

Galya remembered what the man had told her at the table as he gave her bitter coffee to drink.

“I am the sixth,” she said.

Her hand went to her mouth, but it was too late, the idea had already escaped her.

Tears stung her eyes as the fear crept up from her breast into her throat. Five had come before her, five had scratched the door and the window, five had sat where Galya sat. Had they wept? Had they screamed?

She would not weep.

She would not scream.

Whatever this man intended for her, whatever desires made him lock her in this room, she would not submit to fear. Instead, she would act.

Galya rubbed the tears away with the heel of her hand, stood, and went to the chest of drawers. She opened the first one, looking for something, anything hard enough to break glass. It was empty save for a sheet of old newspaper lining the bottom. So were the second and third drawers.

She pulled the top drawer out as far as it would go, felt the bump as the runners reached the farthest extent of their travel. She lifted and pulled again, freeing the drawer from the chest.

It was poor quality, but solid and heavy. She went to the window. The curtain came away with one tug and fell to the floor. She gripped the drawer by the corners and held it up to shoulder height. With her body’s weight behind it, she rammed it into the windowpane.

The glass held.

Galya pulled the drawer back, once again slammed it into the glass. Still the window stayed intact.

The howling from above resumed, a voice cracked by pain and sorrow.

She struck the glass again and again, every bit of her strength channeled through it, until the drawer split and fell apart in her hands. The glass stood firm. The voice above rose and fell like a siren. Galya collapsed to her knees among the fragments of wood and offered up her own cries.