All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 42

42

One day he could sit and trace the drywall. Painted black.

He searched the room, mapping each inch with the palm of his hand, looking for a gap, a loose board, something he could work with. He carried nothing in his pockets. Wore no shirt because it was warm. Not warm from his fever, just humid like he’d been taken so far south even if he broke free he wouldn’t recognize anything.

No cuff on his ankle, no chain. No shoes.

No light came when the door opened, like whatever lay outside was just as dark.

—

The girl ebbed and flowed. Sometimes she answered and sometimes she hid herself so thoroughly he knew she could disappear when she chose.

At a time when he remembered his mother too clearly he sat upright and cried out and the girl eased him back down.

And when he hammered on the door and screamed to be freed she led him back to the mattress and told him to calm.

“Was I asleep?” he said. “It’s hard to tell. I don’t dream down here anymore. It’s too dark. I don’t know where I am.”

“You think you’re in hell. But God can deliver you someplace better.”

“Why do you talk like that?” he said.

“I’m keeping us alive. And if I don’t, then it’s better to hedge our bets,

right?”

“Tell me about the others.”

“You’re the first boy.”

“But there were other girls—”

He heard her swallow. “And now there’s just me.”

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