If I make myself small, nobody will know I’m here.
I shuffle closer to the wall, hugging my knees, the mattress a roof over my head that smells like feathers and straw. My teeth chatter, eyelids trying to shut, like when I need to sleep. Little puffs of white come out when I breathe.
The cold inside my chest is so big and heavy. But I like this cold—it feels slow and quiet. Better than my dreams that are hot and hurting.
This cold feels like it has an end. Somewhere.
Perhaps if I reach it, I’ll remember who I am?
My memories … they’re a splat of black. A scribbled drawing that makes no sense.
I think I’m missing something important—
The door creaks open, but I’m too sleepy to turn toward the sound of footsteps stomping into the room.
“Where did you say she was?”
My heart does this jumpy thing that makes me feel sick.
I don’t know that voice.
It’s not from my nightmares; not one of the voices that whispers at me. It’s not the voice from that night when my memories began—the deep voice that said I wassafe,but that I’ve never heard again.
“Under the bed. My arms aren’t long enough to reach her, and the damn thing is bolted to the floor.”
I know that voice.The woman who gives me warm cuddles at night and tells me everything’s going to be okay.
She says I need more sunshine. That it’ll make me feel better.
But I like the dark.
More tears slip down my cheeks as bare feet move around the bed. I watch each step, tucking into a tighter ball. Another shiver, and I rest my head on my knees, breathing cold air all over them.
I squeeze my eyes shut …
If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.
“Orlaith?”
They keep using that name.
Not me.
Not me.
Not me.
I’m someone else. Someone happy … I think. But I don’t know where my giggles went.
What is this big blackness I can’t stop slipping into?
Something tugs at my shift, and I’m dragged along the floor, clawing at the boards. I scream bigger than I ever have, but my sound doesn’t come. It never does.
I think it fell down that hole, too.
I’m pulled into the sunlight that makes my eyes hurt; pulled against a warm chest that smells like flowers and wood, wrapped in big arms I bleed with my teeth and nails.
They got me—
