Blue opened her eyes and saw nothing that scared her.
She saw nothing at all.
The dark was absolute, and the air was close, and her eyes stung with the dust. Her nostrils filled with the smell of the earth: freshly dug potatoes, trainers caked in wet mud, a coat worn in the rain and allowed to go fusty with mildew. Her fingers touched the polyester lining of the suitcase; it was gritty with sand and flakes of dried mud.
Her hands were still bound at the wrists, her knees bent and legs curled beneath her. She was on her side, had enough space to move a few inches left and right, not much more, but she used that space. She would try and break the seam of the case, smash it from within. She writhed and butted, felt the case move across the floor, but her prison was stubborn and strong and little oxygen filtered through it.
How long until the air ran out? She didn’t know, and that uncertainty was as vile as the certainty that it would. She was light-headed; was that due to the drugs or suffocation? Her hands and feet were numb; was the tape that tight, or was her body preserving oxygen for her organs?
She moved her arms until her fingers touched the lid of the case, inched along until she found the seam. She would tear at the edges with her nails. She would get out.
Fear, like a noose around her neck, drew tighter.
There was no gap in the edges, no weak spot, no out.
A bovine groan escaped her throat, and she stretched her mouth wide to scream but couldn’t scream, couldn’t yell, could feel nought but the fear in her chest, as tight-close as the walls around her. No light, no air, no out. No way out.
Just a voice.
I’m here with you.
And she screamed then, a roar that scraped out her mouth. She kicked out, jarred her knees, scraped the lining of the case with her nails.
I’m here.
Impossible.
Let me show you.
No.
This way.
There was no this way; there was no way out.
Then she felt it.
The floor softened, the charcoal darkness shimmered.
She sank. Her body melted through the soft base, through the hard floor beneath it, dropped into another world, another time, another locked case. The space widened, lengthened, filled with precious air and made room for her. There was someone else in there. Strands of long hair brushed Blue’s cheek, hair that even in the colourless dark she knew would be yellow. Her feet touched shoes, and she knew they were trainers, red trainers.
Here I am.
Blue felt for her; touched her thin, dry arm, her thin, shrivelled leg. She wanted to hold her hand, reassure her that it was OK, that Blue would get them both out, that she would somehow break down these walls.
The girl didn’t reach back for Blue.
‘Where are we?’ Blue said.
No answer.
‘Who put you here?’ said Blue, and she felt for the hand again. There was a softness to the floor: blankets, pillows, the hard, round eyes of a stuffed toy. Blue found the hand and held it, the fingers cool and brittle and dead, and Blue could see it all now.
Blue squeezed Jess’ hand, but she didn’t squeeze back. Blue felt the pure cold of her, and it was the same empty chill she’d felt whenever she’d tried to hug Arlo.
Far off, she could hear Mr and Mrs Park shout, could hear feet stomp and splash, fists bang tables, and she didn’t know if it was real or imagined, if they were part of Jessica’s past or Blue’s present. She didn’t know where she was.
The darkness was pure black, but the images played clear and bright in Blue’s mind.
On a bed in a pure white room is a girl with long straight hair that has been dyed brown. For two years, she has been locked in the room at night, let out in the morning to have family time with the grown-ups. She is fed with cakes, fresh bread, chocolate bars, fruit crumbles and pies until her naturally thin frame is goose-plump. Her name is Jessica, but they call her Eleanor. Their names are Molly and Joshua, but she’s to call them Mummy and Daddy. They hug her and kiss her. She misses her brother.
Sweat coats her forehead. Her stomach is sore, and the skin on her belly is dark red, mottled. A fever makes her shiver. Calpol does nothing to curtail it; the antibiotics the woman bought online don’t help. They say she will get better. They say she has to get better.
She doesn’t.
The couple talk in low voices, but she hears them. They say it’s dangerous to call a doctor, they shouldn’t risk outsiders inside their house. The woman is a nurse; she can look after her. The man is a strong, tall man with lots of money, but strength won’t cure the girl, nor money.
It’s appendicitis, or so the grown-ups whisper. Is there any way to cure it without a hospital? Is there anything that can make it better?
The woman has an idea. She is a nurse, after all, a good nurse. She will remove it. She will send the girl to sleep with strong drugs, lay her out on the table, cut her belly open, and prise out the diseased thing. Jess shouldn’t be scared. Mummy will look after her. She will cure her and look after her, and they’ll be a happy family.
Jess doesn’t know when the morning will come; her brain has stopped tracking time, too occupied with the pain. She isn’t scared at the thought of being cut open; she doesn’t register the words or meaning.
The woman will wash the kitchen, disinfect every surface, every cloth, every blade.
A noble plan, says the man, but his eyes have glazed over. He hugs his wife, kisses her head, holds her face in his hands, and says again, a noble plan.
The woman cleans the kitchen.
The man says he will read a story to the child, calm her, take her mind off the pain, but there is no taking her mind off the pain. The man knows it. There is no getting better, and he knows that, too. If the woman plays surgeon, the girl will die on the table, and the woman will blame herself.
He reads Jess a story; he does that, at least. A story about a boy and his toy rabbit who wished to be real, a rabbit that watched over the boy when he fell sick and loved the boy so much that the toy became real after all. Jess thinks of her brother, thinks of home. She remembers sitting on Marie’s lap, warm and held, remembers the home cooking, remembers the peanut butter on toast, remembers old Jim, who promised to always look after her. She had never been lonely at home.
The man finishes the story. Jess is too weak to open her eyes. He tells the girl he loves her, calls her Eleanor, and Jess thinks, my name is Jessica Pike. He says it has been a privilege to be her daddy, and she thinks, you’re not my daddy. She wants him to say sorry, but he doesn’t. He says it’s time for her to sleep now, sleep now, sleep now, baby girl, with a pillow over her head instead of under it.
When the bleach-scented woman comes upstairs an hour later, the man pretends to be asleep. The book is on his knee. His chin rests on his chest. His eyes are squeezed shut. He waits until it’s safe to cry, and when it is, when the woman has seen the girl and felt her pulse and checked her eyes and has shaken her and shaken her and shaken her to wake, the crying takes over. The man sobs and his shoulders shake, and the book falls to the floor.
In the numb hours that follow, they set on a plan. They will keep their daughter with them. No churchyard or crematorium for her. The woman dresses the girl in the clothes the woman liked best. She carries the girl into the kitchen, warms her cooling body with blankets, places a teddy bear by her side. She kisses Jess’ dead cheeks and cries into Jess’ dead hair. She rocks her, though Jess’ dead body needs no comfort, and hushes her, though no noise comes from Jessica’s lips. When the girl’s body is settled in the small suitcase-tomb, the man lifts his wife in his arms and moves her into their bed, gives her zopiclone to make her sleep.
The man lifts the suitcase and carries it out to the treeline.