David awoke at the bottom of the old, dry well. Actually, what finally woke him was the tremendous pain in his right ankle. It felt as if someone was cutting off his foot with a sharp knife. As he surfaced further into consciousness, the pangs grew sharper. His ankle burned with agony and that agony began to travel up his leg into his hip.
He moaned and turned his body. When he did, he felt the scrapes and bruises on his arms, shoulders, and legs. The left side of his forehead ached and his neck and chin burned where the chain had been wrapped around him. What the hell had happened to him?
It took him a while to realize where he was. The earth under him smelled fresh, but an oddly contrasting acrid odor mixed with it to make him flinch. The darkness around him cloaked him in impenetrable black. He reached out and felt the stones under his fingertips, piled in circles several feet high. The ground beneath him was damp, and because fresh earth had been dumped recently, the ground had cushioned his fall. Still, he didn’t fully understand where he was until he looked straight up and saw the stars. After a moment he was able to visualize the circular opening and he understood he was at the bottom of a well.
Now he remembered picking up the doll, feeling the chain around his neck, and seeing the woman’s face in the window. He could imagine the rest: obviously, after he had lost consciousness, the man had thrown or dropped him down this well. Even though he felt his sense of perspective was off, he estimated that it was at least twenty to twenty-five feet to the top. Christ, he thought, I’m lucky to be alive after such a fall.
He struggled into a more comfortable sitting position and then reached about to find a sufficient indentation in the well wall for him to insert his fingers and pull himself to his feet. The moment he did so, he winced. He realized he couldn’t put the slightest amount of pressure on his right foot. He might as well have had his right leg amputated for all the good it would do him now.
He imagined that when he was dropped into the well, he must have landed on that ankle and sustained a compound fracture. He suffered all the scrapes and bruises during the fall as well, he decided. Now that he considered it, he wondered if he had done any more damage, damage he didn’t yet realize. He took a deep breath, anticipating a fractured rib, but there was no pain in that area; or perhaps the intensity of the pain from his ankle drowned out pain from any other sector.
He looked up through the opening and drew dizzy, so he lowered himself to the damp earth, a grimace on his face, and tried to catch his breath. He reached into his pants pocket for his handkerchief and pressed it against the sore spot on his forehead. He looked at it, confirmed that he was still bleeding, and pressed it again to his forehead until the bleeding stopped. After a few moments, he hoisted himself back into a standing position again and made an effort to pull himself up the wall, using only his left foot as a brace. He succeeded in lifting his body a good foot from the bottom before his foot slipped on a small ledge of protruding rock and he tumbled to the well floor again. Despite his effort to protect it from impact, he landed squarely on his right foot and the resulting stab of pain caused the blackness to engulf him once more. Unconscious he lay curled in a twisted ball at the other side of the well.
This was the way Gerald found him when he directed the beam of his flashlight down to the bottom of the well. The illumination washed over David’s back and revealed his twisted, still form. Gerald studied him for a moment. Satisfied, he turned off the flashlight and retreated from the edge of the well.
When David came to, he coughed and spit; there was the taste of earth on his lips. He pushed himself up and leaned back against the wall of the well. For a few moments he just sat there gulping in deep breaths until he felt the return of some strength. Then he looked up longingly at the well opening. Although it wasn’t that far away, at this moment it looked as far away as the moon. When he thought about it, he realized the well should be deeper than it was. Then he considered the fresh earth, and wondered if Gerald weren’t burying something at the bottom of the well. He turned away the gruesome thought. He had to focus his energies on one goal.
He leaned over and felt his ankle. His discovery made him shudder as though ice had been dropped down the back of his shirt. He could feel the broken bone pressing up against his skin. It caused a weakness in his stomach and he began to retch. He fought to bring it to a quick end, but it left him feeling even weaker than before.
He embraced himself tightly and shut his eyes as if he could shut away the reality. He wasn’t breathing as much as he was gasping now, but he knew that if he didn’t get a hold on himself and get a hold quickly, he could lose consciousness again and maybe die down here. The acrid odor was stifling.
Hope for recovery or rescue could come only after he fought back panic. He knew this and centered on it, using his practiced ability to concentrate. He talked to himself, speaking aloud as if another person sat across from him in this well.
“You’ve got to take stock of the situation. You’ve got to look for solutions. You can’t dwell on the pain. This is no time to feel sorry for yourself. Get your strength back; get yourself thinking clearly again. Come on, get on with it. Take two deep breaths. Hold the air in. Release it slowly. Forget the pain. You’ve got to live with the pain for a while. Straighten up. Let’s go, Oberman. Let’s go,” he chanted.
It seemed to work. He opened his eyes and considered his plight. It would be hard; it would be dangerous, but he had to work his way back up this well. It could be done; it must be done. There wasn’t any alternative. He had to push failure out of his mind.
His determination sprang from a bone-chilling realization: considering what had happened to him, Stacey and Tami had to be in some terrible trouble. He tried to keep them from his mind as he explored the walls of the well. He knew that if he dwelt on what might have happened to them or what might be happening to them now, he would grow weak and incapable of achieving anything.
He told himself that they were obviously locked up in that house, held against their will for whatever reason these mad people had concocted; but once he crawled out of here, he would easily get help; it would all be over soon. Relying on his methodical and logical mind, a mind that had gotten him this far in life, he put all his mental energy and attention on the initial step—finding a way to scale the well.
He was familiar with old wells like this. They were made entirely of flat fieldstone painstakingly fitted one on top of the other. The separations between the rocks were generally not wide enough to comfortably and safely secure a foot, but he could work his way up slowly if he found the protrusions. It would be slow work, complicated by the constant pain in his right leg, but he would attempt the climb.
He began. Every time he paused, he looked up at the stars visible through the well opening. He wasn’t a very religious man, at least not in any orthodox sense, but he had always felt a deep awareness of a spiritual presence, especially in nature. He was never comfortable with an image of God that made Him appear like a divine Santa Claus answering prayers and delivering gifts. He remembered an interpretation developed by the eighteenth-century Puritan minister, Jonathan Edwards. In a religious treatise, Edwards made the point that if God farmed out rewards based on good deeds and conformity to rules and commandments, then He was really not God. He would be nothing more than a clerk handing out rewards for so many good deeds. “You certainly don’t owe me anything, God,” he whispered up at the twinkling stars, “but I ask You anyway. Help us. Please. Help us.”
He waited a moment and then began to dig again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the sound of a music box began to chime. He tried to push the familiar melody back, but the memory was too strong. The tinkle of the little notes brought tears to his eyes.
Next to the place on her pink dresser, where Tami often kept Sooey, there was the figure of a ballerina on a little wooden box. When it was wound up, it danced to the tune of the theme from Dr. Zhivago. Only months before she had died, his mother had given it to Tami.
And one night when he had come into her room to comfort her after she had had a nightmare, the box just started to play and the ballerina began to dance. Of course it was probably just some vibration that had set it off, but still…
“Nanny made that happen,” Tami said and tears stung David’s eyes.
“Sure she did,” he said. He kissed her and fixed her blanket snugly around her tiny frame and left her safe.
Would he ever do that again?
He dug harder, funneling all his determination into the effort, with the tinkle of the music box so real in his memory it was as though it were there with him at the bottom of the well.
“Nanny, make it happen,” he whispered.
“I know where my brother is,” Shirley said. Like most everything she had said or done to Tami there was no transition, no introduction, no reason behind her action. They were down in the basement playroom working with little tools and molds to make something out of two clay bars. Some time before, Shirley had taken several different-colored packs and mixed them together into a large, rainbow-hued lump.
Tami simply followed Shirley’s lead and command. She was told to scoop out some clay and “make something.” At the very beginning of her incarceration here, she offered some resistance to Shirley’s commands, expecting her mother to rescue her. Even now she couldn’t understand why her mother was incapable of offering any assistance. Adults usually had power, especially over children.
However, what little combativeness Tami had displayed in the beginning had been smothered in the Bad Box. Although it had been Irene who had put her there initially, Shirley now used it herself. There was little Tami could do physically to oppose the bigger girl. Already her upper arms ached from the black and blue marks imprinted there by Shirley’s fingers, and the pinpricks left there when the other girl decided to test a safety pin from Tami’s doll dress. Irene had found it on the playroom floor and thrown it out, not seeing the tiny holes in Tami’s arms because they had dried quickly. Still, they made her arms ache the more.
Shirley found it easier to talk with her body. Sometimes it was frustrating for her to find the right words, the stuttering and the delay angered her so. Her face would grow red with the effort and she would lash out, usually with an incomprehensible sound accompanied by a punch or a kick. Whenever she wanted Tami to do something, it was simpler to pull or to push her to the desired direction. Even though there was no real resistance, she did so with vigor and determination.
In the beginning Tami cried freely, but Shirley was afraid that Tami’s bawling would anger Gerald and Irene. They might even take the playmate away from her, so she punished Tami more severely if she cried out. The result was that Tami retreated to soft sniffling and tiny gasps. She stood there wiping her eyes to keep the tears from escaping down her cheeks. Her upper body jerked spasmodically as though it were set on little springs around her waist. She also began whispering her demands, not making them for Shirley so much as for someone passing by.
All it would take now to drive her into a terrified silence was Shirley’s mad glare. The physically intimidating older girl would widen her eyes and press her lips together so hard her face would become sickly white. She would clench her fingers into fists and begin to beat them against her own thighs, but she would do it with such force that Tami was sure she was hurting herself. For the five-year-old, it was incomprehensible how anyone could be so oblivious to self-inflicted pain. It was more frightening than having Shirley hit her, though she knew that if Shirley did direct blows against her, they would be most severe.
Tami was unused to corporal punishment anyway. Her parents’ reprimands, especially her father’s, were always tempered by a reasonable tone that made her self-evaluate and eventually feel remorse. She was a precocious child and quickly perceived when she was overstepping boundaries or being unreasonable. Because her parents were usually fair, she rarely suffered any prolonged punishment.
The violence rained on her diminutive body through blows, pinches, and grips was regretted as much for the indignity as for the pain. No one touched her in the places Shirley touched her, especially not with the same force and impunity.
Upstairs in the attic, she had to sit cooperatively as Shirley painted her naked body. She made her put her hands on her head while she drew spoke lines from her tiny nipples, telling her she was making them look like “little suns in the sky.” She pressed crayons with painful pressure along her spine and down her legs and she nearly poked her in the eye when she drew small circles on her cheeks and forehead.
When she first buckled the collar around Tami’s neck, it was so tight that Tami gagged and tried to pull it off. Finally Shirley understood and loosened it sufficiently, but when she attached the leash, she tugged on her so roughly she sent her sprawling to the attic floor, twisting her neck painfully. She was grateful when Irene made Shirley take it off, but she sensed something unusual in the way Irene reprimanded Shirley. Tami understood that Irene wasn’t going to interfere very often. In effect, whenever they were alone, Shirley was in complete control. She was boss in a way usually reserved only for adults.
“Brother?” Tami said. Her voice was barely audible, but Shirley had set her face so close to hers Tami could see the tiny ridges in the skin of her lips. It made her think of worms on the sidewalk after a rain.
She hadn’t seen any signs of another child in the house, but just the thought of one made her sick with anticipation. Another one like this? And a boy yet? Where did they keep him? What kinds of things would he do to her?
“My younger brother,” Shirley said. She turned to the shape she had molded in the clay. It didn’t resemble anything Tami could recognize, not an animal, not a person, not even a building. The object was just a couple of blobs pressed against each other with indentations made here and there, seemingly at random. From the way Shirley looked at it, Tami understood that Shirley saw something sensible in the form.
“What’s his name?” She hadn’t heard Irene or Gerald mention anyone else.
“Are…thor.” When Shirley pronounced the name, she closed her eyes after the first syllable to frame the remainder.
“Where is he?”
Shirley didn’t respond. She concentrated on her clay figure as though she had already forgotten she had mentioned a brother. After a few moments she placed her creation on the small table before her. Then, without any warning, she brought her fist down and crushed it to a flattened mass. The action made Tami wince and flinch away. Shirley looked at her and laughed.
“Put yours on the table, too.”
Tami looked down at the figure of a man she had been making. She had been thinking about her father and, satisfying a childlike faith in the power of incantation, silently praying for his arrival and rescue. As soon as she finished the figure, he would arrive miraculously and free her and her mother. She hesitated to sacrifice what she had already created, but she was afraid to refuse Shirley.
“I’m not finished yet.”
“Put it up here, I said. I’ll finish it for you,” Shirley said. She smiled and tilted her head. Tami looked down at the figure in her hands and tried to delay the inevitable. Shirley grabbed it from her and slapped it down roughly on the table. “That’s stupid,” she said and brought her fist down with even greater force than she had employed on her own creation.
Tami closed her eyes and then turned away. She opened them and looked toward the stairway. She wanted to run up the steps and go directly to her mother, but she knew she couldn’t even get halfway to the stairs before Shirley would grab her and have her down.
“I’ll take you to see my brother,” Shirley said. “It’s dark, so we can go out.”
Tami spun around on the metal chair. Shirley stood up and wiped her hands on her dress.
“I want my mother,” she whispered. “I want to see my mother,” she repeated just loud enough for Shirley to hear her distinctly.
“After we see my brother. Don’t you want to see my brother?” Tami heard the note of threat laced into Shirley’s voice so she nodded. “Good. Come on, Sooey-face,” Shirley said, seizing Tami by the hair and pulling her into a standing position. The little girl grimaced with pain. Shirley didn’t let go until they were at the foot of the stairs. Then she turned around, bringing her face so close to Tami’s that her lips nearly touched Tami’s skin. “We’ve got to be very quiet about it. We can’t let Gerald hear us go out, okay?” Tami nodded. “If he hears us, it’s going to be your fault,” Shirley added menacingly. “I’ll go first. Hold on to my skirt.”
Shirley started up the stairs and Tami balled the skirt’s fabric into her small fist, holding on as if for dear life and looking like a little blind girl being led into unfamiliar places.
But these were places unfamiliar even to those who could see.
Stacey watched Irene sift through the garments in the closet and tried to understand how someone could become so twisted. She still fought off sluggishness, but felt slightly better now that the effects of the bath were wearing off. Maybe she could still find an avenue of escape. She studied Irene. Surely if she had met this woman in an aisle in the supermarket, she would have failed to realize what kinds of things she was capable of doing. It must be all Gerald’s fault, she thought. That crazy man made her behave this way.
“It’s going to be sunny and warmer tomorrow. You can wear something more summery. Oh, I know…this blue cotton blouse and this beige skirt. That’s a nice combination, don’t you think?” she asked. She took the garments out of the closet and held them up against herself. Stacey was in awe of how oblivious the woman was to what she was doing and to what was happening in her own house. “Well? don’t just lay there and stare.”
“It’s nice,” Stacey said. “Very nice,” she added. Irene smiled. “Tell me, Irene, how long have you and Gerald been married?”
“Been married?” She thought for a moment. “Eighteen years this December.”
“And you’ve only had the one child?”
“What?”
“Shirley. She’s your only child?”
“No. There’s Arthur.” She closed her eyes and then opened them wide. “You know that; you know about Arthur.” She turned back to the closet and hung up the clothes roughly.
“I don’t remember,” Stacey said. Irene looked at her. The anger in her face had subsided. “Remember, I’ve been away. Where’s Arthur?”
“Arthur’s not well,” she said. “Arthur’s been very sick. He can’t come out of his room. Gerald has to carry him downstairs and I have to feed him. He can’t even cry anymore. I cry for him,” she said. She laughed, a short sharp laugh that jolted Stacey’s sensibilities. “I do,” she said, taking a few steps toward the bed. “I know when he’s sad and I start to cry. Then I say, ‘Poor Arthur, don’t cry. It’ll be all right.’ And I stop crying and Arthur looks happier. His face is made of cellophane and his bones are thin as fine china. Gerald puts him on a pillow before he carries him around.”
“I’m sorry. How old is he?”
“Gerald says he’s an eighty-year-old man. He says every day now is like a year. Sometimes when I look at him, I think he looks like Gerald’s father just before he died. Gerald says Arthur will dry up like a fallen leaf and then crumple away to be scattered in the wind. He’ll be all over the farm. All over…” She sat at the foot of the bed and stared down at her hands.
“Did you always live here, in this area?” Stacey prodded gently, hoping to distract Irene so she could plot some escape route.
“Yes. My parents had a home only five miles from here.” Her face brightened. “Wait a minute, let me show you,” she said and went out of the room. A perfect situation, Stacey tugged on the chain and then leaned over the bed to study how it was attached to the bedpost. The bed frame itself looked handmade, and carved out of oak. The posts were thick and heavy. She imagined the headboard weighed over a hundred pounds by itself. It was definitely an antique and of great value, but for her right now, it felt like lead weight.
“Here,” Irene said, drifting back into the room. She carried a pile of photo albums. “Everyone’s in here.” She placed the albums on Stacey’s lap and sat beside her. “I’ll go through them with you,” she said as she opened the first one.
As she looked at the snapshots, Stacey thought that even as a young boy Gerald had had that wild, animal look to him. There was rarely a picture of him smiling. In almost all of them he was scowling or looking bored. She saw the haggard look in his mother’s face and the Puritan stoicism in his father’s stance. In none of the pictures was there a sign of warm family bonds. Few pictures showed them touching one another, and in those where they did the photo appeared staged.
Irene’s family appeared much warmer. Their faces were softer, friendlier. She saw a clear resemblance between her mother and her and between her and her younger sister.
“Where is your sister? Does she live nearby?”
“No. She lives in Texas. She married a soldier boy. My mother went to live with her there after my father died.”
“Do you call them? Do you write to them?” Stacey couldn’t believe that any close family wouldn’t know how sick Irene was and wouldn’t do anything about it.
“No, not anymore. They don’t like Gerald.”
“That’s not good. It’s not good for you to be apart from your family.”
“Gerald says it’s all right. He has no family either. We only have each other…and the children,” she added quickly. “The children are in the second album.” She set aside the first album, and opened the cover of the next.
The sight of the emaciated, sickly-looking child that stared up at Stacey nearly turned her stomach. He looked like the kind of starving infant that would be found deserted on a street in some third-world country. The boy’s eyes were big, exaggerated because of the thinness in his cheeks. His skull was clearly visible because of his translucent skin. The picture reminded her more of an X ray than a photograph.
“This…is Arthur?”
“Yes. Isn’t he sweet?”
“How old is he here?”
“I don’t remember,” she said quickly.
Although Stacey wanted to turn the page and escape from the face before her, she was also strangely fascinated by it. It was as though she were looking at the face of death itself. She had the same ghoulish curiosity about it that she would have had about a corpse. Few people like to look at them, but still, few refrain from the chance to see one.
“I’m getting tired,” she said. Irene didn’t look disappointed.
“I’m not surprised. I’m a little tired myself. We can always look at the rest of this tomorrow,” she added as she closed the album.
“Actually, I don’t feel so well,” Stacey said. “I think I have a fever. Maybe I should see a doctor.”
“Oh, dear.” Irene put her hand on Stacey’s forehead. “You do feel a bit warm. I know. I’ll get you some aspirins.”
“I’m coming down with something. I’d better see a doctor. I could get very sick.”
“Gerald says doctors aren’t necessary. They don’t really care about you. All they care about is making money. That’s why we stopped bringing Arthur to the doctor. He wasn’t doing any better, and the doctor just sent us bills. Arthur hated him. I think Gerald was right. Arthur got sicker because of the doctor.”
“But if things get too serious…”
“They won’t get serious, dear. I’ll bring you some aspirins,” she repeated. Stacey watched her leave the room and thought she might have made things worse for herself. Who knew what kind of pills Irene would bring back?
She inched to the edge of the bed and studied the way Irene had wrapped the chain around the bedpost. It dangled loosely enough to give her an idea. If only she could get Irene to leave the door unlocked, then, later tonight when all of them were asleep, she might be able to free herself and slip out of the house. Of course, she would have to leave Tami here until she was able to get help. If she tried to wake her and sneak her out, she might wake Shirley and there was no doubt in her mind what would ensue. Gerald might do to them whatever he’d done to the previous mother and daughter. Now that she had a plan, at least she had some hope.
“Now just take these,” Irene said when she returned. She carried a glass of water in her right hand. When she opened her left hand and displayed the two pills, Stacey scanned them quickly to discern any printing on the capsules.
“What is it? I can’t take everything,” she said. “I have some bad allergies.”
“It’s only aspirin. That’s all I said I would bring you, Marlene. You’re so suspicious, always so suspicious. Why can’t you be trusting? Friends should be trusting.”
“Friends don’t have to chain each other up,” Stacey remonstrated. She couldn’t resist the comment, even as Irene’s eyes grew small.
“Every time I think we’re getting along just fine, you go and ruin it. I told you what Gerald said. He said that would continue to happen. Why must you prove him right? If you keep this up, he won’t let you stay here.”
“You mean,” Stacey said, unable to hide her hope, “he’ll send me away?”
“No,” Irene said. Her face changed expression dramatically, becoming hard and more mask-like. Her eyes darkened and she straightened her back, bringing her head back arrogantly. “No, he’ll take you away,” she said. “Here,” she said, thrusting the pills at her, “take these now.”
Gingerly, Stacey plucked the two pills from Irene’s palm as the other handed her the glass of water. Stacey put the pills into her mouth. There was the definite taste of aspirin and aspirins could only help her now, she thought. She swallowed them with the water chaser and tried to smile.
“Thank you.”
“That’s better. And you’ll feel much better in the morning, after you get a good night’s rest.” Irene guided Stacey back against the pillow and brought the blanket up over her shoulders. She tucked the covers in so tightly on both sides of the bed that the blanket felt more like a straightjacket. Then she turned off the lamp. “Good night, Marlene,” she said.
“Good night,” Stacey replied. She watched her move toward the doorway. When she reached for the door, Stacey called out. “Please, don’t close the door.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because…because I’m not sure I’ll be all right and I might need you later. If I do, I’ll call and I’m afraid you won’t hear me if you close the door.”
“Oh. Oh, of course. Don’t be nervous. I’ll be right down the hall.”
“Thank you,” Stacey said. Irene looked at her for a moment and then left the room, leaving the door open. Stacey lowered her head back to the pillow and breathed a sigh of relief. Step one of her plan was completed; she was really fighting back now. She had gone from terrible fear and panic, through trauma, to calm acceptance. Now she had gathered her resolve. If she had true grit, she thought, it would have to show itself soon.
Soon…that was the word she had to use in prayer. Soon she would work herself free. Soon she would slip away from this house. Soon she would find help and soon Tami would be rescued. It was what enabled her to remain calm knowing her five-year-old daughter was being tormented even more than she was in this house of madness.
Soon it would all end. Soon.
She prayed.