The Lost Girl

10

Cost



They give me water and a late dinner, but I eat very little. I search the tray for anything I can use as a weapon, but they’ve been careful; there are no forks, no knives, no sharp ends.

Ophelia comes to see me a few times. She stays long enough to tell me that Erik is on his way to London. I find that slightly cheering. I want desperately to see Erik again.

“Eva?” Ophelia pauses before leaving. It’s a desperate attempt to reach me. “Please talk to me.”

She sniffs and kisses the top of my head. I don’t pull away from her, but I don’t reply. I want to tell her I understand. I get it. But that it hurts anyway. I trusted her and she knew it and used it against me.

“I love you. Remember that.”

After she leaves, I curl up on the bed with a lump in my throat, exhausted with pain and hurt and just plain tired after a very, very long few days.

I try to catch a few hours’ sleep and regain some energy. But it’s not very restful. I dream of a nursery and a clock, and Matthew sings me songs about beautiful, eerie things. I wake up and don’t feel much better.

It’s bitterly lonely in this tiny room. The words scratched painstakingly into the window seem clearer every time I look at them. I imagine scratching I AM EVA under I AM HENRY WILLOW.

I look for a way out. I check the window, but it’s much too small for even someone of my size to squeeze through. It’s too high off the ground anyway, and there’s no ledge or foothold nearby. I try everything. I scrape at the wall, but the walls are too thick and solid for me to scratch my way through. I search for holes or vents in the ground and find nothing. I test the door, but the wood is solid. Not that breaking it would help me: I’d only tumble out at the Guard’s feet. Theseus is polite, but I haven’t made the mistake of underestimating him. I have no doubt he will be quick to use his knife if I attack him first.

At least I got Sean out. It’s the one good thing I keep repeating to myself, over and over, each time trying not to remember the look on his face or the way he kissed me before he left. He’s safe. That’s something. It might even be enough.

I hear a sound at the door and jerk upright.

The key in the lock. I wrap my arms around my knees and watch the door warily. Ophelia? I’m aware of a smidgeon of hope: Erik?

The door swings open. I see a plump, sturdy woman with a fierce face and hair like the round-topped ashoka trees.

All the breath is sucked straight out of my lungs.

Mina Ma clomps her way in and deliberately bangs the door shut behind her. She’s all strength and fury. I throw myself into her arms and promptly burst into tears. She smells like butter.

“Hush, child, enough of this,” she says briskly, but her words don’t mean anything, not when she’s clutching me as hard as I’m holding her and she sounds like she’s trying not to cry herself. “We have better things to do with our time.”

“W-what are you d-doing here?” I blubber, trying and failing to get a grip on myself. I never dreamed I’d see her again. I never thought they’d allow it.

“Why do you imagine I’m here?” she demands. “What a goose. I came as soon as I heard they had caught you.”

“And they let you see me?”

Mina Ma gives me a brief, smug look. “I chose to ask the right Weaver. I have been talking to Elsa.” Her face darkens. “She has been telling me some strange things. About you and Adrian Borden.”

Heat creeps up my neck and it’s all I can do to meet her eye. I wipe the last of my tears away. “So he’s already told her what he offered me?”

“Yes. Also that you agreed.”

I bite my lip. I don’t know what to say.

“She also mentioned that part of the offer involved letting Sean go.” Mina Ma’s eyes narrow on my face. “Interesting, eh? You wouldn’t have agreed to this monstrosity just to make sure Sean was safe, would you?”

“I—” I try to look her in the eye. “You know about the Sleep Order. I had to do whatever I could to survive.”

“And you will stay here? Help him?”

There’s something about Mina Ma’s tone that makes my lies wither. “No,” I say, letting out a heavy breath. “I had no intention of staying if I could help it. I meant to find a way out. But there’s no way out of this room. I have no ideas left.”

A grave look crosses her face. She watches me for a long time. Then she reaches into the folds of her sari and carefully withdraws a steak knife. My mouth falls open.

“I don’t like it,” she says. “Knives, they’re not nice. But this is not a nice situation either.”

“Didn’t they search you before they let you see me?”

Mina Ma almost snorts. “After the way I stood there abusing them? I assure you, they wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. At any rate, I don’t think they understand saris, poor things. They didn’t even think to look in the pleats.”

I choke on my own laughter. It dies almost immediately. It was too strange a sound in this desolate room.

Mina Ma sighs. “My advice,” she says reluctantly, “is to use that on Ophelia. No,” she adds, when I recoil, “I don’t mean it that way. I mean you should threaten her with it. Make the Guard think you will cause her harm if he doesn’t let you go. We can only hope she will be sensible and realize you don’t actually intend to hurt her. We don’t want to scare her. Not,” she says darkly, “that she doesn’t deserve it. But I suppose she thought she was doing what was best. She always tries so hard to please everybody.”

I stare at the knife, wondering if I can really threaten someone with it, someone I love. Mina Ma tips my chin up.

“Be brave,” she says, “and everything will be all right. I will go get Ophelia. I will tell her you want to talk to her.”

“Wait. You knew I would want to get out? You knew I never intended to stay here with the Weavers?”

“You may have been gone for the better part of a year,” says Mina Ma tartly, “but you’re still the girl I raised. It wasn’t Erik who taught you to be sneaky, I promise you.”

I put my arms around her and hug her tightly. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared or unsure in my life, but I’m going to get out. One way or another I will get past the Guard and find my way out of the Loom.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“No,” says Mina Ma, “thank you. Thank you for being mad enough to run. I could not have borne it if you had stayed and allowed the Sleep Order to destroy you.”

She wipes her eyes and marches to the door. She bangs on it.

“Oy!”

I hide a grin as Theseus unlocks and opens the door. He looks terrified of her. I actually feel sorry for him.

When I am alone again I pick up the knife. It feels cold and alien in my hand. What if I make a mistake and the knife slips? What if I hurt her? My stomach roils and I squash the feeling. I have to do whatever it takes, or there’s no point trying to escape.

It can’t be more than twenty minutes before I hear the key in the lock again. It feels like an eternity. Each minute I wait drains a little bit more of my nerve.

As the door opens my heart begins to race. Too fast. Too loudly.

“I’ll wait for you on the tower stairs,” says Mina Ma. It sounds like she’s talking to Ophelia. I know she’s talking to me.

“Eva?” Ophelia looks tentative. Hopeful.

I almost give up. The look on her face. To threaten her now seems like such a dirty trick. Then I remember that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, and the pounding of my heart becomes a roar that drowns everything out. Mina Ma walks away and vanishes down the stairs. I take a step forward and press my shaking hand and the flat of the knife to Ophelia’s ribs.

“Sorry,” I whisper. I hope she believes me. I hope she understands why I’m doing this. I hope I don’t make a mistake.

The Guard recoils. His blue eyes widen. “Where did you get that knife?”

“You didn’t search me properly when you caught me. That was a mistake.” My voice sounds amazingly calm. I hold on to that sound, I cling to the calm. “Could you please step away from the stairs and let me pass by? I won’t let Ophelia go until I’ve gotten to the bottom of this tower. But I’m not going to hurt her unless you do something stupid.”

“Eva, please—”

“Don’t.” I cut Ophelia off, and there’s a tremor in my voice for the first time. “Don’t make this any harder.”

I cautiously walk toward the stairs. I have one hand clamped around Ophelia’s arm to make sure she doesn’t try breaking free of me. The other keeps the flat of the knife against her ribs. Tiny drops of sweat trickle down my back.

Theseus backs up but refuses to get out of the way. He’s blocking my only way out. He has drawn his knife and holds it with the point down. Unthreatening.

“I can’t let you leave the tower,” he says quietly.

“I have a knife in my hand!” I snap. “Do you really think I won’t use it? Do you think Adrian will be happy you obeyed orders and allowed his daughter to be hurt?”

“I do what I’m told.”

“And I’m telling you—”

“I do what the Weavers tell me to.”

Ophelia makes a piteous sound. She looks so hurt and bewildered, I would have relented if my life weren’t at stake. Even so, guilt burns holes through my skin.

“Do what she says, Theseus,” she pleads.

“I can’t,” he replies. His voice has an odd sticking sound, as though he isn’t used to speaking unless it’s necessary. “Forgive me. But I can’t let her leave.”

A low thrumming fills my ears. Panic. Butterfly wings against my brain. Nobody moves. I flick frightened eyes between Theseus and Ophelia, between the knife in my hand and the one in his. He doesn’t waver. And I realize that this isn’t a time to be standing still and trying to think. I have to act. I have to do something.

I throw the knife at the Guard. I don’t aim for him. I don’t want to hit him. I just throw it in his direction. I pray that no matter how devoted to the Weavers he is, he is still human enough to react.

He does. His eyes widen and he ducks out of the way. He slams back against the wall behind him as the knife clatters past him down the stairs.

I let Ophelia go and run. I have just reached the stairs when Theseus, on his feet again, springs forward. The knife flashes. I skid to a halt and skitter backward. The stairs are blocked again, the knife missing me by inches.

And maybe it would have been okay if it had ended there. He’d have put me back in my room. Nothing would have changed.

Only Ophelia sees the knife flash and cries out, “No! No, don’t hurt her!”

I see her run at his arm, try to stop him.

“Don’t—” I scream.

The Guard jerks back. I try to imagine what he must have seen. A woman rushing at him. The stairs right behind him. If she pushed him, ran into him, she would have sent them both tumbling down the stairs. They could have broken their necks. He swings his arm around to stop her, but this makes the knife swing around too. It takes a split second, but even then I know, I can see, that he doesn’t mean to use the knife. It simply gets in the way.

There’s a horrible squelching sound. And a ragged gasp.

I cover my mouth to stop a second scream.

Theseus drops the knife in horror. The blade looks almost black in the lamplight.

“I—I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t—”

I rush to Ophelia’s side. At the same time Mina Ma comes running up the stairs. She wouldn’t have been far. She must have heard my scream.

She gasps. “Ay Shiva, what have you done, you silly boy?” She kneels on the floor and gently lifts Ophelia’s head onto her lap. “You!” she barks at Theseus. “Give me your shirt! We have to try and stop this bleeding.”

Theseus obeys. Mina Ma balls the shirt up and presses it to the wound spreading a dark stain over Ophelia’s dress. She looks so small, her blond hair spilling across my hand. Her eyes stare at me for a few minutes, shocked, pained. Then she smiles.

Then her eyes close.

“No!” I shout. “No! Ophelia!” A sob bursts through my chest. “No!”

Someone kneels beside me, reaching for her pulse, at her throat, at her wrist. I realize it’s the Guard.

“Get off!” I push him away, sobbing. “She’s hurt and you did it!”

But that isn’t entirely true. I held a knife to her and put her in that position. We did this. Both of us.

“It was an accident,” the Guard says hoarsely. His blue eyes are wide. “I . . . I didn’t want to do any harm to anyone.”

I don’t argue. How can I? He is the enemy. He does whatever the Weavers ask of him. He may have killed echoes, maybe ordinary people too. But in spite of all that, I know he didn’t mean to use the knife on her.

Mina Ma’s voice is unsteady, but she makes herself sound calm. Quiet. “Enough,” she says. “Stay calm. You must go get some help.”

He hesitates. Glances at me. “But the girl—”

“Do you think I can’t control an echo I raised from babyhood?” Mina Ma demands. “Idiot! Go! Quickly!”

Theseus goes. I barely hear him running. He has a swift, sure way of moving. His feet make so little sound. Like mine.

A weary misery floods me. I don’t know what to do. Ophelia is bleeding, and it’s my fault this happened. Everything I care about, everything I love, is slipping away.

“Eva.”

Mina Ma’s voice is firm. Deliberate.

“It’s time for you to go.”

“What?” I stare at her in dismay. “But—but Ophelia . . . I can’t leave her—”

“I will look after her. That Guard will bring help and she will heal. You must get out while you can. You will never have a chance like this again. Eva!” She reaches over Ophelia to shake me. “You must. For my sake. If you don’t, you will be condemned to die. Or at the very least, you will be forced to honor the agreement you made with Adrian.”

I choke on the words. “And Ophelia—”

“The wound is not as bad as it looks,” says Mina Ma steadily. She looks me in the eye. “She will heal. She will be fine. You must go now.”

I stroke Ophelia’s cheek. My thumb leaves a bloody stain. She wanted me to forgive her, but I didn’t. She betrayed me and I almost destroyed her. I fought to save Sean. I fought to survive. And I’ve done it, I’ve found a way out of the Loom, but at what cost? There’s always a price. I stare down at her face and all I can think of is five little ducks, five little ducks, of the ducks going over the hill and far away and of fewer and fewer coming back, each one vanishing. . . .

I gaze back into Mina Ma’s eyes. Ophelia will be okay. She will get better. Mina Ma wouldn’t lie to me.

“Go!” she snaps.

I swallow a sob and run.