Girl Possessed (Book 1 of The Girl Trilogy) (10 page)

The louder I cried, the more violent
the earthquake became. The stone floors started rolling in waves
and the waves got bigger and bigger.

Then I let my voice escalate into a
high, piercing pitch. It was the strangest sound, but it felt so
good in my throat that I continued.

The pitch of my voice rose and rose.
Then the walls started shaking and, to my amazement, a stone fell
from the wall separating me from the other cell mate.

This is miraculous, I
thought!

At once, I stilled my voice to a
sudden silence. Everything stopped shaking and moving and it was
quiet. After a minute, I heard rustling upstairs and some voices
from the guards yelling to each other.

I walked over to the wall where the
stone fell out and looked inside. I could see through the hole
right into the other cell!

14

The stone that fell out of the wall
separating my cell from the neighboring cell was quite large. It
left a hole big enough to stretch my arms through to the other
side. I felt around and was able to take out a few more big loose
stones without collapsing the wall.

As I was doing this, I heard a chain
dragging and then my neighbor’s face peered through the hole. I
shouldn’t have been startled, but I was. I fell back on my behind
and stared up at the boy looking at me with wide eyes.

He had a black beard and wild, wavy
hair. I wouldn’t have recognized him except for his piercing silver
eyes that I remembered so well.

“
Shaul?” I stared at him in
disbelief for a moment, feeling so happy to see the boy I
desperately yearned for, pondering the possibilities that this
miracle held. I wanted to hold him in my arms, to press my body up
against his.

He smiled at me as he shook his head,
pain in his eyes. “Cordellia!” he whispered. He shook his head
again. The sadness in his eyes was even more intense now. Then it
turned to anger and he walked away from the hole to a part of the
cell I could not see.

I waited for a moment, but when he
didn’t return, I got up off the floor and crawled through the hole
in the wall. It was dusty and rough against my skin, but I managed
to make my way through all right, spilling to the floor
clumsily.

Standing upright, Shaul had his head
against another wall, facing it with his arms stretched up, resting
upon it. I think he was crying because though he was quiet, his
body shuddered. A thick metal clasp was soldered around his ankle
with a heavy chain attached to it that connected to the
wall.

I didn’t know what to do, so I just
stood there looking around silently for a minute. His cell looked
just like mine—old fashioned and gloomy with a bathtub, a toilet,
and a sink with a small cabinet. There was also a skylight high,
high up on the ceiling.

Seeing him living like this in
isolation made my heart sink. I felt so sorry for him. I knew how
much pain I had experienced in this prison and knowing that he had
been through the same thing, broke my spirit.

I wondered why he was chained to the
cell and I wasn’t. But, then I realized that with his strength and
fighting skills he could easily escape by overpowering the guards.
They must have known this and took extra precautions.

After a moment, I walked up to Shaul
and reached my hand up to his shoulder. I wasn’t used to touching
boys, but I felt like he needed human touch even more than I
did.

He turned to me and we held each other
for quite awhile. His grip intensified the longer I was in his
arms. There was desperation in the way he held onto me, like if he
let go, I’d disappear and he’d be alone again. I figured that was
how he was feeling because that was how I felt.

But, then, he pulled away from me,
gripping my shoulders. “Go back to your cell and put the stones
back,” he whispered harshly, an unexpected glare in his
eyes.

I was startled by his sudden
transition.

“
I don’t want you in here
with me.” His voice was cold.

“
But, it’s so horrible
being alone. Don’t you want a friend?”

“
I’ll report you to the
guards if you don’t leave. They’ll torture you if they find you in
here.”

I looked at him in astonishment.
“You’d do that to me?”

“
Get out, Cordellia. Get
out.” His voice raised a pitch as he scowled at me.

I shook my head, trying to hold back
tears.

He picked up the empty metal mug
sitting atop his food tray and said, “I’ll bang this cup against
the door until a guard comes if you don’t leave.”

I was shocked at his cruelty. How
could he be so heartless and cold after all that we’d been through?
Didn’t he need a friend as much as I did?

He raised the mug in the air as a
threat. I quickly crawled back through the hole replacing the
stones to their original spots. I was so hurt and confused at the
same time, but I didn’t have time to dwell on my feelings. The
guards rarely entered my cell, but after the commotion I had
created with the earthquake and my high pitched cries, it was
possible they might come to check on me or beat me.

Only moments after I replaced the
stones back into the wall, the cruel woman guard unlocked my cell
and stepped inside. My pulse raced.

“
What was all that crying
about?” she demanded.

I shrugged my shoulders hesitantly and
whispered, “I just miss my mother.”

She stared at me for a moment and then
began walking around my room inspecting things. As she looked
about, I noticed a pile of dust on the floor just below the stones
I had replaced. The grout that held the stones together originally
must have crumbled with the movement. My heart raced faster. If she
noticed the pile, she would become suspicious and inspect the
wall.

If she discovered that I had snuck
into Shaul’s cell, she would lock me in the torture box she had
warned me of prior, so I tried to think of something to distract
her to send her away from my cell so I could clean up the pile
before she found it.

In awkward desperation, I grabbed onto
her, pulling her away from the pile, and begged, “Please help me!”
I forced myself to cry. “Don’t leave me alone. I just need some
company.”

Her eyes widened, shocked at my
unusual pleas. “Get off me—you ornery child.” She hardly had to
struggle to get away from me because she was so big and strong
compared to me.

“
Please, please—save me.” I
fell to the floor, wailing. It was easy to cry because overall, I
really felt devastated in general.

She took her baton from her belt and
began zapping me with high volts of electricity. “Don’t ever do
that again, you foolish girl,” she said in her crackly
voice.

The pain was excruciating. I thought I
was going to die. My body flopped around on the floor. I bit my
tongue. Then she must have taken the whip from the other side of
her belt because, she whipped me several times across the back
before she left the cell, locking the door behind her.

I could hardly move, but I managed to
drag my body over to the pile where I passed out on top of
it.

When I awoke it was dark in the cell.
My dreams were all about Shaul. It was amazing how vividly I saw
him. The dreams were even clearer and more vibrant than real
life.

I felt like we had an entire life
together in a dream world, a life where we were very close and
shared everything. We did so many fun things together—swimming in a
crystal clear blue sea with dolphins and tropical fish, flying
through heavenly skies, dancing on the moon, and laying on our
backs under the stars upon a bamboo raft on a glistening lake. I
was in such a contemplative mood that the pain from the electrical
shocks and whippings hardly registered in my mind.

I carefully got up so to not irritate
my injuries and checked to see if my food tray had come. It wasn’t
there yet, so I knew it was still early into the night. This made
me hopeful because that meant I still had time to sneak into
Shaul’s cell after my food came.

15

Awhile later, I heard footsteps coming
toward my cell. The latch lifted, the key turned, the slider raised
and the tray was pushed inside. It was ground fish with chopped
greens on a stale bun with a side of grasshoppers and a cup of
wine. I knew the meal well and could tell what it was just from the
smell.

I picked at the food avoiding the
insects and gulped down the wine. I made sure to put the tray back
in front of the slider for retrieval. It was very important to
always return the tray because if it wasn’t there during pick up,
it would give the guard reason to enter my cell. Usually tray pick
up wasn’t until noon the next day when lunch was served.

Now, despite my injuries, which, to my
surprise, weren’t too bad this time, my mind raced. I had to see
Shaul. I remembered how he saved my life and my mother’s life
before we came to the community in the Seneca Mountains. He was a
good person.

But, then I remembered how he told
Jezebel’s friends that I was his sex toy. Even though a part of me
believed her at the time, I just couldn’t imagine now that he would
have said such a crude thing about anyone. She must have
lied.

Yes, I was a skinny legged humpback,
but Shaul liked me enough to bring me to the community and give my
mother and me all sorts of supplies. It just didn’t make sense that
he could act so immature and heartless.

But, then, when I started analyzing
him more, I realized he was entirely unpredictable. His behaviors
were erratic. Sometimes he was heroic and charming and at other
times he was cold and avoided me like the plague. So, possibly he
did say such a crude lie to Jezebel’s friends. Oh, I just didn’t
know!

His cruelty today when I went into his
cell didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t imagine actually wanting
to be alone after living so long in isolation under such harsh
conditions. I would be happy to have any sort of companionship.
Even if the person didn’t appeal to me, someone would be better
than no one.

If I could get him to talk to me,
maybe some of the loneliness that was eating me alive would
dissipate. Maybe the yearnings for him would subside.

I so desperately needed someone to
converse with even if he was an unsavory soul. To me, in my present
state, trying one more time would be worth the risk of getting
caught. I would rather die than spend another night
alone.

Then the music I was so accustomed to
since I had been locked away raised a notch in volume in my mind.
It was a beautiful, romantic tune, a sweet song that lifted my
spirits whenever I was sad. I enjoyed the familiarity of the piece
and its soothing qualities.

As the song played, I felt my way
through the dark and very quietly removed the stones from the wall.
I moved slowly, trying not to make any noise because I didn’t want
to wake Shaul if he was sleeping. I also wanted a chance to get
into his cell before he sent me away.

It was a little more difficult
climbing through the wall with my injuries, but I made it through
fine. Once inside, the music in my mind stopped. The silence was
sudden and strange.

I saw a twinkling ball of light
floating in the air before Shaul’s face. He was sitting Indian
style upon the ground with his eyes closed. The vision frightened
me and I considered climbing back into my cell. How in the world
did he get a ball of light and how did he get it to float in mid
air? I stared at him for quite awhile. Even with his overgrown hair
and beard, he was extremely handsome.

Quietly, I sat down before him with
the ball of light between us. It looked like there was a hologram
of an apple inside the light. How odd, I thought. I must have
startled him because his eyes opened suddenly and the ball of light
fell to the stone floor still aflame.

“
What are you doing here?”
he said icily.

“
I, uh, I…”

“
Get out.” He jumped up.
His presence was startling. Red light exuded from his body. He was
really scary. He looked evil.

I scrambled to my feet. “Shaul,” I
pleaded. “Can’t we just talk for a little while?” I started to
wonder if I would be better off alone in my cell.

“
No.” He gritted his teeth.
His eyes flamed in intensity.

Remembering the excruciating
loneliness I had been feeling these last months, I decided not to
give up my one chance at some sort of companionship. In
determination, I stepped toward him.

“
Get away,” he demanded.
The red light surrounding him intensified. It was so strange and I
wondered if I was just seeing things, but I knew I
wasn’t.

Then, at once, he charged at me,
throwing me down. I was shocked as I fell backward, but he caught
my head in the palm of his hand as I landed beneath him. I was all
right—the hump on my back rested lightly on the floor without
injury, but my whipping slashes burned and I felt startled and
confused.

For an instant, he gazed at me with
smoldering eyes that made my heart race. I forgot all about the
pain. I should have been angry, but I wasn’t. I hardly understood
what I was feeling, but it was something oddly pleasurable. Then he
kissed me softly.