Girl Possessed (Book 1 of The Girl Trilogy) (9 page)

The latch lifted, the key turned, the
slider raised, and a hand reached in taking my dirty plate from the
night before and exchanged it with another plate of
food.

At least now I could see what I was
eating. There was a cooked field onion, more dried bread, a cup of
red wine, and smoked goldfish. Not as bad as I would have expected.
I didn’t see any insects on the plate, so I decided to eat the
meal. The food was cold and stale tasting, but edible at
least.

I pushed the plate back next to the
little sliding door for the hand that would later retrieve it, but
I decided to keep the wine cup for myself to use at the sink in
case I got thirsty later.

I decided to explore the cabinet below
the sink. There was only a toothbrush and a hairbrush. I was
grateful for the hairbrush because if I didn’t have that my long
hair would turn to a matted mess.

I started to wonder, how in the world
I would entertain myself for the rest of my life with so little
supplies. Then I thought of my mother and how devastated she must
be over my imprisonment. My mind spun and my heart ached. I curled
up into a ball on the floor with the blanket over my face and tried
not to think.

That night when it was black in the
cell, the latch lifted, the key turned, the slider raised, and the
hand retrieved the dirty plate. Moments later the cell door
unlocked and opened. A very tall, thick boned, woman with curly
gray hair, holding a lantern stepped inside. She had a crazed look
in her eyes.

“
Stealing a cup is against
the law,” the woman scolded in a crackly voice. She sat the lantern
down and stepped closer to me as I sat up from my resting position
on the floor.

She pulled a long baton from her belt
and flicked a switch. An intense stream of electricity streamed
forth. I tried to move away, shocked at what was about to happen,
but the woman pointed the baton at my stomach. My mind filled with
horror. Terrifying volts of electricity shot through my
body.

I had never felt such pain. It was so
much worse than the whippings. I screamed uncontrollably. “Stop!
Stop! Stop!” I gagged on my pleas.

My body flopped around. My limbs
smacked against the stone floor. Such pain! Bile came out of my
mouth. I felt like I was chocking on my own tongue.

“Bad girl,” the horrible woman said as
she tortured me.

But, after a few seconds or so, she
stopped, took the cup from the sink, and walked out of my
cell.

I heard loud yelling and banging
sounds coming from the other side of the wall, but I passed out on
the floor before I could figure out what was happening.

When I awoke the next day, the
carvings on my upper chest were filled with puss. I had a terrible
fever and my body was sweaty with chills all over. I couldn’t even
move; I felt too weak.

13

For over a month, I was sick with
fever. My mind was filled with wicked rage toward Jezebel. I became
obsessed with taking revenge upon her. She must have turned me into
the authorities. I was sure I was going to die from this infection,
but if I survived, I vowed to take my revenge on her. I would ruin
her life, somehow, some way.

Because I was afraid the days would
begin to blend together, I was very careful to count each day even
though I was deathly ill. I marked in my mind the exact calendar
dates. Although I existed in a sea of feverous hallucinations,
counting gave me an inkling of sanity, grounding me in some sort of
logical reality. But, the daily monotony and pain became
stifling.

September
4
^th
. The
music surrounded me like a sensual whirlpool beckoning me to its
center, drawing me down. In the height of my fever, I found myself
calling out to Shaul, “Save me, Shaul. Save me.” I cried and
laughed like a girl possessed. And then I continued, “Pull me out
of this hell of vile thoughts. My Shaul, my eternal love.” I went
on and on like this for days, scratching at the wall.

September
11
^th
. I
tossed and turned upon the blanket on the cold, hard floor,
bruising my burning body. “Oh, lake, oh, lake—I would enter thee,
but woe am I, a girl possessed.” My body shivered with desire. A
cockroach ran up my leg.

September
16
^th
.
“Save me Shaul. Take me down into the waters. Swim with me, a girl
possessed.” I stared up at the skylight and moaned in despair. The
clouds floated over the sun. Rain poured forth, pattering against
the glass oh, so way up high. If only I could fly away. “I hate
you, Jezebel.”

But, then, on September
18
^th
,
after a long terrifying night of desirous nightmares, I awoke
feeling markedly different. My infection had cleared in my sleep
and I was healed.

The music in my mind sounded like
heavenly angels. I got up off of the stone floor, ran the water in
the bathtub, stripped out of my cell robe and climbed
in.

The bath was splendorous and icy cold.
I didn’t mind that there was no heat. Oddly, I had always been
immune to harsh water temperatures. I had no explanation for it,
but I had forever been that way.

I slid under the surface, my long
black hair spreading out like wings, and I held my breath for a
very long time. My mind danced in the rhythm of the slight waves I
made with my arms. The symphony in my mind was even clearer beneath
the surface. It was a delightful pleasure unbounded.

After my long bath, I brushed my hair,
unwinding the tangles of neglect accrued during my illness, and
wrapped the long strands over and around my skinny boyish
body.

I washed my robe and the grey towel I
had used as a blanket during my fever in the tub and then laid them
over the side to dry. I drained the basin and then refilled it
because I liked having a sea of water, as small as it was, in my
room. I brushed my teeth carefully, one at a time. And then, with
nothing to do, I spent the rest of the morning brushing and styling
my long dark locks into many little braids and twisted
curls.

Eventually, I grew bored with my hair,
so I began to sing incorporating the symphony in my mind with the
mixed trills, squeals, and rapid clicks of my voice. I created
alluring songs of adventure and trickery. It was fun and
entertaining.

Then, to my amazement, another voice
entered my mind joining in the song. It was a soft and velvety
voice with low guttural groans that were sensual to the ears. It
was an enchanting surprise that caressed my thoughts in the most
unexpected, delightful way.

We sang mythological charms of
creatures of water, air, fire, and earth. On the low notes, we dove
deep into the depths of the lake and into the soul of the earth. On
the high notes, we soared up into heavenly spheres and straight
into the blue casts of fire.

In our ditties, we led each other into
submerged worlds, through paradises of unfathomable realms, into
the purification of hot repentance, and beyond the depths of
renewal and change. Our songs created blissful unity and though we
were locked in body, we were free in mind.

I found myself dancing around the room
and tapping little renditions on the walls with the end of my brush
as we sang. After a bit, I began to notice the vibrations coming
back to me in sound waves like physical pulses in the
air.

Then I realized the voice joining in
our song was the body on the other side of the wall. My dungeon
mate was also tapping her hairbrush to our tunes and causing quite
a physical stir on her side of the wall. I was thrilled to have a
companion to interact with. We sang in utter bliss for the rest of
the day.

But, then, night came…

Now in the darkness of my cell, I
couldn’t stop a new flood of emotions. I missed my mother. My mind
soared into self-defeating rages and uncontrollable fits of crying.
I had always been a fairly quiet, introverted person, so these
emotional outbursts were new to me. But, the gates of emotion had
opened and I didn’t know how to shut them.

My cries seemed to cause an odd clamor
on the other side of the wall. It sounded like my dungeon companion
was pacing her cell. And then there was that lion roaring. An eagle
cawing. And a goat naying. As my wailing escalated, to my utter
shock, the ground began to shake beneath my feet like an
earthquake.

I was so frightened that I climbed
back into the bathtub, the only place I felt safe, and I held my
head under the water until I passed out. I don’t know how I didn’t
die of drowning, but somehow when I awoke—a sea of music sounding
in my head—I was perfectly fine.

After days of doing nothing, not even
taking baths, I woke up when the sun was directly above the high,
high skylight. Lunch slid through the slider. It was stale as
usual, but had enough nutrients to sustain me.

I liked Wednesday lunches the
best—chopped turtle with young bamboo shoots, and dried turnip
salad. Some days the food was so gross I couldn’t even eat it.
Rabbit guts on leaves were the worst. The chef always left the
rabbit head on my plate which made me gag and sometimes
vomit.

The rest of the day I didn’t feel like
taking a bath, styling my hair, or singing, so I had nothing to do.
I was in a melancholy mood and I couldn’t get myself motivated.
After a short while, while lying on the blanket upon the stone
floor, I started to go crazy with boredom and self-pity.

As usual, I wanted to take revenge on
the community leaders. I obsessively tried to figure out if Jezebel
had turned me into the authorities. She must have.

I devised intricate plans on how I
could kill her and then the leaders. In the very least, I would
take revenge upon her. I hated that evil girl and the humiliating
scar she had created on my upper chest.

I figured she must have blackmailed
one of her friends, probably Tomaru who also hated me, into falsely
confessing as the second witness to me crossing the boundary line.
Whatever the case, there was no way out of this cell and my plans
of revenge were futile. Who was I kidding?

As usual, I missed my mother something
awful. I worried about her incessantly. I knew she must be
suffering tremendously knowing I am all alone in here. Now, I would
never see her again and that was the worst knowledge I had ever
sustained. My circumstances rendered me entirely powerless. If only
I could somehow get through the skylight way, way up above. But,
there was no way out of this cell. The skylight was too
high.

That night was worse. I hated thinking
in the dark. I hated hearing that latch lift, that key turn, that
slider raise, and the horrible sound of the food tray sliding
through the door.

I wanted so badly to grab that gray
haired woman’s hand and break it off. Every night it took
everything in me to stop myself from trying.

I couldn’t do it anyhow. If I was to
pull her hand through the little sliding door, I had nothing to cut
her arm off with aside from my fingernails and teeth. I figured
she’d scream and the male guard who brought me here would save her
and then torture me. There were the sounds of footsteps and muffled
voices above the stairs at meal times, so I knew the tall woman
wasn’t alone. And, anyway, she was a big, burly lady who looked
much stronger than me, probably even stronger than most
men.

So, that night when my anger reached
its peak, at one point, I put my hand against the wall that
separated my cell from my dungeon mate’s cell and to my surprise,
my thoughts calmed. I heard a strange, soothing beat in my mind.
Tenderness filled my body. I eased my way to the floor with my hand
still in place and I fell fast asleep.

Over the course of the next few months
my days tended to be of a similar nature. Most days I kept to my
regular routine of bathing, styling my hair, and singing with my
companion. On other days, I lost control and fell into fits of
crying that escalated into mini inexplicable earthquakes that
frightened me. And other days I just slept, wallowing in
depression.

But, today, December
14
^th
,
was my worst day yet. I was so depressed that I just sat on the
floor and cried. Aside from missing my mother, I also missed Shaul
Hainsworth. Though I didn’t trust him nor did I even know him well,
I was entirely desirous of him. The separation from Shaul crushed
my spirit and today it even murdered my will to live.

The pain was overwhelming and
helplessly dramatic, but I just lost all control. I was glad nobody
was around to see me because I felt entirely pathetic.

After awhile, my cries turned to
screams and although I knew I had to stop myself before the guard
reprimanded me, I just couldn’t. I became hysterical. I couldn’t
stop thinking about how lonely I was and how the feeling would last
forever, how much I needed Shaul. I thought that I should be strong
and because I wasn’t, that made me feel worse. I wanted to die. I
was possessed. The music blared in my mind, maddening
me.

As I screamed, I heard noises on the
other side of the wall. Then the ground started shaking beneath me
something awful this time. Much worse than before.