Illusions (The Missing #1) (10 page)

I stood up and stretched my arms over my head. I had taken off my shirt and jeans yesterday, opting for comfort over modesty. No one was around to see my semi-naked state anyway.

I opened up a new bottle of water and drank just enough to soothe my parched throat. I only had one more unopened bottle so I didn’t swallow the entire contents the way I wanted to.

I polished off the rest of the potato chips, not wanting to think about the fact that I had now run out of food.

The stench from my waste was making me nauseated, and I tried to breathe through my mouth. I noticed that my knee felt better and the aches in my muscles and joints were less pronounced.

I was healing physically, but mentally, I was unraveling.

The minutes became hours and all I could do was think. To remember. To obsess over the tiny, insignificant details of a sad and lonely life.

Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I pulled at my hair and scratched at my skin. I was losing what little faculties I had left.

I wanted to be difficult and unreasonable. I wanted to make things as hard as possible for the coward that had locked me in here.

I kicked at the walls and slammed my fists against the window. I taunted and ridiculed my faceless captor.

But when the song began, I shut up and listened.

“I finished the song,” I said shyly, terrified to share this confidence. But I knew she’d never judge me. Not ever.

She looked up at me with deep, dark eyes and regarded me with interest. “You did?”

I nodded. “Well, I wrote the words years ago, but here, you can put them to music.”

She smiled and I flushed red. I never blushed, but when she looked at me I felt as though I were on fire.

“How about I play and you sing? I prefer your voice anyway.”

Fire. Burning. Smoke. I clutched my head in my hands.

It was my turn to hold the matches.

It was my chance to watch it burn . . .

I leaned against the wall and tried to get my breathing under control. My head was reeling with images that flashed across my brain like a movie. Were they memories or strange imaginings invented by a shattered mind?

Why did I smell smoke? I turned around and pressed my face to the wall, inhaling deep. The only thing I could smell was dust and mildew.

I was officially losing my mind, which seemed understandable given my current situation.

But I was used to imprisonment. I was used to being locked away. My childhood had been spent behind shut doors and within darkened rooms. This new prison was nothing new. It was just a dirtier, hotter jail cell.

I paced back and forth across the room, thinking, always thinking. Devising plans and then discarding them. Identifying the guilty and then second-guessing myself.

I thought of Bradley and Mother. I wondered if either had noticed I was gone. I wondered whether they were looking for me.

Did anyone know that I was missing?

Did anyone realize how lost I was?

Nora Gilbert gone and forgotten.

There were things I wished I could forget but couldn’t.

But why couldn’t I remember the things I needed to?

I walked around the room, running my fingertips along the wood and the smell hit me again. This time I knew I couldn’t be imagining it.

I leaned in close and ran my nose along the splintered wood, smelling. Inhaling.

Old smoke.

I jerked back in surprise. I ran my fingertips along the charred wood. It was particularly dark at the bottom and ran upwards along the length of the slat.

There had been a fire here. A significant one by the looks of the damage. How had I not noticed this before? In my seemingly careful inspection of my cell, how was it possible that this was the first time I had seen the burnt wood?

I bit the inside of my cheek, peeling away the skin with my teeth.

Fire. Burning. Smoke everywhere. Searching for a way out. Finding none. Trapped. Burning. Smoke and chaos. No way out. No way out.

No way out!

I blinked and rubbed at my eyes.

But I wasn’t here.

I was somewhere
else.

“Is this why you’re never home?” I asked, slowly walking into the room. I had been confused when Dad had driven me out to the old Sandler farm. He had parked his pick-up truck around the back of the barn and told me to follow him.

Dad had been home less and less lately. I missed him. He was a lot nicer than Mother. When he was home he sometimes ran interference. Even if it was just to change the subject and get her focused on something else. Mother wasn’t so horrible when Dad was home.

But he was gone a lot now, often times leaving before I woke up and not coming home until I was in bed. I had asked Mother where he was all the time, but she had ignored me.

Which was better than the yelling.

Or being locked in my room.

Dad smiled and it looked sad. “I have to work, Nora. This is my job,” he explained, walking to a workbench in the middle of the room. I had no idea what my dad did to make money. But now I could see.

I ran my hands along the smooth leather on the table. “This is really pretty,” I said quietly, lisping and slurred. I hated how my voice sounded because of the split in my palate. I was teased for it both at school and at home. Mother would tell me to not talk if I couldn’t do it properly.

It was better to be silent anyway.

But Dad listened. Sometimes. So I felt okay talking to him.

“I just finished this one yesterday for a man in Shenandoah County. He has a horse farm out there and asked for a custom saddle for his daughter.”

I could hear the pride in Dad’s voice. I was happy he was sharing it with me.

The saddle
was
really nice. The nicest thing I had ever seen. I wondered what it would be like to sit on it. Like most young girls I dreamed of having my own horse. Though I would never say it out loud. My dreams were best kept inside where they couldn’t be ruined by Mother’s harsh words. But Mother wasn’t here. So maybe it was safe to reveal a secret of my locked away heart.

“Maybe I could use one of your saddles sometime. Maybe I could ride a horse,” I said softly.

Dad didn’t say anything. He straightened the tools on the bench, lining them up just so. I waited for him to answer, but he never did.

“We have to pick Rosie up from ballet. We should get going.”

It was always about Rosie.

In an unusual fit of rage, I picked up a crafting knife and threw it on the floor. Dad frowned. “Why would you do that, Nora?” he demanded, and I knew that he was angry.

I wanted to tell him that I was sick of our family revolving around a girl who wasn’t even related to us. I wanted to explain how mean she was to me. How sneaky and deceptive she could be.

But I didn’t say any of that. What would it matter?

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, hiding my face.

Dad didn’t say anything else. He put the tool back on the bench and ushered me out of his workroom.

I wished I could hug him.

I wished he’d put his arm around me and treat me like a daughter.

Like a person.

Wishing was something I did best.

Memories of my father were few and far between. It had been years since he had died and what little interaction we once had began to fade with time. Just one more thing I had lost.

His death had seemed almost like an afterthought. Mother informed me one day after school that Dad had died and would never come home.

I had tried to ask her questions, but she wouldn’t have it.

“Will we plan his funeral? Where will he be buried?” I asked with tears running down my face.

Mother’s face had hardened. “He’ll be cremated, and I’ll spread his ashes somewhere far, far away. But there won’t be a funeral. We can’t afford it. Now that he’s gone we don’t have money for frivolous things.”

Frivolous things? Saying goodbye to my father was frivolous?

“You’re horrible!” I had yelled. It was the only time I had ever raised my voice to Mother. It would be the last as well . . .

Her face had turned molten red just before she slapped me across the face. Even as much as it hurt, I delighted in the contact. It was one of the few times she forced herself to touch me.

“We’re better off without him!” she screamed.

Better off? How could she say that?

I didn’t ask. I wasn’t given time to grieve.

She locked me away.

I would spend the rest of my life a prisoner.

“A prisoner,” I breathed to no one.

Whoever was keeping me here wasn’t listening to anything I had to say.

I ran my fingers through my hair. Dried blood, grit, and grime coated my hands.

“I’m never getting out of here,” I said out loud. It was a scary truth but a truth all the same.

Spiraling ever downward, I barely registered the thump just on the other side of the wall.

I dropped my hands to my side and stood completely still. Not moving. Not breathing.

Only listening.

Thump.

Louder than a gunshot in the prolonged silence.

“Was that real?” I whispered. I couldn’t trust anything anymore. Particularly my senses. And certainly not my perceptions.

Reality was a slippery slope dropping off into illusions.

Was the noise an illusion?

Thump, thump.

I held in the gasp as I pressed my ear against the charred black wall.

Not moving.

Not breathing.

Only listening.

Nothing.

I let out a sob. It had to be real!

I stayed where I was. I refused to move. I kept listening and listening. But I didn’t hear the thump again.

My ears began to play tricks on me. I heard noises I
knew
weren’t there.

Thumps became tapping. Tapping became footsteps.

Footsteps eventually became voices.

“You’re alone, Nora. All alone.”

“Ugly, ugly Nora Gilbert.”

“You’re best kept locked away where no one can see you.”

I knew they weren’t real, but in the solitude, the words became concrete. Bradley spoke in harsh whispers. Dad’s gravely voice became a cacophony of sound.

Mother hissed and growled her hatred.

And
her
voice became the loudest of all. But
her
words didn’t ring with the element of delusions. They were real, plucked from memories.

“You can’t force love, Nora! You can’t demand affection! You’re squeezing me to death, and I just want you to let me go!”

I covered my ears with my hands and started rocking on my feet.

“Shut up!” I screamed.

“Stop being stupid, Nora! No one cares what you think about anything.”

Rosie’s taunts rang like a death knell.

“No more! Please!”

I fell to the floor, curling in on myself.

“Please,” I moaned.

Thump.

Then silence.

Thump, thump.

No more.

For just a moment I felt comfort.

It was fleeting and disappeared into the quiet.

The Past

Five Months Ago

I
didn’t feel like going to school. Mother had dropped me off per usual, but instead of making my way to class, I headed off campus and kept walking.

I had no real destination in mind. I just knew that sitting in English Lit was the last place I wanted to be.

Sometimes I liked to avoid real life.

Bradley would be looking for me. I knew he’d worry when I didn’t show up. But I didn’t care.

Some days I needed something just for me.

I kept walking and walking and eventually found myself at the south entrance to Waverly Park. I stopped just under the canopy of dead trees on the border of the green field.