The Judas Child (25 page)

Stupid Gwen
, she chided herself. Hours ago, she had heard the sound of a car pulling away from the house and the noise of its engine fading off. He was probably far away by now, but still she dared not scream, and she took more care to work in silence.

She opened the hamper and reached into the dark space as far as her arm would go. There were only a few towels tightly wadded up at the bottom—nothing more.

So why lock the hamper?

Her brain was working better now, and this question linked up to another and another: Why keep her hungry all the time? Why lock her away in a small room? Could this be the insect’s idea of fun? Or maybe the chain on the hamper was closer to the magician’s art of misdirection. If the locked hamper was the focus of her curiosity, she might never explore the rest of the bathroom and discover the window—the way out.

But now she pushed this concept further and smiled for the first time in days as she regarded the hamper in the light of its new possibilities.

Gwen turned back to the window. She would have to open it again, or the plan wouldn’t work. Cold air sliced across her face when she pulled up the sash, and whorls of icy wind followed the shivering child as she turned and walked barefoot to the wall hamper.

The lock was the risky part. But she didn’t believe the giant insect would know Sadie’s combination. He probably didn’t care if he could open it again; he had only cared that the hamper couldn’t
be
opened.

She looped the chain from the towel rack to the metal handle in a looser arrangement. Once inside the hamper, she would need more room to reach out and close the padlock. If he thought she had left by the window, he would go outside to look for her. And he might not bother to barricade the bathroom door again. Then she could open the lock and leave the hamper and the house.

A good plan.

Gwen climbed into the small dark space. She reached back through the narrow opening and closed the padlock. Then she shifted her weight to rock the hamper back into the wall.

And now the last shred of reason left the world. The hamper’s floor of tightly wadded material came loose underneath her feet, and she was falling. Her scrabbling fingers found no traction on the elongating slick metal walls. The mass of towels was being pushed along under her feet, and she was falling down and down, through all the floors of the house in solid blackness.

The towels jammed up around her legs to break her fall as the narrow metal walls bent to a steep incline. At last, her feet were free, waving in the open air. Then she was completely out of the chute and lying in a large wicker basket. Her body was cushioned by the tightly packed laundry she had mistaken for the hamper’s floor.

A dim light came from above, and she noticed the smell of detergent and bleach. When she stood up, she could see the faint light from the dials of a large furnace which radiated heat. It was dimmer than the night-light, but she could see a bit of her environs. High above the washing machine was a small window set into a cement wall. Overhead were pipes and ducts. So she had fallen to the basement laundry room.

What should she do now?

She could almost hear Sadie shouting the best line from the worst haunted house movie—
Get out!

Gwen crawled up on the washing machine, but the window was too high to reach. She climbed down to the cement floor again. Where was the door? The room was too dark to see any detail, and so she went exploring by touch, trailing one hand along the wall as she walked. She found the doorknob and tried it.

Unlocked.

Beyond the door was blackness. One bare foot inched into the dark and found solid wood, but then, with her next step, she was pitching forward, falling again, and in her descent, there was time for a small outrage—all staircases in a basement should lead
up
. She had learned absolutely nothing from her novel experience of falling through all the floors of the house. Falling downstairs in a basement was somehow unfair.

Her fingers scraped on the wood, and she stopped the roll of her body with only minor pain to her head and one arm, which had made the hard connection of bone to wooden step. She caught her breath and looked up into darkness and a narrowing sliver of bad light. She was sickened by the faint noise of the metal clicks from the top of the stairs. She knew the door would be locked even before she had crawled to the top step and tried the knob.

One small fist pounded on the wooden panel. It must be a self-closing door on a hydraulic pump. Her father had collected every kind of lock known to God and the nervous homeowner. In his opinion, the basement was the weakest point of security with the greatest possibility for human error, and so he had installed a similar door that would lock itself and defeat the carelessness of servants.

So now what?

The only way left was down again. The stairs must lead somewhere. Her father had once talked about digging a subcellar to lower his wine racks farther into the earth where it was cooler. Fingertips led her along the wall as Gwen stepped down and down, stone blind now, guided only by the skin of her hands and feet. At the base of the stairs, her fingers found another knob. It was hard work to push open this door; it was made of thick metal.

And then there was light, though faint and far away. The source was more like a glow in the distance.

This time she took no chances and held onto the knob to keep the door open as one foot reached tentatively into the space beyond. She could feel dirt beneath her toes, but she knew she was still indoors, for the air was a warm, pungent stew of smells—dank earth and manure like the gardener’s greenhouse. The humidity was so dense she could almost reach out and touch the drops of moisture hanging in front of her face.

Now she could make out the silhouettes of near shapes, but she could not believe her eyes.

Again, the laws of the universe were failing her. She had expected to enter a shallow cool room with a low ceiling, like her father’s plans for the wine cellar. Instead, space expanded outward and upward. What light there was came from the far side of a vast room and beyond a forest of full-grown trees.

She counted only four thick trunks, but
trees
? Growing in a house?

Her eyes traveled up a length of rough bark and into the thick leaves of an oak. Through this foliage, she could see vestiges of the old ceiling where it had been cut away, giving the trees more room to grow. One of the four oaks was clearly dead, its arms cruelly amputated, barren stumps reaching up toward the dark high ceiling. Gwen could see more now—a network of crisscrossing pipes and—

Suddenly, there was a burst of strong light, sharp, brilliant and painful. The high ceiling exploded into the brightness of a thousand electric suns. Gwen’s hands flew up to protect her eyes. A small scream escaped her mouth and took her by surprise. Slowly, gradually, she learned to see again through the slits of her spread fingers.

All four trees were wide in girth. Her eye for proportion told her that they should be taller than the ceiling would allow, though it was two flights high. They were all twisted, misshapen by their unnatural environment—this sunny and warm summer day in December.

What was that noise?

She was not alone. Gwen’s hands dropped away from her face. Her muscles were seizing up again. One hand held fast to the doorknob, fingers pressing hard on the metal. Her knees locked and her body went rigid. She was still sensitive to the bright light, but willing her eyes to see clearly what was coming her way—the misshapen form of a dog.

This animal was another mistake of nature. He had the overlarge head of a mastiff, and he carried it low to the ground, as if he were too weak to hold its weight any higher. The pointed devil ears of a Doberman were flattened back against his skull, and he showed her all his teeth in the stubbed snout of a pit bull. Gray clumps of dirt clung to his dark fur. In a final insult to aesthetics, his tail was crooked. She guessed it had been broken and never properly set.

The animal made no sound as he padded toward her in a slow stalking gait. This was not the typical family pet which barked at every stranger, but more like one of Mr. Stuben’s attack dogs, trained for stealth as it closed on the prey. He favored the right forepaw; it hit the ground lightly and picked up quickly.

Her eyes were locked with his, though she knew better than to stare at him. Mr. Stuben had taught her never to challenge a hostile animal with direct eye contact. She knew she should drop her eyes and turn sideways to the correct position, but she could not—her feet would not obey. She could only stand and watch.

Now that the dog had lost the advantage of a surprise attack, he barked as he loped toward her. There was something very wrong with the animal. He was in the attack mode, and even with an injured paw, excitement should be moving him faster; he should be running, bounding.

The dog had closed the distance, and now he lunged, rising up on hind legs and hitting her body with his outstretched paws, knocking her to the ground. He hung there in the air above her. His chain would not allow him any farther, not all the way to the wall. Her head had knocked into the metal door. She lost her grip on the knob as her legs went sprawling in the dirt.

The thick panel swung shut.

The dog had her right foot in his mouth. He was dragging her back into the sphere of his chain. He released her foot for a moment, long enough to sink his teeth into the calf muscle of her right leg. With this better grip, he dragged her back a little farther.

The screaming was loud, and at first she did not realize that it came from her own mouth.

The dog released her again, but her face was half covered with leaves and dirt. All she could see was a thin wooden pole jabbing into the dog’s pelt. The animal turned on his attacker and snapped at the wood. And now Gwen could hear the sound of running feet in company with the dog’s paws and the metal clink of his chain as he moved off in another direction.

Her face flooded with tears of pain, and her vision blurred. But she could move again. She lifted her head from the ground and swiped one hand across her eyes. Now she could make out the fuzzy shape of the dog in pursuit of some bright white quarry kicking up dirt and leaves just beyond the reach of his teeth. The animal ran out of chain and stopped short with a howl of outrage.

Gwen slowly regained her feet and stood up. Her whole body was shaking, and both knees threatened to give out on her. And then the shakes ended; her body began to stiffen again—the dog was turning.

He was walking back, head lowered almost to the dirt, stepping lightly on the injured paw, moving even slower this time.

This was a very damaged animal. She
could
outrun him—if she could move. She didn’t even have to run. The dog’s chain wouldn’t reach the wall; she need only move backward—just a few steps. But first her knees locked, and then paralysis spread through every muscle in her body until she could not even close her eyes against what was going to happen to her. And last—her breathing stopped. Only her heart was alive, beating faster every second, banging out a rush of blood and panic.

The dog was so close.

Gwen’s eyes were awash in fresh tears, barely able to make out the final shock: A blurred barefoot figure in a white T-shirt and underpants was running toward her—right behind the charging animal.

Sadie Green made the jump of her life, leapfrogging over the back of the dog, flying through space to slam Gwen back against the wall.

The dog’s chain would not reach far enough for his teeth to get at her again, but Gwen could feel the hot breath, the spray of froth and the stink from his mouth. Sadie’s arms were wrapped tightly around her as they slumped to the floor together and huddled there, pressed up against the rough stone wall. Now Gwen sucked in a ragged breath; her chest burned; the dog barked. He snapped and bit the air only inches away from their faces. Yet Sadie was laughing—triumphant.

Her brain was shutting down, fogging
over again. Perhaps the drugs had not yet worn off. “What?”

“I said it’s no use.” Sadie gently pried Gwen’s fingers away from the doorknob. “You can’t open it from this side. The knob is frozen.”

Gwen nodded, and then, as if this were something directly related to doorknobs, she said, “I lost my eye.”

“No you
didn’t
.” Alarmed, Sadie gripped her friend by both shoulders and peered into her face. “You’re okay—you look
fine
, just—”

“The amulet you gave me—the one with the all-seeing eye. I lost it.”

Sadie grinned with relief. “That’s okay. I’ll buy you a new one. I know where you can get those things by the barrel.”

“You’re not mad?”

“At you? Never.”

Gwen weighed nothing anymore; she was unattracted to the earth by gravity, only drifting across the dirt and the dead leaves, a tethered balloon guided by Sadie. As they moved away from the door, keeping close to the walls, Gwen calmly surveyed the damage, as if it were someone else’s torn pant leg streaked with thin lines of blood from a dog bite. When she stumbled, Sadie’s arm encircled her waist to support her, and they continued along the edge of the small forest of four oak trees. The animal made one last feeble howl as his only chance for a meal was walking away from him.

“I can’t believe you made that jump,” said Gwen. “He could have killed you. I saw one of Mr. Stuben’s dogs tear a training dummy to shreds.”

“No way. He’s starving—getting weaker every day.” And Sadie obviously took satisfaction in that. “By this time tomorrow, you could beat up that dog with one hand.”

Sadie’s face was so pale her freckles were fading. So despite the brilliant light, this indoor sky was no substitute for the real thing. Gwen stared at the four oaks. Only one had died, but even the survivors had not reached the proper dimensions of grown trees. By their girth, she knew they were old, but the thick trunks were twisted and too short by half. These were dwarfs—twenty feet tall.