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By Root 377 0

— grace. For a brief time as the drug ebbed, I was granted a few minutes’ respite. I ate, and to my mild surprise, one day I found myself speaking aloud the traditional Hebrew blessing over bread. After that, I used the time deliberately to do those things that returned me to myself. It was my nerves’ calm eye, between the gale of quivering and the wind shift to restlessness, and after I had found it, Holmes was usually there, as a companion, beside me in the black and endless night. I strode up and down in my cellar, scorning the walls and avoiding the pillars as if I walked in the clear light of day, debating and arguing and reviewing the moves of chess games with Holmes, reciting psalms and the ritual prayers taught me by my mother, biding my time beneath a veneer of madness.

* * *

EIGHTEEN

Tuesday, I February

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,

And for thy maintenance; commits his body

To painful labour both by sea and land …

Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe…

—William Shakespeare

« ^ »

Forty-five chips were in place. Restlessness for the forty-sixth had set in, and I was keeping busy sweeping up the débris from the rubbery boiled egg I had been eating, when suddenly I froze, aware somehow of unusual movement in the building above me. I had gradually, when I was in a state to notice, come to read the subtle vibrations in stone that transmitted distant footsteps, the faint sense of movement against one wall that I took to be water in pipes, and occasionally, rarely, a thread of hum that was human speech in the crack under the door. I swallowed the stub end of the egg and all but ran over to the most revealing wall. Movement there was; the stones fairly shuddered with it. Some emergency had hit the organisation. I backed away and turned to the door, thinking to press my ear to the crack, when I heard the familiar sound of feet on the stone steps. An injection was due, but those were not the normal footsteps approaching; this was a solitary man, and he was hurrying. Was this my death, coming for me?

I dove for the corner where I stored my larger rocks and scooped them up, flew to my bed and gathered the stones and the nail I had sharpened on the stones, and made the safety of the western pillar just as the key sounded in the lock. The bolts slid, and I prepared myself for a final defence. Light poured in with the opening of the door, more light than I had seen for days—an electrical bulb outside the door. I squinted desperately around the stones at the vague figure outlined there.

“Russell?” he said, and the breath congealed in my throat. “Russell, are you in here? Dear God, they’ve taken her.” His voice went hoarse with despair, and he stepped back to shout, “Constable! Fetch one of those torches down here!”

“Holmes?” I said. The paltry stones of my defence rattled down around my toes.

“Russell! Are you all right? I cannot see you.”

“I’m not certain you want to, Holmes,” I croaked, and edged into the light, one hand out against the painful glare.

I could see nothing but a tall, dark shape, which made a strangled noise and took a step towards me, when the sound of constabulary boots on stones came from above. He whirled around and barked out an order.

“The torch won’t be necessary, Constable. Resume your position at the top of the stairs.” He paused, with his back to me for a moment, and when the footsteps had retreated up the stairs, he turned and walked past me into my prison. He stood first and contemplated my bed, the remnants of my food, and the gourd of water, spilt onto the stones in my final rush. Finally, reluctantly, he turned to me, and with no expression whatsoever, he looked at me, read the state of my pupils and my matted hair, my stinking rags. He reached for my arm. I flinched away from him as if he had lashed me, and he halted, then slowly put his hand out again and took my wrist, drew out my arm, glanced at the state of my veins, and let go. His only reaction was a brief spasm