He stumbled away, the warmth of his blood sticky beneath the collar of his shirt. He opened the cellar door and glanced back as his mother returned to the parlor. He left the door ajar and crept into the washroom.
Quietly, his heart thumping painfully, he hurried to the window. He moved fast, jerking the window up, jumping onto a chair and plummeting into the bushes that flanked the house.
He stood and ran for the trees, not daring to look back.
That night something startled Stephen awake.
He lay frozen in his bed. A creak on the top stair had drawn him from sleep. He could not hear her pad down the hall, but a moment later, he heard the skeleton key slide into the lock. The door clicked open and swung in with a sigh.
Stephen did not open his eyes. He lay perfectly still, willing his breath to appear even and deep.
A weight settled on the edge of his bed, and he could smell her Shalimar perfume.
Her breath flitted over his ear as her fingernail dragged along his collarbone toward his neck.
“Wake up,” she whispered.
But he didn’t move.
“I said, wake up,” she shrieked into his ear, jabbing her fingernail hard into his chin as she clutched his face and shook it.
Stephen opened his eyes.
His mother leaned over him, her hair set in curlers, her face a mass of white cream. Her dark eyes gazed furiously from her milky face.
“Mother. I didn’t… I shouldn’t have run off earlier.”
“Get up,” she growled, tearing off his blanket.
She grabbed his arm and wrenched him from the bed.
He lost his balance and landed hard on his knee on the wood floor. A ball of nausea coursed through him at the pain, but she’d already grabbed the collar of his shirt and wrenched him to his feet.
“Out,” she barked, shoving him toward the door.
He limped out, stepping gingerly as each movement ignited pain in his knee, which triggered a woozy rolling in his stomach.
He walked to the stairs and clutched the rail as he descended. He didn’t dare stop. She’d shove him down, and then his knee would be the least of his worries.
On the first floor, she shoved him toward the cellar door, striding passed him and yanking the door open.
The cellar lay beneath him. He wanted to press his hands on the doorframe and refuse to walk down, but his knee throbbed and when she poked him in the back, he stepped onto the stairs. He’d taken only a few steps when she closed the door behind him eliminating the bit of light that filtered in.
He listened as she slid the key into the lock and clicked it into place.
He drew in a deep, shaky breath and gritted his teeth for the last few steps into near total black.
The cold floor met his bare feet, and he shuffled to the wall, pressing his back against it.
Wincing, he slid along the wall, pushing his hands out. Somewhere in the cellar, the crates of wine were stacked. He could pull out the straw and make a little nest.
Something scurried over his foot, and he cried out, instinctively kicking a leg out and buckling his injured knee. He fell hard, landing again on the throbbing knee and plummeting forward onto his hands.
The pain rendered him senseless, and for a moment he thought he’d lose consciousness. Bright lights streaked behind his eyes. His arms shook as he tried to shift his weight off the leg and into his hands.
When he finally managed to stand, sweat poured down his face and his breath burst in loud, shuddering gulps. He hopped forward, barely touching his left toe to the floor from the pain in his knee.
Something struck his face. Something dangling from the ceiling. It scratched his cheek and swung away.
As he reached for it, he felt the bristly length of a noose hanging in the darkness.
“No,” he whispered, and his voice sounded tiny and ripe with fear.
He batted the rope away, but it swung back around, scratching his face a second time.
“No,” he screamed, and he shoved at the rope, losing his balance and falling backward.
His back hit first, and then his head. He lay, dazed, and listened to the creak of the rope above him.
Liv
Liv circled the house. Stephen’s mother’s car was gone, and Stephen had not arrived at the pond that day.
Had they gone somewhere together?
She didn’t walk to the front door. Instead, she walked around the house, climbing a maple tree to peer in the kitchen window. It was empty.
She slipped behind the house, where she could see one of Stephen’s bedroom windows. She picked up a handful of stones and lobbed one at the window. It soared high and missed the glass, thunking against the side of the house. She tried another and another, listening to the sharp ping against the glass, but his face did not appear.
Finally, convinced his mother wasn’t home, she returned to the front door and knocked.
“Stephen?” she called when no one answered.
He didn’t come to the door, and she started to retreat to the forest, but stopped and gazed back at the house.
She sensed him inside.
Walking back, she paused and stared into every window, looking for a face, a flick of a curtain.
“Stephen,” she yelled again, feeling rather foolish. If he was in there and didn’t want to come out, she should just leave, but… no. She couldn’t leave.
As she rounded the house a second time, a thud startled her, and she jumped. It had come from the cellar doors.
She bent close to the door, which was padlocked shut.
“Liv!” Stephen’s voice was muffled and weak.
“Stephen? Are you okay?”
“Liv, help me.”
“Are you locked in?”
No reply, but she heard Stephen coughing behind the doors.
She ran from the house to the gardener’s shed on the back of the property. Pruning shears hung from the wall. She grabbed them and raced back. She whacked at the deadbolt for several minutes, but it didn’t break.
“Stephen, I can’t break the lock,” she yelled.
“Try.”
Again, his voice sounded quiet, defeated even. Liv stared at the door, her pulse quickening. Something was very wrong.
She hurried back to the shed and crashed through the equipment and tools. Grabbing a hammer, she sprinted back to the doors. She shoved the hammer beneath the chain and stood on the nearly horizontal doors, yanking back as hard as she could. The chain strained, but did not break. She did it a second time and threw herself backwards. The chain held, but she felt it give. The third time it snapped, sending her sprawling onto her back in the yard. She unwound the chain through the door handles and pulled the doors open.
Stephen lay curled at the bottom of a short flight of cement stairs.
He looked up, shielding his eyes with his hand and squinting at her.
Liv jumped onto the stairs and nearly fell rushing down to him.
“Stephen.” She didn’t blurt the obvious. That he was hurt. She saw his swollen knee, a sickly blue-purple color. “Can you walk?”
She put her hands on his forearms. They were slick and hot. He had a fever.
He gazed at her with glassy, confused eyes.
“Hold on,” she told him, settling him gently back on the floor.
She raced back to the shed a third time. A wheelbarrow stood in the corner. She backed it out and pushed it to the cellar doors.
The problem would be getting him up the steps.
She lifted his arm and draped it over her shoulders, in the shadowy darkness glimpsing a noose swinging from a wood beam. She frowned but said nothing as she hoisted him up, wrapping an arm around his waist.