She began beating with her fists. She could make noise with her hands even if her voice was dead — maybe she’d be able to break through the patched spot and at least let in a saving bolt of light. Even if David really wouldn’t let her out, even if she was trapped in here forever, died in here, she could stand that if she could just have a little light—
The soft spot in the door didn’t give, but a piece broke off and punctured the tender skin on her wrist.
Ellie let out a soundless scream. She looked instantly away, unwilling to see whatever could be making her wrist hurt this much. Her whole arm was hot. But Ellie couldn’t see even if she had wanted to; she just knew something was in there that didn’t belong. Shit. A curse word that she sometimes heard David say, but which she’d never dared use herself, erupted in her mind. She forced her other hand down to try and find whatever was sticking out of her skin.
Her hand came to a stop a good three inches above her wrist. In school two years ago they’d done measurement, discovered why a ruler was better than a hand span for figuring out how big things were. This piece of wood had to be about three inches long.
Ellie was going to have to get it out.
Yank it out, then quick press the wound against her jeans, in hopes of making the blood stop. She knew that from her mom. You couldn’t bleed for very long or you died.
She didn’t want to die in the dark.
Ellie let her good hand float above the dagger of wood. Somewhere, in some deep invisible part of her, she knew what it was going to feel like when she touched that stick that had no business being inside her body.
It was even worse than she feared. Her voice returned enough to allow a low, weak moan when her fingers finally touched the tip of the splinter.
“I can’t,” she whimpered.
Her mother’s voice floated into her consciousness. Can’t what, Elizabeth? she asked, sharing a smile with David.
Ellie’s fingers clenched, and she pulled the piece of wood straight up.
It seemed to take forever to leave her body. She felt it as it did, a long, slow sucking, then release. Blood spurted out, and she crushed her wrist against her thigh.
Then she heard voices.
Her brother was coming back.
David’s and Brad’s rooms faced each other across the narrow slit of lawn between their houses. Sometimes at night they played this spotlight game, where one person left his light on and the other person turned his off. Whoever’s light was off could see everything that went on in the other person’s room. Ellie had never dared look herself, but she’d see David there a lot, humped beneath his windowsill like a turtle, peeking in at Brad.
They were best friends. She wished she had a best friend who lived close by. She wished she had a best friend period.
“What happened?” Brad said now.
“Whaddya mean, what happened?” David replied in his lazy voice, the one their mom said sounded exactly like their dad’s.
“She got quiet.”
“Yeah,” David said. “She does that.”
Ellie could make out sounds as the boys arranged themselves, draping their bodies over furniture, kicking stuff out of the way. The bleep as someone turned on his DS.
“You sure she’s still in there?” Brad said. And then he laughed, a funny laugh. It took Ellie a minute to figure out why the laugh sounded funny, and in that time the dark didn’t bother her quite so much. It was funny because Brad sounded nervous.
“Shut up,” David said. “I’m gonna finish this level.”
Ellie twisted to look behind her. She felt the movement in her wrist, and bit back a yowl. Her voice had come back.
The dark was so thick back there, it pressed against her. No telling what might be in it. If she scooted backwards, Ellie had the very real feeling that she might disappear, simply fall off into the place that was left when you weren’t in this one anymore, and keep falling forever.
Her chest heaved up and down in little hitches like when she’d been crying for a long time, pushing small sighs out of her.
She made herself stop breathing so hard. Her voice was back; now she could make noise. And for some reason, Ellie didn’t want to make any noise.
All the pounding on the door she’d done earlier had disturbed things in the closet. Things that were piled up on the shelf had shifted, and Ellie suddenly realized that something was about to fall.
She’d taken gymnastics once. It was during one of the times their dad had come back for a while. She barely remembered it now, just that she’d liked it, especially the tumbling on the slick red floor mats. Despite her policy of not moving in the closet, she tucked her head down and rolled just as something heavy and cold whistled past her and fell onto the carpet, making a heavy, muffled thunk.
“What was that?” Brad’s voice again.
The hole in Ellie’s wrist had started bleeding when she moved, but it was only a trickle.
Ellie wasn’t able to see what had fallen right beside her, almost on top of her — she’d felt its breath as it went past.
“Shut up,” David said. “I almost got this.”
“Are you really going to keep her locked up in there?”
A second or two went by. “Who?”
“You know, your sister.”
Ellie snaked out the arm that wasn’t bleeding. She let her fingers feel around in the darkness, like the tentacles of some never-seen bug. They touched metal. Cold, round, long metal, with a little chain at the top. It was a lamp.
Ellie could remember this lamp; it had sat on the table next to their mother’s bed. If she tiptoed down to her mom’s room in the middle of the night, to ask for a drink of water or an extra blanket on the bed, her mom would reach a sleepy hand up and pull the chain, and light would spill over her face, her half-closed eyes.
It was so quiet now in the closet that Ellie heard the DS as it shut down.
“Whadda you care?” David asked.
“You can’t just leave her in there.”
“Whadda you care?” David said again.
There was some muffled moving around. Then the DS started up again.
Brad had it now; Ellie could tell the difference at once because Brad chortled and crowed whenever he scored points, while David was as silent as he played as he was when he did everything else.
“I care,” Brad said after a few minutes, “ ’cause I got a sister myself.”
“So?” David said.
“And my mom sometimes makes me babysit her and she’s only four and she’s a real pain. She always wants something to eat, and she always asks me to play with her.”
“I said, so?” A pause. “Lemme have it.”
“Not yet, hold on.” The bleep of the stupid game. “So — you’ve given me a great idea.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And whadda you think is gonna happen if you never let your sister out? Your mom’s gonna find out and you’ll get in trouble. People’ll look for her. Everyone will find out. Right? You know?” Some more bleeps. “I got it! Oh yeah, I never got to this level before.”
Ellie knew what would happen now. David would reach for the game. He wouldn’t say anything, there’d be no noise whatsoever except for the sounds the DS made, and then David would finish Brad’s level, and maybe the one after that.
It gave her a few minutes.
Ellie’s fingers squeezed the body of the lamp. The metal grew slippery in her grasp, and she wiped blood off blindly.
You got the splinter out, a small voice said. It wasn’t her mom’s anymore. You can do this too.