She rubbed her hands to ease the soreness. Her eyes played tricks as white lights winked, though when she blinked there was nothing. Why didn’t she think to bring a candle?
The white lights winked, not real, yet that draught that blew across her face, was that real? She stretched her hands out and held them very still. The gentlest breath blew across her fingertips. Did it come from the kitchens? Or from outside, it felt icy?
She leant forward and pressed her face into the dark to sniff it, and the lift tipped with a violent lurch and hit the wall with a sharp crack, and then dropped in three sickening bumps.
She grabbed the rope, and held tight. The lift shuddered to a halt.
Her ragged breathing echoed back at her in terrified gasps. She didn’t dare let go, and her fingers ached with pain. Her scratched cheek burned, and the torn skin smarted with an insistent throb.
The draught blew stronger; a breeze of cold air that blew through the bones of the old House.
She released one hand from the rope and, with painful slowness, traced the flow of air to its source at the edge of the lift floor. Her fingers recoiled at the cold touch of the shaft wall. She touched the freezing stones again. A smooth surface, though as she ran her hand lower, they ended in a jagged edge, broken and sharp.
She dared to lean forward a little more, and her hand exposed an empty space where the cold air flowed, just above the lift floor.
She took hold of the rope with both hands, and pulled down on it with all her strength. The lift righted itself, lurched, and descended a few short bumps. She stopped pulling, and the lift jerked to a halt.
Cold air filled the box. She waved her hand in a wide circle in front of her, nothing but empty space. An air shaft, she wondered, or some sort of tunnel? She pressed her palm on the lift floor and patted it across the rough boards. She reached the edge and, with careful probing fingers, went beyond it. Her hand flattened onto cold stone. The tunnel had a floor, and without a moment’s hesitation she leapt, cat-like, out of the lift and landed on all fours on hard stone. Her knees cracked, but she didn’t care, the relief at escaping from the lift and its’ sickening swinging made her heart pound.
She lay down, closed her eyes, and fell fast asleep.
She awoke with a start. The darkness frightened her, and she pinched her arm to make sure she wasn’t still sleeping. She tried to remember her muddled dreams, punctured by strange sounds, like a rattle and a creak and a bump. Silence now; how long had she slept? Her body ached and cold stiffened her joints.
She took her time to sit up, every movement made her groan. Her wounded cheek, pressed against the stones, had gone numb. She stroked the torn skin, until the first jab of pain brought the nerves back to life.
Time to climb back into that horrid lift. The kitchens must be near, and she felt refreshed after her sleep, there was strength in the old bones yet.
She dragged herself round and crawled. She expected to feel the lift’s coarse planks straight away, so the emptiness surprised her. Was she facing in the right direction? Had she gone further down the tunnel than she thought? She knelt, and waved her arms in wide circles. Very odd, it must be here, but no need to be frightened, if only she knew how far to crawl.
She shuffled along for a few more inches, and her left knee pressed onto thin air and she toppled into the darkness. She shrieked, and her arms whirled, as she grasped for something to save her.
Her fingers snapped against the hairy rope that hauled the dumb waiter up and down the shaft, and she gripped it tight to stop her fall. She gasped, and clasped the rope tighter. She was hanging face down, swinging from side to side, her toes lodged against the rough lip of the stone tunnel.
Impossible to hold on for long, as her shoulders squeezed her arms out of their sockets.
She opened her mouth, but hard to shout with her neck so constricted. Any moment she would drop down the shaft to certain death. Perhaps, if she let go, death might come sooner and quicker, but she didn’t let go, though her strength weakened, and her rigid body ached with fear.
Then the rope trembled. She tightened her grip, and wailed a strangled cry of pain. Then it jolted, and almost flung her off, and then it moved. She wanted to scream, “Stop, Stop,” as her ears roared with rushing blood.
She rose with the rope, and the weight of her body shifted as she was carried upwards. Her toes dug into the stone and threatened to snap with the pressure. Her wrists burned with pain, and still she rose, back towards Sylvia’s bedroom.
The rope pulled her above the tunnel floor, and her feet took the weight of her body, and there flashed into her mind the sudden possibility of saving her life. She had one moment, and took her chance.
She pressed against the rope, flexed her arms, and then pushed with all her might. She curved backwards, landed on her back, and cracked her head against the stones.
Dazed, and panting for breath, she breathed the cold air in short sharp gasps.
She heard again the noises that disturbed her dreams, a creak and a groan and a bump, coming closer.
She knew it, of course, the sound of the dumb waiter rising up the lift shaft. It passed the spot where she lay, and the smell of meat pie and sticky chocolate pudding wafted over her, before the breeze blew it away. The lift trundled upwards to Sylvia’s bedroom.
The food smells cleared her head and she sat up. She smiled, though it hurt her cheek, just happy to be alive. She had no idea where she was, or how to get out, but alive, and she patted her legs for reassurance. They were undamaged, and that made escape possible.
Which way to go? The dumb waiter would return full of cold uneaten food, because Sylvia couldn’t climb out of bed. She sat up and faced the oncoming breeze.
Did this tunnel lead to the outside, or a dead end? Death might not give her a second chance, yet her only hope now was to follow it.
She crawled along and checked, with pats of her hands, that the stones stayed solid and secure beneath her, before she shifted her weight from one to the other.
The tunnel curved downwards. She hummed a song she remembered as a girl, and then she sang it out loud. It gave her confidence to keep going. And the more she remembered, the louder she sang.
Chapter Thirty Two
Clunk! Food! Sylvia reared up on her elbows and opened her mouth, ready to feed.
Peggy must see her waiting. Where was she? Under the bed? Doing something in a dark corner?
She huffed and grunted her displeasure. Sitting up exhausted her, and she fell back onto the pillows.
Not a sound suggested that Peggy might be near. Sylvia tried to think, which was hard, because she hadn’t thought for a very long time, and it made her sleepy.
She needed food, from that hole, where Peggy fetched it every day. So close, the smell maddened her.
She shut her eyes and opened them wide; that told Peggy she had just come out of a “vision.” Still nothing happened.
She flapped her arms, frustrated, and tried to think a bit more. If she rolled on her side, like Peggy made her do when she changed the sheets, she would reach the edge of the bed, and if she rolled again, she would fall off the bed and land on the floor. And if she rolled across the floor towards the hole, she would reach the food.