“You have to be quiet,” Ember says as she places her thin finger to her lips.
“Who was up there?” I’m sitting but consider standing to bulldoze her fragile state of mind with my stance but choose to wait and see how she reacts. I don’t want to chase her away, because I truly feel she may be my only chance at escape, as thin as it is.
“Trust me,” she says as she closes the door behind herself. “The man upstairs will not help you in any way. You don’t want him down here.” Her lips pinch, and her nose wrinkles.
I watch her walk completely across the room and light another lantern on a small table in a far corner. It reveals another door I hadn’t seen before.
“There’s indoor plumbing in the main house unlike the rest of the buildings in Hallelujah Junction,” she says, pointing to the door. “There’s a bathroom here, although the water heater doesn’t work very well, so most likely the water will be cold.” She glances at the chain around my ankle, restricting me from even going near the door. “I’m sure I can convince Papa Rich to give you a longer chain or something so you can use it.”
Her voice is so soft. So delicate. Almost melodic.
“How long have you been here?” I ask as she sits on one of the crates before me—still out of reach.
Her eyes widen, and she tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
“He’s not your father, is he?”
“He is.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe he is.”
She swallows hard and looks down at her fingertips. “He saved me. He’s my father in the eyes of God, and that’s all that matters.”
The way she recites the sentence tells me that she’s been fed the line of crap for so long she actually believes it. I can’t help but feel she is a lost lamb about to be devoured by wolves. Hell, she’s already their evening meal.
“How long has he been your… father?”
“My mother left me when I was five. Papa Rich took me and raised me as his own.” Her eyes lift and she stares at me head on. “I’ve never discussed this with anyone before. Actually… I’ve never discussed anything with anyone. You’re the first person—besides my father’s friend, whom I hate—that I have ever spoken to.”
“Why?” I ask, feeling like I must get this woman to open up to me if I have any shot at convincing her to find the key to my shackles.
“I have to stay hidden,” she says so softly, I have to lean forward to read her lips to help make sense of her words.
“Hidden?”
She looks at the door, pauses for a moment, and then refocuses her attention on me. “My mother is dangerous. If she knew I was here, she would come get me. My life would be at risk with her. Even now as an adult, she would still want me for revenge purposes alone. I’ll never be safe. Papa Rich says she has people looking for me, and we can’t trust anyone. No strangers. No one. So, my only chance of staying alive from the power and evil she has, is to stay hidden. He keeps me safe in Hallelujah Junction far away from most. He doesn’t think she would ever look for me here, but we have to make sure by not allowing me to ever be seen by anyone.”
Ember can’t possibly believe the words she says, but it appears she does. She truly does.
“So, you came here to live when you were a child? How old are you now?”
“Twenty-five. But we don’t celebrate birthdays. I read about them in books, but Papa Rich says that materialistic things are the root to evil, and birthdays are about presents, and we don’t partake in the ways of modern man. We’re different.”
This poor woman. She was kidnapped twenty years ago and has been brainwashed by the crazy man upstairs. She’s a victim just like me.
She just doesn’t know it.
“So, you live in this house? Were you ever chained up like me?” I ask, trying to make sense of her situation. Speaking to her is like putting a puzzle together one piece at a time.
She smiles warmly and nods. “My father is the ranger in Hallelujah Junction. They give him this house which is up the road behind the schoolhouse. The visitors can’t come up here where we actually live.” She pauses and looks at my ankle shackled in metal. “Well… visitors aren’t supposed to.” She takes a deep breath and then looks back into my eyes. “There are underground tunnels that connect many of the buildings. They were built years and years ago by the miners who founded this town. Papa Rich trusts me to walk them so I can visit more buildings than just our home. The schoolhouse is my favorite because I like to read, and that’s where we keep boxes of old books. My father teases me and tells me that someday, I’ll read them all, but I still have a long way to go. I haven’t opened all the boxes yet.”