The Mountain Ch. 04

Thanks again for all your comments and encouragement. Please let me know what you think so I can keep improving the story! I'm not certain yet, but I'm thinking this story will be ten chapters with a possible sequel beyond that if I like where it ends up.

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Lucy tried to keep track of the days. It was difficult without windows. She counted the number of times she slept, but she knew that sometimes she got confused and lost track. The lights never went out and she wondered if that was the way they were designed, or if her captor was using them to add to her disorientation. By her best estimate, she had been inside the mountain for a week.

She didn't trust her calculations very much. It seemed like it had to have been longer.

Persephone didn't come every day, but she came often enough and her hatred of Lucy was consistent. Food was delivered regularly, whether Persephone was there or not, and more of it than Lucy was used to. The persistent, background hum of permanent hunger that she had felt on the ground was replaced with the feeling of always being cold. After a few days, Warder gave her a pair of brown boots and socks that almost fit.

It helped, but she was still freezing.

She missed the jacket that Grace had given her. It was never returned. She was grateful, at least, that he usually allowed her to wear clothes despite his earlier threat. She suspected it was because she constantly shivered, although she couldn't quite credit him with caring. Some nights, he stripped her of her clothes without warning before bundling her into the bed. She was warm enough with his body next to hers, but she felt helpless and angry to be forced to endure it. He spoke to her very little and when she asked questions now, he usually ignored them.

Once, watching him work at his desk, she had stood up and screamed at him. "I can't breathe in here! And I am going to freeze to death!"

He blinked at her, clearly annoyed at being disturbed, and then he had picked her up and placed her on his lap, going back to work as if she didn't exist. He was warm and being so close to him, she could hear his own, easy breaths and the weight in her chest did let up a little. She hated him for it and held herself still, refusing to touch him more than was necessary.

On the eighth or ninth day, Persephone showed up again. After a few hours of careless housework, she tied a blindfold around Lucy's eyes and led her towards the bath. Lucy didn't really need to bathe so often--she spent most of her time sitting still. The stone walls did give off a kind of odd dust that collected in her hair and made her skin feel strange. But it didn't smell. Still, she was grateful for the distraction and she wondered if this was why the luxury was permitted. Again, she reasoned that Warder was trying to soothe her, to keep her calm and tended, like a pet. She questioned again the wisdom of staying small and meek. But even if she were to rebel, what would it accomplish? She had learned the path to the room where she bathed, but she still had no sense of the rest of the mountain.

She had never seen an exit, even if there must be one somewhere.

She was not stronger than Warder or even Persephone.

She had no plan.

Feeling dejected, Lucy filled the tub with scalding hot water, aware of Persephone humming to herself in the other room. As she sank into the tub, she ran back over her calculations. Was it nine days? Maybe it had been ten. She did not know how long she had slept the first night. If it had even been a night. And--

She stopped. A horrible thought had just occurred to her. Her focus since being captured had been to stay calm and to keep from betraying the real reason she had been on the mountain. She had been so focused on this secret that she had forgotten that she had others.

If it had been ten days already, she had a week at most before she became sick.

Her recurring sickness had started when she was twelve. She had woken up in the middle of the night, burning hot and screaming. Her mother had struggled to calm or to cool her, eventually calling for Miles' father, who acted as the doctor for the islanders. He had diagnosed her with a virus and promised the fever would wane in a day or so. It had lasted for three, never seeming to ebb and flow as fevers were supposed to. She was so hot for so long that she should have died, but she didn't. At the end of the third day, crying to her mother, she wished that she would.

Then, as quickly as it had came, the sickness had receded. She was in low spirits for several days after, reluctant to leave the house or even her room. Things returned to normal and she tried not to think about the nightmares and the pain of the raging fever. Then, two months later, it had happened again in the same way. And again nine weeks after that.

The third time, her mother consulted with Gino as well as with the doctor. Gino had no medical training, but he was a talented historian. He considered himself a memory-keeper for the people trapped on the island, cataloguing stories of the world they could no longer access. He told stories about what electricity--television, lights, washing machines--had been like. He named Kings and Presidents and celebrated an endless stream of holidays. Lucy's mother asked him if he had heard of a sickness like this, a relentless fever that came and went, torturing the sufferer but receding with no apparent loss of function.

"He says it's nothing he's heard of," said her mother. "Probably nothing to worry about. It could be a consequence of life on the island. Maybe it won't come back."

The fever had broken by then, but Lucy was still in bed. That afternoon, Gino came to see her. Her mother left to bring them both something to drink and Gino pulled up a chair and sat next to her bed, his long face etched with worry.

"Your mother told me what's been happening," he said. "I'm sorry, Lucy."

"Doctor Linn said it might not come back this time. Maybe it's a virus or an allergy. He said I should start taking longer walks every day."

Gino darted a glance towards the door and then scooted his chair closer. "It will come back, Lucy," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, but it will. You have to endure it. In fact, you have to learn to hide it, even if it means pretending you're not in pain or locking yourself away. You can't tell anyone it's happening. Tell Dr. Linn that you're well."

"What? Why?" Lucy had asked. His tone was serious and sad. He looked almost wild, clutching at her hand where it lay limp against the blanket.

"I have heard of this before," he told her. "People were getting sick like you just before they took the island. It's survivable, but it recurs. I don't know for how long because everyone that got sick here is gone now."

"Gone, like, they left?" Lucy asked.

"They were all among the taken," he said, referring to the islanders who had disappeared when the mountain dwellers first took over the island. "Not everyone knows that detail. We kept it quiet. The governor at the time didn't want to incite panic over every ache or fever."

"What does it mean? Why is it happening? Am I going to die? Are they going to take me, too?" The latter seemed worse than death.

Gino was always so cheerful and hopeful. He stared at her now with pity. His disquiet was more frightening than what he was saying.

"I think you'll be all right," he said unconvincingly. "But you've got to hide it. And you should keep away from the mountain and anyone who sympathizes with them."

Despite the general hatred for the mountain people, there were some who urged an alliance. The island leaders maintained that this wasn't truly possible--that they were virtual prisoners and the mountain dwellers had never shown any inclination to change their ways.

Lucy had been sufficiently frightened. The next time she fell ill, she tried to hide it from her mother. In the end, she thought her mother knew, but chose to pretend. Over time, she learned to manage the pain so that she could go out into the town even when she was trapped in the worst of it.

Hiding in plain sight.

Inside the mountain, there was no hope of pretending. She was already weak from fear and lack of sunlight and air. Warder knew her every move. He saw what she ate, when and how she slept. He touched her often, sometimes casually and other times thoroughly, as if he were learning each bit of her skin by memory. He would notice when her body grew hot. He would hear her call out the nightmares that she was used to muffling into her pillow.

She could not be inside the mountain when the sickness gripped her. At her worst estimate, that meant she had five days to plan and execute an escape. Five days, and currently she was lying exposed in the bath, with Persephone guarding the door and no idea where she was.

Her predicament thus far had dulled to the point where she was agitated but mostly numb. This new revelation awakened a sharper kind of panic. With it came clarity. She had skills that Warder and his people didn't know about. This was a small advantage. And her behavior thus far had been mostly intentional. They did not suspect her to run. Even Warder had grown more careless. Where he used to swiftly lock the door, now he sometimes forgot for a time if he was in the room with her.

She would find a way to escape. She had to. Before her body betrayed her.

#

Persephone returned her to Warder's rooms and left her alone. Grateful for a moment to regroup, Lucy decided to start in one corner of the room and work her way through the entire place. There had to be something here that would help her. She rifled through the desk again, wishing desperately that she could read the warrior's strange language. She ran her fingers along the walls, lifted a chair and reached as far as she could into the dent at the top where the lights were recessed.

Under the bed, she found several pairs of socks that Persephone had missed and tossed them into the laundry bag hung over the door with exasperation. She stripped the bed, ran her fingers along the seams of the mattress, and wondered if she was losing touch with reality. What did she expect to find? A key and a map back to her side of the island? A gun with a set of instructions?

In the living area, she eyed the metal cabinet above her head. She had already examined it, standing on a chair, and found it locked. In the interest of being thorough, she dragged the chair over to it again and stood, tugging half-heartedly at the rusty metal door handle. It came open so easily that she almost lost her balance and fell.

She leaned back to allow the doors to swing wide and peered inside. There was a large, flat piece of metal inside and a tangle of thick, black metal string. After staring at everything for a while, it was as if the strange objects came into focus and she could really see them.

The black things were wires.

Electricity.

She still hadn't figured out how it was that the inside of the mountain had electricity while the islanders did not. Many had long suspected that the warrior's interference with the electric system was more active than passive--the system had not simply been cut, but was actively being suppressed. So far, the most tangible evidence of the mountain people's electric system had been the lights shining along the top of every wall. Now, this box.

Wishing she had paid closer attention to Sheera's father and his obsessive lectures on technology, she considered it. Her training had been fairly comprehensive, but entirely theoretical. She had examined non-working appliances, but the real thing was about as familiar to her as a fairy tale.

She felt around the edges of the box for buttons. Almost certainly it was a "screen" but she wasn't sure what kind. She pressed each of the buttons in turn, but nothing happened. Hoping to get a better look at the entire system, fiddling with the cords. She tried the buttons again and suddenly, the screen flashed to life, giving off a cheerful chirping sound. Words scrolled along the screen in red.

Level Three. Level Three until further notice.

The same words as the voice she heard that seemed to come from nowhere. She realized then that it must be--what was the word--a microphone of some kind?

She tried more buttons. Twice, she turned the thing off by accident. Finally, the "threat" message disappeared and an actual moving video came on screen.

A woman sat at a desk, talking into the camera. She was speaking in the strange warrior-language that Warder and Persephone used among themselves. There was a screen behind her and she gestured to it occasionally. She was teaching.

Lucy was so absorbed that she didn't hear Warder until he came up behind her.

"If you stand that close to the television, you'll ruin your eyes," he said.

She startled and turned to face him, wobbling as she almost upset the chair. "My eyes?"

Warder steadied the chair.

"Something my mother used to say," he told her. "How did you get it working?"

It was odd to think of Warder having something so normal as a mother.

"It just...worked," said Lucy.

"Interesting," Warder said. He reached around her and touched one of the wires. "It wasn't before." He eyed her carefully.

"I guess I got lucky."

She shouldn't have let him know that she had any familiarity with electronics. She shrugged and went to climb down from the chair. He caught her and lifted her down, setting her on the floor a few feet from the television. He turned it off and shut the cabinet, locking it.

"What did you see?" he asked.

"Just that woman," she said, referring to the program that had been on when he came in.

"And the information screen when it turned on?" he prompted.

She nodded. "What do the 'threat levels' mean?"

"You don't need to know," he said.

"I want to know."

He eyed her coolly. "If you ever hear 'Level Seven,' the doors will unlock. Run. Fast. Follow the crowds. That's all you need to know."

He put the chair back where it belonged and sat at his desk. Disappointed that the television hadn't yielded anything more useful, she watched him, evaluating her next move.

"How long are you going to keep me here?" she asked.

He ignored her.

"Why are you keeping me here?" she persisted. "For the crime of picking berries? We didn't hurt anyone. If you hadn't happened to be up there, you never would have known we were there."

"I am not in the mood to discuss it," he said.

She took a deep breath.

The status quo is not working. You are still as trapped as you were when you arrived. Try something else.

"I am not in the mood to be locked up here anymore with no answers and no one but you and the charming Persephone for company."

Finally, he looked up from his work. "You're not enjoying my company?" He sounded bored, but she noticed the way his hand flexed against the edge of the desk.

"No," she said boldly. "Let me leave. I won't ever come back. I won't tell anyone what I've seen--which, is virtually nothing because I've been locked up. You don't even want me here," she said. "Let me go."

"If I didn't want you here, you'd be gone," he said. "Go to sleep. You're obviously not feeling yourself."

She was exactly herself, but in a few days, when her sickness took hold, she wouldn't be.

"I can't breathe in here," she said, ignoring his instruction. "I don't know how you survive it. Normal people need sun and fresh air. I live next to the ocean. I swim almost every day. I can hear the waves from my bed."

"You used to live there," he said. "Seek to content yourself with your new situation."

"Am I to be locked up in this room forever? Leaving only to bathe?"

"Not forever," he said. "Things will change. But not, perhaps, as you would like them to."

He stood and walked over to her, reached out to place a hand on each of her shoulders. She knew that he meant to massage her, soothe her. She jerked away.

"No!" she said. "I can't stand it anymore. It's dark in here. And airless. And ugly. I want to go outside."

He considered her. "You are not permitted to go outside," he said. "Nor will you often be permitted to act this way."

"Are you going to hit me again?"

"I have decided to allow you some latitude as you are unfamiliar with our ways."

"The more I learn about 'your ways,' the less I like them."

"I feel challenged to change your perspective," he said. He wrapped his arms around her without warning, holding her close. Her arms were trapped between them, but she tried to wriggle away by rocking her body from side to side. He pulled her closer, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. When she finally went still, he let her go abruptly and she stumbled back.

"My perspective is the same," she said. "I don't like it when you touch me."

He ignored her and retrieved his jacket from the back of his chair. She was already wearing the jacket he had given her, but he replaced it with the similar one he had worn all day. The jacket smelled of him. Not unpleasant, but strong.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Preparing for you to leave the room," he said. "Where are your boots?"

Hurriedly, she retrieved them, stuffing her feet inside without undoing the laces. "Am I allowed to see where we're going?" she asked.

"No," he said. He swept her up into his arms and turned her head into his chest. "Don't look or we'll go back," he cautioned.

Praying that this strange outing would lead her to a means of escape, she obeyed, squeezing her eyes shut.

#

For the first time, she was aware of passing many people in the strange halls. A few times, Warder stopped to talk, speaking only in the strange warrior language. Lucy kept her eyes shut, wishing that doing so could make her disappear. She felt useless trapped with these people, dragged and carried around, like she was practically non-sentient.

When Warder set her down, she waited before opening her eyes, trying to get her bearings. When she finally did open them, she wondered if she was asleep again. The room around her seemed like something from a dream.

There were stars.

More importantly, there was air. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized that they were still enclosed. The walls were stone--a giant cavern dug into the mountain. And the stars were flecks of pyrite and mica in the walls, glittering in the light of the large fixture set high up in the ceiling. The floor looked different than it had anywhere else inside. Lucy realized that in addition to being strewn with the same fancy rugs as the room she visited at the top of the mountain, the stone floors were painted. The design was black and white squares. Under the stars, the white glowed and the black almost disappeared, making the floor seem like as if it were glittering, too.

Taken in, Lucy walked unsteadily into the center of the room. The darkness seemed to swallow her up and she sat down, craning her head back to look up. She felt when Warder came to stand next to her, keenly aware of his towering presence in the near-dark.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"The Great Hall. It's our gathering place. Binding ceremonies, funerals. Everything that comes in between."

"We have a place like that," she said, thinking of the rec room in city hall. She swore that some of the sparkling stones were moving, streaking across the walls and ceilings, twinkling to an unheard tune. "It's not nearly this beautiful, but you can hear the ocean."

They stood in silence and she was so used to being alone with him now that the silence felt almost comfortable.

Why did you bring me here?" she asked, because being comfortable with their shared silence was decidedly uncomfortable.

"Always asking questions."

She shrugged.

"This is more than simply a gathering place," he said. "The high ceilings and the light will ease your sense of confinement. In the early days, we all needed this place to keep from going insane."