John Marsden - Circle of fight

I had no hope of seeing much, as I was now in the stomach of the house, or to be more accurate the chest, and there were no lights anywhere. But it’s amazing how much you can pick up without even knowing you’re doing it. I was sure now I could hear a kind of breathing, and equally sure it was coming from my left. I started to inch over there, using my feet to suss out each bit of floor, at the same time raising an arm in front of my face in case there was a mobile, or some other unexpected obstacle, hanging from the ceiling. My left foot, probing carefully, came into contact with something soft, maybe some clothes, and I did a little detour until I was on clear carpet again.

My stomach was getting pretty queasy, with being in this room, so close to a complete stranger, and for all I knew pushing his underwear around with my toe. But I had to keep going. I felt something with my hand that was a regular shape, not like the soft stuff on the floor. I ran my hand to the left and then the right, and could tell by the different layers that it was a bed, with a mattress, and at least one blanket.

By now I had a little night vision, even in this very dark room, and could make out a shape under the blanket. It looked quite big, but Gavin was getting quite big too, and I started to think it could possibly be him. Now I had to let my fingers do the looking. Leaning forward a little, I forced myself to lift the blanket and wiggle my left hand in. I made it creep across the sheet, until it touched skin. My whole stomach flipped over at that point and I nearly threw up. I even made a retching noise and had to clamp my mouth shut to make sure nothing came out. I realised I was touching a hand, and had the dreadful idea that the man would suddenly grab me and haul me forwards. But it was a man. I was sure of that much. I could feel his thumbnail and knuckle, thumb or finger, I couldn’t be sure which, and they were definitely too big for Gavin.

I retreated the way I’d come, remembering to avoid the pile of soft stuff on the floor. Out in the corridor again, I closed the door behind me. I felt really weak now, and had to lean against the wall for a moment. Those awful minutes in the bedroom had drained me. I knew I couldn’t go through that again in every room of the house.

I was stuck for ideas, but I went along the corridor that seemed to lead into the next building. It was quite long, with no doors or windows, and I was sure that I was now in the house next door. At the T junction I turned left. There were two doors here, one of which looked like a very small room on the right, and another straight ahead, which could have been anything.

But something else was on the left. It was a little ladder. And looking at that, my Gavinometer suddenly started to register. I had the feeling that at last I was close.

I didn’t hesitate, but started up the ladder. I couldn’t see what was at the top, but once I got there I realised it was a funny little alcove, on a landing, and there was a door at an angle, and a smell of fresh sawdust. I found a handle and turned it, as certain as I could be that Gavin was on the other side. But I got no further. It was locked. Of course. It would be. A million curses ran through my head. Then I remembered the obvious, and groped around some more. I let out a sigh of relief as my fingers felt a yale key securely in its lock. I turned the key and turned the handle and pressed the door open.

It was pretty stinky. A wave of smell rolled past me, stinging my eyes. I blinked, then went in. The smell was familiar. Then, standing a metre inside the room, I heard breathing. The sound of people who are asleep must be as distinctive as their voices when they are awake, because I knew that breathing, and I knew that my long journey had resulted in success. Somehow, miraculously, I’d travelled all that way and found, in the attic of this old house, in a city I’d never visited before, in the middle of the night, my little brother.

There was such a fierce joy when I held him. We stayed pressed together, holding each other tightly, rocking and swaying a little and, in my case at least, never wanting to let go of him again.

To be honest I felt like a mother bird who has grabbed her duckling back from the jaws of the fox. I was full of joy at having saved him, disbelief that I could have, and the desire never to see him in danger again.

It was funny, he’d woken the moment I touched him, and seemed to know almost immediately who it was and what was happening. I felt his body stiffen as though a charge of electricity poured through him, and a moment later he flung aside whatever sheets or blankets he had, and we were holding each other as tightly as couple of wrestlers when there’s ten seconds to go and the gold medal’s up for grabs. When Gavin hugs it does tend to be a bit like a wrestler going for the death grip.

The trouble was, we might be lucky to get ten seconds. With so much reluctance that I could hardly bear to do it I finally pushed him away a little. I grabbed his hand and traced on his palm the word ‘go’. I’d communicated with him that way before, and it was the only option I had in this darkness. But I didn’t need to use it for long. He separated himself completely from me, shuffled across towards the door, and a moment later we had full electric light. ‘Gavin!’ I mouthed at him in horror and terror. ‘Turn it off.’

He shrugged and grinned and waved his hands. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘They can’t see it.’

It was true there was no window in the attic, as I realised when I looked around, but I didn’t know how much light would seep under the door. It certainly seemed tight-fitting enough. And maybe Gavin had his light on at all hours of the day and night and they were used to it. I suppose it wouldn’t bother them if he had his light on or off.

I gave up looking around at the room and concentrated on him. He looked terrible. Among the many awful things those bastards had done, putting him in a room without windows probably wasn’t the worst, but it was a pretty foul thing to do. He seemed taller than I remembered, but maybe he was just growing without my noticing it. He was a lot thinner, but the biggest shock was the paleness of his face. It wasn’t like they’d held him prisoner for so long that he’d lost his suntan, but maybe the 24/7 stress of being with them had robbed him of colour, made him whiter. I noticed, too, a twitchiness, a tremor, that I’d never seen before. His lips quivered, his hands jerked a little, his fingers kept crisscrossing nervously. I wondered if they’d broken his spirit. By God, that would have taken some doing. If they’d done that, then they must be experts at their job. I would have put money on Gavin to go through a cyclone on a bicycle, to ride a tsunami wearing floaties, to escape the Titanic paddling in an esky and singing nursery rhymes. But now something about him worried me and I just hoped I could get him out of the building and out of the city without him falling apart.

‘What’s the best thing to do?’ I asked him. ‘What’s the best way to get out of here? Will we go now, like, straightaway?’

He stared back at me dumbly as if he hadn’t understood a word. But I knew that wasn’t the problem. I think he had been there so long that he just couldn’t contemplate taking action. I asked him again, ‘Will we go now?’ but he just trembled and shook his head. So I made the decision for both of us. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

I switched the light off and eased open the door. It seemed amazing that nothing outside had changed, when inside the room there had been a kind of joyful revolution, but the corridor outside was as still and dark and quiet as it had been when I went up the ladder. I wasted no more time, but started on down. As I got to the bottom it occurred to me that Gavin might not follow, but just as I glanced up I felt the slight jarring caused by someone else starting a descent.