Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

She tried to mark the days, but was it fifteen now, or twenty? She couldn’t find anything sharp enough to mark the walls of her cell, giving up after tearing two fingernails to the quick. Besides, there was only ever light for the few moments it took to shove her gloop through the door, so scratching lines in the rock seemed pointless.

Instead, she named the days: her father was fanatical about baseball, and obsessed with the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds; he claimed it was the greatest baseball team ever assembled on one field. Now Hannah tallied her stay in the Malakasian prison: ‘Gullett, because you have to start with Gullett, Bench, Perez, Morgan, Rose, Concepcion, Foster, Geronimo, Griffey, Senior not Junior, although the kid can get it done when he needs to; then, Plummer, Armbrister, a lucky call there in game three, Eddie; and Rawlins Jackson Eastwick, the Third. That’s just a name you have to say out loud. Okay, so what’s that, twelve days, plus a few before I started the count, so that’s – fifteen days? Right, fifteen. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to the utility infielders.’

When she ran out of Cincinnati Reds, she moved on to the New York Yankee squad from the ’76 World Series, but it was hard to remember all the players. Then she tried making up song lyrics, which amused her for a day or two. It seemed important for her to occupy her mind, because otherwise she’d start thinking of her arrival in Welstar Palace…

They had been bound and gagged, and dragged from the Welstar docks, through the encampment to the palace, and Hannah had her first up-close encounter with Seron, the creatures she had seen in the distance outside the forest of ghosts. Nothing her friends had said had prepared her for these huge monsters, staring vacuously, apparently oblivious to the open sores, boils and pox marks that covered their bodies. Even now the memory of the stench made Hannah retch: the stink of death and decaying, foetid flesh… part of her hoped that she would die there, rather than having to cross that field of pestilence again. What kind of soldier stood staring without a care while his flesh rotted from his body? These people – if they were people – would be the grimmest fighting force ever assembled – what good would it do to shoot one of them with an arrow? Or even with a rifle?

Hannah blinked away the tears and started again. ‘Gullett, Bench, Perez, Morgan, what a strange swing you had, Joe; Rose, Concepcion…’

One morning Hannah missed a meal. She had waited all night for her brown gloop; when it arrived, she forgot it. The following morning a soldier picked up the untouched trencher and swapped it for a fresh serving of mush. Hannah started to shake: things were getting worse. She filled her mind with batting averages, prices of antiques stacked in her grandfather’s store, the names of all the peaks she had climbed in Colorado, the keys and key signatures of all twelve tones in the chromatic scale. She decided she must be on the threshold of madness because one night, battling the particularly insidious chill, she managed to recall a quadratic formula she had no memory of ever learning, let alone what it was supposed to do.

For water, Hannah had a trickle running down the back wall. She awakened each day apparently free of dysentery, so she drank as much as she could, reminding herself, especially during the blazingly hot days, to stay hydrated. At night, the trickle sang as it ran down the wall and dripped down between the flagstones. When she couldn’t sleep, she made up songs to the rhythm of the rill.

The key of C, C, C.

It has no sharps.

The key of C, C, C.

It’s the hairy smelly key of C.

The key of G, G, G.

It has F sharp.

The key of G, G, G.

It’s the filthy rotten key of G.

The key of D, D, D.

It has F and C sharp.

The key of D, D, D.

It’s the tired wrinkled key of -.

A loud click emanated from somewhere along the hallway outside her cell; Hannah quieted, listening intently, and heard a second click and footsteps approaching along the hall. She peered through the cracks between the wooden door, expecting to see the flicker of torchlight, but the hall remained dark. She whispered more nonsense under her breath.

The key of F sharp, F sharp, F sharp.

It has F, C, G, D, A and E sharp.

The key of F sharp, F sharp, F sharp.

It’s the crippled beggar key of F#.

The key of C sharp -

The footsteps paused, then came towards her cell.

‘Hannah?’

‘Steven?’ She was embarrassed at the hoarse rattle in her throat. ‘Steven, is that you?’

‘Where are you?’

Adrenalin flooded through her and she stood and stumbled across the chamber, shouting, ‘I’m in here, Steven. I’m in this one, right down here.’ She banged her fist against the door, hearing the echo resonate along the cavernous hallway. He had to hear her; she was making enough noise to wake the dead.

‘Hannah?’ the voice called back, ‘where are you?’

Something slimy slithered across her foot. She screamed, twisting away so violently she felt something in her back snap, a tendon or a ligament stretched too far. She ignored the throbbing pain as she huddled in her corner and screamed, ‘Steven! Can you hear me, Steven? I’m in here, Steven! Please let me out! Steven, please!’

The voice didn’t answer and Hannah strained her ears, keeping her eyes tightly closed. Her breath was too loud; she was panting in fear of whatever had slipped over her feet- She felt around for her boots and pulled them on: she needed to get a hold of herself, control her breathing if she was going to hear him. She forced herself to take several long, deep breaths.

‘Steven?’ Hannah whispered, and tiptoed back towards the door. There was no answer. She pressed hard against the wooden frame, until her skin came away marked with the grain pattern. ‘Steven?’

For a time – Hannah lost track – she stood and called into the darkness; after a while some part of her mind took charge and told her she had been hearing things; there was no way Steven Taylor could have been in the hallway outside her cell.

When the less-than-entirely sane part of her mind finally accepted that, Hannah fell apart. She trundled back to her corner, wrapped herself in her cloak and cried until she fell asleep. She didn’t wake when the guard brought her morning gloop, nor did she wake when he arrived the following day to replace that trencher with a fresh one.

Eventually, Hannah’s cell door opened and torchlight flooded in, blinding her. She buried her face in her cloak as a young soldier stepped inside. She squinted up at him: he wore the Malakasian crest emblazoned in gold across a leather vest, and his muscular arm was marked with sergeant’s stripes. His sandy-brown hair was tousled; his skin was pale, and he wore heavy boots and leather gloves, which Hannah found a curious choice given the heat.

He wasn’t carrying the disgusting mush.

‘So?’ she said, her voice hoarse, her lips cracking and bleeding as they moved. She pushed her matted hair from her eyes with bruised fingers, revealing the sores that had opened on her skin.

‘Hannah, oh gods… I’ve been looking for days.’

Confused, she tried to make a joke. ‘Oh, that’s nice. Is there a dance or something?’

‘Hannah, it’s me. Alen.’

Hannah tried to stand, but as she struggled to her feet, her vision tunnelled and she slumped back onto her knees. The soldier, whoever he was, moved to assist her.

‘Sit down,’ he said, ‘you’re weak.’

Hannah barely heard him as nausea gripped her and the tiny cell spun around her; she couldn’t make sense of what the soldier was saying.

‘-lost so much weight; look at you!’

Finally she struggled to a sitting position and swallowed hard, trying to keep her stomach calm. ‘Say what you said before,’ she croaked.