7
Cold terror sprouts between Michelle’s shoulder blades and prickles down her backbone. Not even a glimmer of light remains in the enclosed space.
She presses her hand to her chest, which has begun to suffer short, stabbing pains. She hasn’t felt these invisible arrows in years, but she knows the paralyzing pricks of panic all too well.
Get a grip, count to ten, breathe deeply. You’re a grown woman and everything’s fine; this is an elevator, not the trailer.
Sounds trickle into the car, a faint buzz followed by a steady tick. When a small bulb on the elevator panel blooms into light, Michelle inhales an unsteady breath and looks at the others. The housekeeper’s fear is visible in her trembling chin and wide eyes, but the redhead’s face is as blank as a mask. Something about the woman ignites a spark from Michelle’s memory cells, but after an instant the ember burns out.
When she is certain she can speak in a steady voice, she asks, “Are we all right?”
The redhead doesn’t respond, but the cleaning woman pulls the earbuds from her ears and dips her chin in a solemn nod.
“Then let me see if I can get us out of here.”
All the buttons on the elevator panel remain dark. Michelle presses the thirty-six, but the car doesn’t respond. She tries again with her access card in the security slot, but none of the buttons light at her touch, not even the L for Lobby. Finally she punches the Door Open button with her knuckle and holds it while she counts to five.
Nothing.
She slowly exhales a breath. She will not panic. There’s a light; she can see; she is no longer a child. No one here wants to hurt her.
She turns to the others. “Gus mentioned occasional blackouts—” she forces a smile “—so I’ll bet that’s what this is. As soon as the power kicks on, we’ll start moving again.”
She glances from Ms. Trench Coat to the housekeeper, but her companions are as unresponsive as the elevator controls.
“This same thing happened to me a few months ago.” In an effort to ease the tension, she locks her hands behind her back and leans against the wall. “I was stuck with a group of lawyers for about fifteen minutes. No big deal, except they kept arguing about who they should bill for their lost time.”
Neither woman smiles, leaving Michelle to wonder if they belong to some legal eagles’ antidefamation league. The redhead stares at the control panel as if she could diagnose the dead circuits with X-ray vision. The cleaning woman takes a tissue from her sweater pocket and blots pearls of perspiration from her forehead.
“Excuse, please?” The housekeeper lifts her hand and points to the light fixture on the panel. “We have light, no? So we have electricidad?”
“We have some power,” Michelle says, relieved that she is no longer talking to herself. “When I moved into my office, the building manager said something about the emergency systems being powered by a backup generator. We’ll be fine. We just have to wait for the main system to come back on. Of course—” she raps the plastic dome over the light with her knuckle “—for all I know, this thing might be powered by batteries.”
The woman nods, but a worry line has crept between her brows. “When power comes back—we will go down?”
Michelle shrugs. “I would imagine we’ll keep going up, since we were heading in that direction. But what does it matter? As long as we make it to any floor, we can open the doors and get to the staircase. So we’re fine. Maybe we should even be grateful. At least we’re not falling to the bottom of the shaft.”
She chuckles at her feeble joke, but the sound dies in her throat when the cleaning woman’s round face ripples with anguish.
“Don’t worry,” Michelle hastens to add. “This elevator is not going to fall. That only happens in bad movies.”
The housekeeper acknowledges Michelle’s comment with a slight nod, but Ms. Trench Coat either doesn’t appreciate Michelle’s attempt at humor or she’s not listening.
Michelle crosses her arms and leans against the wall, not certain where to rest her gaze. The little lamp is now glowing at maximum wattage, a token effort that doesn’t eliminate the shadows at the back of the car.
Michelle faces the doors and clenches her hand until her nails slice into her palm. Shadows and closed spaces elicit far too many painful memories.
“Michelle Louise Tills! Where are you, girl?”
The girl wriggled forward, digging her elbows into the soft earth, pulling her body through the narrow space. Dust and dirt rose with every movement, tickling her nose, but she would not sneeze. She wouldn’t make a sound, not as long as Momma waited out there.
“Where are you, Shelly? You’d better come out before I have to come lookin’ for you.”
Shelly moved deeper into the shadows, the raspy voice scraping like a razor’s edge against the back of her neck. Beyond the lattice apron, a blue warbler perched in the tall pine at the edge of the lot, calling Zhee zhee zizizizi zzzzeeet.
Shh, bird. Don’t tell.
“Shel-leeeeeey! I’d better not find you messin’ around with those boys!”
Past the fraying lawn chairs, the sun warmed the asphalt drive where the Smith boys were playing keep-away. The girl could hear Job Smith’s voice ricocheting among the trailers as he teased his younger brother, calling him noodle arms and stork legs….
“Shelly Louise! You get out here this minute or I’ll—well, you get out here. I’m losin’ my patience!”
Her mother’s words, pitched to reach the edge of the lot and no farther, were already softly slurred and she hadn’t even begun what she called “serious drinkin’.” In a while, if the girl was lucky, the woman would give up and go inside the trailer, forgetting about her child while she focused on the tall bottle of amber-colored liquid that demanded every drop of a worshipper’s devotion.
Shelly dropped her arms onto the soft dirt, then rested her cheek on her hands. If she could lie perfectly, soundlessly still, maybe she could become invisible. Maybe she could go away and wake up as someone else’s little girl.
Her mother’s slippers shuffled from the last porch step to the lawn chairs, her pale legs casting twin shadows that stretched toward Shelly like tongs. Instinctively, the girl recoiled, lifting her head so quickly that it clunked against the bottom of the trailer.
She squinched her eyes shut as the top of her head throbbed. Pretty, pretty please, don’t let her hear.
When Shelly lifted one eyelid, her mother was crouched on all fours, eyes hard and shining through the lattice at the bottom of the trailer. “Young lady, get yourself out here right now.”
Shelly put her hands over her eyes and wished the image away. A minute passed, maybe two. She breathed in the scents of earth and dust while the Smith boys laughed and the warbler sang so maybe everything was all right—
When she lifted her gaze, her mother was sucking at the inside of her cheek while her thin
