Page 35 of The Memory Wood

The ghoul appears in the doorway, accompanied by an ice-white light that lances her eyes like a needle. She screws up her face, realizing that he’s donned a head torch. Light bounces off the walls, casting him in silhouette. There’s a scratchiness to his movements – a start-stop jerkiness – that makes him seem subhuman, as if she’s woven him from the threads of old nightmares.

Worse, his silhouette makes no sense, boasting a plethora of appendages and spiky protrusions. It’s a full minute before she realizes it’s an illusion caused by a bulky tripod, which he sets up in Z5. When he attaches something to the mount, Elissa sees, in the light of his head torch, that it’s a flip-screen camcorder.

If she doesn’t speak, doesn’t challenge him, she knows she’ll make herself complicit in whatever depravity he has planned. Earlier, adrenalin had given her a voice. Now, the prospect of speaking, of engaging him, is too frightening to bear. And yet she cannot shy away. If she survives this, she’lllive with the decisions she made down here for many years to come.

Resting the manacle in her lap, Elissa lifts her head. The box of candles is close. A well-aimed shot might knock over the tripod, smashing the camera. But what would that achieve? Likely just a more brutal ordeal than the one she already faces. What she needs to do – what she remembers from a programme about hostages she once watched – is make him see her as a person, a human being and not an object. She recalls his earlier mention of her manners. Perhaps that’s a good place to start.

Elissa clears her throat. ‘Thank you for the food.’

If the ghoul hears, he gives no indication. Going to the tray, he examines the contents carefully before carrying it from the cell. She’s grateful, now, that she didn’t try to steal the spoon. A fragment of memory comes to her, something Elijah said just before he left:He’ll test you. Most people fail.

The ghoul reappears, his silhouette bristling with new appendages. He deposits something in Z4. When he bends over it, his torch illuminates a second tripod, just like the one supporting the camera.

‘It’s been a few years since I watchedPeppa Pig,’ Elissa says.

Silent, the ghoul fiddles with the mount.

‘You get all kinds of spaghetti shapes these days, don’t you? Once, my mum bought me Minions spaghetti. Can you believe they make that? She took me to see the movie, too. It was pretty funny, I guess, but not as good as the first one. We didn’t seeDespicable Meat the cinema, but we have it on Blu-Ray. Some people think I won’t like movies because I’m a chess geek, but I do.Toy Story’s one of my favourite movies ever, even though I should probably prefer stuff likeTwilight.’

Completing his work on the tripod mount, the ghoulleaves the cell yet again. She hears him clanking around in whatever antechamber lies beyond the door. Within moments he’s back, hunched over like a crab. He’s carrying something bulky, but she can’t see details. Nor has she glimpsed anything of the ghoul himself except the briefest of snatches: black boots, wet from whatever he’s tracked in from outside; large hands, slick with engine grease or something similar.

‘They made a third Minions movie,’ Elissa says. ‘I haven’t seen it yet, but I want to.’

He grunts, hefting the box on to the tripod mount.

‘My mum said we can stream it on Amazon.’ She pauses. ‘I hope we get to do that.’

The ghoul steps back, examining his work. Finally, Elissa sees what he’s been erecting: an expensive-looking lighting rig. He leaves the cell again, returning with a large battery pack.

‘We always have popcorn with a movie. Mum likes salty and I like sweet, so we usually get salty and sweet.’

The ghoul turns to face her.

Caught in that unforgiving white glare, Elissa begins to tremble. Now she has his attention, she’s not sure she wants it.

‘To be honest,’ she stammers, ‘we watch TV more than movies. Mum doesn’t like soaps, but she gets into all those talent shows. Once you know the people, it’s pretty hard not to follow them. I thinkX Factor’s a bit cruel, but I like the dancing one.’

The ghoul steps closer. She hears his breathing, slightly elevated.

Elissa swallows. Tries to still her jaw. She’s never been one for small talk; she can’t believe how many words she’s found to paper over the silence. ‘Do you ever wonder how many more series they’ll make? I mean, you’d think at somepoint they’d run out of contestants. It’s a shame they only ever make talent shows about singing or dancing. I’d be much more interested in—’

Lizard-quick, he strikes her.

At first, Elissa can’t work out what has happened. One moment she’s sitting up straight, squinting into that fierce halo of light; the next she’s prostrate, her wrist a screaming abomination, one side of her face beating like a second heart. She tastes blood in her mouth, hears a ringing in her ears. The room cuts loose from its moorings and begins to spin.

Elissa squirms, convulses, too pain-wracked to control her movements.

‘You don’t speak until you’re told,’ the ghoul whispers. ‘Say you understand.’

His voice sounds like it’s coming from inside a cupboard. When she answers, her own voice is just as distorted: ‘I unner’thand.’

‘We’re going to make a movie. You’re going to do exactly as you’re told. Say you understand.’

Elissa begins to weep.

Again, that emotionless whisper: ‘Say you understand.’

She swallows a mouthful of blood. ‘I unner’thand.’

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