Page 26 of The Girl Who Was Taken

“And the walls?”

“Same. Bare concrete with grooves or ridges every so often. A bed in the back corner by the windows. No sheets, just a box spring, frame, and bare mattress.”

“Now walk to the other side. Away from the windows. Follow the sound of the airplane. What is there?”

“It’s a square cellar. My bed is there. Three windows boarded over. I can only walk for a short distance. I’m shackled to the wall by a strap on my ankle.I can go only as far as the chain will allow. There are stairs here, on the other side of the cellar.”

“Can you see the stairs? Can you reach them?”

“No. They are around the corner and my chain is not long enough. The shackle allows me only to reach the small table near the stairs. He leaves my meals here.”

“Good. Megan, I want to go back toward the windows now. Back to where your bed is. I want you to sit on the bed. The shackle is loose and you can move freely now. Tell me what you see and hear when you sit on that bed.”

“It’s dark. Always dark with no lights. The windows are boarded. Just a sliver of daylight spills through the tiny gap between the plywood and the edge of one of the windows. The bed squeaks when I sit on it.”

“Tell me.”

“The springs compress under my weight and creak when I adjust my position.”

“Now stay very still. Don’t move. Don’t shift. Tell me about the squeaking now.”

“It’s gone.”

“The springs are quiet?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the stairs.”

“They are quiet, no sounds.”

“Tell me about the airplanes.”

“They are gone, faded away.”

“But there issomething.”

Long pause.

“Breathe in, slowly.”

Megan did so.

“Through your nose and into your core, not your lungs, Megan. Center yourself.”

Megan inhaled, centered the breath in that area below her chest, the center of her body. Then she blew slowly from her mouth.

“Again. This time, sitting on the bed in the dark cellar, listen to your breath. Listen as it enters your core.”

Megan inhaled again.

“And listen to it leave your body.”

Long exhale.

“Once more. Bring that air into your core and hold it there. Listen.”

It was dead quiet in Megan’s mind as she sat in the dark cellar of her captivity. This was how it mostly was during her weeks in the cellar, eerily quiet unless she broke through the silence. But then there was something. It was what she wanted. The sound she had been searching for since the session began. The sound she could never have found by herself, so buried, as it were, in the redundant folds of the memory center of her brain. But suddenly, as she held the latest breath in her core, the sound was there in her ears. She listened to it and explored it and let it run through her thoughts like the memory of the ocean tide from a tropical vacation.

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