Slow River

He turned off the light. “You can stop now.”

But Lore couldn’t stop. Her weeping turned to wet heaving sobs, to hiccoughs.

“Oh, shut up. And get off the chair.”

She slid to the floor, clutched at his trouser leg.

“Get off me. Jesus.” He wiped at the slime on his leg. “Jesus.” He threw something at her—a handkerchief. “Clean yourself up.”

He left, carrying the chair and camera, still wiping at his trouser leg.

Her sobs steadied. She cried in a low monotone for hours and hours, until they gave her more drugs, and she slept.

But today is her birthday, at least it might be. Today, she can think a little.

The day began unpleasantly, when the pill she was handed with breakfast half dissolved in her mouth before she could swallow it. Afterward, when Fishface left, she spat clots of soggy white power into her hand, and wiped her hand on the floor. She ate nearly all the food on her tray in an effort to get rid of the taste on her tongue. Some time later she noticed that the leftovers on the plates were sausage, and croissant, and juice. Breakfast. It must be morning. And that was when she started to think, to try count the days, and realized it was her birthday.

Eighteen. She now owns her share of inherited stock in the family corporation. She is rich.

When Fishface brings her lunch tray, she is alert enough to slide the pill under her tongue and pretend to swallow. She can feel it dissolving and wonders how much will get into her bloodstream before she can spit it out.

Fishface’s hood moves slightly in what Lore interprets as a smile. She stares blankly at the floor, hoping he will not notice she is more alert than usual. She catches sight of the white smears on the floor and her heart jitters. She forces herself to look away, look at anything but the floor, and after a moment, he leaves. She waits, listens. Hears a door opening somewhere, then closing. She spits the pill into her hand. Where can she put it?

There is bread with the meal. She tears off a crust and pokes a hole in the dough, then hesitates. Maybe they give the scraps to a dog. They might notice if it fell asleep. She searches the floor of the tent, finds a tiny tear in the plastic. Underneath, she can feel the long, scratchy grain of old wood.. She pushes her finger one way, then another, finds a crack between the planks. She squeezes the pill through the hole and into the crack.

By now her lunch, soup and bread, is cold. She looks at it and remembers: Stella is dead. For a moment, she wishes she had the pill back, wishes she could just drift here, not thinking, until her parents pay up and she can go home. Then she will find it is all a nightmare. She never went to the resort. Tok never called. Stella isn’t dead.

All of a sudden she is angry with Stella. You have no right to make me grieve! she thinks. Her situation is difficult enough without grief—she needs to be able to think, to plan, not to feel leaden like this, awash with memory. When she gets out of here, she will tell Stella exactly what…

But Stella is dead.

Grief is more terrible than she ever thought possible. It is as though there is a hole right through her. She shakes, her muscles spasm and ache. It’s hard to swallow because her throat feels too tight, and her heart jumps and skitters. She is sweating. And then she understands. It’s the drugs. Lack of drugs. She’s withdrawing.

Over the next few days she works out a way to taper off the sedatives. The sodden lumps she spits from her mouth aren’t easy to divide, and sometimes she takes too much, but after six days, she is back to nothing, and no longer shakes.

She makes more holes in the bottom of the tent and explores the floor, a few splintery inches a day. On the fourth day of exploration, she finds a six-inch nail. It is old, rusty black iron, and bent at one end, but it comforts her to hold it between the fingers of her left hand, let it poke forward when she makes a fist. While she has a weapon she is more than a helpless victim. She can think, she can plan. At night, before she falls asleep, she tucks the nail down by her feet inside the sleeping bag. In the morning, she holds it in her fist and smiles.

The nail becomes the center of her universe. Her fingers begin to smell of rust, but for Lore, it is the smell of hope.

Chapter 23

I was still thinking about Spa

I should not have said those things to Spa

A close-up of the male anchor cut away to a second screen: a picture of a teenaged boy with the kind of feather cut that always looks so good on dusty black Asian hair. He seemed vaguely familiar. Perhaps it was the chair he was tied to.

My muscles went rigid, as though my hands were tied to my sides. My body seemed in the wrong place, the wrong position, as if I should be sitting down.

The picture on the screen changed from the boy to me, sitting on the same chair. My body felt confused, in three places at once: sitting in a tent, in bright light, weeping and slurring; naked and bleeding on the cobbles, bathing in the light of images of myself tied to a chair; standing clothed—uniformed, anyway—in a hot breakroom.

The bell signaling the end of the break rang, but I just stood there, stupid and still and alone, while the pictures of me played. Eventually, the screen cut to the male anchor speaking soundlessly, and then back to the sixteen-year-old boy. Then a man, old enough to be the boy’s father, hurrying down some steps on a narrow street, the kind found in the centers of some Asian cities, shielding his face from the sun and bright camera lights.

I could move again. I turned up the sound. “-tape was given to the net an hour ago. Although the family refused to comment, a spokeswoman for the Singapore police department tells us she suspects the Chen family have known about the kidnap of Lucas Chen for over a week.”

Cut to female anchor, “And this isn’t the only similarity to the van de Oest abduction over three years ago.” Another picture, this time of a young Frances Lorien. Solemn-faced, arrogant. I wondered when it had been taken. I didn’t remember it.

I turned the sound off; and sat down. I stood up again, quickly. Sitting made me feel vulnerable, made me remember the light, the camera.

Not again. Not all those pictures ru

I looked at the screen again. The boy wasn’t me, but the chair was the same, and the tent, the light. Everything.

Probably the same kidnappers. Kidnapper, I told myself. Fishface was probably three years dead.

“Bird!” Magyar. Hard-eyed and cross. “Break finished more than-”

“I know. Five minutes ago.” I felt unreal. Suspended somewhere between then and now Between Frances Lorien and Bird. “I’m Lore,” I whispered to myself. “I’m Lore.”

Magyar stepped closer. “What are you mumbling about?”

“You want to know who I am? Take a look. Up there. May as well look now as later. They’ll be playing it for days.” Poor Magyar, she didn’t understand. “What do you think—is it me?”

“What?”

I nodded at the screen. She glanced at it, then back at me, then, almost unwillingly, back at the screen. Her face began to change, muscles moving as her brain processed the information. I suppose it was a shock. She jerked her arm up and out to the volume switch.