She turns away from his door. He waits for what will happen next. His groin tightens when she does exactly what he’d most wished she would.
As she takes her first step, she tilts her head. It’s only a little, a tiny gesture. It’s as if she prefers to see the world slightly off kilter. Her steps are measured and silent on the boards, her bare feet a little dirty when they come into view. Her white, cotton nightgown with the eyelet lace almost glows in the gloom. A single dim light in the hallway casts her in stark contrasts of light and shadow.
The real treasure is the hair and the knot. Wild strands escape the knot to brush the back of her neck. All that darkness against that pale, slender column of flesh and bone.
It’s perfect. She’s perfect. Soon, she will be even more perfect. She will be his perfect Miranda.
At the end of the hall, she pauses, her head straightening. Stained glass panels are inset into the wall behind the stairwell. Only the glow of moonlight beyond makes their nature obvious. She is haloed in that glow, a faint halo for his perfect girl. She’s listening. He can tell.
He presses his hands to the wood of his door, wishing she would say something. Anything. Just say anything, he thinks, trying to force words into her mind across the space between them. She almost never says anything anymore. She is the ghost in the garden, silent and glowing. He yearns for her words.
His chest begins to feel loose, the hammering in his heart too fierce to be contained any longer. If he dared to look down and away from the peephole, would he see his chest shaking from the pressure of his heart? He thinks he would. Pressing a hand to his chest and feeling the slightly alarming thumps against his palm, he waits.
The beating turns frenetic and almost frightening when she looks over her shoulder, back the way she came. Her eyes are lowered, but he can detect the curve of her lips, the largeness of her eyes, the tiny button of her nose.
Then she turns away and walks silently down the stairs. He leans against the door. A sudden sweat creates a nasty feeling sliminess where his skin meets the wood. Pushing himself away from the door, he hurries to his bedside table, touching the ring of keys to be absolutely sure they’re still there.
After all, she’s going to test the doors again. He’s sure of it.
The Facility
Charlotte keeps her eyes on the window, hoping to see some hint of green. It rarely happens, but the calendar tells her it’s summer again, so if it’s going to happen, it will happen in this season.
The frosted panel over the window makes everything gray and lighter gray, but sometimes…just sometimes…when the sun is bright and the sky clear, some of the gray turns vaguely greenish.
In the dayroom, other women are passing the time playing cards or board games. Some are knitting, which is a passion that spread like wildfire their first winter here and didn’t entirely pass. A few have gone beyond knitting and sit in front of cushions with a dozen or more small wooden dowels dangling around the sides. They are tatting complex patterns with thread. Pattern books lay scattered amongst them. On the other end of the long room, a few women are laughing or making other noises as they leap about and punch the air, their faces mostly hidden by the virtual reality goggles. Their hands are busy inside controllers around their wrists.
Those are the ambitious ones, the ones who desperately try to remain fully occupied and their minds on anything except this place. Those who care for them cater to these whims eagerly, providing even the most obscure materials these whims require.
Behind her, a low voice murmurs, “It’s not bright enough today, Charlie.”
Charlotte smiles. Only one person in this place calls her Charlie. “Hello, Mom.”
Tabitha moves around the chair to break Charlotte’s view of the window, then reaches out to tuck her hair behind an ear. “Hello, my pretty girl,” she says.
Her voice is filled with love. They aren’t the only women in the facility that have managed to keep a female blood relative alive with them, but they are one of only a few such groups. To have a mother is a rare thing. To have a daughter is an even rarer thing.
Charlotte still feels a little dull, as if the world around them can only be seen through a faint haze, but through that haze she’s beginning to feel the sharp, thready edges of panic. The pills that keep the panic away have been collecting inside a torn edge of the quilt on her bed. Quilting was a craze last year, or maybe it was the year before that.
The pills are small and no one would think to look for them inside her quilt. There are seven as of today. Seven and the panic is coming. Charlotte looks at her mother, but in her eyes, the haze has never been visible. She’s never needed to take the pills. She has Charlotte and for her, that’s enough.
Patting the chair next to her, Charlotte says, “Watch with me.”
Tabitha does sit, but she doesn’t give the window more than a glance. “You’re starting to worry me.” She waits, and when Charlotte turns her face toward her, she adds, “You’re starting to worry them.”
The words may be few in number, but the meaning is clear and wide. The ones she’s worrying are those trying to keep them alive. And looking too much out of the window is not a good sign.
After all, it had been the women who faced the windows and tilted their heads back who died, even inside this place, with clean, scrubbed air and no contact with the outside
