Page 64 of Someone in the Water

Lola

Lola arches her back. Her heart is pounding, her body quivering with an overload of adrenaline.

The noise is still there. A busy rustling with intermittent loud thuds.

The longer she listens, the less she thinks it’s a person.

It’s too frenetic. But it’s nothing small like a rat either.

Why is she so scared? Blind people deal with this all the time.

Hearing noises, seeing nothing. They don’t freeze with fear.

Slowly, she uncurls her legs until she’s standing.

She pauses for a moment to ground herself, then starts shuffling towards the noise, her limbs shaking with fear.

She doesn’t think the creature is in the room with her, otherwise surely she’d have felt it by now, so it must be the other side of a door, or maybe a window.

Which means, if she’s brave enough to get close, there might be a chance for her to escape.

It’s hard to believe her heart can beat any faster, but it manages to as she edges closer. She holds out her arms, teetering forward like a zombie, both scared and hopeful of what she might find. The noise gets louder. Her heart pounds.

Finally, she touches something cold and coarse.

Brickwork. It’s a wall. The relief makes her knees weak, and she leans her hands against it for a moment, her palms cooling.

When she first walked in, it seemed like every wall was stacked high with wine bottles, but she wasn’t paying much attention then.

She was too excited about toasting her birthday with Patrick.

Patrick. Where is he? Why didn’t he come back for her?

There could be an innocent explanation – maybe he fell in the darkness and hurt himself.

Or maybe he hasn’t been gone very long at all, and it’s just fear stretching time.

But then Lola thinks about the voicemail from Nicole, Salvo’s mafia crimes, those threatening notes.

And the strong chance that Patrick locked her in this terrifying cellar on purpose.

That thought spurs her into moving again.

Using the wall as her reference point, she works her fingers towards the noise.

Slides left and right, but only finds more brickwork.

She stills, concentrates. The noise is coming from higher up, she realises.

She reaches towards it. With her arms straight, and on her tiptoes, she feels a bump.

She creeps her fingers further along. Thin slices of wood.

It’s a shutter, she realises. Which means there’s a window behind it.

A high window. Too high to climb through. But something to give her light.

Suddenly excited, she scrabbles around, stretching further until she finds the locking mechanism. A metal latch. With a small jump, she manages to lift it and both shutters sway forward. She curls her fingers around the edges and swings them wide open.

Then she screams.

Moonlight floods in. Lighting up the biggest bird she’s ever seen.

A huge owl. Brown and tan mottled feathers.

Piercing orange eyes. It lifts its wings, revealing a pure white underside, and the sight is so magical that Lola’s scream freezes in her throat, her mouth gaping open in wonder and horror and shock.

The owl holds its position for a moment, staring straight into Lola’s eyes, then it lifts off, flying into the night.