Touching Eternity (Touch Series 1.5) Read online

  Amalie willed herself not to panic. She begged herself not to make a sound. But they knew she was awake now. The maddening hum of whispered voices had begun to rise over her labored breathing, overpowering the stench of antiseptic.

  “Lay still, Amalie.” Her father’s face appeared above her, half of his face covered behind a white mask. His hair was tucked beneath a white cap. His crisp suit was hidden beneath a white smock.

  Her disorientation ceased smothering her. She became painfully alert. “Wha—”

  Cold rubber grazed the curve of her neck as he checked her pulse. He studied his watch as he counted her heartbeats.

  “Just a test.” Her father said. Then, to someone over her head, said, “Two CC’s then get the tank.”

  Everything inside her liquefied in terror. The sheet of metal piercing her spine dropped below zero in temperature and the sweat now dampening the paper gown thickened on her skin. The shackles around her ankles cluttered as she tried to sit up.

  “Wait—”

  “Don’t start that again,” her father retorted sharply, knotting a pinching rubber band around her upper arm. “I won’t hesitate to sedate you if you don’t calm down. Do you understand?”

  “But I don’t…” She dampened her lips. Her neck twisted on her shoulders as she tried desperately to find the source of the voices, to find a single friendly face to help her.

  “Just lie still and it will be over before you know it,” her father suggested, turning his body to accept the syringe another man in a white robe presented him.

  Amalie was squeezing her eyes closed and turning her head away even before the first sharp tap of her father’s fingers against the crook of her arm, before needle even touched her skin. A small whimper escaped her before she could stop it. Her jaw creaked beneath the pressure of her clenched teeth.

  “Nearly finished,” her father assured, switching the crimson-filled vial for an empty one.

  It seemed to take years before the needle was ejected from her body. The area was dabbed with cotton, but left unaided. Amalie opened her eyes at last, turning her head to search her father’s masked face for signs of what he would do next.

  The examination room was a room designed to instate calm. The once concrete walls were plastered over and painted a jarring white. The floors were white. The ceiling was white. The people who entered and left were dressed in white. The only color was her hair, falling in copper tangles over the lip of the metal slab. Above her, brighter, hotter than the sun, the only light in the room poured its rays down over her face like acid. Chains fused to the base of the table shackled her wrists and her ankles, the unyielding leather sliced her skin, bruised her flesh.

  There was nothing calming about the room in Amalie’s mind. There was nothing tranquil about the hungry eyes peeling her apart from behind goggles, as if whatever she has may be contagious. She wasn’t stupid enough to believe what her father did in that room was legal. She knew his methods were outdated and barbaric and cruel. But he never stopped. He always hoped that this time, this attempt, this method would be the one to solve the mysteries of the brain. She never knew what he would do next. She never knew what torture he would pick next. There were times he would only take her blood, check her temperature and let her return to the security of her room. Other times…other times they would carry her out unconscious, sometimes bleeding, sometimes covered in her own filth. There was nothing worse than not knowing.

  From across the room, rusted wheels squealed their protest as something was dragged over to the foot of the table. Water sloshing against its confines filled the air.

  “You won’t fuss!” her father warned. “It will only be harder for you if you fight, do you understand? It will not be pleasant if I have to sedate you.”

  Nothing you do is pleasant! She wanted to hiss at him, but wisely kept her mouth shut. Any shows of anger, fear, confusion, distress, or sadness…any emotion at all would only earn her more pain.

  At her sides, her fingers danced a tattoo against the table beneath her. Her foot twitched. She willed both to stop, but the longer her father stood there watching her, studying her, examining her every breath, the harder it became to focus on keeping her guard in place. He couldn’t know that she saw them behind him, bobbing and weaving through concentrated shadows. He couldn’t know she was so close, one step to his right and he would walk right into her.

  Oh God…oh God…not now, please not now!

  Other swirling vapors of smoke coiled from the ground, rising into the darkness. They breathed through the air, twisting amongst the lab coat-wearing group busy at work taking her apart.

  “Amalie! Amalie!” She felt the cool words slip over her bare skin, raising goose bumps in their wake. A shiver was elicited and ran through her.

  Faces peered at her from the dark mist. Blank eyes, cold, empty, yet oddly pleading stabbed through her, hot and fierce, refusing to be ignored. But ignore she had to.

  You’re not there! I don’t see you! You’re not there! I don’t see you! You’re not there! You’re not! You’re not! I don’t! I’m not sick!

  The willowy figure swaddled in white swayed forward from behind her father’s back. Amalie’s heart forgot a beat. It tripped. Icy fingers fisted around her gut.

  I don’t see you! I don’t see you! God, please, I don’t see you!

  Her lungs dropped into a vat of acid. Every inhale burned in her chest. Inside, she slammed every protective barrier closed on her mother’s weeping face.

  “We’re ready, sir,” said the short, plump man with thinning hair and enormous glasses that sat crooked on his fat nose. He adjusted the thick frames higher over his squinty eyes.

  “Get the chains,” her father said, taking a step back to allow the man to untether her.

  Her mother’s shadow flittered away when her father got to close. It hissed and zipped around the room like an unbalanced rocket to stop at Amalie’s other side.

  “Don’t touch her!” Fingers that had once been warm and lily soft, passed through Amalie’s shackled wrists. “Don’t touch her!”

  “What are you looking at, Amalie?”

  Amalie froze. She hadn’t realized she’d been watching the desperate grapple of her mother’s fingers, trying so hard to drag Amalie off the table until her father’s angry voice cut through her like a dagger.

  “Nothing!” It was too quick. It was too panicked. It was too breathy and terrified.

  Her father’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying to me.”

  She was trembling now. Her bones creaked with the force. Her heart beat an erratic tempo in her chest, a frantic crash of sanity against survival.

  “No! It was me!” No one but Amalie heard the terror in her mother’s voice.

  “I…I wasn’t—”

  He snapped away, but not before she saw the hot flash of fury in his eyes. He marched to the foot of the table, draping himself in the shadows just outside the ring of light haloing her.

  “Put her in the box.”

  She was given no chance to ask what box. The chains were removed from her wrists and ankles. Her arms were grabbed by cruel hands. She was forcibly hauled off the table and dragged without the consent of her legs to the coffin.

  The crate was wooden, punctured by holes all the way around, each one the size of a checker piece. It was suspended from four chains from a pulley that anchored to a tangle of metal pipes and wires. Beneath it, a metal vat of water in the same shape of the box sat waiting.

  Two doctors hurriedly unhooked the crate from the chains and lowered it to the ground. Amalie was dragged over to it, her legs now protesting. Skin tore away from her heels, leaving a trail of blood as she fought against the bruising hands.

  “You’re making it harder on yourself, Amalie!” her father scolded from the other side of the newest torture device. “I will chain you if you force me.”

  Amalie didn’t hear the warning. Her frantic desperation to run overtook all her other senses. Her own warning to herself not
to fight next time, to just give in, make the pain easier, fled from her mind and she was fighting. She was clawing and kicking, biting and scratching. She was screaming and thrashing. As always, in that moment, she was as deranged as everyone believed. She was the animal they thought she was. She was wild and trapped. She would have gnawed her own leg off to get free.

  But they took her down, bending her, cracking bones, twisting limbs, folding her, pressing her into the bottom of the coffin. A knee crushed her chest, restraining her. A hand pressed into her collarbone, welding her to the rough wooden grains. The man holding her prison straightened just enough to motion someone else forward. An eclipse fell over her, darkening everything before she realized what the long, rectangular thing was. The pressure on her lifted. For a split second, she could breathe and she sucked air with the greedy hunger of a starved man. But all the air in the world couldn’t help her then. The lid snapped into place and darkness swallowed her.

  Beyond the confines of her grave, voices hummed, sifting through the holes. Metal scraped against wood. The deafening crack of locks snapping into place split her choked sobs. The jarring pain was minimal compared to the crippling terror of what was about to happen.

  “Daddy! Daddy, please don’t! Please don’t!” she cried, each plea torn from her very soul. “Daddy!”

  The clatter of chains dropping unceremoniously on the coffin top split the seams between heaven and hell and she was tumbling, headlong and unhampered through the infernos of chaos.

  “No! No! Please don’t!”

  Something shifted out of the corner of her eye and she swung her head, surprised to see feet, moving around her prison. She twisted her head the other way and blinked. There were holes cut into the sides of the crate. For air? Somehow she doubted it when the audible click of chains being latched filled her ears.

  Then the crate was being lifted. Beyond the holes, the world swung, a violent blur of voices and bland colors. She squealed, her hands flying to the walls for support. The box swayed, an out of control swing lost to the elements. It was steadied, held a moment, suspended with nothing cushioning her but air and then she was being lowered.

  In the distance, she heard her father’s voice, booming over the grind of machines. Air rushed in through the precisely cut holes as she was dropped steadily. The edge of her coffin struck metal. The resounding bong rippled through the room, drowning out her father’s lecture. Her own ragged breathing pounded.

  “Dr. Jan Baptista van Helmont had a theory…”

  The monotone drawl of her father’s lecture ripped through her, squeezed through the crevices of the box and cut into her. She felt the slice of his intentions even before the razorblades rose through the holes at the bottom of the box in the form of glacial water.

  Dead fingers curled up her body, a full body bind of ice. Water sloshed with her struggles, but continued its slow rise up her body. It pounded when it reached her ears, deafening her to her own screams. Every kick of her feet against the base, every beat of her fists against the lid, drummed wildly in her ears like canons. Inch by pain-striking-inch, roaring in from every hole, filling faster and faster, the water traced the curve of her jaw, the sides of her heaving ribs and fully covered her bare legs. Already her flesh was numb, turned to useless slabs of meat. It was a wonder her toes hadn’t already shattered with every vicious kick.

  She stopped screaming when the water began trickling into the corners of her mouth, choking her. She was blinded. Her nose was over taken. Then her lips. She was submerged. She was drowning. The water was so cold. So cold. So cold! She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Her mind was a block of ice pressing into the cavity of her skull. Her lungs were burning, straining for air. She could no longer feel the burn of her kicks, the sting of her punches. She was paralyzed, a doll pumped full of cement. The pressure pressed her to the bottom as more water rushed in from above.

  Then there was nothing but the dung as she finally struck bottom.

  ***

  “Amalie…”

  Yellow had always been her favorite color. It was the color of warm sunshine pouring through branches and dancing through panes of glass. It was the color of banana bread and bananas and the cat Ruth kept in the kitchen to catch mice. It was the color of happiness and freedom. It was warm. It was warm. It was so warm.

  Amalie lay on the grass, arms sprawled out on either side of her, her hair a mess of curls haloed around her head. She stared at the landscape of blue stretching out to return her embrace. The scent of honeysuckles, jasmine, sunbaked grass, freshly turned soil and lilies blanketed her with every teasing caress from the wind. She closed her eyes and pressed every second of this moment into the scrapbook of her memories, never wanting to forget.

  “Amalie!” The tinkling laugh was the wind chimes dancing with the breeze. It was love.

  Amalie rolled onto her belly, turning blue eyes in the direction of the house.

  Her mother smiled and waved. “Come inside! I have a surprise for you!”

  Five year old legs worked, kicking a tiny body upright and running. Her mother’s arms were around her then, scooping and lifting her up into the air. Soft kisses were tattooed into warm cheeks. Giggles orchestrated the moment.

  She was swept inside.

  ***

  Lights flashed. Voices roared. Sound pounded a chaotic mess of colors.

  “Amalie!” Her father’s impatient voice.

  “Amalie!” Her mother’s voice sobbing voice.

  The cacophony rose, then faded back to black.

  ***

  “Amalie, this is Isaiah.”

  The boy was dirty and he smelled rotten. He was bleeding from the nose and there was blood, dried and crusted on his bottom lip. There were blotches of it staining the front of his tattered t-shirt. His pants were filthy, torn at the knees and a bare toe poked out from his sneakers.

  He was no bigger than she was. She’d never seen anyone her size before. She’d never seen another child. She couldn’t get enough of seeing him, looking at him, touching him with her eyes.

  “Hi!” she exclaimed, leaping forward, wanting to see this creature that was so much like her, closer. “I’m Amalie!”

  Sharp little teeth bared in a snarl, caging the growl vibrating from his throat. He scampered back, nearly tripping over her father’s feet in his escape.

  She flinched back herself, darting an anxious glance at her father, unsure if she’d done something wrong.

  His eyes were narrowed, his lips pinched. His eyebrows were furrowed and he was quiet. It was the look he wore often when she was around. Her seven year old mind didn’t understand what it meant, only that he may or may not at any moment drag her into the white room and poke her with a needle.

  She clamped her mouth shut, took a step back and then stopped. Was that the right direction? Was she supposed to move forward? Had she reacted wrong? Had she shown too much excitement? Had she missed something in her manners?

  A thick lump of sand scraped down her esophagus and caught in her chest.

  “I have matters that require my attention,” he said at last, his voice flat. “Amalie, you’re responsible to get Isaiah ready for supper.”

  Her gaze dropped to the boy’s. He snarled.

  “I—” But her father was already walking away, leaving her alone.

  She shifted, took another step back. “I…I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me, okay?”

  He continued to growl. Little wrinkles arched over his small nose. His blue eyes were dark slits of fury and fear. They darted frantically over the room, never straying away from her for too long, but still looking for a way out, an escape.

  “There isn’t one,” she whispered quietly, recognizing his desperation. “You can’t leave…ever.”

  Chapter 6

  Isaiah

  Mortimer Hobbs was nothing like Isaiah imagined. The man could barely take two steps without tripping over his shovel-sized feet. His glasses were always slipping off his sweaty face
and he had a tendency to ramble on like a broken toy stuck on play. He wore a pale-blue dress shirt with dark sweat patches under his arms and kept using the sleeve to mop up his face.

  “I…I don’t understand what this is about…” He kept stammering, darting frightened glances back and forth between the trio darkening his doorstep.

  “This,” the one named Bruce said as he shouldered his way into the confines of the foyer, “is about you and your fat mouth.”

  Mortimer scrambled back several steps, tripped on his own feet, stumbled, staggered, hit the wall and stayed there as the two behind Bruce slipped into his house.

  “I don’t understand,” he squeaked. “Who sent you? What do you want?”