Far Far Away (36 page)

Then he collected the prisoners’ untouched dinners and departed.

The moment the baker was gone, Ginger turned to Jeremy. “So?”

“So what?”

“How did you know all that stuff that Sten was doing while we were conked out?”

“I didn’t. I mean, I think he might be right—that my eyes were open and it sort of registered in some dark corner of my mind and then, when he began to talk about it, it kind of worked itself free.”

She stared at him. “Seriously?”

He shrugged. “I guess so. How else would I have seen it?”

She kept her eyes fixed on him. “Yeah, well, that was what I was asking.”

From across the chamber, Frank Bailey said, “Know what I noticed?”

The other two turned toward him.

“That we’re going without our dinner,” he said. “I mean, everything was just fine, and then you guys had to start talking about dungeons and seeing things and getting Mr. Blix all worked up.” He shook his head. “Because I can tell you that when Mr. Blix is all worked up—”

He did not finish speaking because the lights had begun to dim.

A moment later, the prisoners sat in darkest darkness.

“Oh, God,” Frank Bailey said, and Jeremy asked him what he meant, but by that time he did not have to.

The sounds had begun.

“What’s
that
?” Ginger said.

The sounds were soft and strange and unsettling, a kind of whisking, as if from the movements of small living creatures. Nothing could be seen. The darkness was impenetrable—we all might have been blind.

Frank Bailey said, “Sounds like mice.”

“Or rats,” Ginger said.

“Do you see anything?” Jeremy asked.

“Not a thing,” she said, and I added,
Nor do I. I do not smell anything, either
.

Something metallic suddenly scraped across the stone floor. “That’s me,” Ginger said. “I’m pulling my cot closer to yours. Can you pull yours over, too?”

Jeremy did. Then, into the darkness, he whispered, “You okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just that one time, when I was little, I saw some rats eating a not-quite-dead barn kitten … and it kind of affected the way I feel about them.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “I guess it would.”

* * *

The night was so long that it might have been three nights, or four, or five. The sounds of whisking rodents never ceased. From Ginger, Jeremy, and Frank Bailey, I occasionally heard the rhythmic breathing of sleep, but more often I heard heavy sighing and anxious whispering.

“You awake?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think the light will ever come on again?”

“Sure,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Ginger said. “I mean, what would be the point of keeping prisoners in total darkness until they go stark raving bonkersville?”

Who can say how many hours passed, but at last, when the darkness finally began to thin and the dim light rose, Ginger and Jeremy lay asleep in their cots on either side of the iron-barred wall. And there was something else, too. Ginger had slipped her hand through the bars and it lay wrapped in Jeremy’s hand.

Upon wakening, Ginger quickly pulled back her hand. Jeremy, too, began to stir. “Okay,” Ginger said, “whoever doesn’t believe in hell should spend a night in this hotel.”

Jeremy stood and began inspecting the floor, looking into corners.

“No droppings,” he said. “If there were mice or rats, you’d see droppings.” He glanced across the dungeon at Frank Bailey. “You think it was just sound effects? To toy with us and give us the willies?”

Frank Bailey tugged at his ear. “I don’t know. Maybe Mr. Blix was just trying to get our attention, or something.”

“He did that, and then some,” Ginger said. “I need a shower just to wash off a little bit of the bad way I’m feeling.” But a moment later, she stepped back out of the tiny bathroom with an expression of shock. “No water.”

“That’s a new one,” Frank Bailey said. He blinked. “I wonder what it means.”

“I think it means he’s playing mind games with us,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah,” Frank Bailey replied in a quiet voice. “And they’re kind of working.”

“No!” Ginger said, her voice stiff and rigid. “We can’t let him win. And we can’t let him think he’s winning.”

She is right, Jeremy
, I said.
Perseverance is all. You must resist and adapt and never give up
.

“You’re right,” Jeremy said to me, but Ginger, thinking he was talking to her, said, “Of course I’m right. Who said I wasn’t?”

“A motto just came to me,” Jeremy said. “Resist, adapt, never give up.”

“Sure,” Ginger said. “We can make it an acronym.
Rangu
.”

Ginger and Jeremy then heard something they had not heard since the beginning of their incarceration: a laugh from Frank Bailey.

“Rangu,” he said, and another, smaller laugh spilled out.
“Sounds like a spaghetti sauce.” His grin seemed to leap across the chamber. “I like it.”

Jeremy nodded. “And the other thing we have to remember is that there are people besides McRaven who are going to miss us. And pretty soon they’re going to begin looking in the right places.”

Ginger nodded. So did Frank Bailey, who added, “But until then, I could do with a little food.”

Eleven peas lined the ledge above Ginger’s sink.

Four days had passed without food. The prisoners’ stomachs were hollow. They did not exercise. Jeremy’s voice was tired as he told the old tales, and Ginger and Frank Bailey had difficulty listening. They were just waiting for food, or for whatever else might happen next. And finally, when they had begun to think they never would, they heard the moan of the wall, the squeal of the cart, the clinking of dishes. And there was the baker, smiling, a white cloth blanketing the serving cart.

“Hallå,”
he said. “Is it not a great day to be alive? Is everybody comfortable? Is everyone sleeping well?”

Ginger and Jeremy stared at him.

Frank Bailey stared at the cart.

Like a magician, the baker whisked away the white cloth
to reveal four platters covered with metal domes. He lifted one dome to reveal a savory cut of roasted beef. A rich aroma bloomed into the air.

The prisoners looked at the food with the dilated eyes of predators.

“Roasted beef,” the baker said, “mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh roasted beets, just-baked rolls, and a pleasant little dessert. But first”—he set the domes back over the beef—“I need each of you to write a little note to your loved ones.”

It took several moments for the baker’s meaning to settle in.

“No,” Ginger said in a stony voice. “The answer is no. If you’re going to abduct and hide us and do who knows what, okay. But don’t expect us to help.”

The baker smiled at her, then turned to Jeremy. “And you?”

Jeremy shook his head. “Same.”

The baker turned to the other enclosure, lifted the plate cover, and tilted the platter to display more clearly the delectable beef. “And what does Frankie say?”

Several long moments passed before Frank Bailey pried his gaze from the plate. In a small voice he said, “I’m with them.”

“Ah, I see,” the baker said, slowly setting the cover back over the plate. “Frankie is now with them.”

He scanned the chamber and sighed. “I understand. But please don’t say I didn’t offer,” he said, and with that he began to wheel the serving cart away.

Something changed in Jeremy’s face—I had the presentiment that some idea had occurred to him. “Wait!” he called.

The baker stopped and peered back.

“I’ll write the letter,” he said. He looked from Ginger to Frank Bailey. “We all will.”

Ginger and Frank Bailey both looked at him in wonderment.

“We’ll write the notes … but only if tomorrow night you bring us spaghetti with lots of good spaghetti sauce. We all like Ragu spaghetti sauce”—and here he glanced meaningfully at Ginger and Frank Bailey—“but we want the real thing, made from scratch.”

“Spaghetti with sauce? Of course, of course,” the baker replied, a smile widening behind his white beard. “And truly, I would have hated to have this wonderful food go to waste. And now we must hurry so that it won’t grow cold!”

He slipped pen and paper through the food slot of each cell and then stood in front of Frank Bailey. “Please tell your mother that you have taken a job as a cook on a private yacht that will have set sail by the time your letter is received. You will be gone six months, perhaps longer. You look forward to the travel. There is no need for worry.”

He waited as Frank Bailey wrote. So, too, did Ginger. But Jeremy began writing on his own. When the baker saw this, he said, “Dear boy, if there is one word not to my liking, you will have to redo it completely.”

Jeremy nodded. “I know. All I want to do is let my father know how much I …” His voice trailed off.

“Of course,” the baker said in a sympathetic tone. “How much you miss him.”

He turned then to Ginger. “You will advise your grandfather that you are sorry not to have written for some time and that it may be a while until the next letter because you and Jeremy are staying with some really nice”—a smile—“no, make that
fabulous
people who grow all their own food and live off the grid.”

When Ginger pushed her letter through the slot, the baker
made a close study of it before nodding his approval. As with Frank Bailey, he gave Ginger an envelope to address, then folded the letter into it. Then he turned his eyes toward Jeremy.

“Almost done,” Jeremy said, and added a last word or two before signing his name. He passed it through, and while the baker read it, I read it, too.