I picked up the key. When I reached the basement door I stuck the key in the lock and turned. Chicken bumped at my legs. The lock clicked and opened up. I took it off the metal loop. Chicken barked and my heart jumped and banged so loud I couldn’t even hear. I turned the doorknob. I pulled the door. Chicken rushed down the steps. I could hear his long claws on the wood.

I looked out through the window next to the happy, happy door. I could see the circle. There were no police cars. No Gloria. No Darrell or Shar or Aunt Erma or Mrs. Murtry or Mrs. Spooner.

I could sneak down into the basement. And nobody was there to catch me.

ROWAN

Sunlight is shining on my face. Just over my eyelids. But it isn’t warm. I stretch out my hand. My fingers knock something damp and hard. I pick up a smooth rock. But when I open my eyes, it’s not a rock at all. It’s a white plastic puck. There are thin slits on the top and the bottom. I bring it to my face and smell the sharp stench of an artificial forest.

My head throbs, but I’m able to sit up. I lean my back against the bridge. I blink. But there is another cement wall. And another. Dizziness is making the walls spin. I blink again. When did Carl get a sink? Then I see a toilet. Water gurgles down inside of it. On the ceiling a single yellow bulb glows. Beside that, a bathroom fan drones and clicks.

“Carl?” The word is only a whisper. “Carl? Are you there?”

White bowls sit on the floor beside me. Brown caked to the sides. Carl has brought me beans? The sweet smell makes me retch, but nothing comes up.

Beside the toilet my gray-tape shoes sit side by side, covered in tiny sticks and fragments of dead leaves. We’d come all the way back to the lake. I must have walked, but I couldn’t remember a single step. Carl had put me in the bathroom. I was probably bleeding. Throwing up inside the cottage.

I look up at a vent near the ceiling. There was a window before. Wasn’t there? I had glanced out at the lake while I used the toilet. I was certain I’d seen the water.

I tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn’t hold me.

“Hello?”

Slow drumming inside my head. Wasn’t there flower wallpaper before? How can a window vanish?

I rub my eyes. Colors pop and burst out of nowhere and won’t stop. Then I notice something. A corner of paper poking out between the cement wall and the cabinet. I reach forward and with my fingernails, tug it out. A magazine slaps onto the floor. Gun Digest. I pull it closer and look at the sticker near the bottom.