“Thank you.” Lacey said softly.
“I don’t know if you should thank me yet. I don’t know where to go.”
“That’s not it.” Lacey hugged herself tighter. “It’s good to have a friend here.” A tear escaped from her left eye and made a track down her cheek. “I’m so scared.”
“Me too.” Harmony said. Feeling braver, Harmony then asked, “What happened?” And nodded towards the scratches on her face.
Lacey shook her head and more tears fell down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” Harmony apologized. “Let’s go.”
They left the abandoned library and began walking across the barren landscape. There was a footpath leading from the library steps and heading east, so Harmony and Lacey followed it as much as possible. Spindly trees appeared out of the fog and looked like intimidating men waiting to attack them. Lacey kept her arms crossed over her chest and her pleated skirt swished over her knobby knees.
Both Harmony and Lacey stood out against the white backdrop with their dark clothes and darker skin. It occurred to Harmony that normally she had no trouble blending in but she couldn’t in this pale world. She hoped nothing menacing was hiding in the fog.
“What about that?” Lacey said suddenly. “It would make it a great place to hide.”
She was talking about an archway that had materialized out of the fog and was gaining more clarity as they got closer. When they were right on top of it, they could see that it was the entrance to an underground tunnel.
“I want to leave this place…not hide. Besides, it’s very dark.”
“But it looks like it might go somewhere important.” Lacey insisted.
“I don’t think…” Harmony began.
As if on queue, the roaring in the distance was getting louder and the wind had begun to pick up. Harmony hesitated because she was in a strange place with a strange girl who could have been hurt by someone or something in this place. But she wasn’t sure there were any other options. The longer she was in this place, the more lost she felt.
“I’m going.” Lacey said finally.
“Wait!” Harmony began to follow Lacey who was already on the second step down into the tunnel.
The pair of them made their way slowly into the darkness. When it seemed like they were at the bottom, neither of them could see an inch in front of their faces. But it was quiet and they did not stand out against the landscape like they had on the surface.
“Lacey.”
“Yes?”
“Can you see anything?”
“No.”
Harmony reached out her arms for anything. As she took a tentative step forward, she continued to reach out until her hand touched the wall of the tunnel. It was cold and clammy so she pulled her hand back quickly. When she felt braver, she placed her hand on the wall again to feel for some kind of light switch.
To her surprise, her hand fell on a switch of some kind and she flipped it on. One by one, Edison bulbs flashed to life on the ceiling. They were all on one long electrical cord and went off into the distance until they were just a pinprick of light. Harmony looked over and could only see the whites of Lacey’s eyes in the dim light.
“Well, that’s better.” Harmony said.
Lacey smiled for the first time since they had met.
The girls walked through the tunnel with nothing to see except water dripping down the curves of the tunnel. “This place is so spooky.”
Lacey nodded in agreement. “Maybe it’s purgatory.”
“What’s purgatory?”
Lacey was surprised but answered, “It is something that Catholics believe happens to people who don’t go to heaven or hell. It’s in between I think.”
“Well, that can’t be right. I stumbled in here. I’m not dead. Are you dead?” Harmony teased.
“I don’t think so. I sometimes wish I was.”
It became so silent that you could hear a pin drop in the space. Harmony had never spoken to somebody who was suicidal. No matter how bad her life had been or how bad her anxiety had gotten, she had never wanted to commit suicide.
Lacey was now fully sobbing to herself as they walked. “I don’t think I’ll ever recover.”
“That’s not true. There’s always hope.” Harmony said feebly.
“I was raped.” Lacey blurted out.
Harmony stopped moving and let the words settle in the silence and their implication resonated in her bones. The woman before her had been violated in the worst way possible and she was at a loss for how to handle it. All of the people she worked with had so much drama going on in their lives, but none of them talked about having sexual assault in their history. No wonder this woman looked so hunted. Harmony had heard that women who were raped sometimes couldn't remember things chronologically either, so when Harmony had first spoken with her she probably didn’t even register what had happened to her.
“I keep seeing him everywhere.” She whispered. Harmony felt her arms erupt into goosebumps and a shiver ran down her spine at this, which caused her to look around for the “him” that Lacey referred to.
“Who?”
Lacey shook her head. “He’d kill me if I told.”
“No, Lacey!” Harmony said in an explosion of passionate anger. “You have to tell me,” Lacey was already shaking her head. “If not me, you have to tell somebody. The man that did this to you must be stopped.”
