Selena pushed back the heavy coverlet and went to the window, shoving the curtains out of the way.
A florid-faced older man peered at her through the window. Surprise widened his black eyes at the sight of her. "Holy hell!" he wheezed, spitting nails from his thick lips.
She frowned. He was standing on something ... a ladder. She tried to ask him what he was doing, floating out there in front of her window, but the only words she could form were, "Sky blue . . . standing."
He shook his head and reached into his pocket for another nail. "Poor thing. Ye're crazy as a bedbug, jest as the missus said."
Selena watched as he withdrew a thick iron bar from a bucket hanging from the ladder's uppermost rung. He pressed the bar in front of her window and began hammering it in place.
That's when she noticed the other two bars on the left side of the glass. A dim sense of panic started. They were locking her in, taking away her only picture of the world outside. She scrambled for the bottom of the sash window and shoved the glass up. It hit the housing with a crack.
His head snapped up. "What in the hell .. ."
She stared at him, her mouth gaped open, her heart thudding in her chest. She didn't want to be locked in, didn't want to be an animal in a dark box, all alone. She had so much to do, so much to see out there.
"What . . ." Nothing else would come out. She heard the query in her mind, circling endlessly, increasing her panic, but she couldn't release it. What are you doing? Why are you locking me in?
"Puttin' bars on the window, miss. Ye'll still be able to see out. Ye jest can't get out."
Selena shook her head, searching frantically for the words she needed. "No. Thank you ... please."
"Doctor's orders, miss. I was supposed to do it days
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ago, but I forgot. Last night the missus got on me but good. Seems ye thought about jumpin'."
She frowned. "Bottle ... But ..."
"It's to keep ye safe. Doctor always bars the windows."
Selena didn't understand each word, but she understood the old man's point. Doctor. Ian had ordered the bars to be put on the windows to protect Selena. Not to keep her in, but to keep her safe.
It made her suddenly sad. Ian didn't understand her any more than she understood him most of the time. He was afraid she'd jump out of the window and kill herself. But she'd already learned that lesson. She understood that she could be hurt, that she could fall and break her bloody neck.
Last night she hadn't been able to communicate her understanding, though, and they'd all thought she didn't see the peril. They thought she was crazy and stupid. And brain-damaged. She remembered when she'd first heard those words from Ian. There had been such hopelessness in his voice, such regret. She understood that, too, now. He didn't want her to be damaged. He wanted her to be whole and pretty.
She swallowed hard. They were the two things she would never be. She knew she was ugly; she'd almost accepted that. But she didn't want to be so broken that she had to live here forever, locked in a room with bars on the windows. Alone.
She turned away from the window, let the curtain flutter back into place. Hugging herself, she paced around the small room, finally slumping onto her bed. A small, nagging pain pinched her chest.
She was used to that pain. She'd carried it around with her from the moment Ian turned away from her. All he saw was the outside, the ugliness and the failure and the frustration. He didn't see her at all.
She sighed. She was so tired of feeling lost and alone, afraid. And she sensed she'd lived this way for a
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very long time. Whenever she tried to remember life before Ian, all she felt was a lingering sorrow. As if she'd been sad for two lifetimes.
No more. The words slipped into her mind, gathering force. At first she didn't really understand what they meant; they were simply words. Then, all at once, she knew. Her heart was speaking to her, loudly, with a clarity she hadn't known before. Her heart and soul were tired of the sadness, the sorrow, the tears.
And she was tired of this room, of breathing but not really living, of waiting for other people to give her opportunities. It was time to make herself happy.
She had to do things for herself, had to learn about the world on her own. She had already figured out everything this room had to teach her-commode, bed, quilt, window, pitcher, water, basin.
Now she needed to get out and explore the world.
What first?