ANITA WALLER

PROLOGUE

 

She hurt so much. There was so much blood on the sheet and she reached a hand up to pull on the chain that shackled her to the bed every day. She had never felt anything like this before.

Daddy had been so rough with her and she instinctively knew that if he came to her again when he got home from work she would not be able to stand the pain. She didn’t know about death. She didn’t know about anything because Daddy had kept her locked up for all her life.

She felt she wanted to wee and looked at the bucket that was already full at the side of her bed. She fought against the feeling because she knew it would hurt even more if she let her wee go. Eventually, she could wait no longer and clinging on to the chain that allowed her to move as far as the two buckets she dragged herself off the bed.

She bent over the bucket and screamed as the red-hot urine burnt the cuts and scarring inside her. She clung on to the chain letting it bite into her hand, focussing on that pain instead of the burning one.

That was the point when she realised that for the only time since she had taken that first tiny step, she wasn’t connected to the chain. She stared at the handcuff on the end of the rusty links and began to tremble.

She had a vague recollection of Daddy coming to her and looking down at her before he went to work and saying something about no chains today then but she had been so spaced out with the painkillers he had doped her with, the horrific pain they didn’t touch, that his words hadn’t registered.

But now they did.

She managed to pull on three pairs of socks and some pants, pulled her thickest cardigan out of the suitcase that held the few clothes she had and carefully opened her bedroom door.

There was no sound and she went down the stairs one careful step at a time expecting to hear Daddy’s voice at any time. She didn’t know when he would be home from work but she did know fear.

In the small hallway she paused for a moment, listening. The pain washed over her and she knelt down, waiting for it to pass. She moved to the front door but it wouldn’t open. Slowly, she walked towards the kitchen door. It was open and she couldn’t see any movement inside.

The room was empty and she moved, trancelike, towards the back door. She tried to open it but it was locked just like the front door. She knew nothing of keys, of how to unlock doors and she stared wildly around the room unsure of how to get out of the house.

She pushed a chair towards the sink unit and climbed onto it to try and open the window but that too was locked. And then she saw the frying pan on the draining board. She picked it up and hit the window with it. She remembered how glass broke; Daddy had been very angry with her when she had dropped her drinking glass and it had shattered. She hadn’t been given another drink for three days.

Nothing happened with her first tentative strike and she knew she would have to hit it harder and cope with how much that would hurt her. The second hit caused the crack to appear and the third hit sent a large shard flying through and on to the garden outside the window. She smashed some more pieces out and then had to use her hands. She started to crawl through and felt her skin burst open in many places. As she tumbled outside and landed on her back, she lay still for a long time. Internally and externally, the pain was excruciating. She couldn’t move.

When the throbbing temporarily subsided, she placed a hand on the wall and rose to her feet. She didn’t see the bloodied imprint she left on the white painted wall. She knew she had to go, and quickly.

She set off across the fields at the back of the house and didn’t stop until she was too tired and in too much discomfort to go on. It was dark and she was on a small dirt track that ran along the back of some houses. She took advantage of the night sky and bent down for a wee, stifling the moan that involuntarily escaped her.

 Most of the gardens had sheds. She tried the first two and couldn’t open the doors but the third one opened with a squeak. She slipped inside and opened the little curtains covering the window. The moonlight gave her vision and she saw a chair with a big cushion on it. She curled up on the chair and slept soundly until the cold woke her.

She then used the cushion to cover her tiny body and slept a little more but as dawn broke, she knew she had to leave her sanctuary. She placed the cushion back in the chair and ignored the blood that was clearly evident. She could do nothing about it.

No one saw her as she left the shed. Her socks were torn and barely covering her soles but she knew nothing of shoes. Daddy only got her socks because he said she couldn’t go out; she had an illness that stopped her being in fresh air.

As she walked along, she thought about the illness. She seemed to be okay. Daddy must have been wrong. Daddy just wanted her to stay in the house.

She walked a little further until she saw a small road with houses on it. At the same time, she was aware of something trickling down her leg and she looked down. There was blood, a lot of blood. She stumbled and cried out.

She moved as quickly as she could and saw a house with a red door.

She crept up to it and listened just in case Daddy knew where she was. She knocked on the door.