No One Is Coming
by Rosemary Selking
Rosemary Selking is a Midwestern native and a Kansas City transplant. When she’s not working her day job in international logistics, you can most likely find her indulging in fiber arts or playing cozy video games such as Skyrim. She does not have any pets but she does have two sons and a weighted blanket, which is basically the same thing. You can find her other works with Tales to Terrify and The Rialto Book Review.
“No one is coming for me, you know.”
The shadow beyond the bars doesn’t move an inch. They are so still that it is impossible even to see their chest rising and falling with each breath.
I rattle my chains at them anyway. “Oi! Did you hear me? I said no one is coming. You’re wasting your time.”
“They will come.” The voice is soft but not a whisper, confident and slightly menacing.
I scoff. “As far as they’re concerned, you did them a favor.”
The shadow is silent.
I sigh and slide down the wall until I am sitting on the stone floor. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The shadow melts out of the doorway.
I count the days in stale biscuits and ladles of brackish water. I pass the time by weaving plaits from the pile of straw in the corner upon which I sleep. I trace the links in the chains at my ankles and wrists until I have them memorized.
Five days pass. The shadow returns.
“I told you they’re not coming.”
“They will come,” it insists. I can taste the thread of doubt.
“Well, I’m not holding my breath. You probably shouldn’t either.” I pluck three straws and begin another plait.
The shadow is silent. I look up and it is gone. A flash of color on the lifeless stone floor catches my eye. I reach as far as my chains will allow. My fingers brush something soft. I lift it into the dim light of the single, narrow window high on the wall.
Smiling, begin to weave the yellow ribbon into a complicated braid.
He comes again on the ninth day.
“Have they come yet?” I bite back a gloating smile.
He doesn’t answer, but I can imagine his brow creased in frustration.
“Still lurking in the shadows?” I tease him.
He does not find me amusing.
“At least show your face,” I say.
He hesitates, then a torch flares to life above his head. I catch glimpses in the flickering light – a strong, straight nose; arched brows; full lips; dark eyes.
“More ribbon today?” I ask playfully. “Perhaps red this time? It is my favorite color.”
Firelight dances over his cheeks.
“Do you take requests? Because I could do with some soap and a bucket of water. Even a change of clothes.” I pinch my stiff, soiled skirts for emphasis.
The torchlight flares and dies. My eyes blink in the sudden dark.
“Thank you for the ribbon,” I call into the darkness.
I do not know if he hears me, but when I wake the next morning there is a small cake of soap and a bucket of water in the corner of my cell, along with a fresh change of clothes.
I do not see him again until the sixteenth day of my captivity.
“Have they come yet?” I ask, not pausing in my artwork to look at him. I know he is there – the scent of pine and sage lingers over the damp of the dungeon.
“What are you doing?” he asks in that low, soft voice.
I dip my finger back into the bucket and trace it along the stone wall. “Painting,” I answer.
I hear soft footfalls as he steps closer. “What are you painting?”
“Home.”
I turn and see him studying the wall through the bars.
“That tower was no home.” He sounds angry.
“Nearly as homey as this,” I say lightly.
His eyes flick to mine, then to my chains.
“Have they come yet?” I ask again.
He is silent. I knew the answer before I asked. I turn back to my painting. It is mostly faded now. I paint over the lines again. The cell is silent. I do not need to turn back to know he has left.
When I wake on the seventeenth day, my chains are gone.
He returns three days later.
“Have they come yet?”
He ignores my teasing. “What are you doing?” He sounds curious. He sounds like he actually cares.
I look up and see him crouched just beyond the bars. “Writing,” I answer.
His brows arch. “With straw?”
I arrange another stalk. “The water dries too quickly.”
He watches me closely.
I break the silence first. “Why did you take me?”
He doesn’t answer. I expect him to leave but he does not move.
I place the final stalk with a flourish and examine my handiwork.
“What have you written?”
I take a deep breath and blow the stalks into disarray. He looks surprised and puzzled.
“What does it matter? My words will never leave these bars.”
I settle into my bed of straw and watch as he retreats back into the shadows.
“Why did you take me?” I ask again on the twenty-fifth day.
He traces a crack in the stone floor. “I am a forgotten prince from a stolen kingdom. A kingdom stolen by your king. I heard whispers… whispers of a great and terrible weapon hidden in a tower. A weapon that is the key to bringing him down.”
“And you think I am the weapon?”
He traces the cracks over and over. He looks up at me. “There was no weapon. There was just you. I thought if I took you, they would come for you. You must be important to him. Why else would you be locked in that tower?”
“But they haven’t come for me.” I watch him for a moment. “Perhaps you were mistaken. Perhaps the weapon is still in the tower.”
He shakes his head but says nothing. We sit in silence for a while.
My voice is gentle when I speak. “I’m sorry he took your kingdom. He has stolen from me as well, and from so many others. But no one is coming for me.”
He takes a breath. “I know.”
“Then release me!”
“If I release you, where would you go?”
“Somewhere free of chains and bars.”
He is silent for a long time. Then he rises to his feet. I follow suit.
“I have to go away for a while,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “Someone will take care of you while I am gone.”
“And when you return?” I ask his retreating back. “What then?”
He gives no answer, and then he is gone.
The days seem longer in his absence. While I now have some comforts in my cell – extra clothes, washing water and rags, warm blankets and a pillow, better food – it is still a cell.
As always, I find ways to pass the time. One of the stones is flaking and I break off a sliver. It makes a better pen than water or straw.
I find a nest of baby mice in the corner of my bed. I keep still and do my best not to disturb them as I watch their mother feed and care for them. Their pink, round bodies are impossibly small and fragile. When I look closely, I can see their tiny veins pulsing, hardly thicker than a strand of my hair.
A week passes, and still he does not return.
I break off more pieces of stone. With them, I build a tiny tower, then a small village around the tower.
Another week passes. I knock the tower down.
Late in the night on the twentieth day of his absence, I startle awake. The dark is disorienting at first, and then I hear his labored breathing. I crawl to the bars and reach through them. My hands meet his cheeks. They are sticky with blood.
“You’re hurt!”
“The blood is not mine.”
“What happened?”
He sighs. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Let me out.”
He doesn’t answer.
I grip the bars, my heartbeat quickening. “Let me out, and I can help.”
It’s silent, and then I hear him stand. A torch on the wall flares to life, and then he slips the key into the lock. It turns easily and the door creaks open.
I step through the space and suddenly we are just a handbreadth apart. He reaches out and cups my cheek in a calloused palm. Tentatively, I mirror him. His pulse is quick and steady beneath my fingers.
“You’re free to go,” he says. His voice is sad and hopeful.
I cradle the back of his head with one hand. He leans into my touch. “And what if I would rather stay?”
He smiles softly. “You are free to go, or stay, or do as you please.”
Tenderly, I bring my other hand up to his jaw and then draw it across his throat. His eyes light up with shock and then betrayal as crimson blood begins to flow down his chest. The bloodied sliver of stone clatters from my hand to the floor.
“They were right,” I say. His lips move silently, pleading for a mercy that is too late to give. “There was a great and terrible weapon hidden there.” His body begins to crumple to the ground. I sink to the stones with him, my hands bathed in his blood.
As the last light of life leaves his eyes, I bring my lips close to his ear and whisper, “You should have left me in that tower.”
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