Her Game

The skin under my fingernails is purple. My lips are stuck together. It is just light enough to see a white haze stream from my nose with each breath. The small beep on my wristwatch tells me that I only have five minutes left to find a light switch, possibly the same amount of time it will take for me to lose all use of my hands. A small beam of pallid light filters through an ice-glazed window, giving the basement a hollow, grey glow. The horizon will soon consume the sun.

 I run my quivering hands against the wall. It swipes against a switch. My spirits lift as warmth temporarily fills my insides and cradles my lungs, once so full of icy air that I had nearly released the memory of heat. But the cold reclaims me when the only outcome of the flipped switch is a light click. The room is still swallowed in shadows, and my hopes are engulfed in the darkness.

I now realize how silly I was for assuming the lights would work. I had cut the power to kill the heat, and with that comes the lights, I suppose. I don’t know who decided it would be a lovely idea to install the electrical panel in the deepest depths of this old cabin; I suppose it was the same person who thought it would be an equally lovely idea to have the basement door lock on its own once it was shut. I had pounded both fists against that steel door for an hour before realizing Colson couldn’t hear me—not that he’d let me back in if he did.

My wristwatch beeps.

I crawl forward, deeper into the basement, realizing that the lights—or lack thereof—are only the skin of the issue. Any wise man knows you do not test nature. This rule doubles in gravity when the specific place in nature happens to be the Adirondacks, whose winters are unmerciful. It laughs at life and makes sport of ending it, its favorite targets being women, children, and the weak.

“How long can I keep a family alive before freezing the life out of them?” is her game. Once she grasps that amount, she takes care to be only slightly less ferocious so as not to put us to death with as much ease as she could. The wickedness of her intentions is simple: it wouldn’t be fun, then. But those are her only rules.

Mankind has one rule, too, for braving the Adirondacks this far north: Keep the power on! If you do not, then only two options await you: be prepared to make a fire, quickly; or drop to your knees, clasp your stiff hands together, and pray more fervently than a monk.

Apparently, I didn’t read the game instructions, because here I am: groping on my hands and knees in a frigid basement, looking for them—that, and the power switch.

My wristwatch beeps.

I had often thought that winters sang, especially in the hills. The contour of each peak and valley was a melodic line, rising and falling in harmony with the terrain. The mountains always had such a mysterious air about them, as if they echoed a song of their own. Only a select few hear it, and those that do abandon everything with happiness to sing with them. Oh, the Adirondacks woke my soul to life; being in its midst was as exhilarating as hearing the overwhelming power of a massive choir for the first time. Something shifts inside you, as the mountains make you nostalgic for them, whether or not you have ever seen them in your life—which, I suppose, is the treacherous spell of the Adirondacks. People love it for all its beauty. Not until they marry it do they see how it harbors a twisted animosity toward life. 

Was it all worth it? Was trying to freeze my husband to death really the only solution I could postulate? After enduring all his threats, I had become numb to them, but for his most recent one. I suppose staring into the barrel of a rifle is encouragement enough for a woman to try to take matters into her own hands. Cold, numb hands.

My wristwatch beeps.

The sun is gone. The air around me is thin. My shoes scrape against the concrete. I feel the shape of my fingers; they are stuck in a fixed curve, and nothing but a hammer could force them flat against the ground. My breath is quick. My breath is shallow. My breath is weak, but it whooshes in my head like a mighty rush of wind out my nose, the huff of a dying train as it labors forward. I strain to move every inch.

My head rams against a wall. I shut my eyes and convince myself I’ll find the switch. I’ll find the switch. I’ll find it. My numb hands pat the walls. I only feel a distant thud on my fingertips. This is my only guidance. The top of my hand bumps something. My heart leaps. It must be the panel. I dig a key out of my pocket, and peck at the box with it. I peck. And peck. And peck. And cannot find the keyhole. My hands shake, and my curved fingers lose grip of the key. It clinks to the ground.

My wristwatch beeps.

I pat the ground furiously. Only when I hear it slide against the floor do I realize I touched it; my deadened hands feel nothing, not even pressure. The key is gone. For whatever reason, I keep searching. I think about how smart I thought I was, cutting the power in hopes of sauntering back up those splintering basement stairs to make my escape. I think about how every other night, I feared the last thing I would see was the end of his rifle. I had cut the power to end him, first. And I suppose it will. Eventually.

I feel a dull thud against my cold cheeks as I slump on the floor. Cold rushes into my lungs. I snicker myself into unconsciousness. Colson didn't get me and he can't have the last laugh. I did that to myself.