The Tens by Vanessa Jones (tharntype novel english TXT) 📕

'I want to get the fuck out of here Clive. Can't you see that? Can't you see that it's beyond insane to keep me here?'

'Insanity is... well a peculiar thing. As you know.'

‘I don’ know what you mean but I’ve had enough.'

'You've watched yourself go slowly insane recently. It's been like an unfurling that you cannot control. You cannot wind the thread back up inside itself once it has been snagged and left behind everywhere you tread. There's nothing or no one left that is safe to believe, especially not yourself. That must be... well, terrifying.' He gave a little shudder of glee when he said “terrifying”.

'What the fuck do you know about all of this?' Sophie's wrath forced spittle out of her mouth and on to her chest.

Just like the insanity that forced her to come undone, she could not control the fury that threatened to overpower her. And what’s more, is that she didn’t care to. 'When I get out of here— and I will because how exactly do you think this will end?— you will be the first person I tell the police about and I will goad them into believing you did abhorrent things to me. And it will break you apart even more than I've been broken.' Sophie delivered her threat with an evenness that would have chilled even a long-serving school principal.

And then the anxiety came rushing up to her. The gritty feeling of yesterday that she had been introduced to since just before her thirtieth birthday. She felt like she had been washed in a wave of sand and prickles.

'Ahh yes, Alex. Where could he possibly be Sophie?' Sophie watched Clive's eyebrows sharpen into peaks.

'How do you know his name? Do you know my husband?' Sophie's imagination started unravelling and telling her things that she didn't want to hear. For better or worse, Clive obviously knew where Alex was. 'Where is he?' She screamed at him, pushing her elbows into the bed.

'Let's get very clear here Sophie, my dear. Nothing was happening when you were home, right? Alex wasn't coming back and you weren't even getting better?'

'Your fancy charlatan tricks may work with the rest of the fools here but I can smell your chicanery a mile off.'

Clive ignored her. 'In fact, if you take a look, an actual close look, weren’t things getting objectively worse? The nightmares are increasing, you've lost your ability to trust your own judgement, you've been hearing things that are possibly not there. And then, just notice, where is Alex?' His hand fluttered across the air, like a stage magician.

Sophie gritted her teeth and roared at Clive's torment. The screams had left Sophie's ears ringing and her throat tingly but she could understand what he was saying. Again, she thought she heard the stifled cry of a baby but it could have easily been a magpie.

'No one can hear you out here. No one. So, stop screaming.' He sighed.

It wasn't until she heard herself say 'where is Alex?' again that she crumpled inside and the heat of grief burst through her stomach and chest. The unforgiving reality was nothing more than the fact that Alex, was indeed, not there. All the other was just irrelevant noise that Sophie had filled her head with to distract her from her Alex-less reality.

The tent breathed with her. Closing in on her with every breath, as Clive and Sophie stared at each other wordlessly. Just then a tiny sparrow flew into the tent with purpose. It soared in a small circle, trying to find its way out but failed, knocking itself into the tent wall and falling to the ground. Flipping itself onto its feet, it shook its tiny head three times, so quickly that it looked like once, and hopped out through the small opening at the bottom of the door flaps. Sophie and Clive watched it, bemused by the absurdity of the timing.

'You know what that means, don't you Sophie?' Clive asked smugly. 'That means that a death is imminent.' He twirled on his heel and flicked his hand dismissively at her and stalked out of the tent.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Sophie thought about the Wild Woman all afternoon as she lay uncomfortably in her tent, drifting into gossamer-thin sleep that stripped her of any rest. The chirping alarm of birds was a relief and pulled her out of the frightening visions of the Hecate like being that she imagined existed in the depths of either side of the woods.

Suddenly, two hands dove between the tent flaps and were followed by a mess of cocoa coloured hair. Curls that she knew too well and was never more glad to see.

'Carla! What are you doing here?'

'Hello, Sophie. Abigail thought perhaps I could help. I hear you're quite unwell. What are you doing here is the real question?'

Sophie was right. Carla did live nearby! 'Oh, Carla! Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming to find me. You don't understand how relieved I am to see you. Please! You have to get me out of here. These people are full-blown nutjobs. And that's coming from someone on the brink of insanity. You have to get me out of here and I need to find Alex.'

'Okay, I can see that you're still back in this headspace of wanting to find Alex again. He left you Sophie and I think it's time you started to accept that.' Carla’s eyebrows and mouth pulled away from each other.

Sophie was shocked. This was the first time that Carla had pulled her up on Alex leaving her. She had always remained impartial during their sessions, rarely passing opinion. 'Maybe we can talk more about that in our next session. Can you lift me? I can't walk. I think they've poisoned me.'

'It looks to me, that it’s quite important that you need lots of rest Sophie. Do you agree?'

'Yes, I agree. I will