The Memory Wood

by Sam Lloyd

I still remember the time I was attacked in here, in the days before the iron ring.

What?

Afterwards, you and I – we’re going to make you famous.’ Hearing that, she can barely breathe. ‘Famous?’

What?

‘Do you like living here, Elijah? Do you want to stay?’

I feel like this is a test

When I open them, I see someone emerge from the undergrowth that I wasn’t expecting: the lord of Rufus Hall and master of this estate – Leon Meunier.

I am so confused!

Tell me you understand.’

I think he is the kidnapper

I can write in pitch-darkness, no problem.

Hes been down here before too

There are no pennies on my pillow, but that doesn’t mean

What is with thr pennies?

For a start, he’s a contradiction. He acts like he wants to help, but despite her pleas he’s consistently failed to raise the alarm.

But looking at what he made the other girls say, it’s possible he harbours some kind of grudge against single parents – single mothers, in particular.’

‘You could haunt her,’ he points out. ‘Don’t say that.’ ‘You could haunt me.’

A thought strikes her, contracting her skin into gooseflesh. Perhaps this is the test for which he’s been preparing her.

Because while Elijah speaks with the pitch and cadence of a twelve-year-old boy, he inhabits, undeniably, the body of a man.

Is this Kyle orcElijah?

But I made a poor Elijah, and the Kyle that arose in his place grew into something beyond my control, a creature that displayed every cruel or selfish impulse I’ve ever felt.

She’s so pale it seems as if every last drop of her blood has drained away, but I know that can’t be true, because the blood that stains her cheeks and clothes is my own, from a cut I opened on my arm moments before Papa entered the shed.

He saved her 😭😭😭

In chess, as in life, a gambit sacrifices something of lower worth to gain an advantage.

Oh…

When I loosen my grip on the chain, his chest heaves and his lungs fill. I yank out the knife. Then I plunge it into his side. His back arches. He squeals like a butchered pig. ‘Elijah,’ I whisper, mouth close to his ear.

In the fairy tale, Gretel burned the witch in her oven before freeing her brother from his cage.

‘Kyle,’ Mama says. ‘Kyle, look at me.’ When I turn my gaze from the water rushing up, I see her loving eyes. Elijah’s too. ‘Come home,’ she tells me. I go to them.

asked him to promise me, right at the start, that he wouldn’t let me die. He wouldn’t say it. But he did promise he’d come back.’