“It’s only me,” Chyna said.
The girl didn’t respond.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Ariel was so motionless that even her veil of hair did not stir.
“It’s only me.”
This time, deeply humbled, Chyna made no claim to being anyone’s guardian or salvation.
She started with the lowest hinge. The length of chain between her manacles was barely long enough to allow her to use the tools. She held the screwdriver in her left hand, with the tip of the blade angled under the pintle cap. Without sufficient play in the manacle chain, she couldn’t grasp the hammer by its handle, so she gripped it instead by the head and tapped the bottom of the screwdriver as forcefully as possible considering the limitations on movement. Fortunately, the hinge was well lubricated, and with each tap, the pintle rose farther out of the gudgeon. Five minutes later, in spite of some resistance from the third pin, she popped it out of the uppermost hinge.
The gudgeons were formed of interleaving knuckles that were part of the hinge leaf on the doorframe and that on the inner edge of the door itself. These knuckles separated slightly, because the pintles were no longer present to hold them together in a single barrel.
Now the door was kept in place only by the pair of locks on the right side, but one-inch deadbolts wouldn’t swing like hinges. Chyna pulled the padded door by the knuckles of the gudgeons. At first only one inch of its five-inch width came out of the jamb on the left, vinyl squeaking against vinyl. She hooked her fingers around this exposed edge, yanked hard, and her vision clouded with a crimson tint as the pain in her swollen finger flared again. But she was rewarded with the shrill metallic skreek of the brass deadbolts working in the striker plates and then with a faint crack of wood as the whole lock assembly put heavy strain on the jamb. Redoubling her efforts, she pulled rhythmically, prying open the door in tiny increments, until she was gasping so hard that she was no longer able to curse with frustration.
The weight of the door and the position of the two deadbolts began to work to her advantage. The locks were close together, one set directly over the other, not evenly spaced like hinges, so the heavy slab tried to twist on them as if they were a single pivot point. Because a greater length of the door lay above the locks than below, the top tipped outward, induced by gravity. Chyna took advantage of these inevitable forces, yanked harder, and grunted with satisfaction when wood splintered again. The entire five-inch width of the padded slab swung free of the jamb on the side that had been hinged. With the frame no longer in the way, she pulled the door to the left, and on the right side, the deadbolts slid out of the striker plates.
Suddenly the door came toward her, free of all restraint, and it was too heavy to be lowered slowly out of its frame. She backed rapidly into the cellar, letting the slab thud to the floor of the vestibule just as she vacated it.
Chyna waited, catching her breath, listening to the house for any indication that Vess had returned.
Finally she reentered the vestibule. She crossed the fallen door as if it were a bridge, and she went into the cell.
The dolls watched, unmoving and sly.
Ariel was sitting in the armchair, head lowered, hands fisted in her lap, exactly as she had been when Chyna had spoken to her through the port in the door. If she had heard the hammering and subsequent commotion, she had not been disturbed by it.
“Ariel?” Chyna said.
The girl didn’t reply or raise her head.
Chyna sat on the footstool in front of the armchair. “Honey, it’s time to go.”
When she received no response, Chyna leaned forward, lowered her head, and looked up at the girl’s shadowed face. Ariel’s eyes were open, and her gaze was fixed on her white-knuckled fists. Her lips were moving, as though she were whispering confidences to someone, but no sound escaped her.