Instead, she spotted the safety goggles and, making no comment, got up and put them on the girl. Ariel submitted without objection.
Chyna returned to the stool and waited.
A frown surfaced in the placid pool of Ariel’s face. It didn’t subside again but floated there.
The girl pressed the trigger of the drill experimentally. The motor shrieked, and the bit whirled. She released the trigger and watched the bit spin to a stop.
Chyna realized that she was holding her breath. She let it out, inhaled deeply, and the air was sweeter than before. She adjusted the position of her hands on the workbench to present Ariel with the left cuff.
Behind the goggles, Ariel’s eyes slowly shifted from the point of the drill bit to the keyhole. She was definitely looking at things now, but she still appeared detached.
Trust.
Chyna closed her eyes.
As she waited, the silence grew so deep that she began to hear distant imaginary noises, analogue to the phantom lights that play faintly behind closed eyelids: the soft solemn tick of the mantel clock upstairs, the restless movement of vigilant Dobermans in the night outside.
Something pressed against the left manacle.
Chyna opened her eyes.
The bit was in the keyway.
She didn’t look up at the girl but closed her eyes again, more tightly this time than previously, to protect them from flying metal shavings. She turned her head to one side.
Ariel bore down on the drill to prevent it from popping out of the keyway, just as Chyna had instructed. The steel manacle pressed hard against Chyna’s wrist.
Silence. Stillness. Gathering courage.
Suddenly the drill motor whined. Steel squealed against steel, and the sound was followed by the thin, acrid odor of hot metal. Vibrations in Chyna’s wrist bones spread up her arm, exacerbating all the aches and pains in her muscles. A clatter, a hard ping, and the left manacle fell open.
She could have functioned reasonably well with the pair of cuffs dangling from her right hand. Perhaps it didn’t make sense to risk injury for the relatively small additional advantage of being free of the manacles altogether. But this wasn’t about logic. It wasn’t about a rational comparison of risks and advantages. It was about faith.
The bit clicked against the keyway as it was inserted into the right manacle. The drill shrieked, and steel jittered-spun against steel. A spray of tiny shavings spattered across the side of Chyna’s face, and the lock cracked.
Ariel released the trigger and lifted the drill away.
With a laugh of relief and delight, Chyna shook off the manacles and raised her hands, gazing at them in wonder. Both of her wrists were abraded—actually raw and seeping in places. But that pain was less severe than many others that afflicted her, and no pain could diminish the exhilaration of being free at last.
As if not sure what to do next, Ariel stood with the drill in both hands.
Chyna took the tool and set it aside on the workbench. “Thank you, honey. That was terrific. You did great, really great, you were perfect.”
The girl’s arms hung at her sides again, and her delicate pale hands were no longer hooked like claws but were as slack as those of a sleeper.
Chyna slipped the goggles off Ariel’s head, and they made eye contact, real contact. Chyna saw the girl who lived behind the lovely face, the true girl inside the safe fortress of the skull, where Edgler Vess could get at her only with tremendous effort if ever.
Then, in an instant, Ariel’s gaze traveled from this world to the sanctuary of her Elsewhere.
Chyna said, “Nooooo,” because she didn’t want to lose the girl whom she had so briefly glimpsed. She put her arms around Ariel and held her tight and said, “Come back, honey. It’s okay. Come back to me, talk to me.”
But Ariel did not come back. After pulling herself completely into the world of Edgler Vess long enough to drill out the locks on the manacles, she had exhausted her courage.
“Okay, I don’t blame you. We’re not out of here yet,” Chyna said. “But now we only have the dogs to worry about.”