Goodbye Eli

Chapter 11: No Tea for Me

The walls on either side of the tiny space are made of thick transparent material. Acrylic maybe? Vines grow like weeds over every inch of it. Potted daffodils like the dried one Jol gave me fill the small space. I squint at the thick acrylic wall. There is something on the other side. Age and moisture have clouded the plexiglass-type material an opaque white and I brush the overgrowth away, rubbing it with my hand. I glimpse something rough and hard and gray on the other side.

Stone.

The distinct curvature of a human nose gives me pause. I see lips and hidden beneath more vines, eyes. A woman. A stone woman. Alarms go off somewhere in the back of my mind. The other wall holds another, smaller statue of a girl.

A sudden 'whoosh' comes from behind. I whirl around to see what it was. Plexiglass with long metal bars now stands where I had entered the tiny space. In the center is a large window nearly the size of the wall and made of vertical bars. Behind it, Jol holds a small, silver remote, his thumb pressed over a red button in the middle.

For several moments I do nothing. My mind plunges down an abyss where it twists and spins like a cat falling through the air, seeking only one thing. Solid ground. Something believable.

"Jol, this isn't funny." My voice comes out strangled.

"I knew you were special."

My fingers clasp the bars and I shake them, but the frame is solid, lined with metal. The acrylic around it must be five inches thick at least.

"Anastasia," he speaks my name with a mixture of awe and reverence, throwing his hands into the air before they come to rest on his balding head. "Together, we will save them."

"Let me out!"

"Shh, shh. Don't be upset; all this is necessary."

He's insane. Not weird, not eccentric, but absolutely mad. I feel dizzy and my legs start to buckle, but I catch myself using the bars. Then I realize he's been talking to me. Asking something.

"—very good stuff. Will you try it?"

"No, Jol," I snap. "I won't try anything until you let me out of here."

He clicks his tongue. "Too bad, too bad. It would speed up the process. Make it easier. Help you to see."

"You can't keep me down here."

"You're not listening." He speaks as if talking to a child. "Once the process is complete, the rebirth will happen. This is something to be celebrated."

"Process? Rebirth?"

"Yes." His hands turn outward, palms up. "You will bring them back."

He glances at the spaces to my left and right. The stone statues? Then I realized, this is his garden. Not the flowers and vines but those statues on either side of the acrylic. They are people. It is a garden of stone.

But I am not a statue. I am flesh and blood.

"Those are statues, Jol. You can't keep me down here. I'm not a statue, I'm a living person."

His face fills with such pity. "Indeed, you are."

Something about it registers wrong and my hands start to shake.

"Help!" I scream, searching the dull fluorescent lights above with my eyes. "I'm down here! Help!"

"It's no use. The bunker is underground; no one will hear you."

He is right. I know he is. But I still want to scream. Scream at myself for being so stupid. Something between a snarl and a shriek escapes my clenched teeth and I kick the wall, beginning to pace.