Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

40) Silent Contemplation

The metal springs in the mattress creaked as she moved and readjusted herself to a more comfortable position. This in itself was a difficulty as she had already tried all different positions in the hope of getting some sleep, but the bed seemed to have been made for something other than comfort. They creaked louder and the bed shook as she rolled from her side back onto her back and battered the bed underneath her to get rid of the strange lumps.

No light shone through the crack in the door, everything was in complete darkness. She couldn't even see her hand in front of her face, and it was too hot. There had been air blowing in from somewhere when she had first arrived, so what happened to it? Did they just turn it off when all the major people went home? What about the others in the cells besides her? She knew they were there; there was a sudden silence as she and her guard walked down the hall. It was an unnatural one made by many people holding their breaths. But whatever had happened to the air she would definitely talk to Dastardious about it. She was sure he would have wanted her to be comfortable, and in a steaming room on top of an itching wool blanket that was the furthest from what she was.

An ominous shudder suddenly ran through the bed and Alice's eyes shot open to stare at where the ceiling would have been had she been able to see it. There was the slight sound of creaking, and then the front of the bed where her feet rested gave a small shake before crashing down. She screamed and at the same time, the part of her bed where her head rested also creaked and gave a shudder before crashing down. Her bed had collapsed.

Her cheeks glowering red from the embarrassment of screaming at such a silly thing, she rose from her bed and stumbled to the door where she started to beat at it with her fists, calling for somebody to come.

No one arrived after what seemed like an hour to her in the dark, and she stumbled back across the room to her bed. Finding the mattress, she pulled it off the broken frame and dumped it on the ground before lying down on it. Just lying on the mattress did little to help her sleep, in fact it was made worse by the fact that now she could feel the floor through it. She did something she seldom did and cursed. The least Dastardious could have done for her after everything was to make sure she had a pleasant place to sleep.

Rolling over, she tried to take her mind off things by thinking about something else. But no matter how hard she tried her thoughts kept turning back to the one subject she was trying not to think of -her arrest.

She was glad to know Dastardious had noticed her clues and had been able to put the puzzle together. No one else would have been able to put it together; the whole thing had been exactly as she had planned and twice as fun. The best day of her life was going to Oliver Bourgins and hypnotising him into suggesting Dastardious's name at the conference the Mayor would hold the day after Mary's kidnapping. She had known he would hold the conference because she had been the one to suggest it to Oliver Bourgins. It had been simple.

The hardest part of it all was relying on the desperation of the men at the table to actually run with the suggestion. If they chose not to then she would have had to find another way to get him on the case. However, they hadn't disappointed her and neither had Dastardious.

She had a feeling she had annoyed him by choosing to neither deny nor confess his accusations, or give any straight answer. But didn't he see there was no reason to? He would throw her away and not spare her another thought once he was done, he had the evidence to do that and she didn't need to do anything. She was just going to float down the river where the current took her, making sure, of course, that those following her would be the ones to run into the rocks resting in the water. If they had thought catching her was hard, which she knew they did, then they would soon find putting her away an even bigger challenge.