The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

fingers at the air. Please, oh please be there, she pleaded. After several tries, the cord tangled between her fingers. Grasping it firmly, she gave it a frantic yank. To her immense relief, the bulb obediently lit up, although its indifferent glow barely caused her irises to contract as she flicked her eyes around her. The most notable change, since her last visit, was that the tins of dog food had gone, telling her that someone had been here. Ignoring this worrying thought for a moment, she turned her attention to more important matters: the door. Attacking it, as best she could with only one arm, she still couldn’t get it to budge. Stepping back, she glared at it, infuriated. She knew she had suffered a blow to the head, but could that really make you so daft? It was like one of those comic sketches where someone struggled with a shop door, unable to open it, watched by a grinning gaggle of shop assistants, and then a doddery old pensioner with a walking stick and Mr. Magoo glasses would potter up and open it with ease, making the person feel as stupid as they looked. Only there was nothing comical about this, and no likelihood of a fairy pensioner coming to her rescue.
    Assaulted by multiple waves of nausea that sent her breakfast yo-yoing up and down her gullet, she was forced to sink down onto the bench. Leaning her head against the wall behind her, she closed her eyes, cradling her sore wrist in the nook of the other arm while she struggled to think things through in a methodical, calm way. It was amazing what a difference having some light made to her predicament. For one thing her fear had fallen from a mountainous hundred to a mere mole-hill ten. Somehow she must have tripped as she came in, and knocked herself out, she thought. She checked her watch. It was one o’clock. The boys would be wanting some lunch by now. She had to get home to them.
    How long before anyone became worried and began looking for her? She frowned, trying to work it out. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t come up with any optimistic or even remote possibility that this would be before Cal came home. She would have to be patient, that was all, stay calm. At least five and a half hours until he’d arrive home, then how long before anyone thought to look here? It was probably one of the last places they’d look. Although it was not a very pleasant prospect, she had to acknowledge that she could be here all night as well. She tried not to give in to the tears that stung the backs of her eyes. Tears brought on by the utter wretchedness of her plight and the debilitating and quite frankly, tortuous pains. What she wouldn’t give for some paracetamol. Her hate filled eyes flicked across to her cell door. She thought about the shopper scenario. Wouldn’t it be terribly humiliating if when they found her, the door opened without any bother. She’d been trying to pull it inwards, but what if she was confused, and it actually opened outwards? Of course that was it, the knock to her head must have been more severe than she’d thought. With renewed vigour she launched herself at the door, barging her shoulder against it this time, but it was like hurling herself against the rocky face of Mount Etna.
    Returning to her seat before she caused herself more damage, she slumped despondently onto the hard and uncomfortable bench, her eyes misting over with misery. A cushion would be nice, she thought longingly. Hunching her shoulders she prepared to wait out her time, consoling herself with the assurance that she wouldn’t come to any harm. The worst that would happen was that she would be thirsty and ravenous by the time she was rescued.
    She jerked bolt upright. The bulb overhead flickered and almost died, disturbing the slumbering shadows who plunged towards her, pushing back the vapid rim of light that was her only companion. “Oh no, please don’t desert me,” she begged, shocked by the odd croaking sound of her own voice. Startled, the shadows withdrew, regrouping and settling in their corners as the bulb heeded her plea and returned to its former pallor. After several minutes, when the glow remained stable, Meli allowed her eyes to close, her lashes resting lightly on her burning cheeks while she whispered a thank you prayer. Opening them again, she noticed something odd that she’d missed earlier. If she wasn’t mistaken, and she had no reason to think that she would be, surely there had been a window above the bench