The Never List

raising our makeshift weapons. We froze for a moment, still, listening for the noise again in that box. No one wanted to touch it. It was like a living animal, dangerous and solitary, down here in the hell of our past.
    As Tracy reached it, she seemed to summon every last ounce of courage in her, and she suddenly grabbed the knot and worked at it frenetically, her brow furrowed and teeth gritted. It was a byzantine tangle, loop upon loop, but finally it loosened, and in one swift motion she flung open the door.
    There, in the box, was a man, tied up with more of the rope that had fastened the box shut. We gasped. I leaned in to take a closer look. Though his face was grimacing and red from fear, I could tell who it was.
    “Ray? RAY?” I said, in shock.
    He nodded but couldn’t speak. There was a wadded rag in his mouth. His face had a look of extreme terror, but when his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw it was us, and his fright turned to relief. Tracy moved to untie him, but Adele held up her hand.
    “Couldn’t this be a trap? Isn’t it possible that he’s the one in league with Jack, and once we release him, he’ll turn the tables on us?” Even Adele’s voice had reached a frantic pitch.
    “Let’s let him explain,” Tracy said, pulling the rag from his mouth instead.
    “Water,” he whispered hoarsely.
    I nodded, and Christine went back up to the kitchen and returned with a glass. She held it to his lips as he drank thirstily and asked for another. After two more refills, he was able to speak.
    “Thank you,” he said. “Can you untie me?”
    “We need to talk first,” said Adele. “Who did this to you?”
    It looked as though he might cry again, as if he were pained at the thought of telling us what had happened.
    But almost in a whisper, he said it. “Sylvia. Sylvia did this to me.”
    “ What? ” We all said it at once.
    “It’s true.
    “I was in town, on my way home from work, when I saw her leaving the post office. Maybe it was wrong to follow someone like that, especially a young lady, but I just … wanted to see if she was okay.
    “I’m embarrassed to say that, as you can see, I ended up trailing her all the way here. I called Val and left a message letting her know I’d be late. I ought to have told her what I was doing, but I knew she would think I was being an old fool, and I guess—I guess I was.”
    He stopped and asked for another drink, then continued.
    “When I realized where she was going, I was scared. I knew this was Jack Derber’s house, but I wanted to see if I could help Sylvia … and I guess, if I’m honest, I wanted to know what was going on. The door was open so I walked in and found her in the library and confessed that I had been following her. I told her I was so happy to see her, that I had been so worried.
    “I couldn’t believe the look on her face. It was so blank. She shook her head at me and said I shouldn’t have done that and that she was very sorry. Then she walked over close to me and pulled out a gun. She said she was sorry again, and then she forced me down here to the cellar and tied me up, and she—” Here he broke off and started sobbing. “I can’t believe it. She left me here. She left me to die. In a cramped little box. Sylvia.”

CHAPTER 36
    Back in the library, we sat in silence. We didn’t dare meet one another’s eyes, as we let the truth sink in. Sylvia was not the victim we’d imagined. She was our captor. She had been here—alone—to set the stage for our demise.
    Ray was in the worst shape, perhaps, still grappling with his new knowledge of who we really were and why we were here. But as we had recounted our story to him, it had seemed even clearer to all of us that we could do nothing but wait for Jack’s plan to unfold.
    Christine’s soft moaning from the window seat finally broke the silence, then rapidly escalated into a steady mumbling, low and unintelligible. I knew those sounds. It was a flashback to her cellar days, her familiar ramblings, the mutterings I had learned to ignore. The house was invading us each in its own way, creeping into our very bodies, reverting us to the selves we had been back then.
    I was afraid of what that meant for me.
    Then without warning, Christine stopped crying and stood up. She made her way to the center of the room as we looked on warily.
    She seemed troubled, gripping her hands tightly in front of her, over her stomach. But her voice was unexpectedly calm when she