HAUNTED

Chapter Two

Now...

Sitting up was an unexpected challenge.

"How long have I been lying here?" he wondered. Rolling over onto his front, he used both hands to push himself onto his knees. Action was always the best way to hold back fear, and so Adam began to crawl, feeling his way with awkward fingers. Lead-like exhaustion continued to drag him down. He couldn't understand it. The last time he had felt this tired was the morning after he finished a three day shift. That had been a big mistake - one that Adam had promised himself he would never repeat. At the time, Mac had been furious with him. And rightly so, of course. It was no-one else's fault. Sometimes, when a problem caught his imagination, Adam lost all track of time.

Had it happened again?

And yet, he had never been so absorbed that he blanked out altogether. So this was something new after all.

Adam's train of thought was brought to a painful halt as he crashed, face first, into a wall.

He lifted one hand and ran his palm across the surface. No. Not a wall. A door.

Filled with relief, he slid his fingers upwards until they curled of their own accord around the metal doorknob. Cool and hard, it nestled snugly in his hand. "Please," he whispered. "Open."

But no matter how hard he twisted and pulled, the door simply would not move for him.

Adam sat back on his heels, dismayed.

Someone had locked him up inside a tiny, pitch black room.

Why couldn't he remember?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Then...

The second time that Adam saw Leyla was three days later. He had left work on time for once, and the stores were just beginning to close. Wary vendors locked their treasures away, leaving only a glimpse to tempt the imagination of passers-by. The young girl was standing in front of a toy store, two hands on the metal grille as she poked her face between the bars like a prisoner yearning for freedom.

"Hey," said Adam.

Leyla jumped back, startled.

Looking at her quizzical expression, Adam couldn't decide. Was she pleased to see him or just annoyed that he had interrupted her? "What are you looking at?" he asked.

She grinned at last. "Come and see."

Adam moved over to join her. "'Aladdin's Cave'," he read out loud, craning his neck to stare at the garish sign. Then he bent down and peered through the grille. The window was damp and dripping with condensation, but he managed to make out a colourful jumble of toys - the best that 'Aladdin' could offer to bribe passing children into his den.

"What's your favourite?" asked Adam. Leyla didn't answer. Turning to watch her, he realised that the question was unnecessary. Her green eyes were fixed in one direction. The dark-haired doll stared back, cold and unfeeling, but the girl didn't seem to care.

"She's pretty." Adam smiled. "Maybe Santa'll bring her to you for Christmas."

"Santa isn't real." She spoke out of the corner of her mouth.

A shiver of pity ran down his back. So sad, when childhood dreams were shattered. Adam himself had been five when that particular joy had been taken away from him.

"Okay - but Christmas is," he amended. "So maybe your mom'll buy it for you instead."

She looked away from the doll at last, her intensity surprising him. He blinked and stepped back.

"I doubt it," she said. Shoving her mittenless hands in her pockets, she shrugged. "What'll your mom get for you, d'you think?"

"My..? Oh. My mom's far away," he said. "In Arizona. She'll probably send me a card. And some money."

Oddly, the girl seemed curious. "What'll you buy?" she persisted.

"I... I don't know." Usually, he just stuck the money into a jar and let it pile up. Christmas and birthday, year after year. He hadn't the heart to spend it. Idly, he wondered how much there was by now. He'd never even counted it.

"Well." Leyla considered. Here was a problem, and clearly she wanted to solve it for him. "What do you like to do?"

And suddenly it was Adam who felt like the child, as she stood there waiting, hands on her hips. "I like games," he told her haltingly. "And music. And... books, I guess. Not stories, but facts."

"That's boring." said Leyla. "Like work. What else?"

"I like pictures," he remembered suddenly. "I used to draw..."

"Not now?"

A memory stirred, of paper, stripped from a notebook in sudden rage. Colourful, happy moments, torn to shreds. "Not now," he whispered.

"That's silly." She glared at him with straightforward indignation. "So, buy some paper. And some pencils. Maybe a sketchbook. Drawing is fun."

Adam found that he was holding his breath. He let it out quickly - and smiled. "Maybe you're right," he agreed.

"I know I am." Leyla turned to go. Halfway past the next store, she turned back and flashed him a cheeky grin. "Hey - when you get it? Draw me a picture."

Unaware that he had even done so, Adam nodded.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That night, he couldn't sleep. His tiny apartment was cold but, trapped in a whirl of blankets, Adam felt ridiculously hot. A memory kept running round and round in his brain. Two small children, tangle-headed and deep in concentration as they lay on their stomachs, mapping out a world of their very own. A world that they could escape to. What had they called it? Adam dug deeper. Yes - of course. Camelot. After the stories that his sister loved so much.

His sister.

Giving up on sleep altogether, he slipped out of bed. 3:00, screamed the glowing numbers that haunted his bedside table at night.

"Thanks so much for reminding me," groaned Adam. Sleep was a constant problem. His brain was always trying too hard - sometimes to remember, and sometimes to forget.

That was why he kept the important memories somewhere else. In case his thoughts became so muddled that they were lost forever, out of reach. He crossed to the closet and opened the door, stretching up on his toes as he searched with his fingers overhead. At last, he found what he was looking for. A little box, no bigger than a storybook. Lifting it down with exaggerated care, he sat on the floor and crossed his legs like a child. When he opened the lid, the box began to play a delicate tune in a minor key. He didn't know its name - had never known it, really. For him, it would always be 'Alice'.

Adam closed his eyes. Trembling fingers caressed the wood as the tune wore down into silence. He hadn't looked inside the box for over a year. Feeling guilty, he made the same old excuses. I don't need to look inside it. I just need to know it's there. Her memory, kept safe.

Blue eyes wide now, he held his breath and dipped his fingers into the jumble of treasures - beaded bracelets, plastic rings, folded map of Camelot - sifting through until he came to the thing he had been searching for all along.

A tiny figure, carved in wood and dressed with care in a gown made from scraps and ribbons. Framing her face was a delicate cap of painted russet curls. Pinprick eyes stared back at him, unblinking, as if to say thank you for rescuing me. She was a lucky charm of sorts, passed down from mother to daughter, and left behind at last in the hands of a son.

Closing the box with a sudden, awkward movement, Adam took the doll and slipped it furtively into his bag.