Trapped: Part 3

What if she wasn’t lying?

The great sun disappeared quickly beneath the horizon after the witch disappeared. Just as he had for nights and nights before, he settled in, making himself as comfortable as he could while he awaited the return of the light. The slipping sound of the stream soothed his soul as the darkness gathered around him. And on the stage of his mind, he saw only the witch’s bright smile.

What if she was telling the truth?

He closed his eyes and let his body relax. But as second followed second, minute followed minute, and the water of the stream slipped ever onward to its meeting with the wide ocean, sleep would not allow him his release. His mind turned and whirled like a top that spins about a single point.

What if she wasn’t really cruel at all?

Ridiculous thought! It must just be another of her spells — she’d bewitched his reason and filled his mind with foolish ideas, surely.

And yet…

He couldn’t pretend he didn’t feel a certain tenderness when he thought of the witch — a tenderness mixed with fear and hate, to be sure… but tenderness nonetheless. A sweet feeling that came over him, not in spite of the pain she inflicted on him, but precisely because of it.

Or no, that wasn’t quite it. It was her moments of mercy that gave him this horrible, wonderful feeling. The moments when she would release him from his agonizing pain, stroke his hair gently, and call him her good little boy. The moments when she would appear and tell him she would take it easy on him today. The moments when she would sit in front of him, smile wistfully, and sing more beautifully than choirs of angels.

None of which would touch him so deeply without the counterweight of cruelty. Like the emeralds in her golden cup set off by their foils, the background of pain made her sweetness intoxicating.

Intoxicating enough that he felt a wave of pleasure when she called him her pet, her toy, her darling.

Intoxicating enough that he almost blessed the trap that had put him under her power.

Intoxicating enough that he wondered… what if it really did pain her to treat him so cruelly?

He tried to beat back these feverish thoughts and retreat into quiet sleep. Obviously his mind was overwrought with the pain, or the loss of blood, or the fact that she’d been his only companion for weeks — not to mention the possibility that he was under her spell! But as sleep continued to elude him, thought followed thought with the inevitability of an unsupported stone falling downward to the earth.

And what doubts she’d planted in him so skillfully!

Why, in all this time, had he never actually tried to break out of the net?

Why had he told her he wanted to remain with her forever?

And why was she collecting his tears and drinking them daily?

Obviously, he’d been waiting to recover his strength before making an attempt to break out. Obviously, he’d told her he wanted to stay with her forever because he wanted to know the answer to his question and because he feared what would happen if he didn’t say it. Obviously, she was drinking his tears because she enjoyed tormenting him.

Easy enough to say all those things. But were any of them true?

Could it be possible that he hadn’t tried to escape because he had no serious desire to escape? Could it be possible that he told her he wanted to stay with her forever because he wanted to stay with her forever? Could it be possible she needed to drink his tears for some very good reason, and that it pained her to hurt him as much as it pained him to be hurt?

He hated himself for having these thoughts. Of course he was only having them because he couldn’t sleep. Of course he was only having them because she was the only human being he’d seen for weeks. Of course he was only having them because she’d sown these doubts in his mind, knowing they would sprout into painful, grasping, tormenting ideas.

But if he was really so sure… why not try to escape tonight? Surely he was strong enough to break free and be halfway to having the witch’s blood by sunrise.

But as thought after thought germinated, sprouted, grew, budded, fruited, and faded in his mind, he did not move. Though the thought of escape came to him a dozen times and once more, he made no effort to break from the witch’s net. As the river slipped along its course and the glow of dawn limned the horizon, he remained still.

Not because he’d told her he wanted to stay forever. No, of course not because of that!

But he had to know.

Maybe because he hated her. Maybe because he loved her. Maybe, most of all, because of the way he could never make up his mind about her. She filled him with such a horrible wonderful delicious terrible ambiguity of thought and feeling that he couldn’t tear himself away.

And maybe that was the secret of her spell, more than anything.

Whatever the reason, as the sleepless night passed and the darkness became light all around, he remained where he was at sunset. With the net binding his legs and feet and the metal spike penetrating his right hand.

For better or worse, there he remained.

Awaiting the witch’s return.