Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Six flashed an affected smile. "You will draw some more pictures for me." She opened the door with one hand and with the other dragged Violet out into the hall. "I need you to draw a woman. A woman with an iron collar around her neck."

"What woman are you talking about?" Violet asked in a trembling voice.

Rachel could just barely see them out in the hallway as Six reached for the doorknob. "You don't remember her. It will be harder to do because of that, but I can instruct you in how to accomplish the elements that I will need. Still, it will be more difficult than anything you've done before. I'm afraid that it will test not only your ability, but your strength and endurance. If you don't want to end up in the trough as hog slop, you will put your all into it. Got it?"

"Yes, Queen Six," Violet said in a voice choked with tears.

As Six started to march away, dragging Violet along, she slammed the bedroom door closed behind her.

In the sudden silence, Rachel held her breath, wondering if they would remember her and return. She waited, but then finally had to let the breath out. Violet had replaced the lock, so she probably wouldn't give Rachel a second thought. Violet had a lot bigger problems, now, than worrying about letting Rachel out.

Rachel feared that she was going to die in the cursed box. Would anyone ever let her out? Would Six return and put Rachel to death? After all, Rachel had only been kept around for Violet's amusement. There was no longer any reason for Six to keep up the pretense.

Six was in charge, now.

Rachel knew most of the people who worked in the castle. She knew that none of them would dare to say a word when Six told them that she was now the queen. Everyone was afraid of Violet, because she had people punished and put to death, but everyone was more afraid of Six because she was the one who enforced Violet's whims. Besides, when Six said things to people, they just seemed to lose their ability to do anything but what she'd told them to do. Those who crossed Six seemed to vanish. It occurred to Rachel that the hogs looked well fed.

Rachel thought again about how when Six was slapping Violet, Violet didn't even make an attempt to protect herself with her hands. Rachel knew that Six was a witch woman. Witch women had a way of making people forget how to fight against what was happening. They just did as she said, no matter how much they didn't want to. Like the two guards. They saw the queen on the floor with a bloody nose, calling for help, but they quickly chose to do as Six told them, not Violet.

CHAPTER 51

Rachel sat in her iron box for a while, thinking, worrying, wondering what would become of her.

And then she had a thought.

Carefully, quietly, even though there was no one in the room and the door was closed, she pressed herself tight up against the door. She put one eye right up to the slit. First, she looked around, fearful that the witch woman might somehow be watching her. The witch woman sometimes came to her in the night… in her dreams. If Six had materialized in the center of the room, Rachel wouldn't have been at all shocked. There were plenty of whispers among the staff of the strange things that had been happening at the castle since the woman had arrived.

But the room was empty. There was no one there, no tall figure in black robes.

Confident that she was alone, Rachel peered over at the lock. She had to stare awhile, because she wasn't sure that what she was seeing was real.

The lock, hanging in the hasp, wasn't locked.

Rachel remembered Violet pushing at it as Six knocked on the door, but in her haste she must not have gotten it locked. If Rachel could get the lock out of the hasp, she could open the door. She could get out.

Six had taken Violet to the cave. Violet and Six were gone.

Rachel tried to reach through the slit to pull the lock off, but it was too far. She needed a stick, or something to reach it. She cast about inside her sleeping box, but there was nothing. There was no stick just lying around. There were plenty of things outside the box that she could have used, but they were outside the box.

As long as that lock was hooked through the loop of steel sticking out through the slot in the hasp, there was no way Rachel could push open the door. The lock might as well have been locked.

She flopped back down on her blanket, dejected, her hope gone. She missed Chase. For a time her life had been a dream. She had a family, a wonderful father who watched over her and taught her so many things. Rachel idly pulled on the loose end of the coarse thread that had been used to sew the edging on the blanket. Chase would be disappointed to see her giving up so easily, to see her moping, but what was she to do? There was nothing she had in her box that she could use to get the lock off. She had on a dress, and boots. Her boots wouldn't fit through the slit. The only other thing she had was her sleeping blanket. Violet had taken everything away from her. She had nothing.