I spend the rest of the train trip gazing at Ama’s face. Her blonde locks fall beautifully across her face, making her look like a model. Her eyelids flutter a few times, so I’m hopeful that any moment she’ll wake.

While she sleeps, I work on talking. It occurs to me that perhaps I can shout for help when we get to the station.

I move my mouth, I make sounds come out of it. But nothing intelligible. In two hours’ time, I manage to force the word “HELP” to come out of my throat. It sounds funny, without the enunciation of my tongue.

It’s more like, “HEH-loope.”

But that is the best I can do, and so it will have to be good enough.

I am disappointed when the train eventually begins to slow. Ama is still asleep, despite my desperate shouts to try to rouse her. It isn’t until the men come in and the shorter man jiggles her as he lifts her than her eyelids fly open.

She looks around, her blue eyes terrified. Her gaze lands on me, cloudy with whatever drug they gave us.

“Don’t be afraid,” I try to call to her. But of course, my leaden tongue makes it sound like, “oont ee frait.” A low moan escapes her lips as he carries her off, hoisting her over his shoulder like she’s a piece of baggage to be wrangled.

The demon casts a pitying look at me. “You look very distressed, Rue. Don’t worry, you’re essentially going to the same place as your little sister.”

He leans in, bending over me to pick me up. His hands are hot as he slings me over his shoulder. His body seems to be overheated too, causing a shiver to run down my spine. He carries me across the train car and down the short flight of steps that lead to the ground. I can’t see much, but the train’s silver body shines in the quickly dwindling sunlight. Underfoot there is light-colored pea gravel.

There is a tang in the air, the smell of saltiness in the air. Wherever we are, the ocean is somewhere very nearby. I wait with bated breath to see the feet of another person, anyone I can call out to. But I see no one, no one other than the demon that carries me.

He lays me in the back seat of a sedan, closing the door on me too soon. I can move my head enough to see out the windshield, which tells me precisely nothing.

My fingertips move now too, I find. I wiggle them a little, feeling useless. My eyes mist over. I let out a low, sad sound. What good is my body if it lets me down so completely right now?

I wonder how my captor is going to fit Ama in the back seat with me, but apparently, I don’t have to worry about that. He gets in, throws me a glance, then starts the car.

Ama is nowhere to be seen. He starts to drive. Beads of perspiration break out across my face.

I know only one thing. We can’t leave without Amabel.

“No!” I cry. I’m surprised by the fact that my tongue works again.

So is he, I guess. He looks back at me, faint astonishment written across his haughty patrician features.

“So, you can call out for help?” he asks, his lips curving upward in a cruel smile. He looks back to the road before us. “I’d better get you to the castle before you can run, hadn’t I?”

Castle? What castle?

I lie in the backseat, furiously wiggling my fingertips. My toes have less movement much to my frantic anxiety. I pray for movement in my arms and legs.

I pray that the car breaks down before we can get where we’re going.

I pray that we get pulled over by the police for a traffic violation.

Something, anything to keep me from going to the castle. I haven’t ever been there, but I seem to remember that you should never go with an abductor to a second location.

Then I realize with some shock that the train would’ve been the second location. This car is the third, making the castle the fourth.

Still, it sounds frightening.

The castle.

Nothing good can happen there, I’m certain of it.

None of the things that I pray for happen. The car slows down. I hear gravel crunching beneath the tires once more. The demon throws the car in park and gets out.

When he opens the back door and hauls me out, he holds me upright for a few moments, so I can see. I almost lose my breath when I see the stunning seaside castle on the steep slope that drops down to the dazzlingly blue ocean. After I stop staring at the ocean, I turn my gaze to the castle itself, rising high above us. Made of thousands of light-colored stones with multicolored terra-cotta tiles covering the multi-level roof, it is the epitome of sprawling Mediterranean architecture.

Then I lose sight of the view as I’m slung over the demon’s shoulder and carried toward the castle. I’m able to hold my head up a little as I’m carried inside the huge scarred oak door, managing to catch a bit of the azure ocean and half of the airy entranceway as I go.

Inside I’m greeted by a grand foyer, lit by a heavy looking wrought iron candelabra hanging from the impossibly tall ceiling. The light throws shadows everywhere, making the room’s stone walls look a bit like jagged teeth. There is no sight of Ama anywhere as the demon conveys me to the right, down a narrow and winding staircase.

Apparently, this castle has a dungeon at the ready because I’m soon hard-pressed to see anything in the gloom. I shiver, feeling suddenly cold. It’s only now that I realize how warm the summer air is upstairs and outside.

What is it they say about knowing you miss something only because it is gone?

Exhausted from holding my head aloft, I sag as the demon carries me down a long and darkened hallway.

Where are we going?

Where is my sister?

He finally carries me into a pitch-black room and tosses me onto a soft surface. I raise my face to him, to ask him the many questions that have built up in my mind.

But he’s too quick, leaving the room and slamming the heavy oak door behind him with an ominous clank. I’m plunged into almost complete darkness, the sole light from a slatted window ten feet up the wall. If I squint, I can see the stars through the window beginning to come out.

Feeling around, I find that I’m sitting on a bed. I peel the comforter off and wrap it around myself, but it is no match for the otherworldly chill down here.

Still, I manage to drift off for a while, which is good since I’m still paralyzed. When I wake up sometime later, I can see faint light coming through my cell window. It is fully dark now.

That’s not good. But I’m able to move my arms and legs, which I’m very glad of. I stand up and get the blood moving by doing a few jumping jacks. My limbs come painfully and slowly back to life, but then I have my mobility back.

Shivering and clutching the blanket around my shoulders like a cape, I discover the rest of the cell.

And that’s what it is, there is no doubt in my mind. It’s barely bigger than the bed, with an empty bucket in the corner. At first, I don’t understand what the bucket is for. But soon enough I have to urinate, even though I’m dehydrated from traveling and the Lord knows whatever they drugged me with.

I hold my urine in, thinking that the demon will be back soon. After all, why would he kidnap me just to hold me here in a darkened cell?

I pass the time by running my hands over the stone walls, then the base of the walls. Pulling the bed away from the wall, I feel the cool steel of the bed frame, the other side of the wall below the bed.

Nothing new or interesting there, unfortunately.

I glance in the direction of the bucket again, wincing. I can’t hold my bladder for much longer.

Is the demon coming back for me, or should I gird my loins and relieve myself?

Eventually, I squat over the bucket, holding my once-pristine wedding dress up around my waist. My urine comes out in a forceful stream, so hard that I gasp with relief. I’m embarrassed to have nothing to wipe with, so I let myself drip dry, my face the color of red summer raspberries the whole time.

Now what? I listen at the door for the faintest whisper, any sound at all that lets me know I am not utterly alone. But there is nothing, either because of the thickness of the door or because there is genuinely nothing to hear.

Shoving the bed back, I sit down and wrap myself in the blanket again. What should I do with myself?

In the convent, there was a small dark cell used for punishment. Well, it was technically for reflection without distraction, but I knew the room for what it was. And I was no stranger to being held in there for hours at a time, usually dragged into the cell by Sister Agathe.

“You are vile,” she’d whisper harshly, pushing me inside. “Pray to the Lord God that He will help you see the Light, wretched girl. Repent of your sins.”

Is that what I’m meant to do here, then? Am I here to repent?

The demon just tossed me in this cell without any instructions. Shivering, I fold my hands together and close my eyes. I try to pray.

“Dear merciful Lord,” I start, hesitating. “Please forgive me, oh Lord, but I am in need. I’ve been kidnapped and brought here, my Lord, and… I don’t know what I should ask you for. I don’t know where to start.”

I pause, the words not coming as readily as they should.

“I beseech Thee, my Lord. To let my sister and me go. And to punish those who hold us here.” I bite my lip. “I know that you are not likely to look upon my plight with kind eyes, Lord. I know that your servant, Father Derrik, had a plan for me. I know that I ran away from him, ran away from Prince Henrick too.” I tear up and a lump of emotion grows in my throat. “I understand that I subverted your will, Father. It’s just… please, oh, Lord. Please, please, give me another chance? I will do right this time, I promise.”

My voice breaks on the final word. I glance up at the sliver of moonlight and I know true sorrow.

I caused this. I am the reason I am here.

If I hadn’t been so nosy. If I hadn’t listened in to Father Derrik and Prince Henrick talking… it’s possible that I just didn’t understand as Sister Marguerite said.

Perhaps if I’d tried to alert one of the nicer nuns to my predicament…

If only I hadn’t run away, dashing into the woods without a true plan in mind.

Now all I can do is pray that the Lord hears me and takes pity on me in my hour of need. Miracles happen, do they not?

Leaning against the wall, I let myself drowse and hope that when I wake up my situation will have changed.