𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐄 || j. daniel atlas

𝐎𝐍𝐄

It was half past one and the girl was still in bed. She needed to be in the village at two o'clock, but all hopes of that had been shattered when her father, uncle and brothers didn't come up to bed until one. If she risked climbing out of bed before she was sure they were asleep, she might never get another chance.

Beneath the covers, she was fully clothed in her warmest winter dress and tights. A sheen of sweat sheathed every inch of her skin. But the sticking door of her wardrobe and its creaking hinges were too traitorous to risk getting changed before she left. So she lay there in the damp, glaring into the dark, as the sound of her uncle's snores grew loud. The walls were thin, but only her mother and aunt were light sleepers, so when her father's snores came from the opposite wall, she was in the clear.

At ten minutes to two, the girl folded back her duvet and softly placed her stockinged feet on the wooden floor. She knelt down carefully and reached under the bed. First, she pulled out a large rucksack, which she had placed on top of her woollen coat to stop it from making a noise as she slid it along the floorboards.

For the next, she had to crawl under the bed herself, holding her breath for as long as she could to keep from coughing on the billowing dust. The loose floorboard would have been her greatest adversary, but she had been practising the exact way of removing it from its place without making a sound for months. So tonight, the wood lifted from its position and she was able to take the hand-sewn drawstring bag out from beneath it in silence.

Though she was already unbearably hot, the girl put on her coat and the heavy rucksack. She held the drawstring in one hand and picked up a pair of shoes in the other. She knew the house, every creaking floorboard, every rusty hinge, ready to betray her, so that, in the darkness, she was able to navigate her way to the front door.

She kept close to the walls and the furniture where the floorboards were less likely to move. Having memorised the number of steps between her bed and the door, the door to the top of the stairs, and the stairs to the front door, she slunk through the house, all the while holding onto the sound of her father and uncle's out of sync snoring.

When she reached the front door, the girl put on her shoes and tied the laces. Then, wrapping them tightly in her fist so that they wouldn't jangle, she lifted the keys from their hook. She ran her fingers over the exposed heads of the keys so that she could singularly unfold the right one. Sliding the key into the lock, she turned it 360 degrees, removed it, and replaced them on their hook, not letting go of the bunched keys and keychains until the last second.

It was only when she slid the barrel bolt out of its lock that she hesitated. The snores were still steady but her mind had gone to the women in the house. She had desperately wanted to tell her mother, so that they could go together. But her mother would never dare disobey her father, even if she could find a way to be apart from him for just one night. As for her aunt and cousins, they couldn't be trusted to keep secret, and she couldn't blame them.

So, she paid no mind to the lump rising in her throat nor to the sting of tears in her eyes. With any luck, things would get better for them when she was gone and she couldn't bring shame upon them any longer. And she hadn't done all this preparation, taking money from the community centre, little by little, for over a year and picking up everyone's least favourite chores, just for guilt to stop her now.

She eased the door handle down, opened it just wide enough for her to slip through the gap and pulled the door gently to. The girl heaved a great sigh, the prickly night air stinging her throat and lungs, but she didn't care, if it meant that she would finally be free of this place.

Taking one last look up at the house in which she had been born, that she had lived in for almost eighteen years, she backed away from the door and started down the narrow lane to the community boundary. Still, she kept her footfalls measured, though she had picked her softest-soled shoes. The moon was muted by a thin veil of cloud but was still strong enough to light the path. With each house that she passed along the way, she scoured the windows for any flicker of light or movement.

Then, the houses came to an end. She had packed as little as she thought necessary, and still the rucksack was heavy enough to throw her off balance as she leant forward into a run. The street closed into a lane walled by woodland. The tree would muffle the new sound of her breaths and the footfall on the concrete that sent shocks through her bones.

Slowing to a stop when she, at last, passed outside the boundaries of the community land, the girl turned to look back for the last time. "I'm sorry, Mama," she whispered into the night. "Goodbye."

♤ ♡ ♧ ♢

The nearest town was only a couple of miles away, and she knew the walk well enough to do it in the dark. She kept to the very edge of the road, slipping her thumbs under the straps of her rucksack. The midnight chill nipped at the exposed skin at the nape of her neck, but the girl found it comforting as she continued to sweat under her excessive layers of clothing.

The library was right in the centre of town, a converted church complete with spire and bell tower. Perhaps that was why, no matter what she was reading about, she found justification in the familiarity of that environment. There was a narrow alleyway down the side of the library, cluttered with bin bags, some twitching with some verminous life. It was there that she came to a halt at last.

"You're late." A young man stepped out of the shadows. He wore a long, dark, threadbare coat and boots too big for his feet.

"I'll sorry. I couldn't get away any faster," she whispered.

"You can talk normally. Only the rats can hear us."

Her eyes darted to the bin bags and she shuffled back a little towards the entrance of the alleyway, but the man just laughed at her.

"If you can't handle a few rats, you won't survive out in the real world for very long."

The girl huffed through her nose and thrust the drawstring bag at him. "It's all in there."

"All 2000?"

"I said it's all there, didn't I?"

"Alright, alright." The man gave her a snide, yellow-toothed smile. He riffled through the bag's contents, but didn't even check if the notes were real. "You must have worked hard for this."

She only hummed in reply, then held out her hand.

The man reached into his coat and pulled out a large envelope. "Everything you requested."

In her turn, the girl tore open the envelope and held it toward the entrance to the alleyway where the streetlight shone amber. Inside was a brand new passport, an identification card, certificates for examination that the man called GCSEs and A Levels, and a birth certificate – all with a shorter, sharper name. According to him, this was all she needed for her new life.

"Have you got any money left?" the man asked.

"A bit."

"Are you going to the shelter?"

She shook her head, slipping the envelope into her rucksack. "That's the first place they'll look."

"Best find yourself a nice, cosy shop doorway." He tucked the bag into his coat and straightened it by the lapels in the manner of a far more respectable man. "And if you need anything else-"

"I won't." The girl turned back to the street, hitching her rucksack up on her shoulders.

The man scoffed. "Alrighty then. Good luck, Alena Warbeck."