Behind the Books (Edge)

Hide and seek. A game of childhood, filled with breathless,
heart-pounding silence followed by shrieks of discovery.

Everyone has a favourite hiding spot. If you play long enough, you get
to know where to look for your best friend.

Madeleine and Anneliese played every day, whispering and laughing and
making a nuisance of themselves until her father threatened to blister
them both if they didn't find somewhere else to play. They retreated up
the stairs.

That was a long time ago. Now it seemed the whole city was playing hide
and seek.

Madeleine missed her playmate. They hadn't seen one another for months.
There were no games any more, not since the soldiers came.

One night they came to her house for her father and mother and for her.


It was a nightmare, the kind that wakes you up sweating.

Maddie lifted her head and tried to see but her eyes were swollen from
the blows and tears. She felt the bruises on her bottom and back but
even if she hadn't been bound, she was too tired to think of rubbing
them. She searched for something to see, to understand, but there was
only the dark.

The floor creaked, a tiny flame flickered and the cigarette sprang to
life. The light above her snapped on.

"Filthy girl," the voice sneered.

Suddenly she felt heat in her lap. She'd wet herself.

"I told you so."

He pulled her from the seat and pushed her face down over the chair. It
stank.

"No, please!" she begged.

"Where?"

"I don't know!"

He pulled a strap from the wall and began whipping her again, but she
was barely able to cry out any more.

She was scared and weak enough now but pain wasn't getting results.

He walked to the table, chose a long hypodermic syringe, checked to see
that there were no bubbles and plunged the needle into Maddie's arm.
Blood spurted across his brown shirt. He slapped her.

"Where?"

Hide and seek.  Hide and seek.

The drug took hold.


"Come find me, Madeleine!"

She raced through the house, following the voice. She was getting
closer.

"I know where you are, Anne," she laughed, "I know where you are "

Up the stairs. Behind the books.

- - - - - -

"That was brilliant, Maddie."

Henry grabbed a sponge and began wiping.

Madeleine spat the remaining blood from her mouth and rubbed her
wrists. Her great-grandmother's diary was not famous like Anne's. It
was instead a little treasure filled with big secrets, and now it was
all hers.

"It was hard," she answered slowly, looking across the room to the thin
volume on the top shelf.

"When can we do it again?"


(450 words)