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She stopped screaming.
Neglected babies don’t cry. They soon learn that no one is coming to help. They attempt to self-soothe, instead, but the damage of abandonment lasts well into adulthood.
Joan was alone, sealed inside a box, buried under the dirt. She was not simply abandoned; she was being eradicated.
Betrayed.
Again.
Her rage filled the box.
***
One by one, methodically, she ripped the staples out of the wood.
How could she have been so stupid? How could she have been so desperate as to fall for Stewart’s little trap? Of course he wanted her dead. With her gone, he was free to take her money and wipe his pathetic little conscience free. She was sure that within two days he’d be crawling back to Vera, howling that it was all Joan’s fault, that she had made him kill, that she was the monster.
Sniveling, pathetic coward. He didn’t even have the courage to kill himself.
Vera was too good for him.
She stilled at that thought. Where had that come from? Vera deserved the snake. She had betrayed her more than anyone.
She continued to pick at the staples.
***
The problem was that the staples were at her head. As much as she punched, her knuckles stiff and bleeding, she simply didn’t have the leverage to force the board away from her. The dirt held it securely in place. Perhaps if the staples had been at her feet, but…
She punched again.
Joan knew fear. She had known fear all her life, although she never acknowledged it. Fear was an emotion, and emotion was weakness. Joan Ferguson was never weak.
But it was getting harder to breathe, now. She wasn’t a stupid woman. She knew what that meant.
She started kicking, instead.
***
There was no sense of time within the box. She kicked with her feet, with her knees. She punched with her hands. She could feel the crack in the wood where the dirt had come through, but no matter what she did, the weight of the dirt on top of her was too much.
She wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t good enough.
She was a failure.
***
Joan Ferguson wrapped her arms around herself and cried. Alone.
***
She was very tired. She let her arms drop to her sides. The box was strangely comfortable, now. It was her coffin, yes, but somehow it had also become a womb. She was protected in it, treasured, kept safe from the monstrosities out there—those people.
The air she breathed belonged to her alone. It was pure.
She was pure, now.
She smiled.
***
She was in complete darkness, but her eyes played tricks on her. She thought she saw lights, forms.
She imagined Vera.
She was beautiful. Joan had always known that, but it had never been anything to dwell on. Vera was her subordinate. She had always been a means to an end, although Joan had to admit that Vera had sometimes pleasantly surprised her. She had actively enjoyed working with her, before…
Before Vera betrayed her, too.
Joan felt pains stab through her.
It had hurt. It had hurt so much that Vera had learned about Jianna and used it against her—that she had covered her walls with pictures of Jianna. Joan had believed that Vera would understand.
She was wrong.
Vera’s report to the board and Joan’s subsequent removal were also a betrayal, of course, but it was less personal. It was simply Vera’s next step in obtaining the governorship. Joan understood that.
But for Vera to know how Joan had… difficulty… connecting with others, and then to throw her love for her in her face with her betrayal—
Love?
Throw her love for her in her face?
Had she loved Vera?
She gave one more feeble kick against the wood. Nothing moved.
Love was emotion. Emotion was weakness.
She cried out.
Joan Ferguson was weak.
***
It was very difficult to breathe, now. She tried to draw in new air, but it just wasn’t there.
It didn’t matter. Vera was with her, smiling up at her with that slow, tentative smile that radiated happiness. Joan reached her hand toward Vera’s face, gently stroking the cheek she had once slapped. Vera turned into Joan’s hand, kissing it.
They were together, now. Joan was in control. It was as it should always have been. She knew it.
Jianna had forgiven her. Vera loved her.
She heard singing--a woman's voice. It was clearer than anything she had ever heard. She felt her being expand with happiness. She was growing bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter. She was in the womb, but she was outside, too. Like the music, she was everywhere.
Everyone can be immortal, if only for a moment.
She exhaled her last breath.
She was happy.
***
“Where?” Vera screamed at Will. “Where?”
“I don’t know!” he shouted, panicking. “It was here—right here, somewhere. I covered it with branches!”
Vera desperately shone her torch against the leafy ground. “Here!” she shouted, the adrenaline coursing through her body so quickly she felt she would vomit. “Here! Dig! Oh God, if we’re too late…”
They scrambled to remove the dirt that Will had thrown over the box only two hours earlier.
Three feet below, Joan lay still, a smile on her face.