Free Escape from Bondage by Dusty Miller

Escape from
Bondage
     
    Dusty Miller
     
    This Smashwords edition copyright 2014
Dusty Miller and Long Cool One Books
     
    Design: J. Thornton
     
    ISBN 978-0-9918999-7-5
     
    The following is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or
events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters
and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The
author’s moral right has been asserted.
     
    This ebook is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given
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the hard work of this author.
     
    Table of Contents
     
    Scene One
     
    Scene Two
     
    Scene Three
     
    About the Author
     
     
     
    Escape from
Bondage
     
    Dusty Miller
     
     
    Scene One

     
    The night was restless and warm for
early December. Huddled under the blankets, she thought she heard a
faint rumble. A winter thunderstorm was not unheard of, but hardly
welcome right now. She’d only been at St. Marie for a week, but
finally her spiritual and physical exhaustion had worn off. All of
a sudden she was up again, almost manic in her mood. Today, all
day, her nerves were completely jangled. It wasn’t just the move
and the transfer, or the thoughts of seeing Braden from time to
time. Not after the terrible last three months, where they didn’t
see each other at all, ultimately leading up to her transfer. The
reality of what she had done was catching up, and she had to start
teaching a new class Monday morning at eight-forty-five
sharp.
    Now she couldn’t sleep. The room was
too hot. The blankets were too thick, but to take them off meant a
draft and a chill. Air whistled around the window and much of it
came in. She was on one side, and then the other, with her upper
knee drawn up and supported by the balled-up blankets. Her brain
just wouldn’t switch off.
    Rain lashed the rooftop, less than ten
feet away in her third-floor bedroom, way up under the eaves, a bit
bigger than her room for all those years back home. That was one
way of describing it. It wasn’t home. She wondered if it ever would
be.
    She was in a semi-aware state, not
unpleasant in itself. If only she could drop off into real slumber.
Heather would be ever so grateful. Sleep was the last refuge. She’d
read that somewhere.
    The place had its own atmosphere, and
in the long hours of the night when quiet reigned, the big old
house had a set of obscure noises all of its own. Most of them were
unidentifiable, but the pish-pish-pish of the heating pipes and the
sound of someone in another room flushing a toilet or getting a
drink of water were familiar enough. The occasional loud crack or
pop could be put down to the age of the building, or the settling
of the ground it was built on. It was the expansion and contraction
of the maple hardwood floors, when the sun crossed it during
daylight hours. The house had a life of its own by now, being over
a hundred years old.
    The distant crawling whine of
transport trucks on the highway, or cars in the street out front
weren’t threatening. Voices of people going by were clearly outside
and down there, respectively. Branches scraping at the weathered
brick wall outside made her hair stand on end, at least until she
figured out what it was.
    Her eyes opened and she looked at the
clock. It was only a little after one a.m. She still had time to
get a good night’s sleep. God, please.
    She had just closed her eyes and
rolled over when a solid clunk came against the wall under her
window. Upon first looking out, she thought how pleasant it would
be to look out into the treetops in summer…
    “ Ah.” She turned her head
and neck against the