Free A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin

today.”
    Jane waved her hand dismissively at me. “Bound to get even longer, isn’t it, if you keep running away?”
    I plunged into the black gloom behind the wall and ran headlong down the crumbling stairs. Fragments of jagged stone bit into the soles of my feet. I didn’t care. I’d a hundred times rather face rats and spiders in the darkness than the monstrous truths Jane had unleashed.

 
    Five
    ES CAPE
    I darted downstairs. Not caring if I tripped. Not caring that the passageway quickly became a pitch-dark pit. I couldn’t run fast enough to escape Jane’s words hammering in my head. I stopped and covered my ears with my hands, willing myself to blot out the noise.
    â€œIt isn’t true,” I said aloud. “Lies.” My parents loved me. Underneath their anger about the fire, my experiments, the card party, and everything else, surely they loved me. They had to. They must.
    And yet they’d left me in this vile place.
    Was I too peculiar? Did I frighten them, as Jane suggested? I leaned my forehead against the moldy wall, mourning the fact that the lies weren’t Jane’s. They were mine.
    Our families should’ve seen our worth. Instead, they’d sent us away. I felt sick. My hands dropped to my sides, useless. My life was over. I would be whipped into shape or tortured to death. One way or the other my parents would be rid of me. At least, they would be rid of the real me —weird, peculiar, frightening me.
    I didn’t cry. Oh, I may have choked on a few salty streaks of weakness that slid onto my lips. But I didn’t cry. Blubbering was pointless. I wanted to kick something, not cry. I swiped the offending moisture from my cheeks, brushed the grime from my brow, and trudged blindly down the steps. Down, down into hell and forever, around another corner, up another flight, and that’s when I realized I was lost.
    Again .
    Furious, I slammed my hand against the wall. My reward was a palm full of moldy plaster and splinters. Clenching my teeth, I knocked off the debris and plucked at the slivers. Neither anger nor despair would do me any good. This situation required a logical, analytical approach.
    Fact: the panel to the dormitorium lay somewhere in this passage.
    Fact two: at the very least, I should be able to find another exit into the house.
    Fact three: unlike my other problems, this one was solvable.
    Even in thick darkness, deep in a tangled maze, there are telltale indications of the terrain. If one stands very still, faint drafts of air tease the senses and briefly relieve the stuffiness, and there are minute sounds. I stilled my thundering heart, calmed my ragged breathing, and listened.
    Blocking out the patter of mice, ignoring the surges of wind buffeting the outer wall, I heard the low whistle of air through an opening.
    A panel. I hurried to check. But my toe stubbed against a block of wood. The wood flipped sideways as if on a hinge. The floor beneath my foot sagged.
    My next step fell on nothingness.
    No wood.
    No stone.
    Nothing.
    My elbow smacked against the mouth of the trapdoor. I dropped into blackness. A rush of cold air swallowed my shriek. Wind billowed out my nightdress as I spiraled down a chute, falling, sliding, bumping, scraping against the rough sides. Rocks and debris peppered my shoulders and face. I flung my arms up to shield myself as I plummeted down the black pit.
    It seemed to drop forever. Yet, it must’ve been only seconds before the shaft opened to a broad expanse of air.
    No more walls.
    A dim light.
    Swoosh. I plunged into icy water. Suspended in murky green darkness. Salt and foam flooded into my mouth and nose. I sank amid a torrent of bubbles.
    Shock held me captive. Disoriented. Lost. Sinking.
    I came to my senses, owing to a desperate need to breathe. Clawing frantically at the water, I followed the rising bubbles toward the surface, paddling like a dog. A drowning dog. At last, I broke through