Chapter Four

First Days

After the rescue, the hours passed like a whirlwind of new sensations for Elizabeth on that muddy road, where trucks continually lurched for miles. The destination, still an enigma.

The man named Shin Aogami had put her in a covered truck and held her in his arms for the entire trip. Although that could be because she had clung tightly to his clothes, while he kept her covered with the blanket he had wrapped her in. She did not want to get away from him, as she watched and spied like a small child what was going on around her.

The convoy of trucks and vehicles set off at breakneck speed. All around them were other people all with tired faces, and others who were trying to comfort or offer coats to others who seemed to be in the same state as she was. Elizabeth realized that she had not been the only one there. Others had shared perhaps the same or worse situations she had gone through.

In just a few hours she was receiving more visual stimulation than she had had in a long time. But there was no more torture, she was no longer restrained. She had a little headache, but after a few hours it subsided. But it subsided mostly because it was so much stimulation that she fell asleep in those arms.

Despite the continuous movement, for the first time since her confinement she fell into a sleep where she had no dreams.

***

When she woke up the next day she was frightened. For a moment she believed that everything that had happened had been a dream. She had woken up in a bed. Unbound, but still unable to speak. She had a pillow, a blanket and her clothes had been changed. She had woken up agitated and afraid, but was soon calmed down. Seeing had frightened her. She had become so accustomed to the darkness that it seemed like a new world and it took her several minutes to get used to it.

She was in a sort of large hut, where a cozy fire was burning in a fireplace and there were five other beds, where those she had seen the day before in the truck were being cared for by men and women.

Some were trying to hold a spoon, trying to stir the contents of a cup. Others were being fed directly, as they had no strength to fend for themselves. There were a series of curtains separating the beds, but at that moment they were all drawn. An odor similar to where she had been filled the air. It was the smell of remedies.

When Elizabeth woke up, a woman approached her and tried to calm her down. "Don't shake, you don't need to force yourself yet. My name is Hortensia. I am a nurse here. You are under our care. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, love."

The woman was dressed in white and had a bonnet on her head. She was quite tall and had gray hair but, despite that, she seemed young.

Elizabeth had just woken up and her eyes felt wet. She felt like crying. She had not uttered any words yet, it was difficult to open her mouth. Just a few moans came out, when she tried to articulate words.

"Don't force yourself. Just nod, or if something bothers you, you can point it out. Shin told me you understand English. Shin was the one who carried you, the tall one, remember? Can you understand me, love?"

Elizabeth nodded and looked around, looking for the men called Shin. Hortensia calmed her and patted her hand gently. Elizabeth felt the warmth of that hand and looked at her own body again. There were no restraints of any kind. She timidly swung her legs off the bed and propped her feet up.

She was truly free.

"Do you want to stand up?"

Elizabeth timidly nodded, but then nodded again more firmly.

"Okay, but do not force yourself. Let me get this out of you first."

Elizabeth at that moment realized she had something attached to her arm. She recognized it, it was something called a serum. She had never seen it, but knew that where she had been it was sometimes put on.

Hortensia pulled out the needle and for a moment stared at her arm. Elizabeth shivered. There where the needle had been stuck any mark was gone. "It didn't hurt, did it?" Elizabeth just shook her head. Then Hortensia slowly pulled her to her feet and, although she wobbled at first, she regained her stability and took a step.

Elizabeth didn't know what to feel. She was walking. A little awkwardly she took a second step.

"Not so fast. You're still too weak, love. Good reflexes, and you can understand me. That's already a big step."

"Oh! The little mermaid is already walking," said someone from another bed. It was a pointy-eared boy who was helping another woman eat.

"Do you know what a restroom is? Do you have any knowledge of that?" Hortensia asked. Elizabeth looked at her for a moment. Then she nodded slowly. "Do you want to try going?" When she asked Elizabeth realized the real reason she had woken up. She wanted to pee. "You didn't eat anything yesterday and we put you on something called saline solution to give you some hydration."

Not that she was totally clueless, although the world around her seemed strange. Serum, hydration. The words rang a bell but she didn't quite understand the explanation.

"Okay, let's go slowly. Take my hands to hold you, love."

Hortensia led her to another room where she helped her to the bathroom and cleaned her face a bit. Elizabeth let her do it. Those hands were not the anonymous hands that had touched, poked, and prodded her in her captivity.

She found that it was not difficult to go to the bathroom. Something in her body reminded her of something, even though, since she had been trapped, she had never been to one. In her captivity she had been cleaned with cold water daily and bathed once a week, but she had never been able to go to the bathroom. Instead she was given devices to do her business. Now, however, her body remembered that as if it were a distant memory.

In her memories was another era. Another time.

In her dreams the world she used to see was different. It was the 19th century and it contrasted where she was. Back then she had lived with her parents, but now she was in a different era. More precisely in the year 1939. But, even so, there was always in her head that alarm that told her that she should not say that.

To say it was dangerous. Later she would understand why that sensation that she could not explain.

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The year she was in had not been difficult to find out. Scientists, in their experiments, took notes and sometimes seemed to record those experiments with some devices that Elizabeth never got to see.

But she knew that the year she had been trapped had been 1937 and the present year was 1939.

She had no more time to think about it. Hortensia made her go back to bed after helping her cleaning and a few minutes later breakfast arrived, from other women with ears similar to a wolf and a very fluffy tail. Other fey?

It was simply hot tea in a little metal jug that had a dent in the side. Tea and some bread spread with what looked like butter and jam.

Simple stuff. But tasting it made her eyes water.

It was her first meal without the thick stuff she had been fed for years. As she passed the hot drink she found that it was sweet.

"We don't have sugar, so we use honey here," Hortensia said, as she watched her eat and drink like a little mouse.

For the first time, after swallowing, she articulated a sound with her throat. It was not a word or anything like it. It was more like a child learning to speak. But now she could make herself heard.

Hortensia smiled at her and stroked her head a little.

***

In that way the first two days passed while she gained a little strength. Although she had been fed in captivity, she was quite malnourished like the others who had been rescued.

The men and women there who cared for everyone seemed to be doctors and nurses. Elizabeth watched as they checked her, but not in the way she had been before. They had checked her eyes, ears, her chest and given her some injections, which they assured her were nothing bad. She didn't like needles. She had come to hate them at the time, but had been so frightened by the sight of them that she let them do it without objection.

The man who had rescued her came once or twice a day, and checked on her and, on a couple of occasions, fed her. The first time was on the second day, when they were served soup for lunch. She made a mess with the noodles, but the man named Shin didn't get mad about it.

"It happens, don't worry," he had told her as he wiped a napkin across her lips.

"Let her do it herself, so she can learn," Hortensia said, with some rolled up papers as she slapped the back of Shin's head.

"Now what? Stop that. The soup was too hot…"

"You washed your hands, didn't you?" asked Hortensia, pouting.

"Yes, mommy."

"You have a tobacco smell that stinks."

"I was in the beehives, I've been smoking all morning."

"Why don't you use the humidifier?"

"I prefer smoking."

"Next shipment they've already told you there won't be any tobacco. Don't smoke it all."

Elizabeth watched the friendly bickering, not quite sure what expression to put on her face, but it amused her.

Seeing it calmed her.

The second time he fed her was the next day, where they were given some apples, and more bread with jam and honey in the middle of the afternoon.

Shin told her that she shouldn't worry and that she would be out of there in a few days, when she would be strong enough to walk for a long time. Elizabeth wanted to thank him for what he had done but, only halting, dissonant words had come out of her throat. Beyond that, the man must have understood. He gave her a gentle pat on the head and let her rest, as he went to the next bed.

He must be some kind of doctor, right? She saw him checking up on the others and helping them almost like Hortensia and the others, but she had doubts. She really wanted to thank him, but she couldn't. At least, not yet.

For days, the words were only a shadow in her throat, an echo of something she once knew how to do, but which now felt foreign, distant, almost forgotten. Her mouth moved, her tongue brushed the roof of her mouth, her lips opened and closed, but the sound did not come through properly. At first, every attempt to articulate more than a moan was accompanied by a harsh burning in her throat, a sensation as if the words were trapped under layers of rust and dust, and that only hot tea with honey could soothe. The muscles in her jaw protested, as they were forced into a movement they had forgotten. It was like trying to open a door with an old, creaky hinge, one that had remained sealed for too long.

The first time a coherent sound escaped her mouth, it was not a name or a question, but something more primitive: an almost guttural whisper, a failed attempt to reproduce the human voice. Those in the beside beds were not surprised. They had the same problem.

Elizabeth felt the tremor on her lips, the unfamiliar vibration of her own voice rising from within, tearing the silence with a faint murmur, as if testing whether she could really do it. It was a clash of sensations: the strangeness of hearing herself, the twinge of pain in her still-sensitive throat, and the instinctive fear of having broken a rule that had been implanted in her during her confinement.

She remembered those bodies that had exploded from her scream.

For a moment, her whole body tensed, waiting for the punishment that never came. Only the warm air of the room and the faint sound of the fire in the fireplace accompanied her in that instant. No one challenged her, nor punished her for having tried to speak.

As the days passed, the initial awkwardness faded away.

Her tongue learned to move more precisely, her lips to form sounds with less effort. It was a slow process, each word an attempt to rebuild a collapsed bridge. At times, frustration overpowered her; her mind knew what she wanted to say, but her mouth did not quite obey her. The fear was still there, embedded inside her, as if speaking out loud might cause her prison to return, the shadows of the past to materialize and drag her back into the darkness. But, little by little, the voice that had been dormant within her began to awaken, shy and trembling at first, but growing steadier and steadier, like a bird that, after years in a cage, remembers what it is like to spread its wings.

"Orn-sia! Ornsia!" Elizabeth had said to Hortensia, who had helped her to vocalize. The girl smiled and was surprised when she took her hands.

"...Tzan-Iu."

Hortensia smiled. "You're welcome, love."

***

As she regained her strength, the rest of the day there were other things to do. The caretakers were leaving and other people were coming with books.

All those who had regained sufficient strength were put through some tests. Tests of speech and knowledge. Several could already speak and even read, others could speak, but not read. And as the days went by it seemed as if something had awakened in everyone's head. With Elizabeth the same thing happened. She could read. They had brought her books with different themes in different languages. English, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian, of which the last two she understood almost nothing, although she recognized some words in Spanish and the meaning of each letter in Cyrillic.

With those tests they were trying to find out how much they knew. Elizabeth, in her case, had been classified as enlightened due to her multiple knowledge. She was asked if she recognized terms and objects. Some she recognized, but some she did not. Yet she could read in three languages and, as the days went by, when she was able to speak, she could communicate with relative fluency in a somewhat archaic but understandable English, as well as something similar with German. Italian was a little worse, but what interested them was that she had knowledge.

And with knowledge finally came the truth.

The world was starting a war. But that war had been brewing on two very different fronts.

The front facing the people of the world, the human world.

And the front of the hidden war.

Elizabeth belonged to the latter front.

A front that no matter how much, had to remain in the shadow of common knowledge.

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