Ruth lay on her bunk, staring at the moonlit ceiling.  It had been a strange evening.  Sister Elizabeth had sent them to bed early, almost unheard of at the Valley House.  And stranger still, as the girls lined up to wash before bed, she had asked Ruth whether she had seen Gabriel that evening.  Of course she had not seen him; girls and boys were only permitted in the same room for masses and lessons. 

Ruth, Gabriel, and the younger brother Michael were the three eldest students in their chapter, so they were often sent to study more advanced subjects between themselves.  Gabriel was the eldest at fifteen and Ruth and Michael were both fourteen.

Sister Elizabeth seemed disappointed by Ruth’s respectful but negative response.  She seemed concerned and somewhat distracted.  Ruth dismissed the observation; it is a sin to make assumptions about someone else's mind.  She should be more trusting.  Exams were fast approaching so the Sister probably wanted to discuss Gabriel’s consistently terrible handwriting.  In any case, Ruth had a few extra hours to sleep; a much-appreciated treat as the following day was Sunday and morning masses would start at sunrise.

Ruth rolled onto her side, pulling her thin blanket tightly around her against the cool night and closing her eyes tightly, trying to convince herself to sleep earlier than she was accustomed.  It was no use.  Her mind would not be quiet.  Why had Sister Elizabeth asked about Gabriel?  Something told her that this was important but she could not figure out why.  Gabriel had already received a dressing down about his writing only two days ago.  So why had she asked about him?  It didn’t matter why she had asked.  It mattered that she had asked at all, Ruth realised.  All women and children in the Valley followed a strict schedule and even on a holiday, as Michael and Gabriel had enjoyed today, breaking curfew was severely punished.  The boys should have returned to the dormitories as soon as they returned.  Sister Elizabeth would have known where to find them.  Even if they had been late, she should have asked Brother Andrew, the boys’ dormitory chaplain.  He would be responsible for their movements, and punishments if any were deserved.  So why did she ask Ruth?  What had happened?  What had they done?  No, not ‘they’ she realised, ‘he’.  Ruth rolled onto her back once again as the next question formed in her increasingly sleepy mind.  The Sister had asked about Gabriel, not about both boys.  Why had she not asked about Michael also?  So what had Gabriel done alone?  It was barely worth considering the possibility.  The boys were inseparable; Michael would not go anywhere without Gabriel by his side.  They had spent the day playing cricket together; Michael had been talking about it with eager anticipation, almost non-stop since they were granted their holiday; a reward for repairing the chicken coop.  He would not have missed it for anything.  It was a mystery.  One that would make sense in the morning, no doubt. 

The glow of the moon-lit window blurred and re-focussed as Ruth’s eyelids fought to stay open.  The thin curtains swayed in the draught of cool night air.  It began to rain.  The raindrops made her blink and the dirty street was turning the bottom of her dress a muddy brown.  The damp made it easier to keep her skirt from blowing up in the breeze. In one hand she carried a bundle:  a couple of stale bread rolls wrapped in a blanket.  The other hand held a large basket.  In the basket, wrapped in another blanket, was a sleeping infant.  She continued to rush along the filthy street, looking desperately for something, but she could not remember what.  Just a few paces ahead was a shop with an awning reaching out to the edge of the footpath.  Ruth joined the masses struggling for space under the scant shelter.  The she held her basket close to her as the crowd pushed and jostled for room, and the rain echoed, ping-pinging on the iron awning.

Ruth started awake, roused by some noise in the night.  The window was rattling in the wind.  The curtains were still billowing around the cracks. Ruth relaxed and breathed a sigh – it was nothing.  “Ping!”.  She roused herself again.  Perhaps it had been her imagination, but perhaps not.  She held her breath, listening for a moment to be sure.  “Ping!”.  There it was again!  The sound was coming from the window but was not a result of the wind.  “Ping!”.  The noise sounded yet again as Ruth looked along the row of cots, checking for any movement other than her own, and slowly raised herself onto her knees to peer between the curtains.  There had been no rain – that had been a dream – but there was a breeze so the sky was clear and the moon was bright.  She drew herself up to look down into the courtyard and gasped as she saw Gabriel, drawing back to pitch another pebble at her window.  He saw her just before he released the stone and silently signalled for her to join him.  What was happening?  He knew how hard it was to get out of the dormitories at night.  They had done so only a handful of times when they were feeling particularly adventurous but only ever after careful planning and full awareness of the punishment should they be caught.  Ruth hesitated.  She was already confused by Sister Elizabeth’s question, not to mention the strangeness of the dream she had just had.  But to now see Gabriel standing in the courtyard was baffling.  Gabriel was waving at her again as she turned back.  Gabriel without Michael!  With a sudden jolt she realised what she was seeing.  She quickly looked around the dormitory one more time before slowly easing her feet onto the cold floor and creeping step by step toward the washroom at one end.  She had climbed from the window at the end of the washroom with two other girls the last time they had snuck out.  If the Sister woke, she would claim she needed to use the lavatory.  It might bring her a reprimand for not doing so before bedtime, but perhaps due to the disrupted curfew the previous evening, it would not be as harsh.  The Sister stirred as Ruth opened the door to the washroom, the door creaking torturously as she eased it back just enough to slip through the gap.  The door screamed even more loudly as she swung it closed behind her.  She stood holding her breath with her back to the handle, expecting any moment to hear a knock from the Sister who must surely have been woken by the shriek of the closing door.  Seconds felt like hours as Ruth waited for the knock – it did not come.  She drew a lungful of air into her chest, not realising she had been holding her breath, and raced across the washroom to the second to last window on the courtyard side.  She was trusting that Gabriel had remembered the night watch and had checked that everything was safe.  She did not have a choice; she was already out of the window and climbing down the vines and pipes that ran from the roof down both storeys of the dormitory and into the courtyard.  The moment her tiny feet hit the pavement, Gabriel took her by the arm and half pulled, half dragged her out of the courtyard and towards the tiny field behind the chapel.  The Chapel Field was not used for livestock due to a particularly large fig tree growing in its very centre.  A half dozen gravestones lay in disarray around the field also; another reason for it’s disuse perhaps, but not one of the stones were more recent than a century or so.  Gabriel pulled Ruth along behind him at a furious rate.  She was out of breath and not a little frightened when they reached the tree and Gabriel signalled for her to climb while he looked around suspiciously.  Finally, Ruth had reached her usual branch and Gabriel started up after her.  She finally had a chance to examine him, to try to understand what was happening.  He looked haggard, distressed.  He had been crying but not as though he’d been injured.  Not as though a favourite animal had died either.  His were tears of fear and horror.  Something terrible had happened.  Where was Michael? 

“Where is Michael?” she asked as Gabriel wearily pulled himself onto an adjacent branch and looked up at her with a trembling jaw.  She could not keep her questions in any longer.  She leaned forward a little further with each inquiry. “What’s happened?  Where is he?  What are we doing out here?” she asked, finally resting her hand on Gabriel’s knee, pleading with him for an answer.  As if in reply, his eyes flooded, not for the first time that evening, and he sobbed.  It was not the whimper of a little boy but the sobbing of a man only fifteen years old who had been torn in two.  “He’s gone!” he gasped between shuddering breaths.  “The man with the noisy thing!  It took Michael!”.

“What are you talking about?  What man?  Where did he go?”  This was not making any more sense to Ruth and she was growing more and more frightened.

“What should I do, Ruth?  What can I do?”  He held her shoulders and was shaking her, pleading with her for answers to the questions that had been spinning in his head for hours.  He had to know how to respond! 

“Gabriel, I don’t understand!  What’s going on?”  He saw the tears begin to well in her eyes as her desperation and fear got the better of her.  He drew a deep breath and regained his composure as he realised what he had done. He had dragged her from her bed in the dead of night with no coherent explanation.  He could suddenly see through his tears to the tiny girl on the opposite branch, cold and afraid, dressed in no more than a night-shirt.  He owed her an explanation, and he had made up his mind about what he must do.  “A machine-cart stopped by us on the way home.  A man got out.  He took Michael.  I couldn’t stop him!  Well, I could have but I didn’t!  Now he’s gone!  They’re both gone, Ruth!”  He was starting to lose control again.  Ruth’s eyes grew wider as he spoke but no sound would escape her throat.  Gabriel drew another deep breath.  “I have to go, Ruthie.  I have to find him.”

His final words were the only ones that made any sense at all to Ruth.  "Gabriel, you can’t!  You can’t leave!  You must tell Brother Andrew, he would know what's happened.  There must be a reason…”

“No, Ruthie,” Gabriel interrupted her, softening as his resolve grew harder.  “No one would believe me but you.  That’s why I had to tell you.  I knew you’d believe me. And you’re smart!  I know you’ll find a way to make sure no one knows for a while.”  Ruth stared at him in horror, mouth opening and closing noiselessly, unable to contradict him.  She knew he was right.  Gabriel leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek.  “Goodbye, Ruthie.  Pray for us.”  He nimbly dropped from his branch all the way to the ground, breaking into a run as he did so.  In a panic, Ruth clambered down from her branch and began running after him.  Wait!  There must be another way!  I don’t understand!  She continued to run behind him as well as she could without shoes, up to the road and along the western side of the valley, tears blinding her, half a mile disappearing beneath her bare feet yet Gabriel drew further and further from her, vanishing into the darkness.  A sudden pain shot through her calf and up her leg as she tripped and fell.  She looked up to call Gabriel back but he had already disappeared from view, his size and stride more than she could keep up with.  She sat up on the road and looked back towards the Valley House under the softly fading stars.  Slowly, the frightened dog, Madeline, limped timidly from the nearby bushes to nuzzle her injured leg.  She started at the touch of the mongrel’s cold nose on her foot, but then held the animal closely to her, simultaneously comforting and drawing comfort.  What would happen now?  This had been a strange night, but surely this was just a bad dream.  The boys would be there in the morning.  The boys were always there.  They had never left the Valley House.  As far as Ruth knew, no one had.  This couldn’t really be happening.  Ruth limped to her feet and looked down at the obstacle that had tripped her.  She whimpered as she collapsed again onto the dusty road, sobbing as she stared at the worn cricket bat lying in the road where it had fallen only hours earlier.

The room was very large.  It was cold, dark and slimy with damp.  He had never seen one before but this is what Michael imagined a dungeon must be like.  He pulled the tattered blanket up to his chin and curled into a tighter ball, tucking his knees up to his chest.  The cold floor had chilled him to the bone and he was aching all over.  He had dozed fitfully over the last few hours but would not have been able to sleep properly even if he had wanted to.  He was fighting to stay awake, the thought of sleep and dreams almost as frightening as the new world he had been thrown into.  Through bleary eyes he followed a single narrow beam of light as it crept slowly across the slimy floor, resting on a steaming fire-pit in one corner before moving on to a weathered crate with an old rusty pot, a dish, a spoon and a tin cup resting on it.  The light continued, revealing another pile of rags in another corner, alongside a worn basket containing what Michael could only assume were more rags.  He shivered again, partly from the icy stone floor, and partly from the thoughts of dungeons that echoed through his head.  Michael rolled over on the stone floor and tried to rub some warmth into his freezing fingers.  Had he been comfortable and warm, less exhausted and less frightened, he may have wondered how he had ended up here and why.  But he was cold and stiff and had not slept properly since his last night in the dromitory.  And he was terrified.  He could only tremble with foreboding at what was to come.  He remembered stories, usually whispered by candlelight, about what happened to people in dungeons.

A noise from beyond the darkened doorway!  Michael’s already freezing body froze solid, his eyes like saucers staring at the wall, too horrified to look toward the sound, as though if he did not acknowledge it, it did not exist.

“M…Michael?” It definitely existed; he let out a little squeal of fright at the sound of his name.  He pulled his head under the thin blanket, wishing himself to be invisible.

“Are you Michael?” the voice pleaded for an answer.  It was a gentle voice, a woman.  It made no sense and only confused him further.  He curled impossibly into an even tighter ball, trembling uncontrollably and trying in vain to stifle the sound of his terrified whimpering.  It was all too much.  It had all been more than he could bear.  The strange machine and the frightening man; he had kicked Madeline!  And the even stranger journey in the Noisy Thing, all through the night, afraid to move, not a word from the stranger until the Noisy Thing stopped in what Michael assumed was a town.  It was completely dark, no moon and even the stars were dim, but he could see the dark outline of buildings all around him and the air was thick with the smell of coal smoke and stale excrement.  The stranger opened the doorway in the Thing and half jumped, half fell through the opening.  He strolled slowly around to the other side, where Michael sat nervously watching the stranger’s every step.  The stranger reached out towards the cab and pulled a lever.  Michael heard a click in the side of the cab as a door opened on this side also.  The stranger reached in to take Michaels arm, but without even thinking, Michael flinched and backed away in panic.  Then the stranger spoke.  “Oh alright then!  Help yourself!  I’ve done all I was meant to.”  Michael had never even considered disobedience before, the possibility did not even enter his head, except for silly little things with Gabriel.  He had never been afraid like this, never even really met a stranger since no one ever came to the Valley House.  This was completely beyond his knowledge and experience and, aside from his almost overwhelming fear of the man, it never occurred to him to do anything other than exactly what he was told.  He slowly crept toward the stranger and the door and carefully jumped down from the cab. 

“That’s better.  This way,” without further ado, the stranger strode off towards a nearby house, Michael running to catch up, no time to pay attention to where he was going, too tired and frightened to take it all in anyhow.  Down a dark flight of stairs to an even darker door, a loose stair with a key underneath, down more dark stairs and into the darkest room Michael had ever seen; the Dungeon.

“This is it,” said the stranger bluntly.  “She’ll be home just after dawn.”  He turned to go back up the stairs before turning back with an afterthought; “I’d get some sleep if I was you.  You must be buggered.”  Michael must have involuntarily shivered, as much at the cold as at the thought of being left here alone, as the stranger paused again just before turning back to the stairs.  He thought for a moment then crossed the room and tore a blanket from the wall revealing a gap where three or four bricks were missing.  It was probably meant to be a window.  “Here.  This’ll have to do you till she gets here.  I’ve done more than I was paid for.”  And with that, he turned and disappeared in a heartbeat, taking the stairs two at a time.  Michael had not moved and stood, nailed to the spot, staring after the stranger.

The same blanket now protected him, huddled in the corner of the dungeon, hiding from a woman who somehow knew his name.  This must be the “she” the stranger was talking about.  “She” had not moved from where she had stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

Rachel stared longingly at the trembling form against the wall.  She asked the question but did not need confirmation.  She could feel it to the core of her being.  This was Michael.  Her every waking thought for over a decade had been on this boy.  She had saved every penny she could spare to one day save him, and here he was, in her room, in her life!  The elation was intoxicating and she lost the uncertain grip she had on her self-control.  She fell to her knees where she stood and began to weep with joy.  Within moments she was sobbing uncontrollably; she had him back!  It had been so long but she had finally taken back her boy, her one and only precious son.

Ruth stared blankly at the habit of the Sister kneeling in the row in front of her.  She did not understand at all.  What was happening?  Nothing made sense.  Michael disappearing, Gabriel gone crazy and run away.  And Sister Elizabeth pretending that nothing had happened.  She had asked Ruth again this morning if she had seen Gabriel.  Ruth noticed again that she had not asked about Michael.  Ruth knew this was significant but had no idea why.  “No, Holy Mother,” she had replied.  “I could not have seen him, I came straight to Mass as always this morning.”  This was indeed the case, and Ruth noted with suppressed alarm that neither of the boys was present.  She had harboured a secret hope that the events of last night were nothing more than another strange dream.  But this was no dream, a fact confirmed by Sister Elizabeth’s strange behaviour.  Her eyes had lingered on Ruth for a moment after her reply, as though searching for another answer.  It almost seemed for a moment that a secret message passed between the two, each seeming to acknowledge that the other knew more than she would ever reveal.  Ruth found it disturbing, but even more disturbing was what followed.  When dividing into classes following morning mass, the Sister did not seem to notice that the boys were missing, or at least she happily ignored the fact, as though the boys had never existed.  One thing was certain; nothing at the Valley House would ever be the same again.  Ruth swallowed the rising lump in her throat and resumed the Lord’s Prayer.

“Are you a prisoner too?” asked the tear streaked, dirty little face peeking from under a rag in the corner.  She must be a prisoner – she was crying.  Torturers and jailers didn’t cry, at least not in any of the stories Michael had heard.  She sniffled loudly and looked over at him long and hard.  Her head dropped again as she chuckled slightly.  “I suppose I am in a way.”  She drew a deep shuddering breath, bringing her tears under control.  Standing abruptly and looking again at Michael, she put her hands on her hips.  “But not in the way you think.  This is my home.  I know it’s no Valley House but I’ve done the best I could with it,” she said with a cheeky smirk, “and you’re not a prisoner.”  Michael’s jaw dropped – how did she know about Valley House?  And if he wasn’t a prisoner, why was he here?  There were too many questions.  He chose one at random, and added a few that wouldn’t stay in.

“Who are you?  Where am I?  What’s going on?”  All came out in a rush.  She gave him a patient smile then turned toward the crate and the pot and the fire pit.  “Well,” she began as she removed the items from the top of the crate, placed them inside the pot, and lifted the top of the crate like a lid, “my name is Rachel.  You might not remember me but I’ve known you since before  you were born.”  She took a few lumps of coal and some twigs from the crate and took them to the fire pit.  Michael was astonished!  “You knew my mother?” he asked in wonder.  “Knew her?”  Her match hung in the air and she turned to him, puzzled by his question.  “I know her!  What do you mean?”  Both of them thought the same thing:  this was all a cruel joke.  It had to be.  Michael spoke first.

“My mother is dead.  And my father.  They died while I was still a baby.  You can’t still know her.”

Rachel was taken aback.  She had told him that?  The cruelty of it made her speechless.  How could she!  She blinked and turned back to her small fire as she realised; how could she have said anything else.  Rachel had abandoned the child.  She was running for her life but she had intended to return as soon as she could support him.  She had not expected it to take over a decade.  Elizabeth would have had no choice.  The ‘orphan’ would ask about his parents and she would have to answer.  The truth was not an option, then or now.  “Of course,” she answered, removing the contents of the pot, returning them to the crate and taking various small and wrinkled vegetables from the pocket of her apron.  “You’re right.  I’m sorry.  Would you like something to eat?”  A change of conversation was in order.  She needed time to consider this new development, to think about how to tell him, or even whether to tell him at all.

Mrs Mary Griffith, cook at the isolated Valley House for most of her long life, bumped and jostled on the hard seat of the old cart, her ample buttocks cushioning the impact of all but the biggest bumps.  She despised the lengthy trip to town but enjoyed the break from the kitchen even more.  It was a full day’s trip, leaving and returning in semi-darkness.  It was just after midday and there were only about another ten miles to go.  In another mile, the cart would mount the crest of the last hill and start heading downhill again revealing the town lying in the lowlands below.  It had become a warm sunny day after a frosty night and early morning and the sunshine cheered her into an attempt at whistling.  She stopped abruptly and began to reign in the pony when she noticed something in the road ahead.  It appeared to be a large branch or strangely shaped stone.  This was not a good sign.  If she couldn’t move the obstruction, she would have to turn back.  No one else ever used this road.  It only existed to provide access to the Valley House from either end of the valley.  Another road went around the far side of the hills, which was properly maintained and wider, not to mention a fraction of the distance.  And no one from the Valley House was permitted to leave the Valley except Mary herself, so there was no point in waiting for someone stronger to come along to help her.  No one would come.  The wagon bounced to a halt and Mary laboriously edged her enormous bulk to the side and plopped to the ground.  She waddled up to the boulder like an angry mother goose, indignant that nature would be so inconsiderate, and gave it a shove with her foot, testing whether she could move it by herself.  She leapt back with a squeal and turned illogically to the pony for protection as the boulder flinched, rolled over and peered through weary, startled eyes to look at her defensively!  The boy, as the boulder soon became, had been woken by Mary’s callous shove and was now struggling to find his feet.  He took a few hurried unsteady steps before his legs gave way and he continued on his hands and knees, clawing at the dust of the road, desperate for the safety of the woods, yet physically unable to reach them fast enough.  Mary was still recovering from the sudden movement of the boulder when she again caught its eye.  It couldn’t be!  But surely no two boys could be so alike.  But why would Gabriel be out here?  He should be in an examination at that very moment.  As she stared in wonder at the emaciated doppelganger she made an unconscious decision; it didn’t matter why he was here, she had to get him back to the House.  Even if this wasn’t Gabriel, he obviously needed help.  She strode towards the boy as quickly as she could manage, a little lighter on her feet than before.  She wrapped one arm around his waist and ducked her head under his shoulder.  He flinched away but was too weak to struggle.  She supported him back to the wagon then dropped the rear gate and helped him to lay on a pile of cabbages, originally intended for the market in town, now a makeshift sickbed.  Heaving her bulk up behind the reigns, she carefully manoeuvred the vehicle to face the way it had come and urged the pony forward at a pace to ensure they would get home in safety but as soon as possible.

They almost didn’t make it.  Looking over her shoulder as the light faded she saw the boy trembling violently.  He was very ill.  She slapped the reigns hard against the pony’s back.  Caution was no longer a priority. 

She pulled the wagon in hard in the darkness as it approached the gate to the Valley House; a lone Sister had leapt out of the way with a gasp at the last moment or the wagon would have gone right over her.  Mary pulled the wagon to a stop, in part to check that the sister had not been injured; also because if she was in one piece, the Sister could help Gabriel.

Elizabeth rushed to her feet and frantically shook the dust out of her habit, rapidly concocting her excuses for being out of doors at this hour.  She spun around when she heard the footsteps rushing toward her, mouth open, ready to blurt out the first thing that came to mind.  Out of the darkness hands gripped her firmly.  “Sister! Are you alright? It’s me, Mary.  I’ve found a boy!”