Read Online Shadowboxer by Tricia Sullivan - Free Book Online

phone was ringing.
    Mya’s breath caught as she saw Mr. Richard’s body slumped across the desk. As she approached, she saw with relief that he was breathing. A smear of saliva lay on the formica counter by his open lips. Jars and bottles were open. The sleeping computer screensaver cycled images of gods and animals from old temple artwork.
    The phone rang and rang. Mr. Richard had obtained a charger for it and plugged it into the wall socket. Did password-protected mean you needed a password to answer it, or just to make calls?
    Mya picked it up and pressed the green button. The ringing stopped. She said nothing, but listened.
    The voice was familiar, like the back of her hand, like the edge of sleep, like—
    ‘Mya? Mya, I know you are there.’
    Mya knew this voice. And the woman was speaking Burmese.
    Mya’s heart fluttered. ‘Mother?’
    There was a silence, in which Mya decided that maybe she was wrong. Maybe the voice was not quite right. But it had been a year since she’d heard her mother’s voice. Maybe...
    ‘Mother?’
    ‘Mya, listen. There isn’t much time.’
    ‘Where are you? Mother, where are you?’
    There was a pause. Mya burst into tears.
    ‘Stop crying. Listen to me. Write this down. Quickly. Write down this password.’
    ‘Password?’
    ‘For the phone. Write it down.’
    Mya grabbed an envelope and wrote down the Western letters and numbers with a ballpoint pen.
    ‘Now listen to me. You have to get out of there. Take this phone and go. Now.’
    ‘But, Mother, where are you?’
    ‘It’s not where, it’s when... Mya, I can’t explain. Just go!’
    The line cut off. Tears streaming down her face, Mya pressed buttons randomly in a desperate attempt to get the voice back. But it was no use.
    Mr. Richard stirred.
    Mya was sweating but her fingertips felt icy cold. As if he suddenly sensed her there, Mr. Richard jerked awake. He recognized her and relaxed.
    ‘What time is it?’
    Mya had slid the phone behind her back, but it was still plugged in and if he woke up properly, he’d see the wire trailing to Mya’s side. And she still had a pen in her left hand. The slip of paper sat on the table beside the keyboard, the nonsensical selection of letters and numbers that would unlock the reporter’s phone.
    Where was she supposed to go? Her mother hadn’t told her anything. Mya couldn’t just run into the woods...
    A memory came to Mya. Her mother’s voice, the words she had spoken while they were in the prison camp.
    ‘ When the soldiers first came I should have sent you to run away into the forest. You might have had a chance, then—the forest is your place, Mya. Here there is no chance. If I could do it again I would send you to the trees.’
    Mya took a long breath. Her mother hadn’t warned her to run back then, but the voice on the phone was telling her to go to the forest now. It was a sign. She could run blindly, just take off and leave it all behind.
    With a quick, sneaky tug she pulled the connector out of the phone behind her back. The cord drooped noiselessly. Mr. Richard was rubbing his eyes and turning in his chair. Taking the paper with its inscrutable letters, she took a half-step back. A smell of decaying meat roiled around his body.
    ‘I need to take something,’ he murmured, patting the surfaces around him for medicine. ‘I’m so tired.’
    Then his eyes lit on the scrap of paper in her hand. She had taught herself English letters, albeit not very well.
    ‘What are you writing?’ he said, and in the same moment he spotted the dangling power cord. ‘Did you touch that phone? Where is it?’
    Mya backed away, into the prayer room. This was her last chance to make an excuse, hand over the phone, cooperate with Mr. Richard in his magic.
    ‘Mya, what are you doing? Give me the phone,’ he rasped. The drug he took to make himself so wonderful and big and magnetic—it had worn off. Suddenly he looked and sounded as withered as he truly was.
    He came toward her with