Chapter 7 - The Room Without Shadows
Lily-Rose’s bedroom was located on the second floor at the end of a long, quiet hallway. Unlike the rest of the house, which was packed with camera gear, light stands, and prop crates, her room was unnaturally bare.
The walls were painted a soft, flat eggshell white that reflected light evenly without creating hot spots. There were no posters on the walls, no framed drawings, no messy shelves piled high with stuffed animals. Every toy in the room had been cataloged, labeled with a barcode, and stored in clear plastic bins that Arthur kept locked inside a closet. A toy was only allowed out of the closet if it was featured in a scene.
She sat on the edge of her small twin bed, wearing plain white cotton pajamas. Her hair had been brushed out, the tight ringlets dissolved into a soft, wavy mane of blonde hair that fell around her small shoulders. Her skin felt dry and tight from the primer and the cold orange juice that had dried on her collar before Eleanor had wiped her down.
She was looking at her hands.
Her small fingers were stained slightly yellow at the cuticle from the food dye Arthur had mixed into the juice. She rubbed her thumb against her index finger, feeling the sticky residue that hadn't quite come off in the quick wash she had been given.
The room had no windows. The natural light that appeared in the bedroom scenes was created by two large daylight-balanced LED panels mounted outside a faux window frame built into the wall. When the panels were turned off, as they were now, the room fell into an absolute, suffocating darkness that had no depth and no boundary.
The door clicked open, a thin strip of yellow light cutting across the carpet floor.
Eleanor stepped inside, holding a small plastic cup containing two green pills and a glass of plain water. She didn't look at Lily-Rose’s face; her eyes were fixed on the small plastic cup in her hand.
"Sit up," Eleanor commanded quietly.
Lily-Rose swung her legs off the bed, her small feet dangling two inches above the floor. She took the plastic cup without a word, tipped her head back, and swallowed the green pills, washing them down with a single gulp of water.
"Did you scrub your knees?" Eleanor asked, leaning down to inspect the child’s legs.
"Yes, Mama."
"The dirt from the hallway scene was still under your fingernails in the last monitor check," Eleanor said, taking the empty glass from her hand. "You need to use the stiff brush under the sink. If the audience sees dirty fingernails in a indoor scene, they think we're neglectful. You know what happens when people think we're neglectful."
"The people on the computer call the police," Lily-Rose recited automatically, her voice flat, repeating a lesson that had been beaten into her memory through repetition since she was three.
"That's right," Eleanor said, her hand reaching out to pat the child’s head once, a gesture that carried all the emotional tenderness of a mechanic tapping a tire. "And if the police come, they take you away to a cold place where there are no toys, no dresses, and no Papa to take care of you. You don't want that, do you?"
"No, Mama."
"Good girl. Go to sleep. We have an early shoot tomorrow. The weather report says it's going to rain, so we're doing the 'looking out the wet window while holding a broken doll' sequence at seven in the morning."
Eleanor turned and stepped back into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her.
May you like
The latch clicked. The strip of yellow light vanished.
Lily-Rose lay back on the mattress, staring up into the absolute blackness of her room. She didn't close her eyes. In the dark, there was no red light glowing from a camera. There were no softboxes heating her skin. There were no voices telling her to smile, to cry, to look pathetic. In the dark, she didn't exist at all, and to Lily-Rose, that non-existence was the closest thing she had ever known to safety.
