The flicker of the lamp drew Matthew's attention. In his dingy, windowless dungeon it was the only source of light and comfort. It was mesmerizing. He so desperately wanted to get closer, to feel its warmth. He tugged at the chain digging into his ankle, wishing for something to pick the lock. There was nothing.

Matthew set his eyes on the printing press looming in front of him, then glanced over at the others, the seats next to each one as empty as they were the previous day and the day before that. Precisely how long they had been without an occupant he couldn't say. Days blended together. He missed the other children.

Disheartened, Matthew lowered his head and stared at the name etched on his seat, a splintered and weathered piano bench. He knew nothing about this Alex and neither did the others. Was Alex a child who had come before them? Were the others with Alex now?

Rubbing his hands together, Matthew began to softly whistle. He then went back to work.

Outside, a full moon cascaded its beautiful radiance over the manor, making it sparkle. Its moss-speckled stone glinted, its windows gleamed, and copper chimney pots dazzled like gems. It was early summer and a cool breeze tickled the surrounding trees, making their leaves shimmer. A few small wispy clouds flittered through the sky, trying to catch up to the carpet on the horizon.

A woman stood on the front step of the manor, staring out at the small town of Eagle Falls below her. This woman, Miss Thorn, was caring and a pillar of the community. Or so many who had come to know her would have described her. Matthew, on the other hand, knew the truth about the owner of Bordash Manor Retirement Home, and so did her devoted, colluding staff.

Miss Thorn suddenly spun around on the spot, on the ball of her boot. She opened the manor's oaken front door and slithered through. It was time for Matthew's dinner.

Being that he was a growing young boy and laboring nonstop every single day, Matthew was always hungry, his stomach constantly rumbling, grumbling, gurgling, bubbling and even hissing. Still, he didn't like mealtime.

Downstairs in the cellar ten minutes later, Matthew heard footfalls. He quickly stopped his whistling and inspected the freshly cut twenty dollar bills he had just printed.

There was a noise outside the cellar door. Then, Miss Thorn burst through.

'Were you whistling?' she snarled, a bucket in her hand and an apron now over her long plain, frumpy brown dress. Her boots had been replaced with sandals.

Miss Thorn was tall and middle-aged. She had a severe face and greying hair that she wore in a bun.

'No, ma'am,' lied Matthew. 'It was my printing press. It's acting up again.'

Miss Thorn eyed him suspiciously before saying, 'Does it still work?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'It better. Did you finish?'

'Yes, ma'am. My quota is in the sack plus a thousand dollars more.' He wasn't expecting any praise.

Miss Thorn grunted and shuffled over to him. She took out a set of keys from her pocket and riffled through them. When Matthew was free from his shackles, she said, 'You know the drill.'

Matthew wasn't chained up so he wouldn't escape. It was so he would stay in his seat and do his work. Anyway, it was impossible to escape. The manor had too many security cameras. Matthew did try to escape once, but it didn't end well. Getting stuck in the manor's garbage chute was extremely uncomfortable.

Up from his piano bench, Matthew walked over to the wall behind him. He stood up straight, shifted his feet so they were perfectly perpendicular, lifted his chin up and put his arms by his side. He was to stay like that until Miss Thorn said otherwise. Dodging and defending were not allowed.

Meanwhile, Miss Thorn took up her own position in front of him and rolled up the sleeves of her dress. She reached into her bucket and pulled out a boiled potato the size of a tennis ball.

Although Miss Thorn had plenty of practice, she was very poor at throwing. And this time was surely her worst throw yet. The boiled potato shot up and struck the ceiling, coming down with a thud only inches away from her sandals. The next few boiled potatoes after that were no better at hitting their mark. The burnt piece of toast, though, which Miss Thorn threw like a discus, ricocheted off a printing press and grazed Matthew's head.

Matthew made the most out of it. He knew it would put Miss Thorn in a better mood. A better mood was still bad, but it was better. It was a trick he had learned from the others. 'Ow,' he screamed. 'You got me, ma'am. You got me.'

'Darn tooting I did,' grinned Miss Thorn.

As soon as Matthew had eaten all the food off the floor, it was time for his next chore. While the old residents slept, he was to clean the manor. When the other children were around, it took no time at all, but now, Matthew had to do it all by himself. So, after a wash, getting the printing ink off his hands, he got to it.

Matthew walked through the cellar door and up a set of stone steps. Then through a secret door at the back of a fireplace engraved with a long twisting dragon, he entered Miss Thorn's office, a wood-paneled room with many statues and vases of varying shapes and sizes.

Miss Thorn was there, bobbing away on her rocking chair and listening to her radio. The local nightly news was on.

Matthew picked up the feather duster that had been left for him and began dusting the vases. It wasn't long, however, before he was interrupted. He thought Miss Thorn's bellow of rage was his fault, possibly dusting incorrectly, which he had been yelled at before for doing, but that wasn't it. What had caused Miss Thorn's outburst was her radio.

'It's the second time today this has happened,' barked Miss Thorn, a large vein growing on her forehead, meaning she was more than annoyed. 'This morning and now.'

Matthew just realized the sound of static was blaring out from the radio instead of the news.

'Two weeks I've had this radio,' said Miss Thorn, her voice getting louder, 'two stinking weeks. Two stinking bloody weeks and it's already bust. I should have never bought this at Taylor's Electronics. Taylor is a dodgy man who sells dodgy things. So why did I buy the radio from him? Why? I should wring that stupid, imbecilic neck of his until he's eating out of a straw. Before I get my money back, though.'

A voice suddenly came out from the radio, and it wasn't the newswoman's. 'Hello? Hello?' There was then more static.

Who was that, thought Matthew, taken aback?

Miss Thorn wondered the same. 'Who in the blazes was that?' she shouted, launching out of her rocking chair. She stormed over to the radio, picked it up and began shaking it as if she was wringing a neck. Then, after placing it down, she started banging it with the palms of her hands.

Matthew couldn't help but crack a smile.

After a really hard whack, the news came back on. ' . . . and the swarm of bees have made a home at the base of Eagle Falls' historic water tower,' said the newswoman. 'So, if you don't want to get stung, you should stay away. We contacted the reeve's office and they said an exterminator will be at the water tower sometime tomorrow afternoon to take care of the bees.'

The dining room was the next room to clean. It was a large room with a stage on one side, a dance floor in the middle, and too many tables and chairs everywhere else. Miss Thorn didn't follow Matthew, but stayed in her office.

By the time his legs started to ache, Matthew was done with the dining room. And all he wanted to do now was just sit down for a few seconds, but he dared not do that. He worried someone might see him, even though he was quite sure nobody would. At any rate, he wanted to finish the manor as quick as he could so he could go to sleep as soon as possible. The thought of closing his eyes for a few hours of constant rest felt like paradise to him.

The entrance hall was third on the list, but first, Matthew had to take out the dining room's trash. So with seven garbage bags, two to a hand, one wedged under each armpit, and one balanced on his head, he headed to the back of the manor, taking the many halls and corridors. Apart from the faint sounds of snoring from a few of the old residents, the ticking of a grandfather clock, the low muffle of Miss Thorn's radio, and the squeaking of Matthew's shoes, the place was quiet.

The garbage chute was right across from Apartment 20. That was where Mr and Mrs Jacobs lived. Mr Jacobs was the manor's maintenance man and mechanic. Printing presses were his specialty.

Matthew tried to be as silent as possible, but when he opened the flap covering the garbage chute, barely giving off the tiniest of sounds, the door to Apartment 20 opened with a creak. He didn't know why he even attempted to be silent, for Mr Jacobs always heard him.

Mr Jacobs was an ugly beast. He had bushy, unkept eyebrows, crooked yellow teeth and a huge gut that dangled and jiggled. In one hand he was holding a large bag of sour cream and onion chips and in the other a sweater.

'Wash this,' Mr Jacobs said, and he tossed the humungous, foul-smelling garment at Matthew, making him stagger backwards.

Matthew was quite impressed he held onto all the garbage bags.

Mr Jacobs laughed like a hyena before retreating back into his apartment. Clearly he liked throwing things at Matthew as well.

Once disposing of the garbage bags, Matthew went to wash Mr Jacobs' sweater in the laundry room. He did it by hand. There were many washing machines he could have used, but he once made the mistake of using one to wash Mr Jacobs' sweater on a previous occasion and it didn't turn out well. The washing machine had made such an awful racket and Mr Jacobs' sweater shrunk so much a baby couldn't have worn it.

After hanging up Mr Jacobs' sweater to dry, Matthew went to the entrance hall, where Mrs Jacobs was doing some paperwork. Mrs Jacobs was Miss Thorn's assistant.

The entrance hall was twice the size of the dining room. The floor was a blanket of white marble, paintings with golden frames adorned the walls (there was a portrait of Miss Thorn), and a chandelier hung down from the high ceiling. Matthew didn't have to clean the chandelier that night, which he was very grateful for.

From behind the manor's front desk, which was stationed near the front door, Mrs Jacobs, a mousey creature who used too much hair spray and wore pince nez glasses, said to Matthew, 'Miss your brat pals, don't you?'

The other children weren't brats, far from it, but yes, he did miss them. He missed Julia and Trevor the most. He missed them nearly as much as his family.

'Excuse me. I'm talking to you.'

'I don't miss my pals, ma'am.' Matthew didn't want to give her the satisfaction. He felt like running over and breaking her glasses.

'Liar,' Mrs Jacobs breathed loudly, an evil smile gracing her face. 'You'll never see them again.' She laughed. If a chipmunk could laugh, it would have sounded like that.

It took hours to clean the rest of the manor, forty-two rooms in all, including the library, the south library, the study, the music room and the games room. But before Matthew could go to sleep, to his paradise, there was one last thing for him to do, and it was the worst of the worst.

Miss Thorn was still listening to her radio in her office. A man's voice, soft but powerful, was narrating a story about a murder in an English country estate, a series Miss Thorn loved tuning in to.

Miss Thorn was at her desk, counting the counterfeit money Matthew had made that day. 'I just can't get over how much less money my hands are touching since I was left with just you,' she said, not even looking at Matthew. She gave out a heavy sigh that transformed into a long yawn. 'Did you wash your hands?'

Matthew yawned himself, hiding it, then answered, 'Yes, ma'am.'

Miss Thorn finished counting a thick stack of bills. 'Good. Let's get started.'

While Matthew went to a cupboard to retrieve a bottle of foot lotion, Miss Thorn walked over to her rocking chair, sat down and removed her sandals.

'Hurry up,' snapped Miss Thorn, and Matthew came scurrying over, getting to his knees in front of her.

Miss Thorn's feet were hairy, gnarled with clumps of dead skin and warts, and smelled like rotten brussel sprouts had been mixed with rancid, moldy cheese. Her foot lotion was even worse. That stuff burned Matthew's nose and throat, and made his eyes prickle as if someone was poking them with a thousand needles. There were no words to describe it, but he had fainted the first time he smelled it.

Holding his breath, Matthew opened the bottle, poured some of the foot lotion, a thick, gritty, charcoal colored substance, in his hand and began massaging Miss Thorn's disgusting feet.

Half an hour it lasted. And the moment Matthew was done, finishing off by wrapping Miss Thorn's feet in bandages, Miss Thorn got up and walked over to the fireplace. She then pressed the nose of the engraved dragon.

The secret door slowly grinded open.

'On you go,' Miss Thorn said, flipping a light switch next to the fireplace. It was the switch for the lamp in the secret cellar.

Matthew got up from the floor, hurried to the secret door, slipped through alone, and shuffled down the stairs. The reason for his eagerness was he wanted to get to his piano bench, also his bed, before Miss Thorn turned the light off. However, the moment he took a few steps into the secret cellar, the light went out. Miss Thorn always turned the light off too soon.

Like all children, Matthew was scared of the dark and just froze. When he didn't hear anything that sounded dangerous, a lurking monster perhaps, he began to feel his way to the piano bench. Several stubbed toes and bashed elbows later, he made it.

Paradise at last.

Up on the second floor sometime later, in her apartment, Miss Thorn slowly brushed her hair, liking what she saw in the mirror. She liked her reflection, her four-poster bed, the jewelry in front of her, the photograph of the big mustachioed man hanging on the wall, and the tiger skin rug on the floor.

Smiling, she placed her hairbrush down and got up from her chair. She then meandered over to the window and gazed over to the water tower beyond town. She saw lights. There was someone there.

'It must be the exterminator,' she said, and closed the curtains.

Was she ever so wrong.