Whiteland

by Rosie Cranie-Higgs

  Editor: Rebecca Rue

  Proofreader: Lana King

  WHITELAND

  Copyright © 2020 Rosie Cranie-Higgs

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please write to the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by BHC Press

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018968483

  ISBN: 978-1-948540-72-8 (Hardcover)

  ISBN: 978-1-948540-73-5 (Softcover)

  ISBN: 978-1-948540-74-2 (Ebook)

  For information, write:

  BHC Press

  885 Penniman #5505

  Plymouth, MI 48170

  Visit the publisher:

  www.bhcpress.com

  ‘Whither away?’ roared the North Wind.

  ‘To Whiteland,’ said the King;

  and then he told him all that had befallen him.

  ‘The Three Princesses of Whiteland,’

  East of the Sun and West of the Moon,

  Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe

  Too small. Too warm. Sparks flicker behind her eyes, and sleepless, she stares at the ceiling. It’s dark, as black as black can be, but the roof slopes down and the room closes in. Beams jut toward her. The air is thick and heavy. Her heart constricts. She has to go.

  Romy sits up. There’s no light but the diamond through the shutters, no sound but Kira’s breathing in the neighbouring bed. Too close. Too small. The breathing crowds her ears. The cuckoo clock ticks in the corner, whirring closer to the hour. In the next room sounds a mirror bird, faintly out of time.

  Romy’s temples throb. The need to breathe is too strong to resist. Gritting her teeth, she sweeps away the bedclothes, a cocoon of blankets half a foot high. Kira sighs in sleep. The bed creaks as Romy rolls over. She slips from the room like a wraith.

  The fire at the end of the corridor crackles, the logs smouldering to cinders and ash. Moving blind down the wooden hall, Romy creaks down the old, cold stairs to the restaurant. The bar is shut, the tables deserted; post-midnight moonlight shines through the curtains as she moves barefoot among the chairs. Each place is set. Romy shivers. It’s eerier than she would have expected; in the sharpened, listening silence, she could be the only soul alive.

  There should be dancers. The instant she thinks it, they’re there: a 1920s American party, a masquerade ball in a madman’s mind. Tables of women in shimmering dresses, surrounded by long-nosed masks. Leering eyes, bow ties, the scent of ravaged food and lust. The bar shines with spilt liquor. Two ladies twirl, around and around, one in red and one in black with glistening, candlelit curls. Their skirts brush a drunkard’s stool. Their heels click to a gramophone. Maniacal laughter echoes in corners. The gramophone keens on.

  Silhouettes dance where there are no bodies. Voices exclaim where there are no mouths. The lace curtains flutter in a moonlit breeze. Romy blinks.

  The scene fades out. Laughter escapes through gaps in the shutters, ghosts melting into rough wooden walls. A curtain sighs by an open window. Blinking again, Romy rubs her eyes. She should go back to bed; insomnia is often better than scaring herself in the dark. Heavens above, tonight she might sleep.

  And I’m the son of a serpent. Romy shoves her disquiet beneath a table. No imagined ghosts will make her suffocation leave. She needs to touch the open air, to breathe without walls, to stop her very self from pressing against her skin like bugs in her veins.

  First, though, she needs to make a pit stop. The idea arrives in a flash, and skirting the coat stand, she slips behind the bar. Three short towers of closed-bottle crates, upended spirits, and a low fridge clinking with lesser evils. They blink at her sleepily, her partners in crime. But who will win the jackpot? Who will get the prize?

  Her eyes land on the second tower. Green glass bottles of a burgundy liquid, sidling close in a game of Sardines. ‘You, my pretties,’ she murmurs. ‘Huzzah.’

  Careful not to clink too loudly, she manoeuvres one to the fore. Sumptuous, wicked perfection; it’s full. Shifting it lightly from hand to hand, Romy heads through the dusty moonlight to the door.

  Chimes on the handle. Romy winces; she’d forgotten. They jar the quiet like nails on glass, and she bumps her hasty way out. The door snicks shut behind her. No way is she getting caught now.

  Into a jog up the sloping drive, through the open gates. Her toes stick to the ice. Her skin is already chapping, raw. Coming to a stop behind a hedge, Romy sighs in the wind of the winter’s night. Now. Now she can breathe.

  And now she’s pretty damn cold. Snow falls softly on her head, and she shivers. No shoes, no coat; just a pair of short pyjamas. Idiot. Cretin. Buffoon.

  Wanderess. She shakes the snow from her scalp and the chill from her mind, forcing herself to shrug. It’s not the end of the world; in fact, it feels good. The numbing cold, her piercing focus…the claustrophobic room and the stuffy evening fire are softly falling away.

  Better an ice queen than suffocated. Curling her toes against the cold, Romy walks.

  Up the face of the mountain, where yesterday’s snowstorm blankets the ground. Across the cogwheel train line, tiptoeing through the night on its way to the summit. Onto the treacherous, icy road. The forest? Romy chafes her numbing arms. Why the hell not? It’s barely a one-cow village, let alone a one-horse town.

  Romy shivers. The Jäger slops inside the bottle, and she takes a healthy swig. Another, even healthier. It hits her with its spicy warmth, and a laugh bubbles up, from her belly to her lips. Her body is catching fire.

  And the snow no longer burns. ‘More!’ She throws up her arms. The echo travels. Liquid trickles down her wrist. Let the whole village hear; it doesn’t matter. She’s free. So what if she can’t feel her nose? Her toes?

  Her toes. She rolls her eyes down. Ten disconnected bulges, they’re a ghastly shade of purple.

  Romy snorts. She can’t do much about the purple, but the road beneath the purple…it draws her in, so vivid, so sheer, reflecting the moonlight back to the mountains and lessening the dark of the pines. So clear. So still. Not warm. Not small. Not stealing her breath. It’s welcome as it chills her, as it clears her fear and fills it with a drunken haze.

  What if Kira wakes up? a little voice whispers. What if Mum and Dad do, and find her gone? Guilt twinges hot, but Romy kicks it away. They’ll do what they always do: sigh, search, chastise, and forget. It’ll be over and done with by lunchtime.

  Romy wipes her thoughts clean with a drink. She’s sick of their sad suggestions of help, of their let-down, drooping mouths. Sick of being a problem with a capital ‘P,’ of hearing something’s wrong—can’t she see, she’s wrong. All she needs is solitude, atmosphere, life. All she needs is this.

  The wild. The wind picks up with a moan, lifting her hair to brush her arms. Romy smiles. Long and blonde against her skin, it’s perfect: she’s an ice princess, a snow queen, an otherworldly elf. Slowly rotating, she watches it drift. Beautiful. Her.

  She takes a swig and carries on. The warmth seeps through her skin to her bones. She gulps again, again, tilting her face to the sky. The falling snow thickens, spattering her skin. Alcohol flies as her arms stretch wide, spattering the ground. It’s a waste, but who gives a shit? She feels. She can breath
e.

  She can be. Catching snowflakes on her tongue, she slowly turns around. Around and around, around and around. It’s unbelievably dizzying. She swigs and staggers on.

  Where she is matters less with every step. Her mind is calm now, as frozen as her limbs, and it’s wonderful. The road widens into the empty car park, and that’s wonderful, too. With stark, gleaming hills to one side, the stiff forest line to the other, and shrouded tyre tracks in the centre, it’s deserted, inviting, and dark. So dark.

  A track leads onto open fields. Romy ceases her stumble in a vague attempt to focus. That way lie ski trails, fox prints, and deer. Lanterns hang from two low cabins, staining the surrounding hills. Moonlight slides across the snow.

  Not tonight. Peering through the bluish light, Romy slugs from the bottle. Tonight, it’s tree time. Tall pines, sweet in scent, swaying toward her in welcome… She squints, but still, they sway. Calling, luring, seductive, tarry-hearted, and heady. The mountain, all elitist fields and hostile hills, light and bright and cold, doesn’t stand a chance.

  ‘We dance around the halls as ghosts…’ Bypassing a snuffling fox, Romy mumbles into song. ‘With dimes upon our eyes.’ She stumbles across Motalles and up the snowy bank to the forest. A hitching giggle burbles out of her. ‘You are just a nightmare creature, and an imbecile as—’

  A woodpile looms on the edge of the trees. She lurches out of its way. ‘Rude.’ She blows a raspberry at it. She’s a child again, playing outside in the first snow of winter. She could make snow angels; she could build a snowman.

  Or she could find the Jäger. Romy flexes her fingers. In her lurching, she appears to have dropped it. She frowns at the blurry dark.

  It’s on her foot. The pain is a distant pulse. Squinting again, Romy scoops up the bottle before all the liquid can spill. Red on her skin, blood on the snow—a spray from a knife, a spray from a gun. Holding her bounty tighter than ever, she rocks away into the trees.

  At least, she tries. The moon doesn’t cut through the crowding branches, and after eons of wading, everything is black. Unsteady, unsure, Romy wobbles to a halt. The gap where she entered the forest is gone. She’s forging her own damn path.

  As ever. Romy rocks and sways. All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. She’s a blur, afloat. Is any of this even real?

  Just drink.

  But everything is spinning, and her body is unwieldy. The snow reels each time she sinks into it. The faraway treetops dance the foxtrot, and even her trusted bottle, which she had such a tight hold on, has forsaken her again. Romy pulls a feverish face. Why is the spinning so violent?

  Her dead toes clump something hard. Her head swoons, distant and hot, and a well-placed log grabs lecherously, sending her sprawling to the ground. Her chin thumps snow. Whiplash. The scrape of wood against skin is dull. Just as dully, Romy rolls over, drawing her throbbing legs to her chest. Maybe she should stay here; maybe she will. The soft powder cools her cheek, and she’s slumping into a burrow. It’s too dark to find the hotel, anyway.

  A giggle burbles. No; it’s not too dark. She’s too drunk. Another giggle plops from her mouth, and she nestles into the powder. Conviction blooms with her lethargy. Why not stay here and sleep? She’s so tired suddenly, so close to passing out. The wind on her skin is lulling. Why leave?

  She’s cold. A distant echo tells her this, a ricochet in her mind. She’s far too cold. Not only this, but something, somewhere, is telling her she mustn’t stay. She mustn’t close her eyes. Something, somewhere, is wrong.

  Get up. The thought is thick. Before it can be snatched away, she lifts her weighty, snow-patterned head. Get up.

  Okay. Planting her invisible hands in the snow, Romy presses down. Her arms sink to her elbows. ‘Rude,’ she mumbles thickly. Trembling, she tries again. Snow fills her pyjamas. Frozen clumps roll down her belly, her thighs. It’s not soft anymore. It’s hard. It’s cold.

  She’s a marionette, her head lost to the moon. It takes three, four tries, but propping herself against the tree, she blows out a sour breath. Everything dances a violent dance, but she’ll do it. She’ll stand; she’ll leave the forest; she’ll find the hotel. Something, somewhere, is wrong.

  Blearily, she peers at the darkness. The forest is blacker than her own depression; she’ll have to be a homing pigeon. Does that work with humans? Homing humans? She exhales, long and measured. Her stomach churns. Her tongue is acid. How in all heaven and hell will she ever—

  Her chest and mind sharpen. Flickering through the trees, there’s a light.

  Romy squints. Some of the heat in her head burns off; a light. Coiling two balancing hands around a branch, she squints harder. It flits away as soon as she focuses…but it’s there. A spark? Two sparks…three sparks…four? With an iron grip on the tree and an unexpected push, she clambers to her feet and staggers off.

  Low to the ground and teasing, the lights dance in the dark. Her hair is full of frozen drips. Her trudging feet are blocks. The air in her throat is white hot, rasping. Shivers rattle her spine, but she follows, weaving through shadowy trunks. The bark scours her wavering palms. The lights are always ahead, frolicking, flickering, beckoning, until, after an eternity, she comes to the lip of a low-bottomed clearing and sees. They belong to a fire.

  Abruptly, Romy sits. The flames are fierce, far fiercer than she’d thought, more a bonfire than a handful of sparks. She can feel their heat, taste their smoke, smell their sweetened burn from here. They roar. They are vibrant, tall, and furious, orange and blue and searing white. A sensual dance, hypnotic and light. Her mind starts to fall.

  Oh, but the flames are not alone. Romy’s attention swings aside. Passing in front of the blaze are wisps of air, threads of fog. Pale, frail, swooping smokescreens. She narrows her eyes through the flames. Unease unfurls in her chest, her heart lining up to race. She can’t focus. She has to. What are—

  One of the wisps flits away from the fire. It hovers briefly in midair, and Romy’s lips part. There’s a hand, a head, a whole body even, paler than the snow and opaque. A delicate dress brushes bony ankles, thin hair snaking around willowy limbs. Romy’s head begins to ache. It’s a woman, a gleaming beacon in the dark, and in a flutter, it returns to the fire.

  But now there’s another. Another, and another. Moving with the first, in and through and around the flames, they intertwine until they’re inseparable. Another, and another. They’re a rhythmic spiderweb, a silent ballet, a ritual. A rite.

  Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? The words purr in her head. She’s Alice in Wonderland, stunned and curious, watching unreality unfold. Rapt, entranced, adoring as the women, five, six, more, beautifully pale and eerily elegant, twirl in the leaping flames. They’re on-screen ghosts in a silent movie, acting like she isn’t—

  The first woman turns around and looks her in the eye.

  Romy sucks a frozen breath. Where before there were un-honed swirls, now there’s a fully honed face; a human face of sorts, faint and far away, and as it passes behind the fire, she knows she has to run.

  She’s no longer tired. She’s no longer confused. The something somewhere was right; with a barbed, swooning spike of fear sweeping hot through her body, she knows. If she stays here, she’ll die.

  Using the pine behind her for balance, Romy heaves herself to her feet. Where’s the moon? She needs the moon. If the moon comes out, she’ll believe in God. She’ll convert to scientology, whatever. Her heart thumps, viscous. Her stomach thumps with it. Turning her back on the clearing, she pushes off into the dark.

  No.

  Her head snaps back to the fire. The twinge is vicious, and she lets out a shout.

  Which one?

  The woman with the face is drifting toward her. One hand raised, she’s a breath on the snow, her black eyes fixed upon Romy’s. Which girl?

  Panic swells in Romy’s chest like an overfilled balloon. She tries to shout again, to wrench herself away, but she’s stuck.
She’s a dreamer. Her head is stone. Her feet grow roots, digging deep in the snow. She has no choice but to hold the gaze of the warping, black-eyed face.

  Rosemarie. Drifting closer still, the woman smiles. It twists like gossamer and burns like oil. You’re better than your sister.

  The fire-lit figure drifts to a stop. Poised on the edge of the clearing, she drops her smile.

  The bonfire dies. Romy blinks. The forest falls to darkness. The woman has gone; all the women have gone. Extinguished with the flames, only afterglow remains.

  Her pulse is deafening. The balloon deflates, just enough not to panic. The afterglow won’t fade. Romy takes a stuttering gulp of air, widening her eyes at the dark. The shadows of trees. No trace of the fire. Her heart is an iron fist. She presses a hand to her breastbone. Is it—can she leave?

  The first woman rises from the clearing like a ghost.

  Romy shrieks, veering back. The balloon swells and bursts. Slammed with a terror that screams past panic, she topples, crumples, thumps. Her wrists jar on the flat-packed snow. The blurring head tilts.

  ‘Rosemarie,’ it says in a rasp of leaves. Slowly, it rolls its black eyes toward her. ‘Anneliese. Time to come home.’

  Stretching her mouth to an inhuman gape, the woman starts to scream.

  Anneliese.

  The name echoes like a clap. In an instant, Kira’s awake. Anneliese.

  Romy.

  Her sister isn’t here. She can tell before she opens her eyes. There’s no angry sighing or rocking of the headboard as she thrashes; no tangled kicking of the blankets so they thump to the floor. No cursing of the cuckoo clock, on the hour, every hour. Kira reaches for her phone: 9:34 a.m.

  Well, that’s a first. She sets the phone down on the mattress. Romy, rising of her own accord, leagues from midday? No way.