They lapse into uncomfortable silence. Not uncomfortable because they’re strangers, but with Romy between them like a corpse set for autopsy, they’re still attracting whispers.
Kira turns her full attention on Romy and tries her best to ignore them. The small, sleeping smile has grown. She’s breathing strong and slow. Kira lifts her eyes beneath their lashes to Callum. It may be wishful thinking, but watching the TV on the wall, playing silent Charmed reruns, his face has smoothed out of its concern.
The staircase grinds into its groaning symphony. Laden with cases, her parents struggle down. ‘How’s everyone doing?’ Mathew deposits his cargo by the bar with a sky-scraping stretch. ‘We need to get ready to go.’ His eyes land on Callum, and he moves toward the sofas. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t say thank you before.’ He holds out his hand. ‘I’m Mathew.’
Gently lowering Romy’s legs to the sofa, Callum stands. ‘Callum.’ He shakes the proffered hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. If my daughter had been rescued by a stranger, I’d be unsociable, too.’
Kira cringes. Mathew bows his head.
‘Still.’ Squeezing Callum’s hand, he lets go. ‘Thank you, for finding her and staying. This happened at the worst possible time.’ He rubs his forehead. ‘Our flight’s at four. Is she definitely okay?’
Somewhere in the hotel, a cuckoo preemptively strikes eleven. ‘She is.’ Callum rocks back on his heels. ‘I work at Les Pléiades most winters, so I’ve dealt with similar things in the past.’
Not from what you just said, you haven’t. Kira narrows her eyes. You and Dad should be friends.
‘People getting lost in the woods.’ Callum is still talking, zipping up his hefty snowboard jacket. ‘People skiing into snowdrifts and getting stuck. It was luck that I found her when I did.’ He looks up toward the tables. Kira follows his gaze: in pride of place behind them, the second cuckoo chimes. It’s large, elaborate, and minute in its detail. She took stacks of photos to paint from.
‘I’m sorry, but I have to go.’ Callum pulls up his hood. The third chimes in. ‘Romy’s recovering really, really well, and I’ve got a posse of four-year-olds waiting to learn to ski. A posse with designer parents, no less.’ He dips his chin: you know the type. ‘They’ll beat me with their Desigual gloves if I start the lesson late.’
Mathew laughs and claps Callum on the shoulder. ‘Not a problem.’ Kira cringes again. ‘Not at all. One question, though.’
Callum lifts an eyebrow.
Mathew smiles. ‘Where in Scotland are you from?’
‘Hub.’ Quietly, Anna steps up beside Mathew. ‘We really have to go.’
Thank God for that. If she could, Kira would crawl into bed and force this bonding to end.
Callum makes his way to the door. ‘Shetland.’ He indicates the outside, swirling with snow. ‘I hope you get home okay. I’m not sure when this is meant to lift.’ He smirks. ‘It was nice to meet you.’
His eyes meet Kira’s. She can’t help a smile. ‘No, it wasn’t,’ she mouths. He snorts.
‘Come on, daughters.’ Mathew taps Kira’s shoulder. ‘Callum’s right; it’ll be a long drive in this weather. Can you get to the car, Romy? I’ll carry you if need—’
‘I’m not going.’
Romy’s voice is dead. Her eyes stay closed. Her face settles back to nothing as soon as the words are out. In the doorway, Callum pauses.
‘Why not?’ Flashing Mathew befuddled bemusement, Anna lays a hand on his back. He responds with a frown like bumps in the road. ‘You always hated it here.’
Romy opens her eyes. Kira stiffens; their flatness is unnatural, dimmer than coins. We dance around the halls as ghosts, with dimes upon our eyes. She rubs one arm. That lyric means death.
‘I’m not,’ Romy repeats, shot cold with insolence, ‘going.’ She looks up at her father, impassive. ‘I refuse.’
Mathew’s frown deepens, becoming valleys, ridges, hills. ‘No, you don’t,’ he says. His words are more surprised than anything else. ‘I don’t think you have a choice. Does she?’
‘No.’ Anna folds her arms. ‘Come on, Romy.’ She flicks her gaze to Kira, and it softens. ‘Kira. Let’s get—’
‘I’m not going!’ Romy screams. Kira flinches into the sofa as her sister jolts upright, her spine cracking violently. ‘Don’t you understand? Are you stupid? No!’ She scrambles over Kira and out of the way, batting at Anna’s arms. ‘I’m not! You can’t make me! I refuse!’
‘Rosemarie, that’s enough.’ Mathew snaps back into control. ‘You’re being ridiculous. Get up.’ He stoops for Romy’s shoulders. Kira backs away, her stomach a seesaw. All at once, she feels sick, unreal. ‘We’re going home.’
‘No!’ Romy yells. With a backwards scramble and a flailing of her legs, she kicks her father in the stomach.
‘Romy!’ Anna shouts. Digging her nails into the sofa, Kira watches in slow-motion horror. Mathew doubles over. Anna grabs his arm. Romy slams angrily back against the cushions. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Never mind that.’ Mathew unbends his middle with a wince. ‘Someone just help me get her in the car.’
He stoops again. She wriggles away.
‘For God’s sake, Romy!’ His voice rises to a shout. ‘Stop it! You’re nearly seventeen.’ He leans toward her. She lifts her foot, taunting, and he flinches back. ‘Christ. Why are you embarrassing yourself? Why are you embarrassing us?’
Just like that, her fury dies. ‘Because you’re not listening,’ she says. Calmly, she tilts her head to one side, smiling a humourless smile. ‘This is perfect.’
It’s a purr, soft and sly. ‘None of you know what’s going on. You’—she flicks lazy fingers at her father—‘think this is the last straw. You look vapid, all stupid blue eyes.’ Kira’s eyes widen farther. Her lungs feel like they’ve risen and shrunk, cowering beneath her chin. ‘And you.’ Romy tuts at her mother. The sneer curves into a darkening smile. ‘You really should have known better.’
‘Romy—’ Anna steps forward.
‘Start listening.’ Romy’s smile drops. Taking her right hand’s fingers in her left, she bends them back with a snap.
Anna shrieks. Kira’s lungs shrivel. All the unturned necks in the restaurant twist. Romy tilts her head to Kira.
‘Bitch,’ she says calmly. ‘It could have been you.’
Romy lashes out. Snatching a fistful of hair, she rakes her nails down Kira’s cheek.
Heat and pain and whiplash.
‘Hey!’ Callum lunges between them. ‘What the hell are you doing? Stop!’ Tearing Kira from Romy’s one-handed grip, he half-carries, half-drags her to the bar. ‘Kira? Are you all right?’
‘“Kira?”’ Romy scoffs. ‘“Are you all right?”’ She pushes herself from the sofa. Her fingers are bloody and knotted with hair. Kira’s head rushes with vertigo. Her hair. Her blood. ‘Why are you protecting her? She’s a bitch. Oh, let’s try our best for Kira, the sun shines out of her arse—’
‘Stop!’ Mathew blocks her path. She flings herself against him. ‘Stop it, Romy!’ He cracks his shin on a coffee table. ‘For Christ’s sake, stop!’
Romy doesn’t stop. Leering at a quickly departing family, she shoulders past her father and makes for the bar. ‘Get off me!’ she spits. Catching her arms, he whips her back around. ‘Let me go! I need to—’
‘You need to calm down.’ His knuckles are strained and pale, holding her in place. ‘That’s what you need to do.’
‘Get off me!’
‘Stop it!’ Mathew shakes her, hard. ‘Why did you attack your sister? What’s going—ah!’
Romy’s teeth snap at her father’s arm, and Mathew jerks away. ‘No, no!’ He snatches her back before she darts out of reach.
Her blue-murder howl jolts Kira back to earth. She could be an animal, primal, a fiend. Kira stumbles back. Callum shoves her behind him with rough, iron fingers. Around his shoulder, the hotel is bedlam. By the sofas, Anna covers her mouth. A stream of guests make for the door. Hysterical and
ashen, Romy fights their father, one hand bent and broken. The other whacks his chest.
‘Oof.’ Mathew closes his eyes, tightens his grip, and opens them. ‘Right.’ Catching Kira’s stare, he sets his jaw, hauling Romy toward him. ‘Let’s go.’
Romy bellows like a bull. Hoisting her up and over his shoulder, Mathew staggers toward the stairs.
The bellowing echoes down even once they’re out of sight. Kira drops her eyes to Callum’s shoulder. Her cheek is hot and pulsing. Her torn scalp is raw. There could be a butterfly trapped in her skin, skittish and trying to escape. She rests her other cheek against the cool ski coat. The bellows crank up into screams.
With a thump and a cry comes silence.
‘Oh, God.’ Anna drops like an anchor to the couch. ‘Oh, God.’
‘Indeed, oh God.’ Ghost-white, grim-faced, Hazal hurries from the kitchen to the door. ‘Everyone!’ She turns on tiptoe to the remaining diners, her dishcloth in her hands. ‘Attention, s’il vous plaît. Everyone! I am so, so sorry, je suis vraiment desolée, mais…’
Like a shepherd after a storm, she herds her guests out into the snow. Apologies fly in the wake of promises. A tinny bell rings in Kira’s ears. The thudding in her chest is painful.
Morphing from shield to man, Callum places a hand on the small of her back. She doesn’t, can’t protest. It’s madness; it’s a blur. Keeping her eyes on the floor, she lets him direct her to a door beside the bar and into a dark-wood bathroom. It’s madness. It blurs.
Callum stops in front of the mirror. The cramped room is dimly lit, and Kira doesn’t look up. With her eye swelling and her cheek stinging, vicious and sporadic, she doesn’t need to see her face to know the damage is real.
The damage. The damage inflicted by Romy. The damage inflicted by Romy, her sister. Callum rifles through the cupboard beneath the sinks, and Kira stares through him. The damage inflicted by Romy, her sister, angry and sad and unreachable but never, ever violent.
‘I’m going to clean the cuts.’ Standing, Callum turns on the taps. Kira blinks back to herself. ‘Lavender’—he points at a bottle by a stack of tissues—‘and frankincense. Hazal’s all for natural remedies. Turn your cheek.’
Forcing a smile, Kira does so. His first touch makes her flinch, water brushing blood. Closing her eyes, she clutches the sink, gritting and grinding her teeth. The oils smell nice, but they sting like hell.
Eventually, Callum steps back. ‘Done.’
Done doesn’t feel very positive. Her cheek throbs and burns, and her eye is an awkward puff. Kira grimaces. ‘Thank you.’
With a tense smile and a deep, deep breath, she turns to brave her reflection. Her left eye is cut at the corner. A light swelling blooms at the tip, but without the blood, the marks are shallow and thin. It’s the fear in her face that chills her chest, the wildness of her scleras and the tension in her bones. Having never encountered it, it scares her even more.
It’s an afraid, victimised version of her. A weak version. She can’t stand to look.
‘Jesus.’ Shaking her head, Kira turns away. ‘I’m—is this real? Is any of it real? I mean, I know it is, but Jesus.’ Blinking hard, she rests her tailbone against the sinks. ‘My sister attacked me. She attacked me. She’s never done anything like this. Normally, she just…’ She combs her hands through snow-damp hair, looking up at Callum. His arms are folded, his mouth a line. ‘There’s something wrong with her.’
Callum arches an eyebrow. It’s so polished, so expressive. She wouldn’t be surprised if he practiced posing in front of a mirror. A dash of amusement, a pinch of you think?
‘Obviously,’ Kira adds. Despite his sarcasm, guilt nips: he shouldn’t be here. Is he thinking the same? That he shouldn’t have gone to the forest this morning? He’d never have witnessed a personal horror film and never have dealt with the aftermath. ‘I mean, obviously. But something seriously wrong, as opposed to the wrong that we’re used to. She’s never violent. She gets really, seriously down, and she wanders.’
Chafing her uninjured cheek with her fingers, Kira sighs. ‘I don’t know. Romy drank, she did drugs, but this…’ She turns to the mirror. The girl inside is a blank stare. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. And I know it’s not your problem, and I’m sorry for going on, but it’s like…’
A gust of wind rocks the hotel. The floor lamps gutter. ‘Like what?’ Callum asks, stepping up beside her. In the mirror, their faces flicker. Kira shivers. They could be ghosts, there in the shadows but gone in the light.
‘I don’t know.’ The wind moans louder, the howling of wolves, sneaking through cracks and crannies. ‘It’s like we’ve turned a really grotesque corner. Ugh.’ Squishing her mouth between finger and thumb, Kira shakes her pulsing head. ‘Maybe I’m naïve.’ The words come out mumbled. ‘Naïve in believing that people don’t do things like this of their own accord. Maybe all that’s wrong here is she’s worse than we thought. Maybe…’—the lights flicker again, and she grimaces—‘…maybe this is her breaking point, and our parents will finally force her to go to a doctor. Maybe they’ll realise that the fights are worth the hassle. Maybe she’ll get better, and—oh, God, this is hopeless.’
She tips her head back. ‘I don’t believe a word I’m saying. You know you can leave any time, right?’ She looks across at Callum. ‘You don’t have to put up with my overanalysing. You’ve already saved both me and my sister. Didn’t you have a lesson to go to, or something? Designer ski gloves and anger?’
‘I’m collecting Brownie points.’ Callum hoists himself up onto a sink, resting his head against the wall. ‘But you are overanalysing. It’ll be—’
The lights die. Kira’s pulse judders. Irony, or pathetic fallacy? She stiffens. The afterglow glimmers bright. This is not the time for vocab.
Callum snorts. It makes her jump. ‘Well, this isn’t creepy at all.’ His jeans squeak against the sink. ‘If I scare you, will you hit me?’
Kira shivers. ‘Absolutely. And, if we’re done, we should go.’
They should. Kira tries to summon up movement, but the sudden dark is too…big. Too empty, and yet too full. How is it so easy to feel threatened, and alone, even though she’s neither? She fixes her eyes upon the crack beneath the door and the tiniest strip of light. It’s better than—
A wisp of shadow passes through the glow.
Kira blinks. Disconnects. Reconnects. Through? She narrows her eyes at the light. It’s whole, and she’s finally adjusting to the dark. Why through, and not past?
Because it came in.
The lights sputter back to life. Kira’s panic ducks back into its lair. There’s nothing there; of course there isn’t. She breathes. There never was.
‘Good to know the measure of new friends,’ Callum says. Only a handful of seconds passed in the dark; how is that possible? Kira breathes, deep and slow. There’s nothing there.
‘Nice of you to join us.’ Callum spreads his hands to the lamps. ‘I love storms. As I was trying to say’—kicking up a leg, he leans back against the mirror—‘it’ll all be fine. Romy’ll be fine.’
He taps on his knee. Kira doesn’t need to look at him to guess what he wants to ask. Everyone has the same problem: to hedge, or not to hedge? ‘What…’ he tries. Pulls in his eyebrows. ‘What exactly is…’
‘Wrong with Romy?’ Kira offers a rescue, allowing a half-smile to say I won’t bite. He pulls down the corners of his mouth: pretty much. ‘Who knows. She refuses to let a doctor in, so we’ve never had a real diagnosis.’ Banishing her paranoid imaginings, she shrugs. It would be a lie to say Romy’s never impressed her; even while wishing she’d give in, her tenacity, her convictions, struck a chord. ‘She won’t go to premade appointments. She locks herself in her room, or disappears, or won’t get in the car. It’s not like anyone’s going to drag her.’
Except today. This halts Kira for a second: yet another indication Romy’s gone too far. Way, way too far.
‘It’s always seemed like a test,’ she contin
ues, more thoughtfully than before. ‘To see how far our parents will go. Not necessarily to help her.’ She flicks two uneven fingernails together. ‘More to…act like things are okay before they force something? They haven’t passed yet, clearly. I really wish they would.’
Her voice catches. She clears her throat. ‘Severe depression is what most people guess.’ She presses her nails together harder. The thinner one bends. ‘Either those who know her or those who find her. Someone suggested bipolar; someone else, really, really wisely, suggested antisocial personality disorder.’ She huffs a humourless laugh. ‘That one made Mum angry.’
‘Yes, it did.’ The door creaks open, and her mother steps in. Arms tight across her chest, she keeps a hold of her bones. ‘Sorry.’ She offers a trite smile. ‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, and I wasn’t there for long. The walls are worse than paper.’ She holds out her hands. ‘Are you okay?’
Pushing off the sinks, Kira lets her mother enfold her. ‘The shock is the worst part,’ she mumbles. Anna is mint tea and hair oil, witchy perfume lingering on last night’s crocheted top. ‘My face is fine; Callum cleaned it up. Are we going home?’
Kissing her temple, Anna lets her go. ‘We…’ she begins. Her eyes flick to Callum.
He takes the hint at once. ‘I’ve got to get to work.’ He slides to the floor. ‘Have a nice…um…’ he flounders, shoving his hands in his pockets. Kira’s mouth stays still, but her mind is a smile. ‘Never mind. Bye, Kira. Kira’s mum.’
He leaves with awkward haste, their thank-yous afloat in his wake. Twinging with melancholy, Kira watches him go. One beat, two beats, three. His boot-steps fade. Anna sighs.
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