‘Because it spoils the fun.’ Callum winks and, before she’s fully fallen into step, breaks into a jog to evade her. ‘Mind the children!’ he calls back merrily. Dragging his burden across the ski run, he has just enough time to avoid getting crushed. ‘Too late.’
The flurry flies past. Kira jolts to a stop. It’s madness: crouched for maximum speed, the children whoop and holler, poles in the air and little skis askew. Disgruntled humiliation shifts behind her ribs. Callum’s right; they can’t be more than six. What an abominable day.
‘Why can’t I wait down here?’ she repeats. Callum only offers an exaggerated wink. ‘Callum!’ She throws her hands out. Waving his helmet cheerily, Callum turns away. ‘Callum!’
If she goes down, it won’t be quiet. Ready to argue until all the cows are home, Kira checks that no more flurries approach and trudges across the run.
She’s almost reached him when he starts to move. Wielding his staff with his board for balance, he propels himself into the chairlift queue.
‘Oh, come on!’ Incredulous, Kira pulls up short. ‘Really? Why—you know what, fine.’ She slumps with resignation. It’s not worth it. ‘But if I fall off and die, it’s on your head.’
Wading through the last of the snow, she steps in beside him. He gives her a gloved thumbs-up. ‘I told you, you won’t die.’ He nods at the man in the wooden hut, hands on controls and watching keenly as the kiddie queue moves forward. ‘These things wouldn’t be here if everyone fell off. And they’re fun.’ He gestures for them to approach the barriers. The last three children slide up and away. ‘But just in case you do’—he tangles his bundle under one arm—‘try not to land on your head.’
Kira gapes. The barriers open. ‘What?’
‘All you have to do is sit down.’ Callum chivvies them through. The chair surges and groans behind them. ‘Sit. Now. Now.’
Her legs are knocked from under her. Head swooping, stomach leaping, Kira sits with a yelp.
‘See?’ Comfortable beside her, Callum lowers the bar. He pats her thigh encouragingly. ‘Fun.’
Kira slaps his hand away. ‘No, not fun. Anything but fun.’ Her voice strangles as the chair soars, rising through the trees at a clip to churn her stomach. Seizing the bar like a drowning man, she peers unhappily around. ‘This isn’t natural, Callum. I feel like I’m on a plane with no roof and no floor. No.’ She half-lifts a finger, preempting his plague of hilarity, his amazing British wit. ‘I’m on a plane with no roof and no floor, where the air hostess laughs in your face and kicks you to the curb at the end. Oh, God.’
She can almost feel the whites of her eyes popping wide with panic. Pine trees. Wavering snow. The quickly receding ground. Her predicament isn’t over; it’s only just begun. ‘The end. What do I do at the end?’
‘You run.’ Callum pats her leg again. She’d kick that to the curb, the patronising thing, if she wasn’t so scared of falling. She should have stuck to her guns and defied him. ‘Have fun. This is much safer than flying, I assure you. At least you’re attached to something.’
Moving as little as possible, she manages to nudge him off. ‘That’s not reassuring in the least.’
Callum grins. ‘I tried. Don’t worry so much.’ He casts a look over his shoulder. ‘I take it back. You’re entertaining the children, so feel free to carry on.’ He indicates the chair behind them. ‘They’re having a whale of a time.’
‘You won’t be when I push you out.’ Folding her arms, Kira tries not to stare at the world with white-noise fear. The air is cooler up here, and inhaling it breath by breath by breath, a hint of calm trickles in. It’s too beautiful to be afraid. It is.
A faint crack sounds. Kira looks down. Startled by falling icicles, a deer skitters off through untouched snow. Below it, a solitary snowboarder braves the vertical slope. She rouses a murder of crows in cahoots, and their shadows lift up from the ground. Kira watches them land on an old stone roof. Skimming black on white, their caws echo round the mountain. How dare she be here? they say. Outrageous. How very, very dare she?
Yet there she is. Slipping through the house’s abandoned shadow, she weaves through broken tiles and the shadow cast by its crooked, jaunty chimney. Animal tracks lead away from the door, and Kira cranes her neck. Wistful, they wind off into the trees. If she had her materials, she’d paint it all: ragged birds atop a lonely house, deer prints, fox prints, someone wending their way through a fairy tale forest—
Jolting over a kink in the wires, the chair judders and tilts. Kira’s calm jolts with it and wilts. Peaceful thoughts and observations fade with the broken house. She grips the bar with renewed fervour. Breathe, and don’t look down.
She inches her attention sideways to Callum’s lazy slouch. He’s angled his goggles on the side of his head, his arm curled around his ski boots like they’re a child in need of a cuddle. Skis and board slant across his torso, his helmet rocking in his lap. Tapping a muffled rhythm on the metal of the chair, he’s a jester, a joker, a clown. He’s got comedy for days.
Or he would have. Again, she’s far too scared.
‘Do you ski?’ he asks suddenly. His comical head angles toward her. ‘Or snowboard? Or both?’
Kira tries not to look grateful for the well-timed distraction. It’s his fault she’s up here at all. ‘No.’ She pushes back her breeze-blown hair. ‘Well, I’ve been on skis, but I wouldn’t call it skiing. More…’
‘Falling with style?’
Kira catches his eye and can’t help a smile. ‘Yes, that’ll do. Mum was pretty good in the end, but me and Dad never made the drag lift.’ She stiffens. ‘What are you doing?’
Lifting the safety bar over their heads, Callum nods at the landscape ahead. ‘Getting off.’
Kira’s heart stumbles. The chair is slowing.
‘Oh, no.’ Her head flushes, hot and cold. Panic spears her chest. ‘Oh, no, n—how do I get off?’
Cresting the mountain, the chair reveals their exit with a flourish. There’s a wooden hut, a pylon…and the chairs in front looping round to tip straight back down the drop.
‘It’s not stopping.’ Kira clutches Callum’s arm, then regrets it. What kind of feminist strength is this? God, she hates being dependent. Especially after Peter. But… ‘Callum? I don’t know what to do.’
‘I know.’ Gathering his gear under his arm, Callum narrows his eyes and tenses. Poised. ‘Are you ready?’
Alarmed, Kira stares. ‘No?’
‘Walk fast.’ He pushes her gently. ‘Now.’
Their feet scrape the ground. With his hand on her back, she stumbles forward and scurries away from the lift.
‘There.’ Callum drops his hand. ‘Easy.’
She feels like a blur of a person. Kira blinks at her boots, her jeans, at the hem of her heavy coat. They—what? She drags her head up. They’re several metres away; they made it. Swinging around its wires with a clatter, the chair trundles back down the mountain. Somehow, she survived.
‘Sorry.’ Callum shrugs his apology. ‘I’m aware that pushing you around isn’t gentlemanly, but it worked. You did it.’
Regarding her with something between knowing and contentment, he hitches up his burden, wades into a snowdrift, and trudges off toward the leaning wooden hut.
She did it. Kira tips her head back in relief. She did it, and she’s safe. She did it. She’s returned to solid ground, and she’s safe.
Letting out a sigh, she stamps lightly on the snow. Oh, solid ground. How truly underrated. Layer by layer, her panic sloughs away. Two elderly walkers saunter from their chairs, engrossed in conversation. Another chair empties—and another, and another—and she shakes her head. Easy.
Skiing from the chairlift with Julia and Karl, Lena watches the girl by the control hut. She’s the twin of her mother; she’s seen them around the village enough to recognise them by now. But why is she—
Callum. The figures fall behind her. Lena cranes her neck around. Stashing his equipment, hair static and wild. If the girl�
��s with Callum, trouble is coming…and it’s closer to home than she thought.
Lena doesn’t do shock or worry; it isn’t in her nature. Instead, she does resolve.
Resolve that fires to stone. Trailing her children over the moguls, she already knows her role. Get the girl away from Callum.
Or trouble will find them all.
Done,’ Callum announces.
Kira nods, in a vague yes-that’s-nice-dear. His speedy shoe change doesn’t compare to this, and slowly, enraptured, she rotates. She’s never been so high up; it’s entrancing. The pine trees meet the sky so soon, sooner than lower down the mountain. All she can see, for miles above the lift and beyond, is the towering forest and an ocean of peaks.
They shine in the pale sun, fresh and bright with snow. Wooden crosses top the summits.
Callum grabs her arm and yanks. Slamming into his chest, Kira yelps like he’s thrown ice water in her face.
‘Sorry,’ he says in a way that means he isn’t. ‘I didn’t much want you to die.’
She opens her mouth, but doesn’t need to ask. A troop of skiers are zipping past toward a sculpted ski jump. One by one they shriek, one by one they fly, and one by one they spread their legs and clumsily fold into snowdrifts.
Whump. Whump. Whump.
Callum laughs. ‘That could have gone better.’
Blinking away the shards of her hypnosis, Kira rights herself. ‘Just a tad.’ She steps away. She’d almost toppled into this stranger’s arms, like a silly woman out for love. ‘Thanks.’
Callum draws up the collar of his bright red coat. ‘No problem, damsel.’ Checking around the hut, he nods. ‘We can head on down again now.’
He gestures toward the chairlift. Ten retorts for damsel perish. ‘What?’ Kira’s heart seems to wobble. ‘Don’t point at that. Why are you pointing at that?’
Callum holds up his hands. Arrest me, officer, guilty-as-charged. ‘I know I should have mentioned it before.’
‘Mentioned what?’
She knows, though. Her heart wobbles off its ledge. He looks like he’s guilty of poking a bear, or at least a little ashamed.
‘I promise you, it’ll be fine.’ He glances at the ski slope behind him. ‘We can walk down the mountain if you want, but there’s a high chance we’ll get skied into. Or indefinitely stuck.’
Kira peers around his gear-swaddled body. The slope isn’t steep, the snow’s not deep, and they won’t be up in the air. ‘I accept.’
Callum gives her an I-teach-children look. ‘That wasn’t a real suggestion, Kira. It’ll take ages and wear us out.’
‘Maybe so, but you don’t have a hope in hell of getting me back on that.’ Kira flicks distasteful fingers at the chairlift. ‘No more coercion. It’ll be ten minutes of psychological torture.’
‘Kira.’
‘No.’
‘Please listen to me.’ Callum steps toward her. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Maybe not, but I said—what are you doing?’
Her voice stabs like a knife. He’s still moving toward her, his face thoughtful, and abruptly, completely guilt-free. ‘Callum.’ Kira raises her hands. Do seasoned mountain-dwellers, as well as lacking empathy, enjoy tourist ignorance? She steps back. He steps forward. Was this his mischievous plan all along? ‘Please don’t. Now is not the time for simulated free fall—’
To the high-pitched amusement of arriving children, Callum lunges forward. Grabbing her in a rugby tackle, he hoists her onto his shoulder.
‘Hey!’ she shouts, slapping his back. Target acquired, baggage secured. He holds her tight and walks away. ‘Callum, stop it! I’ve known you three hours!’ She turns her slaps into fists, fighting to wriggle free. He only holds her tighter, closer to his head. She can feel his grin against her coat. ‘What happened to being reassuring? I thought you felt guilty?’ She kicks out, but her legs won’t bend enough to make contact. ‘Callum! Three hours is not enough for this!’
Striding toward the chairlift, he ignores her. The creak and clank of the chairs fills her ears, dread pooling through her chest like water. Her doom is almost nigh; she can hear it in the whoosh of dismounting skis, feel it in her jerking limbs as Callum breaks into a jog. It’s even more horrifying to watch from behind.
‘I’ll kill you, Callum,’ Kira warns, but it’s weak. Dodging a chair already descending, Callum stops on the brink of the vertical drop and waits for the next to rise. Her body tenses. His shoulder digs into her stomach, pinching her pinhole breaths. ‘I promise you that. Once we’re on the ground—’
The rocking chair roars up.
Oh, no. Nausea swirls behind her ribs. Kira squeezes her eyes shut. Oh, God, oh, no. If he makes even one mistake…
‘On we go.’ Sliding Kira unceremoniously from his shoulder to his arms, Callum leans back. ‘Hold on.’
The chair jolts beneath them, sweeping them away. Kira cries out. Callum’s arm is tight about her middle, but the lift propels them down at a horrifying angle. No. Oh, God, oh, no.
‘We’re fine,’ Callum says, but what help is that now? Screwing up her face, Kira clings to his shoulder. Dependence be damned; she’s not letting go. Lynx couldn’t drag her away.
The chair clanks and rocks. Grunting, Callum shifts them around, and after a small, heart-bending forever, all at once it’s over.
Slowly, slowly, Kira opens her eyes. The bar has been secured over their knees, and Callum is carefully reclaiming his arm. They sit side by side as if the panic never happened.
Except her heart drums up a percussion. Brushing back her tumbled, tangled hair, Kira tries not to breathe like she’s just run a race. Callum’s expression is smug—is it ever not?—as he surveys his snowy domain. With a burst of indignation, she lets her hair fall, curtaining him off from her vision. Who does he think he is? Her handler? A trainer of an obstinate dog?
‘There’s one thing you should know about me.’ Kira speaks through gritted teeth. ‘I’m honest, and I’m righteous, and—’
‘Those are two things.’
‘Shut up. Oh, God.’ The chair jolts over a kink in the wire. Kira grapples for the bar. ‘I’m honest, and I’m righteous, so when I say I’m going to kill you, I mean it. You may have saved my sister, but I don’t have to like you.’ She winces at the ice of the metal through her gloves. ‘Nothing about this is fair. If I could, I’d push you out.’
Callum raises his practiced eyebrows. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
For some reason, that brings the whole thing home. She’s floating down a mountain on a metal couch, having suffered a fireman’s lift, having been laughed at by a winter cowboy, and having lived through a horror film. Laughter boils in her belly and surges up her throat. ‘Ridiculous.’ Shaking her head, she slumps back in the seat, swallowing down the shakes. ‘Wow. This is utterly ridiculous. You’re such a wazzock, Callum.’
Callum grins. ‘Wazzock.’ He tests the word. ‘I can deal with that. Why not.’
He shades his eyes against the glow of the mountains. The clouds are coming down above the tunnel of trees, the sun disappearing as quickly as it came, and as the gloom presses down on the landscape, Kira’s laughter calms. Whether it’s amusement, fear, or frustrated mania is a crooked mystery; but despite Callum’s infuriating, king-of-the-castle confidence, she’s grateful. If only a little, they distract her from Romy; and after this morning, a little is enough.
She certainly needs it now. They’re almost at the ground.
‘Don’t worry.’ Callum sweeps his hand at the approaching land as if it’s nobbut a molehill. Putting an arm around her shoulders, he hoists up the bar and rushes them, stumbling, away.
‘So what’s the verdict?’ he asks, once they’ve forced their way through the lift-side snowdrifts and reached the neighbouring field. ‘Not so bad?’
‘Definitely so bad.’ Kira winches herself from the ungroomed snow, raising her hands to the heavens in relief. Solid ground suddenly feels like her only goal in life. ‘It would only have
been worse if I’d fallen off and died. Seriously. It was hell.’
Walking backwards, Callum grins. ‘Not so bad, then.’ Bending at the edge of the car park, he beats the snow from his body. ‘Seeing as you’re alive.’
Kira pulls an imaginative face at the top of his messy head. ‘Fine.’ She assesses her own snowy body. Her tight jeans are too sodden to attempt to beat dry, and she shivers. ‘Where did you find Romy?’
Brushing snow from the tops of his boots, Callum lifts a finger. ‘Bear with.’
The lull that falls as she waits is full. The whistle of the wind, the crackling of power lines, cars somewhere else on the mountain. She shivers again, tucking her hands in her armpits. Something in it all is unsettling; although happy shouts and laughter drift out of the resort, as the rush of the chairlift shrivels, she can’t shake her rising unease. Something somewhere doesn’t feel right.
The shadow she thought she saw in the bathroom. Romy’s purring voice in her head.
That’s called paranoia. Kira stamps her feet against the cold. How long does it take to—
Hello.
Kira looks up from her toes. A voice?
Hello, it whispers again. Kira becomes clockwork, in desperate need of winding. It’s speaking, but at the same time, it isn’t; breathy, enticing, and gone, like a rustling of leaves.
Leaves inside her head.
‘Right.’ Callum straightens, slapping his hands to his knees. ‘Let’s go. Romy—’
‘Did you say something?’ Kira interrupts. Movement returning crank by crank, she looks around. Is she going mad? Hearing the wind become whispers? There’s nobody here but them.
‘Yes…’ Callum cocks his head. ‘I said, “right, let’s go.”’
Distracted, Kira waves her hand. ‘Before that. You know what?’ She turns the wave into a stop. It’s clear he senses nothing; no chill in the air, no electric eeriness. No voice. ‘Never mind. It’s just the thought of going in there.’ She nods at the forest. ‘Seeing where you found Romy, after the day we’ve had.’ She lifts her shoulders meekly. It could be true. ‘I’m paranoid.’
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