Whiteland

by Rosie Cranie-Higgs

  Callum consults his watch again. In the strip light, the glass glints with scratches. ‘You really don’t have to.’

  Determinedly, Kira stifles a yawn. ‘True. But two things.’ She holds up a finger. ‘One, you’ve spent two days helping me, so the least I can do is help you. Or try to, with step-by-step guidance.’ She lifts a second finger. ‘And two, I don’t want to walk back, alone, in the dark. I’m starting to believe literally anything could happen.’

  Callum laughs through his nose. ‘You’re just lucky. It’s not normally like this, trust me. The most exciting thing that happened before yesterday was…’ He screws up his forehead. ‘Actually, never mind. Nothing exciting has ever happened. It’s all bickering neighbours and figuring out why there are so few people, yet so many cats. And it’d be nice if you’d stay.’ He pauses, scanning his medical supplies. ‘Despite your sarcasm, your lack of common sense, and everything that’s happened since I met your family, I’m actually starting to like you.’

  Kira’s eyebrows fly sky-high. ‘Is that meant to be a compliment? If it is, it needs work.’ She cocks her head. ‘In fact, most of your comments need work. When we first came in, I looked appalling, and now I’m sarcastic, stupid, and part of the Addams family? Thank you, Callum.’ She brings a hand to her chest. ‘I don’t know what I ever did without you. You’re a one-man ego boost.’

  ‘It’s how I win all my women.’ Callum passes her a wetted cotton pad. ‘Knock-em-down-to-build-em-back-up. Is it working?’

  ‘Well, you did get me in my underwear. What am I doing with this?’ Kira waves the cotton pad. The cold water smarts. There are cuts galore on her fingers, too. ‘You’re lucky I still want to help you. “Knock-em-down-to-build-em-back-up.”’ She fights her face stern. ‘You’re horrid.’

  Callum flashes her a grin. ‘I try.’ Positioning himself in front of her, he considers the mirror. ‘I’d start with that beauty.’

  He directs her pad to the gash on his temple, gritty and already crusting. His knuckles are a swollen violet-blue.

  Kira pangs with dismay. ‘Callum!’

  ‘They’re fine.’ Catching her gaze, Callum brushes it off. ‘I bashed my hand on a tree stump, but I don’t think I’m warm enough to feel it. That’ll be tomorrow’s joy.’

  Kira’s mouth pulls down at the corners. ‘You shouldn’t have come with me.’ Softly, she fixes her gaze on the gash. Blossoming, bruising guilt makes it hard to meet his eye. ‘You shouldn’t have got hurt, and you certainly shouldn’t have cleaned up my face.’ She glances at his hand. The tower of contrition builds up, up, up. ‘Not with bruises that bad. If you’d told me what to do I could have done it myself.’

  She dabs at the last of the blood. Callum hisses through his teeth. ‘Honestly, it’s okay. At this point my hand just feels…cumbersome. Ow.’ He winces at another cut, small but gravel-clotted on the underside of his chin. ‘Didn’t know that was there.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Kira removes her pad. ‘I’m done. What next?’

  She turns to the scattered tubes of cream. His undamaged hand grabs her arm. ‘Wait.’

  The word is filled with such intent, unnatural and new, that she does. The jokes have dissipated like smoke. His brown eyes are cutting, and Kira’s chest hitches, stuttering over a breath. Her head swoons, rushing, hot. She’s spinning, spiralling. Callum’s face is paling. Through it flit wisps around a fire, ghostlike and intricate, pale in the dark. A waif by the wooden window, staring straight—

  The strip light fails. Kira jolts, sharp and clear again, jumping beyond her skin. Callum’s hand drops from her arm.

  ‘Automatic when nobody’s moving,’ he says. The light blinks back to show him rotating, scratched arms outstretched. ‘Nothing strange. And the cream with the purple writing.’ He indicates a tube. ‘That’s next. After that, I think we can go.’

  Kira nods. The previous moments blur. ‘I’ll be quick.’

  At four o’clock, the birds are asleep. The sun isn’t trying to overcome the snow. And the ward is cold and silent.

  Stealing out of bed, she recovers her clothes, dresses, pulls on a pair of spiky-flowered boots, and pads to the window. She could arrange a distraction; she could make her bed look as if she’s still in it, huddled up and asleep. But what would be the point? They’ll soon realise she’s missing, and she only needs time to leave the car park. After that, they’ll never find her.

  Masked by gauzy curtains, the window hardly squeaks. Leaning out, she nods: a stack of bin bags, piled in a skip, more or less below her. It looks feasible, but even if it didn’t, she’d do it regardless. This has to happen now.

  Winching herself onto the windowsill, she wriggles to face the drop. The early morning is black, frosted. Ice stings the air, a breath of snow on the breeze, but it has no hold. She’s used to the cold. As she slides from the window, it’s a breath-stealing rush.

  In her mind, Romy screams. Landing with a whump on the bin bags, the woman climbs from the frozen skip and runs.

  Kira wakes up cold, uncomfortable, and curled in last night’s towel, damp beneath her on the bed. Rolling arthritically out of it, she peers through sleep-fogged eyes at the window. Daylight edges through the cracks in the shutters. Everything is closed. The room is freezing.

  Goose bumped, Kira props herself up. A draught snakes in from somewhere, creeping around like frostbitten breath. As she shuffles on the bed, it wafts into her face. Her shuddering, wide-open door.

  Well, that was stupid. Kira rolls off the bed, forces clean clothes over unwieldy limbs, and drowns herself in blankets. Why did she leave the door open? Why did someone else leave a window open? Her room might as well be outside.

  Kira pauses by the ramshackle wardrobe. She didn’t leave her door open; she tripped down the hall from the bathroom, chilly in nothing but a towel, and slammed it behind her. She then collapsed on top of her bed…and stayed there until now.

  Kira casts her eyes around the room. It may have been Mathew, but suspicion blooms in bloodstains. The two beds nudge each other for space. The beams dip low. The cases teeter by the table. Still, though, there’s something.

  It’s paranoia.

  It’s not.

  It is.

  Blankets trailing like a wise man’s robes, Kira moves warily to the door. The wind lows. The door hinges judder. Investigating seems like the worst of ideas, but she’ll have to leave the room at some point.

  Threads of unease rap up her ribs. She steps out onto the landing.

  From staircase to fire, all four windows are wide. Kira drops her guard and the blankets. It’s madness. Quickly, quietly, she closes the glass. Madness; one window is often cracked, but four? The corridor is frozen. Powdered snow drifts across the floor. The fire, smouldering day and night, is nothing but ash. They must have been open for hours.

  Combing the knots in her hair, Kira retreats from the glass. Windows; is that all? After the last two days, it’s not surprising she’s on edge; it might be weirder if she wasn’t. Still, th—

  Kira and her thoughts stop dead. Her parents’ door is open.

  Crudely hacked into the wood is a thin, bare-limbed tree.

  Unease seeps into dread. Four lines for branches, one for the ground, and in one corner…

  ‘No,’ Kira whispers. The ground feels set to fall. Stabbed on the edge of the symbol is a curling metal flower. ‘Please.’

  Kira takes a faltering step. Silver and delicate, the flower is familiar. Solid. Cold. Its long stem splinters the door. The wood cracks as she yanks it out, turning it over in her hand. If she only had been paranoid; she could go back to bed, close her eyes, and dream about the ocean.

  She can’t. She has a calling card and the symbol from the wooden window.

  Whiteland.

  Images flash through her head. Romy kicking one leg over the other at the gate in Gatwick, the flower on her boot hanging by a few threads. Romy, buying the very same boots, smiling in a way she never does. Romy, insisting these flimsy boots will see
her through a Swiss Christmas.

  God, how alike she and Romy can be.

  ‘Dad?’ Clenching the pointed flower in her fingers, Kira banishes every single thought except the here and now. ‘Hello?’ She nudges the bedroom door. ‘Dad? Are you there?’

  The room beyond is empty. Rumpled bed, strewn sheets. Kira’s vision shimmers and settles. On the crocheted carpet, aligned beside Mathew’s wallet and phone, is the other silver flower.

  No.

  ‘Dad!’ Kira wheels around. Flinging herself down the landing, the stairs, she tumbles into the restaurant. ‘Dad?’ She throws her eyes around the tables. Into corners, behind the bar.

  He’s not here. Not lounging by the TV, or practising his German. No one’s here, bar the ginger man stealing the Wi-Fi and a woman with a coffee in the corner. Her dad’s not here, but Romy has been. Her flowers. Her boots.

  Kira doesn’t think. Grabbing her outerwear, toppling the coat stand, ignoring the crash, she runs.

  The train whistles, screeches, and whines as Kira crosses the line. Ignoring black ice, the trees spraying powder, holidaymakers’ cars blaring horns and swerving round her, she slips and slides and runs. Normally, she’d feel bad, but they’re irrelevant. Trifling. They can’t see the horrors running races in her mind, her fear for Mathew, Romy, Anna. What Lena said. What lies in the forest. The silver digs grooves in her palm, and she runs.

  ‘Kira.’

  Snow. Chalets. Cars. Trees.

  ‘Kira.’

  Fields. Sledges. Waffles. Wine.

  ‘Kira!’

  A hand grabs her arm. Jolted back, recoiled like a rope, Kira spins around.

  Callum. His face contorts at his bandaged hand, but she barely sees. Can’t think. Can’t acknowledge. Can’t stop. He’s a bubble. A blur.

  ‘I need to go.’ Gulping air, she jerks away. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘No, no. No. Wait.’ He plants himself in front of her, wincing and grasping her arms. ‘What’s happened?’

  Everything. Nothing. Kira glances at the forest, wicked, wild, waiting. It waits for her to come to her sister, dad, mum. She doesn’t have time for this.

  ‘Callum.’ It’s almost a whine. Normally, she’d feel bad, but it’s irrelevant. Trifling. She doesn’t have time. ‘Just let me go.’ She tries to sidestep out of his grip. ‘Please? I can’t explain right—hey!’

  She stumbles as he pushes her backwards across a small patch of snow. ‘What do you think you’re doing? You can’t—’ Her back hits a wall. ‘Hey!’

  Callum slaps the wood on either side of her head. ‘What’s going on?’ Blocking her in, he glares. ‘I’m not in the mood for you to lie or to tell me it’s nothing. I’ve just come from a royal bollocking for being unable to work today. I probably won’t be able to work for the rest of the holiday, thanks to my hand, so I don’t have the time or the patience. What’—his voice drops decibels—‘is going on?’

  Wither for wither, Kira matches his glare. ‘Back off.’ She nods at his face, almost butting his chin. Does it look like she has the patience? The time? The desire to be stared at by tourists? ‘Now.’

  With a grunt, he leans back.

  ‘Very kind of you.’ Kira brandishes the flower. ‘Romy’s been to the hotel.’

  On either side, Callum’s arms stiffen. ‘What?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Kira flicks the silver. It tings. ‘This is from one of her boots, the ones she wore to the hospital. It was stuck in the door of my parents’ room. She’d used it to—can you back off?’ She jerks her forehead forward. Callum leans back farther. ‘It’s obtrusive. Romy messed up the room, and carved that Whiteland tree into the door, and…’ She pauses. Her breath flutters, her mind with it, skitty as a panic attack. ‘My dad’s gone. Romy took him.’

  This doesn’t have the desired effect. ‘She took him?’ Callum lifts a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Took him where? The forest? Is that—’ He ducks his head. ‘That’s where you’re going. Really?’

  Kira lifts her chin. ‘Yes.’

  Deadpan, Callum looks back up at her. ‘You think your sister has escaped from the hospital, kidnapped your father, and taken him to the forest. Our favouritest, favouritest forest.’

  ‘You wanted me to tell you what happened, Callum.’ Kira resists the urge to stamp on his feet. ‘That’s what I’m doing. If yesterday still doesn’t make you listen, let me go. I have to find my family.’

  They’re in there, and they need her.

  ‘No.’ Callum shakes his head. ‘No, you don’t. Not in the forest. Think about it logically.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You’re not.’ He leans in again. They’re attracting attention, but Kira couldn’t care less. Curious or concerned, passersby can go to hell. ‘You’re really not.’ Callum grates his hands down the wood, the heels pinning her shoulders. ‘Can you stop with the William Wallace for a second? Riding into an unequal battle didn’t go well for him, and it won’t go better for you.’

  Kira wrenches at his fingers. He’s bigger, though, with a better angle, winters-cutting-firewood strong. ‘This isn’t Braveheart, Callum.’

  ‘I know.’ Callum’s hands don’t waver. ‘It’s Whiteland. You at least need, I don’t know, food. Water. Things pivotal for survival. Plasters, maybe. That’s—dammit, Kira!’

  Pain flashes through his foot. Stomping on his toes, she ducks beneath his arms and makes a break for the car park. ‘Kira, stop! This is ridiculous!’ He tosses out his arms. Skirting cars and skidding on ice, she ignores him. ‘Ridiculous.’ He scrapes his uninjured hand through his hair. ‘Fucking ridiculous. Kira!’

  Hitting the snowy bank, Kira clambers into the trees. ‘Oh, for Christ’s—’ Callum spins, as if expecting the world to back him up. The boy on the telebob stares. Three girls with sledges watch and murmur, hushed like they think they’re being subtle. A middle-aged couple, bundled garishly up to the ears, exchange a look. ‘Christ.’

  He has about a minute before she disappears. Cursing every single god and more, he jogs toward the buvette, yanking out his wallet. Water. Chocolate. Peanuts. Crisps. With his pockets stuffed, he runs toward the trees. Thirty seconds. He should get a prize.

  Struggling up to the forest is a riot. ‘I hope you realise you could be chasing nothing,’ Callum calls. With a stinging foot, a throbbing hand, and the bulkiest, most unwieldy pockets ever known to man, his mood has soured even further. Ahead, not snow-wise enough to have vanished, Kira pushes on. ‘You could be putting yourself in danger for no reason. I bet your family are back at the hotel, having tea and crumpets.’

  ‘Nobody said you had to come.’ Clambering over a fallen tree, Kira shoots him a withering look. ‘You don’t owe me anything. Go home if you think it’s stupid.’

  ‘I’d love to.’ He vaults the tree and spreads his hands. ‘I’d sincerely love to go home, have my own tea and crumpets, and complain about the weather. A perfectly dull, perfectly British day, seeing as I may have lost my holiday job. But no!’ He waves his hands dramatically. Rolling her eyes, Kira tramps off. ‘No, instead I have to follow a crazy blonde girl into magic fairyland because that’s where she thinks her family is. What are they doing here, Kira? Building snowmen? Searching for wardrobes?’

  Kira gestures over her shoulder, hand tricks that may or may not exist. ‘I’ll kick you if you carry on.’ She trudges into the clearing, past the immaculate bowl and across to the other side. ‘Then you’ll be useless as a father as well as a ski instructor.’

  Laughter barks from Callum’s throat. ‘Nice.’

  ‘Don’t mock me, then. Not after yesterday.’

  Callum speeds up. ‘All I’m saying’—he falls into step beside her, tugging up his collar against the cold of the trees—‘is I don’t think this is a good idea. I thought it was a bad plan yesterday, and I think it’s an even worse plan now, specifically because of yesterday. We nearly got eaten.’

  ‘We did not nearly get eaten.’ Coming to an abrupt halt, Kira wheels to face him. ‘We got chased. We
don’t know what they wanted; we don’t even know what they were. And I’ll say it again.’ She forms a frame with her fingers. ‘You don’t have to come.’

  Each word is pointed, enunciated. Eyes wide, hair wild, she could be a forest sprite or a creature born from the mountains. He read a book like that once, with a fox and a forest and a girl made from snow.

  ‘I never even asked you to,’ Kira says. Callum blinks himself back. ‘I was going to come by myself. I would have, if you hadn’t been all “I don’t have time for this, tell me what the matter is.”’ She quotes him with her fingers and a drawn-out eye roll. ‘You ignored the warning of girls who look for monsters, so you have no right to complain.’

  The sprite image flits away. A shivering breeze settles to silence, as if the world is on mute. ‘I’m Scottish,’ Callum says. ‘I complain for fun. And actually, I do have to come.’

  Kira cocks her head. ‘Do tell.’

  He hesitates. ‘After the last two days, you can’t be in here alone. No one can. Who knows what might happen.’ He shrugs. Casual, even though it’s not. If he tried to explain his protective urge, she’d shout her independence and kick him to the curb. He wouldn’t blame her, either; it’s just as strange for him. ‘It’s not safe,’ he adds, when she regards him critically. ‘And no one else can go with you. Knowing what I do, I’d feel guilty if I left.’

  Kira huffs. ‘Knowing what you do?’ Her criticism turns shrewd. ‘So you accept things when it suits you, and deny them when it doesn’t?’ She nods, imitating his earlier tone. ‘Nice.’

  It’s probably deserved; he did pin her against a wall. ‘It’s not the easiest situation to get my head around.’

  ‘That’s an excuse.’ Kira shivers, wrapping her arms around her paltry coat.

  ‘Kira.’ With a rush of sympathy, Callum sighs. ‘I can’t say I understand, but I can tell this is hard. This whole situation is hard, and screwed, and largely insane. But hear me out.’

  Her frown deepens to grooves.

  ‘Why…’ he tries before she can protest. None of this will go down well, but you have to start somewhere. ‘Why would Romy want to kidnap your dad? And why would she bring him here? To the forest—the forest within the forest—’ He rubs his eyes. ‘Whatever. You know. How on earth would she have managed it?’