Whiteland

by Rosie Cranie-Higgs

  The beach opposite Lundy Island. The beach flush with surfers, seduced by the savage waves. The beach that, in winter, becomes her greyscale, melancholy, windswept love.

  Home. Kira flops back onto her towel with a grin. Ahead of her shimmers the ocean, its salty breeze cooling her skin. Behind her trundles the high street. Securing her sarong, she sleepily stands, carried by her waking relief. Even the tourists are a relief: throngs, bands, colonies of them, cooing at the quaintness and clamouring for suncream, the bucket, spade, and ice cream shops thriving in the heat. Normality. All the rest was a dream.

  If she’s honest, it was a nightmare. A lucid nightmare, provoked by whatever she watched last night, whatever Romy wrangled her into. Heat causes nightmares, and movies make them worse.

  Maybe she’ll turn it into a painting, if the details don’t slip away. Scooping up her bag and towel, Kira fans her face. It’s far too hot. The sea breeze was short-lived, and with the beach at the mercy of the blazing sun, the world has tipped back to burning. It’s definitely time to go home. Everywhere, everything, everyone is too hot. The lazing, reddened parents and their tired, reddened children. The dog lolloping through the water, panting up a storm. The young couple fanning each other, slumped beside a half-finished heart made of pebbles. Was it this hot when she fell asleep?

  If it was, if nothing else, she didn’t burn. She’s got a tan to be proud of, and no pink in sight. Kira huffs. It’s the least her body can do; her mind created Callum, then cruelly woke her up. He should be real. Even if he was insufferable, and persuaded her to eat a dead rat, or whatever. He was attractive, he was Scottish, or Irish, or Welsh, and, well…he wasn’t Peter.

  Kira flashes her eyebrows. What a creation. The creepy parts she’ll save for telling Romy, the fantastical parts she’ll save for telling Dad, but Callum she’ll save for herself. How did the heat mould so much splendour? She must have been asleep for aeons.

  And it’s far, far, far too hot. Wafting air at her face, she sets off along the shore. Time to go home and hug her fan, tongue lolling like the sea-basking mastiff. She’ll come back out when it’s cooler and fetch her family a fish-and-chip tea.

  Even the sea is too hot. Licking and spraying her feet as she walks, it’s a friend of the sticky, damp air. Kira wriggles, kicking at the sludgy sand. Her gym bag has stuck to her side, and she pries the material free. Plastic on sweat, dotted with sand. The sooner she’s home, the better.

  Oh, shush. Kira angles away from the sea, trudging toward the town. Hot sand sifts across her sandals. It’s just heat, and she’ll be home soon. Besides, dusk is tumbling.

  By the time she joins the mesh of streets, it’s down. The air whispers over her skin, drying the plastered hair at her neck. The sun dips beyond the sea. The salty breeze whips up again, chivvying a shiver of cold. Kira rubs her arms. Paradise. Gently it eddies around the street, curling over the narrow cobbles, the chimney pots and broken tiles. Kira closes her eyes. It’s beautiful.

  When she looks again, everything is beautiful. The sky above the rooftops deepens to violet, the non-tourist side of town winding into shadow. It’s a postcard from one of the beachfront shops, or the end of a whimsical film: the soft, settling quiet; the sunset chalking the ground in pink; the brightly coloured houses and their bursting window boxes, geraniums bobbing in the breezy, golden glow. The scattering of stars that pop overhead.

  She’s basically a tourist brochure. With a delectable shiver, Kira walks on up the street to the shortcut.

  A tabby cat leaps to the moon and back as she turns off its alley. Kira starts. It clatters straight into a cluster of bins, bounding off more frightened than before. The echo clangs, reverberating. Kira winces. What did it think she was going to do? Give it an ASBO for loitering?

  The cat scrabbles over a garden wall. Kira sinks back into her thoughts. A shower, a dewy Corona, and the last few chapters of The Night Circus; it sounds like a perfect—

  A few feet from the end of the alley, a man steps into her path.

  ‘Whoa.’ Kira’s hands fly up. Her heart skitters. She hadn’t even seen his shadow. ‘Sorry.’

  Skirting around him, she pulls up short. He remains planted in place. ‘Excuse me?’ she tries. The man’s face is hidden in gloom. ‘I need to—’

  Without a word, he grasps her arms. ‘Hey!’ she yelps, but spinning her around, he shoves her back against the wall. The air slams from her lungs. The stone scrapes, coarse on her skin. ‘What are you—’

  Her bag slips to the ground. She knows him.

  It’s anything but a relief. Something arcs in her chest, but it’s nervy, jarring; she knows him, but she doesn’t, but she does. Brown hair tumbles over his forehead, his brown eyes crinkled with distress. Five-day stubble scratches his chin. Wintry and snow-spattered, in a thick ski jacket, she knows him, but she doesn’t, but she does.

  ‘Kira.’ The man docks his hands on the wall on either side of her head. In a cartoonish way, Kira gulps. Her chest feels shallow. He’s pressing against her, trapping her.

  What’s more, he knows her name.

  ‘Kira, listen to me.’ The man cuts through her panic. His Scottish lilt is as familiar as his face. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, but you have to listen.’ He closes his arms so his hands touch her temples. It forces her to look at him. Her panic falters. His face is sincere. ‘This isn’t real.’

  The words are a shiver. ‘What?’ she asks, bewildered. It feels like déjà vu. ‘What’s not real?’

  ‘All of this.’ He nods around them. Urgent, intense, his hands remain firm. ‘Your town. Your home. Your family.’ He nods at their crushing bodies. ‘You and me. It’s not real, and you need to wake up.’

  Kira narrows her eyes. On her towel on the sand: then, she was asleep. Now, she’s awake, alert, and on edge. ‘You’re talking rubbish,’ she says. This is her life. Summertime laziness, bemoaning the tourists, haddock and chips and book upon book. She bats at her unease. ‘I’m awake.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  Kira shakes her head between his hands, but her unease refuses to quail. ‘I am.’ Raising defiant eyes to his, she juts out her chin. Doubt slithers in in the form of oddities, not saying anything but quavering, prescient. Reality is all there is, and yet… ‘This is my life, in my town. I assure you, it’s all very real.’

  The man’s forehead buckles. ‘Kira.’

  Determined, she stares him down. ‘I’m real.’ Desert heat. Rapid night. Her swimsuit would never be beige. ‘Unfortunately’—she makes herself breathe—‘you’re also just as real. I’ve spent a normal day at the beach, and now I’m on my way home, hoping to God I didn’t burn while I slept. So whoever you are’—she lifts her leg—‘leave me the hell alone.’

  She stamps down. The man kicks her foot straight back. ‘I can’t do that.’ Setting his jaw, he shakes his head, pressing her back into the wall. Kira’s panic flips and flies. She can’t move a muscle. ‘You need to listen to me.’

  ‘Like hell.’ Higher than she’d like, Kira raises her voice. There must be someone around to hear her. ‘Get away from me. This is basically assault.’

  Tensing her body, she tries to wriggle free. ‘I said, get away—’

  ‘I know what you said.’ His voice is a snap. He leans in closer. He’s all she can see, all she can feel, the smell of his skin so different to hers. His breath smells of nothing at all. ‘And I’m sure this does seem real to you.’

  ‘That’s because it is.’

  ‘It’s not.’ He lifts his voice over hers. ‘Just listen to me, Kira. Sure, everything looks the same. You use the same towel you always use. You take the same shortcut you always take. You admire the same geraniums. But however much it seems the same, it’s not. You need’—he flips his hands on their sides, gripping her head—‘to wake up.’

  Kira grits her teeth. Geraniums. The doubt sharpens its fangs. ‘No,’ she says in a voice too small. ‘I don’t know why you’re doing this, but it’s not going to work. Just let m
e go, and I’ll carry on home, and the police will never need to know.’

  ‘Kira.’ The man tightens his grip on her head. Kira swallows a gasp. ‘Because you’re being an idiot, let me ask you this. What did you do yesterday?’

  Easy. Kira lifts her chin. She can strike him down, replace fear with scorn. Yesterday, she…

  Her breath sputters, retracts. Yesterday’s not there.

  That’s ridiculous, she thinks, but at the same time, it isn’t. Her mind is a coloured, blurry wash: not a flicker of a meal, not a hint of conversation, not the horror film she thought she might have watched. Not the clothes she wore, or the painting she worked on, or if she worked a shift at the shop. Beyond the beach and the murky, violet-green dream, there’s nothing.

  Kira sets her face to slate and glowers. ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ The man sighs in a whoosh. ‘What month is it, Kira? What year? You must know that, right?’ He pushes out his lower jaw, sarcastic and despairing. ‘Jesus. Why are you being so stupid?’

  ‘I’m not.’ Kira twists her face to contempt. It’s the only nonverbal ammunition she has. ‘And you’—she musters all her conviction—‘are insane. Either that, or you’re playing some kind of game. A game in extremely bad taste, by the way.’ She drops her voice to a hard, cutting hiss. ‘Or do you actually believe what you’re saying?’

  He does. It’s obvious even as she tosses insolence, even as she daubs him as delusional. He believes what he’s saying, and her anger is failing.

  She trips uneasily over his questions. What year is it? Is it July? August? An Indian summer in September? How old is she? Fourteen? Twenty?

  ‘You’re mad.’ Her throat constricts; it’s anaphylactic. She doesn’t know who she is. ‘You have to be. What’s all of this if…’ She closes her eyes, shaking her head, again, again, again. Her mind is misting, splitting at the seams. How quickly her clarity muddles. ‘What’s all this if you’re not?’

  You’re mad. You’re all mad.

  We are not mad. We are trapped.

  The words arrive unbidden. Kira twists her fingers. The joints crack but the pain doesn’t come.

  ‘Exactly that.’ The man drops his hands to her shoulders. ‘It’s a dream like the others, except it’s here to convince you you’re awake. They want to keep you sleeping until you die.’ He shakes her shoulders, short and sharp. ‘Kira, you need to wake up.’

  And now you’re going to see.

  ‘No.’ Kira shakes her head vehemently. Murky, violet darkness. Trees, snow, screaming, ghosts. ‘Stop it. Stop. Please.’

  ‘Why don’t you remember yesterday, Kira?’ The man persists, squeezing her. ‘Think. How is it so hot? You can’t remember the month, but you know it’s never this hot. It’s not possible for England to get this hot. And you know you never tan.’ Another shake, and she chokes out a sob. He’s right, but he can’t be. She swoons, sways. He can’t, yet the darkness swims into colour. Burning torches, breaking hands, a woman breathing child. ‘Why do you not know the year? Are you fourteen? Twenty? Why don’t you know?’

  He steps back suddenly, spreading his hands. ‘How do I know exactly what you’re thinking? How do I know your name? How did it get dark so quickly? It’s four o’clock, Kira. Think.’

  Tears glaze her eyes. ‘I can’t,’ she whispers. Streetlamps and starlight. Leather-black night. An owl’s call in the distance. Nails scraping skin, she rakes her hands through her hair.

  Monsters, and girls who go looking for them.

  Another voice, another woman. Kira digs her fingers into her scalp. Her legs are watery, her mind too full, her head too heavy, too light. The man wavers. She’s drunk. He’s drugged her.

  Blurry at the edges, the night starts to fray. Grainy, paper-like, it merges with the sky. The alley tilts on its axis.

  What’s happening? She cries, but doesn’t make a sound. Her hands on her skull are weightless. She rocks. A thinning poster tacked over a painting, the world is coming apart.

  She falls. Her legs cave, and she floats to the ground. No pain. No anything. Kira, the man calls, like wind through a tunnel. Her vision crunches and crumbles to black. Kira. Kira, wake up. Wake up. Kira, wake up. Wake up.

  Her head is immaterial. She tries to curl up, but her legs won’t work. The ground is a breath of stale air. Spun by dizziness, she’s a nauseous rush. She’s terror. Nothing. She’s nothing.

  The man calls. Kira. Her mind fades. Kira.

  The darkness sucks her scream away. Kira, wake up.

  Wake up.

  Kira, wake up.

  Wake up!’

  The voice still hollers through a tunnel but closer, accompanied by a shaking, a shuddering that she wishes with all her fatigue would stop. Leave her in peace, leave her to lie. To lie, to die. It doesn’t matter. Leave her alone. She’s had enough.

  ‘Wake up, Kira!’ the voice shouts. Rough and creaking, it’s right in her ear.

  She opens her eyes with a start. A flutter of black sighs away into the trees like a curtain lifted by a breeze. Kira watches it go, unthinking. The voice had been so sure, so present, the shuddering more like shaking hands than the shivering of her bones, but there’s no one here. She lets her eyes drift closed again. Caught between here and there, she wavers, clinging to an alley that seemed so real.

  Go back. Sleep, sink. The colours were beautiful, the warmth was divine…but the harder Kira grapples, the more the dark town recedes. In its place lurches a burning, lacerating, unbearable cold, and as the last of her dream residue fades, the pain hits her like an avalanche.

  A gasp sucks her breath away. Ice. Fire. She’s freezing, surrounded by the heady scent of pine. She’s Romy, curled up under a tree. Kira sharpens with her senses. If she doesn’t move, she’ll die.

  Everything’s so heavy, though. She could stay here a while and see what she sees; from her sheltered vantage point, clustered among roots, the world looks reasonably safe.

  No. Kira drags her mind up, up, up. This isn’t safe; this is Whiteland. Move.

  Lethargically, she forces her weary mind to act. She can’t let it linger half-asleep, susceptible and weak, or the something that creeps in to play with her thoughts will find a crack in a flash.

  She’s just so exhausted. Her arms feel disconnected, as though she’s slept with them under her head. Her legs are feeble, flaky rods. ‘Whoa,’ she mutters, standing dimly, slumping into the tree. She’s back in the forest; of course she is. It’s only coming clear now that she’s properly awake: she was a fool for believing in the dream. Reality has an otherness the mind can’t recreate.

  Later. Right now, it’s snowing, and it’s dark. Move.

  Battling her balance, Kira pushes off the tree. Snowflakes patter her skin in a swirl before her eyes. Kira blinks. They land on her lashes. One foot in front of the other: repeat. Her legs have morphed into unwieldy pylons, walking a tightrope that sways in the wind. Everything, everything, everything hurts. One foot in front of the other. Be strong.

  She trips on a hidden root and flails, freewheeling before she re-centres. One foot carefully in front of the other. The forest is thick here. Saplings and brambles and trunks dig each other in the ribs, but rather than bearing despair, it brings hope. Somewhere, there has to be a shelter of sorts. A hollow in a tree, or a tent of branches, low and heavy with snow. She casts her eyes through the undergrowth. Focus. The night is dense and claustrophobic, heavy with the clouds. God, if she could see. The snow is the brightest thing around, and it’s muffled by falling flakes. Focus. With shelter, she’ll survive the night. After that, she’ll go after Callum, and after that, they’ll find her family. Mum. Dad. Romy. They will.

  Her mind flickers. Callum. Didn’t she see him somewhere? In a dream, in the Kyo—Callum crouched by something? A snow hole?

  Maybe. Kira’s vision speckles. It’s hard to remember. Dizziness washes in, and she sways, slapping her palm to a cool, dry trunk. Colours dance behind her eyes, churning with her stoma
ch. She got moving too soon. She was worn out, cold, and weak. She didn’t allow herself time to recover. A short rest, and she’ll be fine. Come on.

  But the dizziness won’t abate. She’s forgetting to breathe, and it’s sticking, rasping. Her thoughts thicken to peat. She has to plough on, but her body—just—

  She hits the snow with a thud.

  ‘…Goddammit. If you die on me now, Kira, I swear…’

  ‘…Sisters so fond of fainting under trees…’

  ‘…Fat lot of good that first aid training is for supernatural bullshit…’

  ‘…Song if it’ll make you wake the hell up. Mary, mother of—at least you’re breathing. What do you want? I know lots of Biffy Clyro…’

  She’s been drifting. This time, she didn’t dream; this time, she was walking through the forest, falling through the snowflakes, and now she’s here. Drifting.

  Millimetre by millimetre, she lifts her groggy eyelids. The voice is real; there’s no invisible, shouting entity, and nor is some distant part of her brain tricking the rest awake. Tight-faced with worry, it’s Callum.

  She blinks. He’s leaning over her. She fights her slurring brain to stay awake, and blinks again.

  ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’ Callum tips back his head. ‘I didn’t want to have to sing. No—’ Wild-eyed, loose with relief, he scrapes a hand over his hair and back. ‘Whatever. I would have done whatever.’ He releases a gale of a sigh. ‘This is a daft question, but—are you okay?’

  Is she? The ice-fire-ice burns strong. It shakes her body like a candle flame, but she’s no longer out in the snow. They’re somewhere shadowed, white walls diffusing a pure, faint lightness. The ground is cool but firm. ‘I’m cold.’

  A whispering croak. She barely feels the words, but Callum must have heard. Raising her torso up from his legs, he tucks his coat around her and hugs her to his chest. It doesn’t just feel like come-and-get-warm; it feels like Christ-you-scared-me, and also, I-don’t-want-to-crush-you.