Three Strikes

by Lucy Christopher

  She hoped he didn’t have any words now, because it was too late.

  ‘I’ll be back before it gets dark. Don’t keep me waiting this week, please. And Nia, stay safe.’ She should have known the only words he’d have were the same old ones. More words about safety and precautions, but they both knew the truth: no one was safe, not even here in their little town in the middle of the mountains. Nia wrapped her red scarf around her neck several times before jumping down from his pick-up truck. He said the same thing every Saturday as he dropped her off before heading to work, but today he really sounded like he meant it. His voice was clipped and clear, brooking no argument, which suited her just fine. The less said the better, as she didn’t want to give anything away.

  It had been like this for most of the holidays. What was the point in decorating the tree on Christmas Eve if her mother wasn’t there to tease her about the decorations she’d made in Kindergarten? Lorelei had kept them all, wrapping them in gold tissue paper. But it was the singing Nia missed the most. Singing carols around the piano before bed was something that had still happened in their house. But not now. The house ached with silence and Nia was lost in the fog of it without her mother; looking for her North: her way home.

  Sol’s dad had invited them over for Christmas dinner, but her father had turned him down. Said he didn’t want anyone’s pity. If only he could tell the difference between friendship and pity, the two of them might not be quite so alone, Nia thought.

  She walked around to the bed of the truck to get out her boxes, shaking her head at him in the rear-view mirror as he made to get out and help. He looked hurt. Nia didn’t want his help, didn’t need him; she could do this by herself. Even so, she gave him a quick smile before putting the boxes down on the floor, then slammed the door shut. Balancing the boxes in her arms, she watched as he reversed the truck and pulled away, heading back down the long straight road towards the mountains, pine forests and his shift at work. Nia waited until his navy-blue truck finally disappeared from sight.

  Chapter Six

  Sol was outside, next to his dad’s truck, chopping more logs and adding them to the growing piles ready to take inside the market for sale. Tasteful fairy lights were wrapped around the enormous pine tree in the entrance hall beckoning passers-by. The smell of cinnamon and soda bread drifted enticingly into the car park, which was also strewn with white fairy lights. The weekend craft market was always popular; tourists travelled far to their tall and perfectly symmetrical Town Hall to sample Moosbeernocken – Seefeld’s famous blueberry crêpes – or take home Tyrolean tapas or perhaps a small piece of local art which would remind them of their holiday. And that’s why it was the perfect cover: she could sell her love spoons and matches; she could play her guitar, sing and, more importantly, earn some money. She was going to need it now. No one would really notice it was her busking, she was just background noise to the many strangers who came and went. Besides, she didn’t care anymore.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Nia asked Sol, dumping her boxes on the ground.

  ‘About an hour or two, I think. Way too early whatever time it was, but Dad says New Year’s Eve is always the busiest day of the year. Even busier than Christmas Eve. So, how was it, your Christmas?’ Sol paused to swig from a large bottle of water.

  ‘How do you think? Intense. Painful. And went on way too long. Never thought I’d be so desperate for school to start.’ Nia forced out a fake laugh. Sol’s father interrupted them.

  ‘Morning, Nia. How are you, love? I’ve got some more matches for you inside. Come on, Sol, get a shift on, it’s going to be a busy one today with the rehearsals at St Oswald’s…’ Caleb broke off as he saw Nia’s face close in. ‘Sorry sweetheart, sorry.’

  He had nothing more to follow. What could he say anyway? It was already done. Too late to try and change her dad’s mind now. She was stuck here at work whilst the rest of the choir practised in the candlelit church, their final event before they left to go on the Winter Festival Tour without her. Well, not if she had anything to do with it.

  ‘It’s a shame. You were born to sing, sweetheart, just like your mother. A true lark.’

  ‘Nia, we’d better head inside before you freeze,’ Sol said, noticing her teeth chattering. Nia, carrying her boxes, gratefully followed him inside the town hall.

  The room was full, noisy and warm; stallholders were setting out their goods, placing price cards next to pieces of pottery, plump batches of baking and large canvases splashed with colour. Nia knew they would have all put their prices up this time of year – even Sol did, under Caleb’s instruction – but she was keeping hers the same. Someone had found a CD of carols and cranked up the volume. She could smell mulled wine and other spices in the air. It all seemed a bit forced and fake, like they were desperately hanging on to Christmas, not yet ready to surrender to the new year.

  ‘Bah humbug?’ Sol asked, looking at her screwed-up face. Nia squeezed out a laugh. New Year’s Eve wasn’t something to look forward to any more than Christmas, but for Sol and for everyone else it still was.

  ‘OK, OK. They could at least have tried to find some decent music though.’ She cringed at the panpipes echoing around the hall.

  ‘Check this out instead!’ He offered her an earphone and turned up the volume to mask a painful piped version of ‘Oh, Tannenbaum’. They worked side by side, Nia handing Sol a packet of matches for him to place in each log bag which he then tied up with thick brown string. They bounced to the beat of the drum‘n’bass, only stopping to join in with the growing chatter of the other stallholders. They weren’t the only teenagers at the craft fair. There were others who had followed in their parents’ footsteps, setting up stalls of their own to earn a bit of extra money for the New Year sales tomorrow. Nia waved to Clara, her friend from school, who had spotted a gap in the knitted-items market and made everything and anything a baby could wish for, in every colour under the sun.

  ‘Here, Nia, I got you some more.’ Caleb placed another long box on their table before leaving to check everyone had everything they needed before the doors opened.

  Nia unpacked the box full of matches. They were made from cypress tree offcuts which Caleb couldn’t use for anything else. He dipped the ends of them in a chemical mix before giving them to Nia. They smelt funny, like the science lab at school. Whatever he put on them worked, each match had a slow-burn tip and they were very popular at this time of year. A company selling wood burners had set up a stall with leaflets and glossy-looking photos not too far from Sol’s table. It had a queue of potential customers which was fine with her and Sol – guaranteed custom right on their doorstep. Nia looked at the pictures of the stoves; they seemed so warm and inviting with a model family gathered around them. They’d always had open fires and wood burners at home. It was one of her mother’s favourite things to do, prepare a fire, sit back and watch the flames dance.

  ‘Pass me one then, Nia? What you thinking about?’ Sol interrupted, holding open a bag.

  ‘Nothing much, just daydreaming,’ Nia sighed.

  ‘Well, wake up, customers approaching. Are you sure you don’t want to up your prices? Everyone else does for New Year. It’s almost expected, you know.’ Sol pointed at her price cards.

  ‘No. It’s cheating. Just because everyone else does it, doesn’t mean I have to. Don’t you have any principles, Sol?’ She had worked hard for the last few weeks carving more spoons than she would usually, for the Christmas and New Year market. She’d thought about putting her prices up because she didn’t know how much money she was going to need. But it still felt wrong.

  ‘Ha! I can’t afford principles, not if I want that snowboard. Suit yourself and good luck. See you on the other side,’ Sol murmured and turned to face the queue already forming in front of his table.

  The great oak doors to the town hall were wide open, regulars and new customers already wandering in. Somewhere someone turned the CD up even louder as Nia’s own first customer approached.
/>
  Chapter Seven

  ‘I’ll take one of these, please.’ A young man pointed at one of her spoons.

  It was a first-kiss love spoon, plain and simple without any twists and knots. Nia had made it out of a light lime wood which was easy to carve into simple lines and curves and didn’t involve any cutting out or links. The rounded bit at the top looked like a man’s head and the diagonal lines she’d made following this looked like a woman’s arm around his neck with hair trailing behind her. Their legs ran down the handle, meeting at the bottom to curve into the bowl of the spoon.

  ‘My wife will love this; her family are from Wales,’ the man said as he handed over his money. ‘That’s where love spoons come from isn’t it, Wales?’

  Nia nodded, reassuring him. She smiled and wrapped the spoon in gold and silver tissue paper, tied it with a tiny red ribbon and placed one of her cards on top of the spoon as she passed it over.

  ‘Do you make these then? Is this you, Nia Christian?’ He pointed at the card.

  She often got asked this question. People assumed she was selling someone else’s products and that this was just a Saturday job, and to start out with that’s all it had been. But as she’d got more into carving, taking books out of the library as well as watching her dad for tips about sanding, staining and polishing, she’d found that she loved it and even more surprisingly that she was quite good at it. In addition to building up her stock for the Christmas market, Nia had also been working on one spoon for weeks now; it had twists, knots which meant a lot of cutting out. She’d messed it up several times and had to start again with a fresh piece of sycamore wood. It was a treble-clef love spoon, the trickiest she’d tried so far but it was worth it. The person she was making it for would have appreciated it, would have loved it this New Year’s gift. Nia had modelled it on her necklace: a tiny silver treble clef hanging from a chain, the last present her mother had given her.

  The man thanked her again and left.

  ‘Have you got anything else?’ two teenage girls asked, interrupting Nia’s thoughts.

  ‘Sorry, what do you mean?’ Nia was confused.

  ‘Well, anything that’s not a spoon for a start!’ They turned to each other and laughed, making the word spoon sound so simple and so stupid. Nia smiled as if she got the joke, as if it was really funny, and then snapped.

  ‘No, this is a love-spoon stall! I only sell love spoons for people who, you know, have someone to love. Have either of you got a boyfriend or girlfriend to buy a spoon for?’ She waited for them to say something else but they looked surprised instead, reeling at her sharpness.

  Sol stepped in, leading the girls over to a jewellery stall further up the hall. He flirted harmlessly with them, pointing out a clothes stall and other crafts that would be more their kind of thing. Nia sighed, why couldn’t she have done that? Why did she have to take everything personally? They were just messing around, just asking. Why couldn’t she be more like Sol?

  ‘Alright there, Nia? No need to bite their heads off. Love spoons aren’t for everyone you know,’ Sol told her as she rearranged her spoons with unnecessary care, as if they could think and feel and sense what people said about them. ‘This might sound a bit out there to you, but to some people they’re just spoons. Obviously you and I know better, but what can you do? Customers!’ Sol made a joke of it before leaving Nia for the food section.

  She knew he was right, they were just spoons. She knew that. Of course she knew that but still … they were her spoons.

  ‘Nia, I got you a hot chocolate with a shot of espresso in it. Mocha something or other, Ana’s gone all fancy today. She’s even doing special soups. Don’t know what half of them mean or what they’ve got in them: seriously weird combos like curried pumpkin and stuffed peppers and bacon with cream, lime and Russian green beans. Looked like cat sick if you ask me!’ Sol ran on, stopping only to sip at the caffeine-fuelled drink he really didn’t need.

  ‘Sol, did you bring my stuff?’ Nia interrupted.

  ‘Yeah. So, are you going to fill me in then?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ She grinned.

  ‘Nope, not unless you’re running away?’

  Sol saw Nia’s face and stopped joking.

  ‘You’re not are you … Nia?’ He looked around, just in case his dad was able to hear.

  ‘No, course not!’ she snapped, the smile gone.

  ‘That’s a relief.’ He waved a hand as if to bat away such a suggestion.

  ‘I’m going to Innsbruck, Sol. I’m going on the Winter Tour!’ she said, wanting Sol to get it, needing him to understand.

  ‘What? How? I mean, when? What?’ He looked like he almost wished his dad would turn up and overhear. Stop this in its tracks before it had a chance to start, like snow rolling down a hill. Except this wasn’t a snowball. It was a Nia shaped avalanche.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Sol, where’s my stuff, please?’ Nia got in there before he could try and talk her out of it. ‘Did you bring my guitar?’

  Sol nodded. He didn’t know what to say.

  She sighed with relief. It had been more than a week since she’d last held her mother’s guitar in her hands; they itched and ached to reach out and touch the strings. She checked her watch one more time and nodded. Sol handed over the keys to his dad’s truck silently; he’d left the guitar in the back with her bag of clothes.

  He shouldn’t have said yes, he thought, and it was too late now. He should have known better. He hadn’t asked her why she wanted a bag of clothes hidden at his house because he was already hiding her guitar. He just presumed it was more drama about her dad. He’d been right about the drama part, he thought, as Nia ducked out of the hall and into the car park.

  Nia opened Caleb’s boot, reached in and touched her guitar case, instantly feeling calmer. She picked it up, slung it on her back, grabbed the carrier bag with her choir uniform in and shut the boot, locking it before walking over to her spot.

  It was safer playing here in the town-hall entrance than in town. Her dad hadn’t set foot in the town hall since her mother died. He could just about bring himself to drop Nia off there, speeding away down the road as if the mountain wolves were after him. The town hall was where her mother had sung as a teenager, where her father first heard her sing. And now it was another place he avoided, as if someone had put up a no-entry sign on the door or sealed off the area with police tape. There was still the chance someone would tell him, but today Nia didn’t care, because none of it would matter after tonight.

  The sheltered entrance was the only way in and out of the craft market, which meant plenty of passing customers. Nia opened the case, set it down on the ground and moved around the handful of coins she’d left in there from last week. She took care to leave lots of nice gaps for the crowd to fill with their coins. If today went well she’d have enough to pay for her train fare tonight. And hopefully a room in a hostel, if there wasn’t room for her in the hotel with the rest of the choir.

  Nia turned the volume off on her phone; she didn’t want her dad ringing to check up on her right now. She tucked it away in her skirt pocket and cleared her throat. She took a quick sip from her water bottle and then began to play. She didn’t play carols. She’d had more than enough of those. Instead she chose popular covers that usually worked well as crowd pleasers. Nia smiled gratefully at strangers as they dropped their copper, silver and gold coins into her case, happily surprised that people would think her music was worth something.

  When she played she imagined a different version of herself standing there. She pictured another Nia, confident, knowing and peaceful. Playing the guitar made her feel as if she was making her own rules, imagining the future musician she hoped she’d have the opportunity to become.

  Only a few more years of this, Nia told herself, as she tightened the strings on her mother’s guitar. Only a few more years of being treated like a china doll and then she could go anywhere, sing whenever she wanted and travel to any city in the
world, on her own legally, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. Not once she was an adult.

  She really didn’t get why walking into town with Sol had freaked her father out so much, but then there was a lot about him she didn’t get anymore. If she wasn’t safe with Sol, Nia didn’t know who she was safe with. They’d known each other practically their whole lives.

  A little boy wrapped up in a bobble hat, matching scarf and red gloves stopped to check out all the other coins before parting with the one his dad had given him. His eyes were wide, imagining what he would buy with all the shiny riches before him. He reminded Nia of Sol the day she’d first met him in the woods, playing on her turf, sitting in her tree…

  Chapter Nine

  ‘That’s my climbing tree,’ Nia told the strange boy who was halfway up it, standing on the weakest branch. He didn’t jump when he heard her voice so Nia knew he’d seen her coming. The tree was a good lookout post. That’s why it was hers.

  ‘It can’t be your tree. This is everyone’s tree because it’s in the woods. You can’t own the woods,’ he said, rubbing his face on the bottom of his t-shirt. It was hot, probably too hot to be out without a hat, but Nia’s had fallen off somewhere along the way; she’d find it later on the way home. He had baseball boots on too which would be no good for climbing. Nia looked down at her trainers with grips on and nodded confidently.

  ‘Well, everyone else knows it’s my tree, ’xcept you, so you must be new. Which means you are Solomon,’ Nia informed him, making the situation and the rules clear.

  ‘Just Sol, actually.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Sol.’ She tried his name out again. The shortened version sounded more natural on her tongue. She didn’t know anyone called Sol. ‘I’m Nia. Don’t put your foot on that branch; it won’t hold your weight.’ She pointed out the weak areas and shimmied up the tree to meet him, showing off happily. There was a breeze in the treetops at least. Nia twisted her hair up and off her neck and clamped it together with a hairclip from the front of her hair.