Page 6 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

Her eyes flew open. Her body screaming in protest as she looked around in a frenzy. She had no idea where she was. She gripped someone’s arm. Someone who smelled of laundry powder and mint. Antony. She tried to breathe, clawing her mind back into place. The Hawthorn. The Coffin. That’s where she was. There’d been a storm. Far above her, thorny branches swayed across the stars.

The person.

They’d been curled up, their hair spread around them like an emerald-black sea.

‘Frida, are you ok?’ Antony cried.

She cast around. ‘Y-yes, I’m fine.’ Her throat was bone dry as if she’d been screaming. ‘There was someone here. Are they ok? Are they alive?’ She managed to focus on Antony.

‘There’s no one else here. It’s just us. You hit your head, I think.’ His deep voice was a balm to the pain ricocheting through her. Darkness leaked in around his edges, along with the very real scent of wet and heavy woods. But . . .

‘No. They were right there!’ She gestured wildly, but she moved too fast and had to close her eyes, the world spinning. ‘The Hawthorn is broken,’ she whimpered, leaning into his steady chest, no idea why or how he was there, but very grateful. ‘It’s broken, all broken. We were hit by lightning! And there was a person. They looked hurt, I don’t know, I can’t, I’m not—’

‘Fri, it’s ok. No one’s hurt, no one’s here. The Hawthorn’s fine.’

Frida heard what he said, but she didn’t believe him. ‘It can’t be,’ she cried. ‘Everything was purple, there was a fire, there was a person on the ground that needed help! The Coffin’s totally shattered, a million pieces . . .’ She’d opened her eyes again and was looking all around her in disbelief. ‘The storm . . .’ she trailed off. ‘I swear . . .’

Antony held her as if she might break. His dimples were nowhere to be seen, his forehead a knot of worry – the kind of face he wore after she’d been made into a pincushion by the fairy hedgehogs.

‘I—’ She looked around again. It wasn’t possible. It was like the storm had never happened. The Hawthorn loomed above them, the same sleepy hardwood, not a whiff of smoke. The Coffin surrounded them, glass reflecting the silvery shadows that danced off the spotlights. Beyond, the familiar wood smelled of damp loam and moss. But she still felt as if she’d been blasted in two. She lifted a hand to her head. ‘Shit,’ she murmured. There was a bump the size of a tomato up there. She stared up at Antony, wavering on her feet. It wasn’t possible.

‘I’m not hallucinating. I didn’t eat any of Hamish’s mushroom stash. I saw it.’

Keeping a soft hold of her, he held out one hand, indicating that he wanted to feel her head. Reluctantly, she let him.

‘Lord, Fri,’ he muttered. He pressed his calloused fingers to the bridge of his nose. ‘It feels like you’ve got a grootneck on your skull!’

She groaned. The glass Coffin twinkled behind him, sparkling with the light of a thousand crystals. She was starting to feel silly. She had to try one more time though. ‘I swear I saw someone. They had green hair.’

He grinned slightly, one dimple emerging. ‘Cool. Like Kermit-green?’

‘No,’ she bit out. ‘It was more Emerald City-green!’

‘Right, the best kind of green, of course.’

Distracted, she looked around again. ‘I don’t know,’ she finally wailed. ‘Maybe . . . Maybe they were a guest who got lost.’

‘You think?’ Antony’s worry lines immediately increased. He tugged on one of his ears, something he did when he was nervous. Any mention of injured guests was something they all took seriously.

Frida pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes though, her heart sinking. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know. It couldn’t have been a guest.’ They’d know if someone had got lost – everyone who came to the zoo had to swipe in with their QR code, swipe out when they left. For what felt like the hundredth time, she scanned the interior of the enclosure, her eyes moving over the disorientating shadows. The trunk’s ridges of greying bark fluctuated uncanny colours in her hazy vision. Silver and gold, rose and sapphire. ‘Who did I see then? And why was everything purple?’

Antony just stared at her, helpless.

She groaned again. Her headache seemed to have hitched up a notch. She ground her teeth. ‘You think I’ve lost it. You think I’ve finally lost it.’

The second that it took for him to answer was more than enough. If only it had been Hamish who’d found her. Hamish would have said something funny, and then – just as repressed as she was – they would have kindly moved on. Antony, by contrast, was much more well-rounded and looked far too worried. To do anything but look at him, she gazed down at her filthy hands. She’d never looked less purple in her life.

He touched her sleeve and spoke with care, as if nervous of upsetting her. This in itself was upsetting. ‘You might be concussed, love.’

She miserably prodded the tomato on the back of her head. The glass Coffin had never looked glassier, the tree never more tree-like. But her brain had never felt so un-brain-like in her life. She felt as if she’d been trampled by Matilda, the largest of the stone giants.

‘Why does this stuff never happen to you?’ she wailed. ‘Why is it always me?’

He chuckled. ‘Oh, come on. There’s only enough room for one drama queen in this threesome. Don’t you start.’

It was enough to make a smile pull at her lips. That crown went unequivocably to Hamish, and she had no desire to usurp them. With an effort, she reigned in her melodrama and reminded herself that she hadn’t been trampled by Matilda or hit by lightning. She’d just tripped over a root. Big whoop, Fri. A wave of tiredness hit her, and she leaned her head against Antony’s shoulder. Christ, she hurt. ‘I want to go to bed.’

He looped his arm through hers and squeezed. The look on his face though wasn’t so sanguine. ‘You’re not really serious, are you?’