Christmas Under the Northern Lights

by Annie O'Neil

  ‘Stop it,’ she told herself. If she wasn’t here there’d be no one at all. Grandpa was failing, and there were no bright young doctors hammering on the door to take up such a remote and scattered practice. What was needed was some sort of integrated medical facility, with means to transfer patients easily between the islands, but the cost of that would be prohibitive. Money was a huge problem.

  An hour’s boat ride across to an outer island, a couple of hours treating a patient and organising evacuation, an hour’s boat ride back—how could she charge islanders anywhere near what that was worth? She couldn’t. Her medical practice was therefore perpetually starved for funds, with no financial incentive for any other doctor to join her.

  She loved this island. She loved its people and there’d never been a time she’d thought of leaving. It’d break her grandpa’s heart and it’d break her heart, but sometimes—like now—she wouldn’t mind time away. Christmas shopping in the big department stores. Crowds of shoppers where no one knew her. Bustle, chaos, fun.

  A boyfriend who wasn’t Tony?

  Tony definitely wasn’t the one. After just one date he’d explained the very sensible reasons why they should marry, and he’d been proprietary ever since. He made no secret of his intentions and the islanders had jokingly egged him on. Of course she’d said no, and she’d keep saying no, but the pool of eligible guys on the island was depressingly small.

  Sometimes she even found herself thinking she could—should?—end up with Tony. Or someone like Tony.

  ‘You have to be kidding. No one I’ve dated in the whole time I’ve been here makes my toes curl,’ she told the view, and her dopey beagle, Sherlock, came sniffing back to make sure she was okay.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she told the little dog, but she lifted him up and hugged him, because for some reason she really needed a hug. Last week’s death had shattered her, maybe even more so because she knew her grandfather had heart problems. Plus he had renal problems. She was just...alone.

  ‘But I’m not alone,’ she told Sherlock fiercely, releasing him again to head into his sniffy places in the undergrowth. ‘I have Grandpa. I have you. Even if I’m not going to marry Tony, I have the whole of the Birding Isles.’

  ‘Who all depend on me,’ she added.

  ‘Yeah, so why are you here staring into space when they need you back in town?’ she demanded of herself. ‘What dramas am I missing now?’

  She rose reluctantly and took a last long look at the view, soaking in the silence, the serenity, the peace. And then she turned to leave.

  ‘Sherlock?’ she called and got a sudden frenzied barking in return.

  He was well into the bushes, investigating one of the myriad animal tracks that led from this point. He’d have some poor animal cornered, she thought—a wombat, a goanna. A snake?

  She wasn’t too fussed. Sherlock might be dumb, but he knew enough to stay out of darting distance from a snake, and he never hurt anything he’d cornered. Her dog was all nose and no follow through, but once he’d found the source of a scent he wouldn’t leave it. Sighing, she reached into her pocket for his lead and headed into the bush after him.

  But she went carefully. This was cave country. The water from the falls had undercut the limestone, and crevices and underground river routes made a trap for the unwary. Her grandpa had taught her the safe routes as a kid, and Sherlock’s barking was well off the path she usually followed.

  But by the sound of his frenzied barking he wasn’t too far, and she knew the risks. She trod carefully, stepping on large rocks rather than loose undergrowth, testing the ground carefully before she put her weight on it.

  Sherlock’s yapping was reaching a crescendo—whatever he’d found had to be unusual. Not a ’roo then, or a wombat or koala. She wondered what it could be.

  ‘Sherlock?’ she yelled again in a useless attempt to divert him.

  But the response left her stunned. It was a deep male voice, muffled, desperate.

  ‘Help. Please help.’

  * * *

  He was stuck. Uselessly stuck. Hurting. Helpless.

  He’d broken his leg and dislocated his shoulder. The pain was searing, but his predicament almost overrode the pain.

  He was maybe fifteen feet down from the chink of light that showed the entrance to the underground chamber into which he’d fallen. The hole must have been covered with twigs and leaf litter, enough to cover it, enough for small animals to cross. Enough to think he was following a proper path.

  He’d been moving fast. There’d been a sickening lurch as his boot had stepped through the fragile cover, and an unbelievable sensation as the entire ground seemed to give way. Then the freefall. The agony of his leg buckling underneath him. A searing pain in his shoulder.

  And then fear.

  He was on rock and dirt, on an almost level floor. He could see little except the light from the hole he’d made above him. The rest of the cave was gloomy, fading to blackness where the light from the hole above cut out.

  He’d dropped his phone. He’d had it in his hand, but had let it go to clutch for a hold as he’d fallen. Maybe it was down here but he couldn’t find it, and whenever he moved the pain in his leg and shoulder almost made him pass out. He could contact no one.

  No phone. No light. Just pain.

  According to his watch he’d been underground for twenty-seven hours. He’d dozed fretfully during the night but the pain was always with him. Today had stretched endlessly as he’d fought pain, exhaustion, panic.

  He was unbelievably thirsty.

  He was finding it hard to stay awake.

  He was going nuts.

  He’d been calling but he did it intermittently, knowing the chances of being heard in such a place were remote. The effort of calling was making him feel dizzy and sick. He knew he had to harness his resources, but what resources? He had nothing left.

  And when could he expect help?

  First rule of bushwalking—advise friends of dates and routes. He’d told Kayla he had family business to sort from his mother’s death and he was turning his phone off for twenty-four hours. He hadn’t told anyone he was flying all the way to Gannet Island.

  Panic was so close...

  And then, through the mist of pain and exhaustion, he heard a dog. The dog must have sensed he was down here—it was going crazy above him.

  And then, even more unbelievably, he heard a woman calling, ‘Sherlock!’

  Don’t go to her.

  It was a silent plea to the dog, said over and over in his head as he yelled with every ounce of strength he possessed and tried to drag himself closer to the hole.

  ‘Help... Don’t come close—the ground’s unsafe—but please get help.’

  * * *

  Elsa froze.

  She knew at once what must have happened. Someone had fallen into one of the underground caverns.

  Instinct would have had her shoving her way through the undergrowth to reach whoever it was, but triage had been drilled into her almost from the first day in med school.

  First ensure your own safety.

  Sherlock was barking in a place that was inherently unsafe. Her little beagle was light on his feet, used to following animal tracks. Elsa, not so much. She’d be dumb to charge off the path to investigate.

  She stood still and called, as loud as she could, ‘Hey! I’m here. Where are you?’

  Sherlock stopped barking at that, seeming to sense the import of her words, and here came the voice again.

  ‘I’ve fallen underground. Be careful. It looks...it looks like a path but it’s not. The ground’s unstable.’

  ‘I’m careful,’ she called, making her words prosaic and reassuring as possible. ‘I’m a local. A doctor. Are you hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’ She could hear pain and exhaustion in his tone, and his words were cracking with strain. ‘B
roken leg and... I think...dislocated shoulder. I fell...through yesterday.’

  Yesterday. To lie wounded in the dark for so long...this was the stuff of nightmares.

  Next step? Reassurance.

  ‘Okay, we’re on it. I’ll call for backup and we’ll get you out of there,’ she called back. ‘It might take a while but help’s coming.’

  ‘Thank...thank you.’

  But his words faded badly, and she wondered how much effort it had cost him to call out.

  ‘Is your breathing okay?’ she shouted. ‘Are you bleeding? Do you have water?’

  No answer.

  ‘Hello?’

  Silence.

  Had he drifted into unconsciousness? Collapsed? Was he dying while she stood helplessly above?

  Triage, she told herself fiercely. She was no use to anyone if she panicked.

  She flipped open her satellite phone, dependable wherever she went, either here or on the outer islands. Her call went straight through to Macka, Gannet Island’s only policeman.

  ‘Elsa. What’s up?’ Macka was in his sixties, big, solid, dependable. He’d been a cop here for as long as Elsa could remember, and the sound of his voice grounded her.

  ‘I’m up on Lightning Peak, following the back path around to the east, almost to the top,’ she told him. ‘Sherlock’s just found someone who’s fallen into an underground cavern.’

  There was a moment’s pause. Macka would know straight away the gravity of the situation.

  ‘Alive?’

  ‘I heard him call but he’s been stuck since yesterday.’

  ‘You’re safe yourself?’

  ‘Yeah, but I need to go down. He’s stopped answering and his breathing sounded laboured. I have basic stuff in my backpack.’

  ‘Elsa...’

  ‘It’s okay. I have a decent rope and it was you who taught me to rappel.’

  ‘Wait for us.’

  ‘I can’t. It’ll take you a couple of hours to reach us. The light’ll fail before you get here and I don’t know how bad he is. Macka, I’ll turn on location sharing on my phone. Can you take a screenshot now so you know exactly where I am? I’m not sure if this phone will work underground.’

  ‘It should, but Elsa...’

  ‘I can’t see that I have any other choice,’ Elsa said, hearing his deep concern. ‘But I’ll stay safe, you know I will. And Sherlock will be up top—he’ll bark when he hears you.’

  ‘Elsa, please wait for us.’

  ‘But it sounds like he’s lost consciousness,’ she said, almost gently. Macka’s first concern was always to protect her—there was still a part of him that thought of her as the kid who’d landed on the island as a neglected seven-year-old. But she was all grown up now, and triage told her what she was doing was sensible. ‘I need to go down and see what’s going on, but I’ll take every care. Can you let Grandpa know what’s happening? Tell him it’s under control, though. Don’t scare him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare,’ Macka said, and she heard the hint of a rueful smile. ‘Anything you say, Elsa.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not that bossy.’

  ‘Reckon you are,’ he said, and she heard another smile. Then, in a different tone, ‘Reckon you’ve had to be. But be careful.’

  ‘Same to you,’ she told him. ‘Don’t come up here alone; bring a couple of the guys from the fire station.’

  She heard the trace of a chuckle at that. ‘Hey, you know Tony’s a volunteer. He’ll want to come.’

  ‘Yeah, like that’ll help,’ she said wryly, thinking of staid, solid Tony who’d been acting more and more possessive without any encouragement. ‘Macka, do me a favour and don’t tell him.’

  ‘This is Gannet, love. This news’ll be all over the island before you even disconnect.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said wearily. ‘Bring the cavalry then. Only Macka, be careful yourselves. This place is dangerous.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ he said grimly. ‘Okay, love, let’s make sure I have this screenshot with co-ordinates so I know exactly where you are, and get this rescue underway.’

  Copyright © 2020 by Marion Lennox

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  ISBN-13: 9781488066818

  Christmas Under the Northern Lights

  Copyright © 2020 by Annie O’Neil

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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