by Violet Grace
I stare at him, consumed by disgust. I don’t know why he’s trying to manipulate me. Or how he could do it in such a vile and despicable manner.
He must know that this is every foster kid’s fantasy: that one day somebody realises that it’s all been a terrible mistake. You go from the aching emptiness of being nobody to suddenly becoming somebody. You matter, you’re not alone anymore, and for the first time in your life the frosty hole at the centre of your being is plugged.
How dare he use the pain of my childhood to twist my emotions. I taste blood in my mouth and realise I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek. But I can’t release my jaw. Mute fury courses through every muscle in my body. My fingers dig into the blue velvet so deeply that I can feel the wooden frame beneath.
I’m burning up with such rage that it physically hurts. I’m trembling, sweating.
‘Screw. You,’ I spit, willing back the hot tears pooling in my eyes.
The Chancellor inches back into his chair, sitting upright, his eyes wide in shock. I feel Jules glance uncertainly in my direction.
Clearly, neither of them expected this.
‘I have no idea who you are, where I am, or what you’ve given me,’ I say, gesturing at the remnants of the glass on the floor. ‘But I’m not going to sit here and be told who I am by a complete stranger with an overactive imagination.’ I lever myself out of the chair, unsteady on my feet. ‘I told you: my parents died in an accident! I’m not going to save you or anyone else. I’ve got enough problems already; I don’t care about yours. If I don’t get back home soon, I’m going to be fired and then probably sent to prison.’
Silence envelops the room once more.
After a moment, the Chancellor speaks. ‘Before you make a decision, have a look at that painting.’
I grasp the back of the chair to steady myself, staring at the Chancellor, a fresh batch of anger rushing from the knot in my stomach. He points to the ceiling.
‘Queen Cordelia,’ he says. ‘Rather a striking resemblance, wouldn’t you say?’
‘To who?’ I snap. Sure, we have the same colouring and frame, but I couldn’t hope to possess her combination of serenity and strength. ‘That may be Francesca’s mother but she’s not mine.’
I can barely see the painting through the tears pricking my eyes. If that woman really is my mother, then that baby would be me. But it can’t be. That look on her face, the way she is staring at the baby with pure love … If someone had ever looked at me like that, I would remember.
‘Francesca, listen to me,’ the Chancellor starts again, and this time there’s the barest hint of desperation in his voice. The painting on the ceiling, it seems, was his trump card.
‘Don’t call me that.’
He reaches across the table and grabs my arm, his teeth bared. ‘This isn’t a game, Francesca. You are the only one standing between the rebels and the throne. If they find you, there’s no telling what they might do.’
‘Get your hands off —’ I hear myself scream as I rip away my arm. There’s a scorching spark of blue light, like a camera flash, then darkness.
chapter 6
I’m balanced on the edge of pain.
My head’s foggy. Drugs – I must be on painkillers. But drugs can only mask pain, not erase it. Dull aches throb throughout my body, punctuated by the occasional stab. I can tell that I’m covered in bruises without even looking.
As a kid I woke to this feeling too many times to count, after Larry had had too much to drink the night before. Or not enough. It was the bruises on my face that used to upset me the most – the ones I couldn’t hide. Did I fall down the stairs again, or walk into a doorframe? After a while it didn’t matter because people stopped asking.
My left temple is stinging, and I know I’m cut. My hand prickles from the drip inserted into the vein. I want to rip it out but I don’t, reluctant to do without the pain meds. I move my hand to my temple to assess the damage.
‘Don’t touch,’ comes a stern voice. There’s a guy wearing green hospital scrubs standing by the foot of my bed, staring at a chart in a blue plastic ring-binder. ‘Six stitches. That’s what’s under that bandage and it will heal a lot quicker if you stop poking at it.’ He delivers this in clipped tones without looking up, giving me the distinct impression that he’d rather be anywhere but here.
‘Where am I?’ I take in my surrounds: white walls, white ceiling, a double window to my right with a curtain in the familiar shade of neglect. I peer out the window, searching for damaged buildings and overgrown trees. But I see soft afternoon sunlight glinting off car windscreens. As far as I can tell, it looks like a normal car park and street. I hope this means that I’m back from … whatever that was.
‘Hospital,’ the guy says flatly, still studying the folder.
I’d already worked that out. The beeping machines and all-pervasive smell of industrial bleach were a dead give-away. What I really want to know is whether I’m back home, or if I’m still stuck wherever I was before – that Iridesca place. The trouble is, I don’t know how to ask without being whisked off to the psych ward.
He hasn’t called me ‘Your Highness’ yet, so that’s a good sign.
In one enormous stride the doctor moves to the boxes of latex gloves mounted on the wall. He takes one out of the box marked ‘Large’ and forces his hand into it. I shudder at the sight of his gloved hand. I hate doctors.
One more step and he’s at my bedside, running his gloved finger softly along the edge of the bandage on my face. He still hasn’t looked me directly in the eyes.
‘It’s a deep cut but it’ll heal nicely,’ he says, more to himself than to me. ‘The stitches will dissolve in a couple of weeks but you’ll need to keep the wound dry for a day or two.’
His rigid manner makes it easier for me to overlook his ridiculously large blue eyes. And his blond spiky mane of hair. Not to mention the tiny indent in the centre of each of his cheeks. And he’s so rude that I don’t even find myself musing that he’d have dimples if he ever smiled – a rare occurrence, I’m sure. In fact, I’m finding it easy to overlook the fact that he is, without a doubt, the most beautiful person I’ve ever set eyes on.
Snap out of it, I tell myself.
He’s also the youngest-looking doctor I’ve ever seen. He looks only a few years older than me, but that can’t be right. If he’s that young, he surely wouldn’t have finished medical school yet. He would have barely started.
But that’s not why I’m staring at him.
It’s something else, but I can’t think what. A memory? A dream?
Or maybe it’s my first-ever hormone rush?
‘Who are you?’ I ask. My mouth and throat are as parched as sandpaper.
‘Tom Williams,’ he says, finally looking at me. He pauses for a moment, as if gauging my reaction. There’s a flicker of warmth, concern even, in his eyes. A beat later it’s gone. He whips the glove off, rolls it in a ball and tosses it into the rubbish bin, where it lands perfectly without touching the sides.
‘You’re a bit young to be a doctor, aren’t you?’ I say.
‘I get that a lot,’ he says, only half listening. He looks at the plastic bag of fluid above my bed, which is slowly dripping down the tube and into my hand.
‘You are a real doctor, aren’t you?’ I say, feeling greater unease.
‘I have done this before,’ he replies, not even trying to conceal the irritation in his voice. He slips a penlight out of his top pocket and shines it into my eyes.
I’m about to look away, but find I can’t tear my eyes from his face. I’m staring at him like a complete idiot. I shake my head, trying to break the trance.
‘Hold still,’ he says.
‘What am I doing here?’
He ignores my question. I knock his hand away and feel a sharp tingle on my finger where it touches his. I might be projecting, but the flash in his eyes tells me he felt it too.
‘Just tell me why I’m here,’ I say, rubbing my tingling hand
.
He raises an eyebrow, as if asking for information is totally unreasonable. Clicking off the penlight and letting out a sigh, he folds his arms across his broad torso.
‘You were found lying in the middle of Kensington High Street earlier today. You were unconscious, so you were brought here.’ There’s that look again – a tiny hint of something warm through his cold detachment. And then it vanishes once more. ‘Your possessions were gone, so I’m guessing they got away.’
‘Who got away?’ I ask, digging for some evidence of the Chancellor and the woman on the bike. Jules, her name was.
‘Whoever mugged you.’
Ordinarily, I’d freak out at being told I was found unconscious. The fact that I’d been found on a street and without any of my stuff would make it even worse. Instead, relief washes over me. I must be home.
‘Now, hold still,’ he orders. ‘I need to make sure you haven’t suffered a concussion.’
Normally I wouldn’t allow a doctor near me, much less one who looks barely old enough to vote. But I’m wondering, perhaps even hoping, that I do have concussion. At least that could explain what just happened to me with the Chancellor and those freaky pus creatures.
It might also explain this weird reaction I’m having to a complete stranger.
He resumes shining his torch in both my eyes and has me track the light from left to right and then up and down.
‘What exactly do you remember?’
I open my mouth to answer but stop. Do I go with the mugging explanation? I have no clue how to articulate what happened, and even if I did I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be spilling it to Doctor Hot and Sour. If I mention ravens smashing windows, an alternative London that is a cross between a jungle and a war zone, being rescued by a woman on a motorbike, and meeting with some man calling himself ‘the Chancellor’, I’m not going to win any credibility awards. He’ll think I’m using controlled substances and that’s going to look really bad on my parole report. Since I evidently don’t have concussion, part of me would like to write off the whole episode as a dream or a brain glitch.
But I can’t. Because, whatever it was, I know it happened. It was real.
Or is that the definition of crazy: when you can no longer distinguish what’s real from what’s fantasy?
‘It’s not a trick question,’ the doctor says in a frosty voice.
‘I don’t know what happened,’ I say too quickly.
He flicks his white blond spiky fringe. ‘Uh-huh’, he says, but his face says ‘Liar’.
He wraps a cuff around my arm to take my blood pressure. As it tightens, he looks down at the screen and I sneak a closer look at his face. His eyes, ice in both colour and temperature, are framed with such long, thick eyelashes that his face would look almost feminine if it weren’t for the strong jaw. I can’t decide if the spikes of his fringe, which look remarkably like icicles, are the result of hours in front a mirror or incredibly fortunate just-got-out-of-bed hair.
‘Your blood pressure’s low,’ he says, removing the cuff from my arm. ‘Too low. If I were you, I’d stay horizontal. You’ll need to be here for a while.’
‘I’m not staying here,’ I say, feeling my stomach clench.
‘You need to rest in order to recover.’
‘I’ll rest at home.’
‘Chess,’ he says in an authoritative doctor tone.
‘How do you know my name?’
‘It’s on your chart.’
I don’t believe him. I wonder if he knows me. Or if I know him but for some reason can’t remember.
But how could I have forgotten a face like that?
‘Have we met before?’ I ask.
The doctor inhales so quickly I can hear it. His alabaster skin turns a whiter shade of pale. His eyes tilt upwards for a moment as if searching for a memory and then he sets his gaze on my face, boring into me as if expecting some kind of explanation.
‘What?’ I ask, a tad more defensively than I intend.
He swears under his breath as he runs his hand through his hair, and then backs away from me as if I’m contagious. Then he steadies himself, locks his eyes with mine and says, ‘You don’t know me,’ as if it’s a command rather than a simple statement of fact.
But memories flash through my mind, like someone just let off a hundred blinding flash bulbs. Each memory is crystal clear, as if it happened only yesterday. But it’s like I’m seeing them for the first time.
chapter 7
I’m fighting for air but it’s not enough.
A weight pushes down on my chest. Panic floods through me. My mind fills with an incoherent mass of images that can’t be real.
‘Can’t breathe,’ I hear myself wheeze. My lungs are on fire.
The doctor springs to action. All trace of the weirdness from before has disappeared as he takes my hand into his huge palm.
‘You need to calm down,’ he says firmly, but with unexpected warmth. ‘Take a deep breath.’
I try to do as he says, but can’t. The tips of my fingers begin tingling with pins and needles. He places his other hand on my forehead and sucks in a breath as if he’s steeling himself for something. Through my blurred vision, he looks like he’s grimacing, in pain maybe, before calm warmth suffuses my entire body. His face relaxes and his eyes become mesmerising, as if he’s communicating with the innermost core of my being.
He’s so close to me I can imbibe his musky saltiness.
More memories surface … but of what?
Somewhere deep inside, a door inches ajar.
And then I remember. A feeling. Or rather, what he’s making me feel. The warmth, the calm and the peace. I’ve felt it before.
My heart stops racing, and my breathing returns to normal.
‘You’re okay,’ the doctor says, and strangely, his command makes it so. ‘It was a panic attack, but it’s over now.’
It’s hard to make sense of his expression. Fear? Terror even? But what could have him so worried?
‘I’ll, er … I’ll get the registrar.’ He sounds like someone desperate to find a reason to leave. My eyes follow him out of the room. He looks back over his shoulder and meets my gaze. It’s not the careless glance of a stranger, or the clinical look of a doctor. His eyes are pools filled with unspoken meaning and there’s something achingly familiar hiding beneath the surface. I can’t look away until he slips completely out of view.
I want to follow him. I have a hundred questions to ask but every one of them would sound completely bonkers if I said it out loud. How can you ask someone how you know them when they’ve just told you that you don’t? Particularly when you have no distinct memory of ever actually knowing them?
I push the questions from my mind. I must have imagined the familiarity, that connection. I guess it’s a symptom of my head injury.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know there’s a nurse at my bedside carrying a tray with arid sandwiches, a cup of tea and a glass of juice. She places the tray on the table next to my bed and hands me the juice.
‘Drink up, dear,’ she says. ‘It’ll help with your blood pressure.’ She collects the blue folder from the end of the bed and clicks her pen. ‘I’m Bronwyn, honey. I’m going to need your name now.’
‘Don’t you already have it?’
‘No, dear. You weren’t coherent enough to supply it when you were brought in.’
‘But that doctor – he knew my name. He read it off my chart.’
‘Now what doctor would that be?’ Bronwyn asks brightly.
I think for a moment to recall his name. ‘Tom. Tom Williams.’
Nurse Bronwyn looks at me kindly. ‘There’s no Dr Williams working on this ward.’ She pats my hand. ‘Don’t worry, dear, it’s normal to feel a bit confused after an accident. You’ll be right as rain soon enough.’
I give her my name and then she asks me if I know the year and the name of the prime minister. Once I prove that I’m coherent, we move on to my address and questio
ns about allergies. She stands to leave, promising that a doctor will be along soon.
Alone in the cold, impersonal hospital room, I try to piece together what has happened. I catch my reflection in the glass of one of the machines I’m connected to. I don’t see a fairy princess staring back. My hair is a grease slick and my eyes are bloodshot pools ringed with dark circles.
The street lights outside my window flicker to life as Nurse Bronwyn appears again at my bedside, wearing a sympathetic expression. ‘Dear,’ she begins, her voice troubled, ‘there are two police officers here who’d like to have a word with you.’
The last thing I need right now is more law-enforcement personnel in my life. I need time to work out a story – one that’s more convincing than ‘I blacked out and I don’t remember anything’.
But I don’t have time. I gulp guiltily as Bronwyn ushers two men in, even though I’m pretty sure I’m innocent of whatever they’re here to accuse of me of. They’re not in uniform – at least, not in police uniform. One’s wearing a nondescript suit. The other has the features of a basset hound – floppy skin and droopy eyes – and looks like he pulled his suit from a charity bin.
‘Chess Raven?’ asks the basset hound.
‘Yes,’ I answer, my muscles tensing with the anxiety of a person who’s never been given the benefit of the doubt. I’m certain that both men notice as they approach my bed.
The basset hound introduces himself as Special Agent Weekes, and his colleague as Special Agent Westerfield.
Special Agent? What happened to Constable or Sergeant? This must be even more serious than I imagined.
Westerfield snarls in response to his name, making it clear he’s the pit bull to Weekes’s basset hound. Both flash their badges and I spot the Home Office emblem. My breath catches in my chest. So, not police then. They must be from the Second Chances program. Jeez, these guys don’t miss a thing.
I’ve seen enough cop dramas to notice the bulge at the back of both of their coats. Since when do office stiffs from the Home Office carry weapons?
