The Girl Who Fell (The Chess Raven Chronicles)

by Violet Grace

  It’s hopeless. My arms and legs are shaking so violently in a mixture of pain, exhaustion and panic that they won’t do what they’re supposed to. I feel like I’ve been burned from the inside all the way out to my skin.

  There’s a heavy thump on the road behind me and my stomach lurches into my mouth. I turn, defeated, to face my predator. White light illuminates the darkness, and dumb shock replaces the sensations thrashing through my body.

  The source of that light appears to be a giant horse. Enormous feathered wings flare from either side of its wither, and its forehead is crowned by a single golden horn.

  I gasp, completely freaked out. But strangely enough, it’s not the sight of a unicorn that has me so rattled. It’s that I’ve seen it before. The creature before me, this unicorn, has haunted and soothed my dreams for years.

  ‘Get on,’ a gravelly baritone commands. Huge ice blue eyes stare down at me through lush eyelashes set within a long equine face. The white beast shakes its spiky mane impatiently. Muscles ripple under his lustrous coat.

  Get on? Get on what?

  As if reading my thoughts, the unicorn turns to the side and shows me the long, sleek curve of his back.

  You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t want to be recaptured by the Agency but I’m not crazy enough to jump onto a mythical flying horse that only exists in my dreams.

  Barking and the heavy breathing and snorting of hounds closes in. Men’s voices yell as their footsteps thunder towards us.

  ‘Get on,’ the beast orders again, frustration in his voice.

  I scramble up, before falling down again. The unicorn charges straight at me. I desperately try to roll out of his way, but I’m not fast enough. The animal wedges his nose under my torso and flicks back his head, catapulting me upwards like a ragdoll.

  A small cry escapes my lips as I rise about two metres into the sky. Gravity takes over and I cradle my head, readying for impact onto the rocky ground. But it never comes. The unicorn breaks my fall as I thump down, straddling his back.

  ‘Please,’ I hear myself squeak, even though I have no idea what I’m asking for.

  ‘Hang on.’ The gravelly voice reverberates through me.

  I have just enough time to wrap my arms around his neck before we’re galloping away from the Agency.

  I’m now wide awake. The pain and fogginess have given way to a rush of adrenaline. I feel myself slipping from my mount, so I lean forward and hold on tighter, my cheek pressing against the unicorn’s silken coat.

  A tickling sensation runs up the backs of my thighs. Looking around, I see the unicorn’s outstretched wings fan out and beat rhythmically against me.

  They remind me of the wings of a hawk – a giant hawk, powerful and majestic. They make me think of my own wings. I reach around to my back in the hope that they might have sprouted again.

  Nothing.

  The unicorn’s wings extend to their full magnificent span and I realise he is readying to take off. Before I can count all the reasons this is a bad idea, we’re ascending, soaring higher and higher, past treetops and power lines. The unicorn lurches to the side, narrowly missing an owl flying directly towards us. I tighten my grip even more, terrified I’ll fall off his back.

  My ears pop as we climb. Tears stream from my eyes, and the icy air burns my face and lungs. I bury my head in his thick mane. I have no idea where I’m going and who – or what – is taking me there. I don’t even know if I’m being rescued or just captured by someone else.

  It’s not until we’re above the clouds that the beast levels out. We’re buffeted by changes in air pressure, but the unicorn doesn’t reduce his speed. My hair whips around my head.

  I wait for him to speak again, but he doesn’t. I wonder if I imagined it the first time.

  Eventually I muster the courage to ask where we’re going and what he’s going to do to me. I know it’s dumb, but part of me hopes that maybe we could cut some sort of deal. He could drop me off at home. I could give him a couple of carrots or rainbows or whatever it is unicorns eat, and we could call it even.

  All I get in return is silence.

  Through the breaks in the cloud, which are turning pink with the first light of a new day, I can see that we’re flying west out of London, following the Thames in the direction of Windsor. I’ve stopped shivering; the heat from his body warms the inside of my thighs, radiating throughout my whole body. I relax slightly and wonder if, in other circumstances, I might enjoy this experience. And then I notice his scent – musky and oddly comforting.

  The moment of almost-enjoyment passes as, without warning, the beating of his wings slows and they angle back. We’re descending.

  Fast.

  Through stinging, watering eyes, I see the blurry lights cast by houses on the streets below. I close my eyes as the weight of my body pushes forward into the beast’s neck so that I fear overbalancing and toppling forward. I cling to him, but the pace of his descent increases even further and I can’t stop my body from leaving his back. I’m vertical, upside down, my feet in the air and my arms desperately holding on.

  My grip slips and I flip backwards, hurtling towards the ground.

  I put my hands up to protect my head, but before I hit, I feel a pair of human arms plucking me from the sky and holding me tight. Lowering my hands, I open my eyes and look up.

  The unicorn is gone, replaced by a person.

  I stare up at ice blue eyes. ‘You?!’

  chapter 11

  I struggle free from his arms and stagger away, only to collapse onto the footpath.

  ‘Stay back!’ I yell with an arm up. ‘Who … what are you?’

  Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. A light goes off in a nearby house. Traffic hums in the distance. Otherwise, the row of terraces that line the street is quiet.

  The imposter doctor from the hospital stands in the road. A unicorn?

  I stare up at him and am struck again by how beautiful he is, his incandescent skin illuminated by the moonlight. He could be chiselled from marble – not just because of his square jaw but because he’s as cold and hard as stone. That flash of warmth I glimpsed in the hospital is gone. I get the sense that he would prefer to be anywhere but near me. But then why did he bother to come and get me?

  ‘You’ve remembered?’ he says.

  I’m unable to quell my frustration. ‘Remembered what? All I know is that you were at the hospital pretending to be a doctor and then you went all weird and bolted. And now you turn up here … there – wherever we just were – as a …’

  His eyes scan my body, lingering on my cuts and abrasions. ‘You need help. Come inside if you want it. Or don’t. Your choice.’ He turns and walks towards a white terrace house. Without so much as a backwards glance, he unlocks the door and disappears inside.

  I’m left sitting outside, wondering what to do, as the lights go on in the house.

  My head tells me to get out of here. Now is my chance to get away from him and forget that this – any of this – ever happened. But where would I go?

  My gut tells me to follow the doctor – or whoever he is – and find out what on earth is going on. He doesn’t seem to be a threat. Aside from the rocky landing, I’m pretty sure he just helped me escape from the Agency.

  I gingerly lever myself up from the concrete and stagger towards the house, my legs and hips complaining with every step. The front garden is empty except for a dead pot plant with a faded red and green Christmas ribbon tied around it.

  The theme continues inside. The most diplomatic way to describe the flying doctor’s house is ‘lived in’. Shoes line the hallway and I have to step over a sports bag with boxing gloves bursting out of the zip, to enter the living room.

  It’s polished timber and open plan with a kitchen on one side and a lounge room and bathroom on the other. There’s a staircase with tattered beige carpet on the far side of the lounge room. A fruit bowl containing a couple of oranges sits on the kitchen bench, along with a collection of r
emote controls and a hospital ID tag that is so obviously fake I can’t believe I didn’t spot it at the time.

  He’s at the stove, cracking an egg into a fry pan. He looks up as I walk in.

  ‘I hope you like your eggs scrambled,’ he says. ‘It’s my specialty and you need food.’

  Of all the things that have happened tonight, this scene of domestic normality strikes me as the most surreal. Minutes ago I was being hounded by government agents before being flown across London on the back of a unicorn – a unicorn who’s turned into a guy who is now offering me scrambled eggs.

  He motions towards a leather jacket sitting on the bench. I’m about to decline but I’m cold so I take it. I can feel his eyes on me as I shrug into his jacket and zip it all the way up to the top.

  I’m relieved when he turns back to the stove. Just like in the hospital, I can’t tear my eyes away from him and I don’t want him to see that I’m staring. His jeans are ripped and he’s not wearing a belt. His t-shirt is fraying around the neck and it has a faded logo on it that reminds me of the Celtic symbols I saw in Iridesca. His triangular frame – broad shoulders, thin waist – suggests that those boxing gloves in the hall get used pretty regularly.

  Turning off the stove, he gestures towards the stools lining the kitchen bench. All three are piled high with medical journals, dog-eared novels and political biographies. I shift the pile off one chair to make room to sit down.

  He grabs a knife and slices an orange in half in one swift motion. I stare at his enormous hand as he massages the orange on a juicer. For a tiny moment I wonder what that hand would feel like on me. Then I blush and look away. I have no idea where that thought just came from.

  I watch out of my peripheral vision as he scoops out the orange pulp and sucks it off his fingers. He washes his hands under the tap and dries them on his t-shirt. He pours me a glass of juice before dishing the eggs onto a plate, seemingly having forgotten the toast.

  ‘I want to know who you are. What you are,’ I correct myself.

  ‘Eat,’ he says, ignoring my question.

  Suddenly I’m ravenous. I can’t remember the last time I ate. He silently watches me shovel eggs into my mouth. If I wasn’t so hungry I’d be feeling self-conscious right now.

  ‘Come over into the light so I can examine you,’ he says after I scoop up the last of the eggs.

  My fork clatters to the plate. Coming inside might have been a big mistake.

  ‘First you tell me what just happened out there. The whole flying horse, disappearing thing.’ I can’t bring myself to say the word ‘unicorn’ out loud. Talking about unicorns or fairies in the same way you talk about people, pot plants or planes means actually admitting they exist. And if I do that, I fear I will have totally lost my grip on reality. I’ll never get back to my normal life.

  He looks at me, judging whether I’m being serious. ‘I didn’t disappear. I transed.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Transed. You know, change from one form to another,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘Didn’t you trans when you flew out of the Agency?’ His eyebrows rise but he doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘And I’m quite sure you also know that I’m not a horse. “Unicorn” is the word you’re looking for. Equus unus cornu, if you want to be scientific.’

  I open my mouth to ask whose science, but he exhales a frustrated sigh. ‘Look, you’re hurt. You need medical attention.’

  Instinctively I fold my arms over my chest.

  ‘I’m a doctor, not a pervert.’

  ‘You can’t possibly be a doctor,’ I challenge.

  ‘I am,’ he says. ‘Just not from around here.’ The corner of his mouth tugs upwards and I find myself staring at his dimple. ‘I entered the Guild of Master Healers when I was fourteen,’ he explains. ‘Where I studied, everyone has a role according to their natural aptitude. We start our training earlier than what you’re used to. And then we progress according to merit rather than years.’

  I raise my eyebrows, glancing at the fake ID.

  ‘I was worried,’ he says, serious again. ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay.’

  Against all reason, I find myself giving him the benefit of the doubt. I slowly slide off the stool and walk over to him in the kitchen.

  He washes his hands again, this time more like a doctor than a guy, and then examines the stitches on my temple. Satisfied, he slips his jacket off my shoulders. I gasp as he touches the tops of my arms. Even though I’m pretty sure he’s not going to hurt me, my body responds the way it always does when someone gets too close. It freaks out. I close my eyes and try to calm my breathing.

  ‘Your skin. It’s clammy,’ he says. ‘Classic flight response. You’re scared of me.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ I wish I hadn’t said that so quickly.

  He raises an eyebrow and gently stretches out one of my arms, carefully inspecting the abrasions on my wrist from the handcuffs.

  My skin’s tingling, partly from his touch, but mostly from the intensity of his gaze. I want to flee – not from him, but from this whole situation.

  But I don’t. More specifically, I can’t. My feet have turned to lead. I swallow hard as he checks my other arm, then squats in front of me, checking my legs. The top of his head is now level with my belly button.

  He touches a bloody gash on my knee. Tiny surges of heat radiate from where his finger strokes my leg, all the way up to my core. And for the briefest and most mortifying of moments, it’s not a doctor’s touch. It feels sensual.

  I must be in shock because for the first time in never, I actually want a guy to look at me, appreciate me. At the same time, I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. My cheeks grow hot from the crazy and unwelcome thoughts rushing through my head.

  Fortunately, he seems oblivious.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says, tracking his finger over the wound. ‘Not deep enough to need stitches.’ He stands and moves around behind me. As he opens out the torn pieces of fabric of the back of my dress his knuckles skim along my exposed back. He shifts my hair to one side so he can see my neck. ‘What on earth …?’

  My hand instinctively covers the right side of my neck and my body visibly shivers as I recall Westerfield’s taser and his delight in using it on me. Now that Tom has drawn my attention to it I’m acutely aware of a burning, throbbing pain coming from my neck.

  ‘Let me see,’ he says, prying my fingers away and leaning in to examine it. I feel his breath on my cheek as he takes my jaw in his warm hand and gently angles me towards the light. ‘What happened to you?’

  I say nothing, unsure how much to divulge.

  ‘Chess, you can trust me.’

  It’s the first time he’s said my name since the hospital.

  ‘How can I?’ I say.

  Tom’s quiet for what must be a whole minute, his face full of meanings that I can’t decipher.

  ‘I lied to you before. You do know me. We met long before the hospital,’ he says finally, in a voice that is surprisingly gentle. And then, almost to himself, ‘I’ve thought about you every day for years and you don’t even know who I am.’

  My mind reels as he treats the burn on my neck, trying to hold back a lifetime’s worth of memories that are threatening to break through. I’m pretty sure we didn’t know each other as children. Kids in my neighbourhood don’t grow up to become medical professionals. But I’m getting that feeling again, the warmth and familiarity I felt when he was near me in the hospital.

  After he’s finished, he rubs his hand through his spiky fringe and looks directly into my eyes.

  ‘I have a story to tell you. Get comfortable.’

  I walk back around to the stool on the other side of the kitchen bench and sit down, although ‘comfortable’ is probably the last word I’d used to describe how I’m feeling.

  ‘The story is about a girl. A girl who was alone and sad.’

  Sickness wells in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘She was so desperately sad,’ he
continues. ‘But she was also funny, strong and courageous and warm and’ – he looks across the bench to me – ‘beautiful. She was so beautiful.’

  I bite my lip, unsure of how to react. It feels like I’m strapped into the passenger seat of a car that I know is about to plough into oncoming traffic, but I can’t do anything about it.

  He holds my gaze. ‘And she could transcend her body.’

  ‘Go on,’ I whisper.

  ‘One night when she was floating free …’ He pauses, and my heart beats so loudly I swear I can hear it. ‘With her helpless body lying below —’

  The spell is broken.

  ‘How could you?’ I splutter, and push back off my stool, sending a pile of books and magazines flying onto the floor. A violent wave of nausea crashes down on me and I run to his bathroom, slamming the door and locking it behind me. I kneel down in front of the toilet and brace myself. Hot tears sting my eyes. A cold trickle of sweat runs down my back.

  I know what’s coming.

  When there is nothing left in my stomach I lay my head on the cool bathroom tiles to recover and wonder yet again if I’ll ever be able to leave my past behind.

  Tom knocks on the door and jiggles the handle. ‘Chess, let me in.’

  ‘Get away from me,’ I try to yell but it comes out as a pathetic little whimper. I know that I carry wounds that will never heal, but he has no right to make them fester.

  ‘I’m an idiot.’ His voice sounds pained. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t think about how you’d react.’

  I pull myself up and look into his bathroom mirror. I’m that little girl again and all I can see are bruises and shame. I hate that I let myself be a victim. I was pathetic then and I’m pathetic now.

  ‘Open the door,’ I hear Tom say. ‘Please.’

  I splash water on my face, but it doesn’t help. Some things can’t be washed away. After a long time, I take a swig of his mouthwash sitting on the vanity and unlock the door. Tom reaches out to take my hand but I slap it away.