Three Strikes

by Lucy Christopher

  Nia never forgot this moment: hearing her mother sing a spell.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A young couple holding hands were watching her, waiting for the next song, as the underpass began to thin out and clear. The other buskers had shouted goodbye, waving as they left. Nia had moved into the middle, hoping to catch more customers there. She found her eyes resting on one of the girls’ bottles of water. She’d been steadily singing for over an hour and her throat was dry. She could stop playing, walk into town and buy a drink, but she didn’t know if she had enough time before catching the train to Innsbruck. And when she looked in her guitar case Nia decided she needed to play on a bit more, just to make sure she had enough.

  ‘This is going to sound weird, but could I buy that water off you? I’ve left mine somewhere.’

  The girl smiled and handed it over. ‘Sure. Must be thirsty work, all that singing. No, put your money away; how about you play me a song instead? You’ve got such a beautiful voice, it reminds me of someone famous. Can’t think who but it’ll come to me.’

  She grinned up at her girlfriend, who rolled her eyes and pretended to pull her away.

  ‘Oh, come on! Not our song again, Hayden?’ To Nia, she said, ‘She’s obsessed with it. Keeps going on about having it at our wedding. We’re not even engaged!’ She threw a few coins into the case and stood back. Her girlfriend kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Well, I bet you’re sick of playing Christmas music, right? At least my song is a decent one,’ said Hayden, handing her the water. Nia took off her coat, flinging it in the guitar case, then twisted the lid off the bottle, drinking gratefully.

  ‘Better?’ Hayden asked.

  ‘Much. Thanks for that. So, what’s your song?’ It was just the three of them in the underpass. Almost everyone else had left for home. It was getting dark and colder.

  ‘“Make You Feel My Love”, Adele. Know it?’

  ‘Couldn’t really call myself a busker without knowing a few Adele songs,’ Nia said. It felt a bit funny singing to just two people when she’d had an anonymous mass of strangers in front of her the rest of the day, but they were nice. Intense, but nice. When she’d finished, Nia glanced at her watch nervously; she had half an hour left to get into town, catch the train and then decide how to convince the choir mistress that her dad had changed his mind. And somehow persuade Isa to stand down and let her have her song back.

  ‘Hey! Don’t suppose you’ve got a light, have you?’ Hayden interrupted. Her girlfriend tutted disapprovingly.

  ‘I chucked her lighter away to stop her smoking. Now she’s buying matches. You’re supposed to have given up, Hayden!’

  ‘I did give up. Then I gave that up too. What can I say? I’m weak?’ She was waiting for Nia’s reply, but she’d given all the matches to Sol to put into the log bags. She was about to shake her head when she saw a packet in amongst the coins in her guitar case.

  ‘Oh, yes I do. Look, here you go. Thought I’d sold them all.’ She set her guitar against the wall, picked the matches out of the case and passed them to Hayden.

  ‘Guess it’s my lucky day. These are a bit long, aren’t they?’ Hayden said, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth ready. It was a new pack of matches; they must have fallen out of the box and into Nia’s case. Nia watched as Hayden held the first long match in her hand then struck it against the wall of the underpass. They both jumped as a loud slam echoed up and down the dark underpass. Hayden dropped the box and match, which hit the damp ground sizzling. The other girl grabbed Nia’s guitar case and ran for the exit.

  ‘Hey! That’s mine, come back!’ Nia shouted after the girl. But she didn’t stop. Nia turned back to Hayden to confront her, but Hayden was already reaching past Nia trying to grab the guitar, forcing her back against the cold, hard wall.

  ‘Get off me! Get off!’ Nia shouted, dropping the guitar to push Hayden away hard.

  ‘Shut up! Just shut up!’ Hayden spat, stumbling in surprise, then she sprung forward and punched Nia on the jaw. Nia’s head snapped backwards, bouncing off the cold tiled wall, and she slid down onto the damp ground. Hayden took her chance and snatched the guitar, following in the direction her girlfriend had taken.

  Nia shouted after her, but she kept on towards the exit until Nia could no longer see anyone or anything but the gaping mouth of the tunnel.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nia touched the back of her head with her hand where it hurt. Her temples pulsed, her head in a vice. When she pulled her hand away, her fingers were coated in sticky blood. Nia looked up and down the underpass. They were both gone, with her money and her mother’s guitar. The tunnel was empty of people, devoid of life and light. And outside it was dark.

  Nia looked down at the ground, where her guitar and her case full of coins had sat moments earlier.

  How had she not seen this coming? How? They’d stayed too long, they’d talked too much and she should have known, should have been suspicious of them, but they seemed so nice, so normal. They were in love, asking for their song, but it was all lies, a trick, and she had fallen for it. What was the matter with her? What kind of fool leaves a guitar case full of money unguarded like that?

  Her father was right; you should never trust strangers. But if she’d been allowed to go on the tour she’d have spent the day in the church with the choir rather than arguing with Sol. It was all his fault – her father.

  Nia felt sick. She knew she had to get up. She had to get back to the market before he turned up: if he found out about this he’d be furious with her for breaking her promise. And he’d never let her out again, ever. She could get back before he even realised what she’d been planning, where she was intending to go tonight. Sol would never tell. But first she needed to clean herself up and hope to hide her injury and everything else she’d been planning. She was still bleeding and the pain in her head was making her float. She could hear a flapping or a buzzing in her right ear as she untangled her father’s scarf and looped it around her head like the world’s strangest bandage, pulling it as tight as it would go.

  ‘Pull yourself together Nia and get up!’ she told herself and then laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the underpass. She tried to get to her feet, but slumped back against the wall as the tunnel spun in black-and-white spirals in front of her. She rubbed her eyes roughly and saw purple sparkles of light.

  And then nothing. Not a sound.

  She woke curled up on the ground, her body shaking involuntarily. She clenched herself tight, wrapping her arms around her knees. She tried to stop the shuddering but couldn’t. The moisture from the ground had seeped into her clothes and settled on her skin, coating her in dampness. Nia felt around for her coat and remembered it was gone. She’d taken it off and thrown it in the guitar case. The girls had her money, her mother’s guitar, and her coat too. At least they hadn’t seen her necklace hidden underneath her scarf.

  Nia unwound the sticky scarf from around her head, planning to wrap it around her shoulders, but it was clogged with dried blood. She knew she had to get somewhere warm fast or she’d pass out again, or worse. Bareheaded and trembling, Nia put her hands on the ground ready to push herself up, but felt something lumpy. Her fingers coiled around a packet. It was the matches, her matches that the girl had dropped. Nia ran her finger over them and counted: there were still three matches left in the packet. She smiled. Now she had a packet of matches she could find some wood, maybe those crates the other buskers had been sitting on, and start a fire! If she could only get warm she was sure she could work out what to do.

  ‘It’s going to be OK; I’m going to be fine,’ she told herself, relieved to have what seemed to her then to be a sensible plan of action.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nia found herself striking the first match before she’d really thought through what she was doing. She hadn’t got up and found any wood; she couldn’t see in the dark, let alone stand. Instead she’d struck the long red match against the grain of the packet but had
nothing to set alight. She held the match in front of her, watching the pretty colours dance.

  The sound of the strike quickly followed by light and heat made her smile and sigh with relief. It looked like a beautiful sunrise. She held the match up to the curved roof of the underpass and saw the burgundy and green tiles light up, red and bright, as if the fire from the match was reflecting back down on her, cocooning her. She felt her bones relax beneath her clammy skin. She kept her eyes on the roof as the slow-burning match lit up the underpass. Nia relaxed into the heat of the moment and the memory that followed.

  The TV went off at the exact moment the kitchen lights popped out, leaving them in soundless darkness. Her mother tutted from across the room and put something down on the table. Nia froze. She wasn’t comfortable in the dark. The outlines of objects familiar to her in the light took on a different shape, menacing, threatening and full of the unknown. She waited for her parents to sort things out, to get up, to find the light and make things right.

  ‘Power’s out again, I’ll get some candles. Where are they, Lor?’ Jacob muttered, putting down his carving knife and the boat he was working on. Lorelei’s voice came from beside the fireplace, followed by the rustling of the newspaper she had been reading.

  ‘In the top of the larder, I think.’

  ‘Big larder or small one?’ Jacob asked, moving carefully towards the kitchen.

  ‘Small one, top shelf, matches next to them,’ said Lorelei, lit only by the glow from the stove.

  Her father rummaged in the larder for matches and candles and then set them down in front of the fire, which gave out the only light in the room. Nia sighed with relief and let go of the remote control which she’d been clutching to her side, poised, ready for anything. Jacob passed the packet of matches to Nia but not before examining them, screwing his eyes up to try and see which brand they were.

  ‘These ones look new. Where did you get them, Lor? They’re really long,’ he asked, lighting the larger candles first. Nia copied him, striking matches, lighting the biggest candles first and then the old gas lamp her granddad had passed down to her father.

  ‘Caleb left them here. He’s been experimenting again, making longer matches with a slowburn tip,’ he said. ‘They smell funny though, don’t they? He’s dipped them in a new mixture, reminds me of something chemical like that toilet cleaner I bought last week!’ Lorelei added more logs to the stove and put two of the bigger candles down on the kitchen table.

  Jacob sat back down, took up his carving knife and continued shaping the bow of the boat. After a few minutes of silence he paused and stopped to look up at Nia who had been watching him, staring, transfixed as the knife moved back and forth, shaving and shaping the wood.

  ‘Why don’t you have a go at this instead? Much better for you than watching TV.’ Jacob held out a shapeless lump of wood towards her and a small carving knife. Nia took the wood from him reluctantly; she didn’t really understand the fascination her father had with making his own things and cleaning his tools, locking them away carefully in his wood shed each night. Woodcarving seemed like an old man’s thing to do, something Caleb or even maybe Sol would be more interested in rather than her, but the TV wasn’t back on yet and she had nothing else to do.

  ‘Try something simple, like a spoon, maybe a love spoon? That was the first thing I ever carved and I’m sure you can do a better job than I did!’ said her mother, settling back down to her newspaper. Reading that looked as appealing as trying to carve shapes out of lumps of wood. Nia didn’t even know what a love spoon was.

  ‘Oh! Do you remember that first one I made, Jake?’ Lorelei scrunched up her face. Jacob laughed at the memory.

  ‘Yes, it was awful. You should have seen it, Nia, all lumpy, nothing like a spoon, didn’t even have a proper bowl at the bottom, it just sort of stopped. Where did you put it, Lorelei, let’s show her!’

  ‘I probably threw it on the fire but there’s that lovely one your mother gave us, where’s that?’ She headed upstairs with a lantern and after a bit of banging and crashing she came back triumphant.

  ‘Here it is. Bit dusty. I really should have put it up on the wall, but like all those pictures in the attic, it’s another thing I’ve never quite got round to doing.’

  Lorelei passed over a long wooden spoon to Nia, who held it up to the light to examine it. It was long and pretty with hearts cut out of it and other small symbols. There was no way she could make something like this.

  ‘Why don’t you just try to copy the outline, the shape? It isn’t as difficult as it looks,’ said her father.

  ‘Go on, have a go, Nia, your father will help you. Maybe he’ll even make a love spoon too, for his lovely wife?’

  Jacob laughed. He held the boat up to Lorelei to show how busy he was, but put it down again when he heard Nia sigh. He passed a small knife to her; it fitted neatly in her hand. Nia held the lump of wood in the other hand and looked up at her father for further instruction. He tucked the boat he had been working on under his chair, selected another block of wood and picked up his own carving knife, considerably larger than the one he’d given her. Jacob struck the first blow and Nia watched the curve of wood-shaving fall onto the rug at their feet. She looked at her father, who smiled, nodding encouragingly as she did the same to her lump of wood, trying to copy him. Step by step they began to carve the shape of the wooden bowl, Nia following her father. She mirrored his every move until something began to take form, a shape appearing underneath all the flakes of wood.

  ‘That’s it, that’s my girl. Only seven and you’re already doing better than your mother. Clearly you get your carving skills from my side of the family!’

  ‘Hey! I heard that. Well then, she definitely gets her singing skills from my side!’ Lorelei called over, her head still bent over her crossword.

  ‘It might even make a decent mother’s day gift if you keep going like that. Reckon you’re a natural, Nia. I knew you took after me,’ he leaned in to whisper. Nia could smell his aftershave. He smelt of pine needles, of the forest and of wood carvings. It was a nice smell, the smell of home, she thought, as she inched closer to her father to watch him more carefully.

  And then the match went out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nia lit another match. It reminded her of the candlelit church she’d sat in earlier, enveloped by music and lights, safe and warm. She could almost hear the singing now. Nia relaxed into the heat of the colours and the memory that followed.

  Her mother placed a Sachertorte down on the kitchen table. She’d iced Nia’s name in loopy writing across the shiny chocolate ganache. Nia counted the candles silently, pretending to be embarrassed but secretly pleased. A birthday wasn’t right without a cake, but this was the first year she hadn’t asked for one, she’d just quietly hoped they’d know to make one.

  Her mother strummed the opening chords to Happy Birthday, singing it in all the languages she knew, perched on the edge of a chair. Her curls fell over her face as she leant over the instrument and switched into a jazzier version of the song, adding in her own lyrics, extra notes, chords and riffs, making it sound like a different song.

  ‘Happy Birthday to you,

  Tillykke med fødselsdagen

  Buon compleanno, cara Nia

  Alles Gute zum Geburstag!’

  They sang to her together, her father trying to join in, slightly off-key but smiling. She watched the candles flickering brightly in the darkness of the room, even though she was far too old for such things. Her mother always made up a different version of the song each year, something silly and fun, and for once Nia was glad Sol wasn’t here; glad it was just the three of them and no friends, no party, no family arriving, no fuss. She needed an early night before her big day tomorrow, birthday or not.

  She’d been practising her solo everywhere and anywhere: singing in the shower, walking through the woods to Sol’s house, playing the piano next to her mother; even as she fell asleep at night there would be a ph
rase or a harmony on her lips or in her ears. She was sure her dreams had a soundtrack to them now.

  Her mother leaned her guitar carefully against the wall before returning to the kitchen table. She scooped up Nia’s tangled hair and twisted it into a neatish ponytail, before taking a hairband off her own wrist and tying it up. ‘Don’t want your hair getting covered in chocolate icing and apricot jam, do we? Not a good look for tomorrow.’

  Nia nodded. Tomorrow, it was going to happen tomorrow, she was going to sing in front of the rest of the school choir and after that she’d know, they’d tell her straight away if she’d got in, if she’d be part of the Winter Festival Tour next year. Or not.

  Her dad cleared away the remains of the roasted goose, then passed her a plate ready for the cake. Her mother poured tea from the steaming pot and they all fell silent, waiting for her to blow out the candles and make her birthday wish. She didn’t have to think: she’d been making the same wish for months now. Nia scrunched up her eyes, leaned forwards and gently blew out the candles, wishing hard, so hard.

  Please let me pass, please let me get into the choir and go on the Winter Festival Tour, she mouthed, silently crossing her fingers and her ankles and her arms across her chest.

  She looked across the cake through the smoke-filled haze of candles fizzling out and her father winked at her, nearly laughing at the serious look on her face.

  ‘Going to tell us what you wished for?’ Jacob asked as he cut a big wedge of cake and put it in front of her. Nia shook her head. If she said it out loud it would never come true, she’d jinx it for sure. It was safe to wish in silence in her head, but she couldn’t speak it. Any time the subject came up at home or at school she changed it, just in case.