Checkmate

by Malorie Blackman

  Callum loved me.

  I was as sure of that now as I was when I was a teenager, watching him die before my eyes. I didn't need or want another letter from Callum telling me that what I considered true memories were nothing more than the wistful, wishful imaginings of a teenage girl trapped in a woman's body.

  I held two sheets of once-crumpled but now semi-smooth paper, yellow with age. The paper felt almost like a relief map beneath my fingers, full of subtle ridges and defined lines. My heart lurched painfully as I recognized the bold, defiant upright strokes that were Callum's handwriting. I'd already played this scene and it wasn't so great the first time that I wanted to repeat the experience. But Callum's words took me by the hand and led me on, however reluctantly. I told myself I had nothing to fear. This letter couldn't possibly hurt me any more than Callum's first one.

  Couldn't possibly.

  So why was fear, heavy as a paperweight, sitting in the pit of my stomach?

  Calling myself all kinds of a bloody fool, I half sat, half slumped down onto a kitchen chair and began to read.

  I sat statue still. Had Celine Labinjah, the guard's daughter, left a minute ago? An hour? A day? Every thought and feeling I possessed had been torn out of me. I sat, waiting to feel something, almost desperate for the pain to start. But there was nothing. Why had he done it? Why hadn't Callum just sent me the letter I had in my hand? Why the other one, dripping with poison from each and every word?

  Why, Callum? Why?

  Did you really believe that a letter full of hatred would help me move on? Is that it? Did you really think that telling me you hated me would help me get on with my life? Did you? Then you didn't know me at all. But then how could you? We were children together and teenagers trying and failing to stay together. The world only had two colours for us – black and white. There were no shades of grey. There were no shades. We had romance and drama and dreams and wishful thinking. What we never had was time – time to grow up and grow old together.

  All those things you called out to me as you stood on the scaffold, that terrible black hood covering your face . . .

  'I love you too, Sephy . . .'

  And I believed you.

  And then I didn't. Your deadly letter saw to that. All the years spent wondering whether your final words were supposed to negate that letter or vice versa? Or was it just when that last moment came, you needed to tell me the truth?

  'I love you too, Sephy . . .'

  I stopped believing. I convinced myself I'd heard what my heart wanted me to hear. Another lie. That evil letter . . . How could you profess to love me and still have written something like that? Was it your attempt at one last honourable deed? To atone? To feel better about yourself, about us? How could you have got me so wrong? When I got that toxic letter, it was as if you had ripped out my soul before turning your back on me like everyone else.

  The rest of the world I could've coped with. I didn't care about the rest of the world. But you? I cared about you. I loved you. And when I thought you loved me, no one could touch me. I had your love and our daughter – and that's all I wanted or needed. Until I received your letter.

  When I thought I'd lost you, had never had you, I lost myself. I closed down and hid away from everything, even my own daughter. She had to almost die to bring me crashing back to life. And it was all for nothing. For a letter you didn't mean. Your misguided attempt to be noble. You loved me, Callum. You really loved me and yet you couldn't tell me so.

  You were in the L.M. for too long, Callum. Did you really believe that your hatred rather than your love would set me free? Did you really believe I could have any kind of life hating your memory instead of loving all thoughts of the brief time we had together?

  You got me so wrong, Callum. But I did the same. I should've believed in what my heart said, not what my eyes read. I tried. God knows I tried. But for far too long my memories were like trying to pin down fog. And your letter was real. I could feel it, the smooth, cool texture of the paper beneath my fingers, the tingle of the creases beneath my fingertips where the letter had been folded. I could see it, black ink on white paper, your bold, upright handwriting. I could smell it, the merest hint of you, as long as I smelled with my imagination. I could hear your thoughts as you wrote it, or at least, I thought I could. I thought I could hear the laughter and scorn inside you as you wrote. I should've had more faith. But faith is so easy to hold onto when you don't need it. And so hard to find when you do. I failed in that as I failed in so many things.

  Where do I go from here?

  Oh, Callum, you fool. I loved you so very much, just as you loved me. But look at the mess we both made of our lives.

  Oh, Callum . . .

  Sephy versus

  Callie Rose

  ninety-three.

  Callie Rose

  Mum held out the letter again, towards me. Scared, I backed away, knocking into a rack of wine on my left. The bottles clinked in protest.

  'Mum, please. Don't make me read it. I don't want to.'

  And just like that, I wasn't sixteen any more. I was a little girl, terrified of being hurt all over again.

  Mum smiled sadly. 'That's exactly how I felt before I read it. But Callie Rose, you have to decide if you want to live the rest of your life believing a lie. Or are you prepared to take a chance on the truth?'

  I looked into Mum's eyes. She smiled at me. Just smiled. And what I saw in that smile . . . I turned away, in case what I could see wasn't real, but mere wishful thinking on my part. Eyeing the piece of paper in Mum's hand, I was tempted to ask her to put it back in her pocket. Or maybe she could read it to me? But that was what a child would do – and I was no longer a child.

  I took the folded piece of paper from Mum. It was cool and dry under my fingers. It was frightening that a piece of paper and a few words held so much power.

  'Is it . . . is it as awful as the other one?' I whispered.

  'Read it.'

  I unfolded the paper and had to wait for the words to stop swimming before I could read.

  ninety-four. Callum

  Darling Sephy,

  This is the hardest thing I've ever had to write. I want to say so much to you, but I don't know where to start or how to say it. I'm going to die. I know that as well as I know my own name. I'm going to die and there's nothing I can do about it.

  And I've reconciled myself to the idea of dying – if not the fact. I'm not blameless, Sephy. I've done things, terrible things, that I'm not proud of. I've hurt and maimed and killed – and I am so sorry. I'm not a saint. And I want to tell you something else. I wasn't a virgin when you and I made love, my darling, but you were, are, and always will be, the only one I've ever loved. I love you more than my freedom, my family, my life. Making love with you was like touching heaven for the one and only time in my life. All the other crap in my life was worth it just for that one night with you. Being with you, next to you, inside you, was like something I hadn't even dared to dream. A wild, tortuous fantasy I never expected to come true. I hope and pray that you never regret it, Sephy. Even if I were tortured from here to hell and back before they killed me, I wouldn't regret a second.

  And I don't want you to blame yourself. My death has nothing to do with you. I made my own choices. Don't waste your life swimming in guilt about something you had no control over. But I know you and I'm so scared that you'll let what's going to happen to me close you down and ruin your life. But if you do that, then your dad and all the others who've tried to build a wall between us will have won. Don't let them win, Sephy.

  If I'm honest, I do have one regret. Just one. I should've followed you to Chivers boarding school. Watching your car drive away from me was one of the worst moments of my life. I was ready to take a train or a coach or even walk to Chivers, just to be with you. But I began to think it was a sign that we just weren't meant to be. Everything in my life had fallen apart up until then. I didn't want you and me to go the same way. If we'd come together and it hadn'
t worked – I couldn't've lived with that. I hope you have more courage in your life than I did, Sephy. When a chance for real happiness comes by, grab it with both hands and devour it. If it lasts five minutes or five lifetimes, it's still worth it. There're going to be times when others will trash me to your face. Don't try to defend me. I probably deserve every jibe spoken against me. But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts or feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you. I don't know whether we'll have a boy or a girl. I don't even know if you'll go through with the pregnancy, but I hope so. Thanks to you, Sephy, I have hope again. If you do decide to go through with it, all you need tell our child is that I love him or her very much. I love the thought and the fact that we'll have a child together – a child conceived in the eye of a storm. My last thought on this Earth will be of you and our child. Make sure he or she knows how much I love them.

  Sephy, there's just one last thing I want you to do for me. One last small favour. And I need your promise you'll do it, even though I can't hear you say the words in person. But I have to believe that you'll do this one thing for me.

  Don't tell our child about the things I've done since I joined the L.M. And don't tell him or her how I died.

  I don't want our child to hate me. I need you to do just this one thing for me. I'm trusting you. All I've ever done in my life is bring bad luck to those who care about me. I don't want that to happen to our child. He or she will have a hard enough time being half-Nought, half-Cross without the additional burden of having a hanged Nought for a dad.

  And so my love, don't cry for me. I love you. I'm living and dying for the time we can be together again – for always and for ever.

  Yours till the day I die and beyond,

  Callum

  ninety-five.

  Callie Rose

  I wasn't in the cold cellar any more. I was in a uncomfortably warm prison cell with my dad, watching as he wrote the letter I now held in my hand. Watching as he poured his heart and soul out through his pen and onto the paper. Watching as he crumpled up the letter and threw it away before writing another version – but this time fictitious and deadly.

  It was only on my second reading of the letter that its meaning began to sink in. A bit. A very little bit.

  'Why didn't he let you have this one?'

  "Cause he was being dramatic. 'Cause he thought it was the only way I'd move on with my life. 'Cause he wanted to make up for how you were conceived. 'Cause we were both so young. Because he thought he was being honourable. Pick a reason.'

  'Why d'you think he did it?' I asked.

  Mum smiled. 'All of the above. And because he loved me – and it probably seemed like a good idea to him at the time.'

  Mum's tone was light, flippant almost – but now that I was looking, I could see past it. I could see beyond to where the pain started. Or maybe it had just never stopped. Now that I was looking, I could see through the smoke-and-mirrors façade Mum presented to everyone – including me. Especially me. Now that I was looking, it was as if the woman before me 'was someone new, someone I'd have to get to know. That made me sad.

  Now that I was looking.

  'How much did Dad's poisonous letter hurt you?'

  Mum's smile vanished. She regarded me, her face frozen. And then her gaze was looking past me, through me.

  'The first letter I got from Callum destroyed my hope,' said Mum at last.

  'Your hope for what?'

  Her gaze snapped back from long ago and far away to right back with me.

  'Callum's letter destroyed my hope,' she repeated.

  I struggled to comprehend. I felt I understood so much, and still so very little.

  'When did your hope return?' I asked. 'When you got Dad's real letter?'

  Mum shook her head.

  'When then?' I persisted. Maybe I was deluding myself. Maybe Mum didn't believe that things would ever get better.

  'You were three and a half, maybe four,' Mum began. 'I was reading you a bedtime story and at the end of it, you sat up and hugged me and said, "I love you, Mummy." '

  Silence.

  'So?' I prompted.

  'So . . . in that moment I knew I had something to live for. You were my hope.'

  'It's all right, Mum. You don't have to spare my feelings.' I had to swallow hard or I would've burst into tears. 'I can stand the truth. I'm a big girl now.'

  'That is the truth, love,' said Mum.

  'You never loved me, Mum. You couldn't even bear to . . . to touch me and it took me years to realize it, and then more wasted years to get over it.'

  'I was too afraid,' Mum admitted.

  My whole body went still then. I hadn't expected Mum to say that. I'd replayed this conversation again and again in my head over the years. I'd gone through all the things I'd say . . . if I had the courage. All the things I wanted to say and all Mum's possible responses. But I hadn't expected this one.

  'Afraid of what?'

  'When you were a baby, I tried to block out the world and keep you safe – and you almost died. When I came out of hospital, I was so scared of it happening again. So I made a deal with a God I didn't believe in but was still scared of. I promised that if He kept you safe, I'd never hurt you again. I'd never put myself in the position where I could hurt you.'

  Unbidden, unwelcome tears trickled down my cheeks. 'A promise you kept,' I whispered. 'My bruised knees were dusted off, my trapped fingers were placed under icy water, my tangled hair was brushed and combed. And not one single hug accompanied any of them.'

  My arms were held, my forehead kissed, my cheeks stroked – but no cuddles. Mum dealt with my edges, the perimeter of who and what I was. I was never enveloped by her or her love, never made to feel that it was truly mine, never made to feel secure.

  'I kept you safe,' said Mum.

  'And I hated you for it,' I told her.

  'I know.' Mum nodded sadly. 'I know.'

  'And Dad's letter doesn't . . . solve anything.'

  'I know that too,' said Mum.

  ninety-six.

  Callie is 15

  'Nana Meggie?' I called out.

  Silence. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass in the front door, lighting up the laminated wood floor in our hall. It was almost pretty. I strained to hear any other sounds. Was Mum in? It didn't appear so. The house was quiet as an empty church. I'd only just closed the front door behind me when the doorbell rang. Even though Uncle Jude had just dropped me back home, it couldn't've been him. He would never ring our front doorbell. If he wanted something, or had forgotten something, he'd phone me on the mobile he'd bought me and arrange to meet away from my home. Frowning, I opened the door. I really wasn't in the mood for strangers.

  It was the biggest stranger of them all.

  Tobey.

  'Callie, can I come in?' he asked.

  I was about to slam the door in his face but Tobey put out his hand to hold the door open.

  'Make it fast,' I said, making my tone as brusque as possible. There was no way he'd fail to get the message from that.

  Tobey stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him. He stood in front of it, blocking out the sunlight, making the hall gloomy and depressing. I headed into the living room. Tobey followed me.

  'What is it?' I asked with impatience.

  'Who was the man who just dropped you off?' Tobey asked.

  'His name is Mr None-of-your-business,' I frowned, dropping my rucksack at my feet.

  'If he's Jude McGregor, then you're in trouble,' Tobey informed me. 'He's wanted by the police for murder and political terrorism. They reckon he's one of the top four or five in the Liberation Militia.'

  'And what cereal box did you read that off?' I asked.

  'I looked him up on the Internet,' Tobey informed me. 'I . . . I took a digital photo of him the last time he dropped you off at your house and scanned it into my computer
.'

  Shocked, I glared at Tobey.

  'Wow! You have been busy,' I said, slow-clapping Tobey's efforts. 'Is your life so empty that you have to stick your nose into mine.'

  Tobey didn't answer, not that I expected him to.

  'What is it with you, Tobey?' I asked. 'Why're you always hanging around me? I just have to turn my head at school and you're there, in the background but always in view. Are you stalking me or something? Is that how you get your jollies?'

  And he still didn't say anything.

  'That's it, isn't it? D'you turn off your lights at night and watch me from your bedroom window?' I was being totally bloody but I didn't know how to stop. If he'd shouted at me or walked out or told me where to go, then I might've stopped. But he just stood there, taking everything I was dishing out. 'Tell me what time you go to bed and I'll stand by my window and put on a show for you, you sad git.'

  'What happened to you, Callie?'

  'I grew up,' I told him.

  'No, you grew bitter and twisted,' Tobey told me quietly. 'Did I do that?'

  'Just go away, Tobey. You're boring.'

  Tobey headed for the living-room door. I watched him, defiantly.

  'I really . . . care about you, Callie Rose,' said Tobey. 'More than anyone else in the world. But you don't make it easy.'

  I waited till I heard the sound of the front door being closed before allowing my guard to drop. My face sagged into confusion. What did Tobey mean by that? Since when did he care about me? Or was it just his guilt talking? Or was I just so far gone that I couldn't see what was real and what was make-believe any more?

  ninety-seven. Sephy

  I watched Mother drift in and out of a fitful sleep. Her eyes finally opened long enough for her to register my presence. She tilted her head towards me and tried to smile. I tried to do the same, failing miserably.