Chapter Six
‘Fri!’
Frida moaned. Someone was shaking her. Pain – everywhere. Lightning and thunder and a memory of violet fire in her bones. Shattering stars. She was a thousand disparate pieces. And a person trembling with anguish in the grass.
Her eyes flew open. Her body screaming in protest as she looked around in a frenzy.
She had no idea where she was. She gripped someone’s arm.
Someone who smelled of laundry powder and mint.
Antony. She tried to breathe, clawing her mind back into place.
The Hawthorn. The Coffin. That’s where she was.
There’d been a storm. Far above her, thorny branches swayed across the stars.
The person.
They’d been curled up, their hair spread around them like an emerald-black sea.
‘Frida, are you ok?’ Antony cried.
She cast around. ‘Y-yes, I’m fine.’ Her throat was bone dry as if she’d been screaming. ‘There was someone here. Are they ok? Are they alive?’ She managed to focus on Antony.
‘There’s no one else here. It’s just us. You hit your head, I think.’ His deep voice was a balm to the pain ricocheting through her. Darkness leaked in around his edges, along with the very real scent of wet and heavy woods. But . . .
‘No. They were right there!’ She gestured wildly, but she moved too fast and had to close her eyes, the world spinning.
‘The Hawthorn is broken,’ she whimpered, leaning into his steady chest, no idea why or how he was there, but very grateful.
‘It’s broken, all broken. We were hit by lightning!
And there was a person. They looked hurt, I don’t know, I can’t, I’m not—’
‘Fri, it’s ok. No one’s hurt, no one’s here. The Hawthorn’s fine.’
Frida heard what he said, but she didn’t believe him.
‘It can’t be,’ she cried. ‘Everything was purple, there was a fire, there was a person on the ground that needed help! The Coffin’s totally shattered, a million pieces .
. .’ She’d opened her eyes again and was looking all around her in disbelief.
‘The storm . . .’ she trailed off. ‘I swear . . .’
Antony held her as if she might break. His dimples were nowhere to be seen, his forehead a knot of worry – the kind of face he wore after she’d been made into a pincushion by the fairy hedgehogs.
‘I—’ She looked around again. It wasn’t possible.
It was like the storm had never happened.
The Hawthorn loomed above them, the same sleepy hardwood, not a whiff of smoke.
The Coffin surrounded them, glass reflecting the silvery shadows that danced off the spotlights.
Beyond, the familiar wood smelled of damp loam and moss.
But she still felt as if she’d been blasted in two.
She lifted a hand to her head. ‘Shit,’ she murmured.
There was a bump the size of a tomato up there.
She stared up at Antony, wavering on her feet. It wasn’t possible.
‘I’m not hallucinating. I didn’t eat any of Hamish’s mushroom stash. I saw it.’
Keeping a soft hold of her, he held out one hand, indicating that he wanted to feel her head. Reluctantly, she let him.
‘Lord, Fri,’ he muttered. He pressed his calloused fingers to the bridge of his nose. ‘It feels like you’ve got a grootneck on your skull!’
She groaned. The glass Coffin twinkled behind him, sparkling with the light of a thousand crystals. She was starting to feel silly. She had to try one more time though. ‘I swear I saw someone. They had green hair.’
He grinned slightly, one dimple emerging. ‘Cool. Like Kermit-green?’
‘No,’ she bit out. ‘It was more Emerald City-green!’
‘Right, the best kind of green, of course.’
Distracted, she looked around again. ‘I don’t know,’ she finally wailed. ‘Maybe . . . Maybe they were a guest who got lost.’
‘You think?’ Antony’s worry lines immediately increased. He tugged on one of his ears, something he did when he was nervous. Any mention of injured guests was something they all took seriously.
Frida pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes though, her heart sinking.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know. It couldn’t have been a guest.’ They’d know if someone had got lost – everyone who came to the zoo had to swipe in with their QR code, swipe out when they left.
For what felt like the hundredth time, she scanned the interior of the enclosure, her eyes moving over the disorientating shadows.
The trunk’s ridges of greying bark fluctuated uncanny colours in her hazy vision.
Silver and gold, rose and sapphire. ‘Who did I see then? And why was everything purple?’
Antony just stared at her, helpless.
She groaned again. Her headache seemed to have hitched up a notch. She ground her teeth. ‘You think I’ve lost it. You think I’ve finally lost it.’
The second that it took for him to answer was more than enough.
If only it had been Hamish who’d found her.
Hamish would have said something funny, and then – just as repressed as she was – they would have kindly moved on.
Antony, by contrast, was much more well-rounded and looked far too worried.
To do anything but look at him, she gazed down at her filthy hands.
She’d never looked less purple in her life.
He touched her sleeve and spoke with care, as if nervous of upsetting her. This in itself was upsetting. ‘You might be concussed, love.’
She miserably prodded the tomato on the back of her head. The glass Coffin had never looked glassier, the tree never more tree-like. But her brain had never felt so un-brain-like in her life. She felt as if she’d been trampled by Matilda, the largest of the stone giants.
‘Why does this stuff never happen to you?’ she wailed. ‘Why is it always me?’
He chuckled. ‘Oh, come on. There’s only enough room for one drama queen in this threesome. Don’t you start.’
It was enough to make a smile pull at her lips.
That crown went unequivocably to Hamish, and she had no desire to usurp them.
With an effort, she reigned in her melodrama and reminded herself that she hadn’t been trampled by Matilda or hit by lightning.
She’d just tripped over a root. Big whoop, Fri.
A wave of tiredness hit her, and she leaned her head against Antony’s shoulder.
Christ, she hurt. ‘I want to go to bed.’
He looped his arm through hers and squeezed. The look on his face though wasn’t so sanguine. ‘You’re not really serious, are you?’
She blinked up at him, confused. ‘What?’
‘Babe,’ he hesitated. ‘You just missed the most important event in Forest’s history. Cliff’s worried out of his mind. We thought you’d finally been eaten by Gorgonzola.’
Her brain was moving much too slowly, like molasses were dripping through her cerebral cortex.
Once, Gorgonzola the grootneck had almost succeeded in consuming her left earlobe.
Grootnecks were the size of hamsters, but their capacity for violence was remarkable.
But she hadn’t been anywhere near the grootnecks tonight.
‘Most important event . . .’ she began, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to piece it together. ‘What . . .’
Antony’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. Then it hit her. All the blood drained from her face, and she wanted to howl.
‘The dragon! Oh no.’ How could she have missed the dragon? ‘Is he here? Is he alright? Oh, Antony. No!’ She tried to stem the panic that was rising in her, but it was no use. Antony held her upper arms, his grip just firm enough to keep her from sprinting headlong towards Dragon’s Deep.
‘He’s fine, Fri,’ he was saying. ‘Lucky’s fine. He’s here, he’s safe, he’s still sedated but it all went off without a hitch. The storm passed just in time.’
Frida swayed. It took her a moment for the name to sink in. ‘Lucky?’
It was zoo superstition never to name an acquisition before they’d arrived safely. In a few months, Management would auction naming rights to a billionaire who’d probably name him after their favourite football player, but for now, she tried it out in her mouth. L-u-c-k-y.
Antony’s smile was a brilliant thing. Two dimples. ‘Good name, huh? Hamish was campaigning for Mr Darcy, the others for Barney – you know the purple dinosaur thing. But once Cliff gets an idea in his head . . .’ He trailed off, the sympathy on his face making her heart break.
‘It’s perfect,’ she managed, before her legs gave way. Antony lunged but wasn’t quick enough to catch her before she collapsed butt-first in a puddle of mud. There was a new dragon in the LEZ and his name was Lucky. Somewhere, she heard Antony speaking into his radio.
‘This is Swan1. Papa Bear, just letting you know that Swan2 has been located. She had a fall but she’s fine. Just going to take her home.’
There were a few moments of static before Cliff’s voice came through.
‘Oh, thank god!’ There was the sound of a scuffle, more static, then Cliff distracted, swearing, ‘Christ, no! Not that shovel, get me the longer one . . .’ Another pause.
Finally, he came back, his voice clipped, in the throes of whatever shovel emergency was happening right now. ‘How fine is she? What happened?’
‘Uh . . .’ Antony began, his voice faltering as Frida’s hands flew up in a frantic, silent plea: Not. A. Word, she signed. He took his finger off the button of the walkie-talkie and hissed, ‘What do I say?’
‘Nothing!’ she exclaimed.
Antony looked pained. But she had no desire to tell Cliff what had happened.
Her track record of incidents was getting longer and longer.
Only three months ago, barely a few months after the stone-giant-buggy-crashing event, she’d tripped over a loose brick outside Ground Control.
Any normal person would have sprained an ankle.
She’d knocked herself unconscious and dreamed Brian and Stewie, the zoo’s griffins, had escaped to take up residence in the attic of their local, the Crown and Anchor, drinking all the best whiskey.
She’d been so certain of it, Hamish had practically had to tackle her to the ground to stop her from announcing it over the radio.
Ridiculous. If Brian and Stewie had escaped, they wouldn’t be caught dead in a dive like the Crown.
However, Cliff had made her take two weeks off work. It had been torture.
‘Uh, she lost her torch,’ Antony stumbled as he read her panicked expression. ‘Then she took shelter in the Coffin . . . and then . . .’ He trailed off, shrugging helplessly as she waved her arms in emphatic warning, ‘. . . then she slipped. But I’ve checked – there’s nothing broken.’
Cliff’s voice crackled back, impatient. ‘So, is she coming?’
‘I’m taking her home,’ he squeaked.
‘She wants to go home? Antony – tell me straight. Is. Frida. Dead?’
‘Actually . . .’ Antony sighed, defeated, ‘something reminded her of her mother, and well, it’s just . . . It made her really sad.’
‘What?’ Frida signed urgently, eyes wide. Antony winced, raising his arms in despair.
Cliff’s tone softened. ‘Oh. Phew. Well, not phew, but . . . you know what I mean. Give her my love and tell her that tomorrow will be her Lucky day.’ Chuckling at his own joke he signed off.
Antony sagged, wrung out. ‘That was exhausting!’
Frida scowled at him. ‘You didn’t have to take it that far,’ she muttered. But when he shot her a look, she capitulated. ‘I mean, thank you.’
He tugged anxiously on both his ears. ‘Just never make me lie to Cliff again. Ok?’
She patted his arm, the corner of her lips twitching. ‘Until Hamish eats all the chocolate croissants, and Cliff goes on another rampage?’
‘Yeah, well. Until then, I suppose.’ He gave her a fierce, bone-breaking hug. ‘I was so worried about you. You’re ok? Really? I’m not going to regret this?’
She gingerly touched her head-tomato again. ‘You’re not,’ she said firmly. ‘Besides, you’d regret it more if I didn’t get to see Lucky tomorrow.’
With a long-suffering sigh, he rolled his eyes to the stars.
Frida grinned, and together they headed for the distant treeline.
Dappled shadows arched across the sodden grass and the moon silvered the path.
It was beautiful, but behind them the Hawthorn spread gnarled, ominous branches towards the sky and, however much she tried to ignore it, Frida couldn’t shake the feeling that as they walked away, someone, somewhere, was watching them.