Somewhere New (Isle of Doughnut #1)

Chaper Twenty-Nine

CHAPER TWENTY-NINE

ASTER

I always knew death would come for me in some ridiculous way. I’d meet my end falling over a kitten and into a wood-chipper, or crushed by a lorryload of Toblerone, or smothered under a pile of overenthusiastic goats.

There were such a great many stupid ways for me to die that falling down a steep ravine actually seemed rather tame.

Two weeks after full-on sex with Callum became a daily occurrence—if not twice or three times daily because Callum might have been a virgin a couple of short months ago but now he was fucking insatiable—and I still lived in a kind of stupor. I worked on my project and petted the goats and ate food, but it was all wildly secondary. I knew what it felt like to finger Callum open, I’d felt him spasm around my dick, I’d pegged his prostate until he’d cried. How could I concentrate on anything else in the world with all of that roaming around my head?

That’s why, when visiting the most remote of my examination squares high in the mountains, I tripped over a random rock that had no business getting in my way and fell into a valley.

‘Fuck. Shit. Fuck.’ Air and curses punched from me with every whack of my back then chest then back again in horrible rotation as I careened down the steep rockface.

For a moment after I collapsed in a breathless heap at the bottom of the valley, I considered myself lucky. I could have died as I’d fallen, and I was going to walk away with a few cuts and bruises. Nowhere on my body screamed for desperate attention, just a low ache from all directions.

Then pebbles rained from above. Bigger rocks bounced off my back and shoulders. I didn’t have time to turn over before something huge and heavy slammed down on top of me, blocking out most of the light filtering into the ravine.

I huffed out a surprised breath. Again, no part of me seemed to be majorly hurt. Whatever had fallen had slammed into my back, but the full weight hadn’t settled on me.

Carefully, so that I didn’t dislodge whatever had joined me in the valley, I turned over. Or tried to. I didn’t get far.

I could turn my head. That allowed me to confirm a flipping great boulder sat above me. My rocky friend was wedged into the narrow sides of the valley.

I felt around it. At first, all my fingers met was rock and fabric, but then the reason I couldn’t move anything other than my arms and my head became clear.

My body hadn’t been pinned by the huge boulder, but my clothes had.

And not in a helpful way I could easily shuck out of. This boulder had been specifically designed to leave me alive but become besties with every loose scrap of clothing it could find. My coat was pinned in several different places. Even once I worked the zip open, I couldn’t extract myself. I felt underneath for my jumper, and that was pinned too. If I wanted to get out from under this boulder, it would require stripping.

But that wasn’t an option. As much as I might want to bare my puny chest and stick legs to the elements, I couldn’t gain enough leverage to free myself.

Panting, I stopped wriggling and rested my head on the valley floor. ‘Think, Aster.’

Okay. I could get myself out of this. I might not be able to move much, but I could move a bit. I could call for help.

My phone was in my bag. Which had fallen off during my inelegant arrival in the ravine.

It sat just out of the boulder’s shadow. Shifting as far as I could, I reached towards it. No matter how hard I stretched and tugged the clothes pinning me in place, I couldn’t reach it.

Tentatively, I connected with my magic. The plants around me sprang to attention, but they were no help right now. The book Frank gave me had hundreds of spells in. There had to be one that would bring my bag closer or banish the boulder, but I hadn’t read that page yet.

Familiar hooves appeared beside the bag.

‘Albert?’ I called. ‘Buddy, you cannot possibly conceive in your tiny goat brain how glad I am to see you. I need you to be a good boy and bring me my bag.’

Albert peered into the darkness, then bleated. I took that as confirmation he understood his life-or-death mission. I could have wept with relief.

Until his wonky teeth latched on to the bag’s zipper.

‘No, no, no. Don’t do that. Bring it here. ’

Albert spared me a withering look before carefully peeling the zip down the side of the bag.

‘I’m sorry I said you have a tiny brain. Obviously, it’s smaller than mine, but everything about you is smaller than me. That doesn’t mean it’s inadequate. You have a perfectly sized goat-brain.’

Albert ignored my incoherent rambling/begging and helped himself to my lunch. For a pygmy goat, he was more than capable of polishing off a meal prepared for a normal-sized human.

‘Okay, you’ve had your fun. I don’t mind that you require payment for your services. That’s fair. Now, if you would bring my—’ I thumped my hands on the ground. ‘Don’t fucking go to sleep.’

Albert—my best friend up in these mountains—was apparently content to have a snooze while I languished in a perilous situation just out of reach.

I made one last attempt to grab at my bag with both my hands and magic, but had no joy.

‘New plan.’ I scanned the valley floor. ‘This is going to be the worst parody of that film where the guy cuts an arm off to free himself ever.’

If I could find a sharp stone, I could cut away enough of my clothing to get out of here.

But I’d managed to fall into the only ravine in existence solely populated by round, smooth rocks.

‘I hate you,’ I said to a perfectly oval stone. One of hundreds scattered around me.

I tried making my own jagged rock by sanding one down against the huge boulder above me, but after long minutes of awkwardly angled rubbing, I lowered my hand and discovered that all I’d managed to do was to make one side of the rock even smoother than before.

‘Gah.’ I threw it away. Albert opened his eyes blearily, but on ascertaining I was still having a chill-out under a huge-arse rock, he settled in for part two of his nap.

‘Callum!’ I shouted, my voice bouncing back at me. I had to hope sound could escape this ravine, even if I couldn’t. ‘Callum! I’ve fallen down a valley and I’m trapped under a stupid boulder!’

I shouted a few more times, until Albert huffed and trotted off to snooze elsewhere. It was lonely without him around. Despite his clear disinterest in helping me, at least I hadn’t been trapped alone.

I listened out for any sign that Callum might have heard me across the mountains, but there was nothing. I tried to remember where he’d said he was headed today. Unfortunately, all my brain had been able to focus on while in his presence this morning was the helpless noises he’d made as I’d humped into him when we’d woken up, both of us lazy with sleep.

Time passed strangely in the ravine. I got hungry around when I assumed lunchtime was, but the growling ache died away as the sun set. There was enough light that I could see my tears as they hit the ground beneath me.

Although I’d known death would find me in some ridiculous way, I hadn’t wanted it to be any time soon. I’d hoped I’d be carried off by an eagle or impaled on a particularly hardy breadstick when old and grey.

I didn’t know how long it would take to be found. Callum had rooted me out easily enough when I got lost in the snowstorm, but he’d had a vague idea of where I might be. I didn’t think he listened this morning when I told him where I was headed. The way he’d kissed me before we went our separate ways suggested he only had one thing on his mind.

‘Sex and a boulder have killed me,’ I sobbed.

I had limited options for mopping up my tears and snot. I’d settled for pulling my jumper over my hands and blowing my nose on my sleeves, when—summoned by the law of the universe that he must witness all my most pathetic moments—Callum arrived.