MONDAY

Against All Odds – The Orkney Ferry.

Quietly, as if she couldn’t believe she was conversing so directly with a stranger, Grace managed, “Can I fetch someone for you?” waving an explanatory hand towards the steps leading to the warm interior seating area, where anyone with an ounce of sense would be.  Only seasick, tragic heroines, lunatic women on the run, and determined whale-spotting tourists graced what had been optimistically christened ‘the sun deck’, as snow crystals whipped past them on the prevailing wind.

The girl belched again and shook her head.

From her pocket, Grace took a packet of Polos and eased the first one away from its fellows, proffering the pack, “Mint?  Very good for motion sickness.”

The girl regarded her sharply and Grace’s hand wobbled hesitantly.  What had she said?  The girl’s bottom lip trembled and her mouth pulled downward, eyes blinking rapidly.  She whispered, “How are they for morning sickness?” and fixed Grace with an anguished stare like a shout of pain. 

TUESDAY

Against All Odds – Sonia Flett.

Grace managed to fumble a bottle of mineral water from her handbag with her free hand, clumsily wrestle off the plastic anti-tamper film, and use her teeth to tear off the strip of plastic to open the cap, “What a performance…here, have some of this.”

The girl was too far gone for politeness, snatching the bottle and squeezing large glugs of the cold liquid into her mouth, swilling it around before swallowing, nostrils flaring.  She took in gulp after gulp and belched twice with no attempt at restraint and no apology extended.  Somewhere quite near the surface, in the shallow Fenella-influenced part of herself, Grace found the primal nature of the girl’s need rather distasteful, and decided she didn’t want the water back.

Beneath that, where the essence of the real Grace still dwelt despite everyone’s best efforts to eradicate her, swirled a maelstrom of concern and curiosity for this wild, Pictish beauty with her curls of fire and air of desperation.

WEDNESDAY

Against All Odds – Vidar receives some surprising news.

“As your doctor, let me give you some medical advice, for your own wellbeing.  You don’t need another hit album or an extra Grammy.  What you need is a life…and you should be concentrating a bit of that legendary energy of yours on working out how you can get one.”

“Is that your prescription, Doc?”

“Yes, it is – to work on yourself, not on your brand.”

“Point taken.  Thank you for your honesty.”

“What are friends for?”

“People mostly tell me what they think I want to hear…”

“That’s certainly not healthy, is it?  Anyway, can you imagine that happening here?”

“Not for a moment.  The very first time I put the trash out in my pyjamas, Mag Flett would appear telling me to have some self-respect.”

“Ah!”  Stewart thumped his friend’s thigh, “This’ll interest you!  Speaking of the Flett family, little Ginger’s back home.”

The sweep of those flame-red ringlets across his chest, the softness of her pale skin pressing against his naked body, vivid green eyes gazing deep into his…

“Little Sonia Flett…”

Stewart chuckled, taking his eyes off the road briefly to observe with amusement the change in his friend’s expression, “And you can wipe that look off your face.  There’ll be no chance of her warming your lonely nights because she’s pregnant, by all accounts.”

Vidar lurched in his seat as if he’d just been stabbed with something sharp.

 

THURSDAY

Against All Odds – Grace encounters Vidar.

Sliding onto all fours, Grace clasped her hands before her in a fist and pressed her forearms onto the ground.  Lifting her bottom upward tipped her head to nestle into the thick pile of the shaggy rug before the fire.  Clasped hands behind her skull supporting her head and holding it still, she gently eased to tiptoes.  Grace walked her feet out wide to either side of her hips, took a deep inhale, tightened her stomach muscles, and gradually lifted her legs, first to the splits at hip level and then slowly and deliberately upward until her feet touched and she stood on her head on the rug, staring at her reflection in the window to maintain her form, concentration, and balance.  Content she was in control, Grace allowed her eyes to close, and surrendered to the sensation of floating produced by the pose.  The freer she became, the suppler her body felt.  The more confidence she unearthed, the stronger her muscles seemed.  Powerful, unbreakable, she stood straighter, walked taller.  She was a butterfly emerging from long pupation, and discovering the potential of her newly-grown wings. 

As she opened her eyes again to check the straightness of her legs in the huge lounge window, she saw a figure reflected in the glass, standing motionless by the hall door.

FRIDAY

Against All Odds – Orkney as refuge.

“This is your grand gesture – Orkney at the start of winter?”

“I got it a bit wrong,” snuffled Grace, fingers pressing uncertainly against her lips again, regretting they’d let so much information out, “The thing to do, of course, would have been to kick him out, wouldn’t it…but instead I kicked myself out!  How very obliging of me.  I just had to be where he wasn’t.  I couldn’t spend another day in his company.”

“But why pick Orkney?  You could have ‘obligingly’ removed yourself to Bali, or Tahiti, or the south of France?”

“I didn’t pick it.  It picked me.  I’ve forgotten how to make decisions…in fact, I’m not sure I ever knew how until I got here and there was no one to defer to.  I was sitting in a café down the road from my house…not because I wanted to be there, but because I thought if I was out in public, I couldn’t do myself a mischief.  Someone had left one of those wanderlust-type trendy magazines on the table.  It had the most beautiful picture I think I’ve ever seen on the cover – untouched beach, white sand, clear sea, lilac sky – and I just had this potty plan that the only way to prevent myself disappearing completely was to make a mark somewhere where I wasn’t hurting anyone, but which would resonate with meaning for me.  I so desperately wanted to press my bare feet into that sand at the water’s edge and leave a trail of footprints.  I knew they’d be washed away with the next tide but I would know they’d been there!  I would know I’d had the guts to see through something I’d decided upon independently and spontaneously.  I could leave him and live, rather than just existing!  I vowed I’d go – then and there – and it should be a vow I couldn’t break.  I thought it looked as if it might be Southern Europe, or the Far East…but when I opened the magazine and read the article…”

Vidar chuckled, “It was Orkney.”

Annie Holder writes pacey thrillers, twist-filled crime novels, and unconventional romances – set all over the world.

You can find out more about her books at www.annieholder.com, and follow her on Instagram www.instagram.com/alhwriter/