Freefall: Book Three in the Defining Gravity Series Read online

  Freefall

  Genevieve Mckay

  Copyright©2018 Genevieve Mckay.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Resources

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Mama, look at the whales!”

  I glanced up from my phone, pausing the horse archery video I’d been watching for the millionth time, to see a tiny, blonde-haired girl in pigtails throw herself at the ferry railing.

  Her purple running shoes scrabbled against the metal grating as she shimmied upwards, not stopping until she’d laid her belly precariously over the top rail, hands stretching out toward the ocean.

  “Callie, no!” Her mother appeared from nowhere, pale-faced, eyes wide with panic. She grabbed a handful of the girl’s pink jacket by the scruff and jerked backward, giving her daughter a final shake like a cat might do a naughty kitten. “Get down right now.”

  “But I want to see the whaaales,” the little girl said, clinging determinedly to the railing with the tips of all ten fingers.

  Not releasing her own death-grip, the mother cautiously peered overboard at the dark, churning water below. Instantly, her face softened. “Orcas,” she said, “a whole pod of them. They must be hunting salmon.”

  She deposited her daughter safely on the deck and turned, her gaze seeking out another girl, this one tall and dark-haired, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. “Come see them, Nor-Nor,” she called, “they’re beautiful.”

  The girl sat hunched a few feet away on the same cold metal bench as I was. It was actually a storage locker for lifeboats, but it also served as a sheltered place to sit huddled for protection against the constant wind. She sat with her back pressed against the cold metal hull of the ferry, her knees up near her chest, chin tucked into her jacket.

  “I told you not to call me that, mother,” she said scathingly, rolling her eyes but not looking up from her phone.

  I stood up slowly and stretched to get the kinks out, stuffing my phone into my pocket and moving toward the rail. Growing up near the ocean, I’d seen hundreds of whales over the years, but the sight never got old; there was something magical and otherworldly about them.

  The salty wind grabbed at my hair and I held the curls back off my face with difficulty, squinting into the setting sun glare on the water. It had taken Allan and me all day to make the long drive down to the Island from my aunt’s ranch where I’d lived all winter, and we’d been lucky to make such an early ferry. At least now we’d get the horses safely to Hilary’s farm before dark.

  “There,” said an older man with a beard, pointing off the starboard stern. And there they were, a lithe group of cetaceans gliding through the ocean, their knife-straight dorsal fins splitting up through the waves, glistening backs arching out of the water and then sliding back down again into the depths, only to rise up again a moment later.

  “Ooh,” someone said as a particularly big one poked its shiny black nose straight up in the air, rotating in place so its white underbelly was clearly visible. It fixed one rolling eye on the ferry briefly before sliding back down again.

  It lasted only a few minutes. The ocean churned and boiled where the whales had been, and then gradually settled back down again, smoothing over like nothing had happened. The people who had gathered at the rail to watch sighed collectively and, when there was no reappearance, began drifting back to wherever they’d come from.

  “Mama, when I grow up I want to live in the ocean, can I?”

  “Um, sure,” her mother said, laughing, “maybe you can invent the first underwater house to live in. Like a reverse aquarium. Instead of you watching the fish, they’ll be swimming by watching you.”

  She looked up and caught me staring, and sent me an easy smile, rolling her eyes toward her younger daughter as if to say, aren’t kids ridiculous?

  I smiled politely before turning my gaze back to the water. I wondered if my mom and I had ever ridden the ferry together like this before she died. Did she have to chase around after me, too, curbing my enthusiasm for the world? There was no time before this last year that I remembered being a happy and spontaneous type of person. But I’d changed at the ranch and I felt more free and comfortable in my own skin than I ever had before. I just hoped it would last.

  I frowned, looking down at the frothing white wake that bubbled up from under the ferry like uncorked champagne.

  There was a rustle of movement beside me; the older daughter had followed me to the rail and now stood a few feet away, glaring grimly out at the ocean as if it had somehow offended her.

  She felt my gaze and turned, raising an eyebrow as she scanned me from top to bottom dismissively. When she reached my paddock boots she froze, eyes fluttering wide and her lip curling in what could have been a smile but was probably more of a sneer.

  I looked down, hoping my boots weren’t plastered with manure or anything but they were fine; just dusty, maybe.

  “Oh, did you find another horse girl to hang out with, Nor-Nor?” her mother said, beaming as she strode over with the smaller girl in tow. “We can always spot horse people a mile away, can’t we? I think we saw your horse trailer downstairs.”

  “Seriously,” the girl said, her face tight with anger, “I told you that if you called me that ridiculous nickname one more time—”

  “Almost ready, Astrid?” Allan, the transporter bringing the horses and me to the Island, appeared beside me, nodding at the little family. “We’re getting close. I want to get downstairs to the truck before they announce that we’re ready to dock. I’d like to beat the stampede.”

  I sent the mom an apologetic smile and followed Allan inside and down the stairs, through the cafeteria area and down more stairs to the dimly-lit car deck below. It stank like exhaust, diesel fuel, and ocean brine. Technically, they didn’t want you down here before it was time to leave, but there was nobody to stop us, and we threaded our way past the empty parked cars to the big truck and trailer that held all my worldly possessions.

  “Hi, everyone,” I said, stepping up onto the running board to peer inside, “Did you have a nice rest?”

  The only sound was contented chewing. The horses didn’t know they were suspended in a tin can over six hundred feet of rolling ocean. They just knew they were in their comfy, familiar trailer with their friends
and plenty of snacks. They trusted us to take care of everything else.

  I reached inside to scratch Red gently behind his ear in the spot he liked best and then moved on to peek in at the others.

  Possum was my favourite next to Red; she was a cream-coloured buckskin mare with cute, black-tipped ears and an alert, friendly expression. Rob was lucky he was getting to work with her.

  I wasn’t so sure about his other project, though. The solid black gelding, Maverick, was a four-year-old out of Aunt Lillian’s stallion, Doc, but he was nothing like his easy-going dad or sweeter half-sister. It wasn’t that he was spooky or mean; he just didn’t seem to like being around people very much. He was grudgingly obedient, but he didn’t like to be fussed over and he wrinkled his nose in disgust at every treat offered to him.

  Hilary’s project, Ellie, was a long-legged Palomino with a golden mane that hung about a foot down her shoulder. I thought she’d make a better western horse than a dressage horse, but Aunt Lillian thought otherwise, and Liza had agreed.

  “She’ll make a fantastic amateur horse,” Liza had said, “people will be falling all over themselves to take her home by the time we’re done with her.”

  I stared into the trailer, seeing in my mind the horses I’d left behind; the mares and all the foals I’d cared for at the ranch, but mostly Folly and my first horse Quarry.

  I sighed, a pang of regret twisting in my belly. They were in the best of hands at Aunt Lillian’s but, still, not being able to see Folly every day would be strange. I’d dedicated a year to caring for her, worrying about her, and finally earning her trust. In the end, I’d learned to love her as a friend.

  She’d been a lot of work and she certainly hadn’t always appreciated me, but how would she feel when somebody else showed up to feed her breakfast tomorrow morning? Would she be upset? Would she miss me at all?

  The boat shuddered as it neared the shore; there was a loud chiming sound over the speakers followed by a crackly voice saying something I couldn’t understand, but that probably meant we’d reached our destination.

  Wow, I thought, I can’t believe I’m actually home. A gust of salty wind blew down the car deck and I inhaled the smell of the ocean greedily, as if I’d been a parched desert wanderer suddenly offered water. I hadn’t known until that moment how much I missed the coast. This landscape had become a part of me somehow; even the light was different here, softer and more translucent than that up at the ranch.

  I pulled open the heavy truck door and climbed inside, leaning back against the soft leather seat to watch all the people flooding down the stairs to start the search for their cars. It was a big ferry and usually there were at least a few people stumbling around last minute from deck to deck scrambling to figure out where they’d parked.

  “Well, kid,” Allan said, “we’re almost there. Excited?”

  “Yes, I think so.” I thought about our sterile condo and about what life with my dad and Marion could be like and a shiver ran through me. I wasn’t sure if it was excitement or fear. Surely things would be different now.

  I reached into the backpack at my feet and pulled out the bag of Aunt Lillian’s homemade caramel chocolate cookies to calm the fluttering butterflies in my stomach. I offered the bag to Allan and then took two for myself, closing my eyes as the sweet-salty taste hit my tongue. They were supposed to be for Marion, and my dad, too, but Allan and I had gone through nearly the whole bag on the way home.

  As soon as I ate, I felt better. Things will be great this year, I told myself, I have Red, I’ll get back into archery full-time, and I’ll spend the whole summer with Rob and Hilary. Everything will be just fine.

  The ferry shuddered as it prepared to dock, engines rumbling and humming, and the walls vibrating around us like we were inside a giant beehive. Finally, the boat gave a lurch and then came to a full stop.

  Car engines started on all sides. Allan turned the key and we were moving. I crunched nervously on another cookie.

  Even with Allan driving slowly and carefully with our precious cargo, Hilary’s new farm was less than an hour from the ferry terminal. The sky was now tinged with pink, but we still had enough light to see by, which was good because we nearly missed their driveway as it was.

  There wasn’t a fancy stone gate like there’d been at Hilary’s last home; there wasn’t even a sign. In fact, without the truck’s navigation system guiding us, we probably wouldn’t have found their driveway at all. It was just a rutted, overgrown laneway with fingers of grass poking up through the patchy gravel. Trees lined the driveway on both sides, leaning so low over us that their branches scraped sharply across the top of the truck and trailer, making high-pitched shrieking sounds.

  “Oh, that’s not good for the paint job,” Allan muttered, peering through the windshield. “I hope there’s a place to turn around up ahead. I’d hate to get stuck in here.”

  I nodded, not saying a word, biting the inside of my cheek and twisting my fingers nervously together on my lap. I kept my eyes glued to the trailer cam mounted over our heads. All the horses besides Red had stopped eating and were staring curiously out their windows to see what the noise was about, but they didn’t look ready to panic yet. Red, of course, had his face stuffed in his hay net, eyes half-closed as he swayed back and forth with the motion of the trailer.

  Before I could get too worried, the laneway opened, and we’d entered a huge pasture bordered by overgrown blackberry bushes and falling down fences. Cracked fence posts and broken boards lay stacked in a pile off to one side.

  We were parked at the bottom edge of the field, but it dipped in the middle before it rose up steeply to join a slightly better-looking fence-line at the top of a hill.

  “Huh,” Allan said morosely, “this isn’t quite what I expected.”

  “No, me neither. Hilary said that the barn was right off the driveway. She didn’t say anything about driving through pastures.”

  “Is that her?” Allan pointed to a small figure at the top of the hill who was dancing up and down and frantically waving her arms to get our attention.

  “I think so, probably.” My phone chimed about eight times in a row and I quickly pulled it out of my pocket. “It’s her. She said to wait here, she’s on her way.”

  It was lucky we hadn’t gone any further because, as Hilary came running down the hill in mud-splashed breeches and a pair of knee high rubber boots it became obvious that the whole lower part of the pasture where it dipped was a bog. Hilary sunk nearly to the top of her boots in places but finally, she squelched over to us, laughing breathlessly and waving her arms.

  I opened the truck door and jumped out just in time for her to barrel into me and wrap me in a hug that practically squished the life out of my body.

  “Astrid, I’m so glad you’re home! I missed you so much!” She pulled back and then hugged me again, bouncing up and down at the same time so that I could hardly see straight.

  “I missed you, too,” I gasped when she’d calmed down, “but, Hilary, where are we?”

  “I’m so sorry, this is the back entrance and it’s so awful that we never use it. I should have warned you that the GPS always sends people this way. The real entrance is down the road and there’s a sign and a real driveway and everything. I’m so sorry, Allan, I hope your trailer isn’t stuck. We can always unload the horses and lead them up this way if that helps.”

  Allan sighed and shook his head, but I could tell he was irritated. He got out to the truck and walked in a big circle, studying the truck tires and then the ground.

  I should have studied the directions better, I thought, chewing my lip nervously. That was stupid of me. What if we’re stuck in the mud or if the paint on his truck is all scratched up? I think that costs a lot to fix.

  “I should be able to turn around up here where it’s dry,” he said finally, rubbing the back of one hand across his eyes, “why don’t you ride with us, Hilary, and you can point out the right driveway.”

  I held my breath
while Allan slowly navigated a large u turn in the middle of the field. The tires bogged down a few times, but the trailer lurched along, moving steadily toward the exit.

  Allan didn’t say a word the whole time and my stomach churned with anxiety. In my experience, people who simmered with quiet rage were the most dangerous, likely to erupt without warning at any moment. The dread of the explosion was almost worse than the outburst itself.

  “There,” he said as we finally cleared the field and headed back up the narrow laneway. “We’re on our way.” He sent me a quick smile and I huffed out a breath of relief.

  He wasn’t about to fly into a rage at all, I thought in surprise. He was just irritated. Nothing bad is going to happen.

  “Oh, I’m sorry about this,” Hilary said, wincing as the tree branches scraped against the outside of the trailer for the second time. “I should have given better directions.” She laughed and shook her head, not looking worried at all. “I’m so glad you’re here, Astrid.” Things have been so crazy.” She stopped, glancing over at Allan. “There’s still so much to finish here. We don’t have any pasture because the fences are all rotten and we can’t use the ring right now because the guys are working on the indoor. I hope you won’t mind all the construction, Astrid.”

  “I’m sure it will all be fine,” I said, only half paying attention. I was busy watching the horses on the camera. Maverick had pinned his ears back and tossed his head when a particularly large branch thunked against the trailer over his head. I held my breath, but he didn’t blow up, he angrily wrenched out a wad of hay from his net and ate it sullenly.

  We finally turned back onto the road and it wasn’t more than a couple minutes before Hilary said, “there it is, turn here.”

  There was a small, hand-painted sign that said, “Harvest Farm–future home of Harvest Bistro.”

  “Harvest Bistro?” I asked.

  “My dad’s restaurant.” Hilary laughed. “He’s beyond excited. It won’t be open until the fall, though, and that’s if we’re lucky. We have so much work to do on the rest of the place first. It’s been nothing but renovations and construction since the day we moved in.”