Molly
‘Hike,’ Molly shouted. Her voice was muffled through the neck warmer pulled high up her face, but the dogs responded with a lurch and all at once they were flying over the snow, following their tracks back towards Huskyleir.
A moment later the two leading dogs closed in on the back of Rachel’s sled. Rachel’s start had been slow and there was now a gap between her and Noah, and team A, pulling ahead. Molly glanced behind her to Erica and Lee bringing up the rear as she lifted her foot to tap the brake. Then Molly had a better idea, and leaned her body hard to the right. The change in direction from the dogs was instant. They picked up speed as if sensing Molly’s plan. Within seconds they were side by side with Rachel’s sled.
Rachel twisted her head, her goggles like the beady eyes of a fly staring at Molly. Molly lifted her hand in a wave and grinned before urging on her dogs with another ‘hike’. She pulled away from Rachel and tucked herself in the space behind Noah. Another laugh built inside her. Goose bumps prickled her body, but it wasn’t cold this time, it was raw thrill.
There was something strangely familiar about sledding, as if Molly had done it a thousand times before. It wasn’t the sled or the dogs that felt so natural to her; it was the wind in her face and the landscape rushing by in her periphery. It was the exhilaration – the zeal – like the little pop-up toys from party bags with the sucker and the spring, jumping and popping in her stomach. It was the adrenaline racing through her blood like a double shot of espresso that felt so right, that Molly knew so well.
Then it hit her – a kick to her gut – and the smile dropped from her face. It wasn’t sledding that she’d done a thousand times before; it was running. Not just running, but racing. Winning. That’s why she felt so … so at home.
A sudden dizziness spun in Molly’s head. The memory breaking free of its hiding place and flying ghost-like in her thoughts. She was powerless to stop the images replaying in her mind.
Eleven months ago
The indoor arena hummed with the noise of a thousand spectators, of cheering families, and of hopes and dreams. Molly pulled in a long breath and smelt the tang of body odour and the rubbery smell of the new track beneath their feet.
Molly glanced at the girls on either side of her. She recognized every face of the group staggered in their running lanes. She’d been competing with most of them for ten years. She knew their strengths and their weaknesses, she knew the ones who would cry with disappointment, and the ones who would grit their teeth and train harder next time. A few she even considered her friends.
The expression on each face was the same grim focus. There were no smiles passed around, no wishes of good luck or the banter and jokes they’d shared waiting behind the barrier for their time to race. This was it. The final minutes before the gun sounded and all of their futures were decided.
Molly pulled in another breath, ragged from the nerves exploding inside her. This was it. Her final race. The final win she needed to qualify for Team GB, for the chance to race in the Rio Olympics this summer. Everything she’d worked her whole life to achieve was right in front of her for the taking. Eight hundred metres, two minutes, and it would be hers.
Sam, her coach, lingered to one side of the rest of the team. He was wearing a bright yellow jacket and a blue baseball cap, which made the clumps of his thick white hair stick out at odd angles. Even with the sky blue track and the barriers with their colourful advertising boards between them, Molly could see the worry written in the lines of his face. Training had not been going well. The last few months had been tough on them, on Molly, but that didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered except this race.
A group of officials in white polo shirts and black trousers stepped across the lanes and took up their positions on the inside of the oval track. One man stepped close to the digital time board next to the inside lane. Molly’s eyes tracked the black gun in his hand before focusing her head forward. Every part of her body tingled with anticipation and adrenaline. She had this.
In the periphery of her vision the starter lifted his arm. Molly crouched further into her start position, arms rigid, poised, ready to pump. Her heart hammered through her body.
Bang.
Electricity surged through Molly’s body as she sprung forward. Her legs stretched out, her arms pumped in long, fast movements. The missed training sessions, the bad runs, none of it mattered.
The runners took the first curve of the oval together, but Molly felt the girl in lane five begin to fall back. Another surge of power hit Molly’s body as she strode between the two white lines of her lane. Three more paces, two more paces, one more pace – Molly beelined for the inside lane, tucking herself in position behind the front runner.
Molly knew the girl in front. Beth. A good runner, but one who put more into her first four hundred metres than her second. If Molly could stick close to her heels for next few laps, she could take Beth at the end.
Molly focused ahead and felt her breathing level and her movements become fluid. She was doing it. She was going to win. Her gaze fell to the black screen of the clock and time ticking by. Fifty-eight seconds in. On the next curve Molly sensed Beth’s pace slow just a fraction. Beth’s arms began to swing harder, her stride suddenly uneven.
Go for it, Sis. Dare ya to win.
Billy’s voice sounded in her head as loud as if he was running along the outside of the track like he’d done in the summertime races on Saturdays when she’d been thirteen and he’d been sixteen. Dare ya – two words he’d said to her for as long as she could remember. Billy’s way of laying down the gauntlet, of challenging her, and sometimes just getting her to do things for him. Dare ya to beat me up the hill. Dare ya to sneak past Mum and get the biscuit tin for us. Dare ya to win today, Sis. Dare ya to beat that girl, Sis.
After every race he’d dropped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her tight as she’d fought to get her breath back. ‘Told ya you could do it, Sis. You’ll go to the Olympics one day, Mol, and I’ll be there cheering you on. Dare ya to.’
The lump in her throat came from nowhere, but it stuck fast. Molly gasped again and again as her lungs cried out for oxygen. She couldn’t breathe.
She lifted her head, her eyes roaming the blur of people and colours. Molly knew Billy wasn’t running beside her, or cheering in the crowds with their mum. Billy was dead. He’d been dead for three months and would never cheer her to victory again.
Molly could hear the ragged effort of her breathing over the cheering onlookers. Her head began to spin and black spots floated in her vision.
Billy’s dead.
She was still running but her limbs were no longer fluid but heavy, her movements clunky. She felt herself sway out of the inside lane. The girl behind her ran forwards, taking Molly’s place as the frontrunner.
Molly’s mind floated like a balloon drifting into the sky. She watched her body sway further across the lanes, staggering one foot in front of the other, whilst the rest of the runners flew by. She gritted her teeth, willing herself to run again.
Then her legs gave way, her body collapsing onto the rough surface of the track.
It was gone.
Everything was gone.
Billy. Her dreams. Her future. Her career. It was all gone. It had all been stolen from her on an icy night in January, and it was never coming back.
***
Huskyleir appeared through the trees, pulling Molly’s thoughts back to the present. The adrenaline was gone, and with it the exhilaration. For a spell there she’d lost herself to the landscape and the journey. The cold air had cleared her mind and doused the anger simmering inside her. For the first time in a long time, Molly had felt herself again, free of hate and grief.
But it was that clarity that had allowed the memory to swarm back through her thoughts, igniting the rage once more. Damn it! What was she doing here? Why had she come? This was all Erica’s fault.
There was no escape.