annashay 
by Sophie Hampton
I
HELEN HURRIES THROUGH the forest, slaps at her limbs; mosquitoes swirl in the shaft of light breaching the canopy of spruce and pine. The wooden huts on either side of the path have been vacated—high season finished at the end of June—but she imagines eyes peeping through the knots in the shutters.
At a fingerpost, Helen takes the left-hand fork towards the shower block. A tall, slim young man with long hair and a goatee walks towards her. She says hi as their eyes meet; silent, he brushes against her. She quickens her pace. The atmosphere had been different when she and Flora had arrived, when the sun was high, the air heady with juniper.
Helen tugs a mildewed curtain across the cubicle. The taps are corroded, the white tiles streaked with rust. Foul-tasting water, rich in iron, trickles into her mouth. As she soaps herself, she thinks of the man in the forest, imagines him coming into the shower, soaping her back, arms, breasts…
The water runs cold and Helen turns off the tap. She hears a noise and steps out of the cubicle. She dries herself with a hand towel and thinks of Steve, soon-to-be ex-husband, who said that taking their teenager on a backpacking holiday would be disastrous. It was, admittedly, an experiment but she was determined to prove Steve wrong. Overwhelmed by planning her first holiday as a single mother, she had approached it with the professional detachment of her science: aim, method, results, conclusion; the aim being to heal the fractured relationship with her daughter.
The campfire glows on the shore in the distance, yellow ribbons rippling in orange flames. The gentlest of waves caress Helen’s feet—the Baltic Sea with its brackish water as calm as a lake. The sun sets in a sky the colour of crushed raspberries.
Helen can make out two figures beside the fire. The man from the forest lies next to Flora, propped against a rucksack. He looks up, his eyes reflecting the firelight.
‘Hello. I’m Helen.’
‘Hi. Viktor. Okay to join you?’
‘Sure,’ says Helen, feeling unsure. ‘I walked past you in the forest.’
Viktor ignores her, takes three bottles of strong local beer from his bag, removes the tops; he hands one to Flora and one to Helen, who resists the urge to admonish her daughter.
Viktor and Flora chat about bands and social media apps that Helen has, at best, heard of. When Helen speaks, Flora interrupts. ‘Mum, nobody uses that anymore. Mum, do you know how old you sound?’ Helen sips her beer; that metallic taste again.
Mosquitoes whine as they dance tirelessly around the fire; one lands on Viktor’s forearm and he pulls his skin taut and traps the proboscis so that the mosquito fills with blood. Mesmerised, Helen and Flora watch the parasite’s belly bloat. A spark lands on Viktor and he flinches. Flora squeals with exaggerated horror as the insect releases itself and with a juddering flight seeks refuge in the darkness.
‘I’ve never seen so many mosquitoes,’ says Helen, scratching her leg.
‘They like the water,’ says Viktor. ‘You need to move inland. There’s a great campsite near the Kaali craters. I’ll draw you a map.’ He takes a pencil and notebook from his rucksack.
‘We should go to bed,’ says Helen. ‘I’m getting bitten.’
‘Yeah, you should, Mum.’
‘Come on then,’ says Helen, standing up.
Flora glances at Viktor. ‘I need a shower,’ she says.
‘It’s too late,’ says Helen. ‘I don’t want you walking across the site by yourself. It’s deserted.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘I’ll walk her,’ says Viktor.
Helen ignores him. ‘If you must have a shower, I’ll come too.’
‘Forget it!’ snaps Flora. She gulps her beer, flings the empty bottle on the ground.
‘Don’t talk to me like that. Come on.’
‘Hey,’ calls Viktor. ‘Don’t forget the map.’
Helen snatches it and strides towards the trees. When she turns, Viktor is speaking to Flora. ‘Now!’ she shouts.
Flora stomps towards her. ‘I can’t believe you’re making me go to bed! Dad would have let me stay up. I’m not a child.’
‘It’s nothing to do with your age. Viktor’s creepy.’
In the tent Helen and Flora wriggle into sleeping bags. Helen pauses before she swallows an antihistamine; she hears the frustration in Flora’s breathing and knows the tablet will make her drowsy but the itching is unbearable. As she struggles to stay awake, Helen remembers how Viktor brushed against her in the woods, how she imagined him soaping her in the shower.
II
Flora gets up when her mother starts snoring. She is relieved to find Viktor still by the fire.
‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Alright?’
‘I knew you’d come back. Sit here.’ He hands her a beer.
‘Thanks.’
Viktor rolls a cigarette. ‘How old are you?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘You look older.’
‘Way too old to go on holiday with my mum.’
‘Why?’
‘She treats me like a child. And I hate camping.’
‘She let you have a beer.’
‘To avoid a scene. We’re supposed to be bonding.’
‘Where’s your father?’
‘Mum kicked him out. She’s into us doing stuff together which is why I’m the guinea pig for this stupid backpacking holiday. I wanted to go away with my friends.’
‘Not allowed?’
‘Not till I’m sixteen.’
‘I thought you were sixteen.’
‘Er, nearly.’
‘Whatever.’ Viktor pushes Flora onto the ground, climbs on top of her, kisses her hard. ‘You taste good,’ he says. He sits up, lights his cigarette.
Flora’s head throbs and her heart thumps. She searches for something to say. ‘I like your beads.’
‘Yeah? My girlfriend gave them to me.’
‘Your girlfriend?’
Viktor laughs. ‘She’s not my girlfriend anymore. Come.’ He fastens the necklace on Flora, pulls the beads tight around her throat. ‘You have a beautiful neck.’
He exhales smoke into her face and she coughs. He kisses her more gently and slips his hand beneath her top.
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ Flora says. She rises, unsteady on her feet. ‘Promise you’ll wait?’
Viktor nods. Smiles. Yawns.
Flora takes off the beads, her flip flops, top, shorts, bra and knickers and lays them on the bench in the changing room. She showers, thinks of Viktor’s kiss, his hand up her top.
The door creaks. ‘Hello?’ she calls. The light goes out.
Flora feels her way out of the shower and slips. She grabs the curtain; it rips from the hooks and she falls. Winded, she crouches on the floor. When she stands up, she creeps towards the light switch next to the door; she switches it on and blinks, dazzled. Her clothes and towel have gone.
She looks underneath the benches and checks the cubicles. A mosquito lands on her thigh, another on a breast. She swats them and shudders. If she waits, Viktor will come.
Viktor does not come. Flora meanders her way through the trees, naked except for a white shower-curtain cape. Pine needles prick her feet and mosquitoes sting her flesh. She zigzags through the woods under a blue-black sky. When the canopy is sparse and moonlight illuminates the path, she increases her pace. She screams when she thinks she’s been caught in a trap, tears at the netting, realises it’s a hammock. When she spots the campfire it’s a circle of embers. Viktor has gone.
Flora quietly unzips the tent. Her mother is asleep.
When Flora wakes up, the sun’s beating down and the heat’s suffocating. She wriggles out of her sleeping bag, shocked to discover dried blood on her limbs. She stops counting at fifty bites. She finds her hand mirror; her face is bitten too.
Helen starts. ‘Bloody hell, Flora. When did you get all those bites?’
‘I needed the loo in the night.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Let’s get out of here.’
They pack up the tent after breakfast. Viktor is nowhere to be seen but Helen has his map in her pocket.
III
It takes ninety minutes for Helen and Flora to cycle to the Kaali craters on old rental bikes. The sky has clouded over and the air is humid. A single car drives past, sends up a shroud of white dust from the limestone gravel.
A storm is brewing when they arrive. Dark clouds race across the sky, rustling the leaves. They lean the bikes against a tree trunk and Helen reads aloud from a guidebook. ‘The meteoritic explosion thought to have caused the craters happened four thousand years ago. Archaeologists have found evidence that the largest crater was used for ritual sacrifice. Visitors often sense a mysterious … ’
Flora scratches at her bites. ‘What a load of crap,’ she says when Helen finishes.
‘As is everything, according to you.’
The main crater sits in a clearing, perfectly round and a hundred metres wide. Like a giant Petri dish growing cultures. The stagnant water is alive with pupae, wiggling larvae, newly-hatched mosquitos.
Thunder rumbles and rain ripples the surface of the pool.
‘Is this it?’ says Flora. ‘Boring.’
‘You can’t be bored yet. There are eight more.’
Flora groans. Fat, heavy raindrops drum on the leaves and oust puffs of dust from the earth, unleashing the petrichor. A movement catches Helen’s eye. A bird screeches. Flora starts at a growl of thunder.
‘You’re jittery today,’ says Helen.
‘I don’t like it here.’
‘I just want to see a couple more.’
When Flora hears a crackle of twigs for the third time she turns: all is still. Silver birches surround the main crater like soldiers on guard.
‘It’s the same,’ says Flora, at the second crater. ‘Mum, please can we go. I’m soaked.’
‘Okay!’
They tramp towards their bicycles.
‘Our bikes have fallen over,’ says Helen.
‘Shit!’ Flora gasps. Flat tyres hang limply from the wheels.
‘How the hell did this happen?’ says Helen.
‘I don’t know.’
‘The tyres have been slashed.’
‘I knew we were being watched,’ says Flora. ‘Let’s leave now!’
A crack of thunder sparks a flash of lightning: white veins and arteries in the slate-grey sky.
Helen takes out her phone. ‘No reception,’ she says. ‘You?’
‘Nothing.’
‘We’re seven kilometres from the campsite,’ says Helen, examining Viktor’s map. ‘We can push the bikes once the storm’s over. Come on. We shouldn’t shelter under the tree.’
They return to the main crater and sit on a felled branch. Flora hurls a rock into the olive-green water.
‘Hi.’
Helen and Flora look up. Viktor wheels his bike towards them.
‘What are you doing here?’ asks Helen.
‘Sightseeing.’
‘Right.’
‘Your bites are bleeding,’ Viktor says to Flora. ‘Helen, did Flora tell you how she got bitten?’
‘She went to the loo in the night.’
‘Your daughter is a liar. She came back to the campfire. Danced naked in the forest. Begged me to sleep with her.’
‘Mum, that’s rubbish!’
‘It is not rubbish,’ says Viktor. ‘Helen, your daughter wants me but … ’ He smiles, ‘I am not interested in her. Since I watched you in the shower … ’
‘Shut up,’ says Helen. She jumps up, marches towards the bicycles. Flora follows so closely she kicks her mother’s heels. They grab the bikes by the handlebars.
‘I can mend your punctures,’ says Viktor.
‘Leave us alone!’
Viktor follows Helen and Flora as they push their bikes out of the woods, in silence save for the whine of mosquitos, the thwack of flaccid tyres and the creak of Viktor’s rusty chain. Flora hopes her mother will think her tears are raindrops; Helen whispers sorry, sorry, sorry. She prays the single car which passed them on the way will return.
Viktor trails, dragging his feet. The storm passes; the sky clears. They walk seven, eight, nine kilometres but fail to reach the campsite drawn on the map.
The sun sets. For now there is no conclusion: mother and daughter continue along the dusty road, Viktor a few metres behind; the chain on his bike creaks, squeaks, clicks, creaks, squeaks, clicks, creaks …
oOo
Sophie Hampton’s fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and widely published in literary magazines and anthologies. She has won competitions including The London Magazine Short Story Prize, the Sean O’Faolain International Short Story Competition and the Highlands and Islands Short Story Competition, shortlisted for Bridport, Bristol, Bath, and Fish and longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her debut novel, Neighbours, Strangers was longlisted for the Discoveries Prize 2024. She has a PhD In Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia. Find her at
