We Were Sisters: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by Wendy Clarke

  ‘You always thought you were better than me, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s not true. I didn’t…’

  She cuts me off. ‘With a father and a mother who wanted you. Do you know what it’s like to have nobody?’

  I struggle to find the right words. Ones that will placate, rather than anger her. ‘They didn’t love me, Freya. They never did. After what happened, they froze me out. They didn’t want me either. Can’t you see that it was you they loved?’

  For the first time, I think about what it must have been like to be Freya. Arriving in a strange house. Needy. Damaged. Desperate for love. In many ways we weren’t that different.

  There’s a catch in Freya’s voice. ‘You really don’t know anything. You think you do, but you don’t.’

  The wind is sharpening, tugging at my coat. I fight to stop my teeth from chattering. Crouching down in the long grass, I wrap my arms around my body, wanting the waving grasses to engulf me. But then I hear Isabella’s voice again. So small. So afraid. I want Sophie.

  ‘She’s just a child, Freya. Sophie will be missing her. Let me take her home to her sister.’

  There’s silence. In the distance, somewhere in the band of trees on the ridge, I hear the mournful hoot of an owl. In the few seconds I wait for her to answer, I pray she’ll say she’ll let her go, but she doesn’t.

  ‘No, Kelly. There are things you need to understand and the only way I can do that is to show you. Without Isabella, Sophie will know what it’s like to lose the other half of herself. Her sister. Her twin. And you will understand what real loss feels like too.’

  ‘Where are you, Freya?’ I shout into the phone. Desperate. Pleading. ‘You have to tell me.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she says, ‘because you already know. Can you still run?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean?’

  ‘I’ll count to twenty slowly. Maybe you’ll make it in time.’

  ‘Please, Freya. I don’t—’

  The phone goes dead. I stare at it, a vicious gust of wind catching at the edges of my coat, making it flap. I was right. She wants me to find her.

  I also know she’ll have started counting.

  In the distance is the brick wall of the rifle range. It’s not so very far away, but my feet are rooted to the ground and it’s like I’m looking through the wrong end of a telescope. However hard I try, I can’t move them. My vision blurs. There’s ringing in my ears. For the first time the numbers that will calm my panic refuse to come.

  And through all this, the never-ending grass ripples and eddies in slow motion. The wind whistles eerily through the naked stems.

  My baby is in danger and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  58

  Kelly Now

  My hand is at my throat where my locket hangs. I can feel it through my jumper. Unbuttoning my coat, I pull the fine chain from its woollen prison and, with frozen fingers, fumble at the clasp until I manage to open it. My beautiful girls smile at me from their heart-shaped frame and I feel my limbs start to thaw like a princess in a fairy tale.

  This time, when I tell my feet to run, they obey. I take the path that cuts directly through the meadow and it’s like I’ve gone back in time. No longer am I Kelly the wife and mother with no confidence in herself. Instead, I am the fourteen-year-old girl from the athletic club whose limbs are strong and sure. Whose feet can cover ground faster than the others. The moonlight guides me, and I keep my steps measured. My breathing even.

  I will get there before Freya has finished counting. If I don’t, I will live with the consequences forever.

  I’ve reached my goal. The wall of the firing range is in front of me and I stop. Despite my run, I’m shivering, though whether it’s from cold or fear I can’t tell. I place my hand on the cold brickwork, steadying myself. Making myself breathe. This wall is the only thing between me and the iron framework of the targets in the markers’ gallery. The only thing stopping me from seeing what’s waiting for me there.

  Above me, the birches shiver, but where I’m standing the wind is mute – replaced by a bone-chilling stillness. It smells of damp and decay. Of death. Panic tightens like a band across my chest. I’m no longer certain this is the place. What if I’ve made a mistake? What if it’s not the Gemini symbol on the wall of the rifle range she wants me to go to. What if she’s waiting for me at the Gemini tree? I glance up at the band of trees on the hill. However fast I ran, I’d never get there in the time she’s given me.

  ‘Isabella. Are you here?’

  I stand and wait. Rigid. Listening. Wanting, yet not wanting, to hear a reply. When there’s nothing, I force my feet to move. Keeping as close to the wall as I can, I inch my way along, the torch lighting the way. I reach the end but am scared to turn the corner. Freya said there was a price to pay for what I did and I’ve no idea what that will be. Now I wish I’d phoned Mitch when I had the chance. Would do anything to have him here with me now. But there’s no use wishing for something you can’t have. I’ve learnt that to my detriment.

  With stomach clenched hard as a rock, I step into the gallery. To my right is the long wall, its graffiti fighting for space, to my left the target frames. Lifting my torch, I aim the beam at the farthest end and sweep its light from one side to the other. Picking out the curve of a letter, a rusted strut.

  There’s nothing here. The place is empty.

  Dropping my arm to my side, I bend my head, the crushing pain of losing my child releasing the stopcock of my tears. As I slide down the wall, joining the fag ends and the bottles, I know the keening noise I hear is coming from me.

  ‘Mummy.’

  At first, I think I’m imagining Isabella’s voice, but then I hear it again. It’s coming from the derelict target store to my left.

  ‘Isabella? Izzy?’

  Pushing myself up, I run to the entrance and sweep my torch across the concrete space. I see her straightaway. She’s crouched in the corner, her arms wrapped around her body, reminding me of Freya when she was first with us.

  I’m next to her in seconds, hugging her to me. Kissing her hair over and over. ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt?’

  I feel, rather than see, the shake of her head. I want to believe her, but I can’t. Holding her at arm’s length, I study her face and then her body until I’m satisfied nothing has happened to her.

  ‘I’m scared, Mummy. I don’t like her.’

  I smooth back the hair from her face. It’s wet with tears – hers and mine. ‘Did she say anything, Isabella? Do you know where she’s gone?’

  For the second time, she shakes her head.

  There’s no sound. It’s as if the very earth is holding its breath. Is she still here? I’m just wondering what to do, when Isabella holds out her hand. There’s something in it. It looks like a page from a newspaper.

  ‘What is it? What do you have?’

  ‘She told me to give it to you.’

  I want to leave this place, go home to Mitch, Sophie and Noah, but something tells me this is important. Tucking the torch under my arm, I unfold the page. I expect it to be another horoscope, but it isn’t. When I shine the torch on it, I see it’s a newspaper article.

  The heading is bold. Gemini Twin Allowed to Die. As I read, my heart slows, and fresh tears start in my eyes. The article is about a mother who gave birth to identical twins. Twins who were joined at the abdomen and who shared a circulatory system. The stronger of the twins was called Freya and it was her healthy heart that was pumping blood around her ailing sister’s body.

  I read on, my hand trembling. The doctors had told the parents that, without an operation to separate them, both twins would die within months. But the parents hadn’t wanted the operation. They couldn’t bring themselves to sacrifice one child so the other could live.

  My hand is at my heart. What if I’d had to make that same choice when the twins were born? I remember the days watching Sophie in the special care baby unit, yellow with jaundice, her little lungs figh
ting to take in enough oxygen. Would I have sacrificed Sophie so that her stronger sister could live? I realise it’s something I can’t answer. Something no one could answer unless it happened to them.

  The article finishes by saying that, after weeks of wrangling, the appeal court judge decided that the twins should be separated. Two months after the operation, the weaker twin died.

  I close my eyes, remembering the day in the swimming pool changing room when I’d seen the pink, shiny scar on Freya’s skin. How she’d press her body to mine whenever she crept into my bed at night.

  Now it all made sense.

  And so did her secret. Freya blamed herself for her twin’s death. Yet it wasn’t her fault. No one was to blame. If the operation hadn’t gone ahead, neither twin would have survived. I try to remember what I know about Freya’s parents. Her father left and her mother had a breakdown. Going through what they did, it’s hardly surprising.

  Freya blamed herself for her sister’s death, and I didn’t question the truth of it either. I treated her like a killer, when she was a victim.

  Perhaps that’s why she was always pushing me away. If only I’d been told the truth.

  There’s a sound at the entrance to the rifle range. A rustle of leaves at the end of the wall as if someone is pushing their way through. Taking Isabella by the hand, I pull her behind me, melting back into the darkness so that whoever it is won’t see us. My heart’s thumping in my chest as I wait. There’s the slap of shoes on concrete, a pool of light from a torch. Is it Freya? Has she changed her mind and come back for Isabella?

  The footsteps move closer and I clamp my hand to my mouth to stop from screaming. Behind me, Isabella whimpers.

  ‘Shh,’ I whisper, reaching behind me to feel for Isabella’s hand. ‘Stay as quiet as you can.’

  The torch beam disappears as its owner walks the length of the shooting gallery, but I know they’ll soon be back. They’ll light up the corners of our hiding place and we’ll be found. We’re sitting ducks. With Isabella close to my side, I creep to the entrance of the target store and look out. A dark shape is standing at the end of the gallery. It’s hard to tell, but I think their back is to us. There’s a woodpile next to the squat building where we stand and, behind it, the sharp scarp slope of the hill. If we can just get to it, we could use it as cover and disappear between the trees.

  ‘Run as quickly as you can, Izzy,’ I say.

  But we’ve only run a few steps when there’s a shout and we’re trapped in the torch’s beam, like actors on a stage about to take their bow.

  ‘Shit, Kelly. Are you all right?’

  It’s Mitch’s voice and I think I might die of relief. He’s running now, his footsteps echoing against the empty walls of the gallery. Picking Isabella up, I run to meet him, desperate to feel his arms around me.

  He takes Isabella from me and presses her cheek against his.

  ‘Ow, Daddy. That’s scratchy.’

  I look at Mitch over the top of her head. ‘Where’s Sophie?’

  ‘She’s with Maddie in the car.’

  From the way he’s said it, I know he’s worried about how I’ll take this, but I know now how stupid I was to be jealous of her.

  ‘That’s good. I’m so glad you came, Mitch. How did you find us?’

  ‘Your mother told me where you’d gone.’ Putting Isabella down, he puts his arm around me. ‘You’re shivering. Let’s get back to the house and you can tell me what the hell happened today. Freya didn’t…’ he rubs at his chin, struggling to say the words, ‘do anything? Hurt her?’

  ‘No. She didn’t hurt her.’

  ‘Then why take her?’

  I try and remember what she said in the phone call. ‘I think it was because she was angry that I’d had everything she’d always wanted. She’d thought she had it too and then I spoilt it for her. If only my mother had sat me down and talked to me about Freya before she came to us, things might have been different. But she never did. She was too obsessed with getting the perfect child to worry about how it would impact on me. Freya wanted me to understand what loss feels like… and now I think I do.’

  ‘Why would she go to such extremes? She’s insane. A crazy stalker. The lengths she went to…’ Mitch stops, disbelief written across his face. ‘How did she know about the kids? Where we lived?’

  ‘She saw your letters to my mum, Mitch. There wasn’t much you didn’t tell her.’

  The pain Mitch is feeling is written across his face. ‘I put you and the children in danger. I’m so sorry. And I should have believed you when you told me all the things that had been happening. She’s dangerous.’

  ‘I don’t think she is.’ The newspaper article is still clutched in my hand. ‘Something happened to Freya when she was very young that made her desperate to be loved. She just didn’t know the right way of going about it.’

  I hold the article out to him, and he takes it. Training the torch on the writing, he reads. When he’s finished, his hand drops to his side. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘I know. It’s awful, isn’t it.’

  Mitch runs a hand down Isabella’s hair. ‘And you think this had something to do with why she took Isabella?’

  ‘It could be.’ I’ve nothing else to go on.

  ‘Well, all I care about is that you’re both safe.’

  I can’t stop shivering. Taking off his jacket, Mitch places it over my shoulders, but it doesn’t help. Isabella is safe, but I’m still on edge. I don’t think Freya means to harm us, but why bring Isabella to this place? Why go to the trouble of leaving the clues for me to find? I want to believe that this is the end, but I’m not sure it is.

  Taking the torch from Mitch, I light the way along the gallery, and as the beam picks out each tag and picture in turn, I see it. Two vertical lines of green paint with a horizontal arc along the top and bottom. I stop and stare at the Gemini symbol Freya sprayed on the wall the last time I was here. The paint has faded over the years, blending in with the other graffiti, but now there’s something different about it.

  Moving closer, I train my torch on it and immediately see what it is. I give a strangled cry and step back. For hanging from the arc at the top, in fresh black paint, is a rope. On the end of which is a hangman’s noose, just like the one on the Gemini tree.

  ‘Oh, God,’ I whisper. ‘Please, Freya, no.’

  Now I know what Freya wanted me to find. And it wasn’t just Isabella.

  59

  Kelly Now

  My torch swings wildly as I force my legs to conquer the grassy slope beyond the rifle range. My chest is tight. My breathing heavy. Above me, is the wood Freya and I played in all those years ago, the trees spectral against the indigo sky. I stop to catch my breath, looking back down the hill, the way I came. There’s nothing to see, but I can hear the sigh of the waving grass and Mitch calling my name.

  When I left him in the rifle range, I knew that he wouldn’t be able to follow me. Not with Isabella. He knows the direction in which my thoughts have run and has heard enough about Freya’s instability to know what she’s capable of. If we’re right, there’s no way he’ll let his daughter be a witness to that. I’m relieved. This is something I must do alone.

  I press on, wondering what Mitch will do now. The most likely thing is that he’ll call the police to tell them Izzy’s safe before taking her back to the car where Maddie and Sophie are waiting. When he’s done that, he’ll come after me. There’s no time to waste, and I run again, my torch picking out the safest route along the rutted path.

  The gate that leads into the trees appears sooner than I expect it to and I push through, jumping as it clangs shut behind me. Everything is still again. The air cold and silent. I know I must go on, but my fear, and the darkness that presses in, holds me back. Makes me hesitant. Even the beam of light from my torch is no comfort. Above my head, huge bunches of mistletoe hang like chandeliers from the birch trees and the bare branches glisten with frost where the light catches them.

 
; My heart is racing uncomfortably. The sweat growing cold on my back.

  ‘You can do this, Kelly.’ Without realising, I’ve spoken the words aloud and I stop, listening for an answering voice. There is none and I don’t know if this makes it better or worse.

  Ahead of me is a clearing. The trees thinning to reveal the open space Freya and I once played in. It’s bathed in moonlight and I switch off the torch. In the clearing’s centre, standing mute and ghost-like, is the Gemini tree.

  Instinctively, I close my eyes against the stuff of my nightmares. Imagining the Medusa-like roots taking hold beneath the frost-hardened earth. Fighting the panic, I count under my breath, leaving little space in my head for the terror to take hold.

  But even as I’m counting, I know I must look. It’s the only way to bring an end to all this.

  Finding an inner strength I didn’t know I had, I open my eyes again and force myself to look. It’s now I see what I didn’t when I was eight. The Gemini tree is not one tree with two trunks at all, but two trees. They’ve grown so close together that their silver-grey trunks have joined where they touch – just as Freya’s and her sister’s had.

  It takes all my strength to make my eyes move to the long low branch that spreads away from the trunk. To force them to see. To understand. Freya knows that the clue she left me at the rifle range will have led me here. This time there’s no lightning. No sleeping tablets muddling my thoughts. What I see is real, not something I’ve conjured up.

  The long rope hangs – just as it did when we were children.

  Just like it did the day I thought Freya had died.

  Today, though, the noose at the end hangs empty and I cover my face with my hands in relief.

  ‘Kelly.’

  My hands drop to my sides and my blood freezes at the sound of Freya’s voice. My eyes strain to see her.