Snow Sisters

by Carol Lovekin

The only clue to her real thoughts was a small intake of breath and the way it shuddered in her mouth before she swallowed it. Nodding to the two tall men and the woman with red hands, she watched as they overpowered me, turned away, closing the eggshell-blue door behind her.

  As the carriage drew away, dusk fell. All the dusks in the world descended on the catastrophe now besetting me. Inside my gown, a single red flannel heart lay next to my thudding one. It was the only thing I had left to console me and convince me I was still alive.

  The wheels rattled and through the back window I glimpsed a limpid wash of sky, gulls taking off for the sea. I could smell the ocean and longed for it to take me too.

  What they did wasn’t called a crime. The commissioning of it had the sanction of law.

  My clearest memory is how short was the journey before we stopped. On arrival I was taken to a small room and left in the care of a nurse whose sharp unmoving features terrified me more than the woman with the red hands. When I told her a mistake had been made she laughed, gripped my arm, steered me from the room, and made me march, faster and faster until I was almost running down endless corridors with high ceilings and into a cell-like room. There was too little light, only a square squeezed through a barred window.

  Another doctor asked me questions; spoke to the stern nurse as if I wasn’t there, about how my condition didn’t begin with my shame. According to my notes, I had always been a difficult, contrary child prone to hysteria.

  What notes?

  Having always equated hysteria with tantrums and tears, the notion confused me. As a child I had learned to keep my tears to myself. My temper, such as it was, I had always hidden, for fear of chastisement.

  The following days were shaped by tasks more meaningless than anything my mother ever devised; repeated rituals which at least had the virtue of holding the pieces of me together. The loss of my familiar life, for all its trials, weighed on my heart. I cried for my mother even though, months later, they told me she had died of a broken heart. I chose to believe them because accepting she wouldn’t change her mind and leave me in that desolate, unforgiving place was beyond my comprehension. I never found out if what they told me about her death was true, or what became of my father. For all I know he lived a long life. I can only hope the evil he did haunted him to his grave.

  My brother I prayed went to Hell where he belonged.

  Thirty-three

  Morning, for Allegra, was the worst time: the muddled moment of waking, half-aware, her unsought dreams cut off as the day claimed her.

  Her bedroom, a cave as draped and extravagantly dressed as her, was full of faded finery. Clothes hung from picture rails like shapeless sketches. Drawers stood open, an explosion of scarves, slips and stockings. Shoes tripped each other up, some lay single, at a loss.

  From her chaotic, ragged bed she eyed the day as it slid through washed-out lace curtains.

  And any woman who can paint like this has to be acquainted with passion…

  She couldn’t remember what his eyes looked like. She leaned back on her pillows, reached for her tobacco. Her heart fluttered in her chest and she closed her eyes, let the pouch fall onto the bedspread.

  Allegra believed herself in mourning – not for the man who had fathered her children and abandoned her (and in any case, as far as she knew, he wasn’t dead). She grieved for the state of being in love.

  When her father died, Allegra had been distraught. She was only seventeen and too young to deal with the death of a parent. She saw no difference between that loss and Idris abandoning her. Unhinged by grief, she hurled abuse at anyone who crossed her. And her relationship with the language of apology was dependent on what was in it for her.

  She wasn’t made for responsibility. She had expected to grow old with a husband, to remain touched by love, in possession of a shared future. Instead, her heart was worn and empty, the responsibility of mothering onerous.

  I am alone and lonely – and even Meredith’s stopped being nice to me.

  Both girls had become more secretive than usual. If Allegra could summon the energy, she’d try and find out what they were up to. It would be some silliness of Verity’s.

  She can go shopping – it’ll keep her away from her sister.I shall spend the day painting and Meredith can come with me.

  His face hovered and her eyes fluttered open.

  Do you live nearby?

  Her mother caught up with Verity on the landing.

  ‘I need you to do some shopping.’ Her gaze fell like a shaft of sunlight and Verity knew there was no escape.

  ‘We weren’t planning on going to town.’

  ‘Oh don’t make a fuss. It’ll do you good. You could do with some fresh air; you’re both looking very pale.’

  We’re always pale. We’re the palest family in Wales.

  Allegra thrust a piece of paper at Verity. ‘Here’s a list.’ She pulled a note from her pocket. ‘And money, for Mrs Thing.’

  Verity couldn’t help herself. ‘I’m not your slave, Mam. I’m your daughter.’

  ‘Why do you always have to make such a drama out of a simple request? It’s like you deliberately look for ways to annoy me. You nag me about paying the bloody woman and when I do, it’s still not good enough.’

  Verity snatched the list and the money and went downstairs.

  Her mother ran after her. ‘Don’t you walk away from me, Verity Pryce, I won’t have it; do you hear me?’

  At the kitchen door, Verity turned. ‘It’s not like I have a choice, is it? And I expect the people in Swansea can hear you.’

  Allegra swept past her, banged around, making coffee, making a mess. ‘Where the hell is Meredith?’

  ‘She’s waiting outside for me.’

  ‘I want her to stay here.’

  Verity unhooked a shopping bag from behind the door. ‘Well, she’s coming with me. We’ve planned it and she wants to.’ She paused, her hand on the doorknob.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘You.’ Verity frowned. ‘What do you actually do, Allegra? Apart from lie in bed all morning and then fling paint around.’ Before her mother could answer, Verity strode through the door, shutting it firmly behind her.

  Meredith was waiting, her bicycle propped against a wall. ‘Both my tyres are flat.’

  ‘So pump them up.’ Verity flung the shopping bag into the basket of her own bicycle. ‘Or are you waiting for your servant to show up, too?’

  ‘Blimey. Who got out the wrong side of the bed?’ Meredith waved the bicycle pump in the air. ‘It’s not my fault. I can’t get the stupid bendy thing to screw onto the stupid valve. I’ve been waiting for you for ages.’

  ‘You’ve been waiting for me for ten minutes.’ Verity snatched the hose from her sister. ‘Here. I’ll do it.’

  ‘What was she yelling about this time?’

  ‘The usual, you know.’ Verity started pumping up the tyre. ‘She’s the drama queen, only apparently, I’m the one making a fuss.’

  ‘Yes, well, let’s forget about the parent. We have a plan, remember?’

  It wasn’t much of plan – more a whim Meredith had conjured the night before.

  ‘We need to find out everything we can,’ she’d said. ‘I bet you there are people round here who still remember the Lewis family.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Old Mrs Trahaearn at the shop.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her for ages.’

  ‘I have, in the garden round the side. She sits there when it’s sunny, getting more and more wrinkled. She must be at least a hundred years old, so she might have known Angharad or about her at least.’

  ‘Even so…’

  ‘Verity, stop putting obstacles in the way, I thought you were into this.’

  ‘But—’

  Meredith played her trump card. ‘I thought you said you believed me.’

  Reluctantly, Verity had said she did and agreed to what looked to her like a fool’s errand.

  Above them, the
sky was light and luminous. By the time they arrived at the shop, the sweat was pouring off both of them and Verity spent some of Allegra’s money on ice lollies.

  ‘How’s your mother, Mrs Trahaearn?’ Meredith smiled her most winning smile.

  ‘Well, it’s kind of you to ask, Meredith Pryce, I’m sure. She’s fine, if you can call doolally as a fish, fine.’ Mrs Trahaearn lowered her voice. ‘Not a lot going on up top anymore, poor old thing. She’s happy enough in her own way. Bit like your uncle Gethin.’

  ‘It must be a terrible thing to lose your mind.’

  ‘She’s not ready for the funny farm, dear, if that’s what you mean.’

  Sensing an opportunity, Meredith pounced. ‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean any offence.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It’s not like in the olden days, is it, when they locked people up for nothing.’ She paused. ‘Like Angharad Lewis, who lived in our house?’

  Verity grabbed her arm and pinched her.

  ‘That hurts, Verity.’

  Mrs Trahaearn narrowed her eyes. ‘What have you heard about Angharad Lewis?’

  ‘Oh, our grandmother told us about her.’

  ‘Did she indeed? Well, Mared Pryce isn’t one to mince her words.’

  Meredith lowered her voice. ‘She told us about Angharad’s brother as well.’

  ‘Well, now that was a thing.’ Mrs Trahaearn made a tutting noise. ‘Although why two young girls like you would want to know about anything as nasty as that I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Was she really mad?’

  ‘My mother always reckoned it was the brother needed locking up, not the daughter.’

  ‘Did she know her then?’

  ‘Duw, no, she’s not that old. Her best friend’s mother did mind. Sian knew one of the maids who worked there. The local girls said he was sly as a slug and this maid said he’d… Well…’ Mrs Trahaearn gave a nervous cough. ‘Goodness me, I’m not sure this is a suitable conversation for children!’

  ‘We aren’t exactly children, Mrs Trahaearn. I’m nearly fifteen and Verity’s sixteen.’

  You little liar.

  ‘Well, these days, you girls know everything. And if Mared’s already told you that much, it’s no skin off my nose.’ Mrs Trahaearn cleared her throat. ‘After they locked the sister up, the brother was sent away and no one saw him again. He died when he was quite young apparently, although I wouldn’t know about that, or the reason.’ She looked over her shoulder. The shop was empty. ‘The mother is supposed to have committed suicide.’

  If Meredith’s eyes grew any bigger, Verity swore they would pop out of her head.

  ‘Oh, my grandmother knows about that too, thanks all the same.’

  ‘Well, I daresay she does.’ Mrs Trahaearn patted her hair. ‘How is Mared by the way? It can’t be easy. I miss seeing her. You remember me to her won’t you?’

  ‘She’s fine, thank you Mrs Trahaearn.’ Meredith’s smile was making her face hurt. ‘And of course I will. You can count on it.’

  Outside, Verity pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter.

  ‘You’re impossible,’ she hissed.

  ‘I’m good though.’ Meredith winked and peered through the hedge into the garden at the side of the shop.

  There was no sign of the old lady.

  ‘It doesn’t matter though does it?’ she said. ‘We’ve everything we need.’

  Thirty-four

  Ghosts linger in the seams and cracks in time; the still places between human breath.

  In Meredith’s dreams there was now no ambiguity. She woke with them intact, each detail imprinted. She didn’t know what to do with the weight of Angharad’s sadness. In the darkness, she made her way to Verity’s room, curled in beside her sister, and for once, Verity didn’t complain.

  ‘I wish she’d stop crying,’ Meredith said. ‘It’s the saddest thing in the world.’

  Verity gazed into her sister’s face. Her skin was as thin as a soap bubble.

  ‘A bad thing really did happen to her, Verity.’

  ‘Yes, I think it did.’

  ‘Even though it’s hard for her, she doesn’t want to leave anything out.’

  ‘You mustn’t leave any of it out either, Meri – tell me everything you can remember. I can’t bear for you to be sad too.’

  ‘Are we in this together then?’

  Verity recalled the desolate look on the ghost’s face, how she disappeared through the wall; she felt the snowball against her skin and the sensation of fainting. The idea she had imagined any of it now seemed improbable. Whatever purpose or plan the ghost had, Verity wasn’t going to leave her sister to deal with it alone.

  And if I deny Angharad, Meri won’t. She won’t stop, whatever I decide.

  ‘I promise.’

  Meredith nodded. Beneath her eyes the skin was still blemished with fatigue.

  ‘Have you had any sleep?’

  ‘I must have or I wouldn’t dream.’

  Verity stroked Meredith’s hair away from her forehead. ‘It doesn’t count. You need proper sleep without dreaming. Why don’t you stay here? I’ll read you a story, see if that helps.’

  Meredith eyes brightened.

  ‘Will you go and get Nelly?’

  ‘Yes, then a story and we’ll both try and sleep a bit more.’

  In Meredith’s room the air was damp. As Verity collected Nelly she wondered if she was grown up enough to deal with what was happening. She thought about telling her grandmother and knew she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t go back on her word. But thinking about Meredith’s bruised eyes, her determination to help a ghost neither of them could prove existed, she wasn’t sure how long she could keep her promise.

  They slept curled like animals.

  Verity had watched as Meredith fell asleep, her head filled with the remnants of Narnia.

  When she closed her own eyes and fell into a dream, the ghost of Angharad Elin Lewis came to meet her. Her arms outstretched, she drifted through mist, the bones of her fingers showing through thin skin; her hands spread in supplication.

  I am waiting for someone to come for me…

  Each syllable was a whisper.

  Do not trust the mothers…

  Verity jolted awake. It was still dark and Meredith lay on her back, her eyes wide open, dried tears on her face.

  ‘It didn’t work, did it?’

  Meredith couldn’t speak, only point.

  As Verity looked up, a chill swept through her. In front of the window, shifting in the moonlit cotton curtains, the ghost of Angharad held out her arms and as they watched, fell back and floated out into the nothing of the night.

  When Meredith described her dream, it was the same as Verity’s.

  Thirty-five

  Verity heard the sound of wisteria scraping the stone outside the window.

  Next to her, Meredith slept so deeply her chest barely moved. Verity leaned over her, listening for her breath.

  Satisfied, she slipped from her bed, crept from the house and ran down the field to the lookout. In spite of a chill in the air, the sun was shining and she could smell summer. Leaning against the old dead tree she watched the tide running up the beach filling the rock pools as it went.

  Verity pulled her mother’s tarot book from under her cardigan. If Allegra left her belongings lying around, picking them up wasn’t stealing and in any case, if Verity had a pound for each time her mother tried to get her to read the book, she’d be worth a fortune.

  It was, like her mother’s cards, worn and creased. Flicking it open, she noticed how the edges of the pages were brown with age; a few showing a trace of fine trails where a worm had eaten through the paper. It was an old book and full of secrets.

  Full of nonsense more like.

  Turning to the section about swords, she read how they symbolised air: sky and clouds and birds, the colour blue. She turned to the picture of the knight. He was armoured, mounted on a fast moving horse, his sword raised above his head, a sense
of action surrounding him. When she looked closer, beneath the visor Verity could see how narrow and cunning the knight’s eyes were.

  I don’t like you one little bit.

  As a metaphor, the book said, although he had a magnetic personality he represented grand ideas that could quickly become chaotic. He was selfish and pursued his own ends. Above all, he was not to be trusted.

  I’m not sure I trust anything.

  The dream hovered and she pushed it away.

  Although Verity imagined a person who knew what they were about might make sense of the tarot symbols, the way her mother read them was arrant nonsense. And trying to second guess Allegra through a pack of raggedy old cards all at once struck her as a pointless exercise.

  Snapping the book shut and shoving it in her pocket, she was about to go down to the stile and onto the beach when she spotted a figure, close to the cliff near the stone dragon. No one came to this end of the beach. It was a dead end and didn’t lead anywhere.

  The tide surged across the sand, closing in; leaving only a narrow strip of shingle to walk on. Ducking low, Verity scrambled down to the stile, peeked over the ledge and saw him. Tall and dark-haired, wearing a jacket with the collar turned up, his hands thrust into deep pockets.

  A tall man in a dark coat…

  He stopped, steadied himself on the rocks, shaded his eyes.

  Verity ducked down afraid of being spotted as a spy. He hadn’t seen her; he was too busy staring up at the house, intently, as if he recognised it.

  The Knight of Swords…

  Verity’s bones chilled; it was as if they had turned to glass and, were she to fall over, she would shatter.

  He has a ruthless quality … pursues his own ends… he cannot be trusted…

  As my body grew I wanted to hate it. Sensing the life inside me, I was unable to summon such a base emotion.

  There had been too much hatred; the child I carried may have been conceived in violence, in the absence of family, I could love it while I waited for someone to come for me.

  No one came.

  The sense of abandonment grew in tandem with my belly. I do not choose to record the physical indignities I was initially subjected to – suffice it to say, they were almost as vile as my brother’s assaults. As my pregnancy progressed, I was eventually left alone and because I was with child, escaped the worst excesses of asylum life. It was, nevertheless, harsh and demeaning.