The Sister

by China, Max

  A black fly started up, buzzing around, knocking against the lampshade. The droning announcement of its presence made him fearful. If the room were in darkness, would it settle? Can I find it and swat it the instant the light goes back on? He extinguished it, turning the room inky-black. The fly cut its engines. Silence. Then something cold and wet settled on his lips. He spat furiously, fumbling for the light switch. He crossed the floor and opened the window, hoping the fly would go out. Its abominable noise stopped. Sleep crept into his worried mind and took him over.

  Something had wormed its way into his subconscious. Teeming sounds, distant and surreal, like a tiny Middle Eastern bazaar, drew him out sleep. He opened his eyes. The spotlight that the lamp shade threw up onto the ceiling, revealed a moving carpet of tiny insects, moths, midges and mosquitoes, and at the centre of it, unmoving . . . sat the orchestrator of it all. The bluebottle.

  Suddenly, Bruce knew he was not alone; the presence that had previously intruded on his thoughts was back in his head, and he knew that something else lurked in the shadows under the bed, waiting for him. In stark terror, he shook as his imagination took flight.

  Too afraid to look, he tried emptying his mind the way his grandfather had taught him. Deeply breathing in and out, he calmed himself, thinking about his father and grandfather. They always knew what to do, no matter what.

  He floated in the transition between sleep and wakefulness.

  Clunk! The sound reverberated through the bed, jolting him upright. A few weeks before the same thing had happened, and his mum said it was only the springs settling in the mattress. Uneasy, he tried to relax again.

  Clunk! This time, he looked under the bed.

  He screamed.

  The whole household came running to investigate. In a small voice, he told everyone he was okay; it was only a nightmare. He dared not tell them the real reason.

  Over the following nights, Bruce would lay there like that, fighting sleep. He would see what happened over and over again, from perspectives that couldn't have been his. Sometimes it felt as if someone else was in his head; he kept seeing the woman's beetroot face, and the killer, finger on lips – "Shhh…" he fought to keep the thoughts down until exhaustion forced him into sleep, and then he'd wake in the grip of a nightmare, stifling a scream, afraid of the darkness in his room.

  Over the years, he gradually weaved an insular blanket to throw over the intrusive thoughts and fears that plagued him. He hadn't removed the root causes, but he would never consciously allow them to trouble him again.

  Chapter 9

  Southern Ireland 1969

  Brenda Flynn was Vera's aunt; once considered the life and soul of parties. Always telling jokes, many a stranger ended up with sore ribs after she'd elbowed them hard on delivering the punch line. While they doubled up in pain, her raucous laughter infected everyone around to join in, none more so than her previous victims.

  Life changed dramatically in 1969 with the death of her husband in a farmyard accident. One cold morning, he started the engine and left it to heat up, then reaching back in to pull something off the front seat, he snagged the gear lever; the tractor started forward with him half in and half out. She saw it as she ran out to take him the sandwiches he'd left behind on the kitchen table. He lost his footing trying to get back into the cab and fell under the back wheel. Widowed and childless, part of her died that day, too.

  She became embittered and sour.

  A few weeks later, her brother and his entire family had burned to death when their home caught fire. Every single one of them perished apart from Vera. Alerted by the flames, some villagers found her wandering, aimless, outside the house. The fire brigade pinpointed the upstairs landing as the origin of the fire. They always left a candle burning there because of Vera's sleepwalking, in case she couldn't see and fell downstairs.

  With no other family to look after her, she faced the orphanage and Ireland in those days was no place for a child to grow up in a Catholic institution. Her aunt would not allow that happen.

  Her niece was only thirteen, but Brenda never knew what she was letting herself in for. Something played on the child's mind; whatever it was, it wouldn't let her rest. One night, despite what they say about never waking a sleepwalker, Brenda did just that, questioning Vera about the fire while she was in her somnambulant state.

  "Is that how the fire started, when you were on your wanderings?"

  She did not appear to wake fully. "No, it was the dog did it, chasing a rat. It knocked the candle over at the top of the stairs. When I saw what happened, I was on the beach, too far away to get back to warn them."

  The older woman stared in disbelief, and wondered if the child before her was truly awake.

  In her mind's eye, Vera saw it all again, the way the fire caught quickly, the draught funnelling through the stairwell fanning the flames, the melted wax turning it into an inferno. The next thing she knew she was outside in her nightie, warmed by the heat of the fire.

  She didn't tell her aunt she'd warned her mother about the fire three nights before. She didn't tell her because she was a child who'd not yet made sense of it all, who was afraid she'd frighten her and because she'd known it would happen in advance and didn't do enough to prevent it from happening. There was something else, too, that she didn't tell. While she was on the beach that night, she'd projected herself into her parent's bedroom to warn them. Her ma sat astride pa, riding him. Her father had seen her, but believing her to be sleepwalking, whispered, so as not to wake her, "I don't want disturbing taking what little pleasures there are to be had in this life. From now on, I'm locking that door."

  "Wait," her mother said, raising herself off him. She'd seen Vera too. "There's something wrong. What is she doing here? Why is she pulling that face?"

  "She's only sleep walking again, don't worry love. Get back into bed and be quiet, and then she'll go away." Vera looked sad. She knew she should have tried to wake the others first. It was already too late as her projection left the room.

  One minute she'd been there, the next she was gone. They didn't question it until they heard the screaming. Her pa never noticed the heat of the door handle as he opened the door. A massive fireball engulfed them. It was only afterwards that she realised she couldn't directly interfere with what fate had planned.

  Finally, Vera spoke. "I tried to wake them."

  Her aunt berated her, "You stupid, stupid child, you should have tried harder! What you did not do killed your parents." She couldn't believe her own words as they tumbled out of her mouth. What she would have given, to call them back unheard; but it was too late.

  It started a chain reaction. Vera retaliated by telling her she'd killed her own husband.

  Stunned into silence, Brenda reacted with undisguised venom. "What did you just say?"

  Vera was afraid of her anger.

  "What did you just SAY?" she shouted; the veins in her neck stood out, and her piggy eyes bulged almost out of their sockets.

  Vera looked down; she spoke quietly. Brenda leaned in to hear her better.

  "The last time you were in the tractor, you left your jacket on the front seat. Uncle Tommy started the engine to warm her and jumped down. Seeing it there, and not wanting you to feel the cold, he reached back in and pulled it across the seat. As it came, it snagged the gear lever; he wasn't really looking. He felt it catch, and he tugged it harder. It slipped into gear. You know the rest."

  Now she knew how it had happened as seen through the eyes of the child before her.

  She'd been blissful in her ignorance. Now she knew that, in the simple act of leaving her jacket behind, she had contributed to his death.

  She wept softly.

  Vera woke and put her arms around her neck. "I'm sorry, Aunty Flynn. I thought you might have wanted to know what happened." She'd just discovered that the truth had the power to hurt.

  After that, she always asked if someone wanted the truth first.

  Brenda never woke Vera while
she was sleepwalking again.

  Chapter 10

  Late May 1969

  In the early summer of 1969, two memorable things happened to Dr Ryan, and they both occurred on the same day. One: a rainstorm the likes of which he'd never encountered before. The other: meeting Vera Flynn for the first time.

  Rain, driven on demonic winds, lashed horizontally - millions of thin, watery nails unleashed, wave upon wave, like sheets that seemed to undulate in all directions as they rode the currents. Dark skies subdued the light, making everything leaden and drab.

  The soft red of the car stood out as it wound its way down the lane, the driver slowly easing in and out of the unavoidable water-filled potholes. Huge splats of machine-gun bullet rain drummed against the windows, producing a secondary mist that cut visibility, so that Ryan perched as far forward on his seat as the wheel allowed, his nose only inches from the inside of the screen. He wiped a swathe of condensation clear with his hand. As soon as I have enough money, he told himself; I'm getting a car with a decent blower. The wipers of the old Ford couldn't wipe quickly enough to keep up with the rain. The dampness raised a sweet, stale odour from the upholstery inside.

  Beyond the misty veil, the farmhouse was barely visible. Set back from the road, he saw it only at the last moment. Pulling quickly into the gateless gap in the stone wall between the pillars, he parked as close to the front door as he could.

  Ryan switched the engine off and braced himself ready to jump out. One - two – three, he flung the door flew open and dashed out straight into a puddle, cursing as the freezing water swept into his shoe, and soaked his sock. This was the Somme, a war zone masquerading as a driveway with water filled, muddy craters everywhere.

  He grabbed his bag from the back seat of the car and head down against the rain, zigzagged between craters to the front door. A woman watched his approach through a porthole she'd wiped clear through the mist on the glass. As soon as he lifted the knocker, the door opened, and he swept inside, stamping and scraping on the mat to dry the rain from his shoes.

  "Mrs Flynn?" he enquired.

  Possessing the heavy, blunt features and ruddy complexion of someone who had spent a lifetime working outdoors, she looked from his bag to his face and said, "Where's Doctor Robert?"

  "He's, um … indisposed, so they sent me instead. Sorry, I'm Dr Ryan." He extended his hand. She ignored it.

  "What's happened?" she said, eyes narrowing.

  "I think he's had an accident, and that's all I know."

  She looked at him suspiciously and turned away, removing first her coat, then the scarf covering her head, to reveal a tangle of surprisingly snow-white hair, distinctly at odds with her age.

  He took the opportunity to ask some questions. "What seems to be the matter with her?"

  "She was outside yesterday - you remember how dull it was - when she came back in, she looked as if she'd suffered the most terrible sunburn, so she did, all blistered and all."

  Ryan frowned as he discounted sunlight from the list of possibilities. "Has this ever happened before?"

  "When she was thirteen, by all accounts, something similar happened one Sunday morning, at Mass."

  "How old is she now?"

  "She's fifteen."

  "Uh-huh, let's take a look at her then."

  She led him down three steps from the hallway. The flag-paved floors did little to make the house feel warm. Ryan shivered; the dampness had seeped into his bones.

  They stopped outside the last door down on the left. She knocked and entered without waiting for a reply, ushering him in behind her.

  "Vera, the doctor's here." She did not turn away from the window. Ryan looked around the room; it was a dirty white and sparsely furnished. No two sticks of furniture matched. A small mirror hung over a pine chest of drawers, a rickety looking chair in front of it. Over by the wall furthest from the window, was a child's bed. The blanket covering it was green, and the sheet from underneath it folded down over the top to form a collar. A single pillow was propped upright against the wall; the sag in the mattress gave away how much use it had seen over the years.

  The other side of the room, opposite where Vera sat, was a table with a collection of paintings on it. He moved closer to inspect them. The girl had talent and a vivid imagination. The top painting was an aerial landscape view. She must have recreated it from a photograph, or remembered looking down on it from an aeroplane. The centrepiece drew his eye deep into the painting. A black hole of nothingness stood out stark against the greenery of the tree canopy surrounding it; bottomless and empty like the well of a dark soul, it stared up at him. Pointing to the painting, Ryan remarked, "Very imaginative."

  "Not imagination at all, people have died there," Vera said without turning around. Unsure what to say, Ryan looked over to the easel next to the table. On it, a half painted canvas depicted stormy skies. Crows or ravens rode the thermals above misty mountain crags and in the foreground, at the foot of the cliffs; two black horses pulled a funeral carriage; one dragged a man behind. A procession of faceless people followed. Ryan switched his view from the painting to the window and beyond. The room was too cold for condensation to form on the glass. Dressed only in a thin nightgown, if she felt the cold, she showed no sign of it. Her eyes seemed fixed on the grey cliffs in the near distance. Taking a step back, away from the window, he'd almost staggered as he recognised the scene. It was the backdrop to her painting.

  Her hair was the palest shade of ginger, and it spilled down over her shoulders. The way she sat hunched made her backbone stick out through the fabric of her nightdress; her skin was as fine and white as porcelain. He'd not expected to see such delicate beauty after seeing her mother.

  "Vera?" Ryan spoke softly.

  She turned to look at the young doctor, the expression on her face serious, her eyes green and feline, fixed on him.

  "Doctor Robert won't be coming will he," she said.

  "No, Vera something happened, he—"

  "Died in his sleep last night," Vera looked from him to . "And she's my aunt, not my mother."

  Mrs Flynn's piggy eyes were as wide and round as they could go. Her hand covered her mouth, stifling a gasp.

  "How could you have known about Dr Robert, Vera?" Ryan said, also taken aback.

  Without answering, she moved over to the painting. Her hands worked with incredible speed. They watched transfixed as she mixed colours and painted the outlines of three additional characters. She left them unfinished, but clearly recognisable as a man and woman, carrying a pinkish baby.

  The significance of the earlier work troubled him, and a feeling of apprehension passed through him as it became clearer. He wondered if he should ask about the addition of the new figures.

  Vera raised her eyes from the painting and stared over the top of the canvas at him.

  She smiled with all the self-assurance of a grown woman.

  Embarrassed, Ryan quickly ushered Vera away from the window to the bed, where he could more easily examine her. She refused to move from her chair, and no amount of coercion could persuade her otherwise, so he conducted his examination right where she was, by the light of the window.

  He checked her eyes, ears and throat, pausing between to make notes. "Say aah . . ."

  Mrs Flynn, having provided a running commentary of Vera's symptoms throughout, now demanded his diagnosis.

  He held his hand up for her to wait while he finished note taking. Conversation and writing at the same time wasn't good for him. Some people could do it. He could not.

  Even without talking, he made enough mistakes, so he always drafted in pencil. It made it easier to correct if the need arose. Scrawled out corrections looked so unprofessional; he'd sooner rub them out and then start again. He clicked a further millimetre of lead out into the nib, and examined it, before continuing.

  "Dr Robert would've had the answer by now… What do you think it is, Dr Ryan?"

  "Give me a minute, please."

  Although he wa
s a doctor of medicine, he longed to qualify as a psychiatrist. He had a flair for it, an affinity with people and a clear understanding of how their minds worked. To put bread on the table, however, as soon as he’d qualified as a doctor he’d had to take a job. Often, while making his medical diagnosis, he would include a psychological evaluation, which he would keep to himself, but this time his analysis was for her aunt. Despite making an allowance for her anxiety, he marked her down as an impatient woman.

  She was asking him questions again. "I know you must have some idea of what's going on with her. What is it in heavens name?"

  He knew she wouldn't drop it until he gave her something, so he effectively summarised what she'd already told him. "Mm-m, she looks anaemic. From the diet you told me she has, it's unlikely that's what she's suffering from. Her complexion is naturally pale, a well-known characteristic of her hair type. You said she can't go out on sunny days without blistering and yet she blistered up with sunburn when the weather was dull like this yesterday - if I have that right?"

  "That is what I told you."

  Where had all the blisters gone? Ryan frowned. "She has no melanin in her skin - was she always like this?" The pigmentation of her eyes and hair were normal. If he didn't know better, he might have thought she was suffering from a type of albinism. It puzzled him. She was as pale as alabaster, even in the grey of the dull day; she was almost pure white.