Sleep, Pale Sister

by Joanne Harris

  my sister’s sleep

  She fell asleep on Christmas Eve:

  At length the long-ungranted shade

  Of weary eyelids overweigh’d

  The pain nought else might yet relieve.

  A childish hand had underscored certain parts of the verse in red pencil and, with a shiver, I realized whose book this was; on the title page the legend euphemia madeleine shelbeck, written in a round, neat hand, made me hurl the book as far away from me as possible into the shadows. Damn her! Was she never to leave me in peace?

  The wind’s voice had reached an unearthly pitch in the chimneys and the rafters; the building was an eyrie of fluttering, shrieking, invisible creatures. I was inside Pandora’s box, a shadow-thing awaiting my release. How could I be afraid of the dark? I was the dark, the essence of the night’s monsters. Ludicrous to think that the monster might be afraid; pathetic to imagine him cowering in the dying firelight on this, the night of his release. I was almost beginning to enjoy the thought when the studio door slammed open and terror sliced at me once more.

  For an instant I actually saw them, my memory’s demons with my mother at their head like a black angel, then an icy gust of wind razored past my head and the door slammed shut. It was then that I saw the cat, Effie’s cat, standing quietly next to the door in a drift of dead leaves blown in by the wind. At first I thought that the leaves were the cat, then I saw its flat, agate eyes gleaming from the doorway, one paw raised with delicate precision, like a beautiful woman’s greeting. As I watched it yawned like a snake and began to lick the outstretched paw with languid grace. For a moment I was frozen by certainty: it was her; the ghostchild, watching me through the cat’s eyes, the ghost of my first murder come to taunt me as I sat here contemplating my second. Could I hear the words?

  (whataboutmy what about my what about my story?)

  ‘Go away!’ I spoke aloud.

  (will she scream henry? will she wake and see you? will she smell of lavender and chocolate oh will she henry?)

  ‘I’m imagining this.’

  (are you)

  ‘There’s no cat here.’

  (henry)

  ‘There’s no cat here!’

  My voice cracked and flew off into the dark like a volley of shots and, as the silence settled around me again, I realized that I was right: what I had taken for a tabby cat standing by the door was really only a curl of brown leaves shifting uneasily in the draught. Oddly, the knowledge did not cheer me but drove a deeper chill into my heart. I turned away, sickened and trembling. I wondered what Marta was doing.

  The thought of her, the strong, sweet certainty of her, cleared my head a little. I imagined her in my arms, and the knowledge that she would soon be mine made my heart thrill with courage. With Marta to help me I could do it, do it without remorse: there would be no black angel at my door, no autumn-cat curled in the shadows…no pale little ghostchild. Not this time. This time, Marta would be mine and we would walk a thousand and one nights together.

  I took five more grains of chloral and was gratified to feel them taking effect almost immediately: the top of my head had become a clear, cold drum of resonances, delightfully floating above my body like a child’s balloon. My thoughts, too, were balloon-like, enclosed and remote, moving with a dreamlike slowness in the dark.

  Twenty-five to three. Time spiralled out indefinitely ahead of me…so much time. The seconds were silent breakers rolling across a bleak, grey shore, counting out infinity. I stumbled towards my easel and began to paint.

  I suppose you’ve seen her: some call her my greatest work, though her story is perhaps too close to the dark core of her creator for her to be appealing. I cannot imagine her sharing a gallery with Rossetti’s jaded courtesans or Millais’s spoiled, sugary children. My Triumph of Death is a gateway into my particular hell, an incarnation of every black thought, cold fear, stifled sweetness…she is bone-white and lethal, hair blown up and around her face the points of a dark star, her eyes blind as fists. She stands with her legs apart and her arms raised towards the pitiless unblinking Eye of God in the curdled clouds above her, naked and terrifying in her nakedness, for though nothing human remains in her stark beauty, nothing tender in the pure, violent curve of her lips, she can still arouse desire: the frozen, desperate lust of the grave. In a sense she is more beautiful than she has ever been; red and white as the bloody Host, she stands astride a shattered landscape of human bones, a red, apocalyptic sky at her back.

  Though she has Marta’s face she is not Marta, not Effie, not my mother or Prissy Mahoney or the dancing Columbine. Or, if you wish, she is all of them and more. She is your mother, your sister, your sweetheart…the dim, shameful dream you dreamed when the world was young. She is I…she is you…on her head a crown of thorns, at her feet a cat of dead leaves yawning balefully; and across the sensuousness of her snakelike, childlike body, the double triangle formed between her mouth, her breasts and the dim nebula of her pubic hair, the four occult hieroglyphs of the Tetragrammaton: yod-he-vau-he. The secret name of God.

  I Am That I Am.

  45

  The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I became. Mose, I said to myself, you must be mad. But there was too much at stake for me to be coy about a harmless deception: the plan was simple, childishly so indeed, without the slightest risk of mishap. All I had to do was to help Henry carry Effie to the cemetery, choose a vault in which to hide the body, put her into it, seal the vault, then return to the grave when Henry was out of the way, release Effie and drive her to Crook Street. There, whatever the both of them thought, my responsibility would end and I could at last begin to collect the profits. Simple.

  Henry would assume that Effie was dead, either by the overdose he had given her or by the cold in the vault—it had snowed all day—Fanny would be satisfied and I would see some money. Effie, I hear you saying? Well, I never promised her a miracle and she had a good friend in Fanny; Fanny would look after her. I might even drop in to see her once in a while, as long as there was no talk of Marta. That was one bitch I never wanted to hear about again.

  So I arrived at Cromwell Square at about half past midnight. The snow had drifted, making coach travel impossible, and I had to walk from Highgate High Street to the house with snow in my boots, in my hair and caked to the back of my coat by the wind. It was going to be a perfect Christmas Eve.

  A dozen snowmen watched the High Street like ghostly sentinels—one even sported a policeman’s helmet set rakishly atop its bald head—and, though the hour was late, I could hear laughter and singing from lighted windows here and there. Coloured lanterns and bright garlands hung at the doors, tinsel and candles in the windows; sharp smells of cinnamon, cloves and pine needles floated out as I passed an open doorway; light fanned across the snow as a few late and drowsy guests drifted aimlessly out of the party into the night. I smiled. On a night like this—especially tonight—anything we did would pass unnoticed.

  I hammered on the door for maybe five minutes before Henry answered. When he did eventually open—I had been looking forwards to seeing his expression when he realized who Marta’s ‘friend’ was to be—I thought he was about to slam the door shut in my face; then realization dawned and mutely he signalled me to enter. I stamped the snow from my boots, shook myself and went in. The house looked drab, almost neglected; there was no holly, no mistletoe, not a single strand of angel’s hair. There was to be no Christmas in 10 Cromwell Square. Henry looked terrible: in his immaculate black suit and starched shirt, shaved close enough to remove the top layer of his skin, he looked like a corpse fresh from the mortician’s. His eyes were huge and blank, his white face slack, and under his left eye a muscle fluttered and tugged, the only living thing in his derelict face.

  ‘You’re the friend of Marta’s?’ His first words were spoken in a hoarse undertone. ‘Why didn’t she tell me? Did she think I wouldn’t dare…? Didn’t she…?’ I caught a flash of rage and comprehension from his dilated pupils, and he grabbed me
abruptly by the lapels, shaking with sudden fury. I could see the pores of his skin magnified through the beads of sweat on his lip.

  ‘Damn you!’ he hissed. ‘I always knew you couldn’t be trusted. You were the one, weren’t you? You told Effie about Crook Street. You made this happen. Didn’t you?’ His voice cracked and the tick beneath his eye intensified, pulling his features into a gargoyle’s rictus.

  I shook my collar free of his grasp. ‘Dear boy, I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ I told him mildly. ‘I came because Marta asked me to come. She trusts me. If you don’t, you can deal with the matter on your own.’

  Henry glared at me, breathing heavily. ‘Damn you,’ he said. ‘Why did it have to be you? If you breathe as much as a word about any of this…’

  ‘Oh, I’m likely to, aren’t I?’ I said with sarcasm. ‘There’s plenty at stake for me too, you know. I’ll see that it comes off all right—besides, we can give each other alibis. Nothing strange about a successful painter spending an evening with his patron, is there? That makes us both safe.’ I ran my hands through my wet hair and manufactured a hurt expression. ‘Henry,’ I added, ‘I thought we were friends?’

  The glare went from his eyes and he nodded slowly. ‘I’m a little…overwrought,’ he said gruffly. ‘Of course, I should never have thought that of you. A friend of Marta’s…’ He shook my hand awkwardly. ‘You took me by surprise, that’s all,’ he explained, finding his stride again, ‘Come into the parlour.’

  I followed him warily, keeping up the hurt look beneath my smile.

  ‘Brandy?’ he asked, pouring himself a generous glassful.

  ‘Keeps out the cold,’ I said cheerily, tipping my glass to him.

  We drank in silence for a time.

  ‘So,’ I said at last, ‘where are the servants?’

  ‘I sent Tabby to see her sister in Clapham. Christmas visit, you know. Effie’s maid is in bed with a toothache.’

  ‘Very lucky,’ I remarked. ‘Almost providential, you might say.’

  Henry shuddered. ‘I am aware of what you must think,’ he said rather stiffly. ‘The situation…is desperate in the extreme.’ He swallowed convulsively. ‘As well as quite…repugnant to me.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said silkily.

  His glance towards me was sharp and nervous, like a bird’s. ‘I…’ He hesitated, no doubt aware, as I was, of the farcical aspect of the situation. These civilized drawing-room manners!

  ‘Believe me, I do understand,’ I said, knowing that if I did not speak he might remain frozen with his glass in one hand and the meaningless, apologetic smile on his face for the rest of the evening. ‘I have been aware of the…problems you have had from poor Mrs Chester.’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded emphatically. ‘She was ill, poor thing, terribly ill. Dr Russell—author of several books on disorders of the mind—examined her, you know. She is quite mad. Incurable. I would have had to send her away to an institution, poor Effie; and think of the scandal!’

  ‘Any breath of scandal would ruin your career at this stage,’ I agreed earnestly, ‘especially now that your Scheherazade has met with such critical acclaim. I hear Ruskin is thinking about an article on her.’

  ‘Really?’ But his attention was only momentarily diverted. ‘So you see…’ he continued, ‘why the kindest course of action…the quickest and…’ The tic resurfaced for an instant and I saw him pull out his chloral bottle and shake half a dozen grains into the palm of his hand in an easy, practised gesture. He caught my glance and swallowed the grains almost furtively, with a mouthful of brandy.

  ‘Chloral,’ he said in a low, apologetic tone. ‘My friend, Dr Russell, recommended it. For my nerves, you know. It’s tasteless…odourless.’ He hesitated. ‘She wouldn’t…suffer,’ he said painfully. ‘It was so…easy. She just went to sleep.’ A long pause, then he repeated the words, wonderingly, as if mesmerized by their resonance. ‘She went to sleep. On Christmas Eve. Do you know that poem? I did a painting of that…’ He drifted blankly for seconds, mouth open, almost serene but for the merciless tugging of the muscle beneath his eye.

  ‘There is no better time,’ I said briskly, looking at my watch. ‘It is Christmas Eve; no-one will question our being out late at night. If we’re seen carrying a body, people will assume it is some friend of ours who couldn’t take his drink and it’s cold enough for us to wear mufflers and hats and cloaks without attracting attention. Best of all, it’s going to snow all night and so our footprints in the cemetery will be completely hidden. There is no better time, Henry.’

  A beat of silence. I saw him nod, accepting the truth of what I had said. ‘Right,’ I said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Where’s Effie?’

  He flinched, as if jerked by invisible strings. ‘In…her room.’ I was amused to read more embarrassment than guilt in his face. ‘Asleep. I—I put it in her chocolate.’

  ‘Good.’ I kept my voice neutral. ‘And what will you tell the servants in the morning, when they realize she’s missing?’

  Henry smiled, his mouth thin. ‘I’ll tell Tabby that Effie has gone to see her mother for Christmas Eve. I’ll say I want to surprise her and I’ll tell Tabby to make the house beautiful for Christmas. We’ll want everything: holly, mistletoe, tinsel, the biggest tree she can find…Keep her busy. As for myself, I’ll go to London and buy Effie her Christmas present as if nothing had happened.’ His smile was almost serene. ‘Something nice. I’ll put it under the tree and I’ll ask Tabby to cook a special meal for us both—something Effie really likes—’ He broke off, frowning as if a sudden memory had disturbed his train of thought. ‘Chocolate. She likes chocolate…’ He paused again, his eyelid pulled by invisible wires, then with an effort continued: ‘Chocolate cake, or something,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll wait. After a while, I’ll begin to get restless and I’ll send a messenger to her mother’s house to find out whether she has been delayed. The messenger will return to say she never arrived there. Then I’ll call for the police and report her missing.’

  For a moment, as I met his unflinching, triumphant gaze, I felt something almost like admiration. I wondered whether I would have been so cool in a similar circumstance. Not that I haven’t done the dirty deed a few times in my life, but I never poisoned a woman in cold blood—which isn’t to say that I never wanted to! As I looked at Henry Chester with his white face and that frozen, pitiless look in his eyes I wondered whether I hadn’t misjudged the man. For the first time he seemed truly alive, a man in control of his fate. A man who looked his guilt in the eye with a thin bitter smile and said: ‘Right. Let’s go. I am what I am.’

  The Two of Cups

  46

  Imagine a snowflake floating down a deep well. Imagine a flake of soot falling from the dim London sky. Imagine that for a moment.

  Through layers of darkness I floated; I danced through dangerous landscapes. I saw a knight with a bunch of fluttering pennants salute a lady in a tower of brass; I saw a herd of white horses; I saw the lyre-bird, his tail like a comet…My dark sister took me by the hand and we followed dreaming tides on the shores of strange seas; and she told me the story of a girl who slept for a hundred years, while around her everything and everybody grew old and died. But the girl had a lover who refused to forget her; he kept guard over her frozen sleep and waited and waited, he loved her so. Every day he would sit beside her and talk to her and tell her about his love. Every day he brushed her hair and kept the dust and the cobwebs from her face and waited. And, as time passed, he grew old and infirm; his servants, thinking he was mad, deserted him and went away. But still he waited. Until one day as he was sitting in the last rays of the autumn sun, almost blind and crippled with age and hardship, he thought he saw her move and open her eyes and wake. And he died of joy with his beautiful love in his arms and her name on his dying breath.

  Yes, she whispered stories to me as I slept; I felt her hand on my hair and her voice singing softly:

  ‘Aux marches du palais…

/>   Aux marches du palais…

  ’Y a une si belle fille, lonlà,

  ’Y a une si belle fille…’

  I looked down on the body stretched out on the bed; poor little white girl…would anyone wait for her?

  Mose would wait for me. I knew he would; he had promised to wake me. I knew he’d wake me. When Fanny first told me of the plan I refused. I was frightened; I didn’t want to wait in the dark as they sealed the vault over my head; even with the laudanum I was sure I’d go mad…but she assured me, no more than ten minutes, then he’d come and I could wake up. Then we’d be together, Mose and I, and nothing could ever part us. I knew. He had promised.

  Henry had sent Tabby away to see her family and my heart ached for her. I longed to have my dear Tabby with me during those cold, dark hours, to hear her kind scolding voice, to smell her good scents of dough and starch and polish, to have her tuck the blankets around me as I lay in bed…

  Tomorrow, I told myself, Tabby would believe I was dead. Aunt May would believe it too, growing suddenly old behind the counter of the little shop in Cranbourn Alley. Mother would have to forgo her frivolous bonnets and her rides in Mr Zellini’s gig—she would wear black, which did not become her, in mourning for the daughter she had never really understood. Would I dare to call on them, when I was safely out of Henry’s reach? I didn’t think I would ever be brave enough. I would be dead to them, dead for ever. I could not risk Henry ever finding out.

  The night grew cold; snow latticed my window and blew shrieking down the chimney, hissing on the hot stones of the hearth. Wind mourned through the chimneys and the hours ticked away. Tizzy sat on my knee for a time, purring, her eyes narrowed into crescents of gold in the firelight…I wondered whether Henry would look after my cat when I was gone.