Dark Sister

by Graham Joyce

  Once, when she was a girl of twelve, she'd ascended the ladders to the top diving board at her local swimming pool. She'd never faced the top board before. Up there she found a short queue of dithering boys of her own age, all failing to pluck up the courage either to jump or make the dive. Two boys walked to the extremity of the board and came back. They couldn't do it.

  The boys had turned and, shamefacedly, had parted for her. Followed by their eyes, she'd stepped to the edge of the board. The cries and the splashes in the pool below had become remarkably hollow, had seemed to come from another world. Aware of the shivering boys behind her she'd offered a secret prayer, not to God but to Mother Nature, before dropping off the board. Then she was slipping through the air, plunging, seemingly forever, toward the water.

  Emboldened by her example, the dithering boys were now all leaping from the top board. On reaching the side of the pool, she'd felt a pull inside herself. She climbed out of the pool and went immediately to the changing rooms. Her first menstrual period had started.

  Now, whenever she was afraid of doing something new, she always replayed that moment.

  She mixed belladonna, juice of wolfsbane, poplar leaves, wild celery, and cinquefoil. To this she added a tiny ball of black resin which Liz had given her, and followed Liz's advice that she compound a kind of cold cream rather than an oil. Liz had told her that she should blacken the cream by adding soot, though she hadn't explained why. Maggie did as instructed.

  These were different waters, darker waters, and they scared her far more than that leap from the top board. Far more, even, than had the red, lissom trickle heralding a new phase of life. But now, as then, she was busy disguising her fears from herself.

  Even though she'd had her oils awaiting enfleuragey the operation took her two hours. She placed a bowl of water and a towel beside her. Then she was ready.

  She locked the door.

  She undressed and sat naked on the floor, inside the triangle of incense burners. She sat with her eyes closed for ten minutes, trying to address her mind to the matter. Music thumped from the room below, but despite this distraction she found she could easily come back to her question. When she was satisfied, she opened her eyes and reached for the prepared ointment.

  It wasn't easy, because she was afraid. Her stomach squeezed. Her hand shook. Her mouth was dry. Why am I doing this? she thought. Why? Why? She looked at the black paste she had spent so long mixing. The incense in the room hung in heavy, serpentine coils. She felt nauseated. The black pool beckoned. Because you must, came the answer from inside her head. It was a voice she'd heard before, in the woods, on the heath; female, intimate, insinuating. Because you are what you are.

  She smeared the paste across her forehead, into her temples, on her throat and round her wrists. She massaged it thoroughly into her skin, but only at these precise points. Then, as Liz had insisted, she took a quantity of the paste on her fingers and pushed it up inside her vagina. It seemed a perverse act, but Maggie knew of other intravaginal treatments. She wiped her hands on her thighs, daubing them in the process with sooty streaks, before washing her hands in the bowl of water. Then she sat back to concentrate again on her question.

  She was perspiring heavily; even though she was fully committed now, the fear had not diminished. Someone had once taught her to meditate; so she tried to slow her racing heart by closing her eyes and silently repeating a mantra to herself, without losing sight of her question.

  The meditation technique relaxed her a little. She vented a huge sigh, a discharge of anxiety, and started to feel strangely languid. It was a pleasing sensation, almost a numbness, a distancing from her body. It lasted for ten or fifteen minutes, though she was already losing her sense of time.

  Then suddenly her heart rate rocketed. It started knocking heavily inside her, and she was engulfed by a terrible, blinding headache. She opened her eyes and was astonished to see great blisters of sweat oozing from her body, the perspiration glittering like moonlight on frost. Her vagina was burning and her throat was parched. She instinctively reached for the bowl of water, then remembered having used it to wash her hands. She tried to get up, but the movement made her vomit. She was sick into the bowl of water, twice, three times, until she was retching, unable to produce anything and at the same time incapable of drawing breath.

  Then the retching stopped, and a profound numbness swamped her body. The pain in her head receded, as did the burning in her throat and vagina. She was breathing heavily, feeling only overwhelming relief that the pain had gone. She drew herself upright, her legs folded under her, her eyes screwed shut. Although she was still panting heavily, the frightening heart rate was beginning to slow. Instinctively, as if to give her lungs more room in which to work, she thrust forward her chest and pushed her arms back behind her. Then she tried to open her eyes.

  Light hit her like a slap in the face. The instant she tried to open her eyes, she felt as if she had been grabbed by two giant claws, one round her neck, one squeezing her buttocks, and flung up, up, up into blackness, hurtling against a hot cinnamon wind. It was like being shot out of a cannon. White hot sparks exploded and buffeted her as she travelled through the blackness, detonating behind her closed eyes. Her blood roared in her ears.

  Then she suddenly came to a stop. She was suspended in midair. All pain had gone, all sense of heat and odour, all sound. This time she could open her eyes. She was in a grey corridor, unable to discern whether indoors or outside. All was muffled as she drifted slowly along the corridor. Grey or black shapes, ambiguous things, fracturing shadows, drifted by her with languid movements like fish in an aquarium. Sometimes the shapes stopped, disappeared, reappeared, moved on. They could be geometric in form, or irregular. Maggie felt confused, lost.

  She reached out at one of the shapes, and as her hand passed into it, the shape folded, quit. It changed into a face, mouthing words at her, words she couldn't hear.

  The face was very old, androgynous, perhaps female, Maggie couldn't be sure. It hovered close, mouthing silent words, chilling but not threatening. Maggie moved away, but the face followed at her shoulder. Trying to speak was useless. It took her an age simply to turn and look into the eyes of the hovering face; then a long stand-off as she looked back without result, without consequence. Again Maggie moved away, and again she was followed. The face mouthed its words again, and again, until slowly it penetrated. What do you want? What do you want? the face was asking her. It wanted to help her.

  Maggie tried to remember her question. It seemed a long way from here. She'd forgotten it. She would have to go back to her room to remember her question, and it was too far... too far away.

  Then she recalled the question. She deliberately brought it to mind. The face disappeared immediately, and in its place, like a parting in the fabric of the grey corridor, was a scene. Maggie drew closer.

  An elegant pair of hands, jewelled hands, a woman's hands, were carefully wrapping a Christmas gift. All Maggie could see were the hands, the gift, and the wrapping paper. The paper was expensive, pretty green-and-red material shining and winking in the pearly light. The gift was Bella's diary. The hands finished wrapping the gift, and now Maggie could see to whom they belonged. Anita Suzman. She was talking to someone behind her. Anita was naked, spread across a bed, lying on her stomach. She waved the gift in the air looking across her shoulder as she spoke. A man's bare forearms slid under her stomach, lifting her from beneath her belly, raising her onto her knees. It was Alex. He parted her legs and Maggie could see his erection as he moved closer to Anita, slowly penetrating her as he leaned across her arched back. Anita's eyes closed and her head dropped forward in pleasure.

  Anita slipped out her languorous tongue and licked the pretty bow decorating Alex's Christmas gift to Maggie as he took her from behind.

  The sound of someone hammering on the door brought Maggie round. She came to on the floor, flat out on her back. She had her hand in a bowl of water and vomit. The gas fire had gone out and
she felt cold.

  "Maggie! Maggie! Are you in there?" The hammering got louder.

  "Who is it?" Maggie croaked. She was beetled, unable to get off her back.

  "It's Kate. What're you doing?"

  Maggie hauled herself to her feet. She felt weak. She slipped on her dressing gown, sat on the bed and put her head between her knees.

  "Maggie!"

  "I'm all right!"

  "Then open the door."

  Maggie staggered over to the door and opened it a few inches.

  "God! Look at you!" said Kate. Maggie suddenly remembered the sooty flying ointment.

  "Run me a bath if you want to do something for me."

  Kate did as ordered and stood back as Maggie staggered by with the bowl to tip its contents down the toilet.

  "Must have been one hell of a party," Kate said nervously.

  Maggie looked back at her through a stray curl, but with a baleful eye.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Alex softened a little in the New Year. He let Maggie have the children for an extra day a week. It was always Saturdays he wanted her to have them, which was convenient for him, but she was grateful for any contact. Sam's conjunctivitis had returned, so she made a repeat preparation of the eye lotion that had cured him before.

  Maggie's savings were dwindling. She was going to have to do something about money. Meanwhile Ash paid her to run Omega two days a week. He said he was glad of the days off, but she didn't see how he could afford it. Business was less than brisk. Maggie persuaded him to broaden his stock. They started selling sets of tarot cards and handcrafted jewellery; she got him to take a wider range of books. He grumbled something about turning his herbal kiosk into an occult emporium, but let her have her head. Trade improved, and she felt she had at least done something to earn his generosity.

  Entertaining the children every Saturday proved to be a drain on her scant resources. Previously it had been something she hadn't had to think about. So she started taking them to see Liz, which cost nothing.

  "I know'd you was coming," Liz said, eyeing Amy, whom she'd not met before. Amy stared in fascination

  Liz's crablike hand scuttled down the side of her chair and proffered a humbug.

  "Take it," said Maggie.

  "Thank you," said Amy stepping forward. Liz clasped her tiny hand in arthritic fingers, but lightly, drawing her close and planting a kiss on her cheek. Amy showed none of the fear of Liz evinced by Sam.

  "She's an angel," said Liz. "A little dove, a little pigeon. Pretty, eh?" Amy blushed.

  "Me!" shouted Sam.

  "Yes, here's a suck for you. I'm not leaving you out."

  "Say thank you!" said Maggie. He wouldn't. Maggie put the kettle on to boil; she didn't have to ask. Liz had got her stove burning. Maggie was relieved because it was cold outside.

  Liz saw her looking. "I told you, I know'd you was a-coming. So I got a good fire going."

  "How did you know?" said Amy.

  Liz leaned forward and tapped her nose. Amy turned and smiled at her mother. She sat on a hard-backed chair and gazed at Liz. Sam crawled under the table.

  Maggie wanted to tell Liz about her flying experiments, but in words the children wouldn't understand.

  "A little too much belladonna, I think, Liz."

  Liz's stick tapped involuntarily. "Oh? Oh? When was this then? Now I sees it."

  "Boxing Day."

  "Boxing Day? Boxing Day? Where was the mistress on Boxing Day?"

  Maggie hadn't thought about the moon at all. "I didn't—"

  "You've got to look out for- the mistress. She's to be waxing when you're mixing, and in one of the air or earth signs. Where did you do it?"

  "In my room."

  "Psssshhhhtu!!!! That's not proper. You'll come to grief, you will."

  "Yes, well, it was a bit messy. Still, I got what I wanted."

  "You be grateful then."

  "Liz, there was a face. It seemed like someone helping me."

  "Oh, yes. How do you think we'd go on if we didn't have someone helping us? Help and be helped. That's it. We're here to help one another, mark that, Amy?" Amy nodded. The old woman seemed to drift off into some reverie sparked by her own words.

  "Did you give her anything?" Old Liz said at length.

  Maggie was confused. "Give what?"

  "Oh, her'll not be pleased with you if you didn't give anything for her help. Her might not come to you again. You've to give something to your dark sister if her's to help you." Liz fumbled in her sweet packet and held out another humbug to Amy.

  Amy took the humbug. Liz tossed another to Sam, who was playing happily under the table.

  "So that's my dark sister? But what do you give? And how do you give it?"

  "Any way you like. Give an offering. Flowers, they like flowers. Or give her the next pleasure you gets off a man!" Liz hooted with laughter and her stick slapped at the floor. "Her shall like that even better! He-he!"

  Maggie waited until Liz's laughing fit had subsided.

  "Speaking of that, have you got anything that can put the lead in a man's pencil?"

  "Yes," Liz said, sharp, "and I know who you wants it for!"

  Poor Ash, thought Maggie, to be spoken about like this. But she believed she could help, and Liz did have this uncanny intuition . ..

  The talk of gifts reminded Maggie she'd brought a bottle of sherry for Liz. She'd left it in the car, so she sent Amy off to fetch it, while she herself went to use the lavatory, a cold, cobwebby brick outhouse at the bottom of the garden.

  Sam slipped unnoticed behind the curtain into Liz's pantry. The dusty fabric of the curtain closed behind him, with a silent jingling of the brass rings suspending it from the rail. Liz had told him to keep out, he knew. But he wanted to take a look.

  It was cool in the pantry. Cool and quiet. He sat on the stone floor and looked up from floor to ceiling. Layer after layer of shelves, groaning to capacity. Bottles and jars everywhere, innumerable, those nearest the ceiling gathering dust, those resting on the cold stone floor collecting cobwebs. There were glass jars and stone vessels; green bottles and brown; giant Kilner jars; enamel jugs and crock tubs; pots and demi-johns; urns, flasks and vases and open-.topped cans; all jostling for position on the shelves.

  Some were unlabelled, some hand-labelled, some with their original brand labels fading, peeling, sticky from spillage. Those glass jars whose contents he could see were stuffed with black and yellow beans, or jams or fruit preserves or exotic-coloured powders and leaf branches.

  Sam touched the stopper on a bottle resting on the floor. The stopper fell off and went rolling between his feet and along a phalanx of bottles standing at the back of the pantry. He moved to fetch it, but was distracted by a sharp odour issuing from the unstopped bottle. He put his nose to the bottle: it was like cherry pop, sweet, sugary, but it stung his nose like the smell of disinfectant. He took a tiny swig, but it tasted sour. It made his eyes water. He could see the scent streaming from the bottle: a brown ribbon coiling in the air, passing under his nose and moving slowly across the pantry.

  And now the pantry was full of smells. There were both familiar smells and smells he didn't know; rich, pungent odours and sharp, spicy confections. Garlic and toffee. Vinegar and vanilla. Lemon and malt. Hundreds of smells, leaking from their glass jars and bottles. The air was full of dim-coloured thin ribbons of scent, like party streamers travelling slowly through the air, looping, tangling, drifting...

  Suddenly a movement, seen out of the corner of his eye. A scuffling in the back of the pantry. Sam turned to look. Peering from behind a stone bottle was a large grey rat.

  It looked at him with shining black eyes. Deep black pools. It lifted its fat head into the air, vibrating its whiskers and baring cracked, yellow teeth for Sam to see. Sam got a whiff of the animal, a hot, dirty stink of rodent. He tried to turn his head away, but he was caught, mesmerized.

  The rat moved forward from behind the stone bottle, and Sam recognized, riding on
its back and brandishing a match of wood, a tiny lady he'd seen before. The one he'd seen in his garden riding the rat. The lady who'd stolen his doll. The lady who had called him over the balcony in the shopping arcade.

  She had him. Sam wanted to call out, but he was too afraid to move. Where was his mother? Where had Amy gone? He was paralyzed. As soon as the lady appeared, there was a roaring in his ears, and a quivering in the air stream. The ribbons of scent, still visible, shivered and creased. The jars and the bottles on the shelves vibrated, thrumming with energy, inching precariously toward the edge. The entire bottled contents set up a din in his ears, until he looked up and saw shelf after shelf of trembling jars and jugs and flasks and bottles threatening to topple.

  And the contents of the jars had been changed. The huge jar of black and yellow beans had become wedged full of live, angry, buzzing wasps. The jar of leaf branches had become a tangle of black centipedes waving their legs at him. A jar of fruit preserve had changed into a human face, a boy's face, squashed into the jar, its nose and lips rammed up against the glass like leeches, its eyes blinking slowly at him. They were all going to fall.

  And fall they did. First a glass jar containing a white-hot star fell from the shelf and smashed on the stone floor, sizzling caustically before it died. Bottles toppled, spilling pools of bubbling, steaming blood. Then a jar smashed to the left of him, spreading little boys' penises near his feet. The whole pantry was coming down around his ears. The curtain behind him lashed open as the din got louder.

  "Now then! Now then!"

  It was Old Liz, standing over him. She sank her arthritic claws into Sam's shoulders. He looked up to see her above him, her tongue thrust forward at astonishing length. Instantly she retracted her tongue and spat something, a bean, with great velocity across the pantry. The bean struck the rat. Its rider vanished instantly and the rat scuttled away. The jars stopped vibrating, the coloured ribbons of scent disappeared.