Dark Sister

by Graham Joyce

  Free. She was free. Free to fly in the turquoise light. Up, up, beyond the branches, above the trees. Into the ethereal light.

  Two directions. There were two directions in which she could fly. The direction of space, of distance. And the direction of memory. She flew in the direction of memory.

  Flying down the line. Down the ethereal light, turquoise yolk, unfolding, veined with brilliant blue. She flew into Far memory. Pain. Bella. Pain. A. Pain. Dark Sister. Understanding. The long line, understanding.

  Far memory. Far memory. Far memory.

  And returned. Flying now in the direction of distance. Ordinary blue space. Trees. Road. Cottages. Swoop on Church Haddon cottage, no, not there. Trees. Road. City. Castle, no, not there. Trees. Road. City. House. Find.

  Far flying. Far flying. Far flying.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Amy sat at her desk in the cellar, colouring by numbers; Sam was arranging his soldiers and toy motors in a long procession, yard-long plastic trucks lining up behind a tailback of matchbox-sized models, with no sign of impatience. He played in his own world, happily naked but for a soiled white vest. The cellar playroom had one high window, looking out at ground level. Something brushed against the window and Amy looked up.

  Twilight was yielding to darkness outside, a preternatural light, colour-sucking. Amy turned to look at Sam, still intent on his serpentine procession of toys and tiny figures. An old woman stood over him.

  Amy had never seen her before, but felt she knew her. The old woman was very old. She was dressed in black. Long skirts. Strange garments. Amy froze. She felt a cold wave pee! her flesh open like a fruit. The old woman became aware of Amy's eyes on her. She turned her head slowly and mouthed silent words at Amy: Stay back. Her eyes were like the grey smoke Amy had seen coiling from a garden bonfire. They had fire in them, and imminent flame. The old woman turned her attention back to Sam.

  Amy slipped her hand into her pocket.

  Sam looked up from his snaking procession of toys and saw his mother standing over him. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

  "Sam," said Maggie, "listen to me. Tell Amy to go away. Tell her, Sam."

  Sam looked over at his sister. Amy was staring at them. There was something wrong with her. She was shrunk back against the desk. Her skin was white, all colour drained from her cheeks. She looked sickly. She held her fist clenched tightly in her pocket.

  "Tell her," Maggie said softly, smiling at him. "Tell her to go away."

  Sam resorted to extending his carnival procession. "Amy, you have to go upstairs," he said without interest.

  "No," Amy said, so sharply that Sam looked up at her again.

  "Listen to me, Sam," Maggie whispered, but with more urgency. "Sam. Sam. Tell your sister to get out of this room. Tell her to get out."

  "I told her."

  "Well, tell her again!" Sam looked at his mother. She wasn't smiling anymore. Her faced seemed cracked, like a cheap mask. Then she smiled at him once more and everything seemed all right. "Sam. Tell her again!"

  Amy darted up behind Sam and hung something round his neck. It was the herbal sachet Liz had made and given him and his father had torn from him; Amy had retrieved it from the bin.

  The old woman rounded on Amy. She mouthed words, but seemed to have difficulty speaking. But her intention was clear. "Take it away from him!"

  Amy cowered behind her brother. "No."

  Sam was confused. He couldn't understand why Amy seemed so afraid or why his mother was screaming at her. He looked back at Maggie again. She smiled at him. "Sam, you don't want that dirty thing round your neck. Take it off."

  Sam fingered the string.

  "No," Amy shouted.

  "Yes, take if off, Sam. And then you can come with me."

  "Where?"

  "Anywhere you want, Sam. But take it off."

  Sam took the string with the sachet from round his neck and offered it to his mother. She stepped back. "Just throw it aside. That's all you have to do."

  He let it fall to the floor. Maggie held out her hands to him.

  Amy saw the old woman with her arms outstretched. She could see that Sam was going to her. She picked up the discarded sachet.

  The old woman turned her head again, slowly, toward Amy. Her eyes were bitter grey smoke, full of loathing. She shook her head from side to side. Amy flung the sachet in her face, and the old woman disappeared.

  "Where did Mummy go?" said Sam.

  The playroom was silent. There was nothing. They looked at the desk where Amy had been sitting, her colouring-by-numbers exercise uncompleted. They looked at Sam's procession winding across the floor.

  A snake was in its place. A fat, bloated, glistening serpent, with adder markings, its tongue flickering lazily. They backed away.

  "Over here!" said a voice. The children wheeled round and crashed into the old woman, who had been standing immediately behind them.

  This time Sam saw her exactly as Amy did. As he'd seen her before. Rider of rats. Stealer of dolls. Walker on air. The old woman in black, only now she held a tiny blade, a silver knife angled toward his genitals. Her eyes were smoke.

  "All I want," she said, struggling to speak against a hoarse, cracked voice, "is my magic penny-purse. My moly-sack. My cursing pouch."

  Sam's hand went instinctively down to protect his wrinkled, little-boy scrotum. The old woman nodded slowly.

  Then she leapt, grabbing and twisting his vest, easily lifting him in the air with one hand and slamming him against the wail. Sam screamed and kicked his feet, thrashing against the wall as she angled the wicked blade toward his genitals.

  Amy, too, screamed, and inside her scream she heard Liz saying, Remember me, Amy, remember me.

  The herb sachet lay discarded on the floor. Amy grabbed it and tore it open, flinging a shower of desiccated leaves in the air above the old woman's head. She exhaled a foul jet of air at Amy and dropped Sam to the floor. Then she turned to face Amy, bringing her blade round in a sweeping, slashing arc.

  Remember me. Amy threw her head backwards, narrowly avoiding the blade. Then it happened.

  Sam saw Amy grow to full adult height. Her body expanded and reset. Her face changed, and where Sam had seen his sister he now saw Old Liz. The head Amy had flung back to escape the knife was now bearing down toward the old woman, tongue thrust forward, releasing a torrent of foul, watery substance at her. It was a jet stream of undigested beans, hard, white pellets travelling at bullet velocity, striking the old woman full in the face. The room trembled violently. There was a loud, painful, high-pitched ringing in Sam's ears. He put his hands over them and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, Tania was picking him off the floor.

  "What's all the screaming about?" she said. "What's going on?"

  Sam looked around him. Amy was standing close by, unhurt, looking at him strangely. She looked white-faced, but normal again. There was no sign of the old woman, or of Liz. Where they'd both seen a snake, now there were only toys again.

  "Oh, for God's sake." said Tania. She was looking at a pool of vomit on the floor. "Come on then, which one of you has been sick?"

  Sam looked at his sister. "Amy," he said.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The following morning at the site, Alex was confidently holding a press conference. The local media were out in force, along with a few representatives of the national press. A small battery of photographers and cameramen grouped themselves round the site of the Maggie dig.

  Tania was still at his house looking after Sam and Amy, listening to Alex pontificate live on local radio. She'd stayed overnight when Alex had returned late, praising his acuity over the conduct of the dig, consoling him over the mishap with the skull. She was a capable ego-masseuse.

  It was a school holiday, and Alex had promised Tania that Maggie would collect the children at nine-thirty, and that she'd be able to join him at the site. It was now eleven-thirty, and no sign of Maggie.

  "Obviously the burial
was ritual in nature," Alex was saying on air, "we just don't know what kind of ritual was involved." He'd rounded off some of his vowels for radio and his voice indicated he was more than moderately pleased with himself. "We can deduce that the victim was a woman by the nature of the skeletal remains."

  "And what is there to suggest that the victim was alive at the time of burial?" the radio journalist wanted to know.

  "The brank was a medieval device for keeping people quiet, silencing them. There was also a length of pipe that fitted into a breather hole attached to the burial casket. I think the victim was squeezed into a tiny box and cruelly kept alive by the breather pipe. Water could be trickled into the victim's throat by means of the pipe and this curious attachment to the brank, prolonging her agony. It's some kind of oubliette, designed to keep the victim alive, at least for a while."

  The journalist observed that this was a grisly find. Alex agreed that indeed it was. Tania, fidgeting in her chair, repeated the word oubliette like a black curse. The news report moved on to a feature about school dinners in the county.

  She snapped off the radio. "Thanks for not mentioning me," she spat. "Get your coats on, kids. We're going up to the castle."

  At the site, Alex was answering another journalist's questions. The reporter filled two and a half pages of his notepad and moved on. Tania arrived with Amy and Sam. Alex remembered he hadn't mentioned Tania in any of the publicity, as he'd promised.

  "Hi!" he beamed. "How are we doing?"

  "You're a lying bastard," said Tania.

  "Don't start! Here, you can still get in on the act."

  Another man drew up beside Alex and placed a hand on his arm. It was a tall, bearded man with thinning hair.

  "Can I have a word, Mr. Sanders?"

  "By all means. This is Tania. She's in charge of the dig."

  "I'm not with any paper. My name's Ash. Your wife's in hospital."

  Maggie had been found in the early hours of the morning, wandering naked along the fringes of Osier's Wood. She'd been reported by a passing motorist and picked up by the police, who'd taken her to the Royal Infirmary. Somehow they'd managed to get Ash's name and address out of her.

  Ash drove Alex and the children to the hospital. He sat outside with Amy and Sam while Alex went in to see Maggie.

  Alex choked when he saw Maggie lying in bed. She had a bloodless pallor and a bruised look. She was heavily sedated. She was hooked up to a saline drip, and a plastic tube was inserted into her nostril. He laid his head on her breast and cried, and she ran her hand through his hair saying, "It's all right. I'm all right. It's all right."

  "How did we let it get to this, Maggie. How did we? When we love each other."

  "It's all right. It's all right."

  Alex emerged accompanied by a junior doctor fingering a paging device. Ash looked at the doctor, the children looked at Alex.

  "She's dopey," the doctor was explaining, "because she's been injected with one hundred milligrams of Largactyl. It's a stiff dose. She may say a few strange things, but she'll be passive."

  "Don't you want to keep her here? I mean for observation?"

  "We'll arrange for your GP to make a domiciliary visit." Alex didn't respond. "Frankly," said the medic, "we need the beds."

  Ash stood up. "Alex, it's time for you to take Maggie home with you."

  Alex was in a daze.

  "And I don't mean just for today. I mean home for good."

  "Yes."

  "I'm very fond of Maggie. She's helped me. But I know what she needs. She wants her family back. She wants her home and her children. She's going to need help. A lot of care and a lot of love."

  "Yes."

  The nurses got Maggie ready, and Ash drove the family home. He pulled up outside the house and kept the engine running. "You'll need to collect Maggie's things from the bed-sit," he said to Alex when they climbed out of his car.

  Maggie turned. "Ash ..."

  He wound his window down, but the wink he gave was a mite too rapid. "You'll be all right. Drop by the shop when you're feeling a bit better."

  Ash drove away.

  FORTY

  Maggie did not get better easily. The family GP made his visit, concluded she was out of danger, and left Alex with a prescription for Largactyl tablets to be used if her behaviour became disturbed. She remained bed bound for several days, and even though there seemed little—at least outwardly—that ailed her, she showed no sign of wanting to come downstairs. Mostly she sat with a pillow propping up her head, her long, red hair combed in waves against the white slip on either side of her, and stared at the wall.

  Alex fussed, cupped her hands, talked to her softly, asked her what he could get for her. She answered, faintly, briefly, always offering up a weak smile, but she never wanted anything. She ate little. "It's all right," she said. "It's all right."

  Alex took days off work, washed, cooked, kept the children in order, saw they were well turned out. Supervision of the dig had to be placed in the hands of a subordinate; care of Maggie was Alex's immediate priority. Anita and Bill Suzman visited and brought a ridiculously lavish basket of flowers and fruit. Kate from the bed-sit came with a gift of an outrageous pair of dangling earrings to cheer her. Ash dropped by and spent an hour holding her hand. But she had very little to say to any of them.

  Worst of all was the lack of recognition she showed her children. There was no warmth, no affection, no interest, nothing. Alex tried to make them spend time in their mother's company, but it was pointless, even counterproductive. He stopped trying and simply made sure they kissed her good-night each evening before going to bed, but even that was a mechanical act. Once she looked at Amy and recoiled slightly, but otherwise they were like strangers. Alex despaired.

  The GP arranged a visit to a psychologist. He gave Alex some banner words like "traumatic neurasthenia" to think about and prescribed a course of antidepressants which came in pink-and-white capsules.

  One evening when Alex was talking to her, she turned to him and said, "Why do you call me Maggie? My name is Bella." Alex was so astonished he simply stared at her, saying nothing. Her voice was changed, it was softer, wheedling. Bella. Bella. He suddenly remembered it was the name of the diarist. "Where's your diary?" he asked.

  "Hidden."

  He kissed her gently and closed the door behind him. He knew the diary wasn't hidden at all. It was among the things he'd recovered from her bed-sit. He found it immediately, and sat down to read it before the open fire.

  The pages were filled with entries he hadn't seen before. He thought they must be Maggie's work, though they were written in the same copperplate hand as the original entries. He leafed through, toward the end of the diary.

  Now they are whispering about me. A. said it would come to this. All of them even those I have helped. There's P. B. and R. S. and all I've to reckon with. This is how I am to be repaid. Oh, why did I not heed my dark sister?

  It meant nothing to Alex. He turned over a page.

  P. B. has lost her infant and puts it about that she must be overlooked and I'm the one. If this is gratitude. And all I did was to help this one and this other one. A. laughs in my face at that and tells me they will come for me. And yesterday a pantry window broken by lads hurling stones, and that no accident. A. says I must shift if I am to get a purchase on them, though that above all things makes me afraid down to my bowels that I lose my wits. What shall I therefore do?

  I know I must hide this journal. Hide it, for it has all I know. For if they were to come and take this, then it would give them all they want, and there would be an end to it. I know a place where none will look, and I'll have a board made to keep it. Let them come and take me, they won't have this, for as long as this survives, I do too.

  And then again:

  Gerard come and he makes my board for me for the hearth, for he is a kind soul and I done this and that for him and all the children of his and he says he fears for me. He warns me they are after doing something, he has
heard all the talk and they turn on any as try to speak up for me- And he tells me it were better if I should go but where can I? At my age, and with what little I have, there is no place for me to go.

  I have only this house and what little else besides.

  Gerard tried to comfort me, but there's no comfort. I should have hearkened to A. who predicted all this, and never been a help to no one if this is how I am to be repaid. Where does all this hating one another come from?

  And in the night I hear a scuffling and I come down to find a blaze in my hall. They have soaked a rag and pushed it through the letter flap and it catch at the curtains at the door and who knows what if I hadn't put it out. And what next?

  Will they torch everything they don't understand? And is it because I know this and that one among them? That I know all their affairs and their transgressions and wrongdoings when they come here and tell me? Help me get with child by him, help me lose that child with that one. Is it because I know them all? When all I ever did was to be a soft bird among them with a brave heart, a blackbird, to help them along here and there. A. spat and call me a fool, and she tell me there is only one way out. Tonight I'll go with A. and I'll shift, whatever the consequences.

  There was one final entry in the journal. The fine copperplate writing was distended. There was a lack of the usual continuity. It suggested a note of hysteria in the diarist.