Take Me Home

by Daniela Sacerdoti

  I lay back on my pillow, feeling utterly alone, utterly lost. Suddenly the darkness felt heavy around me, squeezing air out of my lungs. The four walls of my room were closing around me and I was sure that I too was about to be unable to breathe, like my beloved sister.

  I leapt out of bed and opened the curtains and the window, gulping in the icy air, staring in wonder at the beauty in front of me: the ink-black sky dotted with stars, shimmering through the blanket of clouds, a claw-like white moon, and Venus glimmering cold and silver.

  Where are you? Please come to me. Come back to me, I pleaded, touching the little swallow that hung from Emily’s bracelet. Where are you? Where will I find you?

  I had to get out and breathe. I had to go and look for Emily.

  I threw some clothes on and tiptoed downstairs as quietly as I could. I slipped on my boots and grabbed my coat, taking off before anyone could notice I was gone.

  The night was full of wind and pervaded with the scent of wet soil and moisture – the smell of the Scottish night. The relief of being outside was immense. Darkness never scared me; I felt at home in it. When I was a wee girl I often tried to stay out after sunset, because the chances of Seeing were higher. It seemed strange to me then, but before that horrible day on the loch, the day I lost my Sight, I used to seek out spirits. Far from frightening me, I welcomed the physical signs that it was about to happen, the whispered thoughts that didn’t belong to me – and then the apparition, surprised in whatever they were doing in the moment, frozen in time. A woman with flowing skirts carrying a baby across the play park, walking straight through the swings and the roundabout; two girls standing beside the graveyard wall, hair in buns, wearing long dresses with full skirts and giggling about something only they knew; an elderly woman walking on the side of the road, hair covered by a handkerchief, a sickle in her hand . . . Every time it happened – and they weren’t many, they were rare and magical – I felt a little bit stronger, a little bit richer. The Sight was a part of me, a part I cherished.

  Until I went onto the loch with my father, and the shock of what I saw took my gift away. For years I’d felt like I was missing a limb. But now the old feelings, the old sensations had returned, to my relief – and to my terror as well. But what mattered most of all was seeing Emily again.

  Please, let me see her, I pleaded as I strode up St Colman’s Way towards the well.

  I passed Eilidh’s cottage, black and silent, and Jamie’s workshop, and then the houses started getting sparser as the well came into sight. There was no noise but the occasional hooting of a tawny owl, the distant barking of foxes, and the sound of my boots against the pavement. I stepped through the gardens, their solar lights dotted all around, giving out a spectral glow. From up there I could see the whole of Glen Avich spreading out like a patchwork quilt with its white cottages and its terraced houses along the main street, and the river cutting it in two. And beyond Glen Avich, the hills with their ragged edges smudged into the sky, black against black.

  I dipped my fingers in the water that gathered at the bottom of the stone basin, gasping at how cold it was, and feeling the soft, tiny algae clinging to the stone. A sudden gust made me shiver, and I pulled the collar of my jacket tighter around my neck. I looked up to the sky and saw that the clouds were closing over my head. The Scottish sky can change in a heartbeat, and before you know it the heavens have opened and you’re drenched to the bone. But I couldn’t go home, I just couldn’t – better getting soaked than holing myself up again. Emily was somewhere, and I would find her.

  I strolled around the gardens some more, peering into the shadows, hoping and watching and searching – but there was nobody, and I couldn’t feel anything. I looked around me. With my mind’s eye I could see Emily, with her maroon school uniform on, sitting on the low stone wall bordering the gardens, reading Harry Potter . . . A memory of her, one of many, each of them a knife to the heart.

  I walked down St Colman’s Way again, stepped onto the play park and sat on a bench for a moment. Here the darkness was broken by the orange glow of street lights. I checked myself. Still nothing. No tingling, no buzz, nothing. The tawny owl’s call resounded in the air again, echoed by another call from the woods, while the foxes had stopped barking. The flapping shape of a tiny bat, smaller than a sparrow, darted above.

  How many times had Emily and I sat on those swings, first as children and then as teenagers, chatting in low voices and telling each other everything we didn’t want to speak about at home, where our parents or our brother could hear us? There, just there, she had told me that David was a good kisser, but had terrible taste in music. How she was planning to get a tattoo of a dolphin on her wrist, as soon as she could convince Logan that it was a good idea. How when she grew up, she wanted to be a fashion designer . . .

  Oh, Emily. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

  I stood up and walked past the hairdresser – here you came to have your hair pinned up for the prom – past Peggy’s shop – here we used to go and buy pocket-money sweets after school – and past the new coffee shop – no memories of you here, we just didn’t have time to make them. You were too ill to come here with me. Down to the Green Hat, dark and shut, no music or voices seeping through its doors – here you used to have a sneaky shot of vodka added to your orange juice, even if you knew you weren’t supposed to, because of your medication. “What’s the point of being alive if I can’t do anything?” you used to say.

  Memories of my sister were everywhere, inside and outside of me. I felt my eyes stinging again. These memories – they were so intense now, but would I forget in time? Even if I loved her so much, as time went on would I forget her voice, and the scent of her skin, and all her mannerisms? Like sweeping her hair away from her face with both hands every time she was thinking hard about something, or calling everything absolutely mind-blowing in that passionate, fervent way she had; like curling up her nose when she laughed; or singing along with every song that came on the radio, even if she didn’t know the words.

  I remember when she saved a ladybird – she must have been about five – and christened it Polly, and every ladybird we saw after that was a polly. I remember how she dyed her hair blue for her fifteenth birthday and Logan went crazy. I remember when she adopted a litter of kittens, all completely black with white paws, and called every single one of them Murdo, even the female ones. Glen Avich is still full of Murdos.

  I remember my sister. I remember you, Emily.

  I was crying again, without shame or restraint, my face cradled in my hands. I hurried away from the streets and towards the woods, calling to her with every step I took. Suddenly, I saw a heart-shaped face looking at me from a branch, and I froze – it was the owl I’d heard call earlier. I walked towards it, carefully, silently, so as not to startle it. But it opened its wings and flew off, perching itself on another branch not too far from me. I switched my phone light on and followed it, and just as I was about to reach it again, it flew, this time a bit further away.

  It kept beckoning to me for a while, perching itself on trees further and further away, and I followed, branches hooking my hair, twigs snapping under my feet like brittle bones. Dawn was breaking – I could see a hint of grey in the east – but it was still pitch-dark. The sky was black and shimmering with ghostly clouds edged with steel. The trees seemed to whisper all around me, their branches shaking and creaking in the rising wind. All of a sudden, the owl took off again and disappeared for good into the darkness.

  I stood there, lost. I’d thought the owl would lead me to Emily. I really had. But as I turned, there was silence and solitude. I was alone. Really, completely alone. There was nothing left for me to do but go home.

  Suddenly, the dim light of my phone illuminated something – a pine tree, a section of its bark white where it should have been brown. It was graffiti, made in relief so that the letters would stand out instead of being carved in. I walked closer and placed the phone just in front of it, so I could read the w
ords.

  The graffiti said: Emily, I love you. D.

  David. The good kisser with terrible taste in music, the boy who’d come to the funeral with his mother.

  I felt the first few drops of rain on my hands and my face, and then the downpour began.

  13

  She came softly in

  Inary

  When I got to my house I looked – and felt – like a wet kitten. I swept my soaking hair away from my forehead and walked across the threshold.

  It hit me immediately.

  My hair stood on end, and there they were again, the signs that a spirit was near – the tingling; the hushed, continuous sound vibrating in my ears; the goose bumps. I almost felt dizzy with relief. Of course. Of course. I’d gone looking all over the village when she was here all along. Where else? I ran into the kitchen – Emily, Emily, Emily, I called, surveying the kitchen cupboards, the stove, the table. I turned back and strode into the living room – the sofas, the fireplace, the bookshelves, half hidden in the gloom – nothing.

  Emily! I strained to call. My throat hurt with the unspoken words. I ran upstairs, nearly stumbling at the last step, such was my desire to see her. I was still prickling all over, so much so that it was nearly sore. Static was crawling over my skin. I went straight for her room. My heart was in my throat as I pushed the door open . . .

  The yellow glow of the streetlight in front of our house, the same I could see from my window, seeped through a gap in the curtains. I surveyed the room – her bed, carefully made, untouched; her desk, her dressing table with her perfumes and medicines all lined up; her sewing machine; the cosy space between the bed and the wall where we used to sit, where I used to tell her stories.

  There was nobody there. Emily wasn’t there.

  A sob escaped my mouth. Where are you? Why are you hiding from me?

  And still, I could sense her presence. I even had the eerie feeling that my hair was actually beginning to stick up, like after you brush it too hard and static makes it fly. By now my heart was ready to jump out of my chest. I ran into my parents’ old room, but the second I walked in, disappointment hit me like icy water – the tingling was subsiding, and so was the feeling of static around me. There was still a low sound in my ears, but it was feeble now. The air felt nearly normal again, and not charged with electricity. She was going . . .

  Emily . . . No! Not before I see you! I mouthed so hard that a strangled whisper came out, like a ragged breath. I opened the door of my room and stepped into the dark.

  And then I saw her.

  There was a shape sitting at my dressing table, the same womanly shape I’d seen before, her back to me. For a second, terror blinded me – the memory of what I’d seen years ago, of the horrible vision that had taken my Sight away flashing before my eyes. But it was just a moment; this apparition felt different. It had to be my sister. It had to be Emily.

  I blinked again and again in the gloom. The spirit’s hair was dark, and not strawberry-blonde like Emily’s. But still it didn’t register. Of course it was Emily. Who else could it be?

  Her hair was gathered in a loose bun at the nape of her neck – Emily never wore her hair like that. Her slender frame was draped in a blue woollen nightgown – Emily hated nightgowns.

  And then she angled her face slightly, and I caught a glimpse of her profile.

  I couldn’t deny it any more. It wasn’t Emily.

  Disappointment wrangled my heart. I’d been cheated.

  And still, in spite of the renewed grief, in spite of the wound of my sister’s loss open and bleeding again – I could see a spirit.

  My Sight was back, after thirteen years – I was sure now.

  I was too entranced to move. In the silence I could hear my shallow, rapid breathing and the thumping of my heart. The girl was smiling, and a light suffused her face, a light of happiness. Her slender fingers were holding an old-fashioned fountain pen; she was writing a letter. I stood as still as I could, trying to stop myself from shaking and my teeth from chattering. I was drenched, and freezing cold.

  The girl’s voice filled the room, resounding in my mind and in my heart, as if she were speaking from inside me. I’d heard spirits’ thoughts echoing in my mind before, but I never heard them actually talking. She was special. Stronger. More real than anyone else I’d ever seen.

  “Please, Robert, come back to Glen Avich soon,” she said, murmuring each word as she wrote. “You know I’m counting the days, you know I can’t find peace until you return. I am forever yours, all my love, Mary.” She drew a long sigh, while in the meantime I was holding my own breath so that I wouldn’t miss a word she was saying. I was filled with fear and wonder. I couldn’t make a sound.

  The girl called Mary clasped her hands over the letter and raised her head to look at the grey sky outside. I let myself slump on the carpet, in perfect silence, and I watched her lovely face in profile, her bare feet tucked under the chair, her hands moving gracefully as she slipped the letter into an envelope. I sat there, on the cold wooden floor, my hair dripping onto my shoulders, and watched in awe at the girl who had come to see me on the worst night of my life. I was broken with disappointment, but still, there was comfort in her presence, like a reprieve from loneliness.

  Suddenly, a knock at the door interrupted our silent intimacy.

  “Inary, are you okay?”

  It was Lesley. I moved my gaze to the door briefly, and when I looked back Mary was gone.

  *

  Half an hour later, my hair was dry and I was back in bed. I was so disappointed at not having seen Emily, I felt like my heart was battered and bruised; it hurt with every beat. But I was also full of amazement at Mary’s visit.

  Mary in her happiness, while I was so full of grief. Writing a love letter and sighing for joy.

  All of a sudden, out of nowhere, came an overwhelming desire to speak to Alex. But how could I keep looking to him after what had happened before I left? He wasn’t at the funeral. That had to mean something.

  I looked at the time: 4.34 a.m. It was a completely uncivilised hour to call someone, and I couldn’t speak anyway – I would have just breathed down the phone without talking like some sort of stalker. My fingers scrolled for Alex’s number, and before my brain could tell me to stop, I touched the call button. I fumbled about to stop the call, but the phone fell to the floor, and it was too late. I grabbed it as quickly as I could – I was expecting the voicemail message I knew by heart – Hi, it’s Alex, I’m not here but tell me all and I’ll call you back – but to my horror I realised that the phone was ringing, the display all lit up in the darkness. I finally managed to tap the end button. My heart was beating in a crazy rhythm. What was I thinking?

  I didn’t even know myself. I just had to make sure he was there. That he still existed.

  All of a sudden, my phone made a deep DONG that seemed incredibly loud in the silence of the house, and I jumped. That would be the second time I’d woken Lesley, I thought contritely. It was a message from Alex.

  Do you need to talk? Do you want me to call you?

  Yes. Yes.

  My stomach twisted at the intensity of my need to hear his voice, that voice I knew so well. I wanted to tell him everything, about Emily, about Mary even, although it was hard to explain and hard to believe. But I couldn’t speak, I remembered, touching my throat.

  So sorry I woke you. I lost my voice. I can’t speak. It’s not an excuse, I promise.

  The reply came at once, the light at the side of my phone flashing in the gloom.

  I’m worried about you. Emailing you now.

  I got up and switched on my laptop. When I saw an empty space where the shortcut to my writing folder used to be, I felt a jab of regret. All my stories were gone. I sucked in air as I saw that the email Alex had promised was already in my inbox – we were among those rare types who just couldn’t get into Facebook. We both hated the lack of privacy, the invasiveness of thousands, millions of users who muscled into your life.r />
  From Alex.McIlvenny@hotmail.co.uk

  To Inary@gmail.com

  What is this thing about your voice? I’m so sorry I wasn’t at the funeral. I wasn’t sure what you’d want. I hope you understand. Are you okay?

  Not really. I couldn’t think of anything that was okay in my life.

  From Inary@gmail.com

  To Alex.McIlvenny@hotmail.co.uk

  Dear Alex,

  Sorry for not speaking to you for so long. I lost my voice. We are telling everyone it is a throat infection but I don’t think it is. I lost it the night Emily died. Everything feels strange and wrong now that Emily’s gone.

  Inary

  The reply came after a few minutes.

  From Alex.McIlvenny@hotmail.co.uk

  To Inary@gmail.com

  Dear Inary,

  I’m sure you’re just in shock and that your voice will come back soon. I’m so sorry about your sister, so sorry for you and for Logan. I wish I could be of more help to you both.

  All of a sudden, I felt my eyes closing. All that had happened that day – and night – fell on my shoulders at once, and I was crushed under the weight of it. My body was falling asleep without consulting me first.

  From Inary@gmail.com

  To Alex.McIlvenny@hotmail.co.uk

  Talking to you is helping . . .

  I have so much to tell you. I’m about to fall asleep any second, it’s been such a long night, but I’ll email you soon.