The Unforgiven Sin

by R. Twine

  I found out later that, besides my parents, two more people had died in the crash and three others had been badly injured. As many as five cars had been turned into a pile of junk metal. It was a miracle I had survived. I had been found unconscious, lying on the roadside. And I had remained unconscious for many weeks. I had had a concussion and multiple injuries, but all my internal organs had remained intact.

  After several weeks my condition improved. I felt a surge of vitality, and though I had difficulty getting up and moving about, the doctors cancelled the artificial feeding, and disconnected the medical instruments monitoring my condition. I was in no mood to see anybody, or talk to anyone. I was extremely concise in answering the questions asked by nurses on duty and by Beatrix Louvier, who was my doctor. Granny came to visit me every day. My psychological state worried her very much, and I was doing my best to try to look cheerful. My granddad became very feeble, and stayed in almost all the time. I refused to receive the rest of the visitors, and asked the doctor to keep them away from me. Sometimes Natalie and I talked to each other on the phone, but it became difficult for us to chat lightheartedly about things after what had happened, and intervals in our conversations became increasingly longer. I ended up being alone with my grief.

  Before my discharge from the hospital, a pleasant-looking woman came to my ward. ‘Good morning, Miriam! My name is Veronica. I’m a pediatric psychologist,’ she said taking a seat in an armchair. ‘I’m here to help you. You shouldn’t be grieving so hard. Your parents cannot be brought back to life, and you have your whole life to live. You have to be strong.’

  ‘I don't need any help. I don’t want to see anybody, I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone,’ I replied sharply.

  ‘That’s exactly why I’m here. I’ll help you return to your old world.’

  ‘In my old world there were my parents, but this new one, the world without them, is cold and alien to me.’

  ‘Everything passes, Miriam. In time your pain will pass too, and you’ll be able to live your previous life. You surely will.’

  ‘There won’t be any previous life. And my life will never be the same.’

  ‘You have your grandparents, they love you very much. At least, you’ll have to think of them and the pain they suffer while seeing you in such a state.’

  Once again, my eyes welled up with tears.

  ‘I’ll do my best to restore calm to your soul…’ Veronica was talking to me in a quiet, reassuring voice, and I saw that she was sincere in her desire to help me. I sat up and decided to open up.

  ‘Before my coming out of the coma, I saw the Angel. He let me visit my parents – over there, in the parallel world. They seem to be happy, but I still cannot endure the thought that they aren’t here by my side. How can I live the rest of my life without my mom, without her tenderness? And without my daddy’s jokes? Why have they left me so early?’ I said between the sobs.

  ‘They haven’t left you of their free will, Miriam. They still love you no matter where they are. And I’m sure they don’t want you to suffer…The only thing you have to do is to remember them. And live on.’

  My talks with Veronica did me good. She would come to me every day, and we had long talks together. Gradually I began to feel better. I wasn’t alone with my grief any more, and at night I’d see shining golden wings. They fanned me, driving my pain away.

  Finally I was discharged, leaving the white hospital walls behind me. I went out of the building, and I squinted in bright daylight. I felt a light dizziness; a wave of weakness suddenly engulfed my body, and I felt that the emptiness in my soul still remained. Good morning, real world!

  ‘Home at last,’ said my granny helping me out of the taxi.

  My granddad stood in the doorway leaning on his walking stick.

  ‘Hi Grandpa, are you better?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Miriam. I’m coping with it quite well.’

  The odor in the house reminded me of the past, of the wonderful time I had there during my school vacations.

  I entered the room, looked around, and noticed that my granny had had all of my things moved here.

  ‘The ring is here, Miriam…’ My Grandma took a small box, handed it to me, and then added quietly, ‘When they found you on the roadside, you were clutching it in your hand.’

  ‘Mommy gave it to me to try on several seconds before the crash happened. I clearly remember daddy ordering us to jump out of the car…Mommy pushed me out.’

  My Grandma sighed and embraced me.

  Life ran its own course again. I liked my new collège where I continued to study painting. Sometimes Natalie came to visit me because we missed each other. Little by little the pain began easing off. My birthday was getting closer – my thirteenth birthday.

  I made up my mind to make it a modest party and invited several girls from my class, my art school mate Alan, and Natalie, who had promised to come to see me from Cannes. This was to be my first birthday without my parents.

  That evening was no different from the previous ones. I came up to the window and looked at the night sky, dotted with bright stars. I loved the night and stood in awe, drinking in its mysterious silence. The day’s hustle and bustle was over, and there was a road to the invisible world opening before me. It was the first time in the past months that I was feeling good. I lay in my bed anticipating tomorrow’s celebration; I was looking forward to seeing all those in whose company I could manage to forget about my grief for a while. Now it was only at night that I allowed my pain to come back to me. But this particular night is going to be a night without sadness, I decided – and suddenly fell asleep.

  I heard muffled footsteps and felt somebody sit down on the edge of my bed. My breathing became rapid and shallow; my body became heavy and clumsy – I couldn’t even stir. My sixth sense told me somebody was staring at me intently. I forced myself to open my eyes, and saw a shadow against the backdrop of dim light. After my eyes got accustomed to the darkness I managed to make out the strange night guest: it was a man with dark hair down to his shoulders, clad in a long black cloak. He stared at me fixedly, a faint smile on his lips. My fear vanished. My body became flexible and springy again; I sat up and stared inquisitively at him.

  ‘Don’t be afraid of me,’ he said. ‘I’ll do you no harm. I congratulate you on your thirteenth birthday. It’s been many years since we last saw each other, so you are not likely to remember me…’

  ‘Your face looks familiar to me, I seem to have seen you some time ago,’ I said, racking my memory.

  ‘I’m glad your memory keeps the fragments of the past. I want to give you a present – that’s why I’m here. The recent months of your life have been a very hard time for you. Therefore you are free to decide what you’d like to have. I’m in a position to give you anything you want.’

  ‘You’re a magician, aren’t you?’ I asked him, puzzled.

  ‘I’m more than a magician. I’m the almightiest of all the almighty,’ he replied. ‘I am Satanail – the King of Darkness and the Prince of this Earth. Everything here belongs to me! But we’ll talk about it later on…Tell me, what would you like to have on your birthday? Just tell me – and I’ll do as you wish.’

  I made up my mind fast. ‘I want my grandpa to fully recover.’

  ‘Don’t you want to get anything for yourself?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Okay. Have it your way,’ he said, and then disappeared.

  I was unable to fall back asleep.

  In the morning I went down to the kitchen.

  ‘Miriam, my dear grandchild!’ said my grandpa, leaving the table to meet me. ‘I feel so well today. Perhaps it happened for the first time in years…In the morning I got up and left my room, not even thinking about my walking stick!’

  I was very happy. Such a fine morning it was! Gorging myself with breakfast, I could not help thinking that I’d forgotten how well my granny cooked. However, my night guest kept coming back to my head: grandpa’s r
ecovery and his visit could hardly have been a sheer coincidence.

  Natalie came at ten o’clock, bringing in a huge cake her mother had made for me. We hugged each other, and hurried to help my grandma set out the festive table. We were so busy getting everything ready that nobody noticed when the set time came, and the first doorbell rang: ‘Happy birthday, Miriam!’

  Chapter 10

  Christmas was coming. Paris, decorated with shining garlands, looked like a fairy tale city. Everybody was in a hurry, buying things… Pre-festive hustle and bustle reigned supreme in the city. I recollected my father, who, dressed up as Santa Claus, had brought me a huge sack of Christmas presents every year…

  ‘Granny, I want to go to the cemetery. I’ve never been there,’ I said, imploringly.

  ‘All right, Miriam, I’ll take you there.’

  I knew that Polette drove to the cemetery every week but never told me about it.

  ‘Let’s make it tomorrow then,’ I said with finality.

  It was a cold winter morning. I was shivering slightly.

  ‘The temperature has plummeted so unexpectedly,’ I said to my grandma.

  We were walking on a snow-swept pathway among the tombstones. I’d never been to the cemetery before, and my heart wound itself into a tight spring.

  ‘Here they lie…’

  My grandma stopped at a grave slightly covered with snow, and put flowers onto the maroon marble. Looking at me from the photograph were my parents – Laura and Alexander.

  We stood in silence for several minutes and then I squatted, put the letter I wrote the day before on the gravestone, and whispered, ‘Dad… Mommy… I miss you so much… I hope there’s always sunshine in the place where you are now… I want you to know that I didn’t forget you…’ The words were pouring out of me in a continuous flow.

  My grandma tried to console me. ‘My dear child, in time your pain will finally subside, and life will become easier for you. We have to resign ourselves to the fact.’

  I went silent again. Peace and calm were everywhere.

  Suddenly I heard somebody breathing evenly, and it looked as if that person were standing right behind my back.

  ‘Miriam, my dear daughter…’ my mother’s voice seemed to be coming from far away, sending chills down my spine. ‘Many thanks for coming. Don’t be afraid, we’ll stand invisibly by you whatever happens…’

  ‘Mommy…’ I called out. ‘Where are you?’

  I looked back, cautiously turning my head, but saw nothing but tombstones. My grandma, Polette, was staring at me, worried, unable to grasp what was going on.

  ‘I’ve just heard my mother’s voice,’ I explained, totally bewildered.

  ‘My dear child, a lot of what happens to us cannot be explained. For several weeks after the funeral Alexander seemed to have been calling me. I heard his voice several times very clearly. At first I thought it was because of the shock I’d gone through, but later I realized that the dead can speak, too. This phenomenon cannot be explained. Take it easy, Miriam, and don’t become obsessed with it. You should keep away from such voices even if they belong to our loved ones, for the dead must not interfere with the life of the living.’

  ‘All right, don’t worry about me,’ I said, and thought to myself, ‘‘I’m pretty sure it’s not going to do me any harm at all.’’

  Several months after his first visit my night guest materialized again; I sensed his presence and woke up.

  ‘Glad to see you, Miriam. I’m pleased the wounds in your heart are healing bit by bit. I see you’re a brave, fearless girl; you decided in favor of a complex occupation, but, alas, I have to tell you that you are in for a quite different future.’

  ‘I don’t want to follow my parents’ footsteps, because otherwise my mind will be constantly focused upon them; that’s why I decided to devote myself to law.’

  ‘Your destiny is linked with the powers that be, Miriam. Not so much with human beings as with those who live in the other dimension. Not everyone is capable of handling his physical body, let alone moving it from one dimension to another. Not everyone can have the opportunity to descend to my Kingdom, or ascend to the Kingdom of Angels. It’s a very difficult thing to do in the material world… Moving your physical body into any dimension you want means possessing and seeing what we, the creatures invisible for human beings, possess and see. You will be able to return to the past or end up in the future, but it is the present that you’ll be living in. You have to be cautious in the process, and abide by all the rules, but doing everything in a timely manner is the main thing. It is in a fixed time that you’ll have to return to your material world.’

  I was listening to my guest, mesmerized. The strange world he was telling me about attracted me. I wanted to learn more about it. I felt no fear of Satanail at all, believing every word he said.

  ‘We can go beyond these walls, Miriam…’

  He made a step forward, and disappeared into the wall. Then he reappeared and waved his hand – and now it was the wall that disappeared.

  ‘Come over here and have a look,’ he said, pointing at the pitch darkness that appeared in place of the wall.

  I came closer and stopped at the edge of the floor: there was nothing below but total blackness.

  ‘How do you manage to do it?’

  ‘I can travel in space any way I like and wherever I like, Miriam. I’m also capable of turning the invisible into the visible. Watch me do it!’

  The wall reappeared.

  ‘Are you cold?’ Satanail asked me, having noticed that I was shivering, and then added quickly, ‘I must be off. See you soon, Miriam.’ Then he disappeared into the darkness.

  I crawled under the blanket, trying to warm up, and soon fell asleep without noticing it.

  ****

  Summer came. As I sat on the sofa reading a book, I heard somebody knocking on the door, and soon my grandma appeared in the doorway. ‘Miriam, what do you say to our escaping from Paris for a fortnight’s vacation? To some place where there’s a lot of sunshine?’

  ‘I’d love to! I’ve been longing to go back to my parents’ house and stay there for at least a couple of days. I miss very much the places of my childhood – and Natalie.’

  ‘All right, my dear. We all need a really good wind down; it’s been nearly a year since we went out last.’

  I was helping my grandparents to put things into the boot of the car.

  ‘You don’t look cheerful today, Miriam. What’s up?’ my grandpa asked me.

  ‘A year ago we set off on the same route but only in the opposite direction…’

  ‘We can go by train, if you like.’

  ‘No. I have to overcome my fear; otherwise the fear will haunt me forever. There’s only one thing I want to ask of you: give your car a thorough check before we go.’

  ‘Take my word for it,’ he reassured me.

  There I was, standing on the porch of my house again. My heart was pounding so hard that I was afraid it would jump out of my ribcage. It had been nearly a year since I was last there. It was from this house that my parents had set off for their fateful encounter with death. I had a clear memory of my sleepless night, and of my mother’s heart being tormented with dark forebodings before our departure. We postponed our trip then, but, anyway, we weren’t able to change anything.

  My grandma turned the key, and we entered the house. I felt joy mixed with sadness. I was home again. Home again, but without them.

  My grandpa swung the window shutters open, and sunlight quickly flooded the rooms.

  ‘We left everything in its place, as it had been. My dear grandchild, I knew that sooner or later you’d want to go back to your house… It's the same with me. I also felt like coming down here, to reflect upon the past… After all, our only son had been living here for most of his life.’

  Involuntarily, I made for my parents’ bedroom. I quietly opened the door, and lingered for a while before entering. It wasn’t without effort that I stepped over the
threshold. I went to the window, opened the shutters and looked around – nothing had changed there, even my mother’s bathrobe was still lying on a neatly-made bed. There were photos hanging on the wall: mom, papa and me, happy and smiling. I felt a lump rise in my throat. Tears began to slowly stream from my eyes. My expectations that the void in my heart would somehow disappear didn’t prove right. It hurt so bad, so very, very bad…

  When I had shed all of my tears, I got up and began to look over the things that belonged to my parents. I pulled a small photo album out of the writing desk. Strange to say, I had never seen it before. There was a young beautiful woman on its front page. She was smiling at me. It was Catrine – my mother’s mother. I turned over the pages, marveling at the faces of my loved ones – apart from my grandma’s photos there were the photographs of her husband, that is, my mother’s father. Besides, there were several photos of little Laura that I’d never seen before. Clearly, this was Catrine’s album. I wanted to have a closer look at my mother’s picture, taken when she had been about the same age as I was. I pulled the photo out of the plastic pocket, and suddenly saw a folded sheet of paper behind it; it was yellowed by age. I unfolded it, and began to read.

  “Laura, if you are reading my letter, this means that I’m already dead. I didn’t want to upset you with my prejudices and premonitions, but I have a feeling that I’m going to die soon. Therefore I’ve decided to write you this letter. You’ll find it hard to believe it, but it was a little angel who brought me the message about my oncoming death – the one that you painted in your picture. As you know, I hung the painting over my bed as soon as you gave it to me. At first I put everything down to coincidences, but soon I realized how wrong I was: this little angel lived its own life, far beyond this picture. Dreaming or awake, I saw him several times, leaving the frame of the painting, and flying about the room. He would land by my side on the bed talking to me and showing me the future. My dear daughter, you have to understand that I couldn’t tell anybody about it. Who would have believed me, after all? I would have been taken for a mentally affected person – therefore I never dared to tell anybody about what was going on in our house. Telling it to you was especially out of the question. Now and then, the angel flew about the room and often showed me the Afterlife, our parents who passed away, my mother – your grandma, whom you barely knew, and, finally, he showed me your life, my dear daughter. I saw that you would marry and live happily with your husband for many years. I also saw that you would have problems getting pregnant, but you’d give birth to a beautiful child anyway, my only grandchild whom, unfortunately, I will not be able to see in my lifetime. But the most important thing is – and that’s what my letter is about – that the little angel told me you would die together with your husband, but your daughter would miraculously survive: I saw a red angel shield her with his body during the disaster… I know that this little angel from the Kingdom of Darkness is capable of taking human souls away. He predicted my early death – and I trust him because I began to feel it inside me. It seems to me, Laura, that we should keep away from the creatures of the dark world capable of nudging us, by insensible degrees, to a dead line…You cannot fathom all this in full measure so far, and there’s only one thing I’d like you to do: try to be careful after my death, and take this picture as far away from you as you can. And please bear in mind that my ring possesses an enormous power: when I put it on my finger, it’s capable of diverting an impending misfortune. My dear Laura, I love you very much. Take care of yourself, your husband and my future granddaughter.”