Two Little Girls: A totally gripping psychological thriller with a twist

by Frances Vick

  ‘The first card represents where you are right now. It’s the Ten of Swords.’ Mrs McKnight’s voice was soft in the dim room, softer than the sound of her pencil on paper, as she made notes on the spread. ‘You feel alone, almost betrayed. Unsupported. And the card crossing is the King of Swords.’ She looked up. ‘This is a court card – they generally represent a person in your life. This is a man in a position of power over you. He is just, but inflexible. Someone you’ve relied upon to believe in you, but there’s a rift – a disagreement. This has left you feeling… betrayed, almost. Can you understand this? Don’t tell me why, just nod yes or stay silent.’

  Kirsty nodded. Mrs McKnight went back to the cards.

  ‘The past. The High Priestess. You’ve been experiencing heightened psychic awareness lately – maybe over the last few months. Maybe you dream and the dreams come true? Or maybe you want to go deeper into things – open your mind to other realms. But this man…’ she pointed at the King of Swords, ‘has stopped you from really digging into that. He feels threatened by that.’ She frowned, shook her head. ‘I don’t know why. The King of Swords is not normally an angry person – he’s all about reality and rules and the way things should be, yes? But here he’s… furious. Hiding it, but furious. Scared maybe?’

  Her hands hovered over the cards. ‘I feel it’s linked to this – this card is the heart of the spread. Even if it doesn’t make sense to you right away, the card in this position tells you what to look for – it’s the key to the code if you like – the past. And it’s the Two of Swords.’ She let out the air in her cheeks in one solemn puff, looked up. ‘Guilt. Fear. This is someone who’s buried their head in the sand for years, someone who’s tried to run away but can’t escape.’

  ‘Is it a man or a woman?’

  ‘It’s not a court card. This is an emotion, attached to the querent. I think it’s you. And it’s linked directly to this: the near future card is the Ten of Wands.’ Mrs McKnight looked up, smiled sadly. ‘You’re seeking forgiveness. You want to put down your burden. The running away hasn’t worked, you’ve nowhere else to run. You need closure.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kirsty whispered.

  ‘This…’ She pointed at the cards running vertically on the right of the cross. ‘This tells you what to do from now on, how to get through this.’

  ‘Is it good?’

  ‘No questions. Not yet,’ Mrs McKnight told her. ‘Your power card is Death. You want to let go of harmful influences. You want to transform yourself. This turmoil will end – it’s already ending – but there will be sacrifice. There always has to be, if you want to move on. Something has to die to make way for something to live.’ Mrs McKnight looked up again, her tired, kind face creased with concern. ‘Are you all right, darling? Do you want me to stop?’

  ‘No. No, it’s all right.’

  ‘But here,’ warm, gentle excitement filled Mrs McKnight’s voice, ‘here are the influences around you – it might be people, or it might not. It could be a past influence that’s trying to come back, to help. It’s the Six of Cups; one of my favourite cards! Traditionally they’re the cards of friendship, and this is about children, childhood innocence. A reunion. This card tells me that you’re being guided and protected. Perhaps you’ll meet someone here, an old friend? Perhaps they know you’re here already, but they’re just waiting for you to make the first move?’

  ‘And they’re good?’

  ‘This person loves you. Always has. Let me look at the way they intersect with the last two – your hopes and fears and… Ah! The Empress. A mother figure, kind and compassionate. A wise counsel. She protects you and loves you, no matter what. She’s on your side, come what may. Then, the last card – the outcome: the Three of Cups! Oh, this couldn’t be better! I want you to look at this card now, come, come over here!’

  Three women held aloft three golden cups against an impossibly blue, cloudless sky. One had her back partially turned, but the other two faced outwards, smiling.

  ‘Collaborations. Women helping each other. Emotional support, respect and joy! It’s as if there’s a silent partner here – look at the woman with her back turned – it’s her that keeps the circle together.’

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘Don’t tell me anything!’ Sylvia told her. ‘Now, three is a powerful number. Think about it – Christians have the Trinity, in Buddhism there are the Three Jewels. Hindus have the Trivedi. Wicca has the Triple Goddess. A structure with three sides is the most stable – think of the pyramids. The number three crops up everywhere: three’s a charm; three wise men; three of a kind. This card tells you to rely on your intuitions, to believe in yourself. It tells you that you aren’t alone any more, that you’re part of something bigger now. It tells you that you’re starting on the right path and you should carry on. You can put right what’s been wrong.’

  ‘She’s just such a lovely woman, Lee! So kind and independent and… you wouldn’t believe that that Angela woman is her daughter!’ Lee made no reply. She could hear the window open, close quickly. He’d be throwing a cigarette out of the window, trundling around the M25, heading home. His home. A sudden flash of irritation ran through her. ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, I’m listening. She’s a nice old lady. You told me about her last week, and the week before.’

  ‘She’s more than a nice old lady,’ Kirsty told him sulkily. ‘She’s more of a friend. I want you to meet her properly—’

  ‘Why? So I can cross her palm with silver?’

  ‘Why’ve you got to say things like that? She’s a really nice woman, Lee. She is. And she’s lonely, and—’

  ‘Yeah, why is she lonely? If she’s this lovely old lady made of rainbows and sunshine, why isn’t her own daughter living with her?’

  ‘But that’s why she’s lonely, can’t you see? I think she was looking forward to Angela coming back but then she’s hardly seen anything of her.’

  ‘You’re not her daughter, Kirsty.’

  ‘No. But I’m lonely too!’ The words were out of her mouth before she knew it, and they were angry, jagged. She imagined them tumbling through space, into his ears, stunning him into understanding. ‘We’re in the same boat, me and Sylvia, aren’t we? We’re both living alone not because we want to, but because we’re waiting to be… You told me you’d move up as soon as you could and we’d start looking for a house—’

  ‘And I haven’t finished all my jobs yet.’

  ‘But you could have done by now! You didn’t have to take that one on in Stevenage, did you?’

  ‘No. But it’ll be fifteen grand by the time I finish, could I afford to turn my nose up at that? You’re not being practical, Kirsty.’

  ‘Maybe not, but you promised. When I moved here you promised—’

  ‘That’s the thing, Kirsty, you moved.’ His voice was flattened with logic, rigid with fact. ‘It wasn’t me, was it? Who left who?’

  ‘We agreed!’

  ‘You can only agree if there’s been a discussion, Kirsty, and I don’t remember much of a discussion. The way I remember it is that you just flat out told me that you were moving back – temporarily – to help Vic… and how’s that worked out, by the way? Then you say we’re moving to the shithole you escaped thirty years ago, where we know no-one, and you get a job and a flat and I just had to accept it.’ His control was beginning to crack.

  ‘Don’t shout at me.’

  ‘I’m not shouting!’ Lee shouted. ‘But you tell me you’re lonely as if that’s my fault. D’you think I’m not lonely? Why the hell d’you think I’ve been taking on all these jobs? I’m working on four hours of sleep a night because I don’t want to come back, alone, to an empty flat and stare at the walls and wonder where the fuck my wife went!’

  ‘Lee—’

  ‘And now you’ve met some old witch in the woods who tells you nice things, and I have to be interested and happy for you and… well I’m not. I don’t like the idea of her and didn’t like her daughter either, and I don’t
like your sister and her fat Tory fool of a husband and I fucking hate where you’re from, OK? Happy now?’

  There was a long pause. She could hear in the background that familiar confusion of music… bits of ragga, bits of reggae, along with the long, mournful bellow of someone selling mangos. He must be nearly home now. He must be stop-start-stopping down Peckham Rye, past Khan’s Bargains, past the furniture shop where everything was clumsily fashioned into the shape of jungle animals. She had a sudden, almost physical yearning to be there too, her hand on his knee, listening to the radio, the sun on their faces. When she opened her eyes, focused on the grimy walls of her flat, the silence from the street outside, she discovered, with no surprise, that she was crying.

  ‘No. I’m not happy,’ she managed.

  ‘Neither am I!’ Lee said warmly. ‘Can we just stop this? Can you just come home, Kirsty? Please?’

  Her phone buzzed with an incoming call. Vic. ‘I’ve got to take this call, sorry.’

  ‘Fine.’ All the heat had drained from his voice. The anger too. He was controlled again, blithe.

  ‘I’ll call you—’ she began, but he’d already hung up.

  They made up later. They always made up. Lee said he’d make time to spend a weekend together soon – maybe look at a few houses? It was quite a concession, and it made her happy. But the fissure didn’t completely close. Lee wasn’t normally an angry person. He’s all about reality and rules and the way things should be… But here he’s… furious. Scared maybe?

  Eighteen

  Five days later Kirsty got a call.

  ‘Not sure I’m doing this right. Technology,’ Sylvia McKnight’s voice whispered on voicemail. ‘Can you pop over? There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  Kirsty called back but there was no answer. Called again, the same thing. Outside, a blustery, mean wind burrowed up sleeves, down collars and plastered damp trousers to frozen legs. The streets were empty. Everyone was inside, the curtains drawn against the weather. Kirsty imagined the old lady alone in her draughty, ramshackle house, frightened. She’d sounded frightened, embarrassed by the fear, but frightened nonetheless, and she’d called Kirsty, not her own daughter. That decided it. Within a few minutes Kirsty was in the car, heading to Beacon Hill.

  Now that the nights were lighter, the depressed chaos the woman was forced to live with was even more apparent: tarpaulin flapped over rusted cars with weeds growing between the wheels, through the bonnets and boots, and half-frozen/half-rotted rubbish dotted the mud – crisp packets, cigarette packets, and things so long rotted they could have once been anything. Mervyn must really have been a hoarder extraordinaire. A needlessly large BMW was parked in the middle of the detritus, new and shiny.

  When Kirsty knocked on the door, it was opened by Angela Bright. Her thin face froze, and she braced both toned arms against the rotting door frame to keep Kirsty on the doorstep.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I came to see Sylvia.’

  Angela still didn’t move. ‘We’re kind of in the middle of something here.’ The woman was rude, strangely, defensively rude, her body a hostile barrier. It was hard to believe she could be related to Sylvia.

  ‘I need to come in,’ Kirsty told her, in a rare show of defiance.

  From behind Angela, Sylvia’s voice wavered, ‘Let her in, Marie. Just let her in, will you?’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’ Angela hissed. She still didn’t move. ‘We’re busy. You should leave now.’

  ‘Let her in. We’ve finished for now. We can talk again tomorrow, OK? Angela?’ There was a little bit of steel in Sylvia’s voice now too. Angela let one tight arm drop, then she retreated, gathered her coat from the kitchen chair.

  ‘I need them back soon though,’ she told her mother.

  Sylvia made a tired, vague gesture. ‘Can we talk about it tomorrow?’

  Angela paused, seemed about to say something but changed her mind. On her way out she gave Kirsty the briefest of glances. Kirsty and Sylvia stayed silent until they heard the BMW’s motor start and purr off into Beacon Hill.

  * * *

  ‘I’m sorry you had to see that,’ Sylvia said. They’d decamped to the adjoining room – a clean but cluttered space strangely at odds with the carefully organised kitchen. Kirsty sat on a low, shawl-covered sofa, while Sylvia poured chai tea and set it on a scuffed coffee table. ‘She… she likes things done and dusted, that’s all. Me, I like to take my time over things. Especially important things.’ She sat down on a wicker peacock chair.

  ‘Was it about the estate?’

  Sylvia bent to put her tea on the floor. The wicker groaned. ‘Yes.’

  ‘She wants to sell it then.’

  Sylvia frowned. ‘No, that’s the strange thing. She wants it kept as it is.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She can do what she likes, legally. Mervyn left everything to Mar— Angela.’

  ‘So you’ll stay here?’ There was something immensely comforting in knowing that Sylvia would always be here – twinkling in her bright kitchen like a good deed in a bad world. ‘That’s not bad, though, is it? Maybe you can do what you planned and clear the place up? Get a new generator.’

  ‘No, that’s the thing.’ Sylvia looked at Kirsty with strained bafflement. ‘She wants it kept just as it is. I’m not allowed to change anything – not even clean the yard up, or get proper heating or, anything.’ She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t expecting that. Kirsty, she says she doesn’t want it touched. She says,’ her eyes were wide with slow shock, ‘she says I’ll have to leave.’

  ‘What? She can’t do that?’

  ‘She can though. It’s her property! She said I should go into sheltered accommodation, but it wouldn’t be here. Maybe twenty miles away or so? Kirsty, I’ve lived here nearly all my life!’

  ‘But why wouldn’t Angela let you stay in your own house if she’s not going to knock it down, or sell the land?’

  ‘Well, I want to know that too. She could level this place, build a lovely house here for me, sell the rest of the land and make a fortune; not that she needs the money, but still. Or she could sell everything and I could have a bungalow in town somewhere – I wouldn’t mind that, I told her I wouldn’t mind that, but she wasn’t having any of it.’

  ‘Why? This is insane, Sylvia!’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what’s in her mind,’ Sylvia replied carefully. ‘All I know is that she’s set on it, and when she gets set on something, she doesn’t budge until she gets her own way.’ She shrugged.

  ‘That’s really not fair!’

  Sylvia left a long pause before replying. ‘Well, maybe not. But you can’t choose your family, can you? And we all need family.’

  ‘Even if your family don’t want you?’

  ‘Especially if they don’t,’ Sylvia murmured. ‘After all, if they’re not nice to you, you feel like you have to earn their love. That’s the only way you can feel you deserve it.’ She frowned at her lap, then looked up, and her eyes were very bright, very blue. ‘You know something about that, I bet? After all, you came back to help your sister.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kirsty said after a pause. ‘And that didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.’

  ‘But… was it the only reason you came back?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Sylvia’s eyes blinked anxiously, then back to her lap. ‘That’s why I called you. I didn’t think for a minute you’d end up seeing all this soap opera with me and Marie, I called you before she arrived. There’s something I don’t understand, and I wondered if we put our heads together…’ She sat on the wide-backed chair like a little doll, her mouth pursed, her eyes serious, as if she was listening to something deep inside herself. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m going dotty. Unless I am, in which case, please tell me and I can get myself carted away.’ She gave a little cheeky smile. ‘Come to think of it, if I do get carted away, at least I’ll have a roof over my head.’

 
‘Do you have a solicitor, Sylvia? I can help—’

  Sylvia put up one hand. ‘No, that’s a side show. I want to talk about you, not…’ She got up. ‘Wait there. I need to go and find something. It’s upstairs so I might be a while.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Yes. You can stay down here and make another pot of tea? The leaves are on the kitchen table and keep an eye on it while it brews, will you? About five or ten minutes? I think we’re going to need a good strong cuppa once I show you what I’m talking about.’

  She was longer than ten minutes, and Kirsty was about to venture further in the house to find her, when she reappeared holding a small pile of newspaper clippings.

  ‘This is what I called about. I came across these today; god knows why I didn’t find them before. Sit down.’ She put the papers down on the table. ‘This is your last chance to bail out.’

  Kirsty sat down, smiled. ‘I’m in it for the long haul, Sylvia.’

  ‘You say that,’ Sylvia was serious, ‘but I won’t blame you if you want to stop coming over. I won’t blame you if you think I’m dotty, or… I just don’t want you to think badly of me? There are some things I keep to myself, not to be secretive but to protect people I love. Some of these things are…’

  Kirsty leaned forward, took one thin, trembling hand. ‘Sylvia, we’re friends. We’re good friends. Whatever you say or show me won’t change that, OK?’

  Sylvia looked at her with heartbreakingly gentle eyes. ‘I hope that’s true, I really do.’ She blinked, withdrew her hand. ‘Here it is. I don’t only read the cards. Sometimes I dream things and I jot them down when I wake up. Other times I just let the words flow through me. Automatic writing, it used to be called. It’s me writing, but not me at the same time. I always know I’m writing, even if I don’t know what I’m writing, and I always keep them in a file to look at them later to see if anything… important came up, a message from… oh I’ll just say it! A message from the other side. I don’t blame you if you think I’m… but these…’ she cast a quizzical look at the papers ‘…I don’t remember writing any of this at all! It’s in my handwriting, but I don’t recognise the words. I have the strangest feeling that it wasn’t written for me to interpret, but for you. It’s about you, I’m positive! Here.’