Dark Sister (24 page)

Then vomit. She was panting
uncontrollably. Her chin retracted into her neck and she lost its shape. Her
breathing was being constricted. She hawked again, trying to loosen the
sensation of choking. She felt her feet scrabbling claw
like            in the
soft earth, trying to keep a foothold as her body convulsed. Suddenly she
couldn't breathe. She gagged.

She panicked. She tried to shake
her head out, shake it free of what was happening. But she was paralyzed. She
was retching. Spit; if only she could spit she might loosen what was choking
her air passage. But in the effort of spitting, her mouth puckered and extended
outwards, her nose curving into a sharp point.

It was too ugly. She shook in terror. Then she felt a
series of clicks in her joints, a sound like the cracking and resetting of
bones. Please stop! She wanted it to stop! She tried in vain to reverse what
was happening to her by dint of mental power. She felt her heart sink inside
her into a tight ball, threatening to burst. Blood sang in her ears. Her skin
flushed from scalp to toe, gooseflesh standing high, rippling across her body
in a wave. Blue-black feathers erupted from her white skin as she scrabbled in
the earth to keep her balance. She was turning in circles now, struggling
against the metamorphosis, gagging for air. Stop! Oh stop!

Her wish was granted. The process was arrested
halfway. She sobbed in relief, breathing heavily now. She'd managed to stop it.
Then she tried to straighten her back, but was unable. She strained, but the
effort only produced a cracking of bones and sickening pain. She waited.
Tried again.
She was unable to move.

Panic took her again. Liz! Ash! She wanted to cry out,
but there was only a terrible gagging, and no one to answer. The metamorphosis
wouldn't move forward, and she couldn't reverse it. She was stuck.

No air.
A gagging in her throat.
Her lungs compressed.
Choking.
Panic.
She couldn't scream
,
she was unable to make any kind
of noise.

Her eyes began to bleed. A jellylike substance formed
across them. She was choking. She was paralyzed. She was going to die. Then she
tried to relax. Think through what had happened. Think the process through from
the beginning. She gave a final push, trying to heave herself into another
world.

Only the
brank
was holding
the skull in one piece. Alex identified a clasp at the side of the contraption,
and attempted to clear the loose dirt from it with a fine hairbrush. The jaw of
the skull gaped in a lopsided
rictus
. Alex put the
brush aside, pursed his lips and blew delicately on the dust around the clasp.
The metal cage of the
brank
fell apart. The lower jaw
slipped from its bed of earth and bounced at the bottom of the trench, followed
by half of the disintegrating
brank
.

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.