Dark Sister (27 page)

FORTY-FOUR

"I
have to fly," said Maggie
.

"What?" hissed
Ash.
"Are you mad? Don't you think that would just be
enough to tip you over the edge?"

Ash had a kind of contract with Alex to
visit Maggie one afternoon a week while Alex was at work.

"You told me yourself what Liz
said. If you've lost something, you have to go back and look for it where you
lost it."

"It's madness!"

"De Sang can't help me any further. I
need you to fly with me, Ash."

"But how is flying going to help
you?" Ash protested. "You lost yourself in the shifting, not in the
flying."

"Flying is to knowledge as shifting
is to power.
Knowledge and power.
That's the
difference between the two. You have to trust me over this, Ash. I have to see,
to know. There are some things I need to find out. That's my only way
back."

"I don't see the logic."

"Now you're beginning to sound like Alex."

"And anyway, Alex would never stand for it. He
wouldn't allow it for a second."

Maggie clouded over. "Alex
will have to accept it. That's exactly what this whole thing was about in the
first place."

Ash recognized the determination in
her eyes. He'd seen that look before. How Maggie had changed over the time he'd
known her. And yes, it was true, that was exactly what this whole thing was
about in the beginning. He could see how she would tell Alex, and how Alex
wouldn't be able to stop her.

"Remember the time we flew
together, Ash? It was wonderful. Our love protected us. You can be there for
me, protect me again. I gave you something that day, Ash. Something no one else
could have given you. You owe me."

How could he argue? "It'll never
work, Maggie. Alex would never, forgive me. Haven't I encouraged you enough?
Made you ill with it?"

"You can persuade Alex for me."

"Me? He's not going to listen to me!"

"You owe me."

Alex, as predicted, hit the roof. Maggie had persuaded Ash to
wait with her until he returned from work. She sat her husband down and told
him.

"Is this your fucking idea?" he snarled at Ash.

"No, it's mine. Ash was firmly
against it. But he's agreed to help me if I'm determined to go ahead.
Which I am."

"It's not going to happen."

"You can't stop it."

"I'll stop it. Whatever it is you do,
I'll be there. I'll stop it. It's lunacy!
Sheer lunacy!"

"Then we'll simply go somewhere else to do it."

"Does De Sang know about this?"

"What do you care about De Sang? You
don't value his opinion."

"He won't allow it! He simply won't tolerate it!"

Maggie took hold of Alex's hand and
spoke to him, calmly and gravely. "Alex, the days when you have the last
word are over. You have to understand that, or all of this will have been for
nothing. I'm still here because I love the children and I think that there is
still a possibility for us. But the way we were before is over. It has to be.
There will be times when I have to decide what's best for me, and you'll have
to accept that. We're moving forward or not at all."

Ash had been sitting quietly
listening to this exchange. "Can I say something?"

Alex looked at him. "No, you
fucking can't! You've done your piece to get Maggie in this state! Maggie is my
wife, not yours, and while we're talking you'll just keep your fucking mouth
shut."

"Can you leave us,
Maggie?" said Ash.

Maggie let go of Alex's hand and
went out. Alex scrambled to his feet.

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING? GET BACK
HERE!"

The door clicked softly behind her.
Alex was left red-faced and impotent.

"Are you going to sit
down?" said Ash.

"No, I'm not."

"Fine.
Then I'm going to stand up." Ash did so, and took two steps toward Alex.
He had a height advantage of at least four inches. Alex tensed.

"She's decided she must do this
thing," said Ash.

"I don't have to listen to any
of this."

"You're going to listen to it
all. And if you don't, I'm going to walk in there after Maggie and I'm going to
take her away from you.
Which I could do."

"Don't flatter yourself."

Ash took a step closer. "Want
to put it to the test?"

Alex looked away.

"I could go in there now and
she would come with me. And nothing would make me happier than to have an
excuse to take her away from you. A lot of this is down to you. Now you have a
choice. You let her do what she's going to do anyway, or you lose her for ever.
Simple.
Now, are you going to make that choice?"
Ash could see that he already had. "And don't think about bleating to De
Sang about this. He doesn't need to know."

Ash called Maggie back into the
room. "I've managed to persuade Alex to accept this course of action. He
won't stand in your way."

Alex had tears in his eyes.
"What if you die, Maggie? What if you die?"

"I'm
not going to die."

FORTY-FIVE

The
final ritual was to be conducted at Ash's house, in his study
.
This was not merely to
spare Alex's feelings. There it was that they'd conducted the early, successful
flying experiments and the room was charged with positive associations. Maggie
persuaded Ash that flying would be enough. Flying was to knowledge, she said
again, as shifting was to power. In any event, Maggie couldn't face the
depredations of the shifting again, and Ash would have nothing to do with it;
the flying was itself terrifying enough, and Maggie knew it would take them
where they wanted to go.

They were fastidious in their
preparations, trying to recreate exactly the conditions which had blessed their
early experience. The process was begun at dusk: incense was set to smoulder in
brass bowls, red and white candles were lit. Separately they took a purifying,
aromatic bath. The only thing absent was the aphrodisiac tea and the love
scent. Maggie certainly didn't want to complicate what was already
a confusion
. As before, she wore an engraved copper talisman
round her neck. Ash also wore one.

Ash was a knot of anxiety, but in Maggie he found a
focus of resolution. Even so, she was sensitive to his anxiety. "You don't
have to join me, Ash."

"It's all right."

"You could simply watch over me."

"It'll be all right."

The hour came. They slipped off their dressing gowns
and stepped into the rope circle. Maggie closed it behind her. They were naked
but for their talismans. They dipped their fingers in the bowl of water and
made the banishments:
I have purified myself and my heart is filled with
joy. I bring gifts of incense and perfume. I anoint myself with unguents to
make myself strong...
They watched each other apply the flying ointment.
Ash had an erection which wasn't there the first time round. Maggie had the
bloom of perspiration on her; Ash was sweating heavily. She leaned across to
him and kissed him full on the lips.
Grant me the secret longings of my
heart.

Ash sat cross-legged, his erection
bobbing angrily, stimulated by the tingling heat of the flying ointment. They'd
pretended to each other, tacitly, that it wasn't going to happen; but in a
moment she was lowering herself onto him. The moment eclipsed all external
considerations. Both could feel the heat of the flying ointment inside and
out. Ash made love to her as though it might be his last time on earth, and she
writhed in his arms like a bitten serpent. They were already hallucinating in
each other's arms before orgasm catapulted them almost into loss of
consciousness. Ash saw their bodies replicate, locked in an endless procession
of loving and birthing, a girdle of light spinning from their glowing, corporeal
and coupled form, spreading round the planet; Maggie saw it as an unbroken
scallop of light, an eternal caravan of reincarnation fanning from the circle
and sourcing from this act of love. His hot seed was inside her, running like
the mercurial thoughts firing in her brain, each seed a ball of energy she
could ride to take them anywhere she wanted to go.

Maggie passed out of consciousness
and came to in that familiar, timeless grey corridor. Ash was there. Grey and
black geometric shapes drifted by, fracturing, reforming. The helping face
appeared. Maggie promised a gift, and the face changed to become the parting in
the grey corridor. This time the parting revealed nothing but an ethereal
light. She moved toward the light and Ash wanted to follow her. She made him
understand he couldn't come with her; that he must wait behind, stay and
safeguard a way back for her. They were beyond speech. She was unable to
explain. She waved him back, turned and stepped...

Into the turquoise light!
Swimming, flying in the turquoise light!
The light of far
memory.
Far memory.
And she sits in a chair, in
the middle of a room she should know. She is waiting. They are coming for her,
but she no longer has any fear. She has placed herself beyond terror, with her
secrets, which are also safe. Only she knows where they are, hidden behind a
fireplace boarded with wood, where they will never look. She sits, patiently waiting,
knowing of their approach, sensing that they are close. It is summer and the
smell is high.
Odours of decomposition and sadness, from
within the house.
Her dog and two cats lie
decomposing in the kitchen. Flies are thick in number. She herself is
starving,
but she cannot eat. She has placed herself beyond hunger.

There comes the hammering on the
door.
Again.
Then a splintering of wood as they force
their way in. Oh, Bella. The splintering noise becomes a ripping sound, like a
tearing not of cloth but of the ethereal light as she is flung again
—
into
the turquoise light!

And she is no longer Bella, and
they have her at the gibbet and the rope sore round her neck the gibbet, and
the gibbering crowd.
Faces.
She recognizes faces in
the crowd. The light goes out as the hood falls over her head, her legs kicked
away and she swings, oh swings, and the small crowd gasps and is silenced, for
her neck has not snapped, only burned on the hemp rope, and she swings,
choking, and there is a rumour and consternation from the crowd, and they cut
her down.

The Scottish way, they say, they
will the Scottish way, and they parade her bare-breasted and carrying the
brands of the irons on her breasts, as they taunt and spit. She is carried to
the place in the square where she sees them, bundling faggots high in the place
of burning.

And again faces she should know.
The women bundling the faggots high, she knows them! Two red-headed
women,
and another old woman with loose skin at her throat
like a turkey's wattles.

The old woman spits at her as
she draws near, curses her, pushes her toward the pile of faggots.
Confusion.
Betrayal.
The men leave
off her and let the women take up the cry, spitting, cursing, and this old
woman is among the most vicious, though drawing close and talking to her
roughly, and under cover of this action presses something into her hand.
Here,
little sister,
she says in a whisper, an under-breath that betrays her own
fear,
here, little sister.
And it is a pressing of the herb
dwale
, belladonna, which will be her only relief from the
flame. She is comforted in her torment, knowing her sisters have not abandoned
her; she bends double in disguise of swallowing the
dwale
and the old woman pretends to cuff her and heap curses upon her head.

Yes, she is beyond all help, and
her only fear now is for the Chain. How shall she pass the Chain when they will
not let her little sisters draw near? How shall she chant the song of dying to
a one?
Two thousand years and the Chain broken?
And
how shall she, Annis, truly die if not by the Death Lullaby? Oh, little
sisters! Oh, little sisters! My heart is a little bird! Tear it from my breast!

And they are surely other sisters
heaping high the faggots of wood to burn her! And there are others she should
know. Here the white-haired priest whose name she should know, damning her,
book and bell; and here another man whose bed she should know full well,
bearing the torch to ignite the wood. Who are these men?

The
dwale
takes effect, clouds sense, closes her eye, glory to the little sisters who did
not forget her in her hour. And though the fire licks lazily at the wood under
her, trailing thick grey plumes of smoke, she sees the sisters watching,
watching in stillness while others bray, names she should know, names which confuse
her, Liz the elder, Bella
the redhead, and
this other flame-haired one turning her face is Maggie.

Confusion! The
dwale
has befuddled her senses. How can this be if she is Maggie? I am Maggie; no, I
am Annis.
The
dwale
.
And
there comes the pungent smell of burning chestnut in her nostrils. Chestnut!
The sisters! They know!

The flame
gutters out. She comes to, still alive, unburned. Rumour and fear in the crowd.
They light the faggots of chestnut brush again. A second time it smokes and
it'll not catch. The sisters! Oh, the sisters!

Three
times they light the wood. It smoulders; thick, acrid coiling serpents of
smoke, but it will not catch.
Three times.
The sisters
know
,
piling the wood high with sweet chestnut of the
season and it will not burn! Chestnut scarce at all: who has the knowledge of
the wood? Sisters, you have saved me from the noose! You have saved me from the
flame! Come to me now and take the Chain! The
dwale
has made me weary of this world and it is for you and no other I am ready.
Come, those of you who are
maiden
, and let me print on
your lips the lullaby of death and departing} In the midst of smoke and death I
am in song!

Annisl
Maggie!

But they
cannot draw near lest they betray their natures, those sisters. And worse is to
come. She passes from consciousness and they take her down, many even afraid
now to handle her. For what work is this? What trickery? What truck with
demons?

The white-haired priest.
He approaches, bell and book. His voice quavers. So be
it. If she shall so defy death, then grant her a living death. They say she can
curse. Then sever her hand and foot that she may not point her curse at any
man! They say she speaks magic words to her like.
Then
brank
her that she be denied all faculty of speech.
They say she can fly. Then bury her, so that if she
sprout
wings they be no help for her! And keep her alive that she
endure
her living death. Do this in God's name!

And they
sever her hands and her feet, and cauterize the bloody limbs with burning
brands. And they
brank
her head, and the spike bleeds
her tongue. And they squeeze her into a tiny casket and bury her, leaving a
breather pipe with which to water her and make hers the torment of many days
and nights.

And in
the night the brave sisters come, whispering words to her though she cannot
answer them, and trickling potions to her lips to assuage her agonies. And
they bury moon plates and knives and ask for the intervention of
Hecate
, to keep her heart from hatred. But the potions
and her agonies derange and confuse her, and one
night there comes a
one, a sister.
The sister whispers to her, whispering strange words in the
blackest
hour, rare words in the darkest night of her suffering.

I have come to you,
says the voice.
I
am Maggie, and I will take away the
brank
of time.

Maggie woke inside the rope circle, cradled by Ash.
She was shivering and weeping. Ash had draped one of his white shirts round
her shoulders.

"I was there, Ash," she wept. "I saw it all."

"You're back; you're safe. It's all right."

Ash had come to some time before Maggie.
On recovering he realized Maggie was still out cold, but weeping. Maybe she was
dreaming, but in her unconscious state she was racked by a profound,
distressing sobbing. He'd tried to make her come to. Then he'd found something
to drape over her shoulders, returning to cradle her in his arms until she
recovered consciousness. He got her to sip a little water.

"I was watching. I saw everything.
Yet I was Annis at the same time. I was both Maggie and Annis."

"Drink this."

"She was one of the innocents, Ash.
They twisted her. I know what she wants. They hurt her; oh, how they hurt
her." Maggie sobbed in his arms. The things he was unable to see were
tearing her heart. "Did you see it? Did you see it?"

But Ash hadn't seen it. He'd been
left waiting in that grey place, that mysterious corridor between seeing and
understanding, the memory of which was already fading for him. Whatever she'd
witnessed was not for his eyes. Now there was nothing he could do but believe
what Maggie told him.

"I understood, Ash.
All of us.
We're all
branked
by
what life does to us.
You.
Me. Alex.
Amy and little Sam.
All of us, Ash.
We're all waiting to take the
brank
away. And it
hurts. It hurts."

Ash held her, until her sobbing had exhausted itself.