Dark Sister (26 page)

FORTY-TWO

Alex
was cultivating
serious doubts about the value of De
Sang's
treatment. He tried to
stay back as far as was practical, but since the psychologist insisted on
conducting these sessions at the family home, it was impossible to keep things
at arm's length. He was resentful of Maggie's implicit faith in the man. He was
also irritated by the way De Sang let Sam climb all over him. Beyond all that
he believed these sessions were making Maggie, if anything, more withdrawn from
her family. He managed to smother all these misgivings with a stiff civility.
He offered De Sang a glass of vodka.

"Who is this other ... personality
you're trying to get through to?" Alex wanted to know.

"It's the A. of the diary. That's all
I can tell you. Bella haunts Maggie, and A. haunts Bella. A. manipulates Maggie
through Bella, and uses her as a shield to stop me getting near her."

"But are they—were they—real people?"

"Maggie's the only real person."

Alex looked exasperated. "I'm out of my depth."

"No, you're not. Just think
of it as archaeology. Ruins built over other ruins." De Sang drained his
glass and declined a refill. "If only I had something on A. I could get to
her. Provoke her.
If I had her name, for example."

"When is Mummy going to play
with me again?" said Sam. He and Amy were seated at the dining table,
drawing with
colored
pens. Their behaviour was always
impeccable whenever De Sang was around, as if they sensed how important it was
to cooperate.

De Sang sat down beside them, reached for
a piece of paper, and began drawing along with the children.
"When
she gets better."

"Is she tired?"

"She's very tired," said De
Sang. "What's that you're doing Amy?"

"Secret writing."

"Show me."

Amy offered De Sang a special pen
she had. "You write on this, but you can't see anything. Then you press it
on the radiator and then you can see it." She showed him a piece of paper
on which she had written her name. "It's a spy-pen."

"That's clever. Where did you get it?"

"Mummy bought it from the toy shop."

De Sang studied Amy's graphics on the
paper as if they were letters chiselled in marble over the oracle at Delphi.
"Can I borrow this pen, if I promise to give it back to you?"

It was
true,
the
sessions did sometimes make Maggie increasingly withdrawn and uncommunicative.
She had her good moments and her bad spells. De Sang was afraid to push Bella
too far about her dark sister: the initial hysterical reaction, the
petit
mal,
all of these things made him anxious about the frail condition of
Maggie's psyche. He was genuinely afraid her presiding personality might become
completely swamped. In psychological terms, there was the danger of triggering
a true
psychosis.But
she was still seriously unwell.
Physically her condition was so alarming he felt it necessary to prescribe a
course of steroids.

A few days later De Sang decided to make
his move. "Hello, Bella," he said. Maggie was responding more easily
to the suggestion with each session. "I've come to talk to you again.
Have you gone quiet on me?"

There was no answer. She blinked and
looked away.

"I'm worried about Maggie."

As he'd expected, the name produced a look
of confusion,
a disorientation
. He pressed on.
"We might have to have her taken away."

Bella's bottom lip protruded. Her chin
tucked into her neck and her eyes filled with water.

"You wouldn't like that, would you,
Bella? You wouldn't wish that on anyone. Not again."

"They hurt me."
Little girl's voice.

"No one's going to hurt you anymore.
And no one's going to hurt Maggie.
If you help me.
Will you help me?"

"How?"

"Don't pretend you don't know, Bella.
There's someone I have to talk to. Only, you've got to let her in."

Bella shook her head violently.

"If you won't help me, then Maggie
will be taken away. And you'll see it. Because you are Maggie, aren't you,
Bella?" She was still shaking her head violently. De Sang was afraid of
another fit. But he knew he had to force the split. "Shall I call you
Maggie, Bella? Or shall I call you Bella? Or shall I call you by your other
name?"

Still she shook her head. De Sang reached
into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. The paper had at some time
obviously been screwed into a tight ball, but he had folded it neatly. When De
Sang had originally left the paper overnight by Maggie's bedside it had been
in pristine condition, and blank. He'd also left Amy's toy pen alongside the
sheet of paper.

"Someone was good enough to give me a
name," De Sang said. "Look at what's written here. Is that your name?
Shall I call you
Annis?

Her head stopped shaking and she flung
herself back into the chair, arms out wide, cruciform. She'd blanked out.

De Sang was sweating profusely. He wiped
his face with a handkerchief before proceeding.
"Bella.
Bella, I know you can hear me. I want you to listen to me, listen to my voice.
You know I'm here to help. Bella, I'm going to count to five, and on the count
of five I'm going to touch you and you'll become relaxed.
One,
two, three, four, five."

He touched her brow and she vented a deep,
deep sigh, her eyes remaining closed. "That's good, Bella, that's very
good. Now stay with my voice. I'm going to take you even deeper.
Deeper.
Because I want you to remember.
I think it's before your time, Bella, long before your time. Remember before
your time. How it was. And when I bring you back it will not be as Bella, and
not as Maggie. You will remember."

"Yes."

The sudden response took De Sang by
surprise. The voice was barely more than a whisper. Her eyes remained closed,
but her head shifted slightly on the cushion. Her tongue licked at her lips and
she swallowed hard.

"Annis?"

She didn't answer; continued to lick her
lips and swallow uncomfortably, as if with difficulty. Then, "Yes."

"Annis.
You've led us a dance."

"Dance?"
Still a whisper.

"Who are you?"

"I am Annis. I am only a small
bird."

"You've been frightening people.
Little Sam."

She continued swallowing with difficulty.

"You hurt people, Annis."

She opened her eyes and looked at him.
Some splinter of light in them made him afraid. "They are the ones who
hurt. They hurt me." She gasped.

"Are you thirsty, Annis?"

She nodded, and he gave her a glass of
water. She crooked her fingers round the glass and sipped the water painfully.

"Who are you, Annis?"

"Healer.
Harm none.
The priests.
They came for me."

"Like Bella."

"Bella is weak." Her eyes closed
again. He took the glass from her.

"Annis?
Annis?
Listen to me, Annis."

But she didn't respond. Her breast rose
and fell with her heavy breathing, a soft rattle issuing from her throat.

Then she said, "You are a priest."

"No," said De Sang. "I'm a healer. Like you."

"No; you are a priest.
New words.
New gods."

"I don't think you can know me, Annis."

"Yes. I know you. You were there. You were the priest."

And Annis was gone, and Maggie was
awake, shivering, shivering intensely.

FORTY-THREE

Ash
had been brooding. His visits to Maggie, grudgingly allowed
by Alex, had not convinced
him she was getting better. On that issue, he and Alex saw eye to eye. He paid
a visit to Liz, because he had no one else to talk to. He poured it out to her
in a state of such agitation his fingers trembled round his teacup.

"It's a do," Liz said
when he'd finished. She sat under her grandmother clock, the pendulum swinging
from side to side,
its
soft ticking sweeping back the
silence. She chewed at her inner cheek and stroked her dog. "Yes, it's a
do. You're missing her bad, ain't you?" she said. "Why did you give
her up so easy?"

"It wasn't easy, Liz. But it
was her kids. It was destroying her to be apart from them. And deep down she
loves Alex, I know she does. And though she didn't see it like that, I was
standing in the way."

"You're too good, Ash. Some
people are just too good for their own selves."

"She's ill.
Very
ill."

"What about this one that's
seeing her? What do you say to him?"

"The
psychologist?
I don't know. She trusts him. But it may not be
enough."

"She trusts him, eh?" Liz
looked thoughtful at that.

"What do you know, Liz?"

"What'll you give me for
it?" Liz laughed. Ash chuckled, but she saw there was no mirth in it. She
got up stiffly and took his teacup from him. "I'm still aching from a step
out I took." Then she lifted a bottle from her pantry and poured them both
a glass
of
elderberry wine. "I
knows
,"
she said, "of this one as is grabbing hold of her and won't let go. I've
seen '
er
."

Seen her? What do you mean 'seen
her'?"

"
She been
hooking on to them children. She
were
in my pantry
one day.
I seen
her all right."

"Do you mean the one they're
calling Annis?"

"We don't say
no
names, do we? You should know
that
if you know
anything. We don't say
no
names, but yes, that's the
one. I been looking out for them children, so I been ...
agin
her ... as you might say."

Ash stroked his beard. "Is
it—she—like a spirit trying to get possession of Maggie?"

Liz waved a hand through the air.
"Soft. You're soft, Ash. You know nothing. She ain't a spirit as is trying
to get in. She's a spirit as is trying to get out.
How you
ever going to understand anything when you're so soft?"

"What about the one called
Bella?"

"Same."

Ash shook his head. "Maggie
told me it all started with a bird.
A blackbird."

"
Aye,
and she told me that story. And she
were
like you,
soft, couldn't understand this, didn't know that. Talk it on for ever, she
would. I
says
to her, no, the bird wasn't trying to
get in you, it were trying to get out of you, but she couldn't see it."

"The
familiar?"

"Whatever
you wants to call it.
The bird, then this one she's got trapped on her
shoulder now, then the other one ..."

"Annis and
Bella."

"And more, as much power as
you've got.
All in you.
And will come out,
if
you're
a one.
All for you to use.
But if you're careless and
choose the wrong path, why, they'll want to use you, won't they?"

"But why does Annis attack the
children?"

"Who else is taking Mammy's
time and her wherewithal? It's all her vital, draining off to the children. So
she
don't
want that, this one doesn't. She wants 'em
out of the way so she can draw more vital for herself.
Particularly
the lad.
He's taking a lot of her. So she goes for the lad. And there's
something about that lovely gal she's
afeared
of."

"Amy?" Ash's head was
swimming.

"That story with the
blackbird.
When it all started.
Maggie breathed its
spirit back to life. Now I never done nor seen that. But I believe it. Because,
mark my words, there were more than just Maggie's power in the air that
day."

"You're losing me, Liz."

Liz took a swig of elderberry wine
and smacked her lips. "That's because you're soft. You want it all laid
out in a line for you. And then it's not the thing it is."

"Go on."

"No. I'm proper talked out now."
She stared down at the rug under her feet.

After a while, with nothing more
said between them, Liz closed her eyes. Ash could tell from her breathing she'd
drifted off to sleep. The clock ticked on. Once or twice she smacked her lips
in her sleep; at one point she snored, in a sawing kind of way.

Ash gazed at the floor, and then at
Liz's collie lying at her feet. Its ears pricked up and it looked back at him
with sympathetic but helpless eyes. He thought he should get up and leave Liz to
her snooze; she wasn't going to come up with anything for them. Then a sharp
spasm went through him, and Liz opened her eyes.

Her stick had fallen to the floor.
She leaned over and picked it up. "Yes, you'd best be on your way,"
she said, getting to her feet to see him out. Ash was a little surprised.
Normally he had to endure Liz's abuse whenever he wanted to leave.

"She lost something, Ash.
When she was shifting.
When she went
a-flying.
She lost some of herself and
her's
got to find it again."

"Where to
look?"

"What did your mammy tell you
whenever you lost something? Look where you lost it."

Liz came as far as the gate with
him. "Tell that one," she said, "to ask her about the Singing
Chain."

"The
Singing Chain?"

"That's it. And the Death
Lullaby. Ask that."

"What are they?"

Liz looked cross with him. She
raised her stick. "It's
nowt
to do
wi
' you. And you shouldn't even
know. Now get off and ask him."

"Just one
more thing, Liz.
All this talk of a dark sister.
Is Annis the dark sister?
Or Bella?
Or these spirits
she sees when she's flying? Or is it the
Hecate
she
talks about?" Or even you, he thought. "I mean, I'm lost."

"Is it because you're a man
you're so soft?" said Liz. "These are all her dark sister.
Coming out in different clothes.
But there's only one real
dark sister," and she tapped the side of her head, "and she lives in
here."

Ash shook his head and walked to
his car. He got in, turned the key in the ignition, and looked at the
rearview
mirror. Liz stood at her gate gazing after him,
her collie at her side. She was pointing her stick at him.

Ash reported all of this to De
Sang at his clinic. He got a frankly sceptical response.

"So far, all the information
we've been working on has been internal to the workings of Maggie's mind. Bella
is a character from a journal Maggie knows practically by heart. Annis is a similar
story. Alex says she wrote most of the diary herself and
is
just using
bits of information emerging from his archaeological dig at the castle."

"And what do you think?"

"What difference does it
make? Her behaviour and her health are what counts. But she wants to get well.
That's why she gave me Annis' name with Amy's pen. That's an indication of the
mind's natural subconscious will to heal itself."

Ash shook his head. "There's more
to it. I know you think she's just weaving a story around herself. But don't
you think this spirit of Annis might somehow have a life of its own?"

De Sang looked hard at him.
"I'm a psychologist," he said, "not a fucking mystic.

But De Sang was running out of
ideas. His sessions were hitting the same impassable bedrock. His aim in
surfacing the persona of Annis through hypnosis was to achieve integration of
Maggie, Bella,
Annis
all. And he was willing to try
anything. He attempted a long
session,
hoping
tiredness might offer some subtle change in the subject's response.

"Annis," said De Sang.
"I want to talk to you again. I want to ask you some questions."

"Always questions."

It was after midnight, and De Sang
was struggling to keep the weariness and hint of desperation from his voice.
He'd been working with Maggie since early afternoon, unable to get beyond or
away from Annis.

"You've told me, Annis, that
you mean no harm. But I don't believe you. You frighten Bella. You've terrified
Sam. Now you're threatening Maggie's life. Healers don't do this. Why,
Annis?"

"The
brank
of
time."

"So you've told me. But what does that mean?"

She sighed deeply and looked at De
Sang from under heavy, drooping eyelids. "Then tell me why you want to
hurt Sam. Tell me that."

"Because of
his mother's love.
It drains us.
Makes us weak.
Her love makes us all weak. She put balm on his eyes; he saw me, and I was
in."

"In where?"

"Your world."

"She put balm on his eyes?
Meaning Sam's mother?" No answer. No recognition. "What of Amy? You
didn't attack Amy."

"The girl?
She is... is a one. She has
the know
."

De Sang prowled the room, parking
his bottom in turn on the windowsill, the table, and against the mantelpiece.
Finally he dropped to his haunches in front of her before playing his wild
card. "Annis, what is the Singing Chain?"

Her eyes flared open. She looked
astonished. De Sang himself couldn't hide his own surprise at her reaction, and
when she registered that, she relaxed again. "If you know of that, then
you must know what it is."

"I also know of the Death Lullaby."

She shook her head complacently.
"That
you can
never
know."

"Then tell me about the Singing Chain."

"Let me sleep."

"If you tell me."

She snorted.
"The
Chain.
It is the passing on of power from a one to another one. That's
all. When we are dying, we find a one and give them our power, our hopes.
The Singing Chain.
My Chain is very long.
As
long as life itself."

"But how is the Chain passed on?"

"By the singing of the Death
Lullaby.
The most powerful of our many songs of
power."

"Sing it to me."

Again she snorted with contempt. "No
man was ever given this song. It is the property and chain of the wise women.
Healers.
And besides, to sing the Death Lullaby is to invite
death. It is
Hecate's
song."

"If you sang it to me, I would die?"

"Fool. You are not a one. I would die. I. It is for the passing on,
to a one. Now I want to sleep. I am weary of this."

"But tell me, Annis. Why didn't you
pass on the Singing Chain? Why didn't you die?"

"My time was taken from
me." A fat tear welled in her eye. "They broke a Chain of two
thousand years.
My little sisters of two thousand
years!"
Then she snarled, suddenly nasty again. "Let me sleep,
you priest!"

"But you want to die, Annis! You said
you wanted to pass on the Singing Chain! You told me that. Why not give the
chain to Maggie! Then you could die and leave her alone, and the Chain would
survive. Why not, Annis?
Why not?"

Her eyes closed. "Here,"
she beckoned feebly. "Closer." She was whispering. De Sang put his
ear to her mouth. "Closer. I will spit out the
brank
.
Come closer."

He was ready for her to tell him.
She grasped his lapel. Without warning she sat upright, launching an agonizing
high-pitched scream into the inner passage of his ear. De Sang shrank back in
pain, but her grasp was firm. The scream became louder. Her mouth was distended
to ugly, shocking dimension. The membrane-splitting shriek paralyzed him with a
pain like hot needles drawn through the most tender, fleshy parts of his inner
ear. The scream burned. It was a scream of hurt and fear and agony and hatred,
an occult screech calling across the centuries. The scream set up an
excruciating, dangerous vibration on the sensitive tympanic membrane. He
thought his eardrum must burst.

Alex rushed into the room and the scream
stopped. De Sang flung himself away, falling to his knees against the wall. He
put his hand to his ear, and there was blood on his fingers. He looked at her,
sitting on the chair, and she was grinning at him.

Grinning at both of them, with evil satisfaction.