The Sister
By Max China
Chapter 1 (Prologue)
Midsummer 2007
He’d always stayed away from deep water – it scared him, but this time was different: he jumped in to save someone; his efforts have exhausted him. He can’t swim.
Did you save her?
Stripped of every thought that used to matter, he struggles. Snatching a desperate breath before going under again, he presses his lips tight, clamping his last breath inside. He sinks lower. Pressure builds, charging his head with ear-splitting pain: the sound of his heart grows louder. Deeper down, the murky water blankets the light filtering through. He closes his eyes.
Oxygen drains from his blood and lungs; every signal from every nerve attacks his ability to remain calm. His chest bucks against the urge to gulp. With only seconds to spare, his feet touch the bottom.
The brute will to live kicks in, and survival mode takes over, diverting every ounce of strength into powerful thighs. Driving up, he surges through the water, a human missile shooting for the surface. The initial burst of acceleration stalls against the mass of water. Without technique, desperation propels him further, and he thrusts his nose and mouth clear of the lake, out into the air. He sucks in a quick shot, before sinking again.
A Japanese mantra starts in his head. Mushin no shin ... empty mind. All thought must disappear.
The instant he feels the lake bed underfoot he drives up hard again, a bubble about to burst.
Although his mind is empty, he knows if he doesn’t make it this time, without rescue, he is finished. Flailing his arms and legs, his frantic actions get him higher, and he pushes his mouth up to clear the water. Just another inch.
The effort in vain, the chance missed, he slips down again.
His heart sinks. He’d always known when the end came it would come by water...the end of living on borrowed time.
Someone’s words spring to mind: In those last moments, you don’t see your whole life flashing by, but if you’re lucky ... you get to make some sense of it all.
Reflex takes over. He gags on the first influx of water. Watching the huge bubble of displaced air break for the surface, he sees a distorted world within it. You should have learned to swim…
Chapter 2
North Cornwall – Summer 1967
Halfway across a sloping section of the woods, in a well-hidden clearing, a boiler-suited man was about to light a fire. Next to it, a small stew pot filled with rabbit meat. Discarded body parts, skin and offal, lay a few feet away. A cloud of bluebottles buzzed around the unwanted waste; the noise irritated him. Scooping the refuse up with a shovel, he swung it over his shoulder, catapulting the pieces with ease across the space between him and the water. They plopped in through the chickweed, releasing an unpleasant, sulphurous odour. With the remains gone, the flies dissipated, and silence returned.
As the match he struck fizzed into life, he heard voices. He blew it out. Moving low and keeping under the cover of scrub, he peered through the bushes.
A young man came into view, crossing over a ridge in the path further down. He was dressed in khaki and wearing a leather bush hat. A rangy dark-haired girl walked next to him. Both carried rucksacks, sleeping bags and climbing gear.
They were heading his way.
As they came into earshot, he kept back out of sight.
‘You told Lei you were coming here?’ the girl asked. ‘Are you sure she won’t get lonely and come down to join you – us?’
‘No. She won’t come here. Like I said, we argued, and now we’re not talking ... besides, she’s scared of this place, what with all those old stories ... ’
‘What old stories?’ The girl stopped and looked at him, hands on hips. ‘You’re scaring me now.’ Suspicion darkened her expression. ‘By the way, you didn’t tell me why you’d argued. You haven’t told her about us, have you?’
‘No – now come on, Christina, let‘s get this tent up!’ He laughed and pulled her in for a kiss.
Thirty minutes later, the man unfolded the two sets of new boiler suits he’d fetched from his car and laid them out by the stream bed. He took the left hand sleeve and the left trouser leg of one set and twisted the ends, joining and knotting them together. Then he repeated the action on the opposite side. He’d now formed two handles, with the main body of the suit becoming the bag in the middle. When he was finished, he did the same with the other one and then, unzipping the top of each, prepared them to receive their cargo of ballast.
The trek to the car in the heat and his latest exertions left him sweating profusely. A mass of flies trailed him while he collected fist-sized rocks from the dried-out edges of the nearby stream.
He counted out twenty-seven stones for each boiler suit. The number was important, the product of three, multiplied by itself three times – the ultimate lucky number. With the stones packed in, he hauled them up to the pond, placing the modified suits on the ground near the water.
Straw-coloured hair, mixed with dirt and perspiration from his forehead, stuck to his face. He drew his fingers across it and down his cheeks, wiping the sweat away, giving him the appearance of wearing light camouflage.
Moments later, he crept up on the tent, moving closer, listening to the growing sounds of passion. His shadow cast itself across the nylon wall. The moans coming from inside ceased abruptly.