The Sister(162)

The car came to a halt. Rosetta killed the engine.

‘I’m really sorry about this, but I can’t let you take the hood off yet, not until we’re inside.’ She opened the door, took his arm, helped him out and led him to the front door.

‘Step in two paces,’ she warned.

He raised his foot gingerly.

‘Okay, we’re there; you can put your foot down.’

He lowered the foot. The air inside the hood was stale and warm; he could still smell the coffee on his breath. The door creaked open, it sounded heavy on its hinges. A gloved hand touched his and pulled him forward; his sense of direction became confused. He hadn’t noticed before she was wearing gloves.

‘You can take it off now.’ Rosetta’s voice no longer came from in front of him.

Miller removed it, and blinked at the light; a woman’s outline was silhouetted against the brightness pouring in from the window behind. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The woman in front looked just like Rosetta, perhaps a year or two older.

‘You didn’t say you had a sister,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘I’m Rosetta’s mother. Sorry about the hood, I told her there was no need, but she gets these things in her head.’ The light of the window permeated the loose strands of her hair and they floated, charged with static, fine and fairy-like in a golden aura.

He didn’t need to be told he was in the presence of The Sister, she held out a silken-gloved hand, and he took it. She led him down the crooked hall into an oak-beamed drawing room, where hand-carved linen-fold oak panelling extended halfway up the walls. The small windowpanes broke up the light and threw corners and recesses into shadow and cast shapes across the swirling autumnal patterned carpet.

She motioned for him to sit down at a small round table. There were two chairs; she took the one opposite.

Some of Ryan’s reverence for her had rubbed off on him and he felt in awe of her.

She had avoided eye contact until they were seated, but now settled them on him. Calm, green and all seeing, she held his attention easily. Her face oval, with skin smooth and pale as alabaster, she exuded warmth. Miller couldn’t detect a single age line in her complexion; her hair was devoid of grey. If Rosetta were twenty-five years old, The Sister would have to be at least in her early forties, based on the assumption that, as a good catholic girl, she was of consenting age when she became pregnant.

‘Finished?’ A curious smile played on her lips.

There could be no secrets in the presence of The Sister. What Ryan had said was true.

‘Don’t be afraid. There’s no need. I’ve been waiting for you a long time.’ She shifted her gaze to watch the approach of Rosetta, who brought them tea. She placed his cup on a saucer in front of him. Tiny swirls of steamy mist converged from the edge of the cup into the centre, where rising up it formed an ethereal spire of vapour. The scent found its way into his nostrils. Lemon tea.

‘I haven’t had a cup of that type of tea since my grandfather died,’ he said wistfully.

‘You miss him, don’t you?’ Her voice was warm, a lilting Irish brogue, soft as the summer drizzle he’d felt when they put his grandfather in the ground, buried with the two ounces of Polish soil he’d carried with him everywhere, so he never felt far from home.

He nodded slowly.

‘Every one of us has a purpose in this life; it’s like a rope. It pulls us through and binds us all together as we head along its length. We are the fibres that twist, turn and eventually break away. Some of us meet along the way, our strands entwine, and we share the journey, sometimes for a long time. Some will twist away around the bend and never meet with the other again. I see all these things, and it hurts me to sit on my hands, to have to watch it go by as it will. I can’t interfere, not directly.

‘I know how it feels when a wildlife cameraman is compelled to watch while nature takes its course, knowing he so easily could have rescued the calf which is about to be devoured. It’s why I had to wait for you to come to me. I first spied you out in a vision I had many years ago, our strands touched for the first time. Did you feel it? Your grandfather did, but he was weakened, and not long for this world.

‘I tried to link with you many times, but wanting to forget what you saw, you switched yourself off. You were in denial. In truth, you couldn’t know, you were too young. It’s only right you should come now, when you’re ready. We are all born, and we all die eventually. Those things are facts. We cannot change the end, but we can change the journey, not go to our fate in a straight line, go round the houses a little bit, and enjoy the view.’

She took a breath; he hadn’t noticed her breathing before.

‘We don’t always see our purpose from the ground, wrapped up as we are in the struggle to just keep going. When we are in the rope, in the coils, it’s as if we are going round and round, going nowhere. When we start our ascent, we might see it if we look back and have the where-with-all to figure it out. Everyone has a part to play; they may not see it right now. They may never see it. Many don’t make sense of it until their last days. Some will see it just as the light fades from their eyes. There are others, like you, blessed with second chances, a third or even more, given a chance to grow. There have been, and there will be times, when you can make no sense of any of it, but you were made to be strong, as were we all. You must find your strength.