The Sister(18)

Vera nodded her head. She needed the money too much to spoil her chances of a job with an argument about morals and ethics.





Chapter 14



As word of the new 'teller spread, one after another they came, in through the shop and into the vardo. Her clients were almost exclusively women. Some girls came by just for fun, and she didn’t object to engaging in what they wanted to hear. She saw no harm in holding their palms upwards in her gloved hands and telling them ... You’ll meet the man of your dreams. They hailed from a variety of backgrounds, rich, poor, widowed, and divorced. It made no difference to her. All had one thing in common. They craved answers.

The Sister needed no props, no crystal ball, no cards, no tealeaves or hot sands. She needed only impressions, nothing more than that.

Not allowed to intervene directly, she could point the way. At times, she strayed a little off the path, away from the one recommended by Mrs Smith.

She saw there were times when the truth would be more beneficial, although not without pain. It wasn’t long before she was giving them a choice. Do you want the truth? Before you give me your answer, search your heart. It may be that deep down you already know. The truth, when it comes from someone else, has the power to hurt as well as heal.

In many cases, the answers were there, but unable to face them, they needed them spelled out. Others just needed a clue. A few thought they might use the information to their advantage. One such woman had been carrying on an affair; her husband threatened to kill himself. She wanted to know if he’d really do it.

Sister held her gaze. ‘You want the truth?’

She nodded.

‘I see a lot of blood, and you can’t honestly blame him, can you? You, sleeping with another man in his bed ...’

‘Blood? Whose blood?’

‘Yours,’ Sister said.

The woman’s features stretched; her mouth gawped; her eyes widened as a mix of horror and disbelief took hold. She’d not told anyone of her situation ... so, how could she know? Afraid to hear more, she grabbed her coat and left in a hurry.

Sister’s thoughts turned to the last time she’d connected through the medium of skin. The experience had been too intense, even painful for her. The stone insulated her from that direct contact, yet still achieved almost the same results. Perfectly round and of a similar composition to Obsidian, from the instant she’d picked it up, it appeared to have a life of its own. Struck with an immediate discourse, a transfer of impressions, she’d wanted to absorb them, follow them all, just like a bloodhound trailing a scent. Her senses were overwhelmed to such a degree; she was afraid she might fall over. She would learn to ignore the distractions it threw up at her.

The night she’d found it; she put it in her pocket and then picked up other stones on her way home and held them for a moment. None of them behaved like the black one. She grasped the mysterious stone ball again, expecting a further transfer. Nothing happened, not a thing. Whatever was in it before had now gone.

She let herself in when she arrived at her house and, upstairs in her room, held it against the lamp. It was too dense to allow light to pass through.





The following day, she recalled putting it down on the kitchen table in front of Mick McMurphy. Although perfectly spherical, it rolled loopily across the top, almost coming to a stop before wobbling and changing direction, lolloping around in a small circle, almost to a halt, rotating at right angles to its former position, and then as if driven by something inside, it did it all over again, a miniature perpetual motion machine.

He picked it up and stroked an eyebrow, somewhat mystified. ‘That’s a meteorite thingy,’ he said, holding it close to his eyeball, trying to fathom it. ‘It melted when it came in through the atmosphere and turned into thousands of tiny balls when they fell into the sea.’ He was deadly serious.

‘Aww, c’mon Mick, you can’t really know that!’ she scolded, and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

His face was a picture of amused indignation as he protested, ‘Yes I do, actually, or how else do you think it turned into that shape!’

She smiled at him. He’s such a joker.

He plopped it into her outstretched palm. The moment it touched, a fragment of Mick’s life had flashed in her mind’s eye. Afraid, she grabbed at his hand; the jolt from it almost felled her. The impressions rushing into her were the same as the stone, but amplified many, many times. She looked at her friend. Oh, please God, it cannot be.

Bemused by her expression, he said, ‘What?’

Vera spoke very slowly, quietly. ‘I’m not sure. Promise me, Mick, that you’ll be careful...’

She knew what she knew; something akin to a code of conduct meant she could do nothing about it. When he’d handled it, she drew off what the stone absorbed from him, and after that it was clean again. She took from the stone, and it took from her. Her skin, already pale, became more sensitive still, so that even dull daylight could burn her.

‘She has no melanin in her at all.’ She recalled what Ryan had told her aunt, and it meant she needed to cover herself from head to toe whenever she ventured outdoors. And because of it, she preferred to spend her days inside, introspecting alone at the window, making sense of her precious black stone, watching other kids play, listening to the peals of their laughter. She put the memories of childhood behind her.