The Sister(207)

‘What do you mean?’

‘Have you ever been to a medium?’

‘No. I don’t believe in them.’ She recalled how her parents had been cheated by fake offers to track Kathy down. ‘Your mother, The Sister, she isn’t a medium is she? She’s more than that.’

‘Yes, she is.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘She won’t be long now. Do you want to play with the sands while we’re waiting?’





The Sister twisted herself away from his grasp. ‘Do not touch me,’ she said, and then fixed him with fierce intensity, her eyes piercing him, connecting…





A young girl lay on a bed in the grip of a fever. Hair, unwashed and bedraggled, the palest ginger he’d ever seen spread about the pillow around her head. He watched her, watching herself from a point, he guessed, that must be just below the level of the ceiling, her mother by her bedside, damping her forehead with a flannel, stroking and soothing. All colour left her skin. She disappeared from view as he was pulled backwards, high above the house, soaring into the stratosphere, spinning and wheeling. From dizzying height, he looked down. I know this place. A man and a woman pitching a tent. Through her eyes, he witnessed their murder, the strange ritual the killer followed in disposing of the bodies. Whisked back in moments, he found himself looking up at her mother as she smiled and caressed her face. You’re back.

The passing of time was marked in seconds rather than weeks as doctors and priests came and went.

The girl in the purple dress he now knew was Lei Liang… The killer lying in wait – he wanted to scream out, to warn her, as if his voice could carry back through the years. Wait!

A small boy skipped along from stone to stone by a stream. That’s me! He watched it all from his bird’s eye view. His mother scared, looking all around, crying out his name, panicking, running in circles tethered to the spot by his little sister. His grandfather rising, turning and tapping his father. Come on! The race against time... Lei Liang’s strangled face... his slip. Boyle as he looked for him… The body hurled into the water, and more things than he could possibly have seen for himself that day. Moments. Stolen moments. Stolen lives. The killer had done more than steal the lives he took; he’d stolen a part of the lives of those who had seen him, too. Tumbling through time, echoes of long forgotten words trailed him. You’re back…





The truth dawned on him. ‘So all those times, all those near-death incidents and near misses, the interventions, you engineered them, didn’t you?’

She shook her head. ‘No, not me. I’m not allowed to intervene, remember?’

‘Then who?’

Whispers, like those he heard in the night sometimes, rose from behind. A chorus of droning voices murmured, coming through, male and female, old and young.

‘Look around you,’ she said, gesturing expansively at the congregation she’d assembled for him. ‘These are the shadows that intervened for you in life, as well as in death.’ Grandfather, Lei Liang, Brookes, Josie, Kirk and Kennedy, all were there.

Turning, he faced them and shook his head. ‘They’re not real.’

‘You will see.’

Each matched the last memory he had of them exactly. Somehow, she’s able to read my thoughts and project images back to me.

Gossamer strands of hair floated, charged with static electricity, surrounding her head in a rosy, beatific golden glow. Her eyes shimmered and fixed upon him. A maelstrom of complex feelings tore through his emotions, overwhelming him. Struggling to pick them apart, he saw Josie on a ship’s deck alone at the rail. A man approached from behind and savagely attacked her. Spared the entire ordeal, for him it was over in seconds. The man heaved her overboard, into the sea.

Miller wept.

‘You were among her last thoughts,’ Sister said.

‘Don’t.’ He shielded his face behind a raised hand as he composed himself. ‘Can they see me? Can I talk to them? I feel them stronger than ever before.’

‘You closed yourself to them. Only in your dreams do you hear. Only through your mind can you speak to them.’

‘I have so many things I want to say.’

‘They know. There’s no time now, soon I have to leave.’

‘Sister, I need more answers. Just give me a few more minutes, please.’

She smiled, and her eyes sparkled. ‘I bring water to within sight of the horse. Then he must find his own way to drink. Moments, you have moments.’

He scanned their faces. Aside from one, all others averted their eyes. Brookes. Perhaps he holds the key to the most recent mystery. He hadn’t changed since he’d last seen him alive. The shy smile, his hair the same bright copper hue, the creamy face and biscuit coloured freckles, all the same. He felt in his pocket; his fingers found his seashell. Pulling it out, he held it in front of him. ‘Chris, how did you give this back?’

The Sister answered for him. ‘The answer is beyond our comprehension.’

‘Does that mean I’ll never understand? Answer me this. Did you send them to look out for me?’

‘Heavens, no, they did that for themselves. As for understanding, I have shown you the water.’

Aware that time was running out, he felt it from her. The water glimmered on the horizon as elusive as an oasis, and yet…