The Sister(3)

Eyes half-closed; he stared through the ferns. The narrowing of vision enabled a sharpening of focus, and he was able to dismiss the animal runs at low level and pick out the fronds most likely bent by the shoulders of a child.

‘Wait, I have found his path!’ The old man waded through the undergrowth with a speed that belied his seventy-five years of age.

He pointed through the trees, and said, ‘Bruce went that way.’ A startled look crossed his face. ‘Mother of God, we must be quick. He is in danger.’

Bursting through the undergrowth, driven by fear, they followed a trail only his grandfather could see.





Chapter 4



The girl in the purple seersucker dress climbed all the way up; to come down the way she knew he would have taken. At its highest point, Lei stopped to admire the view. She rested on a boulder smoothed by wind and age and imagined three weeks ago he might have stopped there, too, taking a drink after the long climb, rucksack at his feet while he surveyed the dale stretching out below.

The valley sat between two granite escarpments almost a quarter of a mile apart. The landscape changed from rock to shale, dropping away sharply before becoming a gentle slope with patches of yellowish grass and scrub that grew wherever the roots could take hold, getting greener further down the hill where it flattened out around the stream.

A student in geology, she took in the extent of the flood plain and the displacement of pebbles and sandy deposits; it told her how, during heavy rain, it became a full-fledged river. She imagined the roar of the water, white and foaming, fed by the fingers of channels funnelling off from the slopes. The waters would swell, spilling out over bends that could contain it no more, settling back when the rains ceased, becoming once again a thin ribbon of water to gurgle its way over smooth stones, around rocks and boulders, before disappearing into a wooded glade.

The woods concealed the site of a tragedy, a system of workings and shafts, where thirty-nine miners lost their lives during one black day in the summer of 1857. A combination of freak weather and poor engineering had caused the mine to flood and collapse. Soon after the deluge, downhill from the mine’s entrance, a large swallow-hole had appeared in the ground and filled with water. Silt plugged its fissures and cracks, building up over time until the pond became permanent. Ferns, nettles and blackberry bushes grew up in the gaps between the variety of trees that had taken root around it over the years, encircling and completing its concealment.

Seen from high above, the body of water appeared malignant, vigilant. The texture of the vegetation surrounding it, forming warty upper and lower lids, totally shaded and utterly black, like the open eye of a giant, perfectly camouflaged prehistoric creature.

A buzzard circled lazily against the silent backdrop of a cloudless blue sky. The mid-August sun beat down without mercy. In the meadow below, the girl was only visible above the waist.





Lei stopped to unhitch her rucksack. Cool fresh air passed over her back. She untied her jet-black hair and shook her head, allowing the glossy mane to cascade almost to her waist. After flexing her shoulder blades, she resumed walking, carrying the sack by the straps. Its weight made her change hands frequently. Her fingers trailed through the dry tips of the long grass without a sound, but every stride whispered and rasped against the serrated leaves, scratching her legs, which stung as perspiration formed and found its way into tiny cuts. At first, thinking some sort of insect was biting her, she looked below her knees; the skin was red and blotchy. Already she’d hiked around seven miles, and sensing she was close to her destination, she took a map from her backpack to check.

The sudden disappearance of her boyfriend, and the guilt she felt because of it, had left her a little unstable and more likely to take risks. Earlier, she’d traversed a ledge she should never have tackled without equipment, but she no longer cared.

She was breaking all the rules that she’d spelled out to him. Always tell someone where you’re going, when you’ll be back, and never go alone.

Thomas was a caver and abandoned mine explorer. When he’d said he was going to scout the site of an old mine disaster, she’d refused to go with him. They'd argued about it. If you don’t come with me, I’m going alone! She didn’t believe for a minute he’d carry out his threat. Lei had been sure he’d find someone else to accompany him, but the next thing she knew, he’d disappeared. It turned out he had gone on his own, and she felt incredibly guilty. If she’d only gone with him ...

Now, she was going there anyway. The derelict Victorian mine complex down in the valley. The last place he’d still been alive.

In her heart, she knew he was dead, but she was convinced that if his spirit lingered, it would linger there. Rescuers found his tent pitched near the mine’s entrance. It was empty, his equipment missing. Unable to find any trace of him outside, the rescue team concluded that he must have decided to sleep in the mine. Perhaps, because of the recent heatwave, he’d found the constant temperature inside preferable. A few hundred yards into the mine, a fresh roof fall had rendered the whole section unstable, making it impossible to continue the search. In places like that, a single cough would be enough to trigger a further collapse. He wouldn’t have stood a chance. The mine was now his grave.

It had taken her three weeks to summon the strength to travel there to pay her last respects, going on impulse when she realised the date, and what day it was. Ghost Day. Her Chinese origins meant she believed, that for one day only, the gates of Heaven and Hell would open, allowing the dead a reunion   with the living. Thomas hadn’t had a proper ritual send-off. The gods had granted her the opportunity to do it on this day. Suddenly it felt important.