The Sister(7)
No one responded to an appeal for witnesses.
Chapter 7
Southern Ireland.
Miles away across the sea at Celtic Deep, a thirteen-year-old girl hovered between light and darkness. The fever that had burned her up for the past two days had broken at last. She opened her eyes. The light, though dim, stung them as she blinked to focus. Her mother smiled at her; relief clearly visible on her face. As she reached to turn the flannel on her forehead, she thought Vera’s eyes looked greener than usual. Such a pretty girl...
‘Praise, God, you’ve come back to us.’
Vera simply looked at her and said, ‘It isn’t safe outside.’
‘What’s not safe, Vera? You’re here, safe with us. There’s no need to worry about anything.’
‘Yes there is, Ma, I saw. There’s a man...’ Vera turned her head on the pillow, cutting eye contact, staring with consternation at a point beyond the wall. Her mother’s questions faded from her consciousness as she closed her eyes once more.
Vera became moody and withdrawn, sleeping for hours during the day, then wandering restlessly in the night.
The doctor advised Mrs Flynn to keep her off school for two weeks. Her convalescence took longer than that. A pale and sickly child, Vera had been the only one in the family to have ginger hair. Her mother thanked the Lord it was the colour of bright copper, and not orange, but even so, at times other children taunted her mercilessly. Vera refused to leave the house, even when she’d recovered, and she would not say why.
Finally, her mother lost patience with her reluctance to venture out, so one Sunday morning she dragged her out of bed and announced she was taking her to Mass. Despite her protests, Vera dressed, but when the time came to leave, she would not go. Her mother hauled her outside, screaming and kicking all the way to the church. Once inside, she lapsed into a strange silence. They sat at the back, in the only available pair of seats together. Vera shivered, her teeth chattering noisily. She made a grrrr-ing sound as she shook. Concerned, her mother looked across at her, half thinking she was faking something to get out of the service. Suddenly, Vera’s leg spasmed, and her foot struck the pew in front with a dull thud.
‘Vera – what are you doing?’ Her mother hissed under her breath. Both legs stiffened, stretched out taut, her backside raised off the seat as her back arched. She collapsed between the pews, trembling.
A woman asked, ‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘I don’t know,’ her mother said. ‘She seems to have had some sort of fit.’
Two men carried her outside into the air and laid her down. A small crowd gathered around her prone body.
‘Vera? Vera love – are you all right?’
Slowly, she turned her face towards them. It had blistered so badly that the group of people surrounding her, gasped as one.
‘Holy Mary! Fetch Doctor Robert, someone, and be quick about it!’
Vera barely managed a whisper, ‘I said it wasn’t safe outside.’
They took her back inside the church.
The doctor arrived and following a brief examination, could offer no immediate diagnosis. ‘I believe it’s an allergic reaction. Her recent illness has weakened the body. I’ll prescribe something for her skin. In the meanwhile, let’s take her home. I’ll give you a lift.’
Inside the house, he scribbled out a prescription and handed it to Mrs Flynn. ‘She’s to rest. Get her drinking plenty of fluids. Call me if you need me, but otherwise, I’ll be back in a couple of days.’
Her newly healed skin was smooth and pink. It became clear she’d be unable go outside, whether the sun shone or not. The smallest amount of ultra-violet light triggered severe burns. The doctor, mystified, took blood and tissue samples and sent them away for testing. No medical evidence was found to support any known ailment. Dr Robert suspected she’d somehow triggered a psychosomatic illness so she could avoid going out. Forbidden to leave the house until someone came up with an effective solution, Vera made sense of things from her bed. She resigned herself to a past she couldn’t alter, and she looked at ways she might bring about a change in the future.
It came to her suddenly. To do that, she would have to be outside, and in order to do that, she’d have to cover herself up completely during the day. Mostly she would go out at night while the rest of the house slept. It was on one of those nights that she wandered down to the beach. The sea was speckled, flecked with silver moonlight. It was then she saw it for the first time. Sitting amongst the millions of other stones on the foreshore, it glowed, its blackness exposing it just as surely as if it were white. Vera stooped to pick it up. At first, she thought it must be a black marble. She knew straight away it was unlikely to be glass because, although perfectly spherical, it had the heavy weight of some type of metal. Even at her tender age, she knew the chances of such an object occurring naturally would be almost non-existent.
She held it up in front of her, between her thumb and forefinger, amazed such a relatively small thing, when placed at a precise point in her line of sight, could eclipse the silvery orb. For a fleeting second, she had the feeling that the world was within her grasp. Celestial light seemed to lay a pathway across the water to where she stood. Vera remained spellbound, giddy and incredibly light on her feet, until a passing cloud broke the spell and allowed the return of her senses. In that moment of insight, she understood she could make herself bigger in the overall scheme of things by altering her perspective on life, by moving her standpoint.