Dark Sister Page 7

  "Early start?" said Alex, buttering his toast.

  "I figured it's the only time I can have to myself if I don't want to be accused of neglecting anyone."

  "Shall we see," said Alex, "if we can get through an entire Sunday without having a bust-up?"

  Amy looked at Maggie as if the decision was entirely up to her.

  Alex went along to the Merry Fiddler for a lunchtime drink with his cronies. He always made a point of inviting Maggie, and she always made a point of declining to join him. Didn't she have the Sunday roast to think about?

  The children vanished with Dot down into their converted cellar playroom while Maggie got busy. Not until pans were bubbling and steaming on the stove did she go down to check on the children.

  They were playing quietly on the rug. Dot was scratching herself in the corner. Alex had made a decent job of converting the cellar. He'd papered the walls and laid a floor of wooden tiles only six months earlier. Maggie noticed a rust-coloured stain spreading from beneath the rug.

  "Who spilled something?" she asked crossly. The children looked up with wide eyes. "Off the rug. Come on! Up! Up!"

  Maggie pulled the rug aside to reveal a large, reddish-brown stain, four or five feet in diameter. It was dry. Someone had spilled paint, she guessed, and had tried to hide it with the rug. Only Dot looked vaguely guilty. Maggie fetched a bucket and a scrubbing brush. She scoured at the wood tiles, but the stain showed no sign of lifting. She scratched at it; it wasn't paint and she couldn't work out what it might be. So she tried a solvent, but that didn't lift it.

  Amy, standing on the other side of the stain, said, "It's a face."

  Maggie stood beside her and saw that she was right. The stain formed an inexact visage; features only half-formed in places, ugly, contorted, but nonetheless a face. Maggie covered it up again with the rug. She returned to the kitchen to attend to the roast.

  "It's the lady," Sam told Amy after Maggie had gone.

  "What lady?"

  "The lady at the shop. And she's been in the garden. She has."

  Amy tried to sound like her father. "Are you telling lies?"

  "She has! She rides a rat! She's been in the garden!"

  "All right. I'll lift up the rug and you spit on her face. Go on. You spit on her face."

  "No, I’l1 lift up the rug, and you spit."

  "You're scared."

  "You spit, Amy. Go on."

  So Sam lifted up the rug and Amy spat on the face. Then they put the rug back.

  "Don't say anything," said Amy.

  "Great dinner!" said Alex, wiping gravy from his moustache. "Tell Mum thank you for a great dinner, kids."

  "Thank you for a great dinner," said Amy.

  "Thank you for a great dinner," said Sam.

  This was Alex's way of trying to make peace. The lunchtime beer had made him frothy and exuberant. He got down from the table and put a match to the fire he'd prepared earlier, picking up the Sunday newspaper before flinging himself on the sofa.

  "Before you get too comfortable," said Maggie, "would you have a look at the playroom floor? I think there's damp coming up from underneath."

  Alex looked at the fire, then at his newspaper. He let the paper slide to the floor. "Sure."

  He went down into the playroom and checked out the tiles. That was his Sunday afternoon gone. He had just enough tiles in reserve to replace those ruined by the staining. Lifting out the old ones, he found no sign of damp. It was puzzling, but he simply re-laid the new tiles. It took him the best part of two hours.

  "Job done," he told Maggie, returning to his sofa minus the lunchtime cheer. "Probably something in the wood stain."

  Ten minutes later the fire was roaring and Alex was snoring.

  Maggie decided to make an effort herself. She was not so self-absorbed as to suppose her relationship with her husband would mend on its own. She knew that marriage was sometimes a job of work. It needed routine maintenance with full commitment and sleeves rolled up. If only she could find a way of blending that with her newfound interests.

  Gardenia for harmony. Musk for passion. Jasmine for love. Rose geranium for protection. Yarrow for seven years' love and to stop all fear.

  Harmony! Passion! Love!

  She would be prepared to settle for the first and least of these, if only it were that simple. Yes, it was easy enough to make a pretence at harmony. Be sweet, Maggie! Be pliant! Save your spices for the family casserole and don't ask for more, Maggie!

  But that wasn't harmony. That was the paralysis of a weak heart—when inside she was scalding.

  Passion, once there had been plenty of that. There had been a time in the beginning when they'd been afraid to get out of bed for fear the other might not be there when they returned. Now there were times when, making up her face before a mirror, she might pause to remember some of that passion, and to stretch briefly like a cat, letting go a deep, sensual sigh. Love. Protection. Protection from what? From these adulterous fevers? Or from the fear that—even at that moment—invisible hairline cracks were appearing in the myth of cosy domesticity, a myth she'd never previously had time to challenge.

  Maggie didn't want to lose any of it—Alex, the children, the family hearth. But she'd become terrified by a sense of how fragile the thing was, how a moment's inattention might break it. Seven years' love and to stop all fear. Well, they'd had seven years' love, and maybe they'd worn it out. That was her biggest fear of all, that something irreplaceable was already spent.

  Earlier that day, before coming home, while still In the woods, she'd been gifted an inspirational message. Maggie, sitting under her tree, had been brought out of her reverie by the tiny quivering of some live thing. Its striped markings blended in so well with the leaf mould and the autumnal ferns that she hadn't noticed. A faint movement betrayed its presence, and she came to her senses, instantly recognizing the black and grey-brown chevrons delineating its length: adder.

  No more than a yard from her bare foot, it had been sizing up a small bird alighted on a moss-rich, rotting log. Maggie couldn't understand why the bird didn't take flight. It was a tiny jenny-wren, close enough for her to see that it was looking at the adder. Then she realized it was hypnotized. It was paralyzed by the gaze of the snake.

  The adder was a late hibernator. Most of its cousins would be settled in for their winter sleep, and for that reason Maggie felt that here was a significant moment. It was a gift for her; a message from Nature. Maggie had narrowed her eyes and stretched her neck. She made a low hissing noise. It seemed madness, but she'd thought she could project her will into the snake. "Leave it." She wasn't sure if she'd spoken these words or only thought them, but they emerged like a rattling breath caught in the back of her throat. The adder's eyes flickered from the bird to her. Maggie clapped her hands and the wren flew off. The adder slipped away into the ferns.

  She'd gazed for a while at the spot where the adder had been, before suddenly feeling bitterly cold. She had no idea how long she'd been there. It was then that she'd dressed and made her way back to the car.

  The hedgerows were ablaze with berries and wild fruit. Maggie felt as if her eyes had been stripped of scale. Black-red elderberries jostled for her attention with poisonous ruby berries of black bryony, healthful hips, brilliant white-beam, blue juniper, wild crab apple, and the shining black pods of deadly nightshade. The season had delivered, and the bushes were an open treasure chest. She determined to come back later, to collect. But meanwhile in the image of the snake and the wren she'd been given an epiphany. Here was a cameo, an emblem, a compact of her marriage. It was a message in a language she was uncertain how to interpret.

  She'd prepared her oils by the method of enfleurage, filling small jars with leaves or petals, immersing them in olive oil and leaving them for a day or two; then repeating the process several times, throwing away the old leaves and introducing fresh leaves into the same oil, until it became saturated with the fragrance.

  Finally the oil was strained
through filter paper into a bottle. A few drops of benzoin tincture were added as a preservative before the bottle was tightly stoppered.

  She was becoming an adept enthusiast of the art, using both instinct and olfactory good sense to decide when an oil was ready. She blended her oils with the eyedropper and added a pinch of yarrow herb.

  She sniffed the result. It made her smile. It wasn't exactly what she expected, but an irrational belief sat inside her like a guiding spirit. Any residual scepticism was no more than a skin stretched over the void. Old doubts were drying, cracking, sloughing off, freeing the bright, moist creature underneath.

  Then pour off into two jars, and then each anoint the other from their own jar, by the moon, asking.

  She poured the blended oil into two small, opaque bottles; one for him and one for her.

  That night, she waited until they were undressing by the soft light of the bedside lamp. Alex sat on the bed unbuttoning his shirt. She knelt behind him and began to massage his neck. He was tense, his muscles stiff as hawsers.

  "That's nice."

  She dipped her fingers. He tried to look across his shoulders. "Keep still," she said softly. She ran a hand through his hair.

  "Would you rub my neck, Alex? Just for a moment?" She slipped off her blouse, handing him a small jar. "Use this."

  "Strong stuff." He kneaded it into her shoulders and into her back. The oil glistened along her spine and on her smooth, pale skin.

  "That's enough. Come here." She took the bottle from him, held his hand, kissed it and wiped it across her own brow. Then she got up, set the two bottles on the windowsill to receive the moonlight, and switched off the lamp. She parted the curtains a little, to let in the soft rays of the waxing moon, and climbed into bed beside him.

  "Do you love me?" she asked.

  "You know I do."

  "Swear by the moon."

  "What?"

  "Swear by the moon that you love me."

  Alex snorted.

  "I mean it," said Maggie. "I want you to."

  "It's not Sam who needs a psychiatrist."

  "Just do it. Say it."

  "All right! I swear by the moon I love you. Can I go to sleep now?"

  "Yes. You can go to sleep now."

  THIRTEEN

  Maggie decided that the children's playroom needed cheering up. She tossed out a couple of old, broken, hard-backed chairs and introduced two brightly coloured bean bags. She also placed a few potted plants around the place: a parlour palm and a geranium brought indoors after a successful summer. She was placing the geranium on a low table when she was gripped by a strange notion.

  A momentary giddiness swept over her, and as if caught in a flash photograph she saw Alex working at the castle dig.

  "How could that be?" she said aloud. Sam looked up from his toys and smiled at her.

  "He won't like that, will he, Sam?"

  "Yes."

  "Go and fetch your coat. We're going out."

  The dig in the hollow outside the castle was underway as usual. For work, Alex wore Wellingtons, overalls, and a permanently knitted brow. He was directing a couple of students to set a series of level indicators. Round the perimeter of the dig area a wooden boardwalk had been constructed, to allow visitors an uninterrupted view of live archaeology. The public, however, had not been persuaded to desert the cinemas or the shopping malls or even their armchairs in favour of live archaeology. The idea had not been a vast commercial success, and it irked Alex to be on display to school kids and the odd courting couple. But on this day he looked up and saw Maggie marching Sam along the wooden planks toward him.

  "Hullo. What's up?"

  "Found anything?" asked Maggie.

  "Not really."

  "You haven't dug up anything interesting today?"

  "Not even a button. Why?"

  "Not even a button," Sam repeated.

  Maggie stepped off the walkway and paced across the sward to the far rim of the hollow. "Dig here."

  "What?" Alex laughed.

  "Just dig here."

  "Why?"

  "Because you'll find something."

  "You can't just dig anywhere you like, can you, Sam? The place would look like a rabbit warren, wouldn't it, Sam?"

  "No," said Sam.

  "Please yourself," said Maggie. "Come on. Sam." She swept Sam up in her arms and walked back the way she'd come. "Say bye-bye."

  "Bye-bye," said Sam.

  And they were gone. Alex looked at the spot Maggie had indicated he should start burrowing. He shook his head and turned back to the job of supervising the dig.

  Back at the house, Maggie began to make a more systematic study of the diary. She had begun to reread the entries day by day, hoping to glean more information about its author, Bella. But it was problematic. She wasn't convinced that the entries had been made chronologically at all, and still some of the pages contained nothing more than lists. Other pages needed raising, which she did either by pressing them with the palm of her hand or, more effectively, by applying a warm iron to them. Occasionally the heat failed to bring up an entry in full, but Maggie was learning more all the time.

  Stinging nettles burn the finger to touch it. But to boil takes out the sting. Then it will do as a remedy against the poison of hemlock, mushrooms, quicksilver and henbane, and the oil of it takes away the sting that itself makes. Gather in July and August, and will also give you good protection.

  Other entries were eccentric and inconsistent.

  A. says white moths are the souls of the dead. But I say this is twaddle, and that we should separate these superstitiousnesses from the true knowledge.

  On the following page was an entry which Maggie was unable to read in its entirety.

  Now I take back what I said about the white moth for [miss-ing] and was angry with me and showed me and told me that I should not gainsay my dark sister. My fear did [missing] I thought I should die. Why do I let my dark sister lead me? For we put the [missing] which use of the flying ointment I now abjure. Shred and powder the dwale and hemlock and [mixing] and hellebore and steep in hogsfat. But that you should [missing] and go courting death, for Hecate, and I have seen her [missing] that you should fly and I am afraid to look upon her face [missing] and a warning for all who take that path. Why do I let my DARK SISTER lead me so?

  Maggie did her best to recover the missing words, but she was unable to raise them on the page. Some oily substance had stained the paper there, and the full prescription was lost. Flying ointment she'd heard of before; but who was the dark sister, if not the mysterious A.?

  Sam was enjoying himself in the cellar playroom, swimming like a slow fish. It was a good game, but better when there was someone else to play it with. When his friend the doctor was swimming, it was easier to hear the sound of the waves and the splash of the water. He liked the doctor.

  Sam got up from the floor and looked around for something else to do. He had a crate of bright-coloured plastic bricks in the corner, next to the potted geranium. He padded over to the crate and tugged it away from the wall. Then he felt something wet splatter across his face.

  It hit him sharply across the cheek. Someone had spat at him. He lifted his hand to his face and wiped at the spittle. It was slimy and cold. He looked around him, but there was no one else in the room.

  He was still looking to see where the spit had come from when a second gob slapped him hard in the face. This time he knew where it was coming from. Sam wiped his face, backing slowly across the floor away from the low table bearing the potted geranium.

  Maggie came down the steps to the cellar to check on Sam and found him crouched against the wall.

  "Sam? What are you doing?"

  "Nothing."

  "Are you all right?" She picked him up.

  "Yes."

  But Maggie's nerve ends were prickling. She looked round the playroom. There was a disturbing smell in the air, a bitter tang, not strong, but pervasive. She looked at the pile of toys. She gazed hard
at the potted geranium. She looked at the new bean bags. Then she noticed the stain seeping from under the rug.

  She had a bad feeling. Sam was strangely subdued.

  Still cradling Sam, she swept the rug aside with her foot. The peculiar discoloration of the wood tiles had returned. It had come back exactly as it had before. Maggie stooped to wipe a finger across the surface, but it was dry. The marks she'd previously identified as a face had reappeared. She kicked the rug back into position, recovering the offending stain.

  "Tell me, Sam."

  Sam didn't want to speak. His fear of earning disapproval for telling lies, Maggie knew, was bringing on an unhelpful reticence. He muttered something inaudible.

  "What was that? Tell me, Sam. You can tell me anything."

  "It was the lady."

  Maggie shivered. "Come on, let's go upstairs and light a fire."

  FOURTEEN

  After three days, and against his better judgment, Alex got a dig going on the spot indicated by his wife. Truth be told, he had more helpers than he could usefully employ, and he set three volunteers on the task to keep them from under his feet. They roped off a square and set to work.

  On the second day, Alex was as surprised as anyone when things started to turn up.

  At first they hit what was a Norman wall forming part of the castle's foundations. These remains predated the main castle by a few hundred years, but were in no way remarkable. The medieval castle builders had simply capitalized on what was, after all, a prime defensive site. The volunteers were instructed to cut a section along the Norman wall and below it.