Without words or even a glance back at us, she began kicking off her shoes and stripping off her clothes—jeans, trainers, socks, hoody, t-shirt—everything, leaving nothing but a trail of abandoned garments in her wake. Wearing only her knickers to cover her modesty, she ran harder and faster into the clear, smooth waters of the loch before diving underneath the cool, calm waves.
Where most people would hesitate wading into new, uncharted waters, my sister had no fear of them in the slightest. Day or night, she loved the water and she loved to swim. When we were swimming in lochs together or down by the sea coast beside our home, that was when I saw my sister at her happiest and most free. Even if her unphased and unreactive body language was telling everyone else around her a completely different story. Her actions spoke far louder than any words or any blank facial expressions that she constantly gave off. And right then, she was very comfortable in her surroundings.
Chris and I hung back not far from his truck, just off the edge of the quiet and secluded slip road on the banks of the loch shore, and watched with completely different emotions as my sister swam further and further away, out into the water.
Chris was laughing giddily again but feeling mightily impressed that such a young girl could just go and do something like that, something that most adult men and women could not without a care in the world or a second thought for her environment and surroundings.
I, on the other hand, was just feeling a little apprehensive. My sister was as unpredictable as she was unfriendly and uncaring to people that she did not know. I had no clue if she would swim around the loch for an hour or so, come back in a few minutes, or just swim over to the other side of the water and disappear into the thick isolated forest there, never to be seen nor heard from for a good few days, well, until she turned up at my father’s farmhouse again.
“As we say back in Romania,” Chris stated, interrupting my anxious thoughts. “I like the big brass balls on your sister, man. If you don’t mind me saying.” He shook his head, still in disbelief of her bold actions. “The water must be so bloody damn cold in there!” He screeched. “It would take at least a thirty-degree mini heat wave to make me even consider taking off my clothes and go skinny dipping into a Scottish lake.”
I told Chris that she does it all the time. That we do it all the time. Even amidst winter. However, I began to seriously doubt that I ever would if it wasn’t for my sister right beside me, egging me on to do so.
I think I’d be much happier just lying on the shore with a good book or walking around the beach, exploring the rugged and off beaten paths and terrains rather than wading in for a swim. Swimming adventurously and freely without a care in the world was my sister’s pastime and idea of fun, not mine. I felt no obligation to follow her into those waters, in the slightest, unless we were desperate and had no other place else to go. Like we were trying to escape and hide from something or someone so terrible or we were trying to catch some fish to eat for a meal.
Even during a quick bathe or wash when we we’re camping out, the pain of the freezing cold water against my naked skin far outweighed the pleasure of having that clean, fresh look on my body and hair after the act. Plus, by this time tomorrow I would be enjoying my own warm and soothing bath and shower back in my own home again. So, delaying a bathing session by another day or so was never going to be a big deal for me.
“She’s a bloody mysterious one, your sister, no? She doesn’t like to say much but at the same time, she has such a demanding aura and presence about her, no?”
I told Chris that she’d always been like that, and for as long as I could remember. She inherited her bold confidence and feisty arrogance, if you’d like to call it that, by taking after my father a hundred percent. And as far as being quiet, well, she could talk when she wanted to, but only if it were something well and truly worth saying. But at her core, she only really talked to me or my father. But mostly to me though.
Even at school the teachers could barely get a word edgeways out of her, even on a good day. But because of her intimidating body language and facial expressions and her callous cold hard stares, oh, if looks could kill then the whole entire school would be gathering dust by now.
And because of who my father was, the teachers never made a big fuss about her strange and awkward behaviour or pushed her to speak or read openly in front of class. They’d just let her get on with it and do her own thing. Let her keep on being silent and broody, but at the same time keeping her almost out of their way, seated in the far back corner of the classroom so she could watch, stare, and listen as much as she liked without intimidating any of the other kids or teachers around her.
When dad eventually pulled us out of school, I think that every teacher in the place was a little relieved deep down inside. Thankful, too, that they wouldn’t have to deal with or tolerate her cold, hard, and brooding demeanour any longer inside their classrooms, and grateful that she was somebody else’s problem now.
The more time she spent in the company of just me and father, I think the worse and more unsociable she became. Strangers, or people she didn’t know very well, who entered our lives, even just for a few fleeting moments, she always treated with the utmost caution and suspicion. She looked upon new people, trying to pry their way into our lives, as a threat that could eventually lead to taking one of us, either me or my father, away from her. Or, potentially, both of us. Which is why she hated with a vengeance any new friends I made at school or out and about on our adventure expeditions, and so acted up accordingly. Which is probably why she was being so aloof towards Chris and I, retreating even further into her cold hard shell.
But what could I do? She was my sister after all. My flesh and blood. And I loved her with every ounce of blood and fibre in my being. I just had to let her get on with it. She was a force of nature. The biggest and meanest force of nature I’d ever witnessed in my entire life. Perhaps even more so than my father.
From my words, trying to explain my sister’s strange and erratic ways and actions, what Chris took most of all from it was my sister’s close relationship with my father.
“Your father… He must be very special to your sister then, if she puts him on the same such pedestal as you—her own twin sister, no?”
With a slight burst of unfamiliar anger, I replied to Chris that my greatest fear was that she might actually place our father on a much higher pedestal than the one in which I was currently seated upon. But he just shook his head and said that he couldn’t believe it. That he wouldn’t believe it. That a brother’ or sisters’ bond was always going to be far stronger than the bond between a father and his child. But I knew that he could only speak from his own experience, from his own perspective. He had no idea what it was like to be me, to grow up the way I had, no more than I had the faintest clue about what it was like to be him.
I wanted to tell him about my mother too. About my thoughts, opinions, and theories of what became of her. About that woman in the cellar who I believed to be her but was forbidden to say out loud, even by my own sister. Those dead frozen babies that my dad kept as some kind of trophy or memento. But I just couldn’t find the words. There was no way I could confess such an horrific thing to anyone, the more I thought about it. I mean, where the hell was I to start with any of that?
Then for some reason that I couldn’t explain, I confessed to Chris instead that if it wasn’t for my sister, I would have run away from my father’s grasp a long time ago. I didn’t mean to say such a thing, but my emotions were getting the better of me, especially since I hadn’t talked like this to anyone before in my life. I wasn’t as good as my sister you see at keeping my feelings and emotions bottled up, deep down inside, once given the opportunity to unleash them.
But as soon as I’d said it, I completely regretted it. It was such a naïve and stupid thing to say in front of someone who I’d only just met. I’d let my guard down. Surely now, the prying questions were about to flow from Chris’s mouth due to the obligation h
e might’ve felt about our situation, which in his mind, must have been growing ever more curious and bizarre the more I opened my mouth to speak.
He’d have a growing suspicion and urge now to try and protect us, protect me, or at least take us and hand us over to the proper authorities, if he sensed even just a tiny bit that something was amiss and foul in the air regarding my relationship with my father.
Instead though, he surprised me somewhat, he just stood there in silence and continued to watch my sister’s bobbing head, moving further and further away from our view on the shore.
The more he stood there in silence, though, not moving an inch, keeping completely still, only breathing his deep, hard breaths, the more I noticed the sun making Chris’s huge, bear-like shadow, gently creep over me like some kind of invisible, protective shield.
“What would you have me do?” Chris finally said, breaking the unbearable silence between us. “Would you like to talk about this… this father of yours… or would you wish for me to just forget that you ever mentioned him and how you have always wished to just … runaway?”
His spoken words made everything so damn real. To hear him repeat them back to me, sent sharp, terrifying shivers straight down my spine. So, I had told him a partial confession. I hadn’t just imagined telling him something.
And with that sudden realisation I began to feel the emotional brick walls that I’d built up over the years begin to topple down and crumble away, just like that. With no warning whatsoever, nothing. It just happened. It crept up on me like the dawn of a new day. Like I’d closed my eyes in the darkness of night for just a few moments and—bam! When I reopened them again, the light was already there. That was how quickly my water dams had burst and collapsed within and the tears soon flooded right out of my body and soul.
I closed my eyes, tightly at first, to try and make the tears go away. But it was impossible. Absolutely impossible. I felt them trickle down my face without end. Yet I dared not even move a muscle in order to wipe them away and give Chris the impression that something terrible was wrong. Yes, I would do everything in my stubborn power to not draw that kind of attention to myself.
Like Chris, I stood on the edge of the slip road, watching my sister disappear across the lake, yet positioned just slightly ahead of him. I’m sure he saw my entire body tense and stiffen up within the rays of the setting sun but, thankfully, he couldn’t see the unstoppable tears rolling down my cheeks. If he ever did, then I knew in a heartbeat that everything would change. Which is why I was trying my hardest to keep looking directly ahead, to keep watching my sister, to remain completely still and focused and calm in my posture, to not even make a peep nor sound for appearances sake.
I felt Chris’s hand upon my shoulder. It was a gentle giant’s touch that threw me completely and melted my body at the exact same time, while sending more tingling, soothing shivers, shooting down my spine.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
In that instant, I’d never wanted to turn around and hug someone so much before in my entire life. Just to turn into Chris’s big strong arms now, bury my face, head, and body into his ape-like, warm belly and hulking chest, to unleash an avalanche of tears and a lifetime of pent-up frustrations, emotions, and sobs. So many things that I’d never even done before: to hug, to cry, to reveal all of my vulnerabilities and insecurities to another human being, to let go of everything and let him see me. The real me.
But before Chris could even finish that sentence or start another, my prickly defence mechanism kicked in and I ran. I ran as fast and as hard as I possibly could, straight for the hard-pebbled beach shores of the loch.
Like my sister, I swiftly whipped off all of my clothes, leaving only my underwear on until I was wading, ankle deep—then knee deep, then thigh deep, then waist deep—straight into the bizarrely comforting but freezing cold waters.
Tears were still flowing down my cheeks like a never-ending waterfall bursting from behind my blue eyes. I dared not look around or back at Chris though. Not yet. Not until I could get my head and face fully underneath the water to quickly wash away all of those painful, pesky tears. Those tears that gave everything away—my whole life story in one devastating glance—if he only looked me in the eyes that very second.
I dunked my head underneath the crystal-clear, ice-cold water. I stayed under, like that, for such a long time. For as long as I possibly could until my inhaled breath desperately began to rip its way through my chest and lungs with its restrained claws.
When I could take the pain no more, I burst up and out of the water and breathed again. Breathed in that good, hard, beautiful, clear air through my lips, into my mouth, down my throat, and into my frozen lungs like I’d been given a second chance at life. But when I placed my hands to my face, unbelievably, those same warm, salty tears that I so desperately wanted to be rid of were still there. They were still coming, thick and fast.
This time I didn’t fight them.
Instead, I took it as a sign. A sweet, long, hard, relieving sign, that I should swim back to Chris. That I should go back and confess to him everything. Everything about my brutal, miserable life that I wanted to tell him so much after he’d first rested his supportive hand upon my shoulder.
I took a deep breath and finally turned around. I turned back to face Chris who was still standing on the slip road, back over on the other side of the shore, looking strangely bemused and, dare I say, hurt by my sudden fleeing actions.
Yes. That’s exactly what I was going to do. I was going to tell him everything about my father, my mother, my sister, and I. Our miserable, shitty life and existence together. About a mother I never knew, whose ghastly, open grave was probably beneath my feet all that time, throughout every step of my upbringing. An ever-growing tumour-like suspicion that turned into fact, about my father’s involvement in her imprisonment and eventual death.
And then I’d let fate take care of the rest.
And if that meant my sister and I could go home to live with Chris for a while, to be welcomed into his loving family with warm, open arms or even be passed around from one foster home to another for the rest of our teenage days, never knowing who was going to be our next parents from one year to the next, then so be it. Anything was better than the alternative. Going back there to him.
Anything. Even losing the trust and respect of my sister.
And then it happened. Like some kind of mad, freakish hallucination or a dream-turned-nightmare—a terrifying apparition—I saw my father and he was coming towards us. Coming towards Chris to be precise.
Was I seeing things? Had I stayed far too long underneath the cold, calm waves that my oxygen-starved brain was playing dirty, nasty tricks on my vision and mind?
I saw my father lunge at Chris from behind. He was holding a big, sharp, silver blade in the hand of his firm right arm. A blade that briefly glistened in the setting sunlight, but not for long. No, not for long at all as he swiftly plunged that knife deep into the spine of Chris’s back. Not once or twice did he make this vicious action, but a dozen. A hundred. No, a thousand times, it seemed. Over and over again. One vicious stab after the next.
I saw Chris—my big, happy, humble, and gentle giant—topple down onto his knees, with his hands and arms stretched out, his gaping mouth wide, but for all the water still in my ears, I couldn’t hear his painful, roaring screams. Perhaps there were none and he was just gasping for the last ounce of life and breath left in him.
Then the redness came. It slowly seeped over then through him. Over and through his bright-yellow t-shirt like some cancerous, creeping branch of evil, seeping over his entire body from every possible angle.
I didn’t know how, but I shook myself awake from my paralysed state. I started screaming, screaming and howling like I’d never done before. I never knew that my lungs were capable of such deafening and horrifying shrieks and sounds. I swam and ran, both at the exact same time, desperately trying to make the quickest exit movement from the loch ba
ck to the shore, back to my Chris. Back to my dying Chris.
When I looked briefly at my father, he appeared nothing more than a raging, wild demon unleashed from the pits of a bloodied hell only he knew existed as he continued to stab and slash away, slash and stab at Chris’s back, over and over.
I neared the beach with a sprint towards Chris who had fallen like an enormous thick oak tree, flat on his face and onto the mud and grass at the bottom of the slip road where it met with the pebbled shore.
No, no, no. I screamed over and over again. I ran past my clothes, even my trainers, barely giving them a thought. My bare feet were cutting themselves to shreds at the soles on the hard rocks and jagged pebbles.
“Fuckin’ paedo, bastard, scumbag!” I heard my dad rage. “Trying tae take advantage of ma two wee girls, ye fuckin big paedo fuckwit bastard ye.”
I continued to scream. No, no, no.
“Well, you’ll think fuckin’ twice now, eh, ye big dirty cunt bag.”
I ignored my father and dropped straight down onto my knees, right in front of Chris’s big, bald, warm head, which seemed like the only part of him that wasn’t covered in his own blood. I tried to take his head in my hands but it was just too big and heavy for me to lift more than an inch from the ground. I begged him to get up. I begged him to turn around and look at me. I begged him to say that he was all right. That everything was going to be okay. That he would be with his loving family soon. That this was all just some crazy, terrifying, mad nightmare.
He gurgled and hissed. He was trying to breathe but his breath was just so faint and weak. The life was draining right out of him at a million miles an hour. My tears started spilling onto the back of his head and down his ears. His breathing became almost nothing, non-existent. I didn’t know what to do or say. My thoughts were such a rabid mess of insanity. I thought of his beloved brother back in Romania, his wife, his children down in Falkirk that he would never get to see, hear, or play with again. His daughter who would never be able to paint his big, round, chubby, happy, beautiful face again. The land he had purchased back in Romania for his retirement yet would never get to make his own.
My Sister And I: A dark, violent, gripping and twisted tale of horrifying terror in the Scottish Highlands. Page 14
