The Sister

by China, Max

  Totally absorbed; he continued to read from his notes.

  The boy had survived more than a dozen near fatal incidents, most of them involved rescues from water. His grandfather had turned up to save him virtually every time, but there was one exception.

  Milowski had gone with friends to a public pool and was hanging onto the side of the when someone pulled him away for a joke, perhaps thinking that it might encourage him to swim, but he'd gone under straight away.

  I remember coming up the first time, grabbing a breath, going down. At that stage, it wasn't a problem – I wasn't panicking. I bounced along the bottom and reaching the side; launched myself back up, but I collided with someone's elbow on the way up, swallowed a big lungful of water and panicked. I couldn't get back to the surface. Then someone grabbed me and hauled me out . . .

  The long corridor of his memories led him out into the room with Anderson again. "What do you think of that?" he'd asked, referring to the many coincidental rescues performed by the grandfather.

  Anderson didn't answer.

  Ryan rapped his pencil three times on the table.

  Startled, the hypnotherapist gabbled, "I . . . I'm sorry, I just . . ." A puzzled look screwed his face and then he shot an accusatory look at Ryan as he realised what had just happened.

  A small, self-satisfied smile creased the corner of Ryan's mouth, and he continued, "I made a few enquiries and found out a couple of interesting things. Apart from the fact they were remarkably close, it seems the old man had a history of turning up just at the right time, and not only where Bruce was concerned. There's a bit of a list . . . various friends in the army, his wife . . . No one quite knows how he was able to just-be-there so many times. It seems he possessed some kind of finely tuned intuition, a sort of radar for picking up distress signals."

  "That's impossible. Didn't you ask him how he did it? You do surprise me," Anderson said.

  Ryan didn't answer at first; he clicked away at the pencil again. Anderson looked at it warily.

  "I didn't ask him . . . because he's dead."

  "Oh . . ." Anderson's lips encircled the word; the O shape remained for a full second as possibilities ran through his mind. "So, you think his grandfather was somehow alerted by a subconscious link when Bruce was in danger?"

  "It's possible. He was thought to be psychic, but he died two weeks before the last incident at the pool. The last rescuer hadn't been among the original party of boys that went to the pool, deciding only at the last minute to go. He told his mother that someone had to look out for Bruce. As soon as he arrived at the pool area, he saw Bruce struggling below the water, and he got him out."

  "Who was it?" Anderson asked.

  "The rescuer at the swimming pool is most likely the reason the guilt complex is so deeply rooted," he said, looking directly into Anderson's eyes. "It was Brookes."

  The accuracy of the recollections Ryan had just experienced amazed him. This was what notes were all about. It was a firm belief of his that not one single thing was ever truly forgotten. All memories lay dormant, just waiting for the right trigger to reactivate them.

  He pushed his glasses up, rubbing at his good eye from below the lens allowing them to drop back onto his nose. He toyed with the idea of a cup of tea, but instead poured himself a glass of water from the jug Stella had thoughtfully left him. The water was no longer cold, but it slaked his thirst. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he continued sifting through the notes, coming across records of further conversations with Anderson. He drifted back in time, recalling once again.

  "You know, Michael, before I decided to become a psychiatrist; I had an overriding interest in the latent powers of the human mind. I spent hours poring over old books and case histories covering impossible feats of strength or endurance." Anderson appeared more interested in reading his newspaper than listening. Ryan carried on regardless.

  "You know the sort of thing I'm talking about. Our bodies are built to last a lifetime at the limits normally placed on them, all of us have a spare capacity we can tap into when survival mode kicks in, and when it does, the mind can override those limits."

  Anderson's lack of attention irritated Ryan, and he did a high, falsetto imitation of Anderson's voice. "Mm-m. Oh, yes, Doctor Ryan, I know exactly what you mean."

  Anderson sheepishly folded up the paper and sat up attentively.

  "I'll give you a couple of examples. A slightly built woman lifts the front of a car to free a child trapped beneath its wheels. A mother slips over the edge of a cliff; her ten-year old son holds onto her with one hand and stops her from falling. They could never do these things normally. It just goes to show that when it's really needed, there are people who can tap into something special."

  As he continued, Ryan took to fiddling with his pencil again, click - click - click. The rhythm infiltrated his speech, punctuating the phrases, lending them greater weight than they ordinarily carried.

  "Michael, the two incidents I refer to, are borne out by witness statements. After all, in those cases there's at least one other person to corroborate the story. Cases of the individual surviving against all odds are far more commonplace, but not necessarily widely believed, because there are usually no witnesses, and because of that, the chances of survival are reduced. There isn't anyone to help, or call the emergency services, or whatever." He could see Anderson wondering where he was heading with it all. Ryan held his index finger up. "At times the mind can also push itself outside of the comfort zone. When the effect of physical pain is too much to endure, the chances of survival diminish unless the mind and body can push through. Michael, some sort of dissociation takes place that allows the body's hardwiring to take over the running of things. Instinct takes over.

  "We also have reports suggesting that the majority of near-death experiences involving visions occur whilst in this state. Many of these subjects speak of deceased friends and relatives waiting for them at the end of a bright tunnel, their mother and father welcoming them, taking them by the hand to lead them into the light.

  "We wouldn't have heard these stories if these witnesses to near death weren't suddenly pulled away, back to earth with a bump. Sometimes the subjects recall viewing themselves from above as they are resuscitated or operated on."

  "Have you got something wrong with that eye?" Anderson said, narrowing his own as if it pained him.

  He remembered how at that time, he'd needed to rub that eye with increasing frequency; always intending to have it looked at. He did, but much later, when the damage was irreversible.

  In his recollections, he suddenly realised he was seeing with both eyes again.

  "You know Michael, in many cases and there were studies - the survivors reported a heightening of the senses that lasted for a long time afterwards," he paused to push the lead back into the tip of the pencil, brows knitted together; concentrating the way a cat might, when the mouse is in its sights. The set of his jaw, tongue tip poking between his lips, he was intent on instilling orderliness into something as small and insignificant as a pencil lead.

  A minute had gone by. He looked up as if awakened from a dream, blinking.

  "Where was I? Oh yes, we have studied several cases involving young adolescents or children - cases where serious, life threatening accidents occur with a frequency that exceeds that of chance. In these cases where subjects have survived multiple incidents, they seemed to develop a type of early warning system, something that enables them to continue surviving." Ryan hesitated briefly, taking a sip of water from his glass. He raised his eyebrows, inviting comment from Anderson, who obliged with the question. "Are you saying that you think he has ESP?" Anderson had the look of a pupil in the presence of a talented and inspiring teacher.

  "One of the things that I am suggesting, is that I don't think proper attention is given to the fact that a few of these people may be psychic already, and that's how they have the capacity to get themselves out of these situations in the first place. It gives them an e
dge in the survival stakes." He reached into his pocket and produced a packet of mints; he took one, and offered the packet to Anderson. "I think that because Milowski was so young when he began experiencing near fatal accidents and surviving them that it triggered the development of a survivor's instinct much earlier than you'd normally expect - and that it's grown stronger and stronger with each successive survival." Ryan considered the implications of what he'd just said. "He just gets better and better at it."

  "He can't just go on like that though, can he?"

  Ryan's good eye withered him under its gaze.

  Anderson squirmed. "Well, it's obvious isn't it? He'll end up dead."

  "Yes, he may very well have a death wish," Ryan put his pencil down. "There's no doubt, subconsciously he sees a bleak future for himself. Scared of any form of human closeness, because he believes people die if they get close to him."

  Anderson continued along the same lines, "And if he doesn't talk, we can't help him. What do you think will happen to him?"

  "He'll die eventually by indirect suicide. Indirect, because he wouldn't knowingly kill himself, but he may very well put himself in a situation that is impossible to survive. In many ways, that's what he's been doing all along."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Well, accounting for all the near misses, and given the nature of what I believe was his biggest trauma, there may be some real significance to the fact that many of those incidents involved near-drowning."

  "He told me he hates water, why would he continue to go in when he doesn't swim. He should stay away from the stuff."

  "I think he's doing a sort of penance with his life at stake. He will just take greater and greater risks, until one day his luck runs out. Either way, it amounts to the same thing. He has a death wish. He'll die because he wants to."

  "One thing I can't understand is why no one noticed all this years ago. You'd have thought someone would have been saying, 'Look, we have this accident-prone kid, who has nearly killed himself, what, ten or twelve times, possibly more let's have a closer look at him.'"

  Ryan took a deep breath and sighed, "We had so many other kids that needed conventional help, and I didn't have time for them all. I tried to shortcut things. He was to have been part of something unconventional. In the end, his mother got wind of the plan, and it was taken out of our hands."

  Anderson looked confused. "Whose hands, ours? And what unconventional treatment are you talking about?"

  "It doesn't matter now."

  A glimmer of understanding darkened Anderson's expression. "I can't believe you did that without consulting me."

  Looking back now with the benefit of further experience, Ryan realised there was another possibility, one that he dismissed as ridiculous almost straight away, but then returned to immediately.

  Somewhere in Milowski's notes, he'd written a theory about his grandfather training him. He'd had him guessing cards before he'd turned them over, he would predict what colours the next person coming around the corner would be wearing. He'd taught him to write his dreams down to help remember them, teaching him to make best use of the faculties he believed inherent in everyone. Was it possible that the near-death incidents were another form of training, and if that were the case, the question remained, why?

  Chapter 121

  Ryan screwed his finger knuckles into his closed eyelids in a vain attempt to rejuvenate them. He was no longer sure he could complete reviewing the files in time. It was almost one o' clock. Exhaustion threatened to shut him down. It had been a long, long time since he'd tested himself to such a degree. Come on, Ryan, you can manage another half an hour.

  Turning over the next page, he plucked up a long fine hair. Penny had been through the file! He held it up to the light. It floated like gossamer. It wasn't one of Penny's. "Mm-m?" He said aloud, before placing it back between the sheets where he'd found it. An almost invisible bookmark.

  It hadn't taken long to get Milowski talking about the accident, he'd managed to hypnotise him before he realised what was happening.

  Using the notes as an 'aide-mémoire', he skimmed through until he reached his record of their second meeting. Milowski seemed to realise how he'd duped him the first time, he was guarded and surly. His memory jogged; he found that he remembered the scene well.

  "Bruce, help me to help you. Tell me about these things that disturb you at night . . ."

  Looking for the notes he'd made when he'd regressed him to four years old, and then seven, Ryan turned the next page and found another out of sequence. He flicked his eyes over it. Once more, he was lured into the past.

  "So you had this sense of foreboding?"

  "If that means I knew beforehand what was going to happen, then yes."

  "Mm-m, you already said it came too late for you to warn them, and obviously you feel bad about that."

  The boy looked at the floor, with his hands clasped together and nodded, the fringe of his hair bobbing in the light coming through the window.

  "I want you to think very carefully, back to that exact moment when you first had the sense. Can you remember what it was that made you think something was about to happen?"

  Milowski looked up at the psychiatrist. "I can't explain it, I just knew . . ." he said trailing off; face pinched with concentration, pieces of the jigsaw fell into place, suddenly coming together. "Wait a minute!"

  Ryan leaned in closer.

  Milowski told him everything.

  Foraging further into the notes, he found Anderson again.

  "I'm dropping him, he takes too much time I could be spending helping someone who really needs it. He doesn't need our help; he will outlive both of us."

  "You don't know that. If we can't help him, he'll die, and you know it."

  "On the contrary, Michael, I have a friend who knows about these things. The best thing we can do is leave him to find his own feet. If he doesn't, he'll be back here for help anyway."

  Anderson frowned at him.

  "Michael, don't worry, I'll explain it like this to his parents: 'Sometimes, we create more problems than we solve by mollycoddling our kids. I believe he broke down under unprecedented pressure. Time truly is sometimes the best healer, and I firmly believe that to be the case here.'"

  His thoughts shifted into the present. He hadn't said where the name Miller came from. Picking up his pencil, he scribbled a note. He'd ask him tomorrow.

  Looking at the clock, he couldn't focus on it properly.

  Where was he? Ah, that's it, a note for Stella. I must buy her an Easter egg . . .

  He flipped the light off and stumbled up the stairs past Gracie. Tiredness thickened his tongue as he muttered, "G'night, m'love." She stared back coolly.

  He managed to undress and then flopped onto his bed.

  In spite of his weariness, he didn't sleep for a long time.

  Chapter 122

  Finding the hair in Miller's file had reminded him of Penny again. At one time so indispensable and well trusted, he'd given her a set of keys, not only to the offices, but also to his apartment.

  Penny was the first of his patients to have visited Vera. When she was old enough, she sought him out in his new practice, and he'd employed her. Always so pristine and perfect in everything she did, he had nothing but respect and admiration for her. Widowed when she was twenty-five, she poured all her energies into work. Seemingly not interested in meeting another man, she'd worked for Ryan for over ten years.

  Not so long after Grace died; Penny changed in her attitude towards him. She became friendlier, more caring, and he appreciated her empathy. Little by little, not so he noticed at first, she began to change. She cut her hair, dying it blonde. Losing weight, she took more care with how she looked; her style of dress became more fashionable and daring. She also started paying Ryan more attention. He was flattered, but he saw no need to tell her that he wasn't looking to have a relationship.

  One evening, as they were preparing to lock up, she emerged from the ladies room.
She fixed him with a look that left no doubt as to her intentions. The smell of her freshly applied perfume was heady and intoxicating. Completely transformed from the woman he'd known, she sashayed towards him and made a bold play for him. Tempted though he was, he gently turned her down. After that, she turned into someone else, someone he no longer recognised.

  He recalled how he'd taken a week off to put some distance between them, to get away from it all and allow things to settle down. When he'd returned, he found that she'd slept with someone in his bed - the one he'd shared with Gracie - the love stain left behind on the sheets, plain for him to see. There had been no attempt to clean it up. She'd wanted him to know.

  He asked her to return his keys. After that, things went from bad to worse. She bullied the other girl in the office remorselessly, took to smoking in the toilets in secret, and worse, she'd hidden a bottle of gin in the cistern. Penny was clearly unwell, but his sense of loyalty - after all she'd given him many years service - ensured that he gave her every opportunity to get better. After what happened, inevitably there was a confrontation, which ended in tears. Ryan agreed to give her another chance on the condition she got help. Ryan remembered noticing through the tear streaked mascara, how pudgy and unhealthy looking she'd become.

  Unable to treat her himself, he sent her to another shrink – he hated the term – but the 'Shrink' in this particular case, was a friend of his who owed him a long-standing favour.