The Sister

by China, Max

  Ryan telephoned him and following a brief discussion; he'd agreed to take her on for a couple of free sessions.

  Ryan allowed her the time off without deducting her pay. So every Thursday after that, at four o'clock in the afternoon, she would go off to her appointment.

  For a while, she seemed to improve, but he had a feeling she was up to something.

  "How much do I owe you so far?" he asked his friend about two months later.

  His fellow practitioner looked quizzical. "Owe me? What for?"

  "You know, for seeing Penny?"

  "Oh…" his friend had replied, "This is sticky. I can't talk, because she's a client of mine."

  "I only asked if I owed you anything . . ."

  Falling silent, he said, "She's never been."

  When Ryan tackled her about it, she stormed out, and he never saw her again. Good Penny turned bad.

  Then he drifted back further, almost to the beginning of his career, when he first met Gracie. Lifting the framed photograph of her from the bedside table, he held it tightly to his chest and finally closed his eyes. A deep sigh escaped his lips.

  Chapter 123

  April 6th, Good Friday

  Stella had forgotten to set her alarm. Running late, she sped along the pavement balancing her bag in the crook of one arm and her jacket on the other. She couldn't believe how warm it was for early April. Resting her foot on a curl in the front gate's ironwork, she fished in the bag for her keys. Pushing the gate open, she anchored it there, and then made her way up the steps.

  She unlocked the door and let herself in. Carefully replacing the keys in her bag she remembered how angry he'd been when she told him she'd lost the original set she was given.

  Don't you realise how much it costs to replace a set of keys? If you had to pay for them yourself, you might be more careful!

  She couldn't recall an occasion where he'd even raised his voice to her, let alone shouted. Her eyes stung, and she bit her quivering lip as she fought to contain her emotions. Seeing her reaction, he switched his angry expression to one of compassion. Unlocking his cabinet, he'd handed her a spare set, and told her to be more careful. Don't lose these, and take a letter for me will you…

  She smiled at how guilty he'd felt afterwards and tried to make up for it by making her a coffee. Although she was excited at the prospect of a new job, she was also sad. She would miss Doctor Ryan.

  Flicking the lights on, she crossed the reception area, and noted the time was 10.55 a.m. She hung her jacket in the corner on the coat tree, and entered the cloakroom to freshen her makeup. A couple of minutes later she stood outside Ryan's office and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so she opened the door. He wasn't there, but he'd left a note on his desk. She picked it up and immediately had the feeling that something wasn't quite right.

  Dear Stella,

  I am not sure if I'll be awake in the morning when you come. If I'm not, you'll be reading this note :)

  Anyway, since you are reading it, I want you to call Miller and ask him to come round to see me straight away.

  B. Ryan

  She grinned at how he'd caught on to the use of the smiley. He had upgraded his mobile telephone, and she'd introduced him to the fine art of texting. She sent him a short note and ended it with :)

  "What on earth is that supposed to be?" He'd said, pointing to the symbol.

  "It means you're happy, smiling in a text," Stella explained.

  "Mm-m," Ryan said as he always did.

  Her smile evaporated. She stopped in her tracks. Dear Stella? Ryan had never left her a note like that before. His apartment door was ajar; she listened first for any signs of life. Not a sound. She called out to him from the base of the stairs, and when he didn't respond, she ventured up. Gracie's portrait eyes followed her as she walked down the hallway to his bedroom. An uneasy feeling settled on her as she opened the door. "Doctor Ryan?" she said, gingerly poking her head through the gap. "Are you awake?"

  The doctor was lying in his bed, holding a picture face down on his chest. He had one eye fixed open. It looked milkier than ever before. A lop-sided smile had frozen on his face; he looked happy. She wondered if he'd been thinking of Grace. He'd spoken of it often lately, how much he looked forward to seeing her again.

  "What if it's just a lie?" She'd asked him.

  "Then we're all doomed," he replied. "We must not let ourselves believe that, well you can if you want to, but me - I know I'm going to see Gracie again." She remembered the glint in his eye, the firm set of his jaw when he said it.

  She wished she could have shared his absolute faith. For a moment, she saw everything with a new clarity.

  "I'll see you again one day," she whispered and for the first time, found that she believed it. The barrier she'd thrown up against the enormity of it all broke down, and she sank to her knees. She cried, racked by sobs so deep that she was hardly able to breathe. She cried for Doctor Ryan, and she cried for herself and for all the things she couldn't change.

  After a while, she regained her composure and prepared herself to dial 999. The buzzer sounded. Someone's at the door.

  Numb, she descended the stairs. The electronic drone persisted. She pushed the intercom and answered automatically.

  "Who is it?"

  "The name's Miller. I have an appointment for one 'o clock."

  "Oh, Miller . . . Ryan is dead!"

  Miller thought he recognised her voice. "Stella . . . Is that you?"

  When the door released, he charged up the stairs two at a time.

  Stella was slumped on an armchair in reception when he rushed in. She'd dyed her hair from blonde to black since the last time he'd seen her, but he recognised her instantly. The newly darkened hair matched the black of her smudged mascara.

  "Stella, I don't believe this… Where is he?"

  She nodded in the direction of the stairs.

  He glanced at her as he went through the door and up the stairs. "Are you all right?"

  Her lower lip tugged down at the corners and sadness dulled her eyes. She shrugged and followed him into Ryan's apartment.

  Miller stood in the doorway. The psychiatrist's unseeing eye fixed on him, and he felt uncomfortable in its unseeing gaze.

  Tears brimmed in her lower eyelids, and she stared at him, knowing that with one blink they would fall, afraid if they started, she might never be able to stop them. "He's dead, isn't he?" she whispered.

  Seeing her anguish, he pulled her face into his chest and held her tight. A slight movement caught his eye. "No, I don't believe he is," he said. Releasing her, he approached the bed.

  Ryan stirred and then tried in vain to sit up. "Miller…Is that you?" he croaked dryly, peering at him with his half-open good eye. His other one seemed to be stuck open, he rubbed it a few times before he could get the lid to close over it.

  "Stella, get him some water please."

  Miller lifted the photograph from the old man's chest and propped him up with an extra pillow. As he tucked it behind, Ryan leaned close and whispered into his ear. "She read your file, but don't tell her I told you." The old man gave him a knowing look and tapped the tip of his nose with an unsteady finger.

  "Don't worry, I won't," Miller grinned. "You gave Stella quite a scare."

  "Why - I worked really late, and I just overslept that's all!" he hacked up a cough. "I'll be fine, just give me a few minutes."

  "You rest, I'll come back later."

  "You can't, what I mean to say is . . ." Ryan looked distant. "I'm running out of time, Miller. Now will you both leave the room so I can get dressed."

  "What was he whispering about?" Stella eyed him with curiosity.

  "Nothing much, I'll tell you later."

  "What do you mean later? I want you to tell me now!"

  Miller raised an eyebrow, unsure if she were joking. She locked her crystal blue eyes onto his and did not waiver. He lowered his eyes. Her mouth was small, but her lips were full, pursed in petulance, rising luxur
iant from the creaminess of her face.

  "Why are you looking at me like that, have I got something round my mouth?" She wiped her lips. "Why were you looking at me like that?" she said, inquisitively.

  He decided to keep his thoughts to himself. "I was just thinking how funny it was - me giving you instructions again."

  "If you want to start bossing me around, you'd better give me my old job back," she said, her face turning a shade of rosy pink.

  Miller laughed, "Come on get that water sorted out, we haven't got all day."

  She returned with a full glass.

  "Stella, wait here while I take this up to him. I need to speak with him in private."

  "Miller, I want to be sure he's all right after that scare he gave me. Shouldn't we call a doctor?"

  "He's just tired and old. Once he's had more of a rest, he'll be fine."

  Miller returned upstairs. Stella followed him.

  He hadn't made it off the bed. Dressed and propped up on the pillows, he struggled to put his watch on.

  "I'm so tired I don't know what's wrong with me, I'm sorry . . . I just need more sleep, but no time now, I'll catch up tonight." He rested his wrist against his knee to hold the timepiece in place while he threaded the strap through the buckle. Seeing Stella's eyes on him, he waved her away impatiently, afraid she might offer to help.

  "Would you mind leaving us alone, Stella? Miller has to get going, and I've things to tell him in confidence."

  She looked disappointed as she closed the door behind her.

  He beckoned Miller to come closer, his voice diminished to little more than a whisper. Does he think Stella is listening at the door? Then he realised that wasn't the reason at all; the old man was merely conserving the precious energy that even the smallest effort seemed to consume.

  "Bruce, I have to know. What really led you to contact me after all these years, you could have phoned anybody. Can you tell me why you chose me?"

  "Sure, but something's bothering me from yesterday . . . How did you know it was me on the phone? When I said my name was Miller, you replied with no hesitation whatsoever: Bruce?"

  Ryan avoided his gaze.

  "I never told you I got nicknamed Miller. That came after our sessions were over. Have you been watching me?"

  Pushing the tips of his index fingers into the corners of his eyes, he rubbed them vigorously. "Of course I haven't, what a ridiculous thing to suggest."

  "Is it?"

  The two men looked at each other, both seeking answers that wouldn't come easily.

  Ryan sipped at his water.

  "My question, Miller, you haven't answered."

  "Why choose you? I don't know. I kept an old business card of yours for years. It made me feel better, knowing I could talk to you again if I needed to. When I first came to see you, I held back on you. I should have told you more, but I was just a kid, and to me you were a just a shrink."

  Ryan winced as if stung by the word, "Oh, please . . ."

  "Sorry, like I was saying I was just a kid. I didn't want you to think I was crazy. Do you remember me telling you about the shadows I saw the day of the accident?"

  Ryan's eyes widened. He licked his parched lips and said, "Go on . . ."

  "What I didn't tell you is that they'd started to become more than just shadows. I didn't understand it then, and I still don't. They're with me everywhere, like the little floaters you see when you look up at the ceiling staring at nothing in particular. You know they're there. At first you're fascinated, but after a while you don't take any notice."

  Ryan was ritualising with his pencil, apparently not listening.

  Miller continued, "Well that's how it used to be. Until recently, if I'd looked at them directly, they'd have disappeared, but when I see them now . . . I think they're becoming bolder."

  Light gleamed along the shaft of the pencil, and the psychiatrist stared at him with such intensity that it made his eyes water.

  "Are you following me, doctor?"

  "You have my undivided attention . . . Oh, how I wish you'd told me this before. Please go on, I'm fascinated." The colour and vigour seemed to have returned to his complexion.

  Miller took a deep breath and resumed. "Well, one evening, and it wasn't dark - I think it was around Easter time - I caught a glimpse from the corner of my eye. It was no big thing as I was telling you before, but this time when I looked at it directly, I realised it wasn't a shadow at all. It was someone. Fully formed and in glorious Technicolour, staring right at me."

  Ryan held his pencil lengthways, each end secured between thumbs and index fingers. The light flared against its polished surface. "Go on."

  "She scared me. I can't explain this very well. She was sad looking, and although I knew she was not from this world - or at least didn't belong in it - I knew she meant me no harm," A tear rolled down Ryan's cheek. He wiped it away.

  "You see, she was an Oriental woman. I was convinced I'd seen her face before, but I couldn't for the life of me remember where. Not then. And there have been others."

  Ryan shook his head, mumbling, "I knew it . . . you believed so strongly that you created Tulpa's . . . thought creatures. If only I'd had this information . . . I could have studied you. I could have written my book. I wish you'd told me before."

  Miller then said something that completely derailed Ryan's thought train. "She was the shadow under my bed when I was seven."

  "What? Why didn't you tell me that before?"

  Chapter 124

  Ryan had the look of a man who'd missed the last train home by seconds, arriving on the deserted platform only to see its tail-lights disappearing into the darkness. Another chance to test his theories missed.

  "You should have told me earlier . . ." he repeated, closely examining his pencil in what little light filtered into the room.

  Miller cleared his throat. Ryan snapped out of his distraction with a start.

  "That wasn't all of it. As I said, I never told you everything. I held back on you."

  Ryan nodded. "I know. I guessed as much at the time."

  "I've already told you about the drowning dreams and the shadows."

  "Before we move on, when did you first notice them?"

  "The shadows? It wasn't a question of noticing. It was about acknowledgement," he said, fingering his scar, "and that came slowly."

  "Go on, Bruce," he turned over a page of his notepad.

  "Bear with me. When I was given the name Miller, I moved ahead and left Bruce behind with all the baggage. Oh, he was still in me, of course he was. The voice of my guilty conscience, the source of my little intuitions; I think it was last year when I finally realised that part of me was bigger than I'd care to admit."

  Ryan rubbed so hard at his good eye it turned bloodshot. "Don't stop on my account," he said, waving him on. "I want to hear more."

  "Last year I was on the lecture circuit, speaking about mankind's forgotten abilities and his close relationships with the supernatural. Something happened to interrupt that," the memory wasn't entirely unhappy. A smile touched his lips. "I stayed at a haunted house and it started something growing in me."

  Ryan's eye narrowed and he laid his pencil down, saying, "Tell me."

  "When I arrived there I had a flash of the past, in the old stable block. I'd had fragments of things I couldn't figure out before, nothing like this though. This was a sequence, like a movie scene, but complete with taste, touch and smell." Miller paused; he looked into a distance beyond Ryan. He closed his eyes and saw the stable boy and the horses form clear in his memory. He shut it out. "Since then I've noticed other things, and my dreams are becoming a part of that."

  "You dream of drowning, you blocked it out for so many years. The dreams will pass."

  "Or come to pass."

  Ryan recalled his diagnosis of unintentional suicide. "No, Bruce, you have a purpose here. You have to stop."

  "I'm afraid it's too late for that, Doctor Ryan," he placed a newspaper page in front of hi
m.

  "Last week, I had a series of dreams about a researcher I'd never met culminating in him sharing a secret with me. He told me someone was trying to kill him."

  "Okay-y, but what does this have to do with anything?" Ryan said, holding the paper up.

  "Read the headline. It's him, Michael Simpson, from my dreams."

  Leading Authority on Cults in Fatal Collision with Car.

  Ryan stared at the page for a full minute after reading the article. A tangle of possibilities hung before him.

  Miller interrupted his thoughts. "Going back to my earlier question, how did you know it was me?"

  "Oh that… I knew you were coming, but I learned that literally moments before you called. You see The Sister predicted you would return."

  "The Sister… What are you talking about?"

  "You see I first met her in Ireland … I remember it well; it was raining like I'd never known before . . ." His good eye searched the past, staring into space, lost in far yesterdays. He related the story as if it belonged to someone else; the metronomic click of his pencil a ticking clock, marking time as the story unfolded.

  "I'm sorry, doctor, it's going to take a lot more than that to convince me that she knew I'd be coming here this morning."

  "If you'd met her, you wouldn't say that. Besides, we don't have time to work this out now, or at least, I don't." Ryan blinked, his disappointment evident.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  "You should have told me about the Oriental girl earlier. That was the trouble with you when you were a kid," he took a breath; "You never gave me the whole picture. If you had told me earlier, I might have wrestled some sense out of it. I've been trying to write a book, I had a whole chapter planned on phantasms of the living, but it was all anecdotal. I'd never met anyone who had first hand experience, not that I could truly believe."

  "You think I saw a phantom of someone who is still alive?"