The Sister (66 page)

"I must have fallen asleep."
She chuckled, "You do a fair impression of a big motorbike, snoring away you were."

The car came to a halt. Rosetta killed the engine.

"I'm really sorry about this, but I can't let you take the hood off yet, not until we're inside." She opened the door, took his arm, helped him out and led him to the front door.

"Step in two paces," she warned.

He raised his foot gingerly.

"Okay, we're there; you can put your foot down."

He lowered the foot. The air inside the hood was stale and warm; he could still smell the coffee on his breath. The door creaked open, it sounded heavy on its hinges. A gloved hand touched his and pulled him forward; his sense of direction became confused. He hadn't noticed before that she was wearing gloves.

"You can take it off now." Rosetta's voice no longer came from in front of him.

Miller removed it, and blinked at the light; a woman's outline was silhouetted against the brightness pouring in from the window behind. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The woman in front looked just like Rosetta, perhaps a year or two older.

"You didn't say you had a sister," he said over his shoulder.

"I'm Rosetta's mother. Sorry about the hood, I told her there was no need, but she gets these things in her head." The light of the window permeated the loose strands of her hair and they floated, charged with static, fine and fairy-like in a golden aura.

He didn't need to be told he was in the presence of The Sister, she held out a silken-gloved hand, and he took it. She led him down the crooked hall into an oak-beamed drawing room, where hand-carved linen-fold oak panelling extended halfway up the walls. The small windowpanes broke up the light and threw corners and recesses into shadow and cast shapes across the swirling autumnal patterned carpet.

She motioned for him to sit down at a small round table. There were two chairs; she took the one opposite.

Some of Ryan's reverence for her had rubbed off on him and he felt in awe of her.

She had avoided eye contact until they were seated, but now settled them on him. Calm, green and all seeing, she held his attention easily. Her face oval, with skin smooth and pale as alabaster, she exuded warmth. Miller couldn't detect a single age line in her complexion; her hair was devoid of grey. If Rosetta were twenty-five years old, The Sister would have to be at least in her early forties, based on the assumption that, as a good catholic girl, she was of consenting age when she became pregnant.

"Finished?" A curious smile played on her lips.

There could be no secrets in the presence of The Sister. What Ryan had said was true.

"Don't be afraid. There's no need. I've been waiting for you a long time," she shifted her gaze to watch the approach of Rosetta, who brought them tea. She placed his cup on a saucer in front of him. Tiny swirls of steamy mist converged from the edge of the cup into the centre, where rising up it formed an ethereal spire of vapour. The scent found its way into his nostrils.
Lemon tea.

"I haven't had a cup of that type of tea since my grandfather died," he said wistfully.

"You miss him, don't you?" Her voice was warm, a lilting Irish brogue, soft as the summer drizzle he'd felt when they put his grandfather in the ground, buried with the two ounces of Polish soil he'd carried with him everywhere, so he never felt far from home.

He nodded slowly.

"Every one of us has a purpose in this life; it's like a rope. It pulls us through and binds us all together as we head along its length. We are the fibres that twist, turn and eventually break away. Some of us meet along the way, our strands entwine, and we share the journey, sometimes for a long time. Some will twist away around the bend and never meet with the other again. I see all these things, and it hurts me to sit on my hands, to have to watch it go by as it will. I can't interfere, not directly.

"I know how it
feels,
when a wildlife cameraman is compelled to watch while nature take its course, knowing he so easily could have rescued the calf which is about to be devoured. It's why I had to wait for you to come to me. I first spied you out in a vision I had many years ago, our strands touched for the first time. Did you feel it? Your grandfather did, but he was weakened, and not long for this world . . .

"I tried to link with you many times, but wanting to forget what you saw, you switched yourself off. You were in denial. In truth, you couldn't know, you were too young. It's only right you should come now, when you're ready. We are all born, and we all die eventually. Those things are facts. We cannot change the end, but we can change the journey, not go to our fate in a straight line, go round the houses a little bit, and enjoy the view."

She took a breath; he hadn't noticed her breathing before.

"We don't always see our purpose from the ground, wrapped up as we are in the struggle … to just keep going. When we are in the rope, in the coils, it's as if we are going round and round, going nowhere. When we start our ascent, we might see it if we look back and have the where-with-all to figure it out. Everyone has a part to play; they may not see it right now. They may
never
see it. Many don't make sense of it until their last days. Some will see it just as the light fades from their eyes. There are others, like you, blessed with second chances, a third or even more, given a chance to grow. There have been, and there will be times, when you can make no sense of any of it, but you were made to be strong, as were we all. You must find your strength.

"The course of your life changed years ago, and it's taken all this time to find your way back. You have a lot of catching up to do. It is why coincidence grows around you every day, why synchronicity dogs your footsteps. Part of you always knew. Your grandfather knew. Why do you think he taught you the things he did? You are slowly remembering. It is why you chose your profession. It is why you dream the way you do. You are coming out of the coils, ascending the rope toward your destiny."

Miller took a sip of his tea. It tasted exactly as his grandfather used to make it.

"Can I ask a couple of questions?" He didn't wait for an answer. "You're not just avoiding people that want their palms read without an appointment." Miller scrutinised her face. "You're hiding here, aren't you?"

Her eyes wavered almost imperceptibly as she glanced over his shoulder to Rosetta, who nodded her approval.

"To answer one of your questions, we are not hiding, but we don't want to be found. The Catholic Church has been trying to persuade me for
years
to return to the fold. I don't need the hassle. And now there are people looking for us, or more particularly, for something they believe we have." She paused, her curious smile deepened. "To answer your other question, Vera is a part of me that is long past, to use that name you'd have to have known me back then. When I was employed by the Church, I was Sister Verity, and when I left them to work for the poor, I became known as The Sister. Just call me Sister, that'll be fine by me."

Lifting his tea to his lips, Miller met her gaze. He hadn't asked the second question . . . he'd only thought it.

For a minute, they sat in silence.

Chapter 134

Stella stood at the side of Ryan's bed as he drifted in and out of consciousness, watching over him. His breathing shallow and low in his abdomen, she had to stare intently to check it was still moving. He looked peaceful. Occasionally, the skin of his eyelids revealed movement beneath, as if his eyes watched something on the big screen of his mind. She wondered what he dreamed about.

Miller had passed on Ryan's wish that he should be left to die. She knew she wouldn't be able to stay
and comply with his wishes. She had to go. "Good night, Doctor Ryan," she whispered, and quietly shut the door behind her.

His memories unfurled one after another. In his dream, he couldn't control them, couldn't prevent them rolling out, and all seemed to focus on failure. Could he have done things better? He felt miserable and dejected, just as the whiskey priest made famous by Graham Greene did in his final moments facing the firing squad, knowing with crystal clarity that he could have achieved so much more . . .

What was it all for?

His good eyelid opened with reluctance. He was alone; he thought he caught a whiff of Gracie's perfume.

What was it all for?

His strength ebbing; he scrawled two messages on his pad and then signed them. With nothing else to hand, he placed them in a faded old envelope.

His mood changed. The line between consciousness and dreams blurred. Giddy and light on his feet, he moved, but he wasn't walking; freed from the constraints of friction he travelled fast towards an unknown destination, he was afraid.
You know at the end you don't see your whole life flashing by, but if you're lucky, you get to make some sense of it.
Bruce Milowski's words from years before flashed into his brain. Although they were advanced for such a young boy, he never gave them a second thought. Here, he paused, and sense came. They weren't the boy's words … they were his grandfather's . . .
Satori . . . so this is what it feels like . . .
Self-doubt washed away; he bathed in a shimmering and ethereal light.
This is it, Ryan, your faith tested, your soul naked . . .
A hand slipped through the crook of his arm and hardly daring to hope, he turned.
It's Gracie!

She'd come to meet him. Leading him on, she held on tight to his forearm and leaned her head against his shoulder. "I've been waiting for you, Mr Ryan . . ." she said,

Miller continued to drink his tea in small sips, his telephone buzzed from the depths of his pocket.

He retrieved it and glanced at the display.
It's Stella.

"I should take this . . ." he said.

"That's okay," she affirmed. "Ryan's dead, by the way."

It took a moment for what she'd said to register.

"Hello, Stella . . ."

"Oh, Miller, it's Ryan. He just died . . ."

He calmed her the best that he could from the end of the telephone, and gave her instructions about what to do, who to call. "No . . . listen… Don't worry. If you need to talk, I'm right here … only a phone call away. I'll be back soon . . . No, I'm not sure, could be tonight, more likely tomorrow, in the afternoon . . . I will. I'll—"

Stella interrupted, blurting out, "I need to see you."

Her words carried an urgency that took him aback. "
See
me . . . what for?"

"There's something I need to ask you and something I want to tell you . . ."

"Look, Stella, I can't talk now . . ."

"No, not now . . . tomorrow, when you get back. Come round . . ."

"Okay." He couldn't imagine why she wanted to see him. "I'll call you—"

The phone cut off.
No signal.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I lost the signal . . ." Ryan's words came back to haunt him . . . S
ee if you still have your cynicism, after you've met her.
The idea that
she
might have had something to do with the signal loss entered his head.

"You're here, and you are needed there," she said, an enigmatic smile touching her lips. "She needs your help in more ways than you know."

"Ryan said the same thing . . ."

"That isn't what I am referring to."

"Well, that sounds very mysterious, what do you mean?"

"I see three women in your life; one is no good for you, the other two . . . either would do for you. Miller, you are going to have to choose, and choices can be painful sometimes."

"Sister, what if I choose not to?"

"I'm only telling you what
might
be . . . What you do about it, is up to you."

A polished black stone slightly larger than a toy marble appeared in her hand. It bent the reflection of the window behind across its spherical surface.

"I want you to hold this for a moment. What it is, I don't rightly know, but it is something unique, a gift from God."

Miller viewed it with suspicion.

"Don't worry," Sister explained. "We can go all round the houses, with me plucking things about you from the air, or we can shortcut things . . ."

"With that?" he asked.

"It's something I found years ago, when I was a wee young girl. It helps me focus on people . . . what they carry inside; it helps me understand what makes them tick. I want you to put your hand out, focus for a minute . . ."

Both stared at the stone.

It was empty when she first found it, readable only after others had touched it. It never occurred to her it wasn't
empty
. There had just been nothing new to transfer into
her
. If she'd have been of a remotely scientific disposition, she would have had an inkling of how it worked sooner. She knew she was an aberration. In human terms, she was off the scale, the amplification of her senses out of all proportion to evolutionary needs. She recognised that Miller was mildly psychic, but if he were a dog, she was a bloodhound. Her extra perception covered all the senses, and that gave rise to the existence of something else in her. A sixth sense.