Dark Sister (20 page)

THIRTY-THREE

It
was the day of the custody hearing. Both parties had made
their visits to the
Court Welfare Officer, and both parties concluded that the Court Welfare
Officer was biased against them. A report was duly compiled and a date set for
the hearing in chambers. To attend, Alex dusted off the only suit he possessed
and tied his tie in a strangling, tiny knot. Maggie put on too much makeup and
wore high heels.

Briggs for Alex
and Montague for Maggie.
Morton Briggs exuded an easy confidence which
Alex didn't share. Alice Montague did her best to put Maggie at ease.
"Judge Bennett," she said. "That's very good for us." Each
side was introduced to and interviewed by their respective barristers and the
case was up and running by ten A.M.

While the Welfare Officer's
inconclusive report was being read out to the court, Alice Montague, sitting
next to Maggie, whispered in her ear, "Apparently your husband's not
calling anyone as a witness.
Any idea why?"

Maggie shrugged. She had no idea whether it was
significant or otherwise. She herself was calling her childminder who, despite
recent difficulties, had guaranteed to testify to Maggie's qualities as a fit
parent. Maggie's worst fears were that Alex would drag in Anita
Suzman
, programmed to say hateful things about her ability
as a mother; but it looked as though Alex was happy to proceed without
witnesses.

However he may have looked, Alex was not
happy about much at all. He was beginning to squirm at what he'd done since
first receiving the summons, and he was even more nervous about the possible
consequences of his actions. But Maggie had started this. She'd elected for the
legal path! He'd pleaded, appealed, and begged; but she was not to be diverted.

So be it. Alex had actually uttered those
archaic words aloud one day, an oath resonating with biblical weight. So be it.

It was, he'd decided, time to regain
control. Things had got out of hand and now he was reining in. Emotional appeal
had
failed,
familial affection had lost its way. He
had a terrible feeling that Maggie's powers (and only now was he beginning to
see them as powers, female,
dissipatory
,
undisciplined) were on the ascendant, and their single tendency was
disruptive. He knew he must meet her head-on with cold, hard logic. He saw how
the brittle masculine lines of the law could serve him and not her.

Maggie, after all, had taken the decisive
step on a road where he could match her yard for yard. He would fight to keep
household and children by all means available. No, he wasn't happy about this.
He wasn't
happy
about any of it. But he had switched off the emotional
response and had abandoned himself to a close study of the rules of play.

And the rules of play had a habit
of taking over from the original reasons for the engagement. Maggie soon
realized why Alex wasn't troubling to call witnesses, and so did Alice
Montague. Alex's barrister presented a large cardboard box containing a collection
of small jars, bottles, and packets of herbs.

"Your Honour," said the
barrister, "what we have here is a collection of herbs, hedgerow plants,
oils, incenses—all of dubious medicinal value—which Mrs. Sanders gathered
together when she became obsessed with notions of healing, witchcraft, and
other practices which I can only describe as occult.

Maggie felt Alice Montague stiffen
beside her. Alex had lied when he'd said he'd burned all of her herbs. She
tried to look at him, but he was gazing straight ahead. The judge, who had not
spoken a word and seemed not to be listening, took his spectacles off, as if
the gesture would help him understand more clearly. "Occult?" he
said.

"Yes,
Your
Honour, occult. It seems Mrs. Sanders discovered an old diary composed by some
eccentric former occupant of the family home. She became obsessed with the
bizarre remedies and treatments suggested by the diary, so much so that she
began a campaign of experiments on her own children."

The judge put his spectacles on
again and looked hard at Maggie. Then he began poking around in the cardboard
box, sniffing at some of the containers almost theatrically. "You are
married, aren't you, Mr.
Boyers
?" he said to
Alex's barrister.

"As Your
Honour knows."

"And doesn't your wife keep a
spice rack in her kitchen?"

"Indeed she does, Your Honour,
but—"

"And does that make her an
inferior mother to your children, would you say?"

"Indeed not,
Your
Honour, though I must say—"

"And haven't you ever rubbed a
dock leaf on a nettle sting, Mr.
Boyers
?"

"Most certainly I have,
though—"

"Though what, Mr.
Boyers
?"

Maggie was astonished. The judge
was teasing the barrister, giving him the run-around. She looked at her solicitor,
and Alice Montague winked.

"Though what I would say, Your
Honour, is that—"

"And did you not find the
application of said dock leaf to said nettle sting an effective remedy?"

"Yes, Your Honour, most
effective."

"And if your wife told your children
to use this method of relief, would that make her a bad mother? No, Mr.
Boyers
, it won't do." The judge turned his nose up at
the contents of the box and waved it away. "Can we have this
removed?"

Alex's barrister lifted something
else from his bench and handed it to one of the court ushers. "If Your
Honour would care to study this, then I assure Your Honour that he might look
at the contents of the box in a somewhat different light."

The case practically closed itself
from that moment. What the barrister had given the judge was a photograph,
taken at night, showing Maggie romping naked on the heath inside a stone
circle. She appeared to be dancing, and the expression on her face suggested
some delirium. In the background, smiling demoniacally (it might be assumed),
was a bearded man, Ash, also partially naked.

The custody hearing which would
normally be expected to last a full day was over by lunchtime. Alex was awarded
a residence order, with no variation of the current contact arrangements.

"The bastard's been having me followed!" cried
Maggie outside the courtroom.

"That's right," said Alice
Montague. She was trying to comfort her.

"But isn't that
illegal in itself?
Following people?" Maggie's eye makeup had run.
Her face was like a cracked painting. "Surely it's illegal to follow
people."

Ms. Montague shook her head. "He must
have commissioned a private investigator. That photograph—"

"It wasn't how it looked! We were only—"

"You don't have to explain
anything to me, Maggie. At least try to comfort yourself with the fact that the
judge awarded you good contact with the children."

"Isn't there anything I can do?"

"See your children as often as
you can. Things might change. Maybe in the future you'll be able to work out
some improved agreement."

"Agreement?
After the way he's behaved today? I couldn't care if he stops breathing! You're
married to someone all this time and you think you know the best and the worst
of them. But you don't! You're living with a stranger. How could he have done
this to me, whatever the arguments? It's unforgivable! I don't want an
agreement! I want him dead for doing this!"

"Try not to be bitter,
Maggie."

Bitterness.
Bitterness was not something to be buttoned on and off like a coat. It was a
cancerous spot, like a lump in the chest or a stone in the throat. It deposited
a taste in the mouth which wouldn't wash away. Maggie shook hands with Alice
Montague and left the building, her high heels clicking angrily down the stone
steps to the busy street.

"Maggie." It was Alex,
waiting outside for her.

She paused briefly and flashed him
a look before marching away, her coat flapping in the wind. Alex was frightened
by what he'd seen in her eyes.

"Try not to be bitter,
Maggie." This time it was Ash, offering the same ineffective advice.
Maggie had gone back to Omega, and he'd shut up shop to spare time to try and
console her.

"Everyone tells me not to be
bitter. But it's easy for you to say that."

Maggie sat looking oddly composed.
But she didn't deceive herself. She knew if she didn't project
a composure
of sorts she would break something. She had to
shut down her feelings, but even so she felt them working, agitating, trembling
at hideous depth, like molten lava. Some rage inside her was loose and shifting,
dissociating from
herself
.

"Yes, it's easy for me to say
that," said Ash. "But it's also easy for you to give in to the kind
of thoughts you're having right now."

"We can't all be so
noble."

Ash let that one go. He handed her
a cup and saucer. She hadn't looked him in the eye since she'd come into the
shop. He was a little afraid of her. The appearance of her anger was too cold.
"Look, you've lost a legal fight, but you've got access to the children.
Think positive. There are other ways you can make this work for you."

"That's right." She
suddenly turned to face him. "There are other ways."

"No," said Ash,
realizing. "That's not what I meant. I was talking about using your access
time creatively. Getting the most out of it, I know what you're thinking, and
you'd better put away those ideas right now."

"A lot of
other ways."

"I tell you, Maggie, it's a
wrong path.
A wrong path.
It'll come back on you. Are
you listening to me, Maggie? Maggie?"

THIRTY-FOUR

Liz
was kneeling over her doorstep, whetting a wooden-handled
knife on the stone
threshold. It was a knife so old it had lost half its blade width on a
lifetime's sharpening. A low, throaty singing emanated from her as she worked.
Her voice wobbled with the vibrato of age, but Liz could still hold to a
melody.

She become a rose
A
rose all in the wood And
he become a bumblebee And kissed her where she stood

She become a hare
The
hare run down the lane
And he become a greyhound dog And fetched her home again.

A shadow fell over her threshold and she looked up.

"Here she is."

"Here I am."

"
Know'd
you
was
coming." Liz went on whetting her knife
on the step. "Where's that lovely little gel? Ain't you
brung
her to see me?"

Maggie stepped over her and went
inside to make a brew. "I've lost her. I've lost both the children." Liz
stopped what she was doing.

"Lost? What's all this
talk
of lost?"

Maggie bit her lip and explained the
consequences of the court decision.

"Why," said Liz,
"that's not lost. You proper turned me over when you said as they
was
lost. I thought they
was
dead.
Nothing and no one's lost until they're dead."

"I want them back, Liz!"

"And so you shall have them
back. But not by bleating about it, you won't."

"Will you help me?"

"I'll
not."

"But you could, Liz. You could help
me get my children back."

"And I've told you I'll not. I
knows
what you've got a mind to do, and it's
nowt
to do
wi
' me, but I'll tell
you this: stay off of it."

"You don't know what I've got
in mind. Why do you say you do?"

Liz straightened her bent back and waved the knife at
Maggie. "I know more than you think. You mark it. More than you think. I
knows
what you put on that husband o' yours, and on his
fancy woman. That's surprised you, hasn't it? And you think yourself clever;
but never mind, because that was no more than justice.
Justice.
But this other,
it's
wrong path. Now I've
telled
you and I'll say no more. But you mark it."

Maggie looked away. In one sense she was surprised by
what Liz had known about her activities, but in another way she'd always
recognized that Liz had a sight beyond her own.

"Did you mark it?" Liz demanded.

"Yes," said Maggie, like a sulky schoolgirl.

"Good. Now fetch my coat and we'll go for a blow
in the
fields.
For I don't like
you coming in my house with all this on you.
I don't like it one
bit."

They walked along the
edge of a sparse copse and across a field. Liz's old collie trotted ahead of
them.

"Spring not far
off," said Liz. "Smell it?"

"Yes. It's in the
air."

"Not in the air.
In the ground.
In the growing.
That's what you smell. Feel better for a blow?"

"Yes, I do feel
better."

"Blow away some o'
that what's a-settled on your shoulder." She pointed her stick at a plant
with a yellow flower not unlike a dandelion head.
"Coltsfoot.
Earliest I ever seen coltsfoot.
Weather's a-changing.
Get me some o' that. Good for the lungs.
Coughs.
Very good."

Maggie stooped and
picked the plant by the root. "What do you know about
shapeshifting
?"

"
Psssshhhhtttt
!" went Liz. She still hated anything
mentioned openly.

Maggie ignored her.
"That diary of mine, the one I told you about. It mentions it. It says
that, well, it's the way to true power. Is that so?"

Liz walked on,
tight-lipped.

"I mean, have you
ever done it?"

Liz stopped.
"Wouldn't tell you if I had.
And there's an end to your
questions, ain't it?"

"But
why not?"

"I
don't know who you might tell. You might be a blabbermouth for all I
know."

"Look
here, Liz. All the time I've been coming to you I haven't said a word about
anything to anyone. And if you know half what you claim to know, you'd know
that."

Liz
chuckled to herself, and flicked her stick in the direction of a wooden stile.
"Let's head up there. You can collect me some firewood as we go."

Maggie was accustomed, and never
objected, to being used as a pack mule on these walks. She collected a few logs
and stacked them under her arm.

"No no
no
,"
said
Liz.
"You still don't know your wood. That 'un won't burn. A one
should know her wood. Here:

Oak shall warm you
well

That's old and dry

Logs of pine do
sweetly smell

But sparks will fly

Birch will burn too
fast

Chestnut scarce at
all

Hawthorn logs
be
good to last

Cut them when
leaves fall

Holly log it burns
like wax

You may burn 'em
green

Elm logs like to
smouldering flax

No flame to be seen
—

Are you listening?"

"Yes, Liz."

"No you ain't. You're letting
things play. And you ain't a-listening."

Liz leaned and Maggie hoisted
herself on the stile, and they were quiet for a few minutes. Then Liz said
something Maggie didn't understand.

"I was thinking how I might tell it you all. I
was even thinking how I might give you the line when my time comes. And that
can't be long. But I don't
know,
gel; there's a
hardness in you of late. Today you're as tight as a drum, and I don't
know." Liz looked off into the trees.

Maggie said, "But I only
wanted to ask you if it was possible.
This
shapeshifting
.
To ask you if you'd ever ..."

She tailed off because this time it
was Liz who wasn't listening. She was gazing at a blackbird perched on an elm branch
not six feet away. Perfectly still, its feathers were sleek and black, its beak
a brilliant orange. Its head was cocked, its eye fixed on Liz's eye; or maybe
Liz's brilliant gaze had skewered the bright eye of the bird. Nothing needed to
be said. Maggie had her answer. The old woman had
shifted
in her time.
She knew the way, and she had the wisdom of transcendent experience. She had
tasted the flame many, many times.

The blackbird flew away.

"Put this thing out of your
mind," said Liz, "and concentrate on them children o' yours. I'm
worried you're bringing a shadow over them. Who
knows.
Maybe it's better if you don't see 'em for a while. But if you really want them
back, then go and talk to him. Talk. That's the proper way. Folk must
talk."

Liz moved off without looking back to see
if Maggie was following. Maggie trailed at a short distance. They climbed the
gentle incline of a hill, and Liz seemed lost in deep thought.

"Come to me on Saturday
morning," she said at last, "and I'll give you what you need for the
shifting."

"Shall I bring the children?"

"Leave 'em where they are."

"I thought you wanted to see Amy?"

"And I said not."

Maggie didn't argue.