My sister came back (Part Two)

Part One here

I was speechless for a second, trying to comprehend what my little sister was saying. Could it be true? Of course it could. She’d just run away. Maybe she’d met a boy and been caught up in some stupid romantic fantasy. And now she was back to say sorry for all the hurt she’d caused. A wave of anger rushed over me as I thought about how selfish Claire had been. The pain she’d caused. And the move to this godforsaken town.

“Where is she Kerry??” I asked forcefully, holding her by the shoulder and bringing my face in front of hers. “She’s outside” my little sister replied. I jumped out of bed, the cold air hitting my body and causing me to hunch my shoulders. “Where?” I repeated. Kerry led me to the bedroom window. She stared out and down, into the scruffy back yard which served as a garden. I followed her gaze to the corner of the yard, where a scraggly old tree sat against an overgrown hedgerow separating our yard from the neighbour’s. I looked down at Kerry’s face. It was dark but a street light partly illuminated the sorry-looking scene in front of us. “There’s no one there, Kerry” I finally said, sighing deeply as the realisation hit me. “You dreamt it”

I sat down on my sister’s bed and pulled her next to me. I put my head in my hands. “Kerry, it was just a dream. Claire’s not coming back.”

“She was there,” insisted my sister. “She wanted to say sorry.”

“Kerry, I don’t want you to tell mum this, OK? She’s very sad at the moment and it’s not good for her to hear things like this.” My sister stared ahead, refusing to answer. “Kerry…” I pressed “Promise me”. She nodded, looking down at her bare feet. I tucked her back in to bed and gave her a kiss on the forehead and then climbed back into my own bed.

I should probably tell you about Pete at this point. He’d helped my mum back with her grocery shopping one day. Just turned up at the door with her, carrying plastic bags full of cheap frozen meals and other staples (mum was never much of a cook). He owned a mechanic’s a couple of streets over and spoke in a strong mid-Wales accent. Mum invited him in for a cup of tea and they spoke quietly in the kitchen while we watched TV. We saw him a lot more often after that. I knew he would sometimes leave money, because mum would always do the grocery shopping just after he left. Filling out empty kitchen cupboards with biscuits, breakfast cereals and tinned fruits and the freezer with frozen chips and burgers. He would roughly rub my head when he saw me and ask when I was going to try out for the local rugby team. I’d look uncomfortable and he’d laugh.

Kerry didn’t mention Claire again for a long while. Pete gave her lots of attention, trying to make her laugh, pretending to play with her dolls etc. But she never smiled these days. She always wanted to be alone. It was around this time that I noticed she was writing letters. I’d walk into our shared room and she’d shove something under her bed sheets, flustered at being surprised. Nine-year-olds are not the best at being secretive so i could see she’d been using a red felt tip pen. I pretended not to notice, anyway, giving her a sense of privacy, but one night I found out where these letters were going.

I happened to see her from the bedroom window (I had been out but returned briefly to get something from my room). She was creeping across the garden, glancing backwards every so often to the kitchen window (presumably to see if my mum was there). She had a letter, folded in half, in her hands. As she reached the tree in the corner of the yard, she crouched down and lifted a rock off the ground. She placed the folded-up letter on the ground and then placed the rock on top. What the hell was she doing? My curiosity was aroused and i decided i’d find out for good that night.

Well, here’s the crazy thing. I promise Kerry didn’t go back into the garden for the rest of the day (Pete took her out for ice cream as a break for my mum and she went straight to bed after she returned) but when i finally slipped, quietly into the garden that night, there was no letter under the rock. I remember crouching there for a minute, dumbfounded. Maybe she’d just pretended to put it there? Maybe she’d slipped it back into her pocket while i couldn’t see? It was past midnight now, anyway, so I decided i’d ask her about it in the morning.

I crept back upstairs to our bedroom and pried open the creaky door so as not to wake Kerry. “Jesus Christ!” I said sharply, jumping as a human form stood in front of me. “Kerry! What are you doing up??” My sister stood in front of me, in the half light of the room. She was fully dressed. “We have to go and see Claire. She’s in trouble.” she replied, stressing ‘trouble’ in the way children do. “Kerry, no. You need to go back to bed now,” I answered firmly, already unnerved by my previous fright. “We have to…” she insisted, her face breaking out into a look of fear. I know it sounds stupid now, and I rationalised it at the time as putting this silliness to bed once and for all, but I sighed and crouched down in front of her. “OK. Let’s go and look for Claire.”

I followed her downstairs and we quietly opened the front door, leaving it on the latch behind us. She seemed to know where she was going so I followed behind, thinking of the chat I was going to have to have with her later. “Claire gone. I’m sorry Kerry, but she’s not coming back” I planned to say as we walked back to the house.

There’s a river that runs just past our town - the Ogwen (a Welsh name obviously). We’d been warned about not swimming there by our school. Two boys, a few years above us, had died one summer after getting caught in the fast flowing currents. Kerry was heading to where it passed through the local woods, a quarter mile from where we lived. She sped up. In the dark it was difficult to see her, half-running ahead of me. I started to jog to catch her up. “Kerry” I hissed “Slow down!”. She started running faster. The yellow waterproof coat she was wearing was the only reason I could still see her in the dark night. “Kerry!” I called again and increased my pace.

I stumbled through the dark until we reached the woods. I put my hands in front of my face so the branches wouldn’t hit me as I chased my sister, now running at full pelt. How could she even see where she was going? As the forest opened up to the river bank I caught her. She’d stopped dead and was looking out across the fast flowing waters. “Kerry!” I said angrily, grabbing her and twisting her body towards mine. “This is stupid. We have to go back to the house.”

“But Claire…” she cried. “Claire’s not here,” I answered angrily. “I know you miss her, Kerry. I do too. But Claire’s gone now. We all have to accept that.”

“But Claire…” she repeated, her voice breaking as she tried to get me to understand. She moved her gaze from mine and across the river, towards where the forest continued on the other side. She raised her arm and pointed. I slowly turned, following her gaze. On the opposite side of the riverbank. It was dark, only moonlight. The trees looked black against the dark grey sky. I saw something. A flash of white. A body. Somebody was standing on the river bank. They were waving. I made out a smile, long hair, a girl. Claire’s size. The face, illuminated slightly against the black of the forest. A sick pang of recognition hit me in the stomach. “…Claire?…”

Part Three