Riversleigh

Rose hauled herself back upwards into a vertical position with the aid of a tottering pile of wooden crates, complete with hundreds of tiny little jagged pieces of wood breaking free, from the mother ship which had for the best part of a century held them in stasis. No further mishaps occurred to poor Rose with her wounded ankle apart from the few splinters which decided to take up a new abode in the palm of her hand. Hobbling carefully she slowly made her way towards her sister, anxious concern dripping from the falling tears in her own eyes.

“Abby, Abbey, whatever is the matter? Have you hurt yourself? Did you fall? Have you received a letter or note with some terrible news? Oh Abby tell me quick. I cannot bear to see you like this!”

As if through a fog, Abigail thought she heard someone call her name. She looked up and through the mists of her tear-filled eyes she watched Rose, her own dear Rose, approach her, taking extra special care not to fall again. Abigail shifted over on the stairs to allow Rose to sit beside her on the same step. Rose wrapped her arms around her sister, pulling her close and cradling her in her arms, even while she rested her own head upon her big sister’s shoulder.

“This is not like you Abby. What has happened to make you this sad?”

Abigail turned and looked deeply into Rose’s eyes, smiling sadly. But the words she spoke belied the sadness which clung to her now and Rose felt that for the first time her sister was not entirely truthful with her. This hurt her more than any words Abigail could have spoken. Rose realised that whatever it was which had upset Abigail, the pain was too deep for any confidences at all. Rose wanted to scream and shout and demand that she be told, for she hated secrets especially those which seemed to harbour the vapours of melodrama. Abigail, on the contrary, had always preferred to nurse her wounds in silence, and up until this point in their shared lives, had always succeeded in hiding the most significant emotional events in her life thus far, from her little sister’s prying, albeit caring and concerned, eyes.

Snuffling almost impatiently then, Abigail felt through her pockets searching for a hankerchief, but could find none. Rose produced one from the sleeve of her blouse.

“Thanks pet.” Abigail smiled a wavering, watery smile, and giving Rose a quick hug she told her that she was fine, that there was nothing to worry about. In fact she really had no idea what had come over her and that right now what she really needed was a cup of tea.

Now standing Abigail turned to Rose and offered her hand. Rose took hold of the extended hand and then leant upon her sisters arm as the 2 sisters made their way slowly back up the stairs, closing the door on the basement behind them.

Making their way to the first seat in view Abigail helped Rose to arrange herself upon the hard stool, checking her ankle before heading for the kitchen. As expected, there were no breakages, not even a sprain. Abigail sighed as she considered how dramatic her little sister tended to be at any little crisis.

She sighed a deep, deep sigh, letting her breath out slowly as if it hurt her even to try and breathe. For some reason, some strange and inexplicable reason, she felt as if her very soul and inner being had been battered and bruised, and that inside, her broken heart was bleeding to death. Unable to understand her own strange behaviour she tried to focus on the task in hand, to concentrate her entire energy upon filling the kettle with water from the tap and placing it upon the hob before lighting the gas to bring it to the boil. This is just a bit of momentary madness, she told herself. It will pass if I ignore it and just get on with what needs to be done.

Grabbing the tea pot from the counter, she poured a little of the hot water into it to warm it up, remembering her mother as she did so. Whenever either of her daughters tried to sidestep this step in the tea making process they would be scolded by their tea-loving mother, who never could abide the lazy way of making tea, and who positively abhorred the genesis of tea bags! Abigail smiled a little while uttering a wordless prayer to her mother, dead these past 5 years. Abigail missed her dreadfully. She missed her warmth and her wisdom. She missed being able to turn around and simply voice her concerns, and even if Mother didn’t know the answer, at the very least she listened carefully to her daughter’s concerns. Sometimes just to enunciate the problem was enough to generate, if not a full solution, then at the very least a partial compromise.

She reached for the old tin which had served as a tea caddy for as long as Abigail could remember. There had been a story about this very tin, often told at one time, but now unfortunately long forgotten. It had involved a great-aunt of her mothers and a trip to the east. Sometimes Abigail wished that she had listened more closely to her mother’s tales of times past.

Abigail poured the rich, golden liquid into 2 mugs, another aberration as far as her mother was concerned who had always insisted upon drinking tea from delicate china cups with matching saucers and tiny silver spoons. Grabbing a packet of previously opened biscuits from the press, Abigail carried the mugs in her hands with biscuits held tightly underarm. She made her way gingerly back to her sister, being especially careful not to spill any of the contents of the mugs on top of any of the precious books lying in piles underfoot.

Rose smiled what she hoped was an encouraging and cheery smile as she accepted the offering of tea proffered from her sister’s hands. The 2 sisters drank their tea silently, each lost in their own thoughts and inner worlds.

Rose’s world was generally bright and cheerful. Hers was an essentially optimistic nature with a rather strong inclination towards the romantic, the sentimental and the usually accompanying melodrama. Abigail’s interior landscape was somewhat different. While not exactly dark in nature, still it had a veiled aspect to it. Always slightly wary of whatever presented itself to her, she could be accused of having a suspicious nature, with a strong pessimistic bent. But this would have been unfair to her. Abigail was merely reserved and a little reticent. While slow to warm up, a love once given would last until eternity and beyond. Hers was not a capricious nature, but rather deep and more than a little mysterious.

It was this mysterious element which looked most likely to become the predominant aspect in the foreseeable future. Until now neither of the sisters had quite understood just how strange a being one of them really was!

Soul Sister

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS

In which 2 sisters, Abigail and Rose, awaken amidst the clutter and mayham of their bookshop, ‘Hypatia’s Book Emporium’, a business which has been in their family for generations.

“Dam and blast it!”

Rose looked up from the book she had just picked off the over-stuffed shelf, its gold-edged binding having seemed to call to her to reach out and claim it as her own. Disturbed by the curses and mutterings of her sister Abigail emerging from some hidden spot deep in the bowels of the basement, Rose quickly dropped the precious book and ran towards the disembodied voice.

Perhaps ‘ran’ is something of an overstatement however, since it was simply not possible to perform such a feat in this bookshop with books pouring out of every crevice, hole and gap, piled treacherously high upon any unsuspecting, tiny, horizontal space which had lain unadorned, empty, waiting, until spied by one of these book-devouring sisters. It would have been most helpful and expedient if the sisters had been gifted with wings to accompany their inheritance of this, the fulfilment of their great-uncle’s dream and life’s work. But, failing wings, and in their stead, an acute level of watchfulness and awareness was required in order to manouever one’s steps across the book-strewn and untidy wooden boards.

There were times when Abigail considered the pity of not attempting, at least, to clear an odd space or two, here and there, and to perhaps shine and polish this oaken floor laid down so many years ago by her great-great-grandfather and his son, her great-grandfather. In those days, of course, this marvellous example of  late 18^th century architecture was not a business, but rather home to both Rose and Abigail’s ancestors, impoverished gentry who still somehow managed to maintain a level of acceptability, albeit increasingly shabby as the years passed by and the scarce monies and resources dwindled away until eventually they became non-existent. It was then that by some luck and good fortune one of the seven sons of the seventh son developed an uncanny ability for entrepeneurship, and it was he who first turned his hand to the somewhat indelicate practice of business. Still, his parents, while not entirely agreeable to his proposal, did not raise too high an obstacle to its implementation.

And so it was that the family book shop began its small and insignificant beginnings here on this very spot where it still stands, having kept its doors open for more than 2 centuries to all book lovers and those with literary leanings, a book shop now renowned the world over as the one reliable source for odd and strange titles most stores would have long since given up any hope of finding.

As Abigail picked her way carefully across the floor she couldn’t help but reflect upon her deep love and affection for this building which housed so many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions and millions, of endless words, pouring and spilling out from beneath the ancient covers. Just to stand still and breathe in the old and musty smell of books once loved and held , stained by fingers and drops of tea and coffee was to transport her to different lands, new ways of seeing, other ways to live a life. Sometimes  when Rose lay long since asleep upon her bed, Abigail slipped silently down the stairs and unlocked the side door which led to the hallway connecting the big old house and the shop. Even the key which hung above the door frame was older than either her or Rose or even their father. Both girls were the last remaining descendants of a once large and prolific family.

Increasingly this burden of duty and commitment to a way of life which had been handed on from the ancient ones to the sometimes unwilling descendants lay like a straight jacket upon Abigail’s shoulders. Yes she loved this place, loved the books and the smells and the mystery of words and languages yet to be discovered, but still, she sometimes felt the need for more. But more what?

“Blast!!”

Rose’s voice awakened her from her brief reverie and alerted her again to what was required in the moment.

“Coming!” she shouted in the general direction from where the voice had come. Swiftly tripping down the stairs, she came to a sudden halt about half way down when she saw her sister, her dear, crazy, maddening, loveable sister, lying spread-eagled on the ground with at least 2 boxfulls of books deposited around her body.

“For God’s sake, help me up Abigail. I think I’ve broken something”, she growled.

Abigail stood and looked at her, then sat down on the stairs and began to laugh and laugh and laugh until her whole body was shaking with merriment.

At least that’s what Rose thought until Abigail finally raised her eyes to look up and then Rose saw that it was not happiness which made Aibgail’s bones jingle and dance, but sorrow, the deep sorrow and sadness of years and years of unfulfilled yearnings.

Covering her face with her hands Abigail whispered, more to herself than her sister, “ Something’s got to change around here Rosie. Something’s got to give.”

Rose simply stared at her big sister astounded at this unusual and uncharacteristic outburst of emotion.

“Something has already changed”, she muttered.

Soul Sister