Sisters, Long Ago Read online

  “They mail it?”

  “It’s sent by air, in a cooler. It keeps a long time, at the right temperature. Dr. Rogers says it can even be frozen and kept several years.”

  “When will it get here?”

  “I don’t know yet. You don’t need to come back with the tapes, though. Sarah’s moving to a different room. She needs radiotherapy to help her immune system be ready to receive the donor marrow.”

  Her mother was in a hurry so Willow didn’t ask any more questions. She didn’t ask the one question that worried her most. How risky was this transplant? Was there a chance that Sarah wouldn’t live through it?

  16

  WILLOW LOOKED at the return address: Scotland. What was Helen doing in Scotland? She ripped open the envelope.

  Dear Willow,

  I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner but as you can see I am no longer in San Francisco. The day I got home, my dad told me he was being sent to Edinburgh for two years. I had one day to pack. It wasn’t easy.

  Anyway, I’ve been here ever since. We’ve seen the Royal Botanic Gardens and Holyrood Palace and some art museums. I’m getting educated, even though I haven’t started school here yet.

  Your letters were forwarded and got here today. I hope you haven’t wasted too much time trying to receive thoughts from me. That first day, I rushed around getting packed and forgot all about our five o’clock deal. The second day, we were traveling.

  After I got here, I discovered that five o’clock for you is now the middle of the night for me. So we can’t try mental telepathy, after all. It would have been a fun experiment, if I had stayed in San Francisco.

  I hope your sister is doing OK.

  Your friend,

  Helen

  Willow read the letter again. There was not one word about Kalos and Tiy. No mention of that other lifetime. Helen obviously had not tried to learn about ancient Egypt. Either Helen had decided that she and Willow weren’t sisters once, or else it wasn’t important to her to know more.

  Although Willow was disappointed, she understood why Helen might not be convinced of a past life. Helen had not seen herself as Tiy. She never dreamed about the temple and the great sun god, Amun-Ra.

  Willow frowned. The day before at five o’clock she clearly heard: I am thinking of you.

  If Helen wasn’t thinking of her, why did she get that message? Who was it from?

  She was sure she didn’t imagine it. The words had been too distinct. Now that she thought of it, the rest of the message, I wish the best for you and your sister, wasn’t phrased the way Willow would expect Helen to speak. It was too formal. Helen would have said, “I hope your sister is doing OK,” just like she did in her letter.

  Great, Willow thought. Now I’m hearing voices.

  She decided not to answer Helen’s letter. What was there to say? She still believed that she and Helen were sisters in a past life. But that life was over. This life is what concerned her now. This life, with her parents, and Gretchen, and school. This life—with Sarah scheduled for her bone marrow transplant tomorrow.

  Willow went into the kitchen and poured a glass of apple juice. As she drank it, she looked out the window and all thoughts of Helen vanished.

  There was a dog in Mrs. Clauson’s yard. A small, brown dog that looked something like a Dachshund. After the way Mrs. Clauson glared at her when she found Willow calling Jericho, Willow didn’t particularly want to go outside and try to get closer to the dog. But it fit Gretchen’s description.

  Willow put down her juice and called Gretchen.

  “I think Mrs. Clauson might have the Welsh Corgi,” she said. “I’m not sure if that’s what kind it is. Can you come over? We can look at it through the binoculars.”

  Gretchen got there in record time. “Mom was just leaving to go to the dentist,” she said, “so she gave me a ride over. I brought the encyclopedia and the Lost ad.”

  Gretchen examined the dog through the binoculars while Willow studied the picture of a Welsh Corgi in the book.

  “That’s it,” Willow said.

  “It sure is. Let’s call.”

  Willow dialed the number. A woman answered.

  “I’m calling about your dog,” Willow said.

  “Do you have her? Do you have Bonnie?”

  “I’m not sure if it’s your dog or not,” Willow said. “It’s a Welsh Corgi, though.”

  “Where was she? Where did you find her? Oh, I’m so relieved. I was sure someone stole her. She’s never jumped out of the car before.”

  “Maybe she didn’t jump this time, either,” Willow said. “My neighbor boards dogs. At least she says she boards dogs. But we—my friend and I—think maybe she doesn’t board them at all. We think she steals them in order to get a reward when she gives them back.”

  There was a brief pause at the other end of the line. “I see,” the woman said. “Do you have any reason to suspect this?”

  Willow told how Mrs. Clauson asked for more money for the poodle and she told what had happened with Jericho. “And now she has a Welsh Corgi,” she said.

  “Are your parents home? Do they know about this?”

  “No,” Willow said. “They’re at the hospital with my sister.”

  The woman said she needed to think for a minute. She took Willow’s name, address, and phone number and said she would call back soon.

  She called in less than five minutes. “This is Andrea Wilson,” she said. “A police officer is going to meet me at your house in ten minutes.”

  While they waited, Willow and Gretchen peered out the window.

  “I hope Mrs. Clauson leaves the dog outside,” Willow said.

  “I’ve always wanted a dog or a cat,” Gretchen said. “But Ryan has allergies so we can’t have any animals.” She sighed and spoke more softly. “A dog or a cat,” she said wistfully. “Something furry, a creature who would like me just the way I am, without wanting me to change.”

  “Who wants you to change?” Willow asked.

  “Oh, you know how my folks are always after me to get better grades. I got a B+ on my science test yesterday and when my dad saw it, he said, ‘What went wrong on this test? Why didn’t you get an A?’ Can you believe it? I thought a B+ was good, until he started in.”

  Willow knew what Gretchen was saying. Ever since kindergarten, Gretchen’s parents had expected her to get all A’s; anything less was not acceptable. And they nagged at her about her clothes and her hair.

  She had often wondered why Gretchen’s parents couldn’t see what a super person Gretchen was. Why did they worry so about report cards? Gretchen wasn’t in danger of flunking. She always got good grades so why would her parents want her to change?

  “I like you just the way you are,” Willow said.

  “You do?” Gretchen said. She looked surprised.

  In a flash of insight, Willow realized that she had been guilty of wishing Gretchen would change, too. She didn’t care how many A grades Gretchen got and she thought Gretchen’s hair was just fine but she had wanted Gretchen to have different religious views. She wanted Gretchen to think for herself more, instead of relying on her pastor to tell her what was right or wrong. She wished Gretchen would go to a less conservative church, one that didn’t tell her exactly what to believe. Maybe, in her own way, she had been just as unfair to Gretchen as Gretchen’s parents were.

  “I’ve done a lot of thinking lately,” Willow said slowly, “about things I never thought about before. My ideas are changing and at first I wanted you to change, too. Now I see that it doesn’t matter. We can be friends, even if we think differently about some things. What matters is how we feel about each other.”

  Gretchen looked relieved. “I was worried,” she said. “You’re the best friend I have and I thought I was going to lose you.”

  “No way.”

  “Believe it or not, I want you to keep on telling me the stuff you think about,” Gretchen said. “Even reincarnation. And I won’t tell anyone, if you ask me not t
o. I never did tell Pastor Farriday about your dreams.”

  “I’ve had some weird experiences,” Willow said. “Not everyone will understand.”

  “Like what?”

  Willow hesitated. She thought about the tunnel and the white light and the carnival. Should she tell Gretchen about those? Or about the voice she heard so clearly, when she was listening for Helen—the voice she couldn’t identify?

  “What’s happened?” Gretchen said.

  “Well, sometimes I feel a white light all around me.”

  “You mean, a halo? Like Jesus had?”

  “I never thought of that,” Willow said. “The pictures of Christ do show him with light around his head, don’t they?”

  Gretchen nodded. “All the saints have halos,” she said.

  “I’m no saint,” Willow said, “but I do feel a light around me sometimes.”

  Gretchen looked impressed. “What else?” she said. “What else has happened?”

  “I tried to send healing energy into Sarah. I held her hand and . . .”

  “Faith healing?” Gretchen said. “I can’t believe it! You tried faith healing with Sarah?”

  “What do you mean by faith healing?”

  “You know, the laying on of hands. Where you touch someone and Jesus works through your hands to heal that person. They do it in my church all the time.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Sometimes. But I never dreamed you would believe in it.”

  “I didn’t exactly do it that way.”

  “Isn’t that what you said? You held her hand and the Lord worked through you to . . .”

  “I sent the healing energy myself.”

  “Without,” Gretchen said slowly, “any help from Jesus.”

  Willow nodded.

  “What happened when you did it?”

  “Sarah woke up and smiled at me. We talked. Of course, I can’t prove that I helped her; she might have awakened then whether I was there or not.”

  “Faith healing without the faith,” Gretchen said. “That’s a new one.”

  “I had faith.”

  “But you just said you didn’t expect any help from Jesus.”

  “Mrs. Evans believes in the healing power of love,” Willow said. “That’s what I was trying to use.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Evans?”

  Before Willow could explain, there was a knock on the front door. Willow opened it and invited the police officer to come inside.

  She told him everything that had happened with Mrs. Clauson and the dogs. By the time she finished, Andrea Wilson arrived.

  They all went into the kitchen and looked out the window into Mrs. Clauson’s backyard.

  “That’s her!” Andrea said. “That’s Bonnie.” She started for the door.

  “Please don’t go over there,” the police officer said.

  “I have to. I have to get Bonnie. She’s probably scared to death, poor little thing. She’s never been away from me before. I take her everywhere.”

  “We have no proof that Mrs. Clauson took Bonnie out of your car,” the officer said. “I want you to wait for her to contact you; I want you to pay her the reward.”

  Andrea Wilson wrung her hands together. “I can’t leave Bonnie there, now that I know where she is.”

  “If you take your dog now, it doesn’t provide any evidence that Mrs. Clauson took her. It leaves her free to steal someone else’s dog. The only way we can stop her is to catch her in the act of stealing a dog or to verify that she’s the one who collected a reward in several cases.”

  Andrea Wilson hesitated. “I want to help,” she said. “But I have to do what’s fair to Bonnie, too. It might be days before that woman calls me. Bonnie’s probably terrified.”

  “Maybe we can get Mrs. Clauson to call you right away,” Willow said. “When she saw me look closely at Jericho, she called the owners and returned him that same day. Or at least I think that’s what happened.”

  “If you show interest in this dog, too, Mrs. Clauson might be suspicious,” the officer said. “I don’t want to put you in any danger of retaliation before we have a clear case against her.”

  “Retaliation?” Willow said. How could Mrs. Clauson retaliate?

  Then she remembered her conversation with Gretchen about what Mrs. Clauson might do with a dog if the owner didn’t pay a reward. She looked at Muttsie. Would Mrs. Clauson try to sell Muttsie to a place that tests cosmetics on animals? Willow couldn’t bear to think of such a possibility.

  “I could be the one to talk to her,” Gretchen said. “She doesn’t know me. What if I knocked on her door and told her I’m looking for a lost Welsh Corgi? I could say I heard a dog bark in her yard and it sounded like mine.”

  Willow looked at Gretchen with admiration.

  “It might work,” the officer said.

  After a brief discussion, Andrea Wilson went back home to be near her telephone. She called as soon as she arrived, to let them know she was there.

  Willow and the officer waited while Gretchen went next door and spoke with Mrs. Clauson.

  When Gretchen returned she said, “Mrs. Clauson says she’s boarding the Welsh Corgi. She wouldn’t let me look at it.”

  Five minutes later, Andrea called.

  “I just had a call from a woman who says she found my dog. She tried to get me to raise the reward to $300 but when I said $200 is all I have, she agreed to take that. She wouldn’t tell me her name. We’re going to meet in half an hour.”

  The officer gave Andrea instructions, thanked Gretchen and Willow for their help, and left. Once more, the girls stood next to the window, watching the house next door.

  Fifteen minutes later, they saw Mrs. Clauson leave the house and get in her car. She had the Welsh Corgi with her.

  17

  NUK UA em ennu en Xu ammu Xu.

  The nonsense phrase repeated itself in her mind.

  Nuk ua em ennu en Xu ammu Xu.

  She looked again at what she had written. She didn’t know how to pronounce it but somehow she knew the spelling was right. Had she been dreaming again? Maybe the words made sense as part of a dream.

  She put the paper on her bedside table, lay back, and closed her eyes. Bit by bit, the dream came back to her.

  Kalos hurried to get ready. She dipped her stick into the jar of kohl and carefully painted the green mixture around her eyes. She brushed her lips with red ochre and fastened her favorite beads around her neck.

  Tiy entered, carrying two perfume cones. She attached one of the cones to the top of Kalos’s head and Kalos put the other one on Tiy’s head.

  Kalos picked up her lute and Tiy got her double pipe. They walked quickly into the central room.

  The party had already begun. A harpist sang while she played her harp, and a group of dancers swayed and dipped. Kalos ate dates and grapes and nibbled on roasted rabbit.

  When it was time for Kalos and Tiy to perform, Tiy looked nervous. Kalos smiled to reassure her as they carried their instruments to the center of the room and began to play. Tiy made one mistake, but no one except Kalos seemed to notice. The guests exclaimed how talented the two girls were and Kalos and Tiy, giddy with success and relief, fled back to their own quarters.

  Kalos put down her lute, removed the perfume cone, and took off her wig. It felt wonderful to get the heavy, hot headdress off. She kept her own hair short, because of the heat, but for public occasions the plaited wig was necessary.

  “Perhaps this will be the day of birth,” Kalos said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if our new sister or brother was born on such a happy day?”

  Tiy nodded. “I will pray to Taweret,” she said. “If the goddess of childbirth hears and agrees, the baby will be born.”

  Kalos did not try to dissuade her sister but she reserved her own prayers for Amun-Ra. Why direct her supplications to a lesser god, even a kindly one like Taweret, when she could go directly to the king of the gods?

  The dream faded and Willow opened her eyes. That was all
she could remember.

  Quickly she jotted some notes. The wigs surprised her. She thought wigs were a modern invention. Had Kalos worn a wig before, when she went to the temple?

  She wondered about the new baby. If Tiy was Helen now, and Kalos was Willow now, was this new baby alive now, too? Was there, somewhere in the world today, another person who had once been her brother or sister? Maybe this child was the little girl she had glimpsed with Kalos and Tiy that night during the guided visualization in Mrs. Evans’s office. What was her name? Huzein?

  Willow wasn’t sure she could handle another sibling. She’d been so excited when she met Helen; she felt the bond between them so strongly. Yet Helen didn’t feel the same way at all. Although Helen was curious about Willow’s ideas, she never tried to prove that they were sisters in another lifetime.

  Willow was sorry she ever suggested the five o’clock experiment. She had hurt Gretchen’s feelings badly over it that first night, and Helen never once tried to send Willow her thoughts. In her effort to contact someone from a past life, Willow nearly alienated her best friend in this life.

  I won’t make that mistake again, she decided. From now on, I’ll care about the people who matter to me now. This life is the one that counts. The rest is only speculation.

  She looked at the clock—4:30 A.M. She wondered if Sarah was awake. In three hours, Sarah would have the transplant. If the new marrow worked, it would completely replace the malignant bone marrow that had been producing cancerous white blood cells. Sarah could regain her health and live a normal life.

  If the marrow didn’t work . . . Willow refused to even consider that possibility. The transplant had to work. It had to.

  Willow’s parents had written to the donor and thanked her. They sent the letter to the National Bone Marrow Program office in Minnesota, and asked that it be forwarded to the right person.

  “Whatever happens with Sarah,” they wrote, “we will always be grateful to you for giving her this chance.”

  According to Dr. Rogers, Sarah’s odds of finding a nonrelative donor with matching marrow were only one in 15,000. Yet it had happened. And, even though Sarah had lapsed into a coma for a while, she got better and was now strong enough to have the transplant. So far, luck was with them.