Free B004M5HK0M EBOK by Unknown

THREE SISTERS
     
    The south London sky exploded with a thousand deaths that night. Emily looked up. Tiny coloured lights hung in the blackness, like Midget Gems suspended mid-rinse in a toddler’s open mouth. She was on her way to the bonfire party, at the big house at the end of the street in Brixton where she lived, at the invitation of the new owner whom she had never met. Emily should have been used to the fireworks at her age because there had always been fireworks on bonfire night, for as long as she could remember - the fireworks now as much a celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, and Halloween, the American festival of gore and dressing up, as Guy Fawkes night, when people in England remembered the day back in 1605 when a plot had been foiled which, had it been successful, would have blown up the Houses of Parliament, with King James I inside it.
    But tonight each explosion startled Emily slightly, as if it was the sound of a gunshot, danger. And the sizzling sausage smell of blackening flesh that hung in the autumn air made her think of her dog Jessie who had died the week before. The dog had not been barbecued: she died peacefully, after a long and happy life. But she had very much enjoyed eating sausages.
    Emily was carrying a tray of homemade cheesy potato bake – a wholesome, portable dish that usually went down well at parties – and a bottle of rosé wine. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have gone. Ordinarily, she would have been at home with Jessie, just in case the dog was disturbed by the noise of the fireworks. But those days were gone. And when the handwritten invitation had been slipped through her letterbox, well, she had interpreted it as a sign that she should start a new life, and find some new friends. How was she to know she was making an appointment, not just with a new life, but with death?
    Halloween had fallen this year on the weekend before bonfire night, and as usual many people were out celebrating both events. Local children wandered the streets in ugly masks. At least, she hoped they were masks. For a moment or two Emily felt uneasy – what if this invitation was some sort of trick? What if she got to the big house at the end of the street and the place was dark and deserted? But then she seemed to feel the presence of her dog Jessie walking beside her for a few paces, and she felt reassured.
    As she got closer to the house, she saw it was not deserted. First she heard music, and then she saw the coloured lights strung up in the trees, and finally she heard the happy buzz of conversation from people gathered in the garden. The guests were easily distinguishable from their hosts because they wore anoraks, scarves and gloves. The hosts were walking on stilts or juggling fire – the first sight Emily had was of a giant, glowing, pink papier-mâché or fibreglass painted head floating about five feet above the top of the privet hedge that surrounded the property.
    Like most people who live in London, Emily didn’t know her neighbours very well, though she knew most by sight and some by name – usually because she’d had to take in parcels or bouquets of flowers when they were out. She recognised Dr. Muriel walking through the gates just ahead of her, pulling a small two-wheeled shopping trolley with one hand, and tapping at the pavement for support every three or four paces or so with an elegant silver-topped cane in the other. Dr. Muriel was a hearty, squarish woman the colour of concrete. She lived in one of the red brick Edwardian houses opposite Emily’s flat. Emily had taken in mail order deliveries of large parcels of nutritious bird seed from the RSPB for Dr. Muriel. Now, as she followed her, she imagined Dr. Muriel standing very still in her garden with her cupped hands outstretched, wild birds perched along her sleeves as if she were a washing line, waiting their turn to peck at the sunflower seeds and other delicious avian titbits while their benefactor cheeped and