Free Tower of Silence by Sarah Rayne Page A

House.
     
    Leila Maskelyne regularly took sleeping pills, which the local doctor prescribed for her. It had been years since she had been able to fall asleep naturally. ‘Without my pills I should never get a good night’s sleep,’ she said.
    The pills were kept in her bedside cabinet, along with aspirin and indigestion mixture and the contraceptives that father sometimes used. Mary knew about those by now; some of the girls at school had started experimenting with boyfriends, and the upper fourth, most of whom were fourteen, had been given a sex talk by a nursing sister from the local women’s clinic. Most of the class had scuffled and giggled embarrassedly, but Mary had listened carefully because of understanding about what her parents were doing to get her sister reborn. It was actually a bit revolting to think of father doing that.
    She waited until mother got a new bottle of sleeping pills, and then tipped out a dozen and crushed them between two sheets of baking paper in the bathroom with the door locked. Six each. Would it be enough? Or too much? The label said you could take two, with a third one four hours later. So six each ought to be about right.
    It was easy to tip the white powder into father’s mid-evening cup of coffee and mother’s mid-evening cup of tea, half quantities each. Making the night-time drink was one of Mary’s weekend tasks when there wasno school the next day and she could stay up until ten o’clock. Usually she hated doing it, but tonight she made properly filtered coffee for father and mother’s favourite Earl Grey tea, and even set the cups on a little tray with a plate of biscuits.
    ‘That’s my good girl,’ said father, looking up from the evening paper, which he was reading. Mother looked up approvingly from her knitting and smiled.
    The pills did not take long to work. It was barely fifteen minutes before Mary, pretending to listen to Radio Luxembourg in her room, heard a crash of china–one of them dropping a cup, that would be. She waited a little longer and then went tiptoeing down to the sitting room, her heart beating furiously with nervous excitement.
    But it was all right; they were both knocked out by the pills. Mother had fallen sideways in her chair, her legs sprawling so that you could see her underwear. Pink petticoat and knickers, for God’s sake! She looked stupid and ugly and a dribble of saliva ran out of the corner of her mouth. Horrid!
    Father’s head had fallen back and his glasses had slipped to one side. His mouth was open so that you could see the fillings in his teeth, and he was snoring. Mary stood looking at them both for a long time, not because she was afraid of the next part, but because this was starting to be so violently exciting that she wanted to hold on to the feeling. Remember it. Remember how this feels. Curiously, she had the feeling that Christabel was with her now, and that Christabel was urging her on.
    Do it , Christabel was saying in Mary’s ear. Stupid selfishcreatures, both of them…Kill them, Mary, and you’ll be free, and I’ll be free as well…
    Christabel needed to be free? For a moment Mary had not understood this, but then the whispery voice had said, Of course I need to be free! I’m the prisoner of those stupid maudlin memories just as much as you are! I’m the angel-child, the virtuous perfect prodigy… Was there a note of impatience in Christabel’s voice there? I’m the one who should be set free, you silly bitch… said Christabel in Mary’s ear. Yes, the impatience and the scorn were unquestionably there, and Christabel’s strength was filling her up, and she could do it, she could do anything…
    Moving slowly, like a swimmer moving through water, Mary reached for one of mother’s knitting needles. They were steel needles because mother had been knitting a thick winter jumper and they would not break or bend under the weight of the heavy wool.
    They did not break or bend when Mary stood behind father’s