It’s already midnight. I’m still sitting on the floor with my mum’s belongings in front of me. The gold glows in the darkness, illuminated by the light of the star that is still there. No satellite after all.
As the dreaded Saturday approaches my mood grows steadily darker. But to my surprise the evening turns out better than expected. My parents are so delighted with Sophie’s success that my break-up with Ralph doesn’t seem so important. She’s the centre of attention, her future career and her relationship with her fiancé whom she intends to marry next year. There’s only one tricky moment when she starts one of her inquisitions and wants to know why we split up, but my stepmother interrupts her. “Livia is so young, she has lots of time. You don’t have to marry your first boyfriend, do you?” I smile gratefully at her, thinking how nice she is and wondering why I’ve never managed to form a closer relationship with her.
After dessert they start to discuss the wedding plans, which is still a bit much for me having been dumped so recently. So I leave the room on the pretence of clearing the plates and don’t return. Nobody comes looking for me, they’re much too busy. I curl up in one of the big leather armchairs in the living room, always a favourite place of mine, because there’s also the wall lined with bookshelves from top to bottom. I’ve always loved reading and now I scan the shelves for something new. The bottom shelves are filled with my father’s stuff, mostly non-fiction and lots of magazines about railways and fishing, his favourite hobbies. Further up there are my stepmother’s novels and poetry books, and on the last shelf, right at the top, my mum’s books. These books are the only things of hers left on display in this house and they are mostly botanical books. When I moved out I thought about taking her books with me but my apartment is very small, and to be honest, the thought of having botanical books in my space made me somehow nervous. I know, that’s really weird but I do have a rather strange and ambivalent relationship with plants and flowers. But now I spot a book I’ve never noticed before, John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. How could I have missed that one? I love English literature and have enrolled in two courses, as a compensation for maths and chemistry, so to speak. I would have loved to study literature because the thought of spending my life as a maths teacher makes me sick, but I didn’t dare tell my father. Which is really typical for me, always avoiding confrontation. I push a chair up to the shelves and climb up. The book is heavy, leather-bound, not a cheap pocket edition. Carefully I take it down and return to my armchair. The book has to be rather old, because the paper is yellowed and fragile. On the first page there is her name, Rebecca Forner, in her small rounded handwriting. A lump forms in my throat and I have to swallow. I will definitely take that book home, even at the risk of my father being angry. I start to browse, turning page after page. Whoa – what is this? Stuck between the pages is a folded piece of paper. My breath catches and my heart begins to beat faster. What is it? Something my mum wrote? An essay? A shopping list? Anything from her? I’m quite sure that nobody has opened the book since her death because no one in the family apart from me is interested in this kind of book. My fingers shake as I unfold the paper.
It’s a short letter and I immediately recognise her handwriting but I’m not prepared for the first line. “Holy crap,” I murmur as the letters begin to dance before my eyes.
“My dearest Livia,” is written very clearly in grey ink. I can’t resist looking at the signature: Your mother Rebecca. I realise I’m not breathing anymore and take a gulp of air. That surely can’t be true! A letter from my mum to me, forgotten all these years in a book! How lucky I am to have found it today! And lucky that evidently nobody found it before me. I take a deep breath and start to read.
My dearest Livia,
I couldn’t cope with destiny so I didn’t let it happen. I wasn’t able to turn my back on you, my baby, I had to be there for you. I simply wasn’t strong enough to leave everything behind, but I turned out to be too weak for my new life as well as the old one.
There’s only one piece of advice I want to give you from mother to daughter. Let things happen, don’t cross fate, be open for the beings around you and let them come close to you, bad ones as well as good ones: good and bad aren’t rigid concepts. My path has led me to the isle of the orchids. In case you come into the possession of the cameo ring, retrace my steps. What happens then is your decision. But please gather the courage to do the unthinkable which I couldn’t do in the end.
Your mother Rebecca
I sit motionless, then read the letter again and again without understanding its meaning. How weird, maybe she was a bit mad after all? But I push the thought away. What’s that about a ring? Which ring? Maybe her engagement ring? But no, she was talking about a cameo ring. I’ve never seen one in this house. I’ll have to ask my father, maybe he’s kept that one. But under no circumstances will I show him this letter. It’s mine and mine alone, weird as it may be. He’d be angry anyway and dismiss the letter as the hallucinations of a mad woman. On second thought, it did sound very odd.
Suddenly I jump. Someone’s standing behind me, I can feel it. Hopefully not my father. Hastily I shove the letter back into the book, clear my throat and turn around. The room’s empty. From the dining room I can still hear the voices of my family. None of them are in here but I can still sense a presence in the room. “Who’s there?” I breathe nervously. No, I don’t think it’s my mother’s ghost, thank you very much. My overactive imagination doesn’t go that far. The curtains over there, they’re definitely moving. I squint but now they’re still again. Probably just shadows cast by the reading lamp I switched on. The room is after all in half-darkness. Quickly I hide the book under a cushion, jump up and switch on the main light. Bright light floods the empty room. “There,” I sigh, pushing my hair back. I’d been so sure that someone was there but maybe I’d just fallen asleep. Probably, because my head hurts and my mouth is dry. Unnoticed by the others I dart into the kitchen for some cold water. Then I take my bag back into the living room because I’ve decided to take the book with me without asking my father. He won’t miss it anyway. I open it once again to make sure the letter is really there and it wasn’t just a dream. Yes, here it is, but somehow it seems a bit more substantial than before. Puzzled I take it out and turn it around. Something’s taped to the back of it. The ring, is my first thought, but it’s much flatter. Carefully I remove the tape and there is a key, a totally ordinary, silver key. Maybe for a jewellery box in which the ring…ok, stop fantasising, Frodo! It looks like a house key, not one made for a small box. Its surface is smooth but then my fingers detect fine lines that come together in a star pattern. Odd, how could I have missed the key before? It must have been the excitement about the letter.
As I close the book I read the first lines on the page that has hidden the letter for so long:
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.