“Too bad about you and Jess,” says Jim, and he does sound genuinely sorry. “It’s a shame, that is.”
“It’s just one of those things.” I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “I should have known all along. We’re so different.”
“You’re different, all right.” His face crinkles in amusement.
“She just seems so… cold.” I hunch my shoulders, feeling a familiar resentment rising. “You know, I made every effort. I really did. But she never showed any pleasure… or feelings, even. She doesn’t seem to care about anything! She doesn’t seem to have any passions!”
Jim seems surprised.
“Oh… Jess has got passions,” he says. “She’s got passions, all right. When we get to the house, I’ll show you something.”
He picks up the sack of potatoes and we resume walking up the hill. As we get nearer Jess’s house, I start to feel tiny prickles of curiosity. Not that she’s anything to do with me anymore, but still.
As we reach the door, Jim roots in his pocket for a large key ring, selects a Yale key, and unlocks it. I walk into the hall and look around. But the place doesn’t give much away. It’s a bit like Jess herself. Two tidy sofas in the sitting room. A plain white kitchen. A couple of well-tended potted plants.
I head upstairs and cautiously push open the door to her bedroom. It’s immaculate. Plain cotton duvet cover, plain cotton curtains, a couple of boring prints.
“Here.” Jim is behind me. “You want to see Jess’s real passion? Take a look at this.”
He heads over to a door set into the wall of the landing, then turns the key and beckons me over.
“Here are the famous rocks,” he says, swinging the door open. “She had this cupboard made especially to house them. Designed it herself down to the last detail, lights and all. Makes an impressive sight, don’t you think…” He trails off in surprise at my face. “Becky? Are you OK, love?”
I can’t speak.
It’s my shoe cupboard.
It’s my shoe cupboard, exactly. The same doors. The same shelves. The same lights. Except instead of shoes displayed on the shelves, there are rocks. Rows and rows of carefully labeled rocks.
And… they’re beautiful. Some are gray, some crystal, some smooth, some iridescent and sparkling. There are fossils… amethysts… chunks of jet, all shiny under the lights…
“I had no idea… They’re stunning.”
“You’re talking about passion?” Jim laughs. “This is a true passion. An obsession, you might say.” He picks up a speckled gray rock and turns it over in his fingers. “You know how she got that leg injury of hers? Clambering after some blasted rock on a mountain somewhere. She was that determined to get it, she’d risk her own safety.” Jim grins at my expression. “Then there was the time she was arrested at Customs, for smuggling some precious crystal in under her jumper… ”
I gape at him.
“Jess? Arrested?”
“They let her off.” He waves a hand. “But I know she’d do it again. If there’s a particular kind of rock that girl wants, she has to have it.” He wrinkles his brow in amusement. “She gets a compulsion. It’s like a mania! Nothing’ll stop her!”
My head is spinning. I’m staring at a row of rocks, all different shades of red. Just like my row of red shoes.
“She keeps all this pretty quiet.” Jim puts down the speckled rock. “I guess she thinks people wouldn’t understand—”
“I understand.” I cut him off in a shaky voice. “Completely.”
I’m trembling all over. She’s my sister.
Jess is my sister. I know it more certainly than I’ve ever known anything.
I have to find her. I have to tell her. Now.
“Jim…” I take a deep breath. “I need to find Jess. Right away.”
“She’s doing the sponsored endurance hike,” Jim reminds me. “Starts in half an hour.”
“Then I have to go,” I say in agitation. “I have to see her. How do I get there? Can I walk?”
“It’s a fair way away,” Jim says, and cocks his head quizzically. “Do you want a lift?”
Twenty-one
I KNEW WE were sisters. I knew it. I knew it.
And we’re not just sisters — we’re kindred spirits! After all those false starts. After all those misunderstandings. After I thought I would never have one single thing in common with her, ever.
She’s the same as me. I understand her.
