Sinews of Heaven

By Zanne Findlay

As a young girl, Isabella is suddenly faced with the loss of her twin brother in a tragic accident of misadventure. This uplifting tale follows her progress, coming to terms with his loss, and her journeys into a spiritual realm - an experience that goes way beyond her expectations and merely an imaginative way of keeping his memory alive. Initially her sojourns provide a place of escape, peace and solitude, but as she explores it opens out into a garden and a big house with magnificent rooms and people who open up a glimpse into a greater and more exotic meaning for life. It gradually becomes her foundation and begins to define her very existence, but at the same time giving her the confidence and strength to cope with real life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301402724

Book preview

Sinews of heaven

Zanne Findlay

Copyright

© Zanne Findlay 2013

© Illustrations Anatole Beams 2013

Published by Anatole Beams Digital Media 2013

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. 

All rights reserved. 

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Author.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to:

Abbie, for being a dear friend, 

Eileen, for her inspiration 

&

David, Andrew, Robert & Jessie for being themselves

&

Anatole Beams for believing in it and contributing his beauty to it. 

My thanks go to Ross Neuenfeldt for his patient and painstaking editing, and to Anatole Beams without whom a digital format would be but a dream.

The bonds of love

The bonds of love

are the sinews of heaven,

anchored on the dry shores 

of far distant continents.

When the continents start to drift

the bonds tighten and 

rise from the ocean’s bed

into the air.

There they hang, exposed, 

dripping with weed.

Taut and silent,

like great steel hawsers.

As unaffected

by time and tide

as they ever were.

David Davidson 2009

Prologue

It had been a long and a hard winter. The snow had been heavy this year and the schools closed for weeks. At first that was fun. Then the snow got dirty and the ice compacted, making everywhere an ice rink. Raven would watch the elderly people clutching the walls as they walked along the icy pavements. He would pity their obvious fear as they crossed the road painfully slowly, and sometimes he would go out to help. When he was bored, he would amuse himself by watching cars get stuck on the hill outside his house, moving neither up nor down, their wheels spinning uselessly in the ice. Or, women in high heels pushing reluctant cars uphill as their warmly dressed male companions shouted their instructions out of the window. Sometimes, when he was really bored, he would be a Good Samaritan, take out his dad’s shovel, and help people set themselves free. He got some pride from seeing his captives speed away gratefully. But for how long? he would ask himself.

This morning Raven was now beyond bored - no school to moan about, no new excitement for ages in this frozen wilderness. He was restless and spent a fitful night wondering what to do with all his pent up energy. Early the next morning, his heart sank when he saw more snow, but the sun was just rising and the sky was beginning to turn a soft pink. The whole scene was beautiful, so he grabbed some warm clothes and headed off for Danny’s, intent on adventure. 

Danny needed no persuading to go and sledge in the virgin snow. In his house no work meant no pay; so the brooding anxiety was palpable, and he was glad to be free of it. He grabbed his sledge and off they went to the park. When they arrived he freedom of the open space made them giddy with excitement. They careened this way and that in the new snow fall, found the highest hills and launched themselves off with whoops of joy, egging each other on to greater and greater feats. 

They loved the isolation of the early morning and being the first ones to plant their feet, or slide their rails, over the new snow. They enjoyed the warmth of each other’s company in the cold morning, and this time together felt special and intimate.

They laughed at the snow-filled boats tied up in the middle of the boating lake. They looked forlorn, like forgotten, silent hostages shivering in cold blankets. Raven imagined people rowing around the lake in the summer, their children bobbing up and down with excitement and ducks 

scattering in all directions. But today nothing moved, except himself. Danny and the snow flakes. All was quiet - eerily so, for it was illuminated by a beautiful, soft light. 

He stood by the lake for a long time in silence, Danny later reported to his parents. Now I think about it, he seemed lost in thought, somehow very distant and very calm. I wasn’t with him; I was making my way back up the hill, as we were taking turns. He walked off when it was my turn.

What happened next was never very clear. Danny remembered a shattering noise, a thump, nothing human. He was gripped by a sudden sickening sensation that made him turn around and run, and run, and run. The cold air seized his lungs; his heart filled his mouth so that no sound could escape. He fell; he slithered; his sledge tumbled beside him like a surfboard on a wave. 

Then he came to a stop, a horrified stop. Time had ceased long ago. He was alone and suddenly the isolation that he had revelled in became a monster that silently stalked him, that left him wailing at the edge of a frozen lake, frozen himself with fear and despair.

Book one 

Love and loss

Farewell to Raven

Isabella looked her brother straight in the eye and told him, Go away! This he did in an instant, and when she looked up from cleaning her teeth, he was no longer there - no longer watching her from the bathroom mirror, no longer reassuring her that everything would be all right - and she felt guilt and relief in equal measure. 

Guilt because Raven had always been there; he existed in her consciousness before she was aware of his physical being. He was quite simply an extension of her. A being whose heart beat in time to hers, who slithered and rolled to the same rhythm of life, whose body reached out and touched hers and then disappeared, only to reappear without fail. One whose touch said, I am here too, do not be afraid. One whose kick said, I am here, I am here, I AM. 

Raven, that soft being who waited in the plastic womb of life for her. Two fish in the same pond had become two landed fish in the same bowl, and they found comfort in each other’s presence. As they each struggled with the sensations of life, they were never alone; there was a familiarity beyond language and time, which held them steady and kept them true. 

Relief because now she could attend Raven’s funeral without him, for she knew that this was one thing she must do alone. For fourteen years they had been inseparable, the terrible twins. 

Raven was like the sun: he moved out into life and grasped it to him; he heated things up to see what would happen, and there were times when his effect was more forest fire than golden tan, but she loved this about him. 

Isabella was like the moon: a spiral of gentle light that moved out and retreated, that brought back into the shadows that which she could bear from life to nurture it and make it ready to be brought back into the light again. She was the reflective pool that cooled Raven’s burnt fingers and soothed the scorched feelings of their friends. Their mother would describe Raven as a firebrand and Isabella as an old soul in a young body, and her friends would nod in agreement as if they understood something about Isabella that she didn’t understand herself. 

A wave of anger grasped her insides as she recalled this phrase: an old soul... How dare Raven leave her to become even older without him? How could he abandon her to the terrors of life alone? As if that were not bad enough, he had single-handedly created a whole community of grieving people who could either not look her in the eye, or who would clasp her to them in rough clinches and sob their grief into her reluctant ear.

How many times have I had to sit still while Grandma pressed her bony hand into mine and wept uncontrollably? Too many Raven, too many. You did this to me; you divided my life into two, before and after, whole and divided.

She found herself cursing his memory as she eased her way into her favourite clothes. Wear what you like, her mother had said. This is to be a celebration of Raven’s life, not just a time to mourn what we have lost. But even as she said it, her eyes were full of tears, and Isabella knew that they would always mourn their loss, that Raven was irreplaceable, and that her parents simply did not know what to do with their grief for fear it might overwhelm them. 

That fear of being overwhelmed Isabella knew well; she was aware that since Raven’s accident, life had become a game of hopscotch. Most of the time the stones she walked on bore the inscription: What if... What if she had been with him? She could have... If he had listened to her... If he had gone to their local park... If he had not met up with Danny... If... If... If... And although these thoughts tormented her night and day, they at least made her feel powerful, as if – had she been in the right place at the right time – she could have averted this tragedy and saved Raven. It was the other stones that threatened to overwhelm her. 

These stones were no stones at all; they were the gaps in between, the cracks in the pavement through which she would fall when the What if... stones could no longer bear her weight. These cracks in the fabric of her existence took her to different, dark places: The place where her own death seemed to beckon with the promise of everlasting happiness. The place where red hot anger would burn through a photograph of Raven and turn everything that they had together to ashes. The place where her own survival was some kind of punishment thought up by some malevolent Being who, when rescuing Raven’s soul from the darkness, made sure he extracted his payment from her future by denying her happiness until the debt was paid. 

Isabella calmed herself in the bathroom, put on her favourite dress, and with one last look over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she steeled herself to attend her first-ever public event without Raven. 

She did it beautifully because she imagined his presence beside her all day: she felt his hand take hers when she saw his coffin for the first time; she heard him singing out of tune in her ear; she saw him roll his eyes as his teacher waxed lyrical about him; and she saw him nestle between his mother and father, neither of whom noticed his presence. The sense of him beside her made her feel very special and cared for, and she wanted to share it with others, but an invisible finger crossed her lips and an invisible head shook its disapproval. 

Her resolve to remain silent almost melted when her mother’s grief spilled out and filled the space between them. They were alone in the churchyard after the ceremony; her father had left her side for the first time and was talking to some of the guests. Her mother’s knees gave way beneath her, and she crumpled onto a bench and sobbed. Isabella wanted so much to tell her that Raven was within them and okay, but Raven whispered, Not now, not yet. So she held her mother’s hand and waited for her sobs to subside, but she felt useless and self conscious in case her apparent composure might be misinterpreted as cold hearted. She was grateful when her father reappeared, took her mother by the arm, and led her back to the house. 

The tree of heaven 

The funeral was over. The house was full of people, and there was a hubbub of noise that seemed to sit uncomfortably on top of a deep silence. A silence, not to put too fine a word on it, that was like a grave, so Isabella decided it was time to leave and seek solace elsewhere.

As she was escaping through the back door, her aunt caught her in mid-flight; she stooped down to whisper in her ear. She pressed a small, silk bag into her hands. Hold this when you think of Raven, she said. Keep it in his memory. You don’t need to open it now; look at it when you are on your own. He will always be there for you, you know. The bonds of love are never broken. 

Isabella felt the colour rise in her cheeks as she stumbled over her thank you before dashing out the door. Aunt May was always treated with suspicion by her parents, and Isabella was not too sure what to make of her either. Aunt May kept to herself and yet seemed to have a wisdom about the world that Isabella did not experience in anyone else. 

Outside, the sunshine was bright and there was a soft breeze in the air. That meant one thing for Isabella: a trip to the Tree of Heaven. This majestic tree nestled anonymously in her local