Turquoise Clouds in a Green Sky

“I always remember the first time I saw the green sky and the turquoise clouds skating across it.”

These words had stayed with Alice Barrett for two years. She’d been six- years-old and snuggled next to her great-grandmother, known to nearly all the family as Granny Rose, on a large, rather uncomfortable armchair. Granny Rose had been telling her a story, at least that’s what Alice believed, but it was a strange memory, blurry apart from those few words.

Now it was 1977, and Alice was on her way to visit Granny Rose for a second time. Her mother had spent several weeks convincing her father that it was a good idea to visit. Alice was only half aware of these conversations. While she played on the floor under the dining room table, maybe forgotten, she had picked up snippets of often heated discussions about ‘the old woman’, sometimes ‘the evil witch’ – this was her father speaking. Her mother would hush him and plead again for him to drive them to Devon so that she could see her grandmother before she went.

When her father finally relented and drove them in their battered Ford Cortina to say goodbye to Granny Rose before she went wherever she was going, Alice spent the entire journey from their semi-detached house in a suburb of London, totally devoid of any mysticism, imagining both the house where her great-grandmother would live and the woman herself. The memory of her first visit was lost in a mental mist.

The cottage did not disappoint. It sat at the end of a long dirt track in a small wood. It looked like several cottages stuck together, and not that well. A strange green light shone from an upstairs window.

“Oh God, she’s got the green lightbulb in,” said Alice’s mother.

Her father sighed as he switched off the car engine. “Here we go.”

Alice leaned forward between the front seats. “Why is it green?”

“Granny Rose thinks green light is healing.”

“That’s weird,” said Alice.

“Eccentric,” said her mother. “Let’s call Granny Rose eccentric, Alice, not weird.”

The cottage had an old-fashioned doorbell with a rope pull. Alice wanted to ring it but she couldn’t reach and her parents were both too agitated to pick her up. Her mother gave the rope a sharp tug. Somewhere inside the house the bell chimed.

“It’s like visiting the Adams Family,” said her father.

A woman opened the door. She had a mane of jet-black hair, a face caked in pale make-up and was wearing a dark grey dress that reached her ankles and appeared to have huge bat wings on either side.

“Oh, we are,” said Alice’s father.

Alice’s mother took a tentative step forward. “Hello, Aunt Miriam.”

The terrifying creature in the doorway frowned.

“It’s me, Aunty, Bella.”

“Oh,” said the phantom.

All four continued to stare at each other.

“We’ve come to see Gran,” said Alice’s mother.

“She’s very ill.”

“I know, that’s why we’ve come to see her.”

“For the first time in about two years. Is your father not with you? Might have been nice for her own son to make the effort.”

“He’s abroad,” said Alice’s mother.

“Let’s just go!” snapped her father, turning toward the car.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Aunt Miriam stepped aside and ushered them in. “She’s upstairs in her bedroom. That’s the second door on the left at the top of the stairs.”

“I remember,” said Alice’s mother, already mounting the stairs. “Alice, stay with your father and Aunty Miriam until I’ve said hello.”

Alice heard the creak of a door being pushed open and then a shrill voice cried out: “Bella Blackwood! I thought you were dead!”

Alice’s mother laughed. The sound was cut off by the closing of the door.

A mass of billowing, bright fabrics entered the hallway from a door to the right. From the top of the swathes of colour a slightly flushed face protruded, topped with a thatch of unnaturally orange hair. The woman, who Alice vaguely recognised, wore a multitude of metal bangles that chattered as she walked.

Aunt Miriam glared at the younger woman. “For God’s sake, Stella, will you stop jangling! You are like a living percussion section!”

‘Sorry mother!” The red-haired woman, Stella apparently, stopped in her tracks, looking offended. Her face brightened when she saw who the visitors were.

“Oh goodness, it's Bill isn’t it!” she exclaimed, looking at Alice’s father. “And this must be Alice, all grown up! You were only about five when I last saw you. Do you remember? I came to visit your mummy at your house, and we watched tennis on the TV together.”

Alice blushed at the attention, but managed to smile. She actually quite liked this awkward new arrival. She seemed kind. Not like the terrifying Miriam.

Stella crouched down so that she was more on Alice’s level. “I’m Stella, your mummy’s cousin.”

Alice nodded.

“She doesn’t care!” snapped Miriam. “Come into the living-room for God’s sake. Sit down. You’re making me nervous all hovering in the hallway.”

“I think we’re just overwhelmed by the warm welcome,” said Alice’s father.

***

While the adults sat in the living room and began making stilted conversation, Alice tucked herself into the corner of a large sofa. After about half an hour, she heard her mother call to her from upstairs.

“Go on then!” snapped the witch that was apparently her great aunt.

Alice tore herself from the comfort of the sofa and the tension of the room and headed nervously upstairs. Her mother was waiting on the landing.

“Just say hello to Granny Rose,” she whispered.

Alice frowned. “I thought we were here to say goodbye.”

“Alice!”

Croaky laughter sounded from Granny Rose’s room. “Come in, Alice,” called the voice Alice had heard earlier.

Alice looked pleadingly at her mother.

“I’m coming too,” she reassured her.

Granny Rose was far less terrifying than Great Aunt Miriam, although her skin was nearly as pale. At least, Alice thought it was. It was hard to tell as everything in the room had a green pallor, thanks to the light. Her face was gaunt and creased like a paper bag that had been screwed up and then, unsuccessfully, smoothed out. She was lying in a double bed beneath a mound of bedding, including a knitted patchwork quilt which was tucked around her entire body so that just her head was visible, and one bone-thin arm and hand, which lay on top of it.

“Hello,” croaked the ancient woman.

Alice smiled and nodded. Her mother prodded her gently in the back.

“Hello!” she blurted.

The old woman stared at her through milky, although wide-open, eyes. “She is definitely a Blackwood.”

Alice knew this was her mother’s old surname — the one she’d had before marrying her dad. It was a great name. Much better than Barrett.

Granny Rose shifted her position a little. “Do you enjoy your dreams, Alice?”

Alice glanced up at her mother, who looked suddenly stern. “Not now, Gran.”

“Why?” Granny Rose seemed agitated. “Do you want her to ignore her gift like you have for years?”

Alice wondered what gift Granny Rose wanted her to have. Maybe one of the assortment of knick-knacks cluttering every flat surface in the room. She hoped it was the statue of an elephant sitting on the window ledge.

“Say goodnight to Granny Rose, Alice.” Alice’s mother was already steering her towards the bedroom door.

“We’ll talk later, I’m sure,” said the old woman.

***

When Alice opened her eyes, she felt strangely heavy. She had never known darkness like that which filled the room. She was used to streetlamps and nightlights. This was almost total darkness. The only light came from the crack around the bedroom door. And that light was green.

Alice lay pondering this for a moment. Why was there a green light out on the landing? The only green bulb, as far as she was aware, was the one in Granny Rose’s room.

She realised with sudden urgency that she needed to pee and tried to sit up. But the sensation of heaviness persisted and she had to strain just to manage a sitting position. It was as if the air in the room was thick like custard and she was having to push through it.

She persisted and slowly but surely managed to maneuver her legs so that her feet were on the floor next to the bed. She took a deep breath and stood, straightening up in slow, stiff motions. It was then that she became aware that someone was lying in the bed, exactly where she had been lying a moment earlier. She could just about make out a still, shadowy form.

Stumbling towards the door, still in slow motion, Alice managed to find the light switch and pushed it with the palm of her hand. The light didn’t respond. She lurched towards the door, intending to grab for the handle, but instead she found herself standing on the landing, immersed in green light. Next to her stood the door to the bedroom in which a second ago she had been standing, and it was still closed.

“Hello Alice. I knew you’d come.”

Alice squealed and turned toward the voice. It turned out the owner of the voice was also the source of the green light. Standing just along the landing, outside Granny Rose’s room in fact, stood a striking-looking woman. Alice guessed she was around her mother’s age, with a mane of dark red hair. She was wearing a long dress, or maybe a nightie, which may have been white, but in the green light it was hard to tell.

“Don’t be scared,” said the woman and she floated along the landing towards Alice, who cowered back against the door of her own bedroom.

The woman smiled and it was a warm smile. “You know me, Alice, I just look different.”

Alice scrutinised the ghost-woman’s face. It was strangely familiar. She reminded Alice a little of her own mother.

“Granny Rose? Alice said the name timidly, ready to be laughed at.

“That’s right. And I’m not a ghost, if that’s what you’re thinking. What you’re seeing is my astral body. It’s this body the green light keeps healthy. Your mother never really understood that. She can do this too, but she doesn’t want to. It scares her.”

Alice didn’t understand what the young Granny Rose was talking about.

“Come.” Granny Rose took Alice’s hand and Alice felt an electric tingle run right up her arm. She opened her mouth to protest as the floating woman pulled her towards the closed bedroom door. But they didn’t collide with solid wood, they passed through it. There was a brief sensation like when she held her breath for too long, and they were on the other side, standing — no, Alice realised, both floating — in the bedroom.

“See Alice. We’re the same. You are a Blackwood, whatever name you’ve been given.”

The sun was rising, and the room was filled with more of the green light. Granny Rose pointed towards the bed.

Alice gasped.

She saw herself, bedcovers pulled up to her shoulders, fair hair splayed across the pillow, eyes closed, snoring gently.

“Don’t fight it like your mother, Alice. The family will help you. I’ll help you while I still can. They think I’m dying, but I’m not going anywhere yet.”

They floated to the window and Granny Rose waved her hand at the curtain, which parted to reveal the arrival of daytime. Alice gasped at the sight of the billowing turquoise clouds dancing across the meadow-green sky, as if fleeing the encroaching sun.

“Looks different doesn’t it,” said Granny Rose. “Everything looks a little different when we’re in this form. Wait until you travel to the other levels of the astral plane. Such wonders!”

“I thought they were just part of a story,” Alice whispered staring at the fleecy masses. They were turning a pale blue now, bleached by the light of dawn.

Granny Rose smiled. “You remember me telling you about my childhood?”

Alice nodded, and returned her attention to her real body, lying in the bed. It was twitching slightly, the eyelids flickering.

“I’ll see you again shortly,” said Granny Rose.

Alice’s head was filled with a rushing sound and a force suddenly tugged her towards the bed.

She sat up, now back beneath the bedcovers. Granny Rose had gone.

Alice lay back down and stared at the ceiling. She felt strangely light and excited. She was glad Granny Rose wasn’t going anywhere for a while — Alice had a feeling she’d be needing her advice again soon.