The Sister Read Free

and the guilt she felt because of it had left her a little unstable and more likely to take risks. Earlier, she'd traversed a ledge that she should never have tackled without equipment, but she no longer cared.
    She was breaking all the same rules that she'd spelled out to him. Always tell someone where you're going, when you'll be back, and never go alone.
    Thomas was a caver and abandoned mine explorer. When he'd said he was going to scout the site of an old mine disaster, she refused to go with him. They'd argued about it. If you don't come with me, I'm going alone! She didn't believe for a minute he'd carry out his threat. Lei was sure he'd find someone else to accompany him, but the next thing she knew, he'd disappeared. It turned out that he did go on his own, and she felt incredibly guilty. If she'd only gone with him . . .
    Now, she was going there anyway. The derelict Victorian mine complex down in the valley. The last place he'd still been alive.
    In her heart, she knew he was dead, but she was convinced that if his spirit lingered, it would linger there. Rescuers found his tent pitched near the mine's entrance. It was empty, his equipment missing. Unable to find any trace of him outside, the rescue team concluded that he must have decided to sleep in the mine. Perhaps, because of the recent heatwave, he'd found the constant temperature inside preferable. A few hundred yards into the mine, a fresh roof fall, had rendered the whole section unstable, making it impossible to continue the search. In places like that, a single cough would be enough to trigger a further collapse. He wouldn't have stood a chance. The mine was now his grave.
    It had taken her a full three weeks to summon the strength to travel there to pay her last respects, going on impulse when she realised the date, and what day it was. Ghost Day. Her Chinese origins meant she believed that just for one day the gates of Heaven and Hell would open, allowing the dead a reunion with the living. Thomas hadn't had a proper ritual send-off. The gods had granted her the opportunity to do it on this day. Suddenly it felt important.
    With little time left to prepare, she phoned work and reported in sick. She never told anyone she was going.
    The rucksack contained offerings to nourish and guide his spirit. As she was a part-time florist, she'd also taken along scissors and string, and she made up a wild flower bouquet as she sauntered along. She would build a rocky shrine and then place lit candles inside, with joss sticks, food and a poem she'd written for him. When today was over, she would return to Hong Kong. There she would learn to live without him, but she would remember him most especially on this day, every year into the future.
    Three years together, gone . . . just like that. Her throat tightened at the thought.
    Over to her right at the bottom of the hill, a scattering of trees marked the edge of a densely wooded area.
    Eager to get into the woods and out of the sun's direct heat, she quickly crossed a field of swaying ferns.
    At the margins of the wood beyond the canopy, dappled light dropped through the leaves, making a patchwork of sunshine and shade on the ground beneath. It looked so cool and appealing that she wandered in deeper.
    So peaceful and quiet, only the occasional buzz of a fly and the gentle gurgling of a brook broke the silence. She approached the water's edge. In the curve of a long looping bend, there was a place where the banks flattened, making an expanse of pebbles like a small beach.
    Her new Doc Martens were the most comfortable trekking boots she'd ever worn, but they made her feet hot, so she removed them, along with her socks. She couldn't wait to dip her toes in the cold water and crunched unsteadily towards it, holding the footwear by its laces. With stones digging painfully into her bare soles, she skipped and jerkily tiptoed to get the stream quicker.
    Nearer the water, where larger, smooth grey boulders sat in the