The Judas kiss

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I was seventeen years old before I discovered that my sister had been murdered. It was then nearly five years since I had seen her, but every day I had thought of her, longed for her bright presence and mourned her departure from my life.

Before she went away, Francine and I had been as close as two people could be. I suppose I, being the younger by five years, had looked to her for protection, and after the death of our parents when we had come to make Greystone Manor our home, I had had great need of it.

That had happened six years before, and when I looked back on those very early days it seemed to me that we had lived in a paradise. Distance enchants the view, Francine used to say to comfort me and so imply that the island of Calypse had not been completely perfect, so perhaps Greystone Manor was not as gloomy as we, newly become its inmates, believed it to be. Although she was as fragile as a piece of Dresden china in looks, I never knew anyone who had a more practical grip on life. She was realistic, resourceful, irrepressible and always optimistic; indeed she seemed unable to visualize failure. I had always believed that whatever Francine decided she would do, she would do successfully. That was why I was so shattered, so overwhelmed with disbelief when I found that newspaper in Aunt Grace's trunk in the attic at Greystone. I knelt there holding the paper in my hand while the words danced before my eyes.

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