Aunt Aurelia's tea leaves

The incessant ring of the ancient dusty old telephone had roused a sleeping Aurelia from her coma-like slumber with a jolt. It had been weeks since she had spoken to or engaged with another soul, and nobody ever called her these days. That was yesterday. The days blurred into one another for middle aged retired poet Aurelia, who lived completely alone in a reclusive state, just as she had done since her ex husband had filed for divorce several years ago.

 Her younger sister’s voice had filled her ears like a melody. How she missed Adriana. Her straight-laced, hardworking, socially conforming little sister Adriana. Despite them being polar opposites-as chalk and cheese-she loved Adriana with all her heart. Tears had stung the back of her eyeballs when her little sister had told her, “Katie and I will come tomorrow to have a cup of tea with you,”. She hadn’t seen her lovely, hazel eyed little niece Katie for years; since just after she was born, actually. She was now being given a second chance and she had to get it right. She was up bright and early the following day: hell, she had even set her vintage teal coloured alarm clock, surprised it still worked. She’d even made an effort to tidy the sloping cottage a little. It was beginning to resemble a church hall jumble sale. Aurelia rarely went into Town, and instead preferred to frequent table top sales, swap shops, and fruit markets in neighbouring towns. Less chance of seeing anyone who may recognise her and want to talk, she reasoned. She was no use on the internet, and didn’t see the point of having a mobile phone, as aside from Adriana, she had no one to text or call. 

 Her sister was right on schedule as predicted, appearing at her chipped and peeling yellow wooden door, where Aurelia had hung two upside down horse shoes overhead. Adriana’s small, oval face was but a dot amidst the mounds of tangled ivy and damp moss that insulated the stone walls of the cottage. She was wearing a crisply ironed and tailored grey pinstriped trouser suit over a chiffon peach coloured blouse. Her naturally mouse brown hair had been coloured a darkish ash blonde and cut into a sharp chin length bob. Aurelia felt overwhelmed by emotion-something she rarely experienced-as she yanked the mould specked door open and stood staring at her estranged sister and nine year old niece, Katie. Katie was a sweet young thing, with beautiful hazel eyes and smile that would brighten even the cloudiest of days. Aurelia forced a crooked smile and stood back with an outstretched arm, beckoning for them to enter. 

 “It’s been too long,” she said, as they walked straight into the large lounge. The room was filled with dozens upon dozens of books and ornaments, as well as mountains of of dusty paperwork on every surface. The floor was barely visible beneath countless bags, shoes and large damp cardboard boxes full of clothes, vintage ornaments, and magazines. Adriana looked around in shock. 

“You can’t be serious?! You live like this now?” Adriana gasped, shaking her head in disbelief as she stood closely behind her daughter. “I knew you had issues, Rey, but this is beyond the beyond,”

Aurelia felt nervous awkward, and ultimately ashamed. She had tried her best to make the place presentable, but with barely twenty four hours since her sister’s phone call to rectify over a decade of serial hoarding; she simply had not been able to make even a dent in the endless clutter. 

“Cool painting!” said Katie, interrupting the pained exchange between the sisters. 

All three of them stared long and hard at the vast canvas-a huge array of different colours that filled over half of the wall. The picture itself was a woman stood staring at a ladder, with one leg arched forward, hinting that she was about to climb. The ladder seemed to wind off into the sky, to some unknown place. Aurelia was relieved that Katie had distracted her Mother from the imminent state of the cottage. 

“I painted that myself Katie, many years ago,” Aurelia told her niece, stepping a little closer to the young girl to admire her own handiwork over her shoulder. “I call it psychological projection,” she added, smiling warmly at a fascinated Katie. 

The three females sipped lukewarm tea from thin stained glass Turkish flutes that Aurelia had taken from one of the various dusty display cabinets and scrubbed in preparation. 

“It’s simply amazing to have a visit from the two of you,” said Aurelia pleasantly, as she sipped her Yorkshire tea. 

“I’m afraid it’s not totally social, Rey,” said Adriana, putting down her tea. “You see, we are getting a divorce, Richard and I, and we need to sell all of our assets. Be it what it is, I don’t have any assets to speak of,”

Aurelia nodded sadly as realisation washed over her. Her little sister had no desire to reconcile or spend quality time with her-she was simply here on business. When their parents had died, their four bed Town house as well as rural cottage had been instantly passed down to Aurelia as she was the oldest and over eighteen, and her parents had not bothered to make a will. She had never had any interest in towns or the people that lived in them, so was more than happy to hand the keys to their main properly directly to Adriana when her beloved baby sister had announced that she was pregnant. Fresh out of university and newlywed with nowhere to call home, she gave the keys to Adriana and her husband Richard without hesitation. Aurelia had been thrilled with the news and had envisioned the unique and unbreakable bond that she and her baby niece would share: she had imagined them spending long afternoons painting and sewing together, perhaps modelling baby animals out of clay. Richard, however, had other ideas. Adriana’s socialite husband had no interest in forming any kind of bond with his eccentric sister in law, and was quick to sever her long standing bond with Adriana. He had not only threatened to have her sectioned on numerous occasions, but had played the emotional blackmail card too, claiming that he would give Adriana an ultimatum and potentially ever leave her if Aurelia didn’t make herself scarce and stop disturbing their family life. Aurelia hadn’t argued. She’d distanced herself in order to allow her sister to begin her brand new life, and always made sure to do the right thing by sending envelopes of money at Christmas and birthdays. She had received the odd thankyou cards and even some drawings done by Katie over the years; sort of an unspoken agreement between herself and Richard. She had still felt that a piece of her was missing all the same. 

Nine years had passed by in a blur and overall, Aurelia had no complaints to make about her tranquil life of drafting poems for the local newspapers and ghost-writing for international authors. The only hole she carried in her heart was that she had never been able to divulge to her sister the painful truth of their childhood, nor the terrors that she had spent years protecting little Adriana from before their parents had both died in their out house fire. 

“Why do you need to sell the house?” asked Aurelia with concern, “Where will you live with no house?”

“Does it matter?” demanded Adriana, seeming agitated now.

“I just want to make sure you are going to be ok, and that you’re making the right decision,” replied Aurelia, worried now.

“Always the same old story, isn’t it? Always have to be in control don’t you?!” mumbled Adriana, sighing.

Katie was ignoring both of them, and staring at the ladder painting again. Both women let their eyes follow the child’s until they were all staring at the lady, and all simultaneously drifted out of consciousness. 

Aurelia’s body felt light as a feather, as if she was floating on air, and getting closer to the ladder. She yawned and slowly opened her eyes. She smelled fresh blossom and honeysuckle, which was odd, considering it was winter. She opened her eyes to see long grassland and scattered trees all around her laden with pink blossoms, as well as flowers for miles; daffodils, dandelions, freesias, conifers, and many more. It reminded her of somewhere familiar. And then that smell. The distant smell of warm figs and bread and butter pudding like the ones her mother used to make. It couldn’t be. But it was. Their family meadow. The land that she had grown up on just behind their country house where she and her sister had spent years together making memories. Most of them good. She was dreaming, she decided, but when did she fall asleep? Then a voice. A sweet, childlike voice. Adriana’s. She looked up and saw her sister running slowly running towards her, wearing a long cotton frilled puff sleeved white dress, freshly steamed by their Mother. Adriana couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Her precious baby sister Adriana. She reached out to hug her but her sister jumped back in comical confusion. It suddenly made sense. She was dreaming of her childhood, where she and her sister squabbled and fought endlessly, much to the dismay of their mother, and Adriana likely thought that she was going to smack her. 

“I don’t want to wake up,” smiled Aurelia, “I’ve missed this so much, Ana,”

“What do you mean?” demanded her little sister, twisting one of her mousey pigtails, “I see you everyday, stinky guts!”

“Let me enjoy this moment a little before I wake up,” said Aurelia, and beckoned for her sister to come and sit on her lap. Adriana perched awkwardly on her sister’s knee. To hell with it, thought Aurelia’s forty-something year old brain, and she wrapped her arms tightly around Adriana protectively. She had and always would love her cheeky, bratty little sister. She never wanted to let go. Tiny fragments of her memory came back in small flashes, and Aurelia suddenly gasped. 

“Katie!” she said, panicking, “Katie was looking at my painting now we are here!”

“What painting, dolly Katie?” grinned Adriana looking down, “Daddy doesn’t let us paint, does he? He says it’s a waste of time and smacks us for painting,”

There, cradled tightly in Adriana’s arms was her little porcelain doll with soft red curls, Katie dolly. All of a sudden, there was a banging and shouting in the distance, which made Aurelia flinch, and Adriana jump up off her lap.

“Daddy’s angry!” said Adriana urgently, clasping Katie dolly tightly to her chest, “We have to go now, Rey Rey!”

Aurelia’s heart thumped in her chest. “No, you have to go,” said Aurelia, turning Adriana around by her shoulders. “Go on, run! As far away from here as you can!”

“Come with me,” insisted Adriana, pulling Adriana by the arm. She had on her checked green pinafore and white blouse that she had always worn as a teenager. She now remembered what day it was. The day that she had taken Adriana and ran away from their Father. He had been in a blind drunken rage and had been chasing after them, searching for them, determined to harm them. Aurelia was happily willing to take the beating as always to protect little Adriana, but Adriana was now scared and wanted her to come with her. 

“Where can we go?” asked Adriana, as Aurelia struggled to run through the long grass and help Adriana to keep up with her speed. 

Aurelia looked out far across the land before them, and saw more farmland in the distance, and then buildings miles and miles away. “We have to leave…forever,” she told Adriana. “We have to leave the meadow!”

Aurelia could hear rustling of ground in the distance behind them, and could feel their violent Father getting closer. She pulled Adriana hard in the direction of the buildings. They ran and ran and ran. The girls could barely breathe as they went as fast as their legs would carry them. Their blouses were drenched with sweat and their boots scuffed and muddied, but they did not stop. They didn’t dare stop even when Adriana began to sob and complain of hunger, nor when she dropped Katie dolly and her sobs turned to monstrous wails. They didn’t stop until they had long passed the meadow, and saw an opening in the vast trees before them. They heard roaring traffic on the other side of the trees and had to struggle to climb a giant hill covered with stinging nettles. Aurelia screamed in agony as the nettles tore through her clothes and ripped into her bare flesh, as she cradled and tightly held Adriana to her chest to take the brunt of the vicious thorns. As they slid down the other side of the muddied embankment, Aurelia briefly turned her head and saw orange flames and black smoke in the distance. They never saw their parents again. 

“No!” Adriana was sweating and tearing at her clothes, gasping for air, as her eyes struggled to open.

Aurelia woke up second, with more ease than her sister. Relief flooded her as she came around and back to the present day, taking in the smell of old mothballs and jasmine tea leaves that were definitely the familiar odours known to her cottage. Katie was already awake, and was leafing through a magazine she had picked up from a stray cardboard box. Aurelia looked over at Adriana. Adriana’s eyes looked wide and haunted, as if she’d seen a ghost. She jumped up off the side of the sofa where she was sat, and lunged forward at Aurelia, collapsing onto her in tears. For the first time in years, the two women embraced.

“You can’t possibly remember…,” said Aurelia, her voice trailing off.

Adriana gulped hard. She looked deep into her older sister’s eyes. “You saved me. Don’t ever leave me again,”

Aurelia smiled broadly as she held Adriana tightly like she had done on the day she had saved her life.