Elleston Trevor – The Sibling

Elleston Trevor – The Sibling  (NEL, 1980)

Blurb:
“And now you are even further back in time,” said Dr Reisenkonig softly. “Now you are only an infant, just eleven months old. Tell me, what do you remember?”
“I hate it. I hate it! It’s called sisser! Mommy goes away from me now, to see it! Hurt sisser! Burn sisser! Kill sisser! “

For three years they had been kept apart, torn from each other as children because they were both too wicked, too cruel to live together in the same house. They played weird and shocking games, turning their childhood into a battle-ground of hatred – forever testing, forever taunting, forcing each other closer to the brink. There was the boy’s favourite horse, screaming as it sought to trample him to death in its stable; a mutilated doll; a trapped rat ripping flesh away from the girl’s arm in its panic to escape: a boat slowly drifting away from land, its tiny occupant rigid with fear.

Now brother and sister meet again. Grown up and attractive, Debbie and Raff find a strange delight in each other’s company, and for their parents, millionaire banker Charles Stuyvesant and his wife, this Christmas promises to be a happy one. Yet, as old rivalries are submerged. as hate develops into love, the madness of their youth returns. No one is prepared for those first streaks of blood across the snow, for the sinister intrusion of a past demanding ritual and sacrifice, or for the accelerating violence that this time cannot he controlled.

This brilliant psychological thriller combines elements of horror, fantasy and unnatural passion with frightening intensity. The Sibling will stun you with its power.