The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,191

have heard has moved to Australia. I feel instinctively that it’s terribly important we’re all there – above and beyond laying the wreath. Could you let me/Ma/Maia know that you can definitely make it? I can’t believe it’s happening this month!

Well, that’s about all for now, though I’d love to hear more of your news, if you get the chance to drop me an letter. I’m going to send this off now before the signal disappears.

All my love to you, Electra, and I can’t wait to see you at Atlantis.

Tiggy xxx

I smiled as I reread the letter just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and felt genuinely happy that Tiggy had found a life that so obviously suited her. Given I had the whole weekend to reply to her, I decided I’d save writing it until tomorrow morning, when my head would be clearer. I wasn’t good at chatty letters – or anything much writing-wise at the best of times – but her long letter deserved a decent response.

Thinking of the approaching anniversary reminded me of the armillary sphere that had mysteriously arrived in the garden at Atlantis after Pa’s death. The bands had been engraved with our names and some numbers that Ally had said were coordinates to where we were all born, and there was also a quote in Greek for each of us. Ally had handed my details to me in an envelope, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember where it was.

Before I could think about it further, I decided to call Ally. Then, just as I realised it must be something like two a.m. in Europe, she picked up.

‘Electra? Are you all right?’

‘Hi, Ally. Yeah, I’m good, really good. I was just about to hang up when I remembered what time it is in Norway.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Night and day have blurred into one recently. Bear’s now in full teething mode and even my legendary energy is being drained.’

‘I’m sorry, Ally. It must be hard bringing up a kid by yourself.’

‘Yeah, it is actually,’ Ally admitted. ‘And lonely, especially at this time of night.’

Wow, I thought, raising an eyebrow that she couldn’t see. It was one of the few times I’d ever heard Ally admit to being anything less than superhuman.

‘Well, here I am, keeping you company, and sending you and Bear a big hug.’

‘And I’ve never been so grateful for it. Thanks, Electra. I’ve just been thinking that I might go home to Atlantis before the rest of you arrive. Maia called to say she’s going to arrive early, and I also need some Bear-support from Ma, aka “Grand-Mère”. I seriously can’t remember the last time I had more than a few hours’ sleep.’

‘That sounds like a great idea, Ally.’

‘Anyway’ – she cleared her throat – ‘are you just phoning for a chat?’

‘Partly. I got an letter from Tiggy, which reminded me that I wanted to ask if you still had my coordinates from the armillary sphere?’

‘Of course I do. Why?’

‘I guess I must have lost the envelope you gave me and . . . well, I had some time to think in rehab and . . .’

‘You’ve decided you want to know where you come from,’ Ally said very gently as a great squawk came from the other end of the line. ‘Hold on a minute,’ she said, as I heard some rustling and a kind of suckling noise. ‘Right, I’m just going to my laptop.’

‘Okay,’ I said, realising that my heart rate was increasing as I waited.

‘Soo . . . I’m opening the file now . . . Okay, here we go. Can you write these down?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

Ally read out the coordinates, which I scribbled down. Then I stared at the set of numbers.

‘Thanks. So what do I do now?’

‘Okay, go onto Google Earth, and on the left-hand side there should be a little search box. Enter the numbers in there – they’re in degrees, minutes and seconds – then it should zoom in to the location the coordinates pinpoint.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

‘Electra, are you actually going to look up the coordinates now?’

‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I?’

‘Only that . . . it’s a big moment, isn’t it, finding out where you’re from? Is anybody with you?’

‘No, but . . .’ Then a thought struck me. ‘Hey, Ally, do you actually know where I’m from?’

‘Well, when we were first shown the armillary sphere, I looked up all the coordinates briefly to make sure they worked, but honestly, I only