La Soeur en Soie
What do an Australian veteran of the armed forces, a six year old from Wisconsin, a dance instructor from Toronto, an award-winning mathematician from Sweden and a retired science teacher from Japan all have in common? The answer is, La Soeur en Soie.
If you are someone who finds unsolved mysteries frustrating, I suggest you stop reading here. Information regarding La Soeur en Soie is elusive. It will still likely be years before we know everything there is to know, if we ever do.
It was 1977 and it was Christmas Eve in Wisconsin. Robert (not his real name) remembers it being unseasonably warm that evening, but like a lot of childhood memories it's hazy. Robert and his family had gone for a walk in the pleasantly cool night air. He was a child full of adventure and wanderlust and his parents often commented to others about his independence and sense of adventure. Thus, it was no surprise when Robert walked on ahead and out of sight of the others. As Robert walked along the fields, he came to the winding dirt trail that led back up towards their house. His boots crunching on the loose stones, he made his way up towards the road. It was then that he became aware of the figure waiting for him at the top of the path.
“I remember I was nervous, because I suddenly felt all alone, but I knew everyone from around town and I was a friendly kid, so I wasn't scared of anyone. I thought I should be brave. I remember thinking that it was going to be one of the farmhands.”
It was not.
“He was tall and pale and weird looking. It looked like he had just taken a shower. He was staring at me with this really intense, unblinking look and his lips were sort of pursed into this tiny smile. I remember thinking it looked like my grandma's smile because it was all… puckered up and marked with lines and wrinkles. He held out his hand and I shrunk away from it, but then he was holding something out to me. In my head I was trying to be rational. It looked like it could be a Christmas card or something. I wanted to be polite and make the man happy, so I took it.”
When Robert's parents came around the corner to see Robert was waiting for them, they froze. He was shivering and looked as if he might be about to cry. In his hand was a shiny piece of plastic, a playing card. He turned it around in shaking hands and held it up to show them. It had three hammers across its face.
“The man with wet hair needs to talk to you.” Robert told his parents as the stranger appeared from the shadows behind him.
The events of that Christmas Eve night shaped the rest of Robert's life. For the next 30 years, Robert asked his parents about what had happened. His memory of the rest of the night is hazy, but he remembered the man being at their house, he remembered his father, nervous and confused, handing the tall man a paper bag and the visible relief on the faces of his family when the man finally left. He also remembers that from that day on, his family were inexplicably wealthy.
“We moved house the next year. My father bought cars, my mother went on these ridiculous vacations with her sisters. Neither of them ever had to work again. Neither of them would ever talk about what had happened. It wasn't until my father's death in 2003 that I was told anything.”
Among the possessions willed to Robert by his father was a manilla envelope. Robert's name appeared on it, written in his father's blocky handwriting. It was also dated - 1996. He includes a scan of the letter in his email.
“Son,
For a long time you have asked us about what happened that Christmas back on the farm in Wisconsin. We wanted to tell you but we didn't want to tell you. It was the scariest night of our lives and something happened that night that still makes us uneasy. I have waited for your mother to go to bed to write this, as even talking about it is enough to upset her. A stronger man than me might have been to laugh the whole event off, but something changed in me that night and I've not been the same since. I have nightmares and get scared for no reason sometimes. Its like I'm on dge [sic] constantly.
When you told us that the man wanted to speak to us, we thought he was simply a lost stranger. When you showed us the card we had no idea what it meant. I promise you, we still don't know. I've included it here. Sorry I held on to it for so long, but it didn't seem right for a child to have it, whatever it is.
I don't know how much of that night you remember, but I think that now it is only fair that you know. I will keep it brief because there is not much to tell and I still don't understand it.
The man told us that you were part of a game. He called you the three of hammers. He ignored all our questions but said that to be the three of hammers, certain things had to happen. He offered us large sums of money, most of which we still hope for you to inherit on our passing. All he wanted in exchange was for us to acknowledge you were the three of hammers, for us to invite him into our home, and for us to give him some things. We still don't know why he wanted any of the things he took and now we can only remember what a couple of them were – he wanted one of your baby teeth, he wanted something you had made (I don't remember what we gave him). He wanted you to read him a poem that he had in his pocket, which you did, even though most of the words were too long for you.
He left our house and returned again that night, two hours later when you were in bed. He gave us a suitcase full of money. We didn't know what to do, so after the holidyas I took it to my buddy Duke (you remember Duke, Sandy's dad?) who used to be a cop, and told him what had happened. He checked the money and it was clean. The man had said he would come back with more money, but the money he brought that night was more than we had ever seen in our lives. You remember that we moved after that. He found us. Turned up when you and your sister were asleep. He gave us more money, asked if the three of hammers was still alive, then left. One time he asked us to paint your room blue so we did. Another time, he told us to dress you up in your best clothes and make sure that you were at a certain supermarket at midday one Wednesday. That was the day we took you and Jenna out of school for the day, you remember that? I think we went to the water park? Your mother said it was an early treat for your birthday if I'm remembering right. But before that, we made sure you were at the supermarket.
I wish I could tell you more but that's all we know. We're sorry we never explained this, but what would we have said? When you were little we wanted to protect you, and as you grew up I kept waiting for a day when I felt like I didn’t want to protect you any more and that day never came. You are my son and I love you and I hope that when you read this, you'll think I did the right thing.”
Robert shows me the card – it's in good condition. He runs fingertips across its surface and there is a plastic finish, like you would get on any other playing card to help keep them easy to slide. The hammers on its face have dark wooden handles and dull black heads. They sit diagonally, like the three pips on a dice, and each is an identical stamp of the other two. The pattern on the back of the card is a beautifully ornate swirl of gold and ivory that has faded slightly over time, but maintains much of what must have been its original lustre.
If Robert's story had happened any earlier, it would have ended there. He would have lived the rest of his life completely unaware of the mystery surrounding the three of hammers. He had no reference point for La Souer En Soie, so instead, Robert took to the internet and half-heartedly searched for any of the details he could remember from the night he was first given the card. After several unsuccessful nights, a particular string of search terms brought him to the website of Derrick Sinclair and with that, one of the strangest mysteries of the internet age.
La Soeur en Soie, French for The Silk Sister, is a game. It has been Derrick Sinclair's obsession since 1997 when he first came across the story of Linnea Olsson. Professor Olsson is now an accomplished mathematician and lecturer at the Lund University in Sacnia, Sweden but in 1997 she was a fifteen year old maths prodigy setting the academic world alight with her creative and intuitive approach to specialised mathematical constructs. However, it was not Olsson's extremely impressive credentials as a mathematician that attracted Sinclair's attention – it was the fact that she was, coincidentally, also the Eight of Fish.
“I read a news article,” Sinclair tells me. He is a stout, soft-faced man. Thick glasses frame a broad brow and dark, intelligent eyes stare out over a thick dark beard. “It was talking about Professor Olsson's experience being stalked and harassed. Apparently, she and her family were being visited at night by mysterious figures who would wait outside the house, knock at doors and windows, playing sinister music and leave strange things for them on their doorstep. The article had been translated from Swedish, so at the time I had no idea if the weirder aspects of the story were mistranslations or something else but they showed this picture of her and her parents standing above a little table – and on the table were all these bizarre objects. I remember thinking it could be a crow or a magpie or something, I don't know if they have those in Sweden, but there were little silver beads and a whistle on a length of chain and a sort of, well a doll I guess, made of sticks bunched together. And in the middle of this pile was a card.
Derrick Sinclair felt his heart jump. The card was remarkably similar to one he had seen before – one that he knew very well. Derrick Sinclair is the two of mirrors.
“It's a game of some kind,” Sinclair tells me. “I probably know more about The Silk Sister than anyone else, and I know almost nothing, but there's definitely something. The men with wet hair that come up again and again in the story – the ones who gave the card to Robert, stalked professor Olsson as a teenager and killed Brandon Dean's animals – I don't know if they're the ones playing the game or maybe they're acting on behalf of those who are, but the sheer number of resources and amount of time that seem invested in La Soeur en Soie suggest that there are powerful forces at work here. I'm not sure what role we have, us few who have been named as cards, but we are important. Once we have our cards, our lives seem guided somewhat by the mysterious hands of the game.”
I ask him about the circumstances surrounding him becoming the two of mirrors, but from the way his face drains of colour and the panicked shaking of his head, it becomes clear that he doesn't want to talk about it.
Derrick is now retired and dedicates his life to investigating the game. He has a website and multiple social network profiles aimed at finding and cataloguing instances of La Souer en Soie worldwide. In recent years he has begun collecting the cards themselves. Via Skype, he shows me the scrapbook he possesses. It is a huge tome and though he refuses to show me much of it, the pages he leaves through are meticulously detailed and feature photographs, newspaper clippings, printed chat-logs and a number of the cards themselves carefully packed inside clear plastic. When I ask how he obtained the cards, he is polite but dismissive.
“Robert is the lucky one,” he says. “when he became the three of hammers his family got rich. Nobody else has had such a positive experience. Most of the people who contact me via the website are terrified and miserable and want to get as far away from the game as possible.”
His voice takes on a dark and sombre tone. He stares directly down his webcam, as if he's staring me directly in the eye.
“I want you to know that I'm using you, Nicodemus. I make no secret of that. I'm using your article to try and contact more people and reach a new audience. This is important to me, the most important thing in my life and I will walk over anyone to learn more.”
I tell him I appreciate his honesty.
This article was originally published in Spring of 2019. It is posted here as an archive piece due to the fact that much of the information contained is now obsolete.
In the six months following its creation, a great deal has happened and The Silk Sister has changed dramatically. Professor Olsson and I met in Sweden, Robert has donated his entire fortune to charity, and Derrick Sinclair is missing along with his collection. Despite my best efforts to remain on the periphery, I have become inexplicably linked to The Silk Sister. It is my hope that the second article I write about this mysterious internet game will be the last.