Her hands scratch fabric, searching for the words.
‘… But I get the sense that I could really hurt you, Madeline. And I don’t want to do that.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say. I’m used to hurting. My smile is stretching painfully on my face. I don’t know what to do. This is new, so new and already it is dying.
‘Maybe we could kiss again sometime?’ I say to Oona. ‘Not in a love way. In a friendly way. Until there’s something else for me or you?’
‘Would that be safe?’ she asks, and I see the little crescents at the base of her fingernails as her hands smooth out imperceptible creases.
I nod, and tell a lie that serves us both. ‘I think it would be.’
Her smile a happy half-moon, wide and soft. I walk her through the forest to her home. The woods are deep and dark and intricate and magical and something. There is a certainty within me now. I know a little more of who I am. Of what I can do. We live in a big world, where things can change and doors once closed can open.
Her stomach and her heart. I was bitter. Now I’m bittersweet.
I wish.
I wish.
37
Gentian
(parasitic worms, sinusitis)
I slink up the driveway through the courtyard and into the kitchen. The sky is navy blue. You wouldn’t call it morning yet, but the promise of one is there. The sun is coming. Things might improve. I mean, I have managed to alienate my entire family, but on the plus side I could have a whole friends-with-benefits situation going on with Oona if I play my cards right and don’t, like, accidentally get a tattoo of her name on my face or anything. And I know a little more about her now as well, and the village too. I think of Layla, Charley and them all. What secrets are they keeping? And will I ever know them well enough to get an answer?
I take my boots off at the kitchen door. They’re covered in dew and leaves and mountain muck.
Mam flies at me. I’m grasped towards her in a painful hug. Her hands claw tight. Her eyes are wild and worried. ‘Where were you?’ Half whisper, half a scream. ‘Is Catlin with you?’
‘I went out for a walk.’ My voice is thin. I want to pull away, want to read her face. What does it mean?
‘You were supposed to be at home in bed,’ she snaps, white-faced and staring. ‘I went in to check on you and your bed was empty. Both your beds were empty. Oh, my heart.’
Button is under the table, batting at a little ball of dust. His eyes are big and shining in the shadow. His fur all ruffled, sticking out in different directions. I watch him with the eye that isn’t smashed against Mam’s breast. She smells of sweat and perfume. I push against her, squirming my way out.
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Mam – where’s Catlin?’
‘Brian has driven over to Donoghue’s – in case she’s with that lad,’ she says. ‘That Lon.’ She points towards the table. There’s a note. ‘I thought – I thought you might have gone together – or gone after her, to bring her back. When I searched her room there was this note, stuck in the middle of her little altar.’
I pick it up. It’s a page torn from a book. Thick and old and off-white, slightly textured. It’s Catlin’s writing, obviously. Black ink almost carving through the paper, for emphasis.
You can’t keep us apart when we’re the same soul inside two bodies. We’ve gone away until you understand.
‘That’s nonsense,’ I exclaim. ‘What is she on?’ I would have gone after her if I’d heard her leave. If I hadn’t been up the mountains, sexing a Frenchwoman. I am a terrible sister. What are we going to do?
‘I wish I knew,’ says Mam. ‘Have you gotten my messages?’
‘I haven’t checked my phone.’ I run upstairs. It’s on a couch beside the secret door. I push the wall to see if it’s still there. Of course it is. This castle’s playing havoc with my brain. Messages from Mam, a few from Oona, one from an unfamiliar number. It’s a picture of Lon and Catlin inside her bedroom. Reflections in the mirror. I only see the broad slope of his back. Her cheeky face. The collar of his shirt is askew, poking up and down. The room looks dim, the light in there a little off somehow. The Marys glow with candles on the altar. There is a caption: ‘True Love Never Dies.’
She’s still cross with me, I think. But she wanted to reach out. To tell me or to taunt me. It really doesn’t matter. It’s a clue. It’s something.
I show Mam. Her face pales as we scan the screen, looking for something that would help us …
The ringing of her phone makes us both jump. It’s Brian. I can only hear a low mumble, answering her.
‘I have her here,’ she says. ‘Have you …?’ then, ‘No. OK.’
‘Should we call the police?’ she asks, and there is a pause before his answer. It feels too normal, her voice on the phone, when something this big, this much is happening. How is the world still going on around us?
Mam hangs up after a strangled, ‘Bye, love.’ She takes a deep, shuddery, breath in, and turns to me. ‘OK. Brian is going to contact the police. The closest station is a bit away though, so he reckons that the best thing to do would be to go up to the Collinses and organise a search party. They’ll help him. They have children of their own.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Should I go down and get Mamó?’
‘I’ve tried,’ Mam says. ‘Her car is gone. I think she’s on a job. Think, Madeline – do you know where they could be, at all?’ Her voice is strained from reining in panic.
‘They could literally be anywhere.’ I can feel the fear pooling in my gut and surging up. My eyes bulge and my feet tap. I see everything in the kitchen with such clarity. The copper bright. The wood grain. Stippled paint. Everything is begging to be noticed. I can’t filter anything out. It hurts. It hurts me. Fight or flight.
Fight or flight. There is a third one someone told me once. Freeze. The way that deer or hedgehogs do with cars.
My little doe, he calls her. Writing on the walls inside the cave. In my dream I couldn’t read it, but now … I see them, moving, clearing. Unfuzzing into such harsh familiar names.
Amanda.
Bridget.
Nora.
Helen.
Catlin.
Some of us are food.
It’s looming loud. I need to act. Freezing is forbidden. So is crying. We don’t have any help. It’s up to us. And I think right now that us is mostly me. I take a breath. My face and hands feel cool, as though a breeze ran over me or something. I try to trace the feeling through my body.
To settle into calm before I act.
And suddenly, there is a sense of something. Adrenaline, or power. Maybe both.
I make a mental list. I get to work.
Instinct. Mainly instinct.
I can do this.
‘We need to look for her, Mam. You need to get your coat.’
Mam’s face is full of misery. She’s sitting statue still and doesn’t budge. ‘Brian told me to stay here. In case she rings.’
I glare at her. ‘He isn’t thinking straight. You have your mobile.’
I dial the number that sent the photograph to me. Again. Straight to voicemail. Again I dial it. I leave a calm one, saying, ‘Call us back. We love you. And it’s OK. You and Lon. It will all be fine. Please just come home.’
I chant it through as though it were a prayer. That’s one checked off. Next is …?
‘Do you have Mamó’s number?’ I ask Mam, not knowing if Mamó even has a phone.
She shakes her head. I sigh. Of course she probably only communicates by raven, or something equally witchy and useless. My shoulders tense. I let the feelings in. I stop resisting. Panic. Panic. Panic.
‘You don’t think she’s in danger, do you, Maddy?’ Mam’s voice is high, pathetic.
‘We need to act,’ I say, ‘as though she is. She is with Lon. We think Lon hurts girls. And Catlin is a girl. Horrible and simple. There it is.’
‘OK,’ she says, and breathes. ‘OK. OK.’ She stands up.
We he
ad into the night. She holds my hand. And even though I’m almost grown, I let her. The forest waits. We venture quietly in. The trees are big tonight and almost brawny. Thick in places, sparse in others. I see lights on the mountains. Little fairy things that dot across.
‘The Collinses are looking for her too,’ says Mam, scrolling through her messages. ‘And the Shannons. Brian has everyone.’
Lamps and phones and torches. It’s almost pretty, if it wasn’t grim. We have a flashlight and we have a phone. My eyes are becoming accustomed to the dark though. As my stomach tilts, my vision clears. Mam’s face, half-lit, is shaded. I can almost see the skull shape poking through. When did she get so pinched and thin? I wonder. What is it about this place that eats flesh from bone?
‘Do you … sense … anything at all?’ asks Mam.
‘No. Why? What do you mean?’ I ask. I peer at her suspiciously.
‘You hear about it sometimes, with twins. Psychic links, when someone is in crisis. The night your father died, you were in floods. Ye knew.’
I sigh, and keep all my replies locked in. She’ll take the safety charms from under beds, thinking that I’m flawed or strange and wrong. But when she needs it, suddenly it’s welcome. I save it up. I save my anger up for later on. I’ll use it when it’s useful. I need to find my sister. Do my job.
I pray to murdered girls like they were Gods. Please help, Amanda Shale and Bridget Hora. Help me keep this girl from getting hurt.
The forest stirs. I breathe the sharp night air. It smells of grass and earth and nothing else. If I were like that fox, I’d trace her scent. Predators can track their prey so well. His lanky frame that curled beneath her window. Stoats mesmerising rabbits with a dance. They move and twist until they’re fascinated. And then their teeth clamp hard upon the spine.
Blood frenzy. Taste the blood.
My hands on edge. The hard ball in my pocket. Like a little marble. If I were Mamó’s raven I could fly above and maybe see. My senses are too dull. I need them sharp. A needle in a haystack. Not even that. A needle shines bright. And it is dark and all of this is dark and I’m afraid. Mam’s breathing high and strained. She’s close to panic and we need to move. To keep on moving till we find our Catlin. Twin, where are you? Why did you fall in love with something wrong?
Helen and Amanda. Nora. Bridget. How long has Lon been Lon in this place? Oona telling me they never ask. They just accept each other. But certain evils need rooting out. And then the feeling hits. And it’s relief.
I look at Mam. I do not ask permission. I don’t need it.
‘We’re going back. I need things from the house.’
She replies but I don’t hear, I’m running. I run towards Mamó’s. My feet are harsh against the frosty path.
There’ll be a price for this, and I will pay it. I see the jars I need before I’m there. Fluid. Powder. Leaves. It’s just a feeling and it could go wrong. I push the door. The wound on my palm parting as I do. A little blood. It gives. She’s let me in.
‘Get me the salt you took from Catlin’s room – the yellow packet,’ I snap at Mam.
She opens her mouth. And looks at me and closes it again.
‘You need to heed me if you want her back.’ Apparently I sometimes speak in witch – it’s like a different me behind the controls. Someone older. A me who knows the things that we should do.
I glare at her, and she complies. He cannot have her. She’s my sister. Mine. We grew together nestled in a womb and that means something.
Footsteps on the stairs. I focus hard.
I open up the jar of clear liquid, pour in the soft green powder. I think it once was sage. I can’t be sure. One hand on the black marble in my pocket, rubbing, rubbing. I wish Mamó were here. If she would help.
Mam’s footsteps, and her knock upon the door. I open it. Her face is pink and breathless. Silently she passes me the salt. She’s barely here at all, I think.
I pour the whole pack in and stir it round.
Her face ashen.
‘I don’t want to be worried for the two of ye,’ she ventures.
I look at her. A look that shuts her down. I put my right hand into the mixture. Draw a mask of it around my eyes. Pull a bright leaf from the pocket of my satchel. Spread it out on the table. Then begin.
A handful of the mixture straight against my eyeball. I feel it rough and sting and sharp and burn. The crinkle in my gut tells me I’m right. Mam gasps in horror. Keeps on gasping. Frightened rabbit breath.
‘Madeline,’ she says, ‘Madeline,’ and then she says my father’s name, over and over again, just like a prayer. ‘Tom. Tom. Tom. My Tom. My Tom. You promised me … It’s happening. Oh no, no, no …’
‘Mam!’ I snap. ‘There isn’t time.’
She reaches for my hand. Her grip is a vice. I hope whatever’s coursing through me is strong enough to bring her there as well.
‘Shh,’ I say. I feel a pull. A tug. I stare at the leaf. I’m blind, but something’s swimming into vision. A mixture of my blood vessels and the veins on the leaves. There is a blend to it. A little map. I blink. It’s burned on me. I grab the leaf. Something starts to build inside my stomach. It hurts but it’s exciting.
I can do this.
Mam’s voice cuts through. ‘Mad, love? Are you all right? Talk to me.’
‘We need to go. I know where Catlin is.’
38
Sweet Violet
(in a glass of water for quinsy)
‘Come,’ I tell Mam. My voice sounds strange. Authoritative. Capable. Like when I spoke to Lon at the prefab. There’s a fevered focus to my actions. All I know is that I can do this.
I can find her.
We’re back inside the castle, and inching our way up the stairs, towards Brian’s office. I’m holding the leaf ahead of me, blinking furiously to keep the tears inside my eyes as much as possible, not streaming down my face. It’s colder than it was; there is a chill. It leaches heat from me. The veins of the leaf make a road for me, and I can read them. Up the stairs, through the door. We’re in.
It looks so normal. Leather office chair, and Brian’s laptop. Pictures on the wall of Ballyfrann, when it was all just forest, back before. I never noticed that they were our woods until tonight. The green shade of his library lamp, the light fixture that’s like a candelabra. Shelves of books, old files. There is a path that spiders from this place, that brings us somewhere I have been before. I see it on the leaf in front of me, the path to take. Once I have gotten in. I start to bang at walls, to push at them – all around where it opened up before. This has to work. It has to work.
It has to.
Mam is in the corner, tears streaming down her face. Her lips are moving but she isn’t speaking. She thinks I’m breaking down. She thinks that this is it. She’s lost us both. I don’t have time for that. She needs to move. If we want to find Catlin, we need to look and look and keep on looking.
‘Find your child,’ I tell her. ‘Do your job.’ Shrunken head on top of the dark door frame, staring at the wall. It was a girl once, and it knew danger. I follow its dead gaze, fix on the wall. There is an extra brass flap for a light switch. I swing it up. Inside there is a cord, like the old chain flush on certain toilets. I take the little knob. I pull it out.
With a creak the wall slides away, inside the other wall. As it is swallowed up, a nook appears, a smooth black door inside it. It looks like it has always been there. No trace of wall remaining. It makes a kind of sense inside the room, an extra passage. I do not look at Mam, but I can hear the hush of muffled sobs, the wrench of tears and snot inside her throat. I can’t be dealing with it. Not right now.
I jam a book to keep the door from closing and go in. I hear soft feet behind me. Going down. It should be dark, I think. But it’s so bright. My stinging eyes see clearly. Cobwebs on the brickwork. Little pools.
There’s moss on some of the steps and lichen on the walls, thick and lacey. The leaf against my eye still, but I hardly need it now. When
I close my eyes I can see the tiny threads of blood vessels map-making on the inside of my eyelids. Helping me. They’re helping me along. And how could this have always just been in me?
Something wet is trickling down my cheeks. I put my hands up. Wipe away the tears. My knuckles hot wet red. I’m crying blood. Like one of Catlin’s statues. And it’s a small price to pay, but I’m not sure what I’m paying for exactly.
The map is in my hand. The veins are twisting. I can see them move, like insect legs. Behind my eyes, the same shapes forming, warping. We’re getting there. I can sense her closeness. I focus and unfocus, wrap my brain around the parts I need. I feel a touch. It’s Mam. She holds my hand.
We turn the corner, and there is a sort of door. A slab of stone inside the wall, I push it but I cannot make it budge. Mam puts the flat of her palms on it too. We shove until it strains. Until it gives. Painfully, slowly, it moves away from us. Mam’s face is red, her breathing’s forcing heavy. One last effort. Both of us together, thinking of Catlin. One and two and … then we’re in the cave. The same one from my dream, I think. But the dream cave was like a screen, there was a distance. This is very real. All my senses are screaming in this place.
‘What is this?’ asks Mam, taking in the stalagmites and stalactites. The piles of records. My foot brushes a scarf. It looks smaller, shabbier with my real eyes. The smell of rot and ancient mould. This place is old, older than the castle. There is a rainbow sheen to the wall like oil or petrol, pocked with strange growth, slime. My feet splash through a little water pool. It’s chilly here, and dank.
‘Catlin?’ I call. Nobody replies.
And then I see the bed. Big enough for way more than two people. Spindly posts, intricately carved with eyes and hands and mouths and teeth. Jumbled, jutting, horrible and wrong. The sheets are rumpled. Thick fur throws and mirrors. Candles lit. It looks medieval. Arcane. I have a notion something happened here I wouldn’t like. Beside me, I hear Mam’s intake of breath.
‘Love …?’ she asks. And then I see the hand. Stark white and poking out from under covers. It’s small, the fingers stubby-long like mine. It isn’t real. It’s alabaster. Wax. It cannot be my sister. Mam ahead of me, I start to run.
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