Perfectly Preventable Deaths

by Deirdre Sullivan

  Mamó’s voice is sharp through what I’m thinking.

  ‘Not that. Oh, she’ll get over what happened with that lad. In time. It’s what we did to her – the coming back. It does things to a person. I’ve told your mam to watch for it. But she won’t.’ She says it like it’s just the way things are.

  ‘She’s trying her best to understand.’ I curl into the couch. I think of Mam’s cool hands on my hot forehead. The things she said, when I was in the bed. ‘She said something about my father – Tom – but she couldn’t reach whatever it was …’

  ‘Something was done to that woman,’ Mamó says. ‘Parts of her memory stolen, or locked away. Around your talent, and around your father. After everything, that became clear. I offered to help with it – but she refused.’

  ‘What do you think they did?’

  ‘To know that, I’d have to know who they were, or if they were … And without her permission to investigate, it’s hard to say, exactly. It would be invasive. Her memories wouldn’t be her own, but mine as well.’

  ‘How does that work?’ I ask.

  ‘You’ll learn,’ she tells me, ‘Madeline Hayes. Hayes is a very old name, lot of history. It wasn’t from the ground you licked your talent. And she should know more about it than she does. It may have been a safeguard. For all the good it did.’ Mamó’s eyes are looking beyond me, as though she’s searching for someone – something – else. I think of Mam chanting dad’s name after mine that night.

  ‘She did her best,’ I say. ‘She’s a good mother. And if … if my dad was a witch or a wise man or whatever, would it not be worth her trying?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Mamó. ‘Which is why I offered. But I don’t think that she will be open to any more of my presence in her life than is absolutely necessary. She hates me now. When something terrible happens, Madeline, people look to find someone to blame. It’s human nature. Also, there’s the bargain that we made.’ Her gaze is pale and level. Her eyes look blue again, in this half-light.

  ‘How is it going to work?’ I ask. I straighten up my shoulders. ‘Can I commute?’

  ‘We can work out details as they arise. But you will live down here with me. You’ll work as needed. There will be no more school. But you can study in your free time. Homeschooling, I think they call it. You’re bright enough. And you can mix with some people, sometimes. I’ll tell you to keep watch. On your sister. On the things that happen. Notice things before they start to start. A lot of what I do,’ she tells me blandly, ‘is stopping fires before they’re even set. Detectiving.’

  ‘Like Batman?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ she says, and sighs. ‘I’m not like Batman. Batman isn’t real.’

  ‘But magic is.’

  ‘Yes. Ballyfrann is a place where people who are also something else have gathered. The forests were a sacred place, before. Still are to some.’

  I look at her, processing what I’m hearing. Mamó, Oona, Lon. It isn’t a coincidence. A sacred place. I wonder …

  ‘The fox,’ I say. ‘The blood. Do you think it was Lon?’

  She looks at me, deciding how much I am ready for, I think. I hold her gaze and try to look as if none of this is strange and terrifying. I can take it.

  ‘No. I don’t think it was Lon.’

  ‘Brian,’ I say, and don’t know why I say it, how I know.

  She smiles at me. ‘You’re sharp. I can’t be sure. But perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t think he would want to hurt us though.’

  ‘No … but people can do strange things to try to keep their loved ones by their side …’

  I think of Button, wince, as she continues.

  ‘… It’s not dissimilar to the kind of magic he would have been exposed to as a child. As a young man.’ Her face is clouded, thinking.

  ‘His father? Are there different kinds of magic?’

  ‘There’s a reason I live beneath the castle. I didn’t always. But after Brian senior passed, Brian asked me to move in. To keep an eye. His father taught him well, but what he taught him can be dangerous. Destructive. He was a cruel sort of man. And while he lived, this village was a different sort of place. More of a collection of isolated people than a community. Brian has been working to change that. To build. But there are always limits. And temptations.’

  ‘Do you think he’s bad?’

  ‘I don’t think any person is fully bad. Or fully good.’

  ‘Even Lon?’ I ask her quietly.

  ‘Lon and Brian are very different fish,’ she tells me. ‘And one of them needs to be stopped. And one of them needs to be watched.’

  ‘What sort of magics are there?’ I ask her. ‘What does Brian do?’

  She sighs. ‘You ask a fair amount of questions.’

  ‘I’ve been through a fair amount of things.’

  ‘With more to come.’ She spits into a small bin beside her chair. ‘There are three kinds of magic that can be practised, and all of them hurt. Ours, the kind that you will learn with me, is the kind that makes the most sense. You put something in, you get something out. It takes instinct and talent, but a lot of learning as well. A lot of graft.’

  ‘OK. And the other kinds?’ I ask.

  ‘There’s prayer magic, which is something like what happened with the fox. And what you tried to do with the small fella.’

  ‘Button.’

  ‘Terrible name. With prayer magic, a lot of people do it without knowing. It’s asking someone bigger for a favour, essentially. Power, money, love. A secret kept. But there’s a veil between our world and theirs – the ones who’d do it – and so the help, the cost, might not be what you think. And when you open a door, and don’t have the sense to lock it behind you, you might get visitors.’

  ‘Visitors?’

  ‘Hungry things,’ she says grimly.

  ‘Like Lon?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, and sometimes worse. I think Lon may be what happens when something comes over, and breeds with a human. Our face on their appetites.’ She scratches her chin vigorously.

  ‘This is Brian’s father’s kind of magic?’

  ‘This and the third kind.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘When people use the second kind, it can be because of foolishness or desperation or lack of understanding. But if they use the third kind, they know what they’re about. It damns your soul.’ She spits into the fire. ‘It’s not First Day stuff.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘What is?’

  She rises, goes to the sink, pours a massive glass of water. Brings it back and puts it in my hand. She hands me something small and round and dark. The marble from the raven. Where did she get it? I had it before. It was for me. She holds it out. I take it. Hold it in the hollow of my hand.

  ‘Swallow this, as though it were a pill,’ she says.

  ‘What will it mean?’ I ask.

  ‘No one will hear your prayers,’ Mamó tells me. ‘There may be other changes as well. It’s different for different people. Souls have different sizes, values, shapes. You might lose some abilities, or gain them. Do terrible things without paying certain tolls.’ She looks at me. ‘It doesn’t matter though. You gave your word.’

  And so I put the small orb in my mouth. It’s hard to manage, cold against my tongue and big and round. It sticks inside my throat. I need a second glass and both my hands massaging at my throat to ease it down.

  Then we discuss logistics. She’ll call me as I’m needed. I’ll have a night a week to sleep at home. Mam wanted that for me, and Brian made her a deal.

  ‘What sort of deal?’ I ask her.

  ‘The caves are mine to do with as I like. For a start.’ That seems a lot, I think. For just one night a week. What would it take to give me up entirely?

  ‘Do you have deals with everyone, Mamó?’

  She doesn’t answer. Twinkle in her eye that I don’t like. My stomach starts to feel a bit peculiar. Claws at it. Sharp and big and long and gouging, gouging.

  ‘Your soul is small,’ sh
e says. ‘I used a lot. To save her. Quite a bit of mine went in as well. All I’m taking, really, is a seed.’

  ‘You gave it to me – the marble,’ I say. ‘Before all of this. Why?’

  ‘So I could track you. I needed to know where you were. In case of fire,’ she says. Her voice so calm. Her voice is scary-calm and she is glaring. ‘I like to keep an eye on my investments. It’s good business. Get that all up now.’

  She holds a bucket out in front of me and I am vomiting and vomiting and vomiting until I see the blood, the stomach lining. She holds up the little ball. It’s coloured like an autumn leaf, a fox fur, and something in it is moving, changing, as it passes through the light. She wipes it clean with her sleeve.

  ‘Go back to bed,’ she says.

  ‘I’ll clean it up.’

  ‘No,’ she tells me. ‘I need to use some parts to make this stick.’

  ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘Magic isn’t mindfulness and hats, Madeline. It’s work.’ I hold my stomach. She says something else, I think, as well. Her mouth is moving but I cannot focus.

  ‘What?’ I ask. I’m blinking. It is bright. It’s dark and bright.

  ‘Go,’ she says, and pushes me out towards the night. I stumble to the castle. I touch the door. I don’t remember much.

  46

  Vipers’ Bugloss

  (in wine to comfort hearts)

  Mam pours a cup of tea and looks at me across the kitchen table. Her eyes are sad.

  ‘I don’t want you to do this,’ she tells me. ‘To throw your life away on magic tricks.’

  ‘Has Brian told you more about the village?’ I ask. She nods.

  I stir in milk. ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘Oh yes. I got the full whack. The Collinses, apparently, can shape-shift.’ She throws her hands up. ‘Fuck’s sake.’

  ‘You never swear,’ I say. I can see why she would though. Shape-shifting is, in fairness, a bit much.

  ‘Which is the shocking part? Madeline, how much did you know?’

  ‘Not much. I knew that Mamó was a witch, and that I could be one too – she wanted to train me before and I said no.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Oona told me some,’ I tell her, ‘and I knew that Brian knew what was going on … That was hard. He didn’t ask me not to tell you, but he said he wanted to tell you himself. In his own time.’

  ‘To my mind,’ Mam says, ‘his own time should have been at least six weeks before we were married.’

  ‘At least,’ I say. And, in fairness, it should have been.

  ‘Any marriage, and uprooting our whole lives to be with someone, is life-changing stuff. But not life-changing like your neighbours can turn into things and a witch stole your daughter. I’m furious with him. What he hid. We would never have come here.’ Her hands are in her lap, her shoulders slumped down towards her stomach. She’s wearing a floral shirt and jeans, her hair is in a ponytail, make-up on but she still looks exhausted.

  ‘How would he have phrased it though?’ I ask.

  ‘“Everyone’s monsters. One of them will try to murder your child. Let’s stay in Cork forever”?’ Mam offers. She has clearly thought about this.

  ‘Monsters how?’ I ask.

  ‘If you look human but you aren’t human, I don’t know another word for what that is.’

  ‘Am I a monster?’ I ask her. ‘Is Catlin?’

  She sighs. ‘No, love. But both of you are what this place has made you, and I don’t know how to fix it. I offered to work for her. To help instead.’ She pours a little hot drop in her cup. ‘She wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘We made a deal,’ I say, ‘and Catlin’s here. Alive.’

  ‘She is,’ Mam says. ‘When did you get so brave?’

  I shrug. ‘I’m not. I just do what I can. I try. Like you.’

  ‘Oh, love.’ She sighs. ‘The world is dreadful, isn’t it? And Brian is hardly ever home. Since ye woke up, it’s been hard. He lied to me so much. To all of us.’ Her eyes fill up and she starts saying sorry, and I shush her.

  ‘It’s OK, Mam. It’s going to be OK. I’ll be twenty-three in seven years. It’s not forever.’

  ‘Twenty-three,’ she says.

  ‘I know. So old.’ I scrunch my face.

  ‘You won’t have a debs,’ Mam says, like that was something that I had always dreamed of.

  ‘I’ll be a witch,’ I say. ‘Maybe there’s a witch debs. With brooms and pointy hats.’

  ‘Jesus, Madeline. It’s not a joke.’ Her voice is hard and tired. ‘We’re losing you. We’ll miss you.’

  ‘I’ll only be downstairs.’ I drink my tea.

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘I know.’ And I do know. But I made a deal. And we got Catlin back. ‘Look on it as paying for hospital,’ I say. ‘If Catlin had been saved by an operation, you would have paid the doctor. It’s the same. Only I get to pay. I made the bargain and I have the talent.’

  She looks at her tea but doesn’t drink. ‘You were going to go back to Cork, to be a doctor. And Catlin. I don’t know what she can do at all. I mean. Her face.’

  ‘She isn’t dead,’ I say. ‘She’s still your daughter.’

  ‘I know,’ Mam says. ‘It’s just that this is hard. All I wanted for ye. So many things. A happy, normal life … And that lad is still out there. I mean, they don’t know where he is at all. Brian says he’s trying, but it’s been six weeks, and …’ She makes a scornful sound.

  She isn’t wrong. I wish that Lon were dead. I wish that I were small again. A little girl. I wish that I was me before we left the world I knew. Quiet and grumpy, studying and hanging out with Catlin and our friends.

  Catlin bustles in, wrapped in a kimono dressing gown. Her white skin’s pale, her wine stain’s very bright. Her scalp is covered up with a silk scarf.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, ‘is there tea in the pot?’

  Mam gets up and starts making some more. I realise she’s avoiding looking at Catlin. She doesn’t want to see her daughter’s face now it has changed.

  ‘Do you know Mamó found Button?’ I ask Mam.

  ‘I want him back,’ she says. ‘She can’t have my daughter and my kitten too.’ Her face is red. She pours the boiling water like she hates it. Stirs the pot as though it were a drum.

  ‘Are you seriously going to ask the woman who saved my life for her kitten?’ asks Catlin.

  ‘Madeline saved your life,’ Mam says. ‘That wagon just profited from it.’

  ‘That isn’t true, Mam,’ I say. ‘And you need to make this easier for me, instead of harder.’

  ‘I know,’ says Mam. ‘I’m trying, like.’

  I roll my eyes. She isn’t trying half as hard as I am. She should moan less and find out more. I wonder, again, what is there, trapped inside her brain. Memories. And maybe if she was sharing them with me and not Mamó, she’d be more open to it. I wonder how long it will take for me to learn that skill.

  ‘Can you turn her into a frog?’ asks Catlin.

  ‘Of course not.’ I smirk.

  ‘You brought me back to life, Mad,’ Catlin says. ‘Anything is possible. Can you turn this –’ she waves a coaster – ‘into a crisp fifty-euro note?’

  ‘You’d only spend it in Urban Outfitters,’ I tell her.

  ‘Excuse me. I would spend it on MAC make-up.’ She straightens her back. ‘To conceal my immortality blemish.’

  ‘You’re not immortal, Catlin,’ I point out.

  ‘How do you know?’ she asks. She widens her eyes. ‘I could totally be immortal if I wanted. You get to be a witch. Mam, tell her I’m immortal.’

  ‘No one here is allowed to die for at least thirty years,’ Mam tells us. ‘Including me. Or I will bring ye back specifically to ground you, witch or no witch.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I say.

  She pulls us close. Two nestlings under wing, a mother bird. I rest my head on her shoulder and curl my arm around Catlin’s back. And, for a while, this dangerou
s place feels safe.

  It feels like home.

  47

  Nettle

  (tumour suppression, prostatic hyperplasia)

  Catlin’s hair is growing in downy fuzz, like ducklings have, but white. She’s fine with it – I mean, there’s always dye if she gets bored – but the port-wine stains have been bothering her. Her face looks different. Less like her own face. She has been applying the concealer that make-up artists use to cover up tattoos. She orders it in bulk.

  ‘Brian has the money,’ she says. ‘I asked for laser treatment, but he said it wouldn’t work. Because of stupid magic.’

  ‘Magic is stupid,’ I tell her. I spent a lot of today moving things downstairs to my new room and I resent it.

  ‘My teeth might fall out too,’ she says. ‘Isn’t that disgusting? With fingernails and hair, it all comes back, just maybe a bit different, but if your teeth go, that’s it. Dentures for life.’

  I feel awkward. I don’t know what to say to her. I mean, she’s always been the pretty twin. But now she looks like all the things she’s been through. What she is. A girl that should be dead.

  And I still look like me. Only more tired. Big dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep. From puzzling out what’s happening and what might happen next.

  ‘I don’t care anyway,’ she says to me, rifling through her drawers looking for something. ‘I don’t want to be pretty. Remember when we wanted Galway boyfriends?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. Her eyes fill up with tears. I go to touch her shoulder and she tenses. ‘Don’t touch me right now.’

  I move my hand back. Put it on my lap and watch her breathe. I didn’t save her. I just saved her life. My sister’s broken.

  ‘Every night,’ she says, ‘I see him there. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.’

  My phone buzzes on the bedside locker.

  ‘Who is that?’ Catlin asks.

  ‘Oona,’ I say.

  ‘You going to meet up?’ she asks.

  ‘We’ll see,’ I say. ‘I’m basically a servant. So there’s that. And also, she was kind of mean to me before. But I don’t have a soul. And she is hot.’

  ‘Not as hot as you. You’re a badass witch,’ she says.