The great owl reassembles himself, unbending from door shape and back into himself, and as he does so, he chuckles, low, like the clicking of joints.
“Why did you kick me out? I wasn’t done!” Your hot tears are unstoppable.
you were not ready, bevan. you will be, soon. maybe things will be a little fairer when you give me what i want. when you show me you are strong.
“I am, I am strong!”
Your voice cracks. You hate this. Worse, you hate that you have seen it now—that he could keep this wonder from you.
bring me a piece of one of the children, and i will let you in again.
You stay on the floor awhile, the longing for neon and water racking your body. You have to get back there. By the time your tears stop and you stand again, the sun has come up. You will take something from the twins. Something real good. Better still, you will make sure that neither of them notices a thing.
Chapter
Five
The next day, in the long sprawl of the twins’ first full afternoon in the house on the crescent, Mae tucked herself out of sight. She didn’t want Rita to know she was getting bored already, restless without her usual routine. So she snuck away to the bathroom to spend a little time applying thick purple mascara to her eyelashes. Rita had given it to her—a considerate small gift, and Mae had thrown her arms around her bony great-aunt, so touched was she by the gesture. Rita had given Rossa some toiletries as well, like a kind of welcome package, a small box of “make yourself at home” or “just in case you forgot anything.”
However, Rossa, typically, had been cagey about the small shaving kit and shower gels. It was relatively obvious to Mae that her brother was nowhere near capable of growing a beard and thus had no use for shaving utensils, and had no idea whether to thank his aunt or take moderate offense so he just grunted a thanks and shuffled away. Mae would have loved to tease him about it, but it wasn’t worth the risk of him getting in a huff. Lately he’d been all scowl and silence—there was no point even trying. Fourteen had eaten all the buzz out of him.
Mae reckoned she could get at least twenty minutes out of figuring out how to paint the fine, mousy strands surrounding her eyes with the weird, spiky brush in the tube. Then she’d cozy up someplace and play her Nintendo. A good plan for the day.
So she wedged herself between the large, marble bathroom sink and the thick windowsill, moving some hand creams and seashells out of her way. She dragged the brush along her eyelashes slowly: it felt invasive and heavy on her eyes. She could see the tint of it out of her peripheral, an amethyst frame on the world as she looked out the window. The view of the forest and the mountains was like something from the screen of one of her consoles, a reeling world full of promise and adventure.
Mae imagined herself, sword and shield on her back, healing potions hung about her belt, scaling the heights into the unknown of whatever lay beyond the peaks.8 She would befriend mystic hermits, courageously banish troublesome creatures.
Maybe she’d ask Rossa to go out on a ramble with her tomorrow—but he might say no. He’d become so serious: this fresh new fourteen had been a rupture in them. God, what would fifteen do?
She missed him. His quiet was so opposite of how he’d been before, and the quieter he got the louder she felt herself becoming against him, desperate to pull something, anything, out of him. Even if it was a tantrum, even if it was a mean name. Even if he stormed away from her, at least she’d have caused some effect. At least he’d have seen her. She’d hoped that since they were away from their friends for the summer, somehow they’d come closer together. But this last twenty-four hours hadn’t spelled good weather for them—he’d rolled his eyes at her twice over breakfast. She’d only been talking about how they never have marmalade at home and how it felt like it came from another time, an antique food that real people surely didn’t eat anymore, except in books. Rita was interested and all. She’d only been making conversation like a normal person, but he had prickled and almost recoiled at the sound of her voice. Like he was becoming allergic to her from overexposure.
A real sadness came over her then—no use thinking like that. The pair of them were made of the very same stuff; a split in the fabric of reality made them both possible. Her mam had said that the stars had aligned and she doubled her luck. The stars hadn’t felt very aligned at all for Mae lately. It felt like she and her brother were from different planets. Maybe even different dimensions.
Mae looked away from the lofty mountains and over the dense forest and into the green quiet of Rita’s back garden. It was a good garden, far more colorful than the little patch of concrete they had back in town. All they had in their yard was a washing line. Rita’s garden had plants Mae had never seen before—even from up here she could tell it was a botanic paradise, something out of nature documentary. She ran her eyes over all the greens, the freckled daisies on the lawn, the clusters of fire that might be nasturtiums. Roses, she could see them. A troupe of sunflowers, standing tall and there—there suddenly like a jewel on the lawn, Bevan sprawled out under the sun on a tartan blanket, her flat stomach to the sky. Her legs a hundred miles of tan.
Oh no.
The dull unpleasantness of Mae’s worry about Rossa transformed just then. A tightness in her chest, an awareness in her fingertips.
Had Bevan looked that way in the kitchen yesterday? Over the boiling pot, sitting at the rickety table, just an ashtray and a saltshaker away?
It wasn’t as if Mae hadn’t known about girls before this moment. She’d known, always, this fact about herself: girls were it. The sky was blue, the grass was green, girls were the thing. She’d just never felt it so starkly, with such accuracy. As she stared out the window at Bevan, something flooded her, heady and obvious.
The crush of it. Surely, that is exactly where the sensation got its name. Crush.
Out of nowhere, Mae was drunk on some new cocktail of anxiety and wanting. A little bit shaken, in fact. How come she hadn’t noticed Bevan’s hair yesterday, melted gold in the summer light? How could a body even look that way? Would her own body ever look that way?
The door creaked open, and the pyramid ears and yellow eyes of Bobby the house cat poked into the room, whiskers and fluff, purring low. Mae blushed, gathering herself. She liked the cat. They weren’t allowed to have pets at home, not even goldfish. Or houseplants, for that matter. Bobby was bigger and softer than any cat she’d ever seen. Gentle, too, and friendly, starkly opposite to the way that cats were usually aloof and a little destructive. She’d watched videos of cats on the internet and occasionally displayed them to her mother as a sort of petition, a series of failed hints. But none of the cats had looked like Bobby. None had eyes so big and intelligent, none had paws so big.
“You lonesome?” she asked absently.
“Are you?” replied the cat.
In the garden, you look up at the bedroom window when you hear Mae’s scream. You tut under your breath and put in your headphones. Must mean the cat had started talking to her. It was bound to happen at some point or another.
“Stupid kids,” you sigh to yourself, rolling onto your belly and unhooking your bikini top, building towards an even, perfect tan. You daydream of dancing in neon rooms. You wonder how it is, exactly, you will get back there again—what the next door will feel like under your palm.
When Mae had finished vomiting into the toilet and leaned, sweaty and chalky skinned against the tiles, Bobby curled up at her feet. The once-gorgeous mascara was now two symmetrical purple streaks down her tawny freckled face. The pock and dapple of them stood out stronger against her blanched skin.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Bobby purred, apologetic. His voice was somewhere between the air in the room and feeling like it was inside Mae’s head. A deep voice. Too deep. She didn’t say anything, gagging again—what is happening did I poison myself is the mascara seeping through my eyelids and making me hallucinate—
“I can go and get Rita for you, if you
need her.” Bobby looked up at her, those eyes too human. More than human.
Mae choked out, “I’m—I’m fine. . . . Who, or—sorry, what are you?”
Bobby stood up, stretching, his fur liquid for a moment. The light in the bathroom went strange and gorgeous—a flash diamond, a blink iridescent. Mae’s jaw hung open.
“I suppose I’m a cat. I’ve been a cat for quite some time. I think it’s best if I don’t elaborate for you, just yet.”
“Where are you from?” the girl managed, bravely extending a hand to stroke his fur. If she just breathed a little, got steady and treated him as normal, she could make this normal.
He narrowed his eyes in that pleased way that cats do, leaning in to her touch.
“Up in the woods on the side of the mountain.”9
Mae laughed a little, an awkward nervous habit, a small burst of noise that she couldn’t stop coming out every time she couldn’t think of something to say.
“I’m the only one of me, in case you think there’s a colony of talking cats living over the garden wall.”
Mae nodded, and Bobby climbed into her lap. A new, soft light seemed to be glowing off him and refracted onto her shirt, her jeans. He emanated a rumbling purr, the frequency of it almost normalizing the fact that Mae was having a conversation with a domestic animal. Something in her chimed then, a beautiful shock—magic was real. Here it was, curled up on her, in the body of a sweet, purring animal.
“Do you feel less sick now?”
“Yes. Yes . . . look, can I, can I tell my brother about you?”
“I’ll show him who I am in time. Rita wanted me to come and get you. Something is about to begin for you.”
Though she didn’t like the idea of keeping this all to herself, Mae agreed. She whispered, “All right, just let me wipe my face first.” Her knees like jelly, she picked herself up. The girl and the cat made their way down to the quiet living room, past a statue of the Virgin Mary that was so tall it was almost to Mae’s hip. Had it always been there?
Mae realized then that she had no idea where her brother was. If he was in the house, why hadn’t he come to her? Had he not heard her scream?
The kitchen was too hot, the fire roaring as though it wasn’t two in the afternoon in July. It was a December stove fire, too big for this day. The smell of it was more Christmas than summer holidays. Mae was knocked a little by it as she entered the room, spun even further out than she already was.
Rita was poised at the head of the kitchen table, shuffling long, slim cards in her hands, her eyes half closed. On the radio, an afternoon DJ answered calls from listeners, their back and forth unintelligible, a thrum. Mae pulled up a stool and Bobby hopped into her lap as Bevan waltzed through the double doors, pulling a hoodie over her head, a flash of flesh concealed quick. She closed the doors behind her and planted herself across from Mae, not looking at her. A small woven basket was in the center of the table, lined with a paper towel, where a cluster of custard creams nested. The ashtray was like a fallen city of slate and sandy cigarette butts. A heap of crystals lay on the table, too—some rounded out, like berries, others raw and spiked. A golden spoon with a long handle lay amongst them.
“Light the incense from the stove for me there, would you, Bev?” Rita asked quietly, not taking her focus off the cards. Bevan rose immediately and began plucking a bouquet of incense sticks, one by one, from tall mason jars by the pantry. Fuchsia, mustard, aquamarine.
Mae could hardly sit still. She was so fevered, so claustrophobic in this heat, so thrilled to have been invited into this quiet domestic coven. Witches! she thought to herself. They’re witches! Could she be a witch, too? She tried to keep solemn, keep a broad smile from pushing its way onto her face. Maybe it was Christmas in July, after all.
Bevan pulled open the heavy iron door of the stove, the belly of it dazzling flame and fat bars of embers. A bellow of heat pumped through the room as Bevan tipped the crowns of each wand in to light them, then blew the bright flames out so the tiny ember could release dense, precious smoke. The stove sounded like the heavy breathing of a very old, very large animal.
Mae was sweating. Bevan closed the stove door with a clunk of the handle, but the room was still so close, almost stormy. Mae was too nervous to ask to open the garden doors again. Maybe this was how magic got made, she figured, make the house a storm.
“Do you know what these are?” Rita met Mae’s eyes. Mae shook her head. Her great-aunt flickered a smile. “That’s all right, sweet pea. This is a tarot deck. Seventy-two cards that together, and individually, tell the story of life. They’re a language. A tool. They’re my business, and since you’re here with me for the summer, they should be yours too. I’m sure you’d rather this than aimless field trips to the zoo and museums, wouldn’t you?”
Mae nodded.
“Good. These’ll get you listening closer to your environment. Looking harder at your surroundings. Isn’t that right, Bevan?”
“Yeah. They’re like . . . cyphers.” The tall girl had placed the tricolor of incense into holes in the back of a small brass hedgehog, and she sat it on the table by the crystal heap. She then broke a custard cream in two and absently licked the cream from the center. Mae shifted. “Do you know what a cipher is?” Bevan asked.
Mae felt uncomfortable and stupid at once. She lifted Bobby off her lap and onto the table. He wasn’t going to give her any clues.
“No.”
“They’re a kind of . . . a cheat sheet for the story of the world. Once you start looking for signs and symbols, you won’t be able to, like, unsee them.” Bevan threw the clean rectangles of biscuit into her mouth, chewing inelegantly.
“Is that how magic works?” whispered Mae, regretting it immediately as Bevan snorted, “Magic! Ha!”
Bobby swatted her with his paw. “Don’t be rude.”
“Be kind, Bevan,” Rita said. “No, Mae, this isn’t about magic. This is about intention, and perception: seeing and feeling the secrets of the world. Opening yourself up to it. Now. Pick a card.”
Rita fanned out the deck in front of Mae.
“Don’t think. Just listen. See which one calls you.”
With trembling fingers Mae reached out, the gaze of the witches and the cat on her, the heat in the kitchen clinging to her skin. She selected a card from the left side of the spread, a little out of sight. It wasn’t exactly singing her name or anything, she just wanted this tense, judgmental moment to pass. The card came away from the deck like a petal departing a daisy, Mae thought. She loves me, she loves me not. . . .
“Turn it over,” Rita instructed, folding the cards back into a deck.
Mae flipped the card and placed it on the table. Drawn in delicate black ink, a gray cygnet swam on a lake of fine black lines. At the bottom of the card, “Page of Cups” was printed in austere lettering.
“Cups, sure I told you so!” Bevan laughed.
Rita was smiling. “You did. Get up and put the kettle on, would you?”
The tall girl rose, cackling to herself. “That’s hilarious!”
Mae was baffled, staring down at the little picture of the baby bird.
“Is that supposed to be me?” she ventured.
Rita nodded. “Somewhat. The tarot is partially broken into four houses, like a regular deck of cards, but instead of clubs, spades, diamonds, and hearts, the tarot has wands, swords, pentacles, and cups. Cups is the house of emotion, friendship, and love.”
Mae wasn’t sure that her temperature could rise any more than it already had. Her palms were sweating, her brow. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of a piece of paper opening up chats about her emotions—especially not with Bevan hovering by the kettle, so much hair, eyes too big for her face.
“Is that good?” Mae asked, scarlet.
Rita smiled and nodded. “Yes. It shows you have a way to go but are overflowing with potential and emotion.”
“Well, she is like, twelve, Rita,” Bevan remarked, over her shoulder. “Of co
urse she’s overflowing with emotion.”
Mae almost gasped, she was that embarrassed, that quickly.
“I’m fourteen!” she squeaked.
Bevan rolled her eyes. “Twelve, fourteen, no difference.”
Rita clicked her tongue and turned to Bevan. “What cards, remind me, did you draw most of when you were her age?”
Bevan turned, three empty mugs hanging from her fingers as the kettle began to scream.
“Pentacles,” she replied. “What?”
“Pentacles and what, exactly. The cards don’t know or care what age you are. They’re indiscriminate,” Rita continued. “Now stop being a brat, Bev, or Mae won’t want to sit in with us.”
Bobby made a noise and stretched out over the table, looking over at Mae. He winked at her. Mae didn’t say anything, just looked back to the baby bird on the card. It was pretty. The cards couldn’t all be that pretty, could they?
“Are there any bad cards?” she ventured.
Rita said, “No,” and Bevan, pouring the scalding water into the mugs, said, “Yes.”
Mae’s stomach dropped.
The teenage witch and the crone stared at each other for a moment. Rita put the cards down.
“Don’t lie to her, Rita,” Bevan said. “There’s a couple. There’s definitely at least one.”
Rita reached into her packet, took a cigarette from the slim white box, and lit up.
“No card is entirely bad. We can’t exist under those terms. The Hanged Man, Death, the Eight of Swords, the Three of Swords, they—”
“The Tower?” Bevan interrupted.
“The Tower. They are all cards that denote difficulty or crisis or secrecy or change, betrayal perhaps—but these things are all part of life.”
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