Perfectly Preventable Deaths

by Deirdre Sullivan

  39

  Black Hellebore

  (narcotic, poisons the heart)

  Short of breath, I clamber on the bed, feeling far too small, too young for this, reaching with my arms to gain purchase. To climb. My heart thuds in my throat. A desperate knock. A door I don’t want opened. I cannot look at her. I cannot look.

  ‘Catlin.’ My voice is wobbly, like a child’s. I am small and lost and terribly afraid. Mam digs through sheets like a frightened rabbit. Her fingers red. There’s blood on her hands. My sister’s blood, I think. The black silk parts like murky river water. We see the thing that was my sister’s face. It is her face, I mean. But it’s been shredded. Throat in ribbons, breath coming in little gasps. Her eyes are lost. She’s moving far beyond us. I think that she is trying to move her lips. They aren’t there.

  She’s breathing though.

  She’s breathing.

  I turn to Mam. ‘She needs help.’ It builds inside a screech but comes out ragged. ‘You need to call someone.’

  Mam’s face is grey. She’s staring at my sister. Half her jaw is gone and her tongue lolls out. What’s left of it. A stump. I cannot let the horror of it in. No, not right now. I rummage through my bag for Mamó’s jar. I bite my arm until blood spills out and then drip it through the thick and salty mixture.

  I pour it on her throat. My sister screams.

  Mam grabs at me. ‘Stop. You’ll hurt her. You will hurt her.’ As though I were a toddler pulling hair. I shoot a look and watch her hands fall. I feel a rush of something to my brain. I might pass out. I bite my bottom lip hard. Almost through. I can use the parts of me to sew the bits of her. To hold her close.

  ‘She is already hurt,’ I say. ‘And I can only try to help.’

  My vision is still cloudy, though it sharpens on the things I need, with a quick zoom-focus. My intuition leads my brain and my body. It is driving. We were two, swimming in one womb. We grew together. There is something magic in a twin. Companion from the moment of creation. In all my life, I’ve never been alone. I’ve had a friend. And I will fight to keep her.

  Something shimmers, folding slowly out. When we were little, Mam used to take us to visit aquariums on holidays. The jellyfish were kept in a dark room, the UV light shining through their soft, transparent bodies, and they would furl and unfurl underneath. Their movements looked so graceful, looked like dance, a ballerina’s tutu, stacked atop a mermaid’s magic hair. And we knew they could sting you, but we liked to look. To hold our hand against the glass. To wonder what would happen, if a single tentacle reached through and touched our skin. Would it sense that we were not a danger? I knew it wouldn’t, but I hoped it would. The light unwrapping from around my twin is like those. It is very dim, but it is there. It ripples and it almost seems to pucker. A pale, translucent heft. It could be touched. I grab at it. If I can keep that light from going out then maybe I can keep her.

  It wafts away. It’s bending from my hands. There isn’t time.

  ‘Chhhhhcccc‌hhhCCHhhhhh.’

  Those sounds. Those horrid sounds. She is in pain, but she is trying, working. I put my fingers in her throat to clear an airway. There’s not enough mouth left for CPR. Mam’s trained, I think. She should know what to do. I look at her. She’s staring and she’s shaking.

  ‘Mam. What do I do? Mam. MAM!’ I yell at her. She’s staring past us both.

  ‘The wall,’ she says. ‘The carving on the wall.’

  And then I look.

  Dearbhla

  Sibéal

  Amanda

  Laoise

  Eimear

  Laura

  Bríd

  Sorcha

  Bridget

  Karen

  Gráinne

  Julie

  Roisín

  Gobnait

  Violet

  Dymphna

  Alacoque

  Aoife

  Fionnuala

  Victoria

  Elizabeth

  Emer

  Sinéad

  Sally

  Ciara

  Mary-Ann

  Nancy

  Susan

  Fiona

  Delia

  Maisy

  Laura

  Rachel

  Caoimhe

  Julie

  Ava

  Sheila

  Maria

  Antoinette

  Cathleen

  Martina

  Jennifer

  Carol

  Nora

  Lee

  Colette

  Ellen

  Claire

  Laurel

  Jacinta

  Mary-Bridget

  Mary

  Ann

  Marie

  Noreena

  Savita

  Carmel

  Sarah

  Aoibhe

  Scarlett

  Dearbhla

  Katherine

  Cecilia

  Lisa

  Lillian

  Louise

  Patricia

  Katie

  Cliodhna

  Shona

  Nuala

  Shauna

  Patricia

  Monica

  Meabhdh

  Jean

  Gillian

  Elaine

  Anna

  Sabhdh

  Sarah

  Adele

  Rose

  Grace

  Joyce

  Nicola

  Ruth

  Frances

  Naomi

  Elizabeth

  Sandra

  Dolores

  Aisling

  Sharon

  Lola

  Chloe

  Helen

  Daisy

  Megan

  Úna

  Fawn

  Catlin

  Oh God. Catlin.

  There isn’t time for fear to rise inside me. I cannot hyperventilate right now. I cannot panic. The only hurt that I’m allowed to feel must be constructive. If I let go, I’d curl into a ball. I’d shake and quiver while my sister dies.

  ‘Call someone,’ I tell her. My voice is glass-crack high.

  ‘There isn’t any signal.’ She isn’t moving, and it isn’t helping.

  ‘Go and find one. Send Brian our coordinates. Get help. RUN.’

  You read about mothers who lift cars from on top of their children. Who move mountains. Ours is small inside the castle’s gut. She nods and dashes away. I look down at my twin. And we’re alone. Her face is turned to me, her eyes like saucers, rolling in her head. She’s saying things. Maybe prayers. The bright around her is fading but it’s there. I take a drink and see light rolling out around my body. The salt and blood disgusting in my mouth. I retch and swallow down the acrid bile.

  OK. OK.

  She makes another sound.

  The things I can control about myself won’t save her now.

  I’m sure she’s praying.

  I wish that I believed. In good. In God.

  The devil, he exists. I see it now, in front of me for certain.

  ‘I’m here,’ I say. I hold my sister’s hand. And she is dying. Corpsing into cold beneath my eyes.

  All the bright around me almost blinding. Shining, shining, star-bright through the dim. The contrast is discouraging, I think. She’s pale as pale, the day-moon next to sun. I try to grab a handful to pass over. I pull and pull but it won’t budge. I can’t.

  Why did I tell Mamó I wouldn’t? She could have taught me things. Given me more of myself to use. Maybe if I had been braver, better. Decided for myself and not for Mam. Not for this future I think I should want, because I’ve always wanted it. If I were qualified, as a doctor, I don’t think I could save her. Not here. Not now. I would need tools, medication. Help.

  I close my eyes and focus, seeking something concrete. Someone I can call on for a miracle. And there it is. I open them again. Catlin could be dead by the time I get back. I could be leaving her to die ri
ght here. And that’s on me. I pull the blankets round and tuck her in.

  ‘Catlin. I love you and I want to help you. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done and haven’t done. The way it’s been. I have to go and ask someone for help now. I think that it might work. The only thing.’

  I’m conscious that there’s nothing I can say to make this right.

  I kiss her forehead and I smell her blood, choke back a sound. I cannot tell if she can even hear me. My eyes are dry. I run back through the office, past Mam and down the stairs.

  I don’t need to tell Mam to go to Catlin. She will, and she will hold her daughter close. We’ve always loved each other. Our problem was we just forgot how much. I go down to the kitchen. Cram a handful of Brian’s knives into a shopper.

  Our father gave us this. It’s in the book. The night we found the fox, Catlin remembered. And maybe that was something like a sign.

  I see the text from the book roll by. As though my brain had subtitles inside it. Some things you remember in pictures, and some in words. This comes in Catlin’s voice. My sister’s voice.

  If someone wants a thing – a sick child well, money, power, love – then you can ask.

  The Ask, she said.

  The Fox.

  Twenty minutes walking to the crossroads. I plan to run. Is that too late?

  A taste for blood and worship … You need to bring a living thing to die.

  I’d cut myself again, but I can’t help her if I cannot ask. I need a thing. A tender soft delicious little life.

  Two eyes shine at me from under the table. I hum to him, and I stretch out my hands. Make little consonants inside my mouth. His paws approach. A gentle bat at fingers.

  ‘Button,’ I say. There’s power in his name. I think he knows it. I grapple at the soft scruff of his neck. The fold that mothers bite to carry young. And he is mine. I have him.

  A thing that has a taste for blood and worship.

  I stuff the wriggling kitten in my bag.

  Rehearse my prayers.

  40

  Feverfew

  (arthritis, fever, may increase the risk of bleeding out)

  I always assumed, I think, striding through the forest, that I was the gentler twin. We don’t know who we are until we’re tested. Here I am.

  I feel the warmth of Button against my leg. The little furball, who grooms himself so hard he falls off chairs.

  You’d bring it there. A dog, a goat. A baby.

  And at the crossroads, you would kill the thing.

  I should be more conflicted, I think. But then again, a pet is not a twin. He’s not my sister. I’d rather have a sister than a kitten. So I will make the Ask so loud and clear. I’ll carve him up. I’ll offer up my soul.

  The more pain that you cause, the louder he would hear your call.

  I swallow. I am killing part of me in saving her. My eyes red raw, my bitten arm, my essence. What do souls do? What shape do they take? Will I still be able to do this when I’ve lost mine? Will I still feel love? I run through all the things I’ve read about them. It isn’t much. There’s nothing certain there.

  Just the sense that it’s a thing you need.

  To be a person.

  I think of Catlin, stretched out like the fox. Part cut. Part bitten. The things he did to her. She cannot die. I will not let her die. I wish that I had Lon inside my bag instead. It would be easier. A pleasure almost.

  My sister’s voice. He took most of her tongue. I push the heels of my hands into my sockets and the pressure jars and stops the pain. I have a cat. I wear a mask of blood. That has to be worth something to the devil. I will call. I hope that he responds.

  ‘Caw.’ A raven’s lurking on a branch high up. It might be Bob. It’s hard to tell with ravens. Probably it only came for blood.

  ‘Help me, Baaaaaaab,’ I ask it anyway, pronouncing it the strange way Mamó does. ‘I need help.’

  It flaps and caws and stares. The air slicing my lungs, I keep on running.

  And suddenly I’m there. I swallow. My eyes are filling up. My hands are shaking. I can do this. I can do this. A place inside the woods where two roads meet. The bright hot body of the little fox. Will Button’s life be warm? I wonder. Will it have value to this old, dark thing? I need this plan to work. It’s all I have now. Instinct fighting loss.

  I dump my bag on the ground and it wriggles. I lay the knives out on the forest floor. The more I hurt, the louder he will hear me. I breathe in deep and choose the smallest one.

  Oh, Button, I think. And then, Oh, Catlin.

  Unzip the bag and pull him softly out. He hiss-complains at me. I stroke him and I settle him in the soft crook of my left arm. I grasp him tight and then I lift the knife. His eyes are wide. He doesn’t even know what I am doing. Everyone he’s ever met’s a friend.

  Oh.

  This is the worst thing I have ever done.

  His little face.

  I narrow my eyes. The blade plop-curling in. I gouge it to the bottom of the socket. I keep my hand so tight around his neck. I never thought a cat could scream so plaintive sharp like that, like Catlin must have done. I haven’t got the stomach to continue. I’ll make it quick. I close my eyes.

  For Catlin.

  Someone grabs me tightly from behind. I scream and drop the kitten. Off he runs. I still have my knife.

  ‘What are you at?’ Mamó moves away, but just a little. She folds her arms, squinting. She looks embarrassed for me.

  ‘Put down the knife,’ she says.

  ‘I can’t,’ I gasp. ‘I have to try.’

  ‘It won’t work. What you’re doing,’ she says. ‘She will be dead by the time it gets here. And what it brings back might not be your sister.’

  I look at her. ‘How do you know? What happened?’

  Her voice is low. ‘Brian found me. I am sorry, Madeline. There isn’t … Stop that.’

  My eyes are scanning the ground for Button, a rabbit, a fox, for anything that I could catch and kill.

  I look Mamó directly in the eye. ‘Can you help her?’

  She inclines her head. It’s not a nod.

  ‘What do I have to do?’ I ask, knowing that I’ll do it.

  ‘I’ll need a soul. I’ll take yours. And there’ll be no more school. You’ll come and work for me. For seven years. Even if she’s dead when we get back to the castle. I want to train you. Do we have a deal?’

  There isn’t any going back from this. A beat, where I consider saying no. Walking away. Finding the kitten again, stabbing it to death. Trying my best to placate whatever comes through. She’s right, I know; it wouldn’t work. And Catlin would be dead and I’d be here alone.

  What can I do? I swallow and I nod.

  ‘I have your word,’ she says. It’s not a question, but she wants an answer.

  ‘You have my word,’ I say.

  We start to walk. My mouth is dry, the sweat beads on my back are very cold. The moon is fat and yellow. The mountains dark again. They’ve all gone home, the people who were searching. Do they know?

  ‘Where is she?’ Mamó asks.

  ‘In the castle,’ I tell her. ‘There’s this big cave –’

  ‘An old place. I know it.’ Her voice is low. We get into the car, she starts the engine and we drive in silence. My sister bleeding out. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.

  I look at my hands, stained with three bloods mixed together.

  She does something with her head, a twist, a shaping, and suddenly my stomach feels like we are on a rollercoaster, going up, and up, and up. Waiting for the drop, that falling feeling.

  It only takes a flash to get us home.

  41

  Betony

  (to prevent dreaming)

  We stride through the castle, up the stairs and in through Brian’s wall – the cave, when we reach it, is leached of life, all freezing dim and dust motes, grey and beige. The black sheets hide the blood. Mam’s holding Catlin on the speckled bed. I think of snow, of
ash. Of fairy tales and princesses and endings. She’s telling her that it will be all right. That Mammy’s here. That help is on the way. That she’ll be fine. Such gentle, loving lies.

  Catlin’s eyes are open, dull and dim. She’s staring beyond Mam, gaze out to nothing. She isn’t making noise. The light around her is faded next-day ash. The barest little ember clings. If I couldn’t see it, I would think that she were fully dead. She’s stretched out cold. Mam strokes her hair. Brian isn’t back. We don’t know where he is.

  Nobody has come to help my family.

  ‘Get her undressed,’ Mamó says to me. I start to move. ‘Sheila, have you called an ambulance?’

  My mother nods. ‘They said that … forty minutes … maybe longer …’

  Mamó’s glare is strong as strong can be. ‘Call them back. You need to cancel. Tell them it was someone playing pranks. That everything is fine.’ My mother shakes her head. Mamó blinks at her. ‘You need to do this Sheila. NOW,’ she barks, and Mam takes out her phone, walks towards the cave mouth. ‘Come back when it is fixed,’ Mamó says. She looks at me. ‘We could be here all night. It will be hard.’

  I’m unbuttoning my sister’s dress. She moans so weak. I think I’m hurting her. Mamó opens her big doctor’s bag. She takes a jar of something clear and dark. A thick, soft liquid. She takes a swig and hands it to me. I drink down some as well. And then try to give some to Catlin. Most of it just trickles on the bed. She’s not responding.

  Mamó lights a candle. Says some words. I feel the click of something slowing down. And everything is bright. I see the shimmer on me and on her. I did not feel it furling out of me. It has always been here, I think, invisible. I just didn’t know. If I am bright, then Mamó is incandescent. It’s hard to even blink at her right now.

  ‘You started it yourself. You didn’t know.’ She looks at me, and nods. Then she reaches her hands towards me, grasps my light, begins to pull and tear. Pinching is the best way to describe it. She pinches fists of light and weaves them into threads towards my sister. Like a blood transfusion. Or a graft. I’m dimming as Catlin brightens, just a touch. But you can see it. I can see it. There! She pinches and she pinches and moves and moves and spins and winds and pulls. Her hands are busy, lifting, dropping, smoothing, taking, helping, giving. Hurting. This is the real stuff, I think. This is the kind of thing that kills or cures.