All Our Hidden Gifts

by Caroline O’donoghue

  “Animals wouldn’t reproduce. People wouldn’t reproduce. So if you’re having feelings like that, it’s because there’s a bogey in your radar, y’know what I mean? It’s because there’s all this weird, negative, confusing gunk on your windscreen, and you just need to clear that gunk off.”

  He shrugs and smiles. “I mean, otherwise, how would you drive?”

  Everyone laughs, and Cormac laughs hardest.

  My muscles tense, my fingernails digging half-moon crescents into my palms. I remember talk like this from a few years ago, during the marriage equality referendum. But it always came from the mouths of old men. Never twenty-something Americans in hoodies and Converse.

  Aaron keeps going around the room, and the revelations get more and more intense. When Enid first said her piece, I thought she was the one playing the game wrong. But no: it’s Roe “my sister is a fish” O’Callaghan who was playing it wrong. This isn’t a funny game. It’s public confession.

  But strangely enough, Aaron barely has to work to get people to confess. They’re already spurred on by the person who came before them, seduced by the concept of his full, undivided attention, his pep talks, his hugs.

  A girl confesses to kissing her female best friend. Aaron soothes her, says it’s not what she wanted, that she was manipulated, led astray.

  A boy confesses to having suicidal thoughts. Aaron tells him it’s only natural, normal, to want to take solutions into your own hands when life is upsetting you. But the true answer to finding self-satisfaction is to work on the world around you, not to hurt yourself. To channel your life into positive work.

  On and on it goes. People cry. And the longer we spend there, the more convinced I am that Lily would never be taken in by this. She would never let someone tell her that gay people weren’t real, or that they were “confused”. Aaron’s response to virtually everyone is that they are confused. Having sex is a result of confusion. Being gay is confusion. Having depression is confusion.

  “Maeve?”

  “Um … I’m sixteen. I have a dog. And I …”

  I’ve been so focused on everyone else that I haven’t prepared my piece. I haven’t even thought of a satisfying lie for my “truth”.

  “… I pushed my best friend away, and now I’m afraid I’ll never get her back.”

  The words fall out like copper coins spitting out of a vending machine. Thoughtless and clunky and entirely unwanted. Why did I say that? Why would I bring that here?

  Aaron fixes his eyes on me for a moment. I wait for the onslaught of sympathy and motivational speaking. But it doesn’t come. He just keeps looking at me, his fingers in that triangle shape again. There’s a mild disgust in his eyes, a slight wrinkling of his nostrils as if picking up on a bad smell.

  Finally, he speaks.

  “Oh, Maeve,” Aaron says simply. “I’m sure you’ll find the answer somewhere.”

  And that’s it. He claps his hands together and announces that it’s time for a ten-minute break.

  I can’t believe it. I feel offended. Where’s my hug? Where’s my pep talk? Don’t I deserve Aaron’s attention? Shouldn’t I be cradled in his love, just like everyone else?

  Aaron starts making the rounds, first with Enid, then Cormac, then the boy with depression.

  Roe turns to me. “Look, I know I dragged us here, but I think it was a bad idea. I don’t think Lily would ever go in for this stuff. Do you?”

  “Not really,” I reply. “Are you sure it’s OK if we just leave, though?”

  “Yeah, that guy won’t care. He’s got a pretty dedicated flock as it is.”

  “All right, let me get my coat.”

  I find it hanging in a closet, and when I get back, Aaron is speaking very intently to Roe.

  “You’re not leaving already, Rory, are you, buddy?”

  Roe looks to me nervously. “Yeah. I said I’d get Maeve home before it got too late.”

  “Look, the sharing stuff isn’t for everyone,” Aaron says conspiratorially. “But I think you’re really going to like the second half. It’s more action-orientated. We brainstorm on how we can be agents for change and we actually act on those ideas. You can have a lot of influence.”

  “I’m ready to go now,” I say loudly, buttoning my coat.

  Aaron looks at me like I’m a fly buzzing around him. He moves in closer on Roe.

  “Look, Rory, I know you feel different, and a little lost, maybe like you’re … not like other guys, but…”

  I remember the TV show again. About trying to spot the holes in people. About that being the trick to controlling those around you.

  Aaron has seen the hole in Roe. And, for whatever reason, he wasn’t able to see it in me.

  And for the first time in my life, I feel unbelievably, incandescently powerful.

  “We have to go now,” I say, louder again. “Thank you for inviting us.”

  I take Roe by the hand, clasping it firmly in my own, and pull him towards the door. He follows, and the last thing I see before the door slams are Aaron and the Children of Brigid’s curious faces.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  WE GET INTO THE LIFT AND PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE THAT I am still holding his hand.

  We cross the lobby, then the courtyard, and are on the street.

  And.

  We.

  Are.

  Still.

  Holding.

  Hands.

  “Oh my God,” he says, and he finally lets go. “It’s actually snowing.”

  He turns his palms upwards, and he’s right. Tiny flakes of white are falling into his hands.

  “Wow,” I say, doing the same. “I’m not sure what that’s a sign of, but it’s definitely a sign of … something.”

  We walk to the bus stop, where the electronic sign says that the bus is only two minutes away. We give a grateful gasp of relief and sit on the bench.

  “What was that in there, Maeve? It wasn’t even that religious. It was just really manipulative and creepy.”

  “I guess they break people down and build them back up again, under the guise of some crap game. Maybe the religion stuff comes later. When you’re already dependent on Aaron and his hugs.”

  “Do you think there are, like, dozens of identical meetings happening? Tonight? All over the country?”

  “All with identical Aarons? Maybe.”

  “Lily would never join that. Never, never. I’m certain.”

  “How are you so certain, though?” I ask. “I mean, I haven’t spoken to Lil properly in a year. I have no idea what she might believe now. You don’t know, either.”

  “No,” he says, with certainty. “Don’t ask me why. But it’s a no.”

  “OK. I guess we can cross that off the list.”

  “Yeah,” he says, flagging down the approaching bus. “And now there’s nothing left.”

  We climb onto the bus, tear our tickets and sit down. I want to tell him that no, there’s not quite nothing left on the list. There is one big, fat something. The something that is burning inside of my coat pocket, that hasn’t been more than ten feet from me since the day they reappeared in my bedside locker.

  As the bus trundles along, I ease the cards out of my pocket.

  “Oh Jesus,” he says, a bitter laugh in his voice. “Them again.”

  “Do you want me to put them away? I just wanted to talk to you about one thing…”

  “You know, you guys are two sides of the same coin.”

  “Me and who?”

  “You and American Aaron.”

  “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”

  My body recoils at the suggestion, as I back towards the window, and cold space opens up where our legs once touched.

  “You force people to confess their problems to you, and then you hold all the power over them. You use their stories to manipulate them.”

  I’m dumbfounded. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

  “Well. No. Not really. But you have to admit, there are s
imilarities.”

  “I don’t force anyone.”

  “And neither does Aaron, you could say.”

  “Why are you saying this?”

  “Why do you always underestimate yourself?”

  I roll my eyes. “Is this really the time for a lecture on self-confidence?”

  “No, I mean, your opinion of yourself is so low that you completely underestimate the effect you have on people. That the things you say to them – or don’t say to them – matter.”

  “I said I was sorry about Lily, Roe.”

  “I’m not talking about Lily. I’m talking about everyone. Take some friggin’ responsibility for yourself, Maeve.”

  I stuff the cards back in my pocket and stare out of the window. Does Roe have a point? Those sessions I held in the Chokey, where half the school came and confessed their secrets to me. Did it make me feel powerful? A little, yes. But I didn’t do anything with that power. I didn’t abuse it. Not the way Aaron does.

  Until Lily went missing, that is.

  A familiar shudder of guilt washes over me. Lily is missing. Lily is missing because of me. Because of me, and these cards, and the Housekeeper. I lean my head against the bus window.

  “Hey,” Roe says gently. “I wasn’t being serious. It was more like … a thought exercise. Sorry. You’re nothing like Aaron.”

  I’m sick of keeping this to myself. I need to tell him about the Housekeeper dreams. Even if it’s all nonsense, I need to lance the boil that’s growing under my skin. I need to say her name out loud.

  “Roe,” I say, “there’s something I need to tell you. It’s about the tarot reading I gave Lily.”

  “Christ, not this again.”

  “Just listen, OK?” I exhale loudly, warming up. “So, in the reading, this card came up. This card that didn’t belong to the deck. I’d seen it once before, but I took it out and put it in my desk drawer because there was no explanation anywhere on the internet about what it meant. And … it scared me. It’s this horrible illustration of a dark-haired woman in a wedding gown with a knife between her teeth. So I took it out. And then, when I read for Lily, the card was there again.”

  “Can you show me the card now? In your deck?”

  “No,” I say, chewing at the skin on my thumbnail. “I haven’t been able to find her since. It’s like she has to be … summoned, or something. Anyway, I’ve been having these dreams. These dreams about this woman, and in the dreams, it’s like Lily is watching. Like she’s there, but not able to show herself.”

  I pause, trying to suss out his reaction to all of this. He just keeps staring mutely at the bus seat in front of him.

  “Also,” I continue. “And this bit is … well. So, Miss Harris confiscated my cards after Lily went missing. Totally banned them from the school. But on Saturday night, after my mum told me about Lily being spotted by the milkman with a dark-haired woman, the cards were suddenly in my bedside cabinet. It was like they’d never left.”

  “No,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t want to believe me, either. But that’s what happened. That’s what’s happening.”

  “So, what? You think Lily summoned this demon accidentally when you gave her that reading?”

  I bite the skin inside my cheek, swallowing the honest answer. The fact that I said, ‘I wish you would just disappear…’ right to his sister’s face. She didn’t summon the Housekeeper. I did. Or we both did.

  “Yeah,” I answer. “She could have.”

  It’s not a lie. It’s possible that no one summoned the Housekeeper, and Lily could be shacked up with her cello teacher right now. Roe doesn’t need to know what I said. In fact, it’s imperative to us working together that he doesn’t.

  The bus stops. We’re back in Kilbeg. We walk in silence for a few minutes.

  “Where do you see her? In the dreams?”

  “Near the … uh …” My brain wants me to say, “… the place you refuse to kiss me,” but I resist. “Near the underpass. Always there.”

  “Well, let’s go there then.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe there’ll be … I don’t know, a clue there.”

  I look at him doubtfully. “I’m not sure…”

  My phone buzzes. Dad.

  Where are you?

  Near the river. Omw home.

  I type this, and then rethink. Do I really want Mum and Dad to know that I’m by the river, where Lily was last seen alive?

  Delete, delete, delete.

  Nearly home. See you soon. x

  Be safe. Road slippy.

  “Come on, Maeve. I have to try everything, no matter how bizarre it is. Everything.”

  “OK,” I say uncertainly.

  We trudge in silence, the snow falling on our hair and shoulder blades. I can’t remember the last time I saw snow like this in Ireland. Five or six years, at least. We’re too near the Atlantic. Even if it falls, snow usually melts the moment it hits the ground. But this snow is sticking and gathering in heaps beneath our feet.

  The bricks at the underpass are glazed with ice, sparkling like grey diamonds.

  We stand there a moment, uncertain.

  “What do we do now?” I ask, tentatively.

  “Can you feel Lily here? Feel her watching?”

  I close my eyes for a moment, and search for … something. Some nameless, shiftless presence or sign that she’s near. I burrow down into the deep black nothingness of myself, in the hopes I’ll dredge up a fossil of Lily.

  “No,” I reply, opening my eyes. “Sorry. It’s just a dream. I don’t know why I brought it up.”

  “Read my cards.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes. That’s how you summoned this … thing. Maybe we could summon her again.”

  “Roe, I don’t know. I haven’t done this in a while. And the last time I did the results were … well…”

  “I don’t care, Maeve. Just read me, OK? You read me before, remember? Just do this. I’ll never ask you again after this. I swear.”

  His voice is so desperate, his eyes shining with tears. The winter light is so dark that his lips, so full they look almost like they’re pouting, appear purple.

  How can I say no to him? What right could I possibly have?

  “Grand,” I say. “Let’s get into the tunnel, though, it’s too wet out here.”

  We sit, crouched and uncomfortable, our phone torches the only source of light. Every couple of minutes a car drives past, sending vibrations in the air around us, filling our ears with noise. People are driving carefully, slowly in the snow, and when the crunch of wheels rumbles past, we’re forced to stop talking, and just stare at one another.

  “Shuffle,” I say, handing him the cards.

  The minute he touches them, the magnetic pull I feel with the cards grows even stronger. Like the deck has a rope attached to it, and the other end is wrapped around my ribcage. The cards slip through his fingers as he shuffles, falling through the empty dark space between one hand and another. My chest tightens with each movement. My lungs feel like they’re working at half capacity.

  “Are you OK?” he asks, passing them back to me.

  “Yeah,” I murmur. It would be too much to tell him about this. Too much weird stuff for one day.

  “Right, I think this will work best if we invent a spread. For finding Lily.”

  “Right. Great. Good plan. What does that mean?”

  “It means we decide what each card means. Like, one card could be ‘where Lily is’ and another could be ‘what’s blocking her from coming back’ and another could be ‘what we need to do to get her back’.”

  “Yes. This is all good. Is this how it works?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sort of making this up.”

  “Well, it sounds legit. So should I pick the cards?”

  “Yeah, go on.”

  I fan the cards out in front of him. His hands, now red from the cold, hover over each card. He plucks thre
e and lays them face down in front of me.

  I flip over the first card. The “where Lily is” card. It’s the Four of Swords. The card shows a knight in full armour lying on top of a tomb. Stained-glass windows are winking in the background and three swords are hanging above him, the points facing down. The fourth sword is lying by his side.

  “Jesus,” Roe says, panic in his voice. “She’s dead?”

  “No, no. This is good. This is positive, I think. It means rest. Of prolonged, enforced rest. Look, the sword is still at the knight’s side: he’s going to get up and fight; he just can’t right now.”

  “OK,” Roe says, picking up the card to peer at it closer. As his fingers pinch the card, I feel the pull again. A slight fizzing beneath my skin, like my blood has changed its direction of flow.

  I blink my eyes a few times, trying to steady myself.

  From where I sit opposite him, I can only see the back of the card, a plain red square pattern. But between blinks, I can suddenly see the card from his point of view. I see the knight on the tomb. I see my own face, looking tired and desperate.

  I am Roe, and I am watching myself blink like a startled rabbit.

  What?

  I blink again. It’s gone.

  “Are you OK?” he asks. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”

  “Uh, yeah. Let’s … let’s turn over the next card.”

  “Which one is this?”

  “This one tells us what’s blocking Lily from coming back.”

  I flip the card over and immediately put my fingers in my mouth.

  It’s the Devil. Not a Halloween devil, either. This is an old-school biblical devil, with horns and goat legs. Alongside him trail two people, a man and woman, naked and in chains.

  Neither of us says a word.

  “Maeve,” Roe prods. “This is the part where you tell me that this card isn’t as bad as it looks.”

  “Um…”

  “Maeve.”

  “I’m thinking! I’m rusty at this, remember? So the Devil is mostly about something having control over you. It’s usually about addiction or being unable to break out of a bad relationship. But in Lily’s case, it could be the Housekeeper.”