“So … what do you think?” I break the silence.
“I think,” she replies slowly, “we need to talk to my aunt Sylvia.”
“Your aunt?”
She nods. “She used to do fortune telling in Manila, while she was training to get her degree. There was this salon where they would do nails and tell women’s fortunes. They’re pretty casual about it over there.”
“I don’t know,” I say nervously. “I can’t imagine telling an adult any of this and them just accepting it.”
“Maeve, you’ve got to understand,” she says, shaking her head, “ghosts and stuff are sewn into my tita’s belief system. She considers God and magic as sort of … on a par with each other.”
“So she’ll believe me?”
“I don’t know. At the very least, she’ll listen to you.”
“OK,” I reply. “I mean, I trust you.”
“Great. Come over tonight. I’m babysitting my cousin, so she’ll be around at, like, six to pick him up.”
“I’m supposed to be meeting Roe. We were going to go back to the underpass.”
“Well, hello.”
“Not like that,” I snap, before adding, “unfortunately.”
“Well, bring him. Maybe Sylvia can cast you two a love spell or something.”
“Oh, aren’t you funny?”
“I’m hilarious, actually.”
“You’re being very … chill about this,” I say, cautiously. “Considering you’re a passionate atheist and everything, you’re accepting the notion of a spirit demon very … gracefully.”
“Yes,” she says, surprised by her own reaction. “Let me think about why that is.”
She’s silent then, pressing her fingertips to her mouth, pondering.
“Are you analysing your own motivations?” I ask, nudging her. “Wow, your mum is right. Acting school has made you pretentious.”
“Mmmhmm,” she replies, barely registering this accusation any more. “The thing about being atheist is that I don’t have a problem with belief. I just don’t like religion.”
“So witchcraft is fine, but God is not.”
“Sort of, yeah,” Fiona continues. “I can accept that you accidentally summoned a demon to take away your best friend, but I can’t accept the concept of original sin.”
“It’s not definite that I summoned her,” I correct her, remembering my lie to Roe. “We could have both done it.”
“But you were the one who said the words—”
“I know. I know. But … Roe doesn’t.”
Fiona nods slowly. “Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“Right now, I think it would just upset him.”
“You mean it would make him upset with you.”
“And what good would that do?” I counter. “He would go off on his own and we’d be no closer to finding Lil.”
We sit with the facts for a minute, mulling over whether Roe should be told.
“Let me draw a card,” Fiona says, and I hand her the pack. She plucks out the Star and smiles at me.
“Hope,” we both say. The bell rings, and lunch is over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I RING FIONA’S DOORBELL AND A WAVE OF PANIC RUSHES over me. Roe and I are squeezed into the narrow patio between the glass screen and the front door, our shoulders touching as we try to avoid tripping over the plant pots scattered around us. The panic, to my great shame, isn’t about Fiona’s aunt Sylvia or what she might tell us about the Housekeeper.
It’s about the simple, unavoidable fact that Fiona is beautiful and witty, that Roe is handsome and smart, and that I, Maeve Chambers, suddenly feel like I have very little business with either of them.
“We don’t have to stay long,” I suddenly blurt out. “I’m sure Fiona will be busy.”
“Sure,” Roe says.
“All of her friends are older, you know. Her last boyfriend was twenty.”
“OK.”
“So she might want to head out with them. We shouldn’t keep her too long.”
“Isn’t Fiona your best friend?”
I glow with pride. She is, in a way. She’s certainly the person I spend the most time with these days. The feeling is immediately dimmed by the fact that I have effectively replaced my last best friend, a girl who is currently under the possession of a demon I summoned.
Life.
Fiona’s cousin José opens the door, gnawing on a soggy Pom-Bear. He’s about three. God, why don’t I ever know what to say to children?
“Uh … is Fiona there?”
He turns around, letting the Pom-Bear drop to the ground. “FIIIIIFIIIIIII!”
He turns back to us. “I did a poo in the snow today.”
“Did you … like that?”
Fiona jogs to the door in sweatpants and a horse T-shirt that is too small for her. For some reason, this feels like the height of rock ’n’ roll.
“Hey,” she says, folding her cousin into her arms. “Did Jos tell you about his snow poo?”
“Yes.”
“He was very proud of himself. Me, less so. C’mon in.”
She quickly nods at Roe. “Hey, Roe. You can leave your shoes here.”
The last time I was in Fiona’s house, there were at least twenty people in it, so it feels bizarrely spacious now. The living room has three guitars leaning against the wall, an upright piano and a music stand.
“Wow, I thought your mum was just into the saxophone.”
“That show-off? Please. She used to be in a cover band. They even toured in America before she came here. Do not ask her about it. She won’t stop once you get her started.”
“So that’s where you get it from. The performance stuff.”
“I guess. Did I tell you I got Desdemona? The director texted.”
“Wow! That’s amazing. Congrats.”
I can’t help beaming with pride. Not just for Fiona, but for the fact that I am here talking to Fiona, and Roe is here, listening.
Roe starts tracing his finger on the neck of a steel guitar.
“You can play it if you want,” Fiona offers. “Mum won’t mind.”
“No, that’s fine,” Roe responds, his face glowing with hope. He is willing her to say, “No, really, it’s OK,” and a moment later, she does. He gently picks it up and starts playing a melody.
“I’ve never played one of these before,” he says, unable to keep the grin off his face. “They’re mostly for bluegrass and country music.”
He starts playing a tune. Fiona cocks her ear and listens. She smiles, opens her mouth and starts to sing. There’s no warm-up. No tentative talk-singing while she gets the feel of it. She immediately announces the song with a Southern drawl.
“Aiiiiiiiiiii am a maaaaaaan of constant sorrow,” she sings. “I’ve seen trouble all my day.”
And then, to my great horror, Roe starts singing along. Fiona’s singing is high and sweet, the kind of voice a sea witch would try to steal. Roe is less controlled, but every bit as affecting. His voice has points and edges, scratches and yelps. But it’s good. There’s no denying that.
Fiona and Roe are singing. They are singing together.
They look at each other and smile, communicating something that I have no way of possibly accessing. Why don’t I do music? Why don’t I know songs?
Their voices blend together, and they’re harmonizing. Harmonizing.
And suddenly, I imagine myself giving a speech at their wedding.
Well, I always knew they were meant to be together when I stood in Fiona’s living room and listened to them harmonize after five minutes of knowing one another.
I want to be sick.
“Fifi!”
The sound of the front door slamming in the hallway. Roe puts the guitar down sheepishly. Thank God.
Marie is in the doorway in her uniform, smiling but clearly exhausted from her shift at the hospital.
“Fifi! Are you in a band?” Marie sa
ys, looking as though she may explode with pride.
“No. Definitely not,” Fiona says, her face flushed. “Mum, this is Roe, he’s Maeve’s … friend.”
We hear the words “snow poo” and Aunt Sylvia is standing in the doorway with Jos in her arms.
“Tita, my friends wanted to talk to you about tarot cards.”
Sylvia looks perplexed. She’s younger than Fiona’s mother, in her late thirties or so.
“Fifi, I’m not making anyone a gayuma.”
Marie suddenly bursts out laughing.
“What’s a gayuma?” asks Roe.
“A love potion.”
The three of us are silent. Marie and Sylvia clearly find this very, very funny.
“Mum! Do you know the story of the missing girl from my school? Lily?”
“The girl by the river.”
“Yes.”
The air in the room is immediately changed. Marie’s face looks stricken.
“Ni, you said you didn’t know that girl.”
“I don’t. But Maeve does. And she … she wants to talk to Sylvia about it.”
Marie and Sylvia exchange a few words in Tagalog, their voices low and concerned. Fiona rolls her eyes irritably, and it’s clear that this is a language primarily used to keep things from her.
“OK,” Marie finally says. “I’m going to start making dinner. You can talk to Sylvia in here, but I don’t want you asking her to make anything. No silly stuff.”
“OK,” Fiona agrees.
“And I’m keeping the door open.”
“Mum!”
She puts one finger up. “It’s my house, and I have the right to stop this at any time. I don’t want Maeve and this nice boy going home with stories about what ‘those crazy Filipinos’ get up to.”
Marie puts her hand to the soft spot of her temple. “Not that you would, Maeve. But you know how it is.”
I do not know, but I nod anyway. Sylvia watches us both in wary respect of her older sister.
“You don’t mind, Sylvia?” Fiona asks.
“It’s fine.” She nods. “Let me give José a snack first, though. And I don’t have any cards with me, you know.”
“It’s OK, Maeve has hers. And I gave him a snack.”
“Crisps,” Jos says happily and Sylvia looks sharply at Fiona.
“Crisps, Fifi?”
“Traitor,” Fiona grumbles.
Twenty minutes later, Jos has eaten his way through a bowl of carrot sticks and we are sitting on the floor of Fiona’s living room, my cards spread out face up on the carpet. Sylvia is studying each one.
“It’s a nice deck.”
“Thank you,” I say, proudly.
“Old, too. Maybe 1960s, 1970s. You might get a hundred euro for them on eBay, Maeve.”
“She wouldn’t sell them,” interrupts Roe, who is immediately embarrassed by his sincerity. “Well, you wouldn’t.”
“You say … there is a card missing?”
“Yes. The Housekeeper card. She showed up the day I gave Lily her reading and then never again. Except in dreams. Nightmares, really.”
Sylvia runs her hand through her hair and thinks for a minute.
“Did she look like the other cards? The same red border? The style?”
“She looked different. No border. And the style was creepier, less blank-faced than these.”
Sylvia nods, her face creased as though trying to work out a puzzle. “So, she isn’t of the deck. The Housekeeper visits the deck.”
“Yes.”
“Or,” Sylvia says, her tone measured, practical. “She’s summoned to the deck.”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen this before, Tita?” Fiona asks.
Another silence from Sylvia. She traces her finger across her bottom lip, concentrating.
“Not exactly,” she says finally. “Describe to me what she looked like.”
I tell her. The long black hair. The white gown. The knife. The dog. The sense of her as being human-ish, rather than human: the hair that doesn’t curl when wet, the unlined skin.
“What you’re describing is familiar, Maeve.”
“Familiar? You know her? Who is she?”
“Everyone knows her. Black hair, white dress. In the Philippines, we would call her the Kaperosa. But versions of her exist everywhere: the Malay have the Pontianak, in Brazil it’s the Dama Branca. Every culture you can think of has some version of the White Lady. Google it if you don’t believe me.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just one of those unusual things. Do you know that the story of Jesus existed, almost word for word, within the Egyptian story of Horus? He even had twelve disciples.”
“So … the Christians copied the Egyptians?” asks Roe, trying to grasp her point.
“Maybe, but what I think is much more likely is that there are some stories or figures or places that are so powerful that cultures are just pulled towards them. It’s like gravity.”
Sylvia slowly brings her closed fists together, imitating gravitational force.
“OK, so she’s everywhere,” Fiona says, clearly losing patience with this cultural history lesson. “But is she real?”
“Yes.”
“Well, OK.” Fiona replies. “You … answered that pretty quickly.”
“Anything people come together to believe in is real. Any intense, passionate energy that is focused on one spot will create something.”
“No, I don’t mean in a, like, pretend way. I don’t mean, ‘Is she real?’ in the sense of ‘Is love real?’ I mean, is she literally real?”
“And I’m telling you, Fifi, yes.”
Sylvia doesn’t just say it, she spits it. This calm, level-headed woman is suddenly antagonized, irritated by her niece.
“Why do you think people believe in ghosts, Fifi?”
“Because they’re sad and they want to believe their husband is still alive, or whatever.”
Sylvia’s nostrils flare and Fiona rolls her eyes again. Roe and I exchange an uncomfortable look. One that says: Ah, I see we have stumbled into another person’s long-standing family argument. Time to excuse ourselves and make a run for it.
“It’s because only very powerful emotions can create very, very powerful energy. Ghosts linger after grief because it’s one of the most powerful things a person can feel. People don’t see ghosts because they’re sad. The sadness makes the ghost.”
“What about the White Lady? What makes her?” I ask.
“It could be anger. Betrayal. Revenge.”
I swallow hard.
Anger at Lily for showing me up in front of our class, for making me feel guilty.
Betrayal, like when I ditched her to be friends with two girls I don’t truly even like.
Revenge, for just existing, for being an ever-present reminder of all the things I try to deny about myself. The silly games we played for too long. The slow-reading group at school. Licking books in Waterstones.
Tick all that apply.
Sylvia is staring at me, but I can’t meet her eye. I can’t let this nice woman know that I am capable of feeling that kind of emotion. I look at my hands.
“I don’t know about this Housekeeper,” Sylvia says, standing up gingerly. “I only know what I believe. And I believe that collective human feeling brings these spirits into existence. We like to think that the emotional world and the physical world exist separately, but that’s not even nearly true. Have you ever cried because you were sad, and then felt exhausted afterwards? Have you ever felt so hungry that you got cranky? Fiona?”
“Oh, come on.”
“Everything is balance, weights and counterweights. Like a see-saw, you know? If your left leg hurts, your right leg carries the weight. Right?”
“Right,” we all say at once.
“It’s the same thing with energy.” She makes a see-saw with her arms. “If energy on one side is moved, energy on the other will come to meet it. Grief calls to spirits. Fear calls to
demons.”
“What about happiness?” Fiona asks.
“Happiness –” Sylvia smiles, looking from me to Roe – “calls to love.”
“Oh Christ, Tita! Stop embarrassing them.” Fiona buries her forehead in her hand.
“Sssh. Come on, your mum will have dinner almost ready.”
Roe and I take this as a cheerful hint that it is time for us to leave.
“Sylvia,” Roe says politely. “Do you think … that something like the White Lady, or the Housekeeper, or whatever – do you think my sister could have willed her into existence?”
I bite my lip. Lily didn’t will the Housekeeper into existence. I did. I said the words. I wished she would vanish. But Roe can’t know that. He’d never speak to me again. Fiona sneaks a glance at me but quickly fixes her face back to neutral.
Sylvia gives Roe a look of concerned surprise; this is the first time we have referred to Lily as Roe’s sister. This, I realize, is intentional. Fiona knew that her mother wouldn’t have allowed a speculative conversation about the occult if she knew a direct family member was sitting right there.
“Oh, love. I’m so sorry. I’m sure she’s going to be fine.”
“Thank you,” Roe says mechanically, already exhausted by strangers’ sympathy. “But do you think that maybe the Housekeeper…”
“I think your sister is probably trying to find her way home to you right now, and you should focus on being with your family.”
“Yes, but,” Roe stresses, “if you believe that the physical and the emotional world can overlap, the way you said, do you think that my sister could have summoned the Housekeeper? Even without meaning to?”
“Jos!” Sylvia calls, looking around for her son. “Where are you? Have you washed your hands?”
Sylvia could not be in a bigger hurry to leave the room.
“Tita,” Fiona says, tugging her sleeve. “Please. He’s so worried.”
Sylvia looks at him pleadingly, begging him to not ask her anything else.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I just … I just want to know what it is you think.”
“I think, in answer to your question, that the physical and emotional worlds are much more connected than people think, yes. And I think sometimes the spirit world – the thing in our souls that creates ghosts and demons and hellhounds – I think that world sometimes serves as a bridge between the two.”
All Our Hidden Gifts Page 15
