All Our Hidden Gifts

by Caroline O’donoghue

  “It’s all over Twitter,” Jo says, her face illuminated by her phone in the darkness. “The whole Kilbeg area is blacked out. Some trees fell on power lines, or something.”

  “Why?” I say, my voice high. “There hasn’t been a storm, or anything. It’s just snow.”

  “Snow falls on trees. Trees get heavy. Trees fall over,” answers Jo in a sarky “I still haven’t forgiven you for being a bitch to me earlier” voice. “Duh.”

  “Well, this is a bit of an adventure,” Dad says, trying to look whimsical. “Will we crack out the candles? Ghost stories?”

  “The rads have gone out,” Mum says, putting her hand on the rapidly cooling radiator behind her. “Well. We’re going to need double blankets on everyone’s beds. Girls, I think it’s best if you sleep together.”

  “What?”

  “For warmth. This house is going to be an icicle within the next hour, mark my words.”

  And it is. Even with two pairs of socks on, every step on the bathroom floor sends a chill through my legs. When Jo and I refuse to sleep together, Mum insists I go to bed in a fur coat.

  “Where the hell did you get this rotten old sheep’s arse from?” I ask, mortified that Roe’s accusation that my family is rich was probably right.

  “It was your great-granny’s, and it’s grey rabbit fur, I’ll have you know.”

  “Why do we have a dead woman’s coat? A dead woman’s amoral coat?”

  “I inherited it when I was about your age. I could never throw it out. The poor old creature gave its life so she could stay warm; it feels like a crime to just bin it.”

  She is uncharacteristically protective in this newfound Siberia. She sits next to my bed and lights two long white dining candles, both wrestled into wine bottles salvaged from the recycling bin.

  “Take one to the toilet with you if you need to go in the middle of the night,” she says, settling them down on my nightstand. “I’ll leave the matches here.”

  “Thanks, Mum.”

  I keep my hands folded inside the sleeve of the rabbit-fur coat so she doesn’t see the cut.

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “As warm as I’m going to be.”

  “It’s a funny old time,” she says, and I try not to reply by saying that it’s funny, her sitting on my bed like this in the first place. She had just earned her PhD when she found out that she was pregnant with me, and according to Abbie she had a full-on freak-out that she would never get to use it. So she kicked her career into hyper-drive, and sort of palmed me off on a mixture of childminders and sibling supervision. “You were an easy baby,” she often says, fondly. “Like you would know,” Abbie sometimes retorts.

  But I must look uncomfortable, or like I want her to leave, because she glances at me sort of sadly and sighs.

  “I know it’s been hard for you lately, old beast,” she says. “Lily going missing. And Jo says you have a boyfriend now, too.”

  “Oh God…”

  “No, no, don’t worry, I won’t make you tell me anything … unless you want to, of course … but then again, why would you want to?”

  Her eyes are suddenly glassy in the low, flickering candlelight. I don’t say anything.

  “You know, when I first started a family, I never felt like I had a choice. It was either work or kids. So I chose kids. But then when I went back to school, everything seemed so hopeful, like I could do anything. Sometimes I wonder if I fooled myself into thinking I could do both, and that maybe I let you down in the process.”

  “But I never minded. I was free to do whatever I wanted with Lily. You shouldn’t feel guilty.”

  “I know.” She smiles weakly. “I know. But sometimes I regret not being around a bit more. For you, in particular. But still. You can’t regret-proof your own life, can you?”

  I don’t know what is suddenly compelling her to be so open with me. These are not conversations we normally have. Eskimos might have fifty different words for snow; we have zero words for expressing how we feel about each other.

  “They always say you should have no regrets,” I say, weakly. “That thing the French say.”

  “Je ne regrette rien,” she says softly. “I regret nothing. It’s a stupid saying.”

  “Is it?”

  “We all treat people badly sometimes and if you’re an even remotely empathetic or flawed person, you should feel regrets. The important thing is to learn from it and go on to treat people better.”

  I curl an even tighter fist into my bandaged hand.

  “What if the thing you did is too bad?” I ask. “What if the person never forgives you?”

  Mum looks at me very steadily. “Sometimes it isn’t about getting people to forgive you,” she says simply. “Sometimes you have to do the best with whatever they’re prepared to let you have.”

  And under the blanket, in my good hand, I hold the little brass river key as hard as I can.

  I fall asleep in the dead woman’s coat and I dream of nothing at all. I wake up in the middle of the night anyway, the words of a rhyme half falling out of my mouth.

  “Snow to rain, and rain to river;

  We won’t be fooled again.

  River to sea; and sea to sky;

  What’s now will not be then.”

  The cut on my hand is open again. The bandage has disappeared. I bring a wine bottle candle into the bathroom, every part of my body shivering in the black, cold house. I have taken for granted, I think, the amount of tiny red lights in any room: the orange square above a power button, the red-cherry pimple light on the boiler, the charging light on the electric toothbrush. The little signs in a house that tell you everything is working the way it should be.

  The water runs warm and brown for a few seconds, like river water.

  This house is not working as it should be.

  I am alone. Like my house is a ship floating out to sea, and I’m the sole survivor.

  I start reading The Beginner’s Guide to Spellcraft while sitting on the edge of the bathtub, my feet in two inches of warm water.

  White candles, the book states, are best for protection, peace, truth and purity.

  I flick around. The book is big on candles and herbs, and is particularly fond of phrases such as: … like any you would find in your garden, or larder!

  Rosemary has a strong female energy, and is good for banishing negativity, protection. Find it growing rogue in any garden!

  Camomile is good for a pleasant sleep, and is now popular in many teas found in the supermarket!

  To mend a rocky relationship, cast a simple honey spell! Any honey will do!

  There’s something peaceful about this cosy, motherly form of magic. I read the spells, which feel too complicated and a little embarrassing, but after every one, Alwyn leaves the same footnote.

  Remember, she writes. Magic is an art, as well as a science. Find the magic that feels true to you.

  I do not know what time it is when I go down to the kitchen. My phone went dead hours ago, and the only clock in the house is the now-dark oven display. My wine bottle candle has almost burned down, so I grab a handful of fresh ones from the pull-out cupboard below where the cutlery is kept.

  In the cupboard with the dry foods there are spice jars; in the fridge there’s honey. I pull stuff at random and desperately chuck them into one of the million canvas tote bags that Mum is always bringing home from academic conferences.

  Back in the upstairs bathroom, I shake rosemary, sage and a tablespoon of honey into the bath. Star anise for protection against bad dreams; a basil leaf to ward off evil spirits. I add them wildly, desperately, until the tub is thick with herbs and the bathwater has cooled down so much it’s almost ice.

  What now? Do I get … in the bath?

  I close my eyes and try to follow some sort of instinct. Magic is an art, as well as a science.

  No. You never hear of witches getting inside cauldrons.

  I look in the book and find instructions for a protection circle.
It tells me to mark each side with candles: yellow for Air in the east, red for Fire in the south, blue for Water in the west and green for Earth in the north. I only have my white ones. Instead, I take a red lipstick for Fire, a yellow shower-gel bottle for Air, a blue toothbrush for Water and a green sheet mask packet for Earth.

  The whole thing looks crazy, but it’s too late for caring about crazy now.

  I soak bath towels in the water, wind them into ropes and make a circle on the floor.

  I sit in the middle of the circle, and from my tote bag, pull out a knife, and a candle. I start jankily carving into the pure white stick, the wax gathering in heaps like peeled chocolate. It is not a pretty process. But slowly, the letters start to form, like a four-year-old taking her first stab at writing. I am methodical, butchering the candle slowly and without grace.

  Dig, slash, carve.

  Dig, slash, carve.

  “L”

  She was left-handed.

  “I”

  She was left-handed but she taught herself how to write with her right.

  “L”

  She was left-handed but she taught herself how to write with her right. She thought she would need it some day.

  “Y”

  She was left-handed but she taught herself how to write with her right. She thought she would need it some day and maybe now she does.

  I move down the candle. I start again, smoother this time.

  “L”

  She was my best friend.

  “I”

  She was my best friend and I betrayed her.

  “L”

  She was my best friend and I betrayed her and now she is getting her revenge on the city.

  “Y”

  She was my best friend and I lost her and now I am getting my revenge on the city.

  When I run out of candle space, I tug thick, curly hairs from my scalp. Wrenching them at the ends, where they hurt most. Good. Pain is good. Sacrifice is good.

  Wrapping each hair tightly around the candle, whispering my made-up chant as I go. I try to copy the shopkeeper at Divination, making it rhyme so it’s easy to remember, and less clunky to say.

  “Retrieve Lily, protect Maeve;

  Forgive a friend, her life to save

  “Retrieve Lily, protect Maeve

  Forgive a friend, her life to save.”

  I go on and on like this, wrapping and burning, carving and chanting, until I hear birds waking up. The words start feeling like wool in my mouth, and after a while I lose sense of what they even mean. Forgive who? Save whose life, exactly?

  At some point, I must fall asleep.

  I wake up before anyone finds me, lying in the middle of my protection circle, huddled in a ball in my great-grandmother’s rabbit-fur coat. A drop of water falls on my forehead.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Water is leaking through the old roof of our house, falling through the ceiling tiles and onto the floor.

  The snow is melting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “WELL, THANK GOD FOR THAT,” MUM SAYS AT BREAKFAST. She managed to get the gas cooker working, so we are eating fried stale bread smeared with Ballymaloe Relish and drinking tea made with water boiled on the stove. “Apparently the cold snap finally broke overnight. The power should be back on at some point this afternoon.”

  “When?” Jo asks irritably. “I have an essay due and nothing to write it on.”

  “I’m sure they’ll extend your deadline, given the apocalyptic weather.”

  “Well, if this is the Apocalypse,” Dad says, heading outside with a shovel, “at least we know the scale of it.”

  I can barely eat my fried bread. I did this. I melted the snow. I ended the cold snap. I invented a spell.

  And it worked.

  Flexing my hand, I see that the snow isn’t the only thing that has changed. The gash on my hand has papered over with fine scar tissue, the kind of scarring that usually takes at least a week to form.

  Maybe I am capable of summoning demons. But maybe all this crazy Housekeeper energy that lives inside me could do good as well as bad. Maybe the same power that pushed Lily away could be part of the solution to bring her back.

  I’ve been so angry with myself for being angry. For flying into sudden rages, for throwing the shoe in class, for having so much frustration living deep within my skin that it would occasionally just spark out in moments of white-hot fury. But what if I could take all of that, and direct it into something else? Into … well, into magic?

  I pick up the house phone every few minutes, searching for a dial tone. The O’Callaghans’ landline is pretty much the only one I know, aside from my own. I need to talk to Roe. He needs to know about the spell, about what I can do. I hop from one foot to another in frustration. Dad says drivers have to be even more careful, now that the snow is melting. He doesn’t want me leaving the house, despite my desperation to find Roe and Fi. We could devise a spell to get Lily back. Now that I know how, it would be easy.

  “You’ll slip and break your back, Maeve,” he says, eyebrows furrowed, hand protectively around the dog.

  “Make yourself useful, Mae,” Mum urges. “We need to do a big clean-out in the study. Throw out all the crap books—”

  “There are no crap books,” Dad interjects.

  “We have two copies of the same Jeffrey Archer book.”

  “Well…”

  “Frankly, I’m offended we have one.”

  There’s nothing better to do and it’s still too cold to sit still, so I agree. The study is a tiny room at the back of the house with floor-to-ceiling shelves and is far enough away from the TV and the kitchen that you have no excuse not to study in here. I still remember Joanne, the year she did her Leaving Cert, holed up in here and breaking out in tiny skin rashes all over her body from the stress of it all. Poor Jo, I think, suddenly filled with empathy for her. She’s only ever doing her best. I remind myself to apologize to her for yesterday. Maybe, I think excitedly, I can even come up with a spell that will help her chill out a bit.

  I get to work clearing out the books. Most of them really are a bit crap. Even I can tell. They are mostly unofficial biographies of sports stars and ex-presidents, the kinds of thing my brothers would have bought my dad for Christmas. I fish out my Walkman from the Chokey and slot it on to my waistband, weeding away at the books contentedly. Everything is going fine until a rogue copy of The Second Half by Roy Keane catches on my headphones and wrestles the Walkman free, smashing it on the floor.

  I scream in surprise, grappling at the tape player to see if it’s completely ruined. I could easily find another one on eBay, but it makes me realize how attached I am to it now. I analyse the pieces, trying to calm down from the sudden shock. It’s just the plastic bit at the front, the bit that keeps the cassette in, that has snapped off. It can be superglued back on, easy. I practically wheeze in relief.

  I gather the tape and the shattered pieces in my hands, trying to keep everything together while I find the superglue.

  It’s only then when I see it.

  The tape. Or, the sticker on it. There, on the curling, yellowing rectangle of sticky paper is the thing that has been staring me in the face this entire time.

  “SPRING 1990.”

  The year the cat ran away.

  Mum had said something about 1990. In fact, she brought it up a lot. It’s family lore that she had a rubbish pregnancy with Cillian, that she was on bed rest and that Abbie couldn’t go play in the snow because Mum was too ill to take her. She can’t even look at cats without bringing up Kylie, who ran away in the middle of a blizzard.

  A cat that runs away in a blizzard. I never questioned the logic until now.

  Could this really be the first time that the Housekeeper has arrived in Kilbeg? Has she been dormant for thirty years, waiting for new prey to seize on?

  The power comes back on in the evening and Dad cooks everything that was defrosted by the freezer melting. This i
s how we end up having chicken, sausages, black pudding and lamb chops for dinner. Even Tutu is bored of meat by the time we’re done. I apologize to Jo about snapping, and she gruffly accepts and then goes to write her essay on her now-chargeable laptop. I plug in my own phone and look at the notifications I missed. There are four from Fiona, and none from Roe.

  13.02: Is your power still out??? Everyone’s over at my house! My titas are LITERALLY setting up an Indian fire bowl outside to cook lunch! Come!!! xxxx

  14.21: OK, my phone is about to die but come over. Should I invite Roe?

  14.32: Wow 1% lasts a long time. Anyway, it has just occurred to me that your battery is probably gone and maybe you haven’t seen this. Text me when you’re back! Roe on his way over. SNOW BARBECUE. xxx

  19.12: Hey. Roe just left. Do you want to talk?

  My stomach crunches with anxiety. Roe and Fiona spent the afternoon together. I remember the first night Fi and I spent in her house, with a stolen bottle of wine, sitting on her bed making fake Facebook profiles.

  I breathe and try to remember my breakfast epiphany: if I can cause so many sparks with anger and hatred, I can cause an equal amount being kind and empathetic. I close my eyes and think of the honey, for friendship. The white candle, for protection. The rosemary, for female energy, and banishing bad karma.

  Fiona invited her friends to a party. That is all that has happened.

  I stare at the 19.12 one again. Roe has obviously told Fi exactly what happened yesterday with the tarot reading. The Secret Santa. The truth about what happened at the reading.

  I think of the rosemary again. You can’t do anything about what you said during the tarot reading. And as for the Secret Santa thing … that was a year ago. If Roe wants to stop talking to you over something you did a year ago, well … well there’s nothing we can do about that.

  Here’s what I can do, though. I can make a spell to bring back Lily.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I SAY GOODNIGHT TO MUM AND DAD AND JO AT ELEVEN, BUT I don’t go to sleep. I’m too busy planning my next spell. The spell that will bring Lily back.