“You’re so beautiful, Maeve,” he murmurs. “It really…”
“It really what?” I smile.
“It really makes life very … difficult for me.”
And then we’re kissing. Kisses that go from being slow and simple to frantic, urgent and hungry. We have never truly been alone together before, only ever snatching moments in the underpass or by the Beg. Our aloneness is driving us on, screaming, Go, now, now. Before it’s too late.
I can’t stop touching him. Every time I think I’m being too forward, too animal, he matches me, coming back even stronger. His hands are under my tights, his mouth is on my chest. Gravity seems to pull us onto the bed and I’m sitting astride him, his back propped against my bedroom wall.
It’s all too excruciatingly gorgeous, so heart-stompingly new. Everything I do, I can’t believe I’m doing it; then, I can’t be satisfied with it. I need to see all of him, experience all of it.
“Woahh, woahh.” Roe pulls his mouth away from mine, his voice breathless. “We need to calm down.”
“Why?” I say, nibbling his ear.
“Because for one, we’re due at the river soon.”
“We can be done by then.”
He pulls back from me, alarmed at the practicality in my voice. At the word “done”. He scans my face, which is now blotched with his eye make-up.
“O…K. Well, even then … do you not think this is a bit too soon, Maeve? We’re not even… We haven’t even talked about…”
I’m getting frustrated. If only he knew that this could be our last chance. My last chance.
“I’m ready,” I say, hurriedly. “Roe, I want you to be my first.”
I can’t even believe I’m saying this. I mean, it’s true. I do want him to be my first. But I never thought it would come out like this, with me trying to convince him.
“I’m … I’m flattered. And I … I want you to be my … my first. But is now really the ti…”
I press my body closer to him, and I see his conviction start to wilt. It’s too thrilling, all of this. Having a body. Feeling the power that comes with it. It’s like everything I love about witchcraft: it’s instinctual, animal, magnetic. He kisses me, long and slow, his hands pulling me towards him. He wants this as much as I do.
He breaks away again. “Maeve, we don’t even have anything.”
“Any what?”
“You know. Protection.”
A huge wave of sadness suddenly descends over me. How can we be so connected, so physically glued to each other, and be coming at this with such different points of view? Here’s Roe, worried about the future, about babies, about “protection”. And here’s me, with all the proof in the world pointing to the fact that there probably will be no future – for me at least.
He starts looking at me worriedly. “Maeve, are you…?”
I get up, and reach for my dress on the floor. “Never mind,” I say.
“You’re acting really weirdly.”
“Oh, really?” I whirl around. “You didn’t think that when I was—”
“No,” he interrupts, clamping both hands on my shoulders. “I mean, ever since I got here, you’ve been … off. Are you nervous about the spell or something? Is that it?”
“Yes,” I say tightly. “I am nervous about the spell.”
“Maeve, you need to tell me what’s going on. I feel like you know something that I don’t know.”
I shrug. “It’s 11.40. We should get going.”
“Hey, you dropped this.”
Roe bends down to pick something up off my bedroom floor.
My jet necklace has fallen between the pillows and off of the bed. I take it from him. Dad brought it back from Portugal. It was his way of saying that he wanted to understand me. It was supposed to be a protection charm.
I’m about to put it back on, but stop and look at it for a moment, smoothing my thumb over the black stone. Looks like I’ve had protection charms coming out of my ears lately, without even realizing it, but who’s protecting Roe?
“Why don’t you wear this? For the ritual?”
He smiles weakly as I lace it around his neck, the stone clicking softly against his glass pearls.
“It’s for protection.”
He kisses me softly and smiles. “When this is all over,” he says quietly, “I would like to please take you on a date.”
I laugh a little, the chuckle tinged with sadness. “We need to go.”
We trudge to the riverbank, him in the rabbit fur, me with my school bag. Fiona is already there.
“Hey, you two,” she says, a nervous smile on her face.
“Hey,” I reply. “Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
NOT ENOUGH LIGHT IS COMING OFF THE CANDLES, BUT FIONA has torches. Four of them.
“What’s the extra one for?”
“Well, one for each of us,” she explains. “And one for Lily.”
A glow opens up inside me. Lily. That’s the most important thing to remember. Whatever happens tonight, the end goal is still getting Lily back.
We spread a blanket out on the ground, and pour a ring of salt around it.
“I purify this circle,” Fiona calls, her voice loud and projecting into the dark, moonless. “I purify this circle and protect all who dwell in it.”
She loves this. Loves the theatre, the performance of it. It would be easy to take the piss out of Fiona, but you can’t fault her enthusiasm. Fiona simply doesn’t know how not to try her best.
“Maeve, you’re a Sagittarius. That makes you a Fire sign, so sit south.” She points to a corner of the blanket. “Roe, you’re Air, right?”
“Fifteenth of the sixth. Making me a Gemini.”
“Great. Sit east. And I’m Taurus, which is Earth, so I’ll sit –” she walks around the perimeter of the salt circle and stops at the north side – “here.”
“Then Lily is Water,” I say, my voice low.
“Yeah,” she nods, a little awkwardly. “Lily is Water.”
It must be strange for Fiona to be this invested in the fate of a girl she hardly knows. As she fusses with candles and the freshly cut herbs from Roe’s bag, I put my arms around her shoulders and kiss her on the cheek.
“Oh, hello!” she says, delighted with the affection. “What’s that for?”
“I’m just so grateful you’re doing this. And that you’re my friend.”
“Aww. Well. Don’t thank me now, thank me when it works.”
I nod. From the other side of the salt circle, I can feel Roe’s careful eyes on me.
Fiona takes the white satin out of her bag and unfolds it. It’s a huge length of material, as big as a duvet.
“This must have been expensive,” I say, amazed.
“Yeah. Well. Better to get something right the first time, right?”
The herbs from Mrs O’Callaghan’s garden are tied and burned. We each make the sign of the Goddess – a sort of three-moon drawing – in oil on each other’s foreheads. Our torches are on and sitting next to us, shining a spotlight to the centre. We each pick up a candle and carve LILY into it, just like I did the first night.
“Wow,” Fiona says when she attempts it. “This is harder than it looks.”
“Yeah,” I answer. Roe’s eyes watch me through the flickering lights. “You’d be surprised how hard these things get.”
Fiona nods, concentrating on the “Y” in her candle.
“All right, shall I start?” Fiona begins.
“Go ahead.”
“Hail to the watchtowers of the North, Lords of Earth,” she says grandly. “I do summon and call you to witness and protect the rites of our circle.”
She looks at me. “Oh, right,” I say, trying to remember the line. “Hail to the watchtowers of the South, Lords of Fire. I do summon and call you to witness and protect the rites of our circle.”
“Hail to the watchtowers of the East, Lords of Air,” Roe says. “I do summon and call you to witness and protect
the rites of our circle.”
“Great,” says Fiona. “I think we did really well there.”
“Are we supposed to talk?”
“There’s no rules not to talk. Maeve?”
“Oh, right.” I open up my refill pad and take out the chants I prepared. “Repeat after me and cut the satin.”
I take a deep breath. “I cut this cloth so I may find: a rope to pull, a rope to bind.”
I hold up my knife and slash through the material. The blade falls through softly, making a satisfying rip in the cold night air. It will be easy. So easy. And if I do it quick enough, it won’t hurt at all.
Fiona repeats what I say, cutting her section. Roe does the same, until we each have a pair of long ropes. I take out my tarot cards and start shuffling.
“I’m going to call upon the energy of three cards to help us in this.”
“Oh, cool,” Fiona says excitedly. “Which ones?”
“The Three of Pentacles, for teamwork.” I take it out from where I had stacked it, face down on the top of the deck. I place it in the centre of the circle.
“The Chariot, for mastering our power.” I flip the card towards them again.
Fiona is nodding so hard now I feel like her head might fall off.
“And the Eight of Wands, for safe, quick travel from … wherever Lily is.”
Pleasant cards. Cheerful cards. Nothing too dark or foreboding. As if I am telling the Housekeeper, “Look, we can keep this simple. No harm, no foul.”
“Now with the cards in place, we start tying,” I say authoritatively. “I want us all to keep tying knots, concentrating on only the knots. Concentration, visualization and intent are the most important part of any spell.”
Are they? Really? Or am I just trying to distract my friends?
“As we tie, we’re going to chant this: ‘I tie these knots so I may find: a rope to pull, a rope to bind.’ Because we’re pulling in Lily but we’re also binding the Housekeeper, right?”
“Right,” says Fiona. “I tie these knots so I may find: a rope to pull, a rope to bind.”
“That’s it.”
“Roe.” I turn towards him. “Remember: concentration, visualization, intent. We have to believe we’re roping in Lily. We all have to work together.”
“OK,” he says, but he is still looking at me warily.
And so we begin. We tie and we chant. The candles burn and burn. The oil on my forehead begins to dry. It feels sticky and cracked, like a scab. All we can see is the three tarot cards and our four narrow beams of light, illuminating our hands and shining bright yellow on the Beg.
Our chanting rises to a din. At first, Fiona and Roe were making an effort to enunciate every syllable, loudly and clearly. Then the simple sentences fall into a burble, each word said mechanically and hushed, like a prayer. A bud of hope starts to open up inside me. I can feel the energy changing, the vibrations in the air getting higher. It is as though we are surrounded by a thousand bees, and only I can hear them. This is what being a sensitive is, I realize. This is what Fionnuala was talking about.
Maybe, just maybe, I won’t need to sacrifice anything. Maybe the strength of our combined magic is good enough. As we keep reminding ourselves, Lily isn’t even dead. Just sleeping. There is no life-for-a-life here.
The buzzing gets louder, and I shift my weight slightly.
“We’re going to change it slightly,” I whisper. “We’re going to imagine throwing the rope around Lily. Lassoing her, like in a western. We’re all going to focus, and we’re not going to break the chant – we’re just going to change it, OK?”
Roe and Fiona don’t stop chanting, but they both nod in recognition. Their voices vibrate all around me like a plucked guitar string.
“Close your eyes. Imagine the rope falling around her. Deep breaths. Hold on to the rope tightly. We’re not literally going to throw it, just figuratively. Now chant: ‘I throw this rope so I may send: a friend to home, a foe to end.’”
“I throw this rope so I may send: a friend to home, a foe to end.”
They both repeat it, strongly at first. Soon it settles into the steady chime of a few minutes ago. The candles are low now. The “Y” in my LILY candle is about to burn out, and the night is the darkest it’s going to get.
We can do this.
“I throw this rope so I may send: a friend to home, a foe to end.”
We can do this.
“I throw this rope so I may send: a friend to home, a foe to end.”
I don’t need to sacrifice anything! If I did, I would know by now! We can do this!
“I throw this rope so I may send: a friend to home, a foe to end.”
I open my eyes slowly. Fiona and Roe are deep inside the spell, nestled into it like babies into sleep. A soft blue phosphorescence surrounds them, a glittering navy current of light that is looping around their bodies. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
I keep chanting, my eyes open, unable to look away from the luminescence of my friends. My brilliant, brilliant friends.
“I throw this rope so I may send: a friend to home, a foe to end.”
The current of light begins to change colour. From dark blue, to sea green, to a sickly yellow, to gold. Strands of it start to pull away from Roe and Fiona and into the centre, where the tarot cards are still lying face up. The light pools and shimmers, forming a tight circle around them.
The chants continue.
The patterns on the cards begin to shift, the ink rearranging itself. I stare, the chant going dry in my mouth. My candle is moments away from drowning itself in its own molten wax.
There is still enough light left, however, to see that the three cards I had picked out – the Three of Pentacles, the Chariot, the Eight of Wands – have now all changed to three identical Housekeepers. A jackpot on the universe’s worst slot machine.
I haven’t seen the actual card in so long that it takes me a moment to recognize it. The wedding dress, the dog, the knife in her teeth. The splashes of blood on the end of her gown. The little touches that make her truly terrifying.
I look to Roe and Fiona, who are still deep beneath the warm, rosy, gold light of the spell. I could scream their names right now and they wouldn’t hear me.
Whatever happens next, it’s up to me to face it.
I bring my eyes back to the centre of the circle, and she’s there. I’ve seen a lot of the Housekeeper lately: in moments of terror, or anger, or jealousy. But I’ve never been this close, and I’ve never been this calm upon seeing her. In many ways, it feels like we are being introduced for the first time.
Ladies, meet the Housekeeper card.
CHAPTER FORTY
I EDGE CLOSER TO HER, DIRT SCRAPING AGAINST MY KNEES. The ritual site isn’t a cute project any more, a Wiccan daydream that you might find on Tumblr. It’s pools of hot wax, and air so thick from burned herbs that everything smells like lamb. The white silk knots are sloppy and covered in dirt. And the Housekeeper, with a knife in her teeth, is staring right at me. I look to Roe and Fiona, whose eyes are still closed. How can they not have sensed her presence? Is she only here for me?
I gaze at her for the last time, her face strangely unlined, her lips without crease. Eyes not made for expression. Even calling her a she feels strange. She is not a person; she is an it. All this time, I’ve been thinking of things she might think, need or desire. But there are no thoughts, no feelings, no spite. Just a spirit with a singular purpose, briefly inhabiting human form because that is the best way to deal with humans. She is a cosmic messenger, a virus, an imbalance. She does not hate me, any more than I can hate my instinct to close a door after I open one.
I gaze into her eyes, my face a silent plea.
Please.
I wait for a reply.
Please. I’m begging you.
She gazes at me steadily and without feeling. She merely takes the knife from her mouth and gives it to me. I take it in my hand. The hilt is heavy, the blade slick. It�
��s a good knife. A knife for killing things humanely. I measure the weight of it for a moment, and in that moment, the moon comes out.
Out, and full, and on a night where there is supposed to be no moon. Winking at me. Urging me on.
“Please,” I say out loud. “Please, if there’s another way, please tell me what it is.”
I start to cry as I ask her, the tears making my face slick and cold. There is no point being brave about this now. Do I really have to do this? Is this really what it’s going to take?
“Please. There has to be another way.”
The Housekeeper’s face becomes more blurred through the veil of tears. Roe and Fiona are completely still, eyes closed, as if paralysed by the Housekeeper’s presence.
I feel as though time itself has slowed down, so that every micro-movement goes on for ever and ever. Brushing the tears from my eyes seems to take hours. The candlelight on Fiona’s face, which flickered about her just seconds ago, lies flat as though it were a golden tattoo.
I gaze at the river. There are no quiet sounds of lapping water, and the bank is so still it looks like a black line across the earth.
“It’s like Lily wrote,” I plead. “Nobody swims, nobody drowns.”
I hold the knife in my hands and whisper, both to myself and the Housekeeper. “Nobody has to die.”
“Yes, they do.”
Her voice is deep and young, an indifferent, exhausted sigh of someone watching yet another tourist tie yet another padlock to a buckling bridge. I don’t look up in time to see her mouth move, and I’m glad. It’s bad enough hearing the Housekeeper speak. I don’t think I could stand anything else.
“I do this, and it’s all over?” I say, following an internal sense of fairy-tale logic that you should never make a bargain unless you know the exact terms. “Lily comes back?”
“Yes,” she answers.
At the sound of his sister’s name, Roe starts to stir next to me.
I wipe my tears away with the heel of my hand. It’s time to stop playing around.
This is it. I raise the knife, ready to cut down. To cut down, and end this, and bring Lily back.
All Our Hidden Gifts Page 28
