‘I don’t know. Strange. It wasn’t like a normal dream. I had a feeling, just like with the fox?’
‘Just like?’
‘A little different.’
She sighs, as though I am a toddler who will not eat her dinner. I feel like one; I’m getting cranky now. All these questions about my instinct. Can she not use her own?
She looks at me, and tuts. She literally tuts. I want to kick something. Her hands reach into cupboards, grabbing jars and mixing things together. She puts a little kettle on the range and turns back to me.
‘You need to tell me if that boy is dangerous. Catlin is –’
‘I do not need to do anything. I choose to ask you here. To share the things I know. In my own time.’
‘But –’
‘You have instincts, Madeline. Use them. Draw upon them.’
‘I can’t live life on instinct.’
‘No. You can’t.’
I sigh.
‘Mamó. I don’t know what I want.’
‘Your eyes are opening, Madeline,’ she tells me.
‘I always wanted things, and I still want them. To go to college. Learn. To have a life.’
‘This will be better.’ Her mouth twists. Is she smiling? ‘Not in terms of fun or anything, but if you want to help. To work and help. That’s what you’ll learn to do. It’s what I’ll teach you.’
‘I have enough,’ I say. ‘Without giving up everything, I want to hear what you have to say. To work and help at whatever it is you do for people. You’re talking about leaving behind the parts of myself that nourish me, and nourishing the ones that make me sad.’
She looks at me, and superimposed on her eyes I see Mam’s ones, the disappointment there. If she knew where I was, what I was thinking. Brian’s voice inside my head along with hers. And Catlin – if I’m off learning witchcraft, she’ll be alone more often, more and more. And Lon will leach in everywhere, around her. I want my twin to know she has a person. I want her to know that she is loved. And not the kind of love that wants to own her. The blood-thick love. The kind that doesn’t stop.
My thoughts are racing and her eyes still scan my face. I think she can see me deciding that this is all too much right now.
‘I think –’
‘But it’s a waste of talent not to –’ she begins, and I interrupt her, which is probably a stupid move, but she interrupted me first.
There are so many things I feel like I’ve been keeping in, it’s almost cleansing to just let it rip. A sort of power, in this place where everyone is constantly reminding me how little I know, how little I can do. How little what I want even matters.
‘Everyone has talents they don’t develop. I could be really good at playing ukulele, but I’ll never know. Because I could give a shit about the ukulele.’
‘What we do … isn’t the ukulele,’ she almost spits at me. I glare at her, riding the wave of my anger towards the door.
‘It is in this analogy. I am trying to explain,’ I say. ‘This. Decision. It’s twisting all the things I knew around, and that is not a sudden process. I need time. And if I don’t have that, then it’s a no. It has to be a no.’
‘Time can be a curse,’ she says. ‘I have heard you, Madeline. Now, sit. I’ll give you tea to ward off dreams.’
‘And Catlin?’ I ask.
‘I’ve been doing my best for your sister,’ Mamó tells me. ‘The tea I gave her was similar to this.’ She opens several jars and begins mixing.
‘What should I do,’ I ask, ‘to keep her safe?’
‘I don’t know that you can, Madeline,’ Mamó says me. ‘There are things in life we have to lose.’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
She sighs and stirs. ‘Madeline. You’ve turned down my offer, but here you are, still asking questions. There are journeys we take. And ones we don’t. If you won’t do the work, it’s not my job to educate you. Ask your stepfather about that boy. If he’s any sort of human, he’ll do something. And in the meantime, get that down your throat.’ She thrusts it at me, in a thick earthenware mug. I take a sip, and gag.
Seawater, and nettle and rose and … fennel? And little white stones, small and shaped like teeth in the bottom, underneath the sludge.
‘Drink it all down,’ she tells me. ‘It’ll sort you.’
I do. And maybe it does. I do feel calmer. Colder. Or maybe it’s the thing crossed off my list. Next step is to do something for Catlin, I reckon. Telling Oona how I feel is scarier than Lon, so I reckon I’ll save that for last.
‘Goodbye, Mamó,’ I say to her.
I try the door, but it won’t open. She calmly reaches over, turns the latch the other way, inclines her head.
‘Off with you. You know where I am, Madeline. When you need me. And you will need me.’ She says it like it is a certainty, perhaps a threat.
‘We’ll see,’ I say, and as the door clicks behind me, I hear her voice saying, ‘We will,’ behind me. She might be a wise woman, but she is also a petty one.
The raven caws, perched on a windowsill above my head. It’s holding something small inside its mouth. A shiny pebble, round and solid. I feel hairs rising on my skin. I crush the urge to reach my hand right out, and keep on walking.
27
Mustard Seed
I haven’t heard from Oona since that night. She hasn’t been at school. I’m trying not to send her any more messages. I don’t want to pressure her. Scare her off me. I want to make it easy for her to be with me.
Like at the lake.
I traipse up the stairs, smelling dinner, ignoring it. I cannot cope with people wanting things from me right now. I thought that I would get a straight answer from Mamó, about Lon. I thought that maybe she would try a little harder to convince me.
I want to be wanted, and I want to be left alone.
Things that are impossible together. Witchcraft and a normal, happy life.
I spoke in anger, but my words were true, I think. I need to kill that part of me. I remember when Mam started going to church every Sunday. It was when we were about seven or eight. We all went, until I was thirteen, and then she let me make the choice myself.
I think of the driftwood woman, on the altar, surrounded by candles. The shadows dancing on her wooden flesh. That’s the sort of strange that people tolerate. Charms and spells to keep God on your side. It could be magic too, but not for me. It makes me feel uneasy. Helpless. Small.
I don’t want Mam to light candles for my mental health and worry as I drift away from her. I don’t want her to lose another person that she loves to something strange. I think of my father, burnt inside a glade. I close my eyes and almost smell the tang of something in the air. Leaves on the forest floor. Charred body, verdant trees. There is a puzzle there, if I could solve it.
So many things around me feel so … paused. On hold, until my life is normal life again.
I’ve still been keeping things inside, not telling anyone. I’m not ashamed of how I feel or anything. Or only a little. It’s not that I have fallen for a girl, but that I’ve fallen so hard for someone who doesn’t care about me. I don’t want Mam and Catlin to know I’ve been rejected.
And I don’t want to be her second best.
I think of the story of the forest devil. You take a living thing to certain crossroads. Something full of innocence is best. You bring a sharp knife and a steel resolve and you take the thing and plunge the dagger in. And you can play with it, if that’s your thing. It makes the call you’re sending ring a little louder.