Meabhdh
Jean
Gillian
Elaine
Anna
Sabhdh
Sarah
Adele
Rose
Grace
Joyce
Nicola
Ruth
Frances
Naomi
Elizabeth
Sandra
Dolores
Aisling
Sharon
Lola
Chloe
Helen
Daisy
Megan
Úna
Fawn
Catlin
Oh God. Catlin.
There isn’t time for fear to rise inside me. I cannot hyperventilate right now. I cannot panic. The only hurt that I’m allowed to feel must be constructive. If I let go, I’d curl into a ball. I’d shake and quiver while my sister dies.
‘Call someone,’ I tell her. My voice is glass-crack high.
‘There isn’t any signal.’ She isn’t moving, and it isn’t helping.
‘Go and find one. Send Brian our coordinates. Get help. RUN.’
You read about mothers who lift cars from on top of their children. Who move mountains. Ours is small inside the castle’s gut. She nods and dashes away. I look down at my twin. And we’re alone. Her face is turned to me, her eyes like saucers, rolling in her head. She’s saying things. Maybe prayers. The bright around her is fading but it’s there. I take a drink and see light rolling out around my body. The salt and blood disgusting in my mouth. I retch and swallow down the acrid bile.
OK. OK.
She makes another sound.
The things I can control about myself won’t save her now.
I’m sure she’s praying.
I wish that I believed. In good. In God.
The devil, he exists. I see it now, in front of me for certain.
‘I’m here,’ I say. I hold my sister’s hand. And she is dying. Corpsing into cold beneath my eyes.
All the bright around me almost blinding. Shining, shining, star-bright through the dim. The contrast is discouraging, I think. She’s pale as pale, the day-moon next to sun. I try to grab a handful to pass over. I pull and pull but it won’t budge. I can’t.
Why did I tell Mamó I wouldn’t? She could have taught me things. Given me more of myself to use. Maybe if I had been braver, better. Decided for myself and not for Mam. Not for this future I think I should want, because I’ve always wanted it. If I were qualified, as a doctor, I don’t think I could save her. Not here. Not now. I would need tools, medication. Help.
I close my eyes and focus, seeking something concrete. Someone I can call on for a miracle. And there it is. I open them again. Catlin could be dead by the time I get back. I could be leaving her to die right here. And that’s on me. I pull the blankets round and tuck her in.
‘Catlin. I love you and I want to help you. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done and haven’t done. The way it’s been. I have to go and ask someone for help now. I think that it might work. The only thing.’
I’m conscious that there’s nothing I can say to make this right.
I kiss her forehead and I smell her blood, choke back a sound. I cannot tell if she can even hear me. My eyes are dry. I run back through the office, past Mam and down the stairs.
I don’t need to tell Mam to go to Catlin. She will, and she will hold her daughter close. We’ve always loved each other. Our problem was we just forgot how much. I go down to the kitchen. Cram a handful of Brian’s knives into a shopper.
Our father gave us this. It’s in the book. The night we found the fox, Catlin remembered. And maybe that was something like a sign.
I see the text from the book roll by. As though my brain had subtitles inside it. Some things you remember in pictures, and some in words. This comes in Catlin’s voice. My sister’s voice.
If someone wants a thing – a sick child well, money, power, love – then you can ask.
The Ask, she said.
The Fox.
Twenty minutes walking to the crossroads. I plan to run. Is that too late?
A taste for blood and worship … You need to bring a living thing to die.
I’d cut myself again, but I can’t help her if I cannot ask. I need a thing. A tender soft delicious little life.
Two eyes shine at me from under the table. I hum to him, and I stretch out my hands. Make little consonants inside my mouth. His paws approach. A gentle bat at fingers.
‘Button,’ I say. There’s power in his name. I think he knows it. I grapple at the soft scruff of his neck. The fold that mothers bite to carry young. And he is mine. I have him.
A thing that has a taste for blood and worship.
I stuff the wriggling kitten in my bag.
Rehearse my prayers.
40
Feverfew
I always assumed, I think, striding through the forest, that I was the gentler twin. We don’t know who we are until we’re tested. Here I am.
I feel the warmth of Button against my leg. The little furball, who grooms himself so hard he falls off chairs.
You’d bring it there. A dog, a goat. A baby.
And at the crossroads, you would kill the thing.
I should be more conflicted, I think. But then again, a pet is not a twin. He’s not my sister. I’d rather have a sister than a kitten. So I will make the Ask so loud and clear. I’ll carve him up. I’ll offer up my soul.
The more pain that you cause, the louder he would hear your call.
I swallow. I am killing part of me in saving her. My eyes red raw, my bitten arm, my essence. What do souls do? What shape do they take? Will I still be able to do this when I’ve lost mine? Will I still feel love? I run through all the things I’ve read about them. It isn’t much. There’s nothing certain there.
Just the sense that it’s a thing you need.
To be a person.
I think of Catlin, stretched out like the fox. Part cut. Part bitten. The things he did to her. She cannot die. I will not let her die. I wish that I had Lon inside my bag instead. It would be easier. A pleasure almost.
My sister’s voice. He took most of her tongue. I push the heels of my hands into my sockets and the pressure jars and stops the pain. I have a cat. I wear a mask of blood. That has to be worth something to the devil. I will call. I hope that he responds.
‘Caw.’ A raven’s lurking on a branch high up. It might be Bob. It’s hard to tell with ravens. Probably it only came for blood.