‘This is Brian’s father’s kind of magic?’
‘This and the third kind.’
‘Which is what?’
‘When people use the second kind, it can be because of foolishness or desperation or lack of understanding. But if they use the third kind, they know what they’re about. It damns your soul.’ She spits into the fire. ‘It’s not First Day stuff.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘What is?’
She rises, goes to the sink, pours a massive glass of water. Brings it back and puts it in my hand. She hands me something small and round and dark. The marble from the raven. Where did she get it? I had it before. It was for me. She holds it out. I take it. Hold it in the hollow of my hand.
‘Swallow this, as though it were a pill,’ she says.
‘What will it mean?’ I ask.
‘No one will hear your prayers,’ Mamó tells me. ‘There may be other changes as well. It’s different for different people. Souls have different sizes, values, shapes. You might lose some abilities, or gain them. Do terrible things without paying certain tolls.’ She looks at me. ‘It doesn’t matter though. You gave your word.’
And so I put the small orb in my mouth. It’s hard to manage, cold against my tongue and big and round. It sticks inside my throat. I need a second glass and both my hands massaging at my throat to ease it down.
Then we discuss logistics. She’ll call me as I’m needed. I’ll have a night a week to sleep at home. Mam wanted that for me, and Brian made her a deal.
‘What sort of deal?’ I ask her.
‘The caves are mine to do with as I like. For a start.’ That seems a lot, I think. For just one night a week. What would it take to give me up entirely?
‘Do you have deals with everyone, Mamó?’
She doesn’t answer. Twinkle in her eye that I don’t like. My stomach starts to feel a bit peculiar. Claws at it. Sharp and big and long and gouging, gouging.
‘Your soul is small,’ she says. ‘I used a lot. To save her. Quite a bit of mine went in as well. All I’m taking, really, is a seed.’
‘You gave it to me – the marble,’ I say. ‘Before all of this. Why?’
‘So I could track you. I needed to know where you were. In case of fire,’ she says. Her voice so calm. Her voice is scary-calm and she is glaring. ‘I like to keep an eye on my investments. It’s good business. Get that all up now.’
She holds a bucket out in front of me and I am vomiting and vomiting and vomiting until I see the blood, the stomach lining. She holds up the little ball. It’s coloured like an autumn leaf, a fox fur, and something in it is moving, changing, as it passes through the light. She wipes it clean with her sleeve.
‘Go back to bed,’ she says.
‘I’ll clean it up.’
‘No,’ she tells me. ‘I need to use some parts to make this stick.’
‘That’s disgusting.’
‘Magic isn’t mindfulness and hats, Madeline. It’s work.’ I hold my stomach. She says something else, I think, as well. Her mouth is moving but I cannot focus.
‘What?’ I ask. I’m blinking. It is bright. It’s dark and bright.
‘Go,’ she says, and pushes me out towards the night. I stumble to the castle. I touch the door. I don’t remember much.
46
Vipers’ Bugloss
Mam pours a cup of tea and looks at me across the kitchen table. Her eyes are sad.
‘I don’t want you to do this,’ she tells me. ‘To throw your life away on magic tricks.’
‘Has Brian told you more about the village?’ I ask. She nods.
I stir in milk. ‘What did he tell you?’
‘Oh yes. I got the full whack. The Collinses, apparently, can shape-shift.’ She throws her hands up. ‘Fuck’s sake.’
‘You never swear,’ I say. I can see why she would though. Shape-shifting is, in fairness, a bit much.
‘Which is the shocking part? Madeline, how much did you know?’
‘Not much. I knew that Mamó was a witch, and that I could be one too – she wanted to train me before and I said no.’
‘What else?’
‘Oona told me some,’ I tell her, ‘and I knew that Brian knew what was going on … That was hard. He didn’t ask me not to tell you, but he said he wanted to tell you himself. In his own time.’
‘To my mind,’ Mam says, ‘his own time should have been at least six weeks before we were married.’
‘At least,’ I say. And, in fairness, it should have been.
‘Any marriage, and uprooting our whole lives to be with someone, is life-changing stuff. But not life-changing like your neighbours can turn into things and a witch stole your daughter. I’m furious with him. What he hid. We would never have come here.’ Her hands are in her lap, her shoulders slumped down towards her stomach. She’s wearing a floral shirt and jeans, her hair is in a ponytail, make-up on but she still looks exhausted.
‘How would he have phrased it though?’ I ask.
‘“Everyone’s monsters. One of them will try to murder your child. Let’s stay in Cork forever”?’ Mam offers. She has clearly thought about this.
‘Monsters how?’ I ask.
‘If you look human but you aren’t human, I don’t know another word for what that is.’
‘Am I a monster?’ I ask her. ‘Is Catlin?’
She sighs. ‘No, love. But both of you are what this place has made you, and I don’t know how to fix it. I offered to work for her. To help instead.’ She pours a little hot drop in her cup. ‘She wouldn’t have it.’
‘We made a deal,’ I say, ‘and Catlin’s here. Alive.’
‘She is,’ Mam says. ‘When did you get so brave?’
I shrug. ‘I’m not. I just do what I can. I try. Like you.’
‘Oh, love.’ She sighs. ‘The world is dreadful, isn’t it? And Brian is hardly ever home. Since ye woke up, it’s been hard. He lied to me so much. To all of us.’ Her eyes fill up and she starts saying sorry, and I shush her.
‘It’s OK, Mam. It’s going to be OK. I’ll be twenty-three in seven years. It’s not forever.’
‘Twenty-three,’ she says.
‘I know. So old.’ I scrunch my face.
‘You won’t have a debs,’ Mam says, like that was something that I had always dreamed of.
‘I’ll be a witch,’ I say. ‘Maybe there’s a witch debs. With brooms and pointy hats.’
‘Jesus, Madeline. It’s not a joke.’ Her voice is hard and tired. ‘We’re losing you. We’ll miss you.’
‘I’ll only be downstairs.’ I drink my tea.
‘It’s not the same.’
‘I know.’ And I do know. But I made a deal. And we got Catlin back. ‘Look on it as paying for hospital,’ I say. ‘If Catlin had been saved by an operation, you would have paid the doctor. It’s the same. Only I get to pay. I made the bargain and I have the talent.’
She looks at her tea but doesn’t drink. ‘You were going to go back to Cork, to be a doctor. And Catlin. I don’t know what she can do at all. I mean. Her face.’
‘She isn’t dead,’ I say. ‘She’s still your daughter.’
‘I know,’ Mam says. ‘It’s just that this is hard. All I wanted for ye. So many things. A happy, normal life … And that lad is still out there. I mean, they don’t know where he is at all. Brian says he’s trying, but it’s been six weeks, and …’ She makes a scornful sound.
She isn’t wrong. I wish that Lon were dead. I wish that I were small again. A little girl. I wish that I was me before we left the world I knew. Quiet and grumpy, studying and hanging out with Catlin and our friends.
Catlin bustles in, wrapped in a kimono dressing gown. Her white skin’s pale, her wine stain’s very bright. Her scalp is covered up with a silk scarf.