‘Hey,’ she says, ‘is there tea in the pot?’
Mam gets up and starts making some more. I realise she’s avoiding looking at Catlin. She doesn’t want to see her daughter’s face now it has changed.
‘Do you know Mamó found Button?’ I ask Mam.
‘I want him back,’ she says. ‘She can’t have my daughter and my kitten too.’ Her face is red. She pours the boiling water like she hates it. Stirs the pot as though it were a drum.
‘Are you seriously going to ask the woman who saved my life for her kitten?’ asks Catlin.
‘Madeline saved your life,’ Mam says. ‘That wagon just profited from it.’
‘That isn’t true, Mam,’ I say. ‘And you need to make this easier for me, instead of harder.’
‘I know,’ says Mam. ‘I’m trying, like.’
I roll my eyes. She isn’t trying half as hard as I am. She should moan less and find out more. I wonder, again, what is there, trapped inside her brain. Memories. And maybe if she was sharing them with me and not Mamó, she’d be more open to it. I wonder how long it will take for me to learn that skill.
‘Can you turn her into a frog?’ asks Catlin.
‘Of course not.’ I smirk.
‘You brought me back to life, Mad,’ Catlin says. ‘Anything is possible. Can you turn this –’ she waves a coaster – ‘into a crisp fifty-euro note?’
‘You’d only spend it in Urban Outfitters,’ I tell her.
‘Excuse me. I would spend it on MAC make-up.’ She straightens her back. ‘To conceal my immortality blemish.’
‘You’re not immortal, Catlin,’ I point out.
‘How do you know?’ she asks. She widens her eyes. ‘I could totally be immortal if I wanted. You get to be a witch. Mam, tell her I’m immortal.’
‘No one here is allowed to die for at least thirty years,’ Mam tells us. ‘Including me. Or I will bring ye back specifically to ground you, witch or no witch.’
‘Fair enough,’ I say.
She pulls us close. Two nestlings under wing, a mother bird. I rest my head on her shoulder and curl my arm around Catlin’s back. And, for a while, this dangerous place feels safe.
It feels like home.
47
Nettle
Catlin’s hair is growing in downy fuzz, like ducklings have, but white. She’s fine with it – I mean, there’s always dye if she gets bored – but the port-wine stains have been bothering her. Her face looks different. Less like her own face. She has been applying the concealer that make-up artists use to cover up tattoos. She orders it in bulk.
‘Brian has the money,’ she says. ‘I asked for laser treatment, but he said it wouldn’t work. Because of stupid magic.’
‘Magic is stupid,’ I tell her. I spent a lot of today moving things downstairs to my new room and I resent it.
‘My teeth might fall out too,’ she says. ‘Isn’t that disgusting? With fingernails and hair, it all comes back, just maybe a bit different, but if your teeth go, that’s it. Dentures for life.’
I feel awkward. I don’t know what to say to her. I mean, she’s always been the pretty twin. But now she looks like all the things she’s been through. What she is. A girl that should be dead.
And I still look like me. Only more tired. Big dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep. From puzzling out what’s happening and what might happen next.
‘I don’t care anyway,’ she says to me, rifling through her drawers looking for something. ‘I don’t want to be pretty. Remember when we wanted Galway boyfriends?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. Her eyes fill up with tears. I go to touch her shoulder and she tenses. ‘Don’t touch me right now.’
I move my hand back. Put it on my lap and watch her breathe. I didn’t save her. I just saved her life. My sister’s broken.
‘Every night,’ she says, ‘I see him there. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.’
My phone buzzes on the bedside locker.
‘Who is that?’ Catlin asks.
‘Oona,’ I say.
‘You going to meet up?’ she asks.
‘We’ll see,’ I say. ‘I’m basically a servant. So there’s that. And also, she was kind of mean to me before. But I don’t have a soul. And she is hot.’
‘Not as hot as you. You’re a badass witch,’ she says.
‘You just think I’m beautiful because I look like you,’ I say.
‘Not any more,’ she says, with something between a laugh and a sob. I reach for her again, get pushed away.
‘Mad, it’s fine. I’m getting used to it, you know?’
I nod. Though I don’t know. How could I know?
Catlin is opening up a drawer, and rifling through it. She pulls out a small, wooden box.
‘Sit down and let me try this.’
‘What?’ I ask, already sitting down.
She unwraps a deck of cards from white raw silk.
‘Let me read for you,’ she says. ‘You’re not the only one who can do magic.’ She wiggles her fingers and makes what I can only describe as paranormal sounds. A lot of whoooooing.
‘Are you going to stop that?’ I ask.
‘Never,’ she says. ‘But look, if you’re worried for the future, this might help. I’ve been trying to learn a bit about the cards and what they mean. I found this deck in the library, and I thought – you know – wouldn’t it be nice to have a future?’
‘It would,’ I say, and when we look at each other our eyes begin to shine, so we look away.
‘I can’t get a handle on mine,’ she says. ‘It’s all “two of swords, death, wheel of fortune”. And I want to know what’s going to happen. Not what has already.’
‘It’s not real though,’ I say.
‘It’s hard to tell,’ she says, ‘what is and isn’t real. Do you ever wonder where you got it from, Madeline? The talent, or whatever it is you have that makes that old bitch want you.’
‘I tried to ask Mam, but she gave me nothing,’ I say. ‘There’s stuff about Dad, but she can’t remember properly. Or won’t. Mamó told me that maybe this … was something I inherited … that Hayes was an old name … And I think that maybe Dad could have been something like I am.’ I sigh. ‘I wish I knew for sure.’
Catlin looks up from the deck, her eyes on mine. ‘I have this memory, of being small, and waking up in the middle of the night. And the walls of the room were on fire. But it wasn’t warm. It was just there – like a film projected on our bedroom walls. But when I reached to touch it, I could feel it. And I don’t remember how old I was, but I was small because we still had railings on our beds. And I don’t remember any more. Just that one flash. That moment. I think that Mamó must be right. That Dad was a witch – or the male term for witch. Warlock, or whatever.’ She rolls her eyes.
‘Mamó calls herself a wise woman sometimes,’ I say. ‘But maybe there are other kinds of witches with wands and hats and things. I mean, it’s possible … you never told me about the fire on the wall. I know you had bad dreams but …’
Catlin’s eyes on the cards, shuffling and shuffling, her knuckles white. There is a pause, and then her voice is small, a little frightened.
‘I didn’t have that memory before. It came back, Mad, when I did. Things feel changed. All warped. All turned around. It’s like there’s more of the world to see, and all the little details bleed together. It’s all these little pictures, but I have to work to make the big one out.’
‘Like a mosaic.’
‘Something a bit like that. And if I remember that, maybe there’s more to come. And we can work on Mam. I mean, we’ve both been through a lot. And I, for one, am fully prepared to milk it.’