Perfectly Preventable Deaths

20 Oregano

Mamó is home. Not that I’ve been stalking her. Well – maybe just a little. I want answers. It’s more of a stake-out than a creepy stare-fest. Though obviously there is some overlap between the two. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a pair of binoculars in the attic.

I lurk outside her door, a little afraid to approach or knock.

‘Stop gawping and get in.’ Her voice is sharp, so no change there. I think she’s being friendly. Almost friendly. It’s hard to tell. She generally glares. I venture down the little cobbled steps. It’s surprisingly bright here, for a basement. There are big windows, slanted to trap sun. Lace curtains let in light but hide what’s going on inside from people outside.

She has an awful lot of plants in pots. So many growing things. I pick one up and stroke the leaves and sniff it.

‘What’s this?’ I ask. It’s leafy like a plant, but growing on some rocks.

‘Lungwort,’ she says. There is a pause. ‘It is a lichen.’

She puts the kettle on the little stove and replaces several jars on their shelves. She has floor to ceiling jam jars, vials and little roundy bottles. I take it in, all organised and filled with mulch and bones and different-coloured liquids. Some of them look quite a bit like blood.

‘What’s lungwort for?’ I say, and then realise the clue is in the name. ‘Apart from lung stuff?’

‘Wounds. Ulcers. It’s not for any one thing really. None of these are for any one thing. It depends on the person that needs them, and the person that’s working with them. And other factors.’ Satisfied her shelves are set to rights, she takes two china mugs and plonks them on the counter. I search the ceiling for a thing to talk about. A thing that isn’t: ‘Magic. Tell me. Now.’

‘Are you all right?’ I ask. Her face is pale, and the shadows under her eyes are dark.

‘I’ve had a lot of extra jobs to do. Since the fox. And clients keep on coming.’ She closes her eyes, but only for an instant. ‘Every one of them takes something from me.’

She rubs another lichen with her hands.

‘This one is called ruffled freckled pelt. It grows on oak, maple and birch. It was hard to convince it to grow here. Wasn’t it, pet?’ She’s speaking to the plant and she is smiling. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen her smile before. Not properly. Not fondly. She turns to me.

‘Your sister. Where does she spend her time?’ Her face is grim again. It makes more sense.

‘That’s her own business. Ask her,’ I say, a little bit offended.

‘Fair enough,’ she says. ‘But there are things you should be wary of in Ballyfrann.’

‘Such as …?’

I wonder who she means. Whoever killed the fox perhaps. Layla and Oona already seem to be wary of Lon, but I can’t imagine Mamó being wary of a pretentious teenage boy. Could she mean magic people? Other witches … Is she, like, a witch? What does she call herself? It’s label worries all over again. I have so many questions in my throat, but they won’t seem to hop out of my mouth. It’s brighter in the basement than it was in the garden. The light in here is strange. I’d love to have a proper poke around her flat. There’s a solidity to it, a safety. All the jars, the herbs, the plants, the leaves and bones and shells. They all make sense.

‘You’ve got a head on your shoulders.’ She eyes me for a moment. ‘More or less. You’ll figure it out.’

‘I need more information,’ I press on. ‘Who should I not trust? And why?’

‘I always think it best,’ Mamó says, ‘to start with everyone. And as you gather knowledge, you can amend. The world is sharper here than other places.’

‘Sharper how?’ I ask her. ‘You need to speak more plainly.’

‘What I need,’ she says, ‘is for you to open your eyes and look at what’s around you. I don’t owe you my effort or my time.’

She takes another sip, and when she speaks again, her tone is more conversational. ‘You want to study medicine?’

The dire-warnings portion of the evening appears to be over. Now, awkward chitchat. I roll my eyes. I liked the danger more.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I told you that before.’

‘So did your mother.’ She stirs her tea. ‘She popped in for a chat. Her words, not mine.’

‘And did ye chat?’ I ask.

‘I do not chat. I speak. And I listen.’ She sighs. ‘She’s a nice woman, your mother. Soft, but not too soft. I didn’t encourage her however. I’m not here to make friends.’

‘What are you here to do?’ I ask.

‘I’m here to work. Drink up your tea. I’m only on a break.’

I drain to the end of the mug and put it in the sink. I can feel the curiosity welling up in me.

‘Mamó,’ I say. ‘I want …’

‘I know what you want to know,’ she says. ‘But are you ready?’

I look at her. I don’t think that I am. But I have to know.

‘I am,’ I say.

I swallow. I can hear the helpless glug of sound breaking the silence. Mamó starts brewing more tea, silently. The clang of spoon on teapot. It’s hard to wait. Catlin would be charming her and grumbling. But I’m not my sister. I fix my eyes on her and settle in.

Mamó’s eyes are darkly tarnished grey. The barrel of a gun. She is a weapon. When I first moved here, I thought that they were blue. I can see the knuckles bulging through the rough skin of her hands, her rainbow-stained nails. This is the closest to awkward I’ve ever seen her.

She swallows. ‘I know you don’t have much truck with pseudo-science. And I don’t either. But people come to me for things – things that doctors, lawyers, counsellors can’t help with. And I try my best for them. If there is something I can do to help, I do it.’

‘Like the mafia?’ I ask.

‘Hmm.’ She inclines her head. It’s not a nod. But it is also, troublingly, not not a nod. ‘In ways. I suppose witch would be a better way to say it. A wise woman.’

‘OK.’ I had kind of guessed this part already, what with all the witchcraft I had seen her doing. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sound pure weird coming out of someone’s mouth like that, so blunt and practical.

‘My mother was one. And hers before her. They always had a child that they trained up. To be the next wise woman. It takes at least a lifetime to learn the skills to do an all-right job.’

‘What skills are those?’ I ask, sitting up straighter. I want to be as tall as her. To look her in the eye.

‘Various ones.’ Her mouth is a straight line. ‘I couldn’t bear a girl to train. And then you moved here and I thought you might be a suitable candidate. You have the nature for it. And the talent.’

‘How do you know?’ I ask. I don’t feel natural or talented. I don’t feel very much of anything.

‘I took the time to notice. ’Twasn’t hard. The way you are with plants. The things you gather. They’re another tell. Ingredients.’ She spits into a handkerchief. It’s nasty green. Maybe she has the flu, I think. She rasps her throat clear and continues quickly. ‘Dreams can be signs as well. You’ve spent yourself on keeping something out and now you’re tired. There are things that you can do to ease that, but it’ll never be fully safe.’

‘Tell me about magic,’ I say, trying to keep my voice calm. To remove myself from the ridiculousness of the situation, and the pulse of excitement throbbing in me at the thought of it. I need to be objective, to gather information to store in the fat jar of my brain for later use. But also, witches! Do I get a broomstick?

‘I can do that,’ she says, ‘if you agree to … intern … with me. That’s what ye call it, isn’t it, these days?’

‘What, unpaid labour?’ I ask, but I’m slightly goading her.

‘An apprenticeship. I’ll teach you skills. Of course, you’d have to leave school to pursue this. It’s not a part-time thing, this life of mine.’

I gawp at her. That’s ridiculous. I want to find out more about this thing that I have inside me, not, like, immediately become the single member of a weird basement woman cult. No. Just no.

‘That’s not going to happen. For one thing, Mam would in no way let me leave school. Not that I would. For what?’ I say, and my voice comes out exactly as contemptuous as I feel.

‘If you were amenable, we could discuss a … compromise of sorts.’ I can tell from the shape of her mouth that it costs her to even suggest this, to have to stoop to hearing what I need. ‘Brian would support you.’

‘I still haven’t gotten the chance to chat to Brian.’

‘I thought as much. He can be quite … elusive … when it suits him.’

‘Why don’t you just tell me what he knows and save him the trouble?’ I ask, in case it’s worth a shot.

‘Brian will tell you what he knows, in his own time,’ she says. ‘Openness doesn’t come easy to some people – and I don’t want to overstep the mark. You’re his family; not mine.’

‘But –’

She exhales at me. The glare is back. ‘Look, I won’t go into it – the ins and outs and things – till you agree. It’s mainly helping people, problem-solving, healing. Staving off a range of ills.’

I think of Mam’s face, sad, sitting on the edge of my bed. Worrying about my stupid brain. About the salt. About the both of us. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who or what I want to be. Or what I am.

‘What if I turn out not to be like you?’

‘Oh, don’t mistake me, girl. You have a talent, but we are not the same. You’re far, far weaker.’

Her face quirks into a little smile. I think that that was humour. I look at rows of jars that line the walls blend to one sharp shadow.

‘I need to think,’ I tell her. I don’t want my world carved up and altered. I want to be the same as other people. I want to be the normal kind of special. Where people ask you what shampoo you use, not to be their magical apprentice. Where stepdads take you to McDonald’s, and give you the odd tenner if you’re lucky.

Jesus, Brian, I think. Why can’t you just be quiet and sound and boring and that’s it?

‘Get back to me quickly,’ she tells me. ‘It’s straightforward enough, my offer, and we should be starting soon.’

‘It’s a big commitment …’ I begin.

She glowers at me. ‘I’m not asking you to do me a favour, Madeline.’ She says my name as though it were a threat. ‘We’ll speak of this again. Now go away.’ She blinks at me. I feel my feet and quadriceps tensing. I rise without meaning to, without thinking.

I obey, head out into the dark of the night-time garden. But I can’t go to bed. Not right away. I head into the greenhouse, check on the plants. Stroke leaves and run my fingers over soil. I ground myself in things that I can touch. That grow, and live, and never make me wonder if I’m crazy. That don’t ask more from me than I can give.

Everything feels different. Something strong is coursing through my veins, and maybe she put something in my tea or maybe something was waking up. I wonder why it’s easy to believe her. Surely the rational explanation would be that she is mentally ill and lying to me. But the impossible seems somehow more likely than the possible. And I don’t like that, fogging up my clarity, my life.

Two more years, I think. And then there’s college. In the clearing, when there was the fox, Mamó said to me that I wouldn’t like the Answer. I don’t know if I’ll like the other answers any better. I mean, I want them. But there are sacrifices I won’t make. I won’t give up my normal for her danger.

I walk back through the garden. The grass is wet against my feet, soaking through my socks. The daisies all closed up and bright as stars. The moon …

The moon is hungry.