Perfectly Preventable Deaths

3 Milk Thistle

There are many things about this castle that are surprising. Number one: we live here. Number Two: battlements. We’ve been having a good explore, because that’s what you do if a place has so many rooms you need two people’s fingers and toes, and possibly, like, seven extra hands, to count them. Brian showed us some rooms, the ‘main’ ones, he called them. The library, the bedrooms, toilets, kitchen, the blue sitting room, the red sitting room, his office. His father’s taste in decor was very castle, and Brian’s stuck to it.

His office has a coat of arms on the wall. And, on the lintel, something even worse. A little leather fist of a thing, peering down from the door of his office. I somehow knew what it was right away. A shrunken head. It should be ghoulish, but it just seems sad, the icing on the strangest cake that I have ever eaten. The cake of our life here now. I told Catlin that it probably wasn’t real. I didn’t think it could be.

Brian says it is.

Catlin thinks it’s grand. It fits the castle aesthetic. Like the swords and suits of armour we found in a small room behind the downstairs toilet. But armour’s just clothes. This little thing – it was a person once, or something living anyway. And now it’s just an oddment, on the thick ledge over his door, dented eyes the size of little thumb prints, hollowed out, and long hair sewn on. When we asked him, Brian told us how they used to make them. First remove the skull. Then cut the back open and scoop out all the fat. Put some special seeds under the eyelids. Sew them shut and pin the lips together. Then boil it. Afterwards dry it out with rocks, mould the features with your hands while the flesh is still moist. You make it into anything you want. A boy. A girl. A thing.

And when you’re done, you sprinkle it with ash.

‘Where did you get it, Brian?’ we asked our head-collecting stepdad.

‘My father picked it up. On his travels.’ He smiled. ‘It’s supposed to be protection from your enemies. You kill them, and you shrink their heads, and for as long as you keep that head, their ghost must serve you.’ He waggled his fingers, making light of it. But I felt strange.

‘It’s a little sad,’ I told him, thinking of a tired ghostly slave.

‘It is,’ he said, a little smile on his face, ‘but people don’t do that stuff now. Most heads are made from hides, to sell to tourists.’

‘Who was this?’ asked Catlin, still staring at it, like it was a friend whose name she was trying to place.

‘A girl,’ he said. ‘I don’t know any more about her though.’

There was a pause, and then he said, almost to himself, ‘I don’t know if I’d want to. There’s such a thing as knowing too much.’

He smiled at me, like I knew what he meant. And I thought of all the times I have known too much. They’ve mainly involved things Catlin has told me. Secrets people wouldn’t want me knowing about their lives. The messy stuff. Not much actual mess here though – it is immaculate. Too immaculate for one Brian to do all by himself.

‘How does he keep this place, like, clean? Do we have servants now? It feels like this level of clean would take at least one servant,’ I ask my sister, ratting at the small white flecks of skin around my nail, as frayed as afterfeather, but not as soft.

‘Stop being weird, Maddy,’ says Catlin. ‘The servants will talk.’

‘We don’t have servants. They would have greeted our arrival on the stairs,’ I tell her, picturing the awkwardness of that. I’m really glad we don’t have, like, a staff. Imagine all the extra interaction, having to thank people all day long. Ugh.

‘But I’m invested now. I would like to fool around with an attractive butler. Named Higgins. He would school me in the ways of love, and I would use those skills to marry well.’

‘Take me, Higgins!’ I gasp, caressing a trowel, as though it were an ab. ‘Meh. It doesn’t work. And don’t exploit the servants, dear. It isn’t classy.’

‘I don’t have to be classy, Mad. We’re new money … I will say it’s not the sexiest name I could have chosen,’ she says. ‘But I stick by it. And by my beloved Higgins, who gives me fresh bedclothes and screaming orgasms.’

‘Catlin, what of Ultan? Don’t break his rural heart.’

‘Don’t slut-shame me,’ she says.

‘I amn’t shaming you. You have no shame for me to shame you with. But can we keep the orgasms more gaspy than screamy, please? We have adjoining rooms. And I sleep light.’

My sister thinks about it, and she nods. ‘You have yourself a sexy, sexy deal.’

Catlin and me decide to do some re-potting and planting in the greenhouse, smoky glass in a green-tinged frame. It looks like a massive jewellery box from the outside. Spanish moss trails from the roof like lace.

I keep finding little grey-brown woodlice in the corners, some whole and others worn to almost dust. Mam calls them ‘pigs’, those little tank-like insects. You see them teeming underneath dead wood. There is something tomb-like about this place. It’s too big for one man, and for four people it is still too big. And all the little deaths inside the corners, heaped up neatly, like they died polite.

My two hands are flat on the ground, feeling for the best place to put this little sapling. It’s a baby sycamore. I grew it in a yoghurt pot at first, from a helicopter. Mam says I have green fingers, like my dad. It’s not that hard – you read up what they need and just do that. I am quite good at knowing when plants are a little unhappy though. Takes one to know one. Probably I just like healing things. Plants are my version of mindfulness or yoga, all that other stuff they demand you do at school to reduce your stress, as though they haven’t stressed you with that stress, at least in part. It’s soothing to help a green life out. And a lot of stuff is just like us. They need to eat, they need the space to grow, the air to breathe. To not be hurt.

Catlin’s sorting peace lilies. They take over when they’re in the pots, like mint. She rips them apart, a vulture at a carcass. I put my hand on her arm.

‘Let me do it.’

‘You’ll take ages,’ she says. ‘I want to unpack more and go exploring.’

‘I know, but Catlin …’

‘Hmmm?’ She quirks a lip that way she has, like when a cat shows you one of its teeth, just so you know they’re there and don’t get notions. My fingers rummage softly through the soil and gently tease the networked roots apart. Catlin’s face is focused on her phone, the shine of the screen. I can see it reflected in the whites of her eyes, as the light dims in the garden. She almost looks like an alien. Not of this world. A beautiful anomaly. She smiles, and her teeth glint soft. Like little pearls. Our big teeth look like baby teeth. Everything about us is tiny. When you complain about it, people tell you to shut up. To eat a sandwich. Which is fair enough, but I would like to need less help with shelves.

The greenhouse is lit with strings of LED lights. It’s adorable. Like somewhere you’d get married. If Mam and Brian hadn’t had their small ‘big day’ already.

‘I bet this place would be amazing for parties,’ Catlin says. ‘We could get all our friends from Cork. Invite them down. Not right away – I know Brian doesn’t like guests he doesn’t know. But, in a while, I think we could convince him.’

Catlin says we when she means I, and sometimes when she means you. I sigh. I hate parties. They always end with people puking in bins. I hold their hair, and tell them that it wasn’t the tequila. That they’ll be fine. That I won’t tell their mum/dad/sister/cousin Joan. I don’t really mind though, looking after drunk people. Calmly helping them puke different colours. Offering pints of water. Doctor practice. Better than hanging round in corners not being as good as Catlin.

I see a face, staring from the garden. Mamó approaches, like a mean shark. I mean, I assume it must be her. Her salt-and-pepper hair is in a long, tight braid down her back. She’s wearing the sort of brown smock that screams, ‘I am your new herbalist step-relative.’ I like brown, but I don’t like the way she wears it. Or her in general. Reminding us that our home was her home first with her walk and smock. I roll my eyes. Catlin sees her too.

‘Mamó,’ she says, like she has just crossed something off on the official Ballyfrann scavenger-hunt card. She waves enthusiastically. I groan. Mamó’s eyes are dark grey-blue, and she doesn’t look friendly. She might bite us. Or worse, make loads of small talk.

‘Don’t wave at her. She might want chats.’

‘She won’t,’ my sister says. ‘She clearly hates people – look at that glare.’

‘Why take the chance?’ I ask, confident in my rightness. ‘She’s a creep. The face on her.’

The old woman stomps into the greenhouse. Not an annoyed stomp but the confident stomp of someone whose house this is. Her stomp tells us it’s her land and we’re trespassing. And she’s allowing it, but just for now. She has a very eloquent stomp, I think. Most people’s legs are just like, ‘Hey! I’m walking from this place to this place and not threatening anyone while I do it.’

I miss the sound legs of our old home.

Meanwhile, a massive raven swoops down and perches on the edge of the greenhouse roof. It looks like she paid it to follow her. To amplify the creepery. Its dark beak is open as it stares at us.

As they both do.

‘Hello, Mamó,’ says Catlin. ‘Love the smock.’

I try to kick her in the shins but she dodges me.

‘Twins,’ she says. As though that was our name. She’s such a douchebag. Outdated and unnecessary. Vaginas are self-cleaning. I know this because Catlin once yelled it at me across the room at a house party. For no reason. It’s not a memory I treasure much.

Mamó gathers several tools inside a thick black bucket. Looks at one trowel, growls and puts it down. She’s lucky trowels don’t have feelings or she would have made a very blunt enemy. The raven walks overhead, along the greenhouse frame. I can almost feel the scrape of claw on wood. The two of us stay silent as the grave while she goes about her business. It feels like Mass, like speaking would be rude. It’s quite oppressive. I pull a leaf from off a nearby bay tree. A little one. A bay-be. I crush it till it cracks and put it to my nostrils, close my eyes.

When I open them, she’s staring at me.

I hold her gaze until she turns to leave. Before she reaches the door, her hand darts very quickly to the corner, and when she brings it back, she’s holding something. I see the flicker of a string – a tail? – before she strides away.

‘That was awkward,’ I say to my sister, hoping she can sense the confusion and dislike behind the words. ‘I hope she’s not around all the time.’

‘Madeline,’ my sister says, tearing leaves off, folding them, ‘we’re here for at least two years. We’ll need lifts into the village. Give her a chance. Have you seen how good she is at holding mice and striding?’

‘Was that what she was doing?’ I ask, but she doesn’t answer, too busy staring after our new relative. The raven spreads his (or her – I’m not sure how to tell when nothing dangles) wings and takes off across the garden after Mamó, the dark wings darker than the dimming sky.

Catlin’s impressed lips shape the word fierce.

Was that what it was? I snort, and press my hands into the chocolatey, rich compost. Place the plants inside. It’s winter, but I think they will survive here. I think that I can make that happen, with care. If you have the right tools, the right information, then the outlook improves. At least in general.

Catlin holds up a fat leaf folded over. ‘It’s a swan,’ she says. ‘Like meeeeeeee.’ She stretches her neck and tosses her hair. My sister’s always known that she was lovely. At least one of us is. She’s going to have, like, eleven friends in Ballyfrann from tomorrow, probably. So, basically the entire population of the place. Perhaps she will be elected mayor.

The light has dimmed away to almost nothing. We work in the greenhouse, surrounded by carnivorous plants and succulents, labelled neatly in a cramped black hand. It must be Mamó’s writing; it’s not Brian’s. She’s sneaking around at the edges of our lives, I think. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

The mountains rising dark to touch the stars. It looks as though the world’s been ripped in two. Dip-dyed darkness. Smoothing down the earth, I hold my tongue. Plants can go into shock after repotting. They need water, warmth. Indirect sunlight. Kindness. Care.

I look at Catlin. All confidence and bluster. And I want her to be happy here. Even if I don’t think that I will be. I don’t know if I can be happy anywhere. We both know that I’m not that sort of fish. That sort of plant.

‘Mad?’ my sister asks, her bright eyes kind and lined with perfect kohl. I close my eyes. There’s no point in comparison. Not really.

My hands scrape at my fingernails again. Soil and blood and everything is strange.