Perfectly Preventable Deaths

45 Persimmon

When I arrive at Mamó’s flat, I push the door. It’s still not locked to me. I wait a while at the threshold, swallowing back a growing sense of dread. This is where my future is now. I can’t escape it. There is no way out. I’ll be a witch. My legs are still a little weak. The walk down here seemed very long and steep. I take a breath. I venture slowly in.

When we moved here from Cork, I knew exactly what we left behind. I don’t know now. What I am sacrificing.

The light from lamps is dim here, almost candlelit. The shadows flicker, but the place is cosy. There’s a sense of safety. Home and hearth. Cushions on the couch. She’s in an armchair. And suddenly, the guilt I have been holding back ploughs through me.

There he is, little Button, nestled at her feet, his face all bandaged up. I feel sick. He’s bigger now, less of a tubby bundle. He sees me, and he hisses and bolts. He knows what I became that night for Catlin. That in a way I’m just as bad as Lon.

Mamó’s eyes on mine. Reading all that’s written on my face.

‘I didn’t know,’ I say, ‘that he came back.’

‘He would have died,’ she says, ‘and then the sacrifice would have been made. I couldn’t take the chance.’

‘Did it take you long,’ I ask, ‘to find him?’ My voice comes out all heavy. I feel as if I will cry. I don’t like looking at the thing I did. I don’t like what I was. Or what I am.

‘A while. He tried to run, but he was very weak, and took some healing.’

‘We all did.’ I look around. She gestures to the sofa, and I settle. ‘Mamó?’

She moves her head.

‘Thank you for Catlin.’

‘You know she’ll never be the same again,’ she says.

‘She has been through a lot.’ The daubs of red.

Mamó’s voice is sharp through what I’m thinking.

‘Not that. Oh, she’ll get over what happened with that lad. In time. It’s what we did to her – the coming back. It does things to a person. I’ve told your mam to watch for it. But she won’t.’ She says it like it’s just the way things are.

‘She’s trying her best to understand.’ I curl into the couch. I think of Mam’s cool hands on my hot forehead. The things she said, when I was in the bed. ‘She said something about my father – Tom – but she couldn’t reach whatever it was …’

‘Something was done to that woman,’ Mamó says. ‘Parts of her memory stolen, or locked away. Around your talent, and around your father. After everything, that became clear. I offered to help with it – but she refused.’

‘What do you think they did?’

‘To know that, I’d have to know who they were, or if they were … And without her permission to investigate, it’s hard to say, exactly. It would be invasive. Her memories wouldn’t be her own, but mine as well.’

‘How does that work?’ I ask.

‘You’ll learn,’ she tells me, ‘Madeline Hayes. Hayes is a very old name, lot of history. It wasn’t from the ground you licked your talent. And she should know more about it than she does. It may have been a safeguard. For all the good it did.’ Mamó’s eyes are looking beyond me, as though she’s searching for someone – something – else. I think of Mam chanting dad’s name after mine that night.

‘She did her best,’ I say. ‘She’s a good mother. And if … if my dad was a witch or a wise man or whatever, would it not be worth her trying?’

‘Yes,’ says Mamó. ‘Which is why I offered. But I don’t think that she will be open to any more of my presence in her life than is absolutely necessary. She hates me now. When something terrible happens, Madeline, people look to find someone to blame. It’s human nature. Also, there’s the bargain that we made.’ Her gaze is pale and level. Her eyes look blue again, in this half-light.

‘How is it going to work?’ I ask. I straighten up my shoulders. ‘Can I commute?’

‘We can work out details as they arise. But you will live down here with me. You’ll work as needed. There will be no more school. But you can study in your free time. Homeschooling, I think they call it. You’re bright enough. And you can mix with some people, sometimes. I’ll tell you to keep watch. On your sister. On the things that happen. Notice things before they start to start. A lot of what I do,’ she tells me blandly, ‘is stopping fires before they’re even set. Detectiving.’

‘Like Batman?’ I ask.

‘No,’ she says, and sighs. ‘I’m not like Batman. Batman isn’t real.’

‘But magic is.’

‘Yes. Ballyfrann is a place where people who are also something else have gathered. The forests were a sacred place, before. Still are to some.’

I look at her, processing what I’m hearing. Mamó, Oona, Lon. It isn’t a coincidence. A sacred place. I wonder …

‘The fox,’ I say. ‘The blood. Do you think it was Lon?’

She looks at me, deciding how much I am ready for, I think. I hold her gaze and try to look as if none of this is strange and terrifying. I can take it.

‘No. I don’t think it was Lon.’

‘Brian,’ I say, and don’t know why I say it, how I know.

She smiles at me. ‘You’re sharp. I can’t be sure. But perhaps.’

‘I don’t think he would want to hurt us though.’

‘No … but people can do strange things to try to keep their loved ones by their side …’

I think of Button, wince, as she continues.

‘… It’s not dissimilar to the kind of magic he would have been exposed to as a child. As a young man.’ Her face is clouded, thinking.

‘His father? Are there different kinds of magic?’

‘There’s a reason I live beneath the castle. I didn’t always. But after Brian senior passed, Brian asked me to move in. To keep an eye. His father taught him well, but what he taught him can be dangerous. Destructive. He was a cruel sort of man. And while he lived, this village was a different sort of place. More of a collection of isolated people than a community. Brian has been working to change that. To build. But there are always limits. And temptations.’

‘Do you think he’s bad?’

‘I don’t think any person is fully bad. Or fully good.’

‘Even Lon?’ I ask her quietly.

‘Lon and Brian are very different fish,’ she tells me. ‘And one of them needs to be stopped. And one of them needs to be watched.’

‘What sort of magics are there?’ I ask her. ‘What does Brian do?’

She sighs. ‘You ask a fair amount of questions.’

‘I’ve been through a fair amount of things.’

‘With more to come.’ She spits into a small bin beside her chair. ‘There are three kinds of magic that can be practised, and all of them hurt. Ours, the kind that you will learn with me, is the kind that makes the most sense. You put something in, you get something out. It takes instinct and talent, but a lot of learning as well. A lot of graft.’

‘OK. And the other kinds?’ I ask.

‘There’s prayer magic, which is something like what happened with the fox. And what you tried to do with the small fella.’

‘Button.’

‘Terrible name. With prayer magic, a lot of people do it without knowing. It’s asking someone bigger for a favour, essentially. Power, money, love. A secret kept. But there’s a veil between our world and theirs – the ones who’d do it – and so the help, the cost, might not be what you think. And when you open a door, and don’t have the sense to lock it behind you, you might get visitors.’

‘Visitors?’

‘Hungry things,’ she says grimly.

‘Like Lon?’ I ask.

‘Yes, and sometimes worse. I think Lon may be what happens when something comes over, and breeds with a human. Our face on their appetites.’ She scratches her chin vigorously.

‘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.