Perfectly Preventable Deaths

39 Black Hellebore

Short of breath, I clamber on the bed, feeling far too small, too young for this, reaching with my arms to gain purchase. To climb. My heart thuds in my throat. A desperate knock. A door I don’t want opened. I cannot look at her. I cannot look.

‘Catlin.’ My voice is wobbly, like a child’s. I am small and lost and terribly afraid. Mam digs through sheets like a frightened rabbit. Her fingers red. There’s blood on her hands. My sister’s blood, I think. The black silk parts like murky river water. We see the thing that was my sister’s face. It is her face, I mean. But it’s been shredded. Throat in ribbons, breath coming in little gasps. Her eyes are lost. She’s moving far beyond us. I think that she is trying to move her lips. They aren’t there.

She’s breathing though.

She’s breathing.

I turn to Mam. ‘She needs help.’ It builds inside a screech but comes out ragged. ‘You need to call someone.’

Mam’s face is grey. She’s staring at my sister. Half her jaw is gone and her tongue lolls out. What’s left of it. A stump. I cannot let the horror of it in. No, not right now. I rummage through my bag for Mamó’s jar. I bite my arm until blood spills out and then drip it through the thick and salty mixture.

I pour it on her throat. My sister screams.

Mam grabs at me. ‘Stop. You’ll hurt her. You will hurt her.’ As though I were a toddler pulling hair. I shoot a look and watch her hands fall. I feel a rush of something to my brain. I might pass out. I bite my bottom lip hard. Almost through. I can use the parts of me to sew the bits of her. To hold her close.

‘She is already hurt,’ I say. ‘And I can only try to help.’

My vision is still cloudy, though it sharpens on the things I need, with a quick zoom-focus. My intuition leads my brain and my body. It is driving. We were two, swimming in one womb. We grew together. There is something magic in a twin. Companion from the moment of creation. In all my life, I’ve never been alone. I’ve had a friend. And I will fight to keep her.

Something shimmers, folding slowly out. When we were little, Mam used to take us to visit aquariums on holidays. The jellyfish were kept in a dark room, the UV light shining through their soft, transparent bodies, and they would furl and unfurl underneath. Their movements looked so graceful, looked like dance, a ballerina’s tutu, stacked atop a mermaid’s magic hair. And we knew they could sting you, but we liked to look. To hold our hand against the glass. To wonder what would happen, if a single tentacle reached through and touched our skin. Would it sense that we were not a danger? I knew it wouldn’t, but I hoped it would. The light unwrapping from around my twin is like those. It is very dim, but it is there. It ripples and it almost seems to pucker. A pale, translucent heft. It could be touched. I grab at it. If I can keep that light from going out then maybe I can keep her.

It wafts away. It’s bending from my hands. There isn’t time.

‘Chhhhhcccc‌hhhCCHhhhhh.’

Those sounds. Those horrid sounds. She is in pain, but she is trying, working. I put my fingers in her throat to clear an airway. There’s not enough mouth left for CPR. Mam’s trained, I think. She should know what to do. I look at her. She’s staring and she’s shaking.

‘Mam. What do I do? Mam. MAM!’ I yell at her. She’s staring past us both.

‘The wall,’ she says. ‘The carving on the wall.’

And then I look.

Dearbhla

Sibéal

Amanda

Laoise

Eimear

Laura

Bríd

Sorcha

Bridget

Karen

Gráinne

Julie

Roisín

Gobnait

Violet

Dymphna

Alacoque

Aoife

Fionnuala

Victoria

Elizabeth

Emer

Sinéad

Sally

Ciara

Mary-Ann

Nancy

Susan

Fiona

Delia

Maisy

Laura

Rachel

Caoimhe

Julie

Ava

Sheila

Maria

Antoinette

Cathleen

Martina

Jennifer

Carol

Nora

Lee

Colette

Ellen

Claire

Laurel

Jacinta

Mary-Bridget

Mary

Ann

Marie

Noreena

Savita

Carmel

Sarah

Aoibhe

Scarlett

Dearbhla

Katherine

Cecilia

Lisa

Lillian

Louise

Patricia

Katie

Cliodhna

Shona

Nuala

Shauna

Patricia

Monica

Meabhdh

Jean

Gillian

Elaine

Anna

Sabhdh

Sarah

Adele

Rose

Grace

Joyce

Nicola

Ruth

Frances

Naomi

Elizabeth

Sandra

Dolores

Aisling

Sharon

Lola

Chloe

Helen

Daisy

Megan

Úna

Fawn

Catlin

Oh God. Catlin.

There isn’t time for fear to rise inside me. I cannot hyperventilate right now. I cannot panic. The only hurt that I’m allowed to feel must be constructive. If I let go, I’d curl into a ball. I’d shake and quiver while my sister dies.

‘Call someone,’ I tell her. My voice is glass-crack high.

‘There isn’t any signal.’ She isn’t moving, and it isn’t helping.

‘Go and find one. Send Brian our coordinates. Get help. RUN.’

You read about mothers who lift cars from on top of their children. Who move mountains. Ours is small inside the castle’s gut. She nods and dashes away. I look down at my twin. And we’re alone. Her face is turned to me, her eyes like saucers, rolling in her head. She’s saying things. Maybe prayers. The bright around her is fading but it’s there. I take a drink and see light rolling out around my body. The salt and blood disgusting in my mouth. I retch and swallow down the acrid bile.

OK. OK.

She makes another sound.

The things I can control about myself won’t save her now.

I’m sure she’s praying.

I wish that I believed. In good. In God.

The devil, he exists. I see it now, in front of me for certain.

‘I’m here,’ I say. I hold my sister’s hand. And she is dying. Corpsing into cold beneath my eyes.

All the bright around me almost blinding. Shining, shining, star-bright through the dim. The contrast is discouraging, I think. She’s pale as pale, the day-moon next to sun. I try to grab a handful to pass over. I pull and pull but it won’t budge. I can’t.

Why did I tell Mamó I wouldn’t? She could have taught me things. Given me more of myself to use. Maybe if I had been braver, better. Decided for myself and not for Mam. Not for this future I think I should want, because I’ve always wanted it. If I were qualified, as a doctor, I don’t think I could save her. Not here. Not now. I would need tools, medication. Help.

I close my eyes and focus, seeking something concrete. Someone I can call on for a miracle. And there it is. I open them again. Catlin could be dead by the time I get back. I could be leaving her to die right here. And that’s on me. I pull the blankets round and tuck her in.

‘Catlin. I love you and I want to help you. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done and haven’t done. The way it’s been. I have to go and ask someone for help now. I think that it might work. The only thing.’

I’m conscious that there’s nothing I can say to make this right.

I kiss her forehead and I smell her blood, choke back a sound. I cannot tell if she can even hear me. My eyes are dry. I run back through the office, past Mam and down the stairs.

I don’t need to tell Mam to go to Catlin. She will, and she will hold her daughter close. We’ve always loved each other. Our problem was we just forgot how much. I go down to the kitchen. Cram a handful of Brian’s knives into a shopper.

Our father gave us this. It’s in the book. The night we found the fox, Catlin remembered. And maybe that was something like a sign.

I see the text from the book roll by. As though my brain had subtitles inside it. Some things you remember in pictures, and some in words. This comes in Catlin’s voice. My sister’s voice.

If someone wants a thing – a sick child well, money, power, love – then you can ask.

The Ask, she said.

The Fox.

Twenty minutes walking to the crossroads. I plan to run. Is that too late?

A taste for blood and worship … You need to bring a living thing to die.

I’d cut myself again, but I can’t help her if I cannot ask. I need a thing. A tender soft delicious little life.

Two eyes shine at me from under the table. I hum to him, and I stretch out my hands. Make little consonants inside my mouth. His paws approach. A gentle bat at fingers.

‘Button,’ I say. There’s power in his name. I think he knows it. I grapple at the soft scruff of his neck. The fold that mothers bite to carry young. And he is mine. I have him.

A thing that has a taste for blood and worship.

I stuff the wriggling kitten in my bag.

Rehearse my prayers.