Perfectly Preventable Deaths

43 Gravel Root

I wake. Mam is beside my bed. She’s sleeping in a chair. I look around. Nothing much has changed. The tapestries the same, the sheets I chose before we moved here. The wood’s a little greener through the window. The sky is grey. The clouds are heavy still.

‘Mam?’ I say. I touch her, and she screams, and I start back.

‘Oh, sorry, love,’ she says, and leans in and hugs me. ‘It’s just a surprise. I think I was asleep. Or half asleep.’

I say that’s OK. She looks at me again and I feel awkward. My hair is in a braid. They’ve changed my clothes.

‘Catlin?’ I ask. She nods at me. ‘Oh, Maddy. What you did …’

She holds me close. My mother holds me close.

I say, ‘I want to see her.’

She nods again, and helps me over to her room. The candles around the little altar quenched. The statues clean, their blank eyes staring out. It’s such a bright room. Pink and gold and colours. And she’s so pale. My sister is so pale. A wraith. A ghost, all dappled crimson red and bluish white.

I get a head rush, walking unaided now. There is a wobble and Mam takes my arm. She looks so old. Do I look old as well? I’m still sixteen. I think. I kind of want to ask, ‘What year is this?’ and shake her, but I don’t think she would take it very well.

Catlin lies there. She still looks like a corpse. But she’s alive. A breathing corpse. Her skin resembles skin, at least the texture. Her hair is falling out. Mam collects a clump of it from the pillow. Gathers it. Puts it in her pocket.

‘I have a little box,’ she says, ‘for it. I can’t throw out the bits of her.’

‘Like baby’s curls,’ I say.

It’s almost sweet.

What grew back is starkly port-wine-stained. I wonder if it’s on her torso too. I don’t want to lift blankets, disturb her. She opens up her eyes. And smiles.

‘Hi, Mad,’ she says.

‘Hey, Catlin.’

She grins at me, and closes her eyes to sleep more. Her smile is still the same. I clamber into bed beside my sister. We lie together in this horrid world.

Mam sits on the edge of the bed. I look at her. ‘What’s happened since that night?’ I ask. ‘Have you found …?’

I don’t want to say his name. I don’t want Catlin in her dreams to hear it.

Mam shakes her head. ‘Brian looked, and Mamó too – with her … you know.’

I nod at her. I do know.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Mam says. ‘I mean – I couldn’t help her. And now I can’t help you.’

‘You can,’ I say. ‘You love me. That’s enough.’ It isn’t really. I’m just saying words. I can’t change fate, but maybe I can make her feel a little bit better.

Mam takes my hand. ‘You remind me so much of your father, love,’ she says. ‘I wanted you to have a safer life, with better things. When he died, parts of who he was died with him. There are things I can’t touch, things that scare me and I don’t know why …’

‘Witchcraft things?’ I ask.

She flinches. And she nods. ‘I can’t remember much. His plants. That book. After the fire there was …’ I see her reaching, losing it. ‘It’s gone. I’m sorry … and I am sorry for hurting you, before. I didn’t remember what he was. I’m losing it again; it’s leaving me. But I knew that it was dangerous. That it killed him. I didn’t want that … for you.’

I wait for more, but she sighs heavily and gives me the tightest, fiercest hug, before straightening up the sheets around us. She turns the light out as she leaves the room. The door-click soft. I settle down in bed beside my sister, and try my best to follow her in sleep.