Perfectly Preventable Deaths

46 Vipers’ Bugloss

Mam pours a cup of tea and looks at me across the kitchen table. Her eyes are sad.

‘I don’t want you to do this,’ she tells me. ‘To throw your life away on magic tricks.’

‘Has Brian told you more about the village?’ I ask. She nods.

I stir in milk. ‘What did he tell you?’

‘Oh yes. I got the full whack. The Collinses, apparently, can shape-shift.’ She throws her hands up. ‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘You never swear,’ I say. I can see why she would though. Shape-shifting is, in fairness, a bit much.

‘Which is the shocking part? Madeline, how much did you know?’

‘Not much. I knew that Mamó was a witch, and that I could be one too – she wanted to train me before and I said no.’

‘What else?’

‘Oona told me some,’ I tell her, ‘and I knew that Brian knew what was going on … That was hard. He didn’t ask me not to tell you, but he said he wanted to tell you himself. In his own time.’

‘To my mind,’ Mam says, ‘his own time should have been at least six weeks before we were married.’

‘At least,’ I say. And, in fairness, it should have been.

‘Any marriage, and uprooting our whole lives to be with someone, is life-changing stuff. But not life-changing like your neighbours can turn into things and a witch stole your daughter. I’m furious with him. What he hid. We would never have come here.’ Her hands are in her lap, her shoulders slumped down towards her stomach. She’s wearing a floral shirt and jeans, her hair is in a ponytail, make-up on but she still looks exhausted.

‘How would he have phrased it though?’ I ask.

‘“Everyone’s monsters. One of them will try to murder your child. Let’s stay in Cork forever”?’ Mam offers. She has clearly thought about this.

‘Monsters how?’ I ask.

‘If you look human but you aren’t human, I don’t know another word for what that is.’

‘Am I a monster?’ I ask her. ‘Is Catlin?’

She sighs. ‘No, love. But both of you are what this place has made you, and I don’t know how to fix it. I offered to work for her. To help instead.’ She pours a little hot drop in her cup. ‘She wouldn’t have it.’

‘We made a deal,’ I say, ‘and Catlin’s here. Alive.’

‘She is,’ Mam says. ‘When did you get so brave?’

I shrug. ‘I’m not. I just do what I can. I try. Like you.’

‘Oh, love.’ She sighs. ‘The world is dreadful, isn’t it? And Brian is hardly ever home. Since ye woke up, it’s been hard. He lied to me so much. To all of us.’ Her eyes fill up and she starts saying sorry, and I shush her.

‘It’s OK, Mam. It’s going to be OK. I’ll be twenty-three in seven years. It’s not forever.’

‘Twenty-three,’ she says.

‘I know. So old.’ I scrunch my face.

‘You won’t have a debs,’ Mam says, like that was something that I had always dreamed of.

‘I’ll be a witch,’ I say. ‘Maybe there’s a witch debs. With brooms and pointy hats.’

‘Jesus, Madeline. It’s not a joke.’ Her voice is hard and tired. ‘We’re losing you. We’ll miss you.’

‘I’ll only be downstairs.’ I drink my tea.

‘It’s not the same.’

‘I know.’ And I do know. But I made a deal. And we got Catlin back. ‘Look on it as paying for hospital,’ I say. ‘If Catlin had been saved by an operation, you would have paid the doctor. It’s the same. Only I get to pay. I made the bargain and I have the talent.’

She looks at her tea but doesn’t drink. ‘You were going to go back to Cork, to be a doctor. And Catlin. I don’t know what she can do at all. I mean. Her face.’

‘She isn’t dead,’ I say. ‘She’s still your daughter.’

‘I know,’ Mam says. ‘It’s just that this is hard. All I wanted for ye. So many things. A happy, normal life … And that lad is still out there. I mean, they don’t know where he is at all. Brian says he’s trying, but it’s been six weeks, and …’ She makes a scornful sound.

She isn’t wrong. I wish that Lon were dead. I wish that I were small again. A little girl. I wish that I was me before we left the world I knew. Quiet and grumpy, studying and hanging out with Catlin and our friends.

Catlin bustles in, wrapped in a kimono dressing gown. Her white skin’s pale, her wine stain’s very bright. Her scalp is covered up with a silk scarf.

‘Hey,’ she says, ‘is there tea in the pot?’

Mam gets up and starts making some more. I realise she’s avoiding looking at Catlin. She doesn’t want to see her daughter’s face now it has changed.

‘Do you know Mamó found Button?’ I ask Mam.

‘I want him back,’ she says. ‘She can’t have my daughter and my kitten too.’ Her face is red. She pours the boiling water like she hates it. Stirs the pot as though it were a drum.

‘Are you seriously going to ask the woman who saved my life for her kitten?’ asks Catlin.

‘Madeline saved your life,’ Mam says. ‘That wagon just profited from it.’

‘That isn’t true, Mam,’ I say. ‘And you need to make this easier for me, instead of harder.’

‘I know,’ says Mam. ‘I’m trying, like.’

I roll my eyes. She isn’t trying half as hard as I am. She should moan less and find out more. I wonder, again, what is there, trapped inside her brain. Memories. And maybe if she was sharing them with me and not Mamó, she’d be more open to it. I wonder how long it will take for me to learn that skill.

‘Can you turn her into a frog?’ asks Catlin.

‘Of course not.’ I smirk.

‘You brought me back to life, Mad,’ Catlin says. ‘Anything is possible. Can you turn this –’ she waves a coaster – ‘into a crisp fifty-euro note?’

‘You’d only spend it in Urban Outfitters,’ I tell her.

‘Excuse me. I would spend it on MAC make-up.’ She straightens her back. ‘To conceal my immortality blemish.’

‘You’re not immortal, Catlin,’ I point out.

‘How do you know?’ she asks. She widens her eyes. ‘I could totally be immortal if I wanted. You get to be a witch. Mam, tell her I’m immortal.’

‘No one here is allowed to die for at least thirty years,’ Mam tells us. ‘Including me. Or I will bring ye back specifically to ground you, witch or no witch.’

‘Fair enough,’ I say.

She pulls us close. Two nestlings under wing, a mother bird. I rest my head on her shoulder and curl my arm around Catlin’s back. And, for a while, this dangerous place feels safe.

It feels like home.