“You two,” she said. “Come with me.”
We were so new to St Bernadette’s that we weren’t sure whether we had broken some rule without knowing it. We also still thought that Sister Assumpta had power, which she doesn’t.
We followed her outside, to where her 1963 sky-blue Volkswagen Bug was parked under a tree.
“She still drives?” Lily asked in a whisper.
I stifled a giggle. “How is that legal?”
As she unlocked the car, we got a chance to gaze at the inside, and quickly realized that this beautiful little Bug hadn’t been driven in some time. The window had been left slightly unrolled, and the car had filled up with piles of fallen leaves, some the dark orange of old pumpkins, some as green as a traffic light. The car clearly hadn’t left the school car park in years.
Sister Assumpta popped open the boot and pointed to three decaying cardboard boxes festering inside. “Carry these in,” she said shortly. “Lift from the legs. You’re good strong girls, now. That’s it.”
We followed her back to the school and dumped the boxes in what would become Miss Harris’s office but then was just a big closet. As soon as Sister’s back was turned, I opened a box and picked out a velvet jewellery case. There were about twelve cases, maybe more. I clicked open one and found endless strings of costume jewellery. Plastic pearls, glass diamonds. Stuff that probably wasn’t worth much individually, but together, probably came to a few hundred euro.
We talked about it for months. The VW Bug filled with leaves, the masses of cheap jewellery, the crooked finger. The feeling that we were just one small part of some vast plan our school principal had, and perhaps was still completing. We wrote stories about it. Lily would start with two sentences, then fold the paper down, then I would write two sentences. Before long we had an ongoing saga, an epic romance about an ex-nun and a Brazilian count. Every time we saw Sister Assumpta after that, we would explode into giggles, and we never told anyone why.
Seeing Sister Assumpta now, this tiny deranged little ex-nun with her sock hands and her ankle-length navy skirt, everything starts to dawn on me.
Lily is gone. An entire life of memories, private jokes and pet names are up in smoke, and I’m the one to blame. Did the tarot reading on Friday really upset her so much that she couldn’t face coming to school on Monday? Did she run away?
I start howling again. Crying, it turns out, is very hard to stop once you start. Sister Assumpta is peering at me through her enormous owl glasses, utterly mystified.
“This is a private office,” Sister A says, clearly annoyed. “I didn’t say you could have police in here.”
“I know, Sister,” says Miss Harris. “But these are rather special circumstances, so I didn’t think you would mind.”
“There’s a girl crying in here,” says Sister A. “Why is there a girl crying in here?”
“This is about Lily O’Callaghan, Sister,” replies Miss Harris, trying to keep her cool. “The missing girl.”
“Who?”
“Look,” Detective Griffin says finally. “We really can’t take a statement from Maeve unless she has a parent or guardian present, and she’s clearly very upset. How about we spin her home, we can talk to her parents, and Maeve can speak to us there? Where she’s comfortable?”
“Isn’t that Harriet Evans’ little sister? The youngest one?” Sister Assumpta pipes up again.
“No, Sister,” Miss Harris replies, exasperated. She turns to Griffin. “I think that would be a good idea.”
So that’s what we do. Everyone’s on morning break, crossing the yard to access the car park behind the building. There are girls in my year artfully lounging against walls and mossy, mildewed benches. They straighten up as they see me being dog-walked by two Gardaí, standing on tiptoes to watch me leave.
A breathtaking silence falls over the yard. Everything seems to slow down and mute itself. Even the skipping rope that some of the younger girls are swinging becomes soundless.
Then, I hear it. A lone voice calling like a shotgun across a desert plain.
“Witch!”
Griffin’s head cocks.
“WITCH!”
Griffin gazes around at the yard, trying to locate the source of the sound. It’s too late though. There are too many of them.
“WITCH! WITCH! WITCH! WITCH! WITCH!”
And it keeps going until we get into the squad car, and leave St Bernadette’s.
CHAPTER TEN
WE’RE A MILE AWAY FROM THE HOUSE WHEN I REMEMBER that Mum and Dad are in Portugal, and I have no idea whether Jo has classes today. I unlock the front door and Tutu jumps on everyone. Usually I wouldn’t feel the need to apologize about the dog. But now, within the rigid formality of having two Gardaí in my house, everything feels like proof of my obvious guilt. The jumping dog, the dirty plates in the kitchen, the gnarled brick of butter still left out on the table from breakfast. Everything around me feels like evidence of what a scruffy, scrubby little urchin I am. A bad housekeeper, and a bad friend.
“Jo!” I shout up the stairs, hoping she’s home. No response. I smile at Griffin and Ward apologetically.
“Joannnnnnne!” I shout again, charging up the stairs.
“What?” She opens her bedroom door crankily, dressed in joggers and towelling her wet hair. Oh, thank God she’s home.
“There’s … uh. There’s police here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Downstairs. I have to give a statement. Lily is missing.”
“Lily O’Callaghan?” Joanne claps her hand to her mouth, her eyes already moist. “For how long?”
“Sunday night. Look, just come downstairs, will you?”
Joanne comes down and I shakily make introductions. Detective Griffin gives a modified version of what she told the class. She gives Jo more detail, though, more relaxed without the eyes of twenty teenage girls boring into her.
“The last Lily’s parents saw of her was on Sunday night. She went to bed at around ten, but according to her brother it wasn’t unusual for Lily to stay up drawing or reading until one or two
