I flush red. “Yes,” I say. “I mean, no, I’m not one, but that’s what they said yesterday.”
“And that you have been reading tarot cards for the other girls on your lunch break?”
“Er … yeah. It was harmless, though. Ask anyone. It was just a bit of fun.”
For them. It was a bit of fun for them.
“Even so, I’ve decided that from now on, there will be an official ban on tarot cards, and, more broadly … occult-ish things. So no cards, no spells, no Ouija boards, no incense. No sage.”
At this, Miss Harris produces a shoebox full of things that I had been keeping in the Chokey. Everything I bought in Divination, all that I had thoughtfully arranged to turn the cupboard into my own little magic shop, has been reduced to a couple of bits rattling around in a cardboard box.
I’ve never felt like more of a child.
“Do you have the tarot cards with you today, Maeve?”
“Um, yes. They’re in my school bag.”
“Can you take them out, please?”
I unzip my bag and take them out, the cool weight of them still comforting and solid, despite the trouble that they have caused.
“Give me the tarot cards, Maeve.”
“What? Why?”
“They’re banned from school. And I’m concerned that some of the girls will start asking you for readings outside of school.”
“I’ll just say no,” I protest.
“You won’t say no,” Miss Harris says, and a coldness comes into her voice. Like she knows how easily I can be pressured into doing things if it means that people will like me. “So I’m not giving you the option to say yes.”
I can see that Jo wants to rush to my defence, but that silently, she agrees with Miss Harris.
I feel betrayed.
“Please, Miss,” I plead. “They’re mine.”
“Actually, they’re not yours. You found them in the basement cupboard. They’re school property, and frankly, Maeve, I should be giving you a Behavioural Correction for using the cupboard without permission. You purposefully didn’t return the key to me. Please return it now.”
Me and Miss Harris have never been best friends, but I’ve always thought that deep down, she sort of liked me. Or, at the very least, she had faith that I was a basically OK person. The way she’s speaking to me now though goes beyond gently chiding a misbehaving student. It’s like she thinks I’m a criminal.
I fish the key out of my pencil case and give it to her without a word. Miss Harris opens her bottom desk drawer and places the tarot cards in there, locking the drawer with a little key.
“Now, I believe you have Geography first, don’t you? You can head there now, unless you have anything else to say.”
Jo gives me a small “I’ve done everything I can do” smile and gets out of her chair. “I’ll be at home later. Give me a text if you need a lift from the bus stop.”
I don’t want Miss Harris to know she’s won, so I saunter out of the room like I couldn’t care less, my school bag flung over one shoulder. I can sense the lack of the tarot’s weight immediately, and suddenly I feel like my tether to the earth’s surface is very fragile. Like I might float away and disappear, just like Lily did.
Before I leave the room, I turn around to face Miss Harris again. “Miss,” I say, shy all of a sudden. “Have Lily’s parents asked about me at all? Because, y’know, I’m happy to talk to them, like I did to the Gardaí.”
“Oh yes,” Miss Harris responds. “They had … quite a lot to say. I wouldn’t worry, Maeve. The Gardaí has passed on any relevant information. I think it’s best if you let the O’Callaghans have their space, for now.”
Roe’s face swims into my head and my pulse quickens. Is he still wearing my lump of rose quartz under his clothes? I picture it hitting the bare skin of his chest and feel a blush creeping up my neck.
Poor Roe. Poor Mr and Mrs O’Callaghan. I keep picturing Mrs O’Callaghan’s face when she finds Lily’s bed empty. The hammering on the bathroom door, her confusion turning to panic. The raw, ripe fear of realizing her only daughter is missing.
Classes are a nightmare. I had been afraid that, after yesterday’s “witch” chant, the others would keep well away from me out of terror that they, too, would disappear in the middle of the night. The reality is much worse. People are clamouring to speak to me, but only want to talk about Lily, about witchcraft, about the tarot. There are rumours of a curse. There have been wild stories about Miss Harris finding Lily O’Callaghan voodoo dolls in the Chokey cupboard. There’s another about how Lily is not missing at all, but dead. That she killed herself after being taunted by me on Friday.
They gather around me at lunch, desperate to be the one who shakes more information out of me. As angry as I am to have my tarot cards confiscated, I kind of see why Miss Harris needed to do it.
“Maeve, I’ve been so worried about you,” Niamh says, tugging at the shredded sleeve of my school jumper. “People were saying you used to bully Lily, but I told them that was bollocks. You were her friend, weren’t you? In primary school, I mean?”
Why is Niamh saying this, like she had nothing to do with the fact that me and Lily are no longer friends? How can she look at me, her eyes pricked with tears of concern, as if she is completely innocent in all of
