The Chokey cards are back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, I COME DOWNSTAIRS AND MUM, DAD and Jo are at the kitchen table. The Sunday papers are strewn around them, a pot of coffee steeping on the sideboard. Jo is reading the culture supplement, Dad has the magazine, Mum has the style. They all look so cosy, so blond, so part of the same unit. How can I tell them that a pack of cards that were confiscated from me almost two weeks ago are somehow now back in my possession? How do I tell them that a character from the same deck of cards took Lily away?
Do I even believe that, though? Can I believe that?
“Morning,” Dad says gravely. “I hope I don’t have to have a word with you about last night. The sound of you retching at 2 a.m. better be lesson enough.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Honestly, I only had about three glasses. I don’t think I’m a red wine person.”
“Three glasses of wine is a lot, Maeve. It’s not like having a bottle of beer or something. Wine goes to your head quickly.”
“I know. Sorry,” I mumble again, then turn to Mum. “So, you know those tarot cards that Miss Harris too—”
But I don’t get to continue, because Jo, apparently, has something to say. She glances across at me disapprovingly, her nose wrinkled and annoyed.
“You woke everyone up,” she says dismissively. “Also, where did you even get the wine from? Were Fiona’s parents just giving you…”
“No,” I say guiltily. “Fiona nicked it from their table.”
“Right. So you went over to a new person’s house and stole their parents’ drink? Nice first impression.”
“No, like I just said, Fiona took it.”
“Well, she sounds like a real treasure.”
“Why the hell do you care, Jo?”
“Girls, stop,” Mum says. “Jo, this really has nothing to do with you. And Maeve, if everything with Lily weren’t such a mess, I’d be eating the arse off you. As it stands, this is your first and only warning. Are we clear? Everyone?”
“Whatever,” Jo says, and dramatically flips open the culture section again.
How did we get back here? How is it that when Mum and Dad are away, Jo can be the best person in the world, but when they’re back, she acts like a total cow?
“And I don’t want to hear a thing about those tarot cards again, OK?”
“But, Mum, the thing with the tarot cards is—”
“Maeve. Nothing. This is a tarot-free house, understood? They were fine for a bit of fun, but you’ve clearly taken them too seriously.”
I hold my head in my hands, the pounding headache back.
“OK,” I say weakly.
I spend the rest of the day in my room, trying not to think about the cards. I’m terrified of taking them out of the top drawer, suspecting that the moment I do, Mum or Dad or Jo will walk in and they’ll be taken away again.
My relationship to the cards has changed. Something physical, something molecular has happened between us. Us. As though the tarot were a person. It’s like there’s some kind of electromagnetic force holding us together. Only I can’t tell if I’m the metal or the magnet. If I go to the bathroom, or downstairs to make a cup of tea, it’s like there’s an invisible string that’s being stretched too far, yanking on my fingers and toes. I used to feel like I was the master of these cards, the only person capable of interpreting their true message. Now I feel like they’re the master of me.
In the afternoon, I take Tutu for a walk down by the Beg, the cards in my coat pocket. I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve, exactly, but somehow it’s the place I need to be. This is where Lily was last seen alive and where I encountered the Housekeeper in my dreams.
As I walk towards the old underpass, I see a flash of scarlet in the rapidly darkening evening, a tousle of shining dark curls winking under the lamplight. It’s him. It doesn’t feel surprising to see him here. He must have found out about the milkman yesterday, too. Maybe he even had the same dreams I did. Maybe he woke up feeling like his lungs were filled with river water.
“Hi,” I say timidly.
He lifts his eyes from the ground. I may not be surprised to see him, but he is very shocked to see me.
“I’ll go,” I say. “Sorry. I just heard about … you know. So I wanted to come down.”
We watch one another for a moment. Wary, like two wild animals trying to see if the other will attack first. His eyes look darker in the wintery light, free from the emerald glint they flash in the day. We make eye contact for so long that I start wondering what he sees in mine. Does he watch for the grey-blue of my eyes, noticing their shift? Is that too much to expect from someone who hates me as much as he does?
I turn to go, clicking my tongue at Tutu nervously, uttering a “C’mon, boy,” under my breath.
“No, Maeve, don’t go,” Roe says. “I’m sort of glad you’re here.”
My heart thumps like a grandfather clock being kicked over. “Really?”
“Yeah. I feel terrible for blowing up at you like that on Friday. I was way out of order. You didn’t deserve that.”
“I did. Everything you said was true, y’know?” I say, digging my hands into my jacket pockets. “I should have been a friend to Lily. And to you. But believe me, the only reason I wasn’t in touch was because the school and my parents kept saying not to. You give families privacy at times like this – or something.”
Roe frowns. “So I heard. Do you know, I think people only
