It’s too cold to make any kind of effort with clothes. It is virtually impossible to look sexy and mature when you’re three jumpers deep. I feel like a toddler when I meet him, layered up in a blue duffel coat and wooly hat.
“Hey,” he says. “Your nose is all red.”
“Oh, what?” I start touching my nose, as if that’s going to do anything, and he smiles.
“You look like Paddington Bear.”
Ouch.
“Thank … you?”
“Have you got marmalade sandwiches packed?”
This isn’t flirtatious banter. He’s scared out of his mind, filling the freezing evening with nervous Paddington references.
There’s some indecision about whether we should get the bus in or not, but after three minutes waiting for it and hopping from leg to leg to keep warm, we give up. We trudge into town, the evening black, the grass frosting and crunchy underfoot. The closer we get, the quieter Roe becomes. The stupid jokes drain away. Eventually, he pipes up.
“Maeve.”
“Mmm?”
“Tell me about her.”
“About who?” I reply, playing dumb. He doesn’t even dignify it with a response.
I sigh and kick the ground in front of me.
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. We saw so little of each other the past few years. Y’know, Mum and Dad were always so big on activities and schedules that even when we were small, it always felt like we were in different time zones. She was either at cello or in her room or off with you.”
He sighs, and I almost feel like apologizing for Lily and me. For how insular we were. It had never even occurred to me that Roe would have wanted to hang out with us.
“I’m not blaming her,” he continues. “I’ve been hiding in my room with my guitar for a good six years. I never showed an interest in her world, either. But … I regret it, Maeve. She’s my only sibling. We didn’t even fight. No one fights in our house, not even my parents. Everyone just … glides past one another.”
That was always the pull of going to the O’Callaghans’. The fact that you could watch your cartoons in one room while the grown-ups watched the news in the other. The cool, clean, quiet rooms. The way Lily and Roe’s toys were never broken, or handed down. And when it all got too sedate, me and Lil could always go to my house. I’d never considered that Roe didn’t have that option. That Roe, now that I properly think about it, didn’t ever have any friends.
None of this is actually my business to say, of course. So instead, I just talk about Lily.
“Do you know how she was left-handed?”
“Oh, come on, Chambers! I said we weren’t close. I didn’t say she was a stranger.”
“No, I mean, obviously, she was left-handed, but did you know that she taught herself how to be right-handed?”
“What?”
“Yeah. When we were like, eleven?” I pause a moment, trying to remember. “She said she wanted to have a second form of handwriting that she could fall back on, if she ever needed it.”
“What could she possibly need that for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe … maybe she planned on a life of forgery. Maybe she always sort of knew she was going to end up on the run.”
“You think she’s on the run?”
“I know she left your house willingly. You know that. With that … woman.”
With the Housekeeper. Say it. Witches know things by their true names.
“Right. With that woman.”
He slows down, takes his phone out of his pocket, then reorients himself based on the blue arrow on his screen.
“Are we almost there?”
“I think so. The invite says ‘Elysian Quarter’ but I don’t know where that is, and Google Maps doesn’t seem to have a clear idea either.”
We’re standing on a narrow street at the edge of the city. Every building seems to be an anonymous-looking apartment block. There’s a pub winking yellow light in the distance, but nothing that looks remotely like a meet-up space.
I shiver and stamp my feet. “I hope it’s warm inside.”
“I know, right? They said it might snow later.”
“It never snows properly here.”
At that moment, two boys and a girl push past us, bullish and hurried. We shrug at each other and fall in casually behind them as they turn into a courtyard and hit a buzzer on one of the apartment buildings. The trio eye us critically, but don’t say anything.
“Hi,” I say, unable to maintain the tension.
“Hey,” one of the boys says evenly. He’s a couple of years older than me, but has the kind of red-rimmed watery eyes that you initially mistake for tears and then realize, no, that’s just his face.
The buzzer sounds and the door to the apartment building pops open. We trail into an elegant lobby and look for the lift.
Roe flashes his phone at me. Apartment 44, Floor 8, Elysian Quarter.
We’re definitely in the right place. We get into the lift with the other three, hugging our elbows to our ribs in the cramped, mirrored box. Roe hits the “8” button. It’s only then do I feel comfortable getting a good look at our companions, peering into the mirror rather than directly into their eyes.
The girl reminds me of Lily, although I can’t figure out why. She doesn’t look anything like her, but there’s some quality the two of them share that I can’t quite put my finger on. A squirming discomfort. A sense of being unable to relate to the physical world.
“Are you guys here for the meeting?” I offer.
They don’t say anything, but the girl unconsciously nods and Roe smiles at her.
“I’m really excited for it to start,” he says, maintaining careful eye contact with her, and she smiles back.
“Is it your first one?”
“Yep. Just got the invite today,” Roe replies smoothly. “I’m so glad they let me join the Facebook group.”
“How long did you have to wait to be accepted?” she responds, her eyes round and excitable.
“Two days.”
The two guys look at each other sharply and
