“Jesus Christ, how is it that people who get as good marks as you two can be so dense? It’s a flippin’ metaphor.”
“Roe doesn’t get metaphors because he’s a Protestant.”
“Wow, harsh.”
“I feel like you’re both missing the point,” I say huffily.
“Sorry, Maeve … what’s the point?”
“The Beg is this place where thousands of people experienced the most traumatic moments of their lives. You know, it’s where thousands of people were forced to emigrate and say goodbye to their families for ever,” I explain. “And Roe, it’s where I saw … your … traumatic memory.”
He nods and Fiona looks confused, but says nothing.
“If the spiritual world is the thing that makes up the gap between the physical and the emotional, then I think the river … is where that world begins. I think it’s a door. Or a key. Or both. I don’t know.”
I am suddenly very embarrassed, but I press on. “And Lily … I think Lily is in that world. I think she’s trapped in there. Maybe the Housekeeper took her there.”
Fiona casts a glance at me, raising her eyebrows in a “we’re still playing that game, are we?” expression. Roe just nods, urging me to go on.
“Because she was sad and mad at me, and I think … maybe the Housekeeper couldn’t … couldn’t…”
“Kill you for her?” Fiona says brightly.
“Right. She couldn’t finish the job she came to do.”
Another silence.
Two pink spots form in Roe’s cheeks. “And how … how do we get her back?”
He believes me. He thinks my theory is right. A wave of confidence surges through me. I open my school bag and slam my new book in front of me.
“With this.”
Fiona takes one look at it. “Made-up name,” she repeats.
We start looking through The Beginner’s Guide to Spellcraft by Alwyn Prair-Felten until it is time for us to go home.
Roe walks me to the end of my driveway.
“It’s lucky your family is so rich and have a long driveway,” he says. “It means I can kiss you without the prying eyes of the gentry.”
He kisses me in the soft space below my ear and a shiver runs down my spine.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say, slightly breathless. “I am not rich.”
“Maeve. Come on.”
And suddenly, we’re fighting. Roe keeps trying to get me to admit that my parents are wealthy, pointing at the size of our house, and I keep getting defensive by telling him that I have a bigger family than he does. He screws up his face a bit, as if only rich people can afford to have five kids. Neither of us want to have this fight, but neither of us can seem to find a way out, either.
“Come on,” he says, “you have to have noticed that there’s a difference between me and you. Between you and Fi.”
“Me and Fi are at the same school.”
“She’s on scholarship. And so am I.”
For a second, I hate him. I know he’s just trying to get me to admit to having money, but he’s going at it by pushing on my weakest, sorest spots. Sore spots that he doesn’t know are there, because ultimately, Roe and I still don’t know each other very well. If Lily were around, she would let him know. She would get it.
“Lily wasn’t on scholarship,” I say, and then correct myself. “Isn’t, I mean.”
“No, but Mum and Dad thought she would need more attention, and that she would get it in a school like Bernie’s. Also, they wanted her to be with you.”
“Oh, great. Load the guilt on.”
“I’m not trying to make you guilty. I’m just telling you…”
Roe and Fiona worked hard to get into private school, and here’s me, the rich idiot whose parents had to buy her way in. The way they didn’t have to with any of their other children. Abbie, Cillian, Pat and Jo all went to non-fee-paying schools and all got over 500 points in their Leaving Cert. It was only me, the person who got 33% on her entrance exam, who was gently pushed into private education.
He’s here with you, Maeve. Not Fiona. He fancies you, not Fiona.
A dark voice emerges from the pit of my stomach. Would he still fancy you if he knew that you wished Lily would disappear, Maeve?
“Hey,” I say. “Do you have time for a quick tarot reading?”
“Huh? You want to read my tarot? Now?”
“I don’t know. I thought we could read them together. To see … to see what’s going on with this river stuff. The water turning warm. All that.”
“Sure,” he says, suspicious. We have, after all, been talking about this all afternoon.
“Let’s find somewhere quiet.”
There’s a bit of green near my house where boys play football on warm evenings. We trudge through it, snow crunching underneath our feet. I don’t say anything as we walk, holding his hand firmly and in silence. We find a bit of wild hedgerow that has a space you can crouch under. I tried my first cigarette in here. Lily and I found a box on the bus and took them into this bush to examine them. We decided they weren’t worth the hassle.
Roe and I settle under the bush, crouching in the dirt.
“Cosy,” he says, still confused.
“OK,” I say, taking out my cards. I feel the familiar, stomach-churning pull as I pass them over to him. But the nausea of the cards doesn’t even compare to the crunching anxiety that Roe might leave me for Fiona. That I’ll be on the outside again, looking in.
I hear a faint rustle as Roe shuffles, and at the corner of my vision, I’m certain I see a sweep of white linen dragging in the dirt. Oh God, she’s not here again, is she?
I blink hard. It’s just a bit of toilet paper, trapped in the undergrowth.
He shuffles and splits the cards.
“All right, do you want to pick them together, or…?”
“You pick the first.”
My head starts beading with nausea again,
