It’s only then when I see it.
The tape. Or, the sticker on it. There, on the curling, yellowing rectangle of sticky paper is the thing that has been staring me in the face this entire time.
“SPRING 1990.”
The year the cat ran away.
Mum had said something about 1990. In fact, she brought it up a lot. It’s family lore that she had a rubbish pregnancy with Cillian, that she was on bed rest and that Abbie couldn’t go play in the snow because Mum was too ill to take her. She can’t even look at cats without bringing up Kylie, who ran away in the middle of a blizzard.
A cat that runs away in a blizzard. I never questioned the logic until now.
Could this really be the first time that the Housekeeper has arrived in Kilbeg? Has she been dormant for thirty years, waiting for new prey to seize on?
The power comes back on in the evening and Dad cooks everything that was defrosted by the freezer melting. This is how we end up having chicken, sausages, black pudding and lamb chops for dinner. Even Tutu is bored of meat by the time we’re done. I apologize to Jo about snapping, and she gruffly accepts and then goes to write her essay on her now-chargeable laptop. I plug in my own phone and look at the notifications I missed. There are four from Fiona, and none from Roe.
13.02: Is your power still out??? Everyone’s over at my house! My titas are LITERALLY setting up an Indian fire bowl outside to cook lunch! Come!!! xxxx
14.21: OK, my phone is about to die but come over. Should I invite Roe?
14.32: Wow 1% lasts a long time. Anyway, it has just occurred to me that your battery is probably gone and maybe you haven’t seen this. Text me when you’re back! Roe on his way over. SNOW BARBECUE. xxx
19.12: Hey. Roe just left. Do you want to talk?
My stomach crunches with anxiety. Roe and Fiona spent the afternoon together. I remember the first night Fi and I spent in her house, with a stolen bottle of wine, sitting on her bed making fake Facebook profiles.
I breathe and try to remember my breakfast epiphany: if I can cause so many sparks with anger and hatred, I can cause an equal amount being kind and empathetic. I close my eyes and think of the honey, for friendship. The white candle, for protection. The rosemary, for female energy, and banishing bad karma.
Fiona invited her friends to a party. That is all that has happened.
I stare at the 19.12 one again. Roe has obviously told Fi exactly what happened yesterday with the tarot reading. The Secret Santa. The truth about what happened at the reading.
I think of the rosemary again. You can’t do anything about what you said during the tarot reading. And as for the Secret Santa thing … that was a year ago. If Roe wants to stop talking to you over something you did a year ago, well … well there’s nothing we can do about that.
Here’s what I can do, though. I can make a spell to bring back Lily.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I SAY GOODNIGHT TO MUM AND DAD AND JO AT ELEVEN, BUT I don’t go to sleep. I’m too busy planning my next spell. The spell that will bring Lily back.
Last night I broke the cold snap and melted the snow. It’s not Lily being back in her bed, but it’s progress: the light trace of cracks appearing on an eggshell before it hatches. This is the one that will pull her out. I’m sure of it.
I try to refine my slapdash methods from last night. This time, I don’t use random objects to represent Earth, Air, Fire and Water. I’m more thoughtful. I pocket small items from the house all evening: a box of fancy-looking hotel-room matches for Fire, some decorative seashells for Water, a quill pen from a museum gift shop for Air. I fill a freezer bag full of thawing soil from the garden. I find a picture of me and Lily in Mum’s shoebox of endless unframed photos. We are eight and she is on holidays with us, her dirty-blonde hair bleached white in the Spanish sun. We are eating ice cream out of a plastic penguin’s head.
At around two I creep into the bathroom and repeat the bath cauldron, throwing rosemary, honey and a bay leaf into the water. I’ll have to buy more ingredients, proper ones, from Divination.
This spell is from the book. It’s called the Sailor’s Loss. It involves taking two ropes of white silk, and knotting them with a sailor’s knot over and over again until you have one long plait. As you tie the knots, you’re supposed to visualize finding a lost item bobbing in the middle of a vast ocean, and then lassoing the lost thing and pulling it closer and closer to you.
I make my spell circle – set up my shells, my matches, my feather, my earth. I’m getting good at this. I just feel a natural understanding of this stuff without having to try very hard. It comes to me like verb conjugations come to Joanne.
Before I begin, I select a few tarot cards that I think represent what I want from the spell. I pick a card that most resembles Lily’s character, and decide on the Page of Cups, a noble young guy who lives half in a dream world. I lay it face up in the middle of the spell circle, and find two friends to join it. The Four of Wands, for homecoming. The Chariot for willpower, focus and mastery.
I start the plait, focusing on the photograph of me and Lily the entire time. The silk is the cord from my dressing gown, cut in half with kitchen scissors. I close my eyes. I visualize.
Lily is lying in the Beg, floating on the water. It feels like early dawn; a mist hovers over the river,
