I’m alone at the river again. It’s a bright, early morning and Tutu is with me. I search around for the Housekeeper. At this stage, I’m used to seeing her statuesque, quasi-human form. It’s not a comfort, but it is a guarantee. This time, I don’t see her.
At least not right away.
Across the river, sitting on an upturned milk crate, is Aaron.
What is he doing here? Is Aaron really visiting my dreams now that the protection spells have worn off, or is this just my subconscious, working out its growing fear of him?
There must be a beam of light streaming through the bathroom window and dancing off my closed eyelids because a rainbow is darting around on the ground in front of me. It moves as I do, bouncing and refracting off the water.
Aaron is wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, smiling easily as the morning sun plays on his tanned face. There is something in his hands. I squint. The sun is almost blinding me, and he’s too far across the river to see very well. But he is definitely stroking something in his lap. Something dark and glossy, like a cat. A cat but bigger than a cat.
“Are you really here?” I ask. And despite the fact I haven’t raised my voice, he can hear me. He looks up. “Is it really morning?”
He doesn’t say anything. He just nods, and keeps stroking whatever is in his lap. Tutu starts to bark. Fiercely at first, but the noise quickly gives way to an anxious whine.
A flash of white teeth from across the river. Aaron is smiling at me.
My eyes finally adjust to the light. I can see Aaron a little better now, and more importantly I can see what he’s holding.
Lying in Aaron’s lap is the head of the Housekeeper.
For a sickening moment, I think it’s her disembodied head, hacked clean off her body. But no: perhaps even more terrifyingly, the Housekeeper is merely resting on Aaron’s lap while he slowly separates her long black hair with his fingers. Each satin band slips through his fingers like water, and there seems to be true affection in the gesture. Almost tenderness. He smiles again. Another flash of white across the river.
“What are you doing? Why are you here?”
Ssssh. She’s sleeping.
“What do you want from me, Aaron?”
Ssssh.
I turn around, refusing to face him. Wake up, Maeve. Wake the hell up.
If I were you, I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to wake up. It’s hard out there, y’know. It’s hard for people like us.
“What are you talking about?”
He goes back to stroking her hair.
Isn’t it sweet, Maeve? You are more afraid of her than anything, and she’s just a pet to me.
I shut my eyes. I don’t want to look at him any more.
I could smell you, you know. The first time. I could smell you from the elevator.
“Shut up.”
It’s going to be so interesting, he murmurs. If you live.
The prism of rainbow light moves and my eyes flutter open. The room is full of blinding early morning sun, bouncing off the white tiles. My entire body is shaking, my teeth crackling together like someone who is cold in a cartoon. His final words are still rattling around my head like loose change.
It’s going to be so interesting. If you live.
As dispassionately as I can, I try to imagine myself dead. Another Harriet Evans, or Heaven, or Harry, or whatever she was called. I imagine being outlived by Sister Assumpta, the oldest woman in the world, and her praying rosaries for me to some other idiot girl that was conned into cleaning her car. Maeve doesn’t get to be with Him, so I still pray for her, my God is a forgiving God, wah, wah, wah.
My teeth start to snag on my nails. As the sweat from my dream settles and dries on my body, I feel sticky, strange.
Sister A said that Harriet Evans didn’t get to be with God. Heaven didn’t get to go to heaven, as it were. I remember Fionnuala, her eyes glazed as she talked about the Virgin Mary, the Infant Jesus of Prague. How she didn’t want to take over the lease on the shop because it had once been used for religious gifts and memorabilia.
Names are powerful. It was the first thing she told me. Names are powerful.
Something dirty and strange starts to dredge up from my memory, like a fishing rod hauling up an old boot. Something hidden under years and years of Catholic schooling. Something I have taken for granted, never questioned nor thought about.
People who commit suicide don’t get to go to heaven.
Or, not according to the Church they don’t. Maybe they’ve changed that lately. The Pope likes to change things, rebrand Catholicism to make it seem fresh and interesting. But that was the way for a long time, wasn’t it? Suicide was a sin, in God’s eyes. Fionnuala called her sister Heaven as a prayer. Heaven. Heaven. Heaven.
Heaven wasn’t killed by the ritual. She had killed herself during it.
It’s going to be so interesting. If you live.
If. If. If.
I shred my nails down to the quick, my fingertips sore and raw. What was I going to have to do to get Lily back? What would I have to willingly sacrifice?
I clutch my tarot cards to me, hoping that they will provide the answer.
“Will the ritual bring back Lily?” I ask aloud, while sifting their familiar weight between my hands.
I draw. The Seven of Cups. It’s a weird card, a man looking at a bunch of cups, each filled with a different symbol. Jewels in one, a snake in another, a
