THE GIFTS THAT BIND US

CAROLINE O’DONOGHUE

WALke
WAL keR
R BOO
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2022 by Caroline O’Donoghue

Illustrations copyright © 2022 by Stefanie Caponi

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted,

or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and
recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

First US edition 2022

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2021947459

ISBN 978-1-5362-2222-7

22 23 24 25 26 27 LBM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in Melrose Park, IL, USA

This book was typeset in Warnock Pro.

Walker Books US
a division of
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

www.walkerbooksus.com
 TO MY SISTER JILL,
WHO TAUGHT ME ABOUT BOOKS,
TELEVISION, AND SURVIVAL
bind

verb
to tie something or someone tightly
noun
a difficult situation in which none of the choices
available are good
_________________________________________________

Cambridge English Dictionary

1

I suppose
uppose I’ll alw
al ays remember this as
the summer that Roe learned to drive and that I learned to read
minds.
He got his license in June, was promptly insured on his mum’s
car, and since then, the car has been a part of him. A part of us.
They’re always interviewing TV actors who say things like “Really,
New York City was the fifth character on the show,” and I suppose
you could apply the same logic to Mrs. O’Callaghan’s Nissan Micra.
Roe calls her Linda. My mum calls it “the galloping maggot.”
“Maeve,” she calls up the stairs. “The galloping maggot is outside.”
I bounce down into the hallway heavily, not having quite broken
in my Doc Martens, the new leather rubbing away at the skin. Mum
is giving the dog his eye drops, trying to hold his head steady, her fin-
gers prying open an eyelid. I take my little drawstring handbag from
the coatrack in the hall.
“Take your coat.”
“I don’t need it,” I reply. “It’s balmy.”
“Hmm?”
I realize then that my mother didn’t say that out loud, and that I
am responding to a coat request that was only thought, never uttered.
She looks at me oddly.
 Roe may have taken to driving quickly, but telepathy is a gift
that comes slowly, strangely, and, ideally, with a lot of eye contact.
You should really know when someone’s mouth is moving. I double
back. Wary, tense.
“I thought I heard you say . . .”
Tutu wrestles his head free and tries to wander off. Mum
snatches him back.
“It’s not that warm.”
“It’s August!”
“It’s Ireland.”
I shrug and head for the door. Her voice again.
“Do you need . . . money?”
I stall. “No, Nuala paid me yesterday. I’m grand.”
I’ve been doing shifts at Divination, the occult shop in town, since
school finished. Nuala can’t afford to pay me much, but given that all I
seem to buy is tarot cards and McDonald’s, it generally lasts me.
Another pause. “There’s a tenner in my bag, if you want to take it.”
“I’m fine, Mum.”
“Just . . .” The dog is free now, each drop having been ineffectively
applied to the outer rims of his eyes, Mum giving up on holding him
still.
“Take it,” she says. “Just in case.”
Everyone still thinks the ritual was a suicide attempt.
Oh, Fiona lied all right. She played the part of silly drama stu-
dent trying to construct a stabbing scene with her friends so well
that we were convinced everyone believed us, not realizing that they
were merely humoring us, waiting for the moment when things had
calmed down and they could find out what really happened. It’s
y very useful.
When I concentrate,
oncentrate, I can see the light in people. I find my
mother’s light—a sort of lilac tinged with silver—and I follow it
straight to her until I know exactly what she wants to hear. I know
when to reassure her, when to be elusive, when to imply that there
is more information to disclose and that I will
ill tell her, but just not
today.
It has been five months since the ritual. Five months since Lily
O’Callaghan disappeared for all of February. Since a spell and a
struggle with a knife almost killed me and Roe. Since she climbed
out of the river, dripping wet and angry. She’s not interested in lying,
like the rest of us are. Her answer is clear every time. “I was the river,”
she says, a touch of mourning in her voice. “And the river was me.”
The most common thought my mother has is worry, which is
not surprising, but the shape of the worry is. She is constantly think-
ing that I have gone to a place beyond her, a place where I am sure to
meet danger. She wants, very badly, for me to need her. So she tries
to give me money, and when I take it, she feels happier.
“OK,” I say, taking it out of her bag. I kiss her on the cheek.
“Thanks.”
And the lilac light glows.
Fiona is in the front seat and, seeing me emerge from the house,
gets out to join Lily in the back. It’s very pleasing, this little car hier-
archy. I’m the girlfriend, and therefore I sit in the front. I’ve always
admired those girls in school in long-term relationships: the sort of
elder-stateswoman energy they give off, the First Lady air of dignity.
I never thought I would be one of them. And now that I’m firmly
that kind of girl—a girlfriend girl—I can’t help but feel older. More
legitimate somehow.
Roe likes to use gender-neutral phrases where he can, but he
and I haven’t found a word that fully replaces boy yet. We’ve
Googled it. Lover is icky and technically incorrect.
incor is too
dull, too grown-up. After that you start falling into terms like my
rt, and the idea of saying that in front of people is nauseat-
sweetheart,
ing to both of us. Sometimes I say joyfriend, as a joke, but mostly I
just say Roe.
“All right, Chambers,” Fiona says as she flicks the front seat for-
ward, ready to climb into the back. “Docs still giving you trouble?”
I grimace down at my feet, my heels still bleeding despite the
two pairs of socks I’m wearing. “How can you tell?”
“You’re walking like a duck on Prozac.”
“Can you sort me out?”
“Cost you a milkshake.”
“Done.”
“Go on, take off your shoes in the car, then.”
We climb into the car, and I kiss Roe on the cheek, his long ear-
rings brushing my nose. I bought him these, for his birthday, back in
June. Long seed pearls on a golden chain, the kind he fell in love with
when we watched Shakespeare in Love together. He’s into a kind of
Elizabethan look at the moment. He’s trying to track down a ruff to
wear onstage.
“Hey, you,” he says, putting his arm around me. “How are the
shoes?”
“You could tell, too?”
“You walked out of the house like you’ve only just achieved
sentience.”
Lily, in the back, says nothing. She has no suggestions of what I
might look like when I walk, and it’s not because she wants to preserve
my feelings. When we were kids and Lily’s hearing aid wasn’t as good
as the one she has now, she would find group conversations hard. She
would lose trackk and eventually zone out, and people would think
liberately rude. That’s not what’s happening here.
 If you were to see the four of us out together, you’d probably
think we were four best friends, and that the best-friendship held an
equilibrium that shot in all directions. But if you looked closer, really
watched us, you’d see that Lily rarely speaks directly to me, and often
looks out the car window when I’m speaking. My heart sinks a little
when I catch her blank expression in the rearview mirror. Please, I
think. Please make fun of me.
“Fiona,” she says instead. “Can you help me tomorrow with my
math stuff?”
“Math,” I say. “In summer?”
Silence. Then, Fiona: “Lily is doing Leaving Cert prep, aren’t
you, Lil?”
“Yes,” she answers bluntly.
Even the mention of the Leaving Cert has me swaying with
nerves. No one expected much from me toward the end of last year.
Everyone assumed I was too traumatized by Lily’s sudden disappear-
ance and my odd role in it. A tarot reading, a strange card, a public
fight, and then—poof—girl gone. Then she turns up on the same day
that I’m hospitalized with wrist wounds? It was all too odd for any-
one to compute. I was frequently checked up on, which I hated, and
then I was ignored, which I loved. There’s nothing that annoys me
more than an Is she OK? look, closely rivaled by an Aren’t you brave
head tilt.
It’s not going to be the same this year. Teachers won’t just leave
me alone. It’s our exam year, after all.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I say grimly.
“You’ll be fine,” Roe says. “It’s not as bad as everyone says. They
love making a big drama out of exams.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re basically a genius
He pulls down his mirror and starts doing his
hi eyeliner, black
ringing around his eyes. My heart thumps a little, a sucker for eyes
that smolder like burning coal, even if it is via a Rimmel pencil. The
steering wheel moves effortlessly as he does his makeup, the gear
stick shifting without his touching it. No wonder he learned to drive
so quickly, when he can talk to the car without putting his hands on
the wheel.
“I’m not a genius. I’m just good at taking tests,” he replies. It’s
what he always says whenever I talk about the huge gap between our
school careers. “Anyway, results aren’t for days.”
His tone is breezy. Roe’s problems aren’t so much about his
results but the way in which he plans to throw his results away. Every-
one’s expecting him to get at least 550 points, which is enough to get
into some of the best schools in Ireland as well as the UK. Roe, how-
ever, has already decided that he wants to go to Kilbeg University,
which is nowhere near a top university. His band, Small Private Cer-
emony, is starting to get some recognition, and he feels like breaking
up the band for a different county at this point would be stupid. His
parents, unsurprisingly, feel the opposite.
“You taking those torture devices off, Maeve, or what?”
“Yeah, OK, then.”
I take off my boots and socks, but then deal with the problem of
getting my feet to Fiona. I curl into a ball and roll my body around,
sticking my legs through the space between the driver’s and passen-
ger’s seats.
“What are you doing?”
ng?” Roe says, his face almost colliding with
ng
my foot.
“My heels are in agony,” I say. “Fiona’s going to heal them.” Then
I laugh, because I hadn’t realized that both words sound exactly the
s going to fix them, I mean.”
ait until . . . ?”
 Fiona holds my feet.
“Jesus, Maeve, you know there is such a thing as polish remover?
I mean, you don’t have to wait until it just erodes off your toes.”
“I have a job, Fi. I’m a career
er woman.”
“Right,” she says, and I feel her small, warm hands wrap around
my ankles as I’m upside-down in the passenger seat.
I feel the heat under her hands, and there’s an odd sensation of
tightness in my legs, of skin building and knitting together. It’s still
incredible to me that she can do this, even though she has done every-
thing from banishing period cramps to making stitches dissolve.
“You’re incredible,” I say. “Thanks, babe.”
I then try to slide my feet back and, in the process, kick Roe in
the head. The car swerves slightly, and we all yelp. Within half a sec-
ond, it’s fine, and he’s regained control again, but he’s annoyed.
“Maeve,” he says snappishly, “you couldn’t have waited?”
“Waited until what?” I reply. “We don’t have anywhere except here.”
This is a problem for us. Our gifts are starting to grow, from
little kittens in cardboard boxes to full-grown tomcats. We need our
own space. It’s not like we can risk normal people seeing us. People
think we’re weird enough already. But it’s hard: Fiona’s house is out
because her cousin Jos is there during the day. The O’Callaghans are
too jumpy, and Mr. O’Callaghan works from home. My mum is on
summer break from college. All that’s left is the car. Linda.
Lily clears her throat. “I’ve been practicing,” she says.
Fiona and I look at her. Roe looks in the rearview mirror, scru-
tinizing his sister.
“Where?” We all ask it, a choir of voices.
“School.”
2

St.
St. Bernadette’s
Bern is a school that
should have never been a school. It’s two Victorian town houses on
the top of a hill in Kilbeg city center, and it has almost no facilities
to speak of. There’s no PE because there’s nowhere to do sports. The
music room has just an out-of-tune piano, and Lily has to do all her
cello lessons at the School of Music on the other side of the river.
Having said that, whenever I meet girls from other schools, they
always say how lucky we are. Lucky that we’re in the middle of town
and not in some austere building at the end of a suburb. For years,
St. Bernadette’s was supposed to have this brilliant reputation for
educating girls to a college standard, back when sending your daugh-
ter to college was as rare as owning a racehorse. Now that everyone’s
daughter is a racehorse, and every school competing to be a stable,
Bernie’s has lost its sheen. It’s now just a run-down old building
that people still inexplicably spend a few grand a year sending their
daughter to, when most of the free schools are probably just as good.
Roe drives to St. Bernadette’s, the summer twilight settling into
night, the sky turning dark blue.
“When you say you’ve been practicing in school,” Fiona says to
Lily, “what exactly . . .”
“Around the back,” she says.
 “It’s only garbage around the back,” I say, remembering the
scrubby patches of grass where an old garden used to be. Now it’s
where the wheelie bins are.
“They’ve cleared all that,” Lily responds, but looking at Roe, as if
he had asked the question.
“They?”
“I go there for tutorials, and they’ve got builders in, doing stuff.
Miss Harris says they’re doing up the place.”
“So, you hang around after and practice magic?” Roe cocks an
eyebrow at his sister.
Lily shrugs. “No one notices. They’ve all gone home by then.”
When we get to the school, the first thing we see is a dumpster
in the car park, filled with pieces of wood and rubbish, old curtains
and moldy wallpaper. Roe parks outside the grounds, in case they
have cameras. We walk up, the whole building fresh with the chaotic
air of a dancer with half her outfit on. The downstairs windows have
been totally replaced; the heavy old Victorian windows that you need
at least two people to pull up are now shining walls of new glass.
The paint has been scraped off the old door, the wood naked and
chipped, almost shivering in its desire for a new coat.
“Can we just . . .” Fiona begins, but Roe is already making his way
up the steps. All summer long, he has been salivating at the idea of a
locked door. But no one wants to risk breaking and entering.
“Wait,” Lily says. She sidles up the steps, leaning on the iron
guardrail, and then climbs onto the rail like a gymnast on a balance
beam. My eye follows her, and I see what she’s going toward: the
security camera, angled above the school door. She’s tall already,
almost six foot, and with one hand on the old building for balance,
she’s able to reach the cord connecting the camera to
t the electrical
system within the school. She holds on. She closes
clo her eyes.
 The air fizzes and pops. I stare at Lily, her eyes briefly meeting
mine, and I swear I can see something flashing behind her pupils. A
fevered yellow underscoring the gray green of her irises, like a fire in
a forest.
“There,” she says simply. “Roe?”
Roe goes quickly to the door. I follow him, fascinated by the
way his gift manifests itself. With his right hand on the door handle
and his left thumb on the keyhole, he cocks his ear. He listens. Lis-
tens for the four pins in the lock, listens for the soft rotating of the
cuff, for the firm nod of a spring. I look at my watch. Thirty sec-
onds. One minute. One minute thirty. No one says a word.
Just before the two-minute mark, the door opens.
It’s funny being in your own school in the summertime. You
realize that all the things that usually make it familiar are built
around the people, not the place. The smell of perfume and deodor-
ant and old sandwiches and books and toilet cleaner and bins—all
that is gone. There is no real odor to speak of except for the light hum
of drying paint. The only sound is my boots, hissing quietly off the
new parquet floor.
“It looks good
ood in here,” Fiona says. “Where on earth are they
finding the money?”
“What do you mean? They’re loaded, aren’t they? It costs enough
to send us here.”
“Not enough to pay for all this,” Fiona replies, shaking her head.
“And besides, half our year are gone. Ran into Michelle Breen. She’s
not coming back, either. People are starting to realize that Bernie’s
isn’t worth the money.”
“Plus,” Lily calls, looking around. “No one wants to send their
ol with the head case.”

10
 She’s not entirely wrong. The end of spring term last year was
tense, and there were too many stories about Lily O’Callaghan to
make most parents feel comfortable. Lightbulbs exploding near her.
A small electrical fire in the bathroom. Her gift is wilder than the rest
of ours, more dangerous. And even though Nuala is the only adult
who knows what she can do, they all suspect something is off.
The hexagonal entry hall has Miss Harris’s office on the left and
Sister Assumpta’s on the right. Roe examines the locked door of Sis-
ter Assumpta’s, and I put my hand on his.
“Not this one,” I say. “She wouldn’t like it.”
I feel oddly protective of the somewhat senile ex-nun who owns
the school. She’s so particular about her office. He nods and wanders
off into one of the bigger classrooms.
“So where are they getting all this floor money?” Fiona says,
squeaking her trainers on the shiny wood.
“Holy shit,” says Roe from the classroom. “Where are they get-
ting tennis court
rt money?”
We follow his voice and see him at the back window, peering
out. We join him, and Fiona lets out a sharp whistle.
“Jesus,” she says. “I remember when this was all bins.”
“They’ve obviously bought the land behind,” I say, astonished.
“God, it’s huge.”
And it is. I’m trying to remember what was here before. An old
newsagent, a few anonymous apartments, something like that? Now
the ground has been completely flattened, and there’s a proper tennis
court, the net not yet mounted. The beginnings of a changing room
appear to be in the works, a tin structure that I shudder to think of
actually using. Surely they won’t make the sixth-years do exercise?
Not this late in the game?

11
 Tall privacy hedges have been installed around the court fence,
bald and alien looking. It all looks too strange, like the school has
been picked up and plopped on another planet.
“Let’s have a look, then,” Roe says.
We wander out through the back fire exit, back into the warm
summer air, where the tennis court gates are open.
“You’ve been practicing here?” I ask Lily, and as usual, she
doesn’t bother answering me directly. She just takes her backpack
off, unzips it, and produces a bottle of water.
It’s starting to get dark now, as we inch closer to ten p.m. The
sun sets two minutes earlier every day, summer slowly trickling away
without our consent. I feel my stomach drop. I’m not ready for sum-
mer to be over. For Roe to start college, for me to start my exam year,
for the daily, crushing inadequacies of school life to take over again.
I like life how it is now. I like having my job, and my people, and my
schedule.
Lily unscrews the cap of the water bottle and slowly walks to the
other end of the court. The floodlights don’t seem to be hooked up
yet, so we can barely see her. All that is visible is the moon bouncing
off her blond hair.
“Are you guys ready?” she calls.
“Yeah!” Fiona and Roe call back, while I murmur a soft no under
my breath.
We hear her shake the bottle into the air, water spraying every-
where. And before you can say That wass it? there’s a crackling sound,
and the whole court is illuminated in a split second of white light.
In that moment, all you can see are Lily’s hands up, pointing at the
airborne water. The spray is conducting her sparks, lighting her like

12
 A moment later, we’re in darkness again. We hear the spray of
water and another crackle. White light fills the space, and Lily’s face
is in the middle of it. She does it again and again as the three of us
stare at her, dumbfounded.
Darkness. Water. Crackle. Light. Lily.
Darkness. Water. Crackle. Light. Lily.
And we stand there, dazzled at this light show, these fireworks
just for us.
· ·
No one wants to feel like they’ve been outdone by Lily. So we all
throw ourselves into practicing, showing up at the tennis court night
after night, long after the builders have left for the day. If anyone has
noticed that the security cameras are no longer working, they haven’t
done a thing.
This is our place now. For as long as there’s a summer left, we
have somewhere to be ourselves.
“Who wants to see a magic trick?” Fiona says on the second
night, her voice full of mischief.
“Go on, then,” I call back, lying on the sun-warmed rubber of
the court. My head is on Roe’s stomach. I can smell him, that spe-
cial Roe smell, that combination of roses, jasmine, charcoal, and salt.
Sure for Men and Chanel No. 5.
She takes an apple out of her bag. “Observe: the apple.”
“All right, Steve Jobs.”
She sticks her tongue out and produces a sharp kitchen knife.
“All right . . . Jack the Ripper.”
She starts to peel it in front of us, the long strip of skin coming
off in one curling layer. I peer at her, the sun still bright enough to see
what she’s doing. She’s focusing hard, biting on the side of her lip in

13
concentration. And I can see, as the peel gets longer, that the skin on
the apple is growing back. By the time the strip has hit the floor, the
apple is almost perfect again. Untouched.
“Jesus Christ!” I yelp, jumping up. “Fi, that’s amazing!”
She takes a deep bow from the waist.
“So it’s not just human skin you can heal? You can do other
things, too?”
“Yeah! Loads more, I think. The other day I got a hole in my
tights, and I sort of pinched it together and imagined the material
like it was skin. And it came together.”
“That’s amazing,” Lily says. “You’re so good at magic, Fiona.” She
says it with such bald admiration that I feel a twinge of jealousy. She’s
very fond of Fiona. The two of them have formed a kind of separate
friendship, independent of me and Roe. It seems like a natural thing
to do for two people who hang around with a couple, but it makes me
feel a bit left out nonetheless.
When Lily first came back from the river, she found adjusting to
real life hard. It took a little while for her to get clothes right again.
For weeks after the ritual, she struggled with buttons, zippers, laces.
It was like she had completely forgotten how they worked. Once, she
came down the stairs of the O’Callaghan house wearing her dad’s
work shirt backward, the buttons fastened halfway up her spine. No
bra. “Fiona,” she said plaintively. “This isn’t right, is it?”
“No, babe,” Fi had said softly. “It isn’t.”
The two of them disappeared up to Lily’s room while Roe and
I worried downstairs whether Lily had been the river for too long.
Her magic was bizarrely strong. If we all gained more magic from
simply accessing the world of the Housekeeper, how had it changed
one who had been soaking in it for weeks?

14
 Fiona helped her develop a method for her clothes. If every-
thing is the same color, then you can’t get too confused. So Lily
picked a color, and now everything is blue. If everything is blue,
then nothing can clash or look strange. If everything is blue, then
everything is OK.
I just wish I could have been the one to work it out with her.
“All right, Maeve,” Roe says now. “Your turn.”
I sigh. “Mine isn’t cool like yours all are.”
“Dude, you can read minds,” Fiona responds dryly.
“I know, but it’s very . . . internal, y’know? It’s not theatrical, like
electricity or machinery or healing. There’s nothing to see. No dog
and pony show.”
“I’m thinking of a number,” Fiona says. “Go on.”
“It’s really tiring,” I protest.
“You’ll never build the muscle if you don’t work the muscle,” she
retorts, like she’s a personal trainer.
“Try it, Maeve,” Roe prods. “Do the Process.”
Sometimes, with people I know well, random thoughts of theirs
will slip into my ear like a whispered secret. But most of the time,
I have to try really hard. There’s a series of mental exercises I have
to do before I can look properly into someone’s brain. Roe started
calling it “the Process” for a laugh. It was one of those things that we
started saying ironically and now we just say it. The Process starts
with me closing my eyes and clearing my mind.
“Clearing your mind” is one of those dumb things you always
catch YouTubers saying when they decide they suddenly care about
meditation, but it’s the only way I can explain it. I visualize my brain
like the desktop screen on my laptop, and I drag everything—my
friends, my family, the country, the earth—into a recycle
r bin in the

15
bottom right corner. When the screen is finally empty, the inside of
my brain is tar black. That’s when the lights come.
The lights are harder to explain. I tried to tell Fiona and Roe a
million times what it looks like, until one day I saw a picture of the
northern lights. The streaks and swirls of endless light, the explo-
sion of color that seemed to be perfectly organized without being the
remotest bit planned.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
That’s the easy part. The pretty part. Now is when it gets compli-
cated. Roe must feel my shoulders tense, because he starts to stroke
the soft skin behind my ear with his thumb. I lean into it, feeling his
touch reverberating through my spinal cord like a current through
copper wire.
Focus, Maeve. Focus. Back to the lights.
I look for Fiona’s light, trying to separate it from the countless
others: the deep shimmering blue of Lily’s, the crystal white of Roe’s,
the blips of brown and green that must represent every beating
heart of each tiny, unseen life. The mosquitos, the roosting birds, the
urban foxes in the bushes. There are bigger streaks just outside them,
flecks of color standing for the countless sleeping humans in the city
around us. I don’t know how to follow them. I can’t read the minds of
strangers or animals or anyone that I’m not directly looking at. What
seems like a gift of limitless potential is actually very limited: I can
read the minds of people I know extremely well already, which sort
of feels like a waste of time.
Fiona’s light is a shimmering orange. It’s important to find the
tail, to grab on to it, and to follow it until you can feel yourself riding
the wave like a surfer, crashing right into the frayed coastline of your
best friend’s brain. I explain it to myself like I’m writing a guide for
. I have no idea whether these people exist.

16
 Then, I find it. At the end of the tail, there are two black digits,
sitting at the front of Fiona’s brain.
“Fiona.”
“Maeve.”
“Fifty-seven.”
She sits up, stunned as ever.
“Have I ever told you that you’re a genius?”
“Not nearly enough.”
“How do you know? How does it look?”
“I told you.”
“Like the northern lights?”
“Exactly.”
“Wow.” She lies back on the tennis court and stares at the stars,
knowing that we’re in the wrong country to see the northern lights,
but peering for them anyway. “How’s my color today?”
“A shade earthier, now that you mention it. Deeper. More clay
than orange, like a plant pot.”
“Oh, I love it. What do you think it means?”
“No idea,” I say, biting a hangnail off my thumb. “I feel like
everyone’s colors are a bit deeper when we’re at the tennis courts.
Richer or something.”
Roe sits up and stretches. “What about me, Mae? What am I
thinking about?”
Now that my mind is settled, I can see into Roe easily. “Your gig
tomorrow night,” I say.
“Well, that’s easy. You could have guessed that.”
I root further. And then I grab something more specific, hold it
like a squirming puppy in my hands.
If the Children of Brigid show up again, he think
I sit up. “Why?”

17
 “Why what?”
“Why are you worried about the Children of Brigid?”
For a little while after Lily came back, the Children were fright-
eningly active. There was an antiabortion rally in Dublin, a protest
at a gay club in Cork. But whatever interest they had in Kilbeg in
particular seemed to quell. They were horrifying. But it was all so far
away from us, so beyond our pay grade, and frankly, we were tired.
We had Lily to worry about. A religious group at the other side of the
country doesn’t seem as pressing as your best friend forgetting how
to put clothes on.
“I saw him the other day,” Roe says. “Aaron.”
We’re all silent. The air around us seems to chill.
“Where?” Fiona says eventually.
“He . . .” Roe is silent for a second. “I saw him at city hall. Just for
a second. He was with people. He was wearing a suit. It looked like
a business thing. But . . . I don’t know. I was wearing my ModCloth
skirt, and he . . . the way he looked at me. He knew exactly who I was.”
“Of course he knows who you are,” I say. “He crashed your gig.
You crashed his meeting.”
“No,” Roe corrects me, then stops, because even he doesn’t seem
to know what he means. “I mean . . . like he could see inside me. Like
he could see literally who I was. Remember, at his meeting, how he
made all those people confess their weird non-sins to him? I felt like
how they must have felt. Exposed or something. It was horrible.”
I put my hand on the back of his neck, my arm falling down the
length of his shoulder blade. “I’m sorry, babe.”
If the girls weren’t here, I would wrap my arms around him. If
the girls weren’t here, I’d tell him that there’s not a single horrible
thing about
out him. That he is calmer and kinder than anyone I’ve ever

18
met. That he has taken the best traits I typically associate with each
gender and made a cocktail of them all. The deepest part of chivalry.
The oldest kind of beauty.
But the girls are here, so instead I say, “Why were you at city
hall, then?”
His face flushes.
“Oh,” he says. “I was going to wait until . . .” He gestures around,
subtly inferring the word alone. “But I’m changing my name. Legally,
I mean.”
“Roe!” we all gasp at once.
“That’s amazing!”
ng
“That’s so grown-up!”
“Does Mum know?”
“No, Mum doesn’t know,” he says, answering Lily first. “But the
thought of starting college, doing all that paperwork and class enroll-
ment, I mean, and having Rory O’Callaghan on everything. Felt a bit.
Ugh. Y’know?”
Back in February, when Lily first went missing, Roe was a secret
name. Only a few people in the world knew it. Me, Miel, a couple
of people Roe spoke to online. Now almost everyone knows him
as Roe. His interest in a double life is limited. Which is, I suppose,
something that happens when you come close to losing the one life
you actually have.
“I was just getting the forms from city hall,” he says, turning to me.
“I’ll have to go to Dublin to do it officially. Will you come with me?”
“Of course!” I say, pulling him into a hug. “Road trip!”
“This is a cause for celebration,” Fi says, jumping up.
“McFlurries on me,” I say, thinking of Mum’s tenner.
And we all troop back to the car, congratulating
congratula Roe. We focus

19
on the future. We count our blessings. Then we fall into quiet.
I don’t need to read minds to know that we’re all thinking about
Aaron at city hall. Why is he back in Kilbeg?
“I’ve been thinking,” Fiona suddenly says, breaking the silence,
“that we’ve been given these gifts for a reason, y’know?”
“I survived the Housekeeper,” Roe chirps, “and all I got was this
lousy T-shirt.”
“No, I mean . . .” She gazes out the window. “I mean, the Chil-
dren are coming back, aren’t they? To Kilbeg. We can’t ignore them
anymore.”
Quiet again. “No,” Roe says.
The whole time we’re driving, I feel a dark bloom in my stomach
and pressure behind my eyes. Like if I turned my head toward the
window, I’d see the Housekeeper standing on the overpass. Like I
might see Aaron standing in the road.
I lean my head on Roe’s shoulder and close my eyes so I don’t
have to look at anything at all.

20
3

The next day

d I’m scheduled for the
early shift at Divination, so I have enough time to go home after work
and get ready for Roe’s gig. He phones me in the morning as I’m get-
ting dressed, already in a panic.
“Maeve,” he says. “What time are you on today?”
“Nine thirty,” I say, looking at my watch. It’s just gone eight.
“Why?”
“Listen, I think one of my earrings fell out at the tennis courts
last night. I looked in the car and it’s not there. Can you do me a mas-
sive favor and get it for me? Before your shift starts?”
“Ah, Jesus, Roe,” I say, exasperated.
“I know, I know.” He sighs apologetically. “I’m a dumb bitch.”
“You are a dumb bitch.”
“I’d go myself, but I have to drive out to the back of beyond to
pick up Liam’s drum kit for tonight, and I’m terrified of losing the
earring. Pleeeease? You’re in town, anyway.”
“All right, then,” I say, yawning. “But I better
etter be on the guest list
for tonight. If I’m not on the guest list, the bouncer will try to ID me.
So don’t forget.” He forgot once, and it was a nightmare. Fiona and I
had to sit in the chipper until the set was over.
“You’re a star,” he says. “Thank you so much.”
 “Mmm. Love you, see you later.”
“Love you, too. Oh, and . . .”
He trails off.
“What?”
“No, I’ve already asked you for too many favors today.”
I sigh. “Go on.”
“Will you sort of . . . put the word out, about the gig tonight?”
“Roe!” I splutter. “That’s not really how the delicate shopkeeper/
customer dynamic works.”
“I know,” he says. “Sorry, forget it. It’s just, the headliner is com-
ing down specially for this, she’s not on tour or anything. Miel has
been trying to get her to come to Kilbeg for ages.”
I sigh again, realizing that I probably have to do this, too. Miel
and Roe have been excited about Honor Own for months. And I get
it. She’s exciting. A few years ago, she was the lead singer in a band
called Jason & the Aeronauts. She was Jason. They were huge, in an
Irish kind of way: afternoon main stage at music festivals, on TV
whenever there was an album out, the occasional song in a commer-
cial. Then, suddenly, they announced a name change: they would just
be the Aeronauts. No one thought much about it. Then Honor came
out as a woman, and Ireland had its first trans rock star.
“Fine, I’ll try my best.”
“I love youuuuuu . . .”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re taking advantage of my affections.”
“I know,” he says brightly. “Isn’t it great?”
I tie my hair back, fuzzy from the static of the brush, and
quickly finish getting dressed. Within five minutes, I’m out the door,
bounding toward the bus, slightly resentful that I can’t take my time
this morning.. But god, what a morning. Roe and Fiona are always

22
on about Dublin and London, but I don’t understand why they can’t
see how beautiful Kilbeg is. The honeysuckle is in full bloom, and
everything is green and sun-dappled, the heat of the day already set-
tling in. A family of coots are gliding along the river, their black faces
splashed with white, like a coating of Wite-Out.
Within forty minutes, I’m at school. By now, we’ve found a way
into the tennis courts through an alleyway behind the school that
completely avoids the main entrance.
I reach the tennis court gates, and the sun is so high now that I
can see Roe’s earring from five hundred yards away. The seed pearls
are winking in the sunlight, the gold flashing. I jog toward the middle
of the court and crouch down to pick it up delicately with my nails.
And suddenly, while I’m crouched on the ground, I hear whistling.
A tune I know.
A tune I will go on knowing forever, even if I live to Sister
Assumpta’s age.
I stop dead. I don’t turn around. I close my eyes, but the whis-
tling keeps going on.
That bluesy tune. Like something for a New Orleans porch, not
a tennis court in the south of Ireland. It’s amazing you can know a
song so well despite never having properly heard it.
“Stop it,” I say.
The answer is amused, immediate, American.
“I thought you liked that song.”
I turn around. Aaron is standing there, hands in his hoodie
pockets, box-fresh trainers on his feet. I haven’t seen him in the flesh
since March, but nothing has changed. Still easy and blond, the kind
of person this tennis court was made for.
“I don’t.”

23
 rd,” Aaron sings. “Now, she can
“Ladies, meet the Housekeeper card,
be your downfall, or she can be your start.”
He cocks his head. Looks at me. “Which is it, Maeve? Downfall
or start?”
“Why are you here?”
I try to keep my voice from trembling. Try to forget that the
last time I saw him was in a dream, and he was stroking the House-
keeper’s hair, talking about death.
He ignores the question, paces around instead, inspects the
court. “Look at that.” He points. At first, I can’t see what he’s point-
ing at. Then I notice a tiny green stalk shooting through the cracked
rubber with the most delicate yellow petal sprouting forth from it.
Aaron crouches down—squats, really—his knees going out
like a toad. Very gently, he plucks the little flower from the ground.
“Hmm,” he murmurs, and then opens his wallet and slides it into the
leather folds.
“How did you know I was here?”
He straightens himself. “We’re sensitives, Maeve,” he says sim-
ply. “If you’re using your magic somewhere, I know about it.”
He says it coolly, with perfect understanding, like he’s telling me
the capital city of France.
“That’s not true,” I say defensively. It can’t be true. Can it? “If that
were true, I could . . .”
What? Know what he was doing with his magic? Track his
movements?
“You can,” he responds. “If you knew what to look for, you’d be
able to find me.”
He’s annoying me now. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Aaron,” I say, exas-
e when do you talk in riddles?”
He grins, delighted
lighted at getting a rise out of me. “I’m not talking in

24
riddles. I’m stating a fact. Why are you being so hostile? You’ve had a
nice summer, haven’t you?”
He says it like it was he who’d graciously allowed my summer
to be good.
I actually laugh. A hollow, hard, brash little sound.
“The last time I saw you, you told me you wanted to kill me.”
“No. Lies.” He actually sounds offended. “I said it would be
ng if you lived.”
interesting
“Why?”
“Because we’re the same.”
“We are not the same,” I say fiercely, and I go to stomp out of the
court, Roe’s earring in my hand. I think I’m going to leave it at that,
but I can’t help myself. “For one thing, you’re a Nazi. You’ve endan-
gered the lives of the people I love, you attacked Roe, you sicced your
dogs on my sister. And that’s not even touching the people I don’t
know—that poor kid at the gig, the one you assaulted, the one whose
face you washed.”
The memories come back like food poisoning, a knot in my
stomach, a gurgle of acid. The poor kid, who couldn’t have been older
than thirteen, and probably dealing with their own gender stuff. How
much does an assault like that set you back?
He stands there looking mildly confused, as though I were a
crossword puzzle. Tricky, but for leisure, so who cares.
“You and I are more alike,” he begins softly, “than you and your
friends.”
I want to punch him in the face. I wish, for a brief second, that
I were a boy, and huge. That things like this could be solved with
fights. And then I remember why so few men do magic, compared to
women. Why would you bother if the option to fight someone and
win was always there?

25
 “You don’t know anything about me, or my friends.”
“I know that you and I were born with what we have,” he answers.
“And that they got theirs a different way. Through spilled blood in a
spell.”
“So?”
“So it counts for less. They wouldn’t be anything without you.”
This makes me wonder whether Aaron has ever had a friend in
his life. It’s me who wouldn’t be anything without them.
“Your magic will always be different from theirs. What they have
is a party trick by comparison. Do you have any idea how special the
thing we have actually is, Maeve? How deep, how old, how rare?”
He’s talking like a wizard in a cartoon now, and I hate it. I want
him to feel as stupid as he sounds. I cock my eyebrow then. I turn my
back on him.
“This is a lot of bullshit for nine in the morning.”
“You know, you can learn. Learn how to master your sensitivity.”
I walk away, still not listening. He keeps talking.
“They can help you . . .” he calls. “The Children, I mean.”
I start to run now.
From the alleyway, I hear his voice. Faintly shouting, an echo
cascading around him.
“That’s one!” he says. “Two more!”
“One what, though?” I ask Nuala. “One of what?”
· ·
I’m sitting on the floor of Divination an hour later, my takeaway
coffee steaming next to me. I’m marking down a pile of books on
numerology, trying to find a price that will make them better fated
to sell. “This one says that six and eight are prosperity numbers, so
hem all €6.80?”
“Sounds good,
d,” Nuala says, glasses on, examining a printout

26
of last month’s sales. Owning an occult shop isn’t exactly profitable
work. “And tell me exactly what he said, and how he said it.”
“He was on about my magic being different from Lily and Fiona
and Roe’s, and then he tried to get me to join the Children of Brigid.”
“And then?”
“And then I left. Ran, really.”
“And he said, ‘That’s one’?”
“Yes. And that I had two left. Is that a magic thing?”
“Hmmm. Not Wicca,” she muses. “Some cultures, it’s polite
to deny someone three times. Like, an invite to dinner.” She looks
into the air for a moment, lost in thought. “Oh, Christ,
ist,” she says in a
moment of realization.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“No, I mean, it’s Christ. Jesus Christ. The apostle Peter denied
Jesus three times.”
I grimace. “I guess he sees himself as Jesus in this analogy?”
“I suppose so.”
“My god. The ego.”
“He’s giving you three chances to come over to the good side.
Or what he believes to be the good side.”
“And then what? Eternal damnation?”
She frowns, looks worried. “It’s probably something a bit more
literal than that.”
Nuala is the only adult in my life I can talk to about magic. It’s
funny, how our relationship instantly changed after the ritual. She
went from being an ominous stranger to a mentor, almost a friend.
She’s the one who told me what a sensitive was. Now she’s trying to
teach me the basics of shop magics. Wicca, herbs, crystals, all the
rest. She says that having supernatural power isn’t
isn enough. That I
need to study, too.

27
 I stand up, stretch my bones. “What are the Children up to,
though? Why are they back in Kilbeg? And why do they want me?”
Nuala’s face goes vacant for a minute, which I know to be a
sign that she’s thinking something she’s not ready to share. I won-
der, for a second, whether I should try looking into her mind, and
then remember the pact we all made: Only at the tennis courts. Only
when we’re alone. Only to train.
“Have you ever thought about,” she says at last, “how you work
in all of this?”
Nuala can be so odd sometimes that I don’t know if she means
“this” as in magic, or “this” as in the shop and capitalism in general.
“Uh . . .”
“Sensitivity, I mean.”
I shrug. Nuala has explained it to me before, in her typically
vague way. About how being a sensitive means I have a special
connection to magic and the earth. “You said not all sensitives are
witches, but all great witches are sensitives.”
“Yes, but . . .”
She pauses, presses a button on the till so that new receipt paper
comes out of it, and grabs a Sharpie.

“That’s me, is it?” I say, trying not to take the piss

ss out of her. “Me
le dress I always wear?”

28
 “Shush, ciúnas,” she replies irritably. She continues to draw.

“Right,” she says. “So let’s say there’s a certain amount of magic
that lives in Kilbeg. Like a fossil fuel. It’s there, it’s under the earth,
and it’s being used by everyone all the time.”
“Everyone is using magic all the time?”
“If we think of magic as being, you know, free will, belief, choice,
the inclination to draw a nice picture . . . All that is magic. Get it?”
“Wow, OK,” I say uneasily, not quite getting it. Not quite
believing it. I start to take the piss, which is how I usually pro-
cess new information. “So when I choose to watch Friends reruns
instead of actually watching something new, that is an act of pro-
found magic?”
“It’s also an act of intellectual laziness,” Nuala huffs. “But it all
comes from the same place. It’s all about will. Being the mistress of
yourself.”
I can tell she’s getting lost in the weeds here, because she goes
back to the drawing.
“All those little dots are all the people using magic all the time
without realizing. Every time they decide they want to wear red
today because it makes them feel powerful—that’s a tiny
tin bit of magic.
Now, you,, Maeve.” She taps her pen on the triangle
triang girl. “You, as a

29
sensitive, have greater access to that magic. It has chosen you as its
representative”
“Cool.”
“So the magic goes up through the earth, into you, and to a
smaller degree into everyone else. Then it goes back into the earth.
You do a spell, it goes out into the air, into the trees, into the soil,
back to the earth.” She taps on the arrow very determinedly.
“OK, fine.”
She draws three more figures wearing triangles. “And there’s
Lily, Roe, and Fiona. For whatever reason, when they went through
that business with the Housekeeper, they all got dragged into the
magic’s supply chain. That’s been my theory, anyway.”
I try to think about this carefully, examining the crap diagram.
“I suppose that makes sense. But what does it have to do with the
Children?”
“I don’t know exactly,” she says uncertainly. “Just that . . . two
sensitives. It can’t be an accident. They must want sensitives.”
“But . . . why?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t exactly know. But I know someone who does.”
“Who?”
She taps her Sharpie to her nose, her way of saying, End of
discussion.
Nuala is oddly silent for the rest of the morning. At about one,
she disappears to the room behind the shop for a little while, and
when she emerges, she’s sealing an envelope.
“I’m going to the post office,” she says. “Can you manage for half
an hour?”
“Sure,” I say, trying to sneak a look at the address on the letter. I
have no doubt thatt it has something to do with magical supply chains

30
and the person who knows all about them. Her thumb is covering the
name. All I can see is 454 Rue Alexandre Parodi, Paris.
“France?”
“Nosy,” Nuala says, annoyed.
“Sorry,” I reply bashfully. “I wish someone would write me a let-
ter. I haven’t had interesting post in years.”
“Well,” Nuala says, “you send a letter when you’re not sure if
someone will take your call.”
She leaves, and I resume my work discounting the numerology
books. It’s funny, plenty of people love astrology and tarot, but no
one seems to care much at all about numerology. Maybe it reminds
them too much of school, all that adding up.
“Excuse me,” a soft voice comes from behind me. “Do you work
here?”
“Sorry!” I say, jumping to my feet. “Yes, I work here. Can I help you?”
Customers aren’t exactly my strong suit. The minute I think I’m
on the verge of becoming a great witch, someone comes in asking
about past lives and Reiki, and I feel like a novice all over again.
“I’m looking for incense,” the customer says. “Something to
keep away mosquitos.”
This, thankfully, is simple. “Citronella sticks are what you need,”
I say, leading her over to a shelf filled with long, rectangular packets.
They look like boxes for a wand. I give her one, and her fingers brush
my knuckles briefly, her hand strangely warm. It’s such a surprise
that I fumble a bit and look at her properly for the first time.
She’s older than my sister Jo. Twenty-six, maybe. She’s the kind
of woman who dresses like I always think I would dress if I had money
and knew how to put clothes together. She’s wearing combat boots
and a long wraparound skirt made of shining Indian-type
Indi material,

31
with heavy silver rings on her fingers. Her hair is a kind of dark gold,
curly, and loosely tied with a scarf.
“I’ll take two boxes,” she says, already wandering over to the
tarot. She picks up a sample deck that we leave out for people to flick
through. “Gosh, aren’t these beautiful?”
“We have a really good selection,” I reply proudly. “I help pick
them.”
“Can you read them?”
“Yep,” I reply. Again, probably a little too proudly.
“Is it very hard?” She’s gazing at the Ace of Wands.
“Not really. They have a kind of formula to them. The Major
Arcana is easy to learn, they’re all quite self-explanatory, and then
the suits have a sort of numerical logic.”
“You really know a lot,” she replies. “Does your mother own the
shop?”
“Nuala? No. Please.” I laugh, trying to imagine Nuala with kids.
“I just work here.”
I take her citronella sticks over to the till and start ringing them up.
“It’s good to know there’s a shop like this,” she says, nodding and
looking around as if genuinely assured. “I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I’ve only lived here a week, and I don’t know Kilbeg very well. I barely
have friends in Ireland even. I’ve been abroad for ages.”
Then I remember something. Something that might shore up
my position as Girlfriend of the Year.
“Hey, um . . . if you don’t know Kilbeg very well . . .” I stumble a
bit, feeling awkward. She looks at me, bright eyes curious. “There’s a
gig tonight, at the Old Coal Market?”
She cocks her head.
“It’s a venue,
ue,” I clarify. “It’s not actually a coal market. I mean,

32
 “Who’s playing?”
“A local band, Small Private Ceremony,” I reply, that old glim-
mer of pride back again. “And the headliner is a big deal, her name is
Honor Own. She was on the cover of Hot Press last month.”
“That sounds great. What time?”
“Doors are at eight.”
She says she’ll be there, and I instantly feel weird about inviting
a stranger to hang out with me. But she’s already taking her phone
out, searching the location. “There,” she says, pressing her thumb
down to confirm a purchase. “Just bought my ticket.”
“Roe will be thrilled,” I say, and he will be.
“Are you together?”
I nod. “He’s the singer.”
“You have a great social life,” she says admiringly. “I wish I had
at your age.”
I smile, feeling genuinely a bit flattered. Because I do have a great
social life now, after all. Sometimes, when we’re all at a gig together,
I feel such a surge of luck and joy. I remember what loneliness feels
like, and it’s such a shock to not feel it anymore.
“Well, in the summer I do,” I reply modestly. “But I’m starting
my Leaving Cert this year, so that’s about to change. My parents are
going to be cracking down majorly.”
I start bagging her items, conscious I’ve kept her talking too
long.
“My school is only, like, five minutes from here, so I hope I’ll still
be able to pop in and do evening shifts.”
She looks at me, astounded. “St. Bernadette’s?”
“Yes.”
“But I’m in St. Bernadette’s.”
“What?” I reply, confused. “Sorry, you look t

33
 I almost say old and hold my tongue. She gives me a sly look,
and we both start laughing at the faux pas I almost made.
“No, I’m working
ng there.”
“Oh.” I feel a bit awkward now. A minute ago she was just a cool
woman asking about tarot. Now she’s a teacher. A teacher I have just
invited to a gig. She seems to understand my sudden apprehension.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m not a real teacher. Just a counselor.”
“You’ve picked a good year,” I say, nervous and jabbering.
“They’re doing the whole place up. We have a tennis court and every-
thing now.”
“Oh yes,” she says, laughing a bit. “I’ve heard all about the tennis
court. They’re very proud of it.”
“Yeah, well they would be. It was all bins back there before.”
She pays for her incense. “I’m Heather,” she says. “Or, I don’t
know, you’ll probably have to call me Miss Banbury at school. But
it’s Heather.”
“Hi, Heather. I’m Maeve.”
She grins. “Good to have a friendly face on the first day. Between
me and you, I’m pissing myself with nerves. I’ll see you at the gig.”
I laugh, thinking that maybe school won’t be so grim after all
now that we have at least one fun, young teacher.

34
4

Fiona
ion
na
a and
an Lily
Lil come to my house to get
ready for the gig. Fiona with three outfit options, Lily wearing what
she’s had on all day. As I’ll end up wearing what Fiona decides she
doesn’t want to wear, all my advice tends to be weighted.
“What about this?” she says, turning in a black velvet mini-
dress with a crescent moon embroidered on the thigh. Fiona’s been
working this summer, too: in the mornings, at a speech and drama
camp for young kids. All her money has been plowed back into her
wardrobe.
“It’s stunning,” I say, mildly envious. It’s not that I don’t like
looking nice, it’s just that I don’t have the patience for shopping like
she does. I also have no imagination when it comes to putting clothes
together.
“But it doesn’t go with these,” she says, looking at her emerald
brogues. “And I love these.”
“Well, then wear the shoes,” I urge. “Build the outfit around the
shoes.”
She wrestles the dress off over her head. “Don’t think because
I can’t read minds that I don’t know exactly what you’re doing.” She
flings the dress to me, and I catch it in my hands.
“Thank you, dark mother.”
 Lily is lying on the floor, staring at her phone. “Fiona,” she says.
“My phone is on one percent.”
Fiona zips on some black hot pants over her tights, and they
look great with the brogues. She wanders over to Lily, pulling on a
backless sequined top as she goes. I have the black dress on by now,
but I already wish I looked like she does, so put together and chic.
She lies down on the floor next to Lily, and they both cradle Lily’s
old iPhone. I watch them from the mirror as I flick on my mascara.
“What are you doing?”
h,” Lily says, as if I’m annoying her. They both close their
“Shh,
eyes, and there’s a warmth in the room, the sense of magic around
me. It feels weird, doing magic away from the courts. Not wrong, but
unsettling.
“Fi, what’re you doing?” I ask again. But they don’t answer. Then
a few seconds later, they open their eyes at the same time.
“There,” Fi says, sitting up. “You’re on one hundred percent now.”
I gape at them. “Her phone, you mean?”
“Yeah.” Fiona brushes herself down, wary of dust on her out-
fit. “We figured it out this afternoon. That our gifts can, like, work
together?”
“You did? Where?”
“We were at the tennis courts.”
The feeling of being left out solidifies, like a lump in sour milk.
“You two went to the tennis courts today?”
“Yeah,” Fiona says, and then, obviously feeling guilty: “You were
working, so . . .”
This shouldn’t bother me. If this were an ordinary kind of friend-
ship group, this wouldn’t bother me at all. However, the fact remains
that Lily hatess me, and so every fun interaction she has with some-
one else just feelss like a reminder that she no longer has fun with

38
me. She doesn’t forgive me for dumping our friendship, she doesn’t
forgive me for the Housekeeper card reading, and she hates me for
breaking the spell with the Housekeeper, the spell that made her the
river.
I try to put a cheery face on, act all gung ho about it. “Well, let’s
try it with my gift, then. Fi, let’s do something together.”
She looks at me warily. “I don’t know. I don’t think your house is
the right place to experiment. Your parents are downstairs. And we
need to leave in, like, twenty minutes.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I say, trying not to sound put out.
Then, I remember something. “I was at the tennis courts this morn-
ing. Roe asked me to go, to pick up his dropped earring,” I say. “Aaron
was there.”
They both stare at me, dumbfounded. They exchange a look. A
look that says, And she’s only bringing this up now?
“Why was he there? At our place?”
“He said that he could tell where I was using magic. He said
we were connected.” I cringe at the thought. “He said he and I had
more in common than me and you guys. That your magic wasn’t . . .”
I pause, trying to remember. “That you guys weren’t born with it or
something, so it counts for less.”
“Oh, my god,” says Fiona, tossing her hair. “That is so him. Leave
it to Aaron to make magic racist. Next he’ll be, like, taking out a tape
measure and examining the width of our heads.”
“He asked me to join them.”
“Jesus,” she says, furrowing her brow. “Gross.”
Lily looks at me as if I were something she’d like to scrape off
her shoe.
“Did you tell Nuala?” Fi asks.
“Yeah. She had all these theories for me. About
A how we’re all

39
part of a magical supply chain.” I pause, trying to remember what she
said. “I didn’t really get it. Anyway,” I say brightly, “we should start
thinking about bus times.”
But the atmosphere feels different all of a sudden. Like I’ve fallen
out of lockstep with Fiona, and so far behind Lily that I can’t even see
her. Suddenly I feel like the third friend, the one on the outside. Like
telling them about Aaron makes me even more connected to him.
Like mentioning his offer for me to join the Children has only con-
firmed a suspicion that I might belong in their ranks.
No, Maeve, you’re being stupid.
Fiona is rooting around in her makeup bag for highlighter.
But I better check
ck if I’m being stupid.
“I’m just going to do my hair first,” I say loudly, and I plug in the
hair straightener. I wait for it to heat up, then wrap a length of my
unruly hair tightly around the irons, trying to make a loose curl.
And while my hair steams with heat, I look for Fiona’s light.
Now that I’ve been practicing so much, it’s easy to do. I can even
keep the straightener going at the same time.
I wish Maeve wasn’t so jealous. Like, you can’t be in every single
conversation all the time. Sometimes I think she thinks the world stops
when she’s not around.
I can feel tears build behind my eyes.
“You OK, Maeve?” Fi asks, catching my reflection in the mirror.
“Yeah,” I sniff, releasing the straightener. “Burned my head a bit.”
I look at Lily. I don’t like to look inside Lily too often. It’s a con-
fusing place, still so full of water and currents. But I burrow. I find
her light. I get there.
I’m so sick of her.
I drop the
he straightener, go to the bathroom, and have a small,

40
 “Maeve,” Dad calls up the stairs. “I can drop you and the girls
into town, if you like.”
“Thanks,” I say, the word choking in my throat.
I feel so petty, so hurt, and so powerless. This is what telepathy
is, really. Hearing awful things about yourself and not even being able
to be mad at the people who thought them. Telepathy is the trouble
you go looking for and have no one to blame afterward but yourself.
I don’t say much in the car. Dad asks Fiona about her plans for
college. My parents love Fiona. She’s the kind of friend who parents
always love.
“I’m hoping to do drama at Trinity, in Dublin,” she says brightly.
“That’s where Ruth Negga went.”
Fiona hasn’t stopped talking about Trinity since the beginning
of the summer. It is, according to her, the only place in Ireland where
an aspiring actor can “catch a break.”
I look out the window, still unmoored by my mind-reading, the
bitchy thoughts from Lily and Fiona. Dad’s eyes flicker to me.
“You know, Fiona, I was only reading the other day that Cillian
Murphy went to UCC, in Cork. And he’s done very well for himself,
hasn’t he? And Cork is much closer than Dublin.”
Fiona scoffs. “Cork city is basically the same size as Kilbeg,” she
says. “And I’m sick of small towns.”
“City,” I say sharply. “Kilbeg is a city. It has a cathedral, so it’s a city.”
It’s so annoying, the way she says it. Like she’s some starlet from
the 1940s whose hometown is just a post office and a pharmacy. I
love her, but it completely pisses me off. I sink farther into my seat,
saying nothing.
Seeming to sense a shift in atmosphere, Fiona keeps talking.
“And Maeve is going to go to UCD, and we’ll have
ha a flat together,
won’t we, Maeve?”

41
 This is a fiction that Fiona has been maintaining for some time
now, and I’ve been humoring her. This notion of the two of us mov-
ing together, as if I’m ever going to have the grades to get into a
Dublin college. Or any college. Dad, who had Stern Words with me
two weeks ago about my report card, looks skeptical.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” he says. “And what about you, Lily?”
“Galway,” she says. “I’m moving to Galway.”
This is literally the first time I’m hearing about this. I turn all the
way around in the passenger’s seat.
“You’re moving to Galway?”
“I am,” she says coolly.
“What’s in Galway?”
“The ocean.”
“Ah,” Dad says. “Nature girl.”
“And that’s why you’re doing tutorials this summer? To get the
points for NUI?”
I know that it’s rude to sound this amazed, but I am. Roe and
Fiona have always had big dreams, but I presumed that Lily, at the
very least, was planning to stick around Kilbeg after school ends, not
aim for such a good university.
“Yes.”
“Well, girls,” says Dad, pulling over. “This is where we part ways.”
We all get out of the car, thank Dad, and walk down the street
together. I can’t get Galway out of my head. We cross the bridge, a
fine mist coming off the Beg. Lily’s head turns to look at it, like she’s
mournfully gazing at an old lover.
“So what are you hoping for, Lil?” I ask. “Points-wise, I mean?”
She turns her head back.
our hundred.”
!” I exclaim. Mum totted up my report card and
hundred!”

42
predicted that, at my current average, I would barely break three
hundred. And I’ve always been slightly better than Lily at school.
“You think you can get that?”
She says nothing. For some reason, I can’t stop the anxiety ris-
ing in my throat. The idea that, at the end of next year, I will be the
only one left in Kilbeg.
“And you need to pass Irish, math, and have a European lan-
guage to get into a proper university, don’t you?”
“Lily is working really hard,” says Fi, a sharp edge to her voice. A
Leave it, Maeve voice. “Aren’t you, Lily?”
We fall silent as our shoes clack across the bridge. I can’t stop
myself. I don’t want Lily to leave. I want her to stay here and learn
to like me again. To change her inner monologue from I’m so sick
of her.
“And languages aren’t your strong suit, are they?”
Why am I doing this?
“Maeve,” Fiona says warningly. “You’re drinking dumb-bitch
juice.”
This is the gang’s joke, for when someone is being insecure and
stupid. I’m not in the mood for it today somehow.
Lily turns to me and smiles. She takes my hand, and for a sec-
ond, I think she’s trying to reassure me. And that’s when it happens.
The jolt. The white-hot flicker that bursts through my shoulder and
shimmers down my body.
“Jesus Christ!” I yell, pushing away from her. “Lily!”
“What?” Fiona says, spinning around.
“Lily just shocked me.”
“Lily, you didn’t!” Fiona turns on Lily now, and I feel a flicker of
satisfaction as the pain quickly ebbs away.
Lily just shrugs and picks up her pace. “We’ll be
b late for the gig,”

43
she says, and walks ahead of us.
“Can you believe her?” I say to Fiona. “She used her power
against me, Fi.”
Fiona hesitates, then puts her peacekeeper face on. “You were
goading her, dude . . .”
I can’t believe this. “We promised we wouldn’t use our powers
like that,” I say lamely. “Only in the tennis courts.”
Fi cocks her head, looks at me.
“And you’re sticking to that, too, are you?”

44
5

It’s still awkw

a ard when we get to the
Old Coal Market, but it’s the kind of awkwardness that swings in the
other direction. Everyone is acting too nice, too much like they want
to avoid a fight. This is somehow worse. We wait in line, shivering
outside, and make awkward chatter.
“I’m excited about Honor,” I say, even though it’s a boring thing
to say and we’ve said it three times already. Roe has been hyping us
for Honor all month. “I’m obsessed with her Instagram.” I’ve looked
at it twice.
Fiona nods. “She’s incredible, isn’t she? I mean, the activism
stuff alone.”
I nod back. Honor Own is trying to get the healthcare system to
change the way it acts around trans people. Roe’s bass player, Miel, is
trying to get top surgery and has to pretend to have a mental illness.
“I’m not insane,” they said. “I just don’t want tits.”
“Do you think we’ll get to meet her?” asks Fiona.
“I don’t know,” I say, pulling out my phone. “I’ll text Roe.”
“This is taking forever,” Lily says, stamping her feet.
We get to the front of the queue and see that everyone is getting
thorough bag checks, not just for alcohol but for weapons, or things
that could be used as weapons.
 “I read that there was an incident at one of her gigs last month,”
Fiona says.
“COB?” I immediately ask.
“Could be.” She shrugs. “Or just regular old transphobes.”
We finally make it in, and Roe appears in a floor-length leopard-
skin dress with a slit in the chest, his pale torso showing through. I
fling my arms around him. “My god,” I say. “You could hang a coat off
those clavicles.”
I can tell he’s excited to play because he gives me a huge kiss in
front of everyone. I laugh and take his earring from my pocket. “I
love you so much,” he says, taking it.
“Oh!” I say, remembering. “AND I got someone to buy a ticket.”
“Really?” he asks brightly. “Who?”
“Heather,” I answer, and everyone looks at me confused. “She’s
this new teacher up at school.”
“Our school?” Lily says, mystified.
“You invited a teacher?” Fiona says. “Called Heather?”
“She’s cool,” I say, a little defensive. “She just moved here, she
doesn’t know Kilbeg at all, she seemed grateful for the tip. I didn’t
invite her as a teacher. I invited her as, like, a person. I didn’t even
know she was a teacher when I invited her.”
They all look at me like I’m insane. Maybe I am?
“Imagine moving to Kilbeg,” Fiona says. “Willingly.”
“Wow, OK, Fiona,” I say, not bothering to hide my hurt feelings.
“Some of us like it here?”
Roe’s eyes skitter between us, sensing tension. “OK,
OK, so, I have to
OK
go, but come back and meet Honor afterward? She’s so cool, guys.”
Roe leaves and Fiona turns to me. “So when is your teacher
e?”

46
 “She’s not my teacher friend.” I feel stupid now. “I’m getting a
drink. Do you want anything?”
I stomp off, not waiting for the answer. I sit on the back bar
stool, drink a beer, and watch people come in. Some guy approaches
Fiona and starts chatting her up. Lily stands with her hands in her
pockets. I watch them, wondering if Aaron was right and whether I
have less in common with my best friends than I thought.
“Maeve,” a cheerful voice says. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
It’s Heather. I feel weird about talking to her since the “teacher
friend” comment. “Oh, hey,” I say uncertainly. “You came.”
“Course I did. Eff-all else to do until school starts.”
At the mention of school, I feel nervous about the drink in my
hand. I’m still underage. Not that anyone really cares in Kilbeg, but
she might.
She seems to read my mind. “Don’t worry,” she says, tapping her
nose. “I was seventeen once.”
I smile. “I’m actually not seventeen until November,” I say
furtively.
“Well, you seem very mature,” Heather says kindly.
“No, I’m a baby,” I reply, remembering the fact that I was crying
in the bathroom an hour ago, all because my friends were thinking
mean thoughts. A punky cover of “Fly Me to the Moon” comes on the
sound system and we stand awkwardly with each other.
“I love this song,” she says finally. “Actually, I think I love all
songs about the moon.”
“All of them?”
“They’re all good. It’s like—OK, I have this theory. The moon is
the most beautiful thing in the world, right? The most beautiful thing
we have. And if you’re going to sing about the moon,
mo you basically

47
have to put your best clothes on. It’s like you’re going on a date with
the moon, the most handsome boy in school.”
I laugh. She’s funny, and bizarre, and really not like a teacher at
all. “‘Dancing in the Moonlight,’” I volunteer. “Thin Lizzy, not Top-
loader. Oh, and ‘The Whole of the Moon’ by the Waterboys.”
“Good one!” she says. She looks impressed. “Some vintage refer-
ences there.”
“I have a lot of older siblings. Everything is vintage.”
The house lights go down, and Roe appears onstage in his leop-
ard gown.
“We are Small Private Ceremony,” he says. “And we’re here to
steal your dad’s Barbie doll.”
I laugh. He always says dumb stuff like this. That’s him, I mouth
at Heather. Roe starts to sing.
He’s good, she mouths back.
After two songs, Fiona comes to find me. “Hey,” she says, tug-
ging on my sleeve. “Sorry I was being a bitch.” She says it close, right
in my ear. “There’s nothing wrong with liking Kilbeg.”
“It’s fine,” I say, and it is. I introduce her to Heather. They nod
hello at each other, but then Fiona and I go and dance. I don’t see
Heather again. Fiona and I have one of those nights that you only
have with your best friend after you’ve been a bit pissed off with each
other but aren’t anymore. We feel high, elated, like we’re having a
second honeymoon. Lily joins in the dancing, too, and seems to gen-
uinely enjoy herself.
After the set, Roe comes out to the dance floor and puts his
hands around my waist. “You look hot,” he says, holding me tightly.
I turn around, a bit drunk now, and kiss him deeply. I can feel him
sweating through
h the cheap Lycra of the dress, the muscled curve

48
of his arms even more defined under the thin material. Miel, Liam,
and Dee come out, and Miel gives me a big hug. I was terrified Miel
wouldn’t like me at first, knowing how close Roe is to them.
“Mae Day!” Miel says, squeezing me. “That dress!”
“It’s Fiona’s.”
“Even so, you look great. Give us a twirl.”
I spin, giggling and feeling stupid. I ruffle their new pastel-pink
pixie cut. “I love this.”
Miel’s hair changes with such astonishing frequency that every
time we meet I end up considering dying my hair bright orange. I feel
so stupidly conventional when we’re together.
“Let me do yours. A nice witchy silver.”
“My hair won’t take bleach,” I reply, pulling at the dark frizz.
“But thanks anyway.”
Honor Own comes on, and the room is immediately transfixed.
She’s six feet tall, with bright green eyes and cheekbones so wide
they look like two polished piano keys placed carefully on top of her
face. Her hair and makeup are styled in a kind of 1970s waves-and-
winged-eyeliner look, something I know my hair is too thick and
fuzzy to hold.
“Hey, everyone,” she says, more low-key than Roe onstage.
“How about it for Small Private Ceremony, huh?”
A roar of applause. The room is full now, nicely warmed from
SPC’s performance. “Now that,” Honor continues, “is a vocalist. I
never want to fight them for mirror space again.”
Roe smiles, and I can’t tell if he’s just smiling at the shout-out, or
smiling at Honor’s use of them. We’ve talked about pronouns before.
Roe has always said that he feels fine, although not exactly perfect,
and that they didn’t feel any more or less correct.
correct I wonder if this is

49
starting to shift, now that name changing is on the cards. Maybe
Honor is just being polite, not wanting to presume a gender identity,
being trans herself.
She launches into her set, and it’s immediately clear why she
was on the front cover of Hot Press. She’s got a dazzling voice and
great songs: smart but not too wordy, with lots of big rock choruses.
Roe introduces us to Honor after her set. We’re all a bit lost for
words around her, saying things like “Great set!” and “I love your
outfit!” We sound like we’re about thirteen.
“I’ve got to come back again,” Honor says, zipping up her guitar.
“You always think that outside of the big cities, no one’s going to
care, no one will have heard of you. But actually the opposite is true.
Small cities are the best audiences, because everyone is just so grate-
ful you came. The worst gigs I play are in London. Just a bunch of old
men nodding.”
“So what you’re saying,” I say loudly, so Fiona can hear, “is that
Kilbeg is actually awesome?”
“Ha ha,” Fi says. “I get it, Chambers.”
Roe isn’t drinking, so he’s able to drive us all home after Honor’s
set. We’re all a bit pissed and rowdy, playing Honor’s CD in the car,
fighting about where to get chips.
We order from the counter in Deasy’s and eat them in the car.
“Roe,” I say suddenly. “Hold my hand.”
“But my hands are greasy.”
I throw him the little wet-wipe packet. “Come on, I want to try
something.” I am thinking of Fiona and Lily and the phone. I’ve fallen
behind with enough things in life without falling behind with magic, too.
“Ew,” Fiona says.
hank you.” Lily.
s his hands and laces his fingers through mine.

50
 “OK, so . . . concentrate on the car.”
“But . . . we’re parked?”
“Just do it.”
He concentrates. I concentrate. I start the Process, find Roe’s
silver light, but I don’t follow it into his head. I sort of wade in the
energy coming out of him, and imagine the light stretching to the car.
Honor’s music cuts out. There’s a crackle and a buzz, and the
feeling of something working. I hold my breath. Then, a man’s voice
from the car stereo.
“So that’s two burgers, two chips, two curry sauce, one bat-
tered sausage, two cans of Diet Coke, yeah? Eighteen euros, love. For
pickup, yeah? Lovely stuff.”
“Oh, my god,” I gasp. “Oh, my god.”
“Is this someone’s phone call?” Roe says, astounded.
“Not only is it someone’s phone call,” Fiona says. “It’s very good
value. Do you think they have a coupon?”
“Fiona!”
“I’m joking. This is amazing, though!”
It’s the chipper man behind the counter at Deasy’s. He hangs
up and immediately takes another call about three orders of scampi.
“Not that this isn’t fascinating, but can we get someone else?”
Roe suggests.
“This feels illegal,” Lily says with no intonation at all, as if the
word illegal
al were a neutral term.
I hold tighter on Roe’s hand, and I feel him grab back. There’s
a pulse of energy between our hands and the channel flips on the
radio. After a short silence, we hear another voice.
“Cab to 63 Parnell Road? And where are you going?” A brief
pause. “Lovely, will have someone up to you in ten min
We gasp, staring at one another in total disbelief.
di We switch

51
again. Someone is complaining about their babysitter not putting
their kids to sleep. Switch. Someone is telling their boyfriend to
come over. Switch. Someone is talking to their mother, asking if it’s
OK to softly bite off their baby’s toenails because they’re too afraid
to use scissors. We howl with laughter, get greedy for information,
switch on and on. We get a dozen snapshots of Kilbeg life on a Sat-
urday night, and as the voices wrap around us, their accents so like
ours, I feel a violent throb of love for the place. This home whose
frequency I’m literally tuned in to. Why are my friends so desperate
to leave? Why is being a stranger somewhere else so attractive to all
three of them?
“I think I know who that last one was!” Roe says. “I think that
was a guy in my old class. I recognize the voice.”
“See?” I say, mostly just continuing my own thought out loud.
“If you were in Dublin, you wouldn’t know who that was.”
Roe smiles at me fondly, but we’re so connected that one of his
thoughts swims into my head. There she goes again, the Kilbeg tourist
board. I feel a flash of irritation and, still holding his hand, feel my
muscles tense. The radio switches again.
“There’s a decent argument for  .  .  .” comes a voice. A familiar
one. Then a pause, and I think I’m imagining it. An American accent.
“No, I’m not saying I can’t handle it. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
“That’s Aaron,” I gasp. “That’s his voice.”
The others look skeptical. “Are you sure?” Roe asks.
“It’s Aaron. There’s not a doubt in my mind. I saw him this
morning, his voice is fresh in my head. God, that’s weird.”
“Shhh, shh,” Fiona hushes, turning the volume up. “Let’s see
what he says.”
“I just think
hink Kilbeg is a waste of time,” he says. “What more do

52
 We are all silent. No one moves. There’s another pause while
Aaron listens to the response. It’s interesting, hearing the subordi-
nate tone in his voice. Whoever he’s talking to is more powerful than
he is and deserving of deference.
“No, I get it,” Aaron says. He sounds like he’s annoyed and try-
ing very hard to conceal it. “It’s just that, you know, I was there when
we did that gig. I did everything you asked me to, and I just . . . I think
I’ve proved I can be trusted.
“I know it’s not about proof,” he says hurriedly. “I know it’s about
faith, you know I do. But I just . . . I could do more if I knew more.
I could make things happen if I knew what things you wanted to
happen.”
Pause again.
“I know. I just . . . I want to do my best work. It’s important to
me, personally, spiritually. Whatever. You know that. So let me.”
Pause again, longer. Aaron is begging here, really begging. But
for what? And why?
The call ends. Roe turns off the radio.
“Wow,” he says, raking his hands through his hair. “Wow, OK.”
“How did you do that?” Lily asks, mystified. “How did you find
him? Of all the people in Kilbeg?”
“I wasn’t trying to find
d him,” I say defensively. “He just hap-
pened. It was just a coincidence.”
“Maybe the two of you are linked,” Fiona offers. “Like he told you.”
“What did he tell you?” Roe asks, alarmed. I fill him in on the
tennis courts, the three chances.
“Well, in any case,” Roe says when I finish, “we need to get our
shit together. We have to use our gifts against the Children. It’s clear
they’re not done with Kilbeg. And now that we can li
phone conversations. This is huge.”

53
 “Even he doesn’t know why they’re back in Kilbeg,” Fiona says
ponderously. “That’s what’s huge.”
We’ve always seen Aaron as a kind of ringleader, but maybe he’s
something more like a regional manager. That’s the unsettling thing.
If someone of Aaron’s abilities is actually relatively junior, then how
scary are the actual leaders of the organization?
“Nuala said that Kilbeg has a magical supply chain kind of thing.
Maybe . . . maybe the Children are, like, trying to get in on it.”
I try to get my head around this. We always assumed that Aaron
was a magical person in a religious organization, not that the Chil-
dren of Brigid itself
self was a magical organization.
I say this aloud. Fiona snorts.
“I mean, are they technically different things?” she asks. “Reli-
gion and magic are basically the same to most people, right?”
“Yes,” Lily says coldly. “Except magic, as far as we’ve seen, is the
one that’s real.”
Roe looks anxious, like he’s aware of the political optics of this
conversation. “I don’t know if that’s fair.”
Lily shrugs. “Magic made me into the river. I know that for a
fact. But I’ve never met Jesus. So.”
Despite the fact that we’re in the dwindling warm weeks of sum-
mer, I feel a chill come over us. A sense that the blood in our bodies
is not moving as it should.
“It’s almost September,” Lily says, her eyes out the window. I
don’t know why she says it, except perhaps as a reminder of the lon-
ger nights, and the fact that everything might be darker from here
on out.

54
6

Something
ome
o
omethin
methin
thin changes then.
Something in the air, something in the mood, something in us.
Roe starts getting ready for college and assembling documents
for his name change. Lily keeps going to tutorials. Fiona’s aunt Sylvia
has to do some kind of new exam for her job, so Fi has to look after
Jos even more in the afternoons. I pick up more lunchtime shifts for
Nuala.
This is why we haven’t seen one another in a week, when all
summer we’ve been living in one another’s pockets. This is what I
tell myself.
But I also know there’s something else. That Aaron’s voice over
the radio speaker shook all of us, and the reality of the Children of
Brigid being back in Kilbeg starts to dawn on us all.
No one wants to face up to it. No one wants to talk about a
battle plan. No one wants to risk their life again. Maybe we were all
given our gifts for a reason, and maybe this is it. But who wants that
kind of responsibility?
I ask Nuala what she thinks the Children’s plan is. By her
response, I realize she has thought of all of this already.
“It seems to me, judging by Aaron’s invitation to you, that their
focus on young
ung people might be a way of recruiting talent,” she says.
“I’ve been following them in the news. They’re not so bothered about
what adult sinners are doing. It’s so much focus on the youth. ‘Youth
of today’ this, ‘youth of today’ that. They have a sensitive, which is
rare enough, and now they want you, a second sensitive. Which
makes me wonder: What other witches do they have working for
them?”
“Nuala . . .” I begin, shocked at myself for not asking this before.
“How many witches are there?”
She ponders this, and I’m relieved to see that it is not a stupid
question. “Wicca isn’t really the kind of religion that is about keeping
records,” she says. “Which is part of why so many people like it.”
“No, I mean . . .” I try to parse what I mean, exactly. Obviously,
there are witches: the fact that I work in a shop that sells magical par-
aphernalia proves that. But there are witches and there are witches.
People who believe in magic as opposed to people who possess it.
“People like me and the lads. People who can . . . do stuff. Who are
more connected to the supply chain thingy.”
“Everyone has magic, Maeve. As I said. With the diagram.”
“Yes, but you know what I mean.”
“I do.” She sighs. “And that’s an even harder question to answer.
Sensitives are rare, of course. One in one million, I would say. Per-
haps less.”
“That rare?” I ask, incredulous. “And you somehow know three,
including Heaven?”
She blinks at me. You’re not supposed to bring up her sister. She
brings up Heaven with you. “Sorry,” I say.
She nods. “Sensitives are indeed rare, but there are also people
who are born with natural abilities, or tendencies toward certain ele-
ments. They say that
hat the legends about witches who couldn’t drown

56
were just about a certain kind of freshwater witch, born near lakes
and rivers. And that great courtesans were witches of fire, crafting
love spells.”
This is all a bit wafty for me, so I try to bring Nuala back down
to earth. “How many people can do what Roe can do? What Lily and
Fiona can do? Real stuff. Electricity. Healing. Stuff like that.”
She sighs. She hates when I get too specific. Not because she
likes to be wafty, but because to Nuala, magic is so much more com-
plicated than statistics.
“They exist,” she says. “For different reasons, and with different
methods, but they exist. They are rare but not unheard of.”
· ·
We meet that night at the tennis courts for the first time in a week.
“Results on Wednesday,” Roe says, an air of hopelessness in his
voice.
“Want me to come?”
“Mum and Dad are . . .”
“Meet you after?”
“Perfect.”
There’s a faint sound of an animal screeching somewhere in the
distance, of a fox defending itself, or maybe two cats in a fight.
Fiona is quiet tonight. She’s cutting cards, splitting the deck at
random and looking at each result. The Wheel of Fortune. The Two
of Swords. The Magician.
I nudge her. “You OK, little lady?”
“I’m just thinking,” she says. “About monologues.”
“For what?”
“Trinity auditions.”
“They aren’t even until next year! I don’t think you need
ne to worry.”

57
 She cuts the deck again. The Four of Pentacles.
“It’s really competitive,” she says. “Something like seventeen
places every year.”
I don’t have the energy to reassure her, particularly when Fiona
has gotten every part, every scholarship, and every test result she’s
ever wanted. “Oh, come on,” I say. “You’re Fiona Buttersfield. You’re
basically failure-proof.”
“Don’t say that,” she says coolly.
“Why?”
“Because it’s not true.” She is picking at midge bites on her skin,
digging her finger in aggressively, watching the skin heal even as the
blood is breaking the surface.
“Don’t do that,” I say, a little grossed out.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” comes the immediate answer. She’s
so snappy that Roe looks up in alarm.
Silence. I feel like I’ve done something wrong, but I don’t really
know what it is. “Do you want me to read your tarot? Three-card
spread?”
She nods.
“All right, shuffle, then,” I say, and she does, the only sound the
dim, slippery whisper of cards falling.
Suddenly, Lily speaks.
“New moon tonight,” she says. “It was a new moon when you
took me, wasn’t it?”
“Took you?”
“From the river.”
“When we saved you, yes. It was a new moon.”
“Witches are supposed to be their most powerful then.”
“I think the
he books just say it’s a good time for the dark arts,”
or our shadow selves.”

58
 Lily seems to take this as encouragement.
“I’ve got something,” she says. She gets to her feet, taking her
water bottle as she goes. We all sit up, balancing our weight on out-
stretched hands. Another light show. This should be good.
Lily walks to the end of the court. Fiona lays out her three cards.
I flip the first one—the past card—over. It’s the Sun.
“Joy,” I say with a faint smile. “Feels appropriate, after the sum-
mer we’ve just had.”
She flips over the next card, the present card. “Nine of Wands.”
“Defensiveness,” I say automatically, feeling as if this really
requires no explanation.
“What is she doing?” Roe interrupts.
There’s the choking sound of squeezed plastic, then the sound
of droplets. We look up. We can’t quite make out what Lily is doing.
It’s too dark and she’s too far away.
Roe squints. “Is she . . . wetting the fence?”
And before I have time to confirm or deny that Lily has wet the
wire court fence, there’s a sharp, metallic shing noise.
“Lily,” Fi calls. “What have you done?”
We each stand up gingerly, our limbs having started to fall asleep.
There’s another feeling of heat in the air, but it’s not the sweating heat
of magic working. It’s something different. It smells of copper, in the
way copper sometimes smells like blood.
“Have you charged the fence?” I call out. And across the court,
I hear an excited laugh.
“Jesus,” Roe murmurs. Then he calls out to her, his tone cau-
tious: “OK, Lil, well done.”
No response.
“I think it’s time we go home,” he calls again. We
W all look at one
another, united in our disquiet.

59
 “Can we go home?” I ask, fear creeping into my voice. “If we
touch the fence, will we . . . ?”
There’s a sudden flutter, then a loud, pained squawk. A thud of
a muffled fall.
“What was that?” I don’t know why I’m suddenly whispering.
There’s a croaking noise, a ferocious high gulping, and the hot
dry smell of something burning. Cooking. We move toward the
sound. Lily meets us, her blond hair full of static.
It’s a bird. A magpie, to be exact. It has flown into the fence that
Lily charged, and has now fallen to the ground. It’s trying to hobble
around, away from us, terrified of what else we might do to it.
“What did you do, Lily?” Roe asks.
“Practicing,” she says without remorse. “Like we’re supposed to.”
Fiona bends down and tries to scoop it up. It fluffs up its feath-
ers, trying to make itself big and threatening while obviously terrified
of her.
“Stay still, you idiot,” she snaps. “I’m trying to help you.”
You so rarely see a bird close-up like this. The shining beak, the
beady eyes. They really are horrible, in their own way.
Fiona clamps her hands around the thing. “It’s his wing,” she
says. “He’s burned it on the fence.”
I look to Lily, waiting for her to show some form of regret at the
needless pain she has caused this random animal. Nothing. “So heal
him,” she says.
A few moments later, Fiona releases the bird and it flies off, a
little lopsided and not in the least bit grateful.
“One for sorrow,” Roe says, citing the old wives’ tale. He salutes it.
“Two for joy,” Fi says, finishing the verse. “Anyone see a second

akly. And then: “Well done, Fi.”

60
 But we’re all unnerved by what just happened. With how easily
a bird could have been something bigger. A fox. A dog. A person.
A chilly breeze picks up, scattering the cards. We run to pick
them up as they blow across the court, and whatever the final card
was of Fiona’s reading—the future card, as it were—is lost to the
wind.

61
7

The moment
mo
mome with the magpie unset-
tles the three of us. We discuss it over the next few days, in our own
little bubbles: me and Roe, Roe and Fiona, me and Fiona. The brief
second where we all thought Lily was trapping us in the tennis courts;
the realization that she could; her utter lack of regret for the magpie
that tumbled out of the air.
What is Lily actually capable of? is the question we are all asking
but not asking. Not just magically but morally?
Roe gets his results the next day, and we decide to meet at
Bridey’s Café after he’s done with his parents. I buy two salted cara-
mel éclairs and a huge pot of tea to celebrate with, and sit on the low
couch near the door. Waiting.
And waiting.
I check my phone a few times and start to get worried that
maybe he has had a disappointing result and doesn’t want to see me.
I try to bring the excitement of my messages down a few octaves. I
delete my WhatsApp that says Can’t wait to celebrate! and instead
say Can’t wait to see you!
After twenty minutes, Bridey comes over to me.
“Sorry, pet,” she says apologetically. She’s old, at least eighty, and
has always been very kind in the past. “We have the couch booked,
would you mind moving to a smaller table?”
d?” I ask, looking around. Bridey’s is the cheapest café in
“Booked?”
Kilbeg. I’m surprised they even have a phone line with which to book
parties.
I move to a two-seater table, the tea rapidly cooling. I pick the
edges of the caramel icing with my finger. Then, the “party” comes in.
I barely look up at first. Four guys, a few years older than me. I text
Roe again. Then I hear my own name, and Aaron is suddenly sitting
across from me.
“Is this for me?” he asks, pointing to the éclair.
o,” I say sharply. “Leave me alone.”
“No,
“Have you thought about it?”
My instinct is to get up and leave, but I realize then that this
could be an opportunity. The longer I keep Aaron talking, the more I
can burrow into his mind and figure out what’s going on.
“You want me to join the Children,” I say. “Why?”
It’s hard to read someone’s mind and start the Process while
they’re looking right at you. I try to begin, making my thoughts as
blank as possible.
“I think it would be good for you. I think you’re very lonely.”
He annoys me too much. My mind refuses to unclutter.
“That’s big talk coming from someone with no friends.”
“What do you call them?” He cocks his head to one side, motion-
ing to the guys sitting on the couches.
“Minions.”
“Does she still hate you?” he asks. “Lily, I mean.”
I stare at him. “Yes.”
“After everything
thing you did? To get her back?” he says. “Seems a

68
 “Why are you talking to me about this?”
He drums his fingers on the table. “There are things we can do
to help, you know.”
“To help? How could you possibly help me?”
Aaron gestures at the air. “Oh, I don’t know. Love spells to
keep Roe close. Friendship charms to make sure Fiona never leaves
you. Something to make school easier. Something to make school
irrelevant.”
My spine arches like a cat’s. I know that this is Aaron’s gift at
work. He knows where the holes are. I feel curiously naked for a sec-
ond, my worst traits exposed.
“Oh, really?” I hiss. “And I suppose this is all free, is it?”
“You wouldn’t have to get involved in any of the preaching stuff
if you don’t want to.”
“Well, isn’t that kind.”
He picks a hair off his clothing. It’s long and dark, and unmis-
takably mine. It must have come from my jacket, hanging over the
chair he’s sitting on, but it still disturbs me. Something of mine on
something of his.
“Everything you did with Lily,” he says again. “Whatever spells,
charms, hexes . . .”
Then, something happens. It’s like time slows down. What
should be half a second, a fraction of an expression, something
utterly undetectable to a normal person, becomes clear and blatantly
obvious. His eyes slide across me, and a look of uncertainty comes
into his face. Spells, charms, hexes. He’s fishing.
Suddenly, it’s like he’s shown me his whole hand of cards.
I smile widely.
“You have no clue what we did, do you?” I say,
sa trying to force
as much power and glee into my voice as possible. “You’re
“ utterly

69
dumbfounded by how we got Lily back. You’re trying to figure it out.
That’s why you guys won’t leave me alone.”
He says nothing, seems to grope at the air for a second. This
ability to see him so clearly, his motivations so obvious—is this the
special kind of magic that sensitives have? Are we alike, like strange
magical siblings?
“You don’t have a clue, Aaron, do you?” I keep smiling the big-
gest shit-eating grin I can manage. “You have no idea why you’re back
in Kilbeg, no idea how we saved Lily . . . you’re just some worthless
henchman, aren’t you?”
He settles back into his seat, the lost look disappearing into his
face, now replaced by curious suspicion. I can see the abacus of his
mind working. How does she know that I don’t know why we’re here?
“Bridey,” I say as she passes. “Do you mind if I have a box to
wrap these up? I’m going to take them to go.” She nods in approval,
probably a sign I’ve been here too long.
“The Children want magic, don’t they?” I continue. I don’t know
where I’m getting these lines or this poise from. I sound like a per-
son in a film. I need to leave soon, before I fluff it. “They’re bored of
whatever it is you have to offer. They’re just using you as the chum to
catch the big sharks.”
I really hope that this is how sharks and chum works.
Bridey comes back with a white pastry box and I carefully trans-
fer my cakes to it. I try to make every movement neat, precise, like
Tra-la-la, I’m so all-powerful that I can talk about this stuff while
arranging a picnic.
“You think I have something to learn from the Children,” I say,
wrapping the box up. “But I think that maybe you have something
n from us?”

70
 The cakes secure, I get to my feet and grab my jacket from his
chair.
“That’s two,” he says smoothly.
“What happens after three, Aaron?” I hit back. “Or do you think
you’re negotiating with a toddler? Because I know nothing actually
happens after Mummy counts to three.”
I glance at the guys on the couch as I go, who have all been
peering indiscreetly at our conversation. They are all, unsurprisingly,
extremely good-looking. I am slightly revolted by how basic the Chil-
dren actually are. This is what they’ve got? Hot twenty-year-olds and
hate doctrine? Who cares?
There’s a burst of sunshine on the street, blinding almost, and
the minute I get out of the café I turn a corner, my back against the
cold wall, my face in the shadows. The confidence and the power
seep out of me, and, suddenly overwhelmed by my own weakness, I
start to cry.
· ·
When I do finally meet Roe, he’s full of apologies. We sit in his car
and eat the éclairs, the fresh cream already starting to sour in the
heat of the day. We’re near the river, in a little lay-by surrounded
by trees where people park the car before taking their dog for a
walk.
“Mum and Dad absolutely freaked out,” he grumbles.
“But why?”
He shows me his transcript. “Jesus, Roe!” I say, almost shrieking.
“It says here you got five ninety?”
The Leaving Cert is judged on your best six subjects, so the
highest possible mark is six hundred.
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “It’s really good, isn’t it?”

71