Every Gift a Curse


 
 To the unlikeable main characters
 CONTENTS
 PART ONE
 CHAPTER ONE
 CHAPTER TWO
 CHAPTER THREE
 CHAPTER FOUR
 CHAPTER FIVE
 CHAPTER SIX
 CHAPTER SEVEN
 CHAPTER EIGHT
 CHAPTER NINE
 CHAPTER TEN
 CHAPTER ELEVEN
 CHAPTER TWELVE
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
 CHAPTER NINETEEN
 PART TWO
 CHAPTER TWENTY
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
 CHAPTER THIRTY
 CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
 CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
 CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
 CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
 CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
 CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
 CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
 CHAPTER FORTY
 CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
 CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
 CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
 CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
 CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
 CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
 CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
 THE END
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 About the Author
 Copyright
 
 CHAPTER ONE
 HERE’S SOMETHING THAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT being cursed. The first thing you feel is fear. But the second thing – the thing you really notice – is beauty. The world is so beautiful when you don’t think you’ll have long to look at it.
 The colours shine brighter. Even now, in the December twilight, when it’s almost completely dark. The chilly mist from the river melds with the light of the city, and all you can see is a gold-and-blue blur. A box of jewels you need to squint your eyes just to look at. The sense of a city dancing in your blood.
 Thirty-six days have passed since I became responsible for the death of two women. One who tried to kill me; the other who died trying to save my life.
 “There you are,” Fiona says, flinging open the door to Nuala’s house. No matter how early I get to Nuala’s house these days, she’s always here first. “Come on, the Apocalypse Society is already in session.”
 She takes me through to the kitchen, and everyone’s here: Manon, studying a bound stack of paper; Nuala, taking something out of the oven; Roe, peeling an apple with a knife; Lily, sitting on the kitchen counter.
 The question: were we directly responsible for the death of Heather Banbury and Sister Assumpta, or was it all an accident? Does the Housekeeper even care about accidents, or does she swing the axe regardless of who’s guilty?
 “That’s the problem,” Nuala says mid-flow, gesturing with a wooden spoon. “The Housekeeper is revenge without judgement. She’s not a thing who can make her mind up. She’s a wind-up toy. Isn’t that right, Maeve?”
 I haven’t even taken my coat off. “How come no one ever says hello to me any more?” I say indignantly. “What am I? Dead?”
 “Not yet,” Manon muses, highlighting a line of text with a yellow marker. “But soon, perhaps.”
 “Well, joyeux Noël to you, too.”
 There have been three known Housekeeper sightings, spread out over the last thirty years. The first was when she was summoned by Nuala’s sister, Heaven, who traded her own life to bring on the death of their abusive father.
 The second was Aaron, when he called her to break out of his far-right Christian rehab centre. She took his friend then. Matthew Madison. A death that Aaron spent three misguided years trying to atone for within the gnarled fingers of the Children of Brigid.
 And the third: Lily. A botched tarot reading that ended in chaos, and that brought us all together.
 Who knows what a fourth visit might bring about? Who might fall victim, and who might be spared? Aaron hasn’t waited around to find out.
 I bend down to kiss Roe on the cheek, the movement unravelling my thick scarf.
 “Hello,” he says, nuzzling me. “You’re cold.”
 “Hey.” Lily is drawing on the window with acrylic craft paint, her knees under the sill, feet trailing in the kitchen sink. She appears to be drawing a very complicated pig, its face filled with red and green swirls.
 “What’s this?”
 “A boar. A yule boar.”
 “Of course.”
 Lily pushes a strand of blonde hair back off her face. “I didn’t want to do something boring like a Christmas tree. I thought we would do something pagan. For winter solstice.”
 “Hence the yule boar.”
 Lily starts to smile to herself and keeps painting. “Hence the yule boar, yes.”
 When Lily and I summoned the Housekeeper, it happened in days. And we hadn’t even meant to call her. She was just a spirit who was accidentally woken by a combination of my sensitivity, the Well of magic below Kilbeg, and the throbbing hatred Lily and I had for each other. Dorey told me almost a month ago that she was planning on calling the Housekeeper – surely she would have done it by now.
 Dorey’s warning to me was clear. She spoke like the Queen of the Fairies, offering foul bargains through a glinting smile. The Children wanted total dominion over the Well in Kilbeg, and would do anything to get it. Anything, that is, except kill us. Murder in the magical world is more trouble than it’s worth: everything comes back to you eventually. But if you have just cause for summoning something like the Housekeeper, you can let her do the dirty work for you.
 So where is she?
 “We must first understand,” Manon says, “whether they truly do have just cause.”
 “We killed Heather Banbury,” Roe says flatly.
 “No, we didn’t,” Fiona responds, her voice unusually high-pitched. “She accidentally died.”
 “While she was magically bound to our will,” Nuala corrects. “Although, if the Children hadn’t come to the tennis courts, it wouldn’t have happened at all. So they could be equally responsible.”
 “In the eyes of who?” Lily asks, still painting her boar.
 “I don’t know.” Nuala throws her hands up. “The great cosmic abacus that doles out fairness?”
 “Justice,” Fiona says, holding up the tarot card. I might be the sensitive, but Fiona’s eye for tarot is now every bit as good as mine. She shuffles the pack and straightens the cards, tapping the deck twice on the table so they’re neatly aligned.
 At that moment, as if in response, there is a tap