All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’donoghue (ink ebook reader txt) 📕

“Thank you,” I say, unsure.

“Go raibh maith agat.”

The 5.15 bus is quiet. Too late for school kids, too early for rush hour. I have my thin plastic headphones from the Walkman on, the Spring 1990 tape playing in my lap. I find it oddly comforting, like white noise I can turn my brain off to. I see Rory O’Callaghan sitting on his own and it seems rude to not sit next to him. We both say “hey” at the same time, and then lapse into silence. He is still clearly embarrassed by the incident from a few days ago, so I don’t mention it.

I look down at his nails. They’re still painted that ballet slipper pink.

“Oh cool,” I say, reaching into the paper bag in my coat pocket. “I have a stone the same colour.”

I show him the rose quartz. He chucks it between his hands as though it just came straight out of a forging fire.

“Hey! Be careful! Those things aren’t cheap.”

“You spent money on this?” he says, clearly amused. “It doesn’t have a string or a clasp. You can’t even wear it.”

“It’s a rose quartz. It’s for…” but then I can’t remember what it’s for. “It’s for something important.”

“Are you into this now? Crystals and incense and all that?”

I pull a stick of incense out of my pocket and brandish it like a wand. “Er, you could say that.”

“Wow,” he rakes his hand through his long, curly fringe that obscures his eyes so much of the time, pulling it back towards the crown of his head. “Maeve, you are the last person in the world I envisioned getting into New Age stuff.”

His eyes are a bright hazel, that rare colour where the green and gold shine with equal lustre. There’s an intense prettiness to Rory that gave him a spooky, Victorian-ghost-child look when we were kids but now is weirdly engrossing to look at.

“Me? Why am I the last person you’d picture?” I ask, incredulous. “Not … Vladimir Putin?”

“Putin, now see, Putin has that sort of evil where you could see him sacrificing a virgin on an altar to win another election, y’know?” Rory says playfully. “Putin is definitely more witchy than you.”

“OK, so Putin is witchier than me,” I concede, trying to think of more un-witchy celebrities. “What about … the Rock? No, no, sorry, take it back. The Rock is definitely witchier than me.”

“Oh yeah.” Rory smiles. “I mean, he’s named after something from the ground. He’s like earth goddess levels of witch.”

We go on like this for a bit, trying to think of the un-witchiest celebrities. Eventually, when I have run out of famous people and Rory has run out of reasons that they’re more magical than I am, I finally tell him about the Chokey cards.

“Oh, right, those. You had them a few days ago, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I say, careful to avoid mention of the other cards we saw that day.

“Well, go on, show me then.”

He pulls three cards. The Page of Cups, the Hanged Man, the Ace of Rods.

“Well…” I start, flexing my fingers. “This Page of Cups guy right here? He represents dreams and subconscious stuff that is on the verge of coming to the surface.”

I point at the page, who is holding a fish in a cup. “That’s what this fish represents.”

“Do I have to get a fish now?”

“No, you just have to work on … ideas that haven’t quite formed yet. The Hanged Man, he’s hanging by his foot, do you see?”

I hold up the card. Rory nods at the man who is upside down, tied to a tree by his ankle.

“He’s stuck between things. Not able to commit to one thing or the other. Or maybe he’s just stuck in an awkward position that he can’t figure out a way to get out of.”

Rory’s expression suddenly changes. His face, already pale, now takes on a greyish tinge. “What do you mean by that?”

“Um … I don’t know. What do you think?”

Rory says nothing.

“It’s supposed to be a two-way street, these readings. You talk to me and we figure out the cards together.”

“What does the last card mean?” he says, his voice stern.

“Don’t you want to talk about the Hanged Man first?”

“No. What does the last card mean?”

“The Ace of Rods? It’s like pure potential, pure fire. It’s about you finding drive to do what you want to do. Whatever the Page and the Hanged Man are cooking up, the Ace of Rods will help you get to it.”

Silence. Rory arranges his face into visible boredom. “This is dumb,” he says finally.

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is. How do I know you’re not making this shit up as you go along?”

“Because I’m not. What are you so annoyed about? It’s a very mild reading. The Hanged Man isn’t a bad card, Rory. He’s not literally hanging.”

“Whatever,” he says. His gaze goes to the window. When the bus gets to Kilbeg, we go our separate ways with another mumbled goodbye. I’m halfway home before I realize that he still has my rose quartz.

CHAPTER SIX

I HAD HOPED THAT MY ABILITY TO MEMORIZE THE TAROT cards would spell a breakthrough for my memory generally, and that school would get easier. It doesn’t. But school suddenly gets a lot more bearable when my whole day is arranged around tarot readings. People have gone nuts for them. Morning and lunch are spent in the Chokey now, and notes are constantly being passed to me and Fiona to make appointments.

I put my new crystals on the shelves of the Chokey, and even though I’m pretty sure that the lady in Divination was being overly cautious with her whole “energy” thing, I still burn my incense after every reading. I go a little heavy on it though, because by 3 p.m. all the teachers are complaining about the smell rising up through the building, but no one rats on the Chokey Card Tarot Consultancy. Even people who aren’t that interested in the tarot are in love