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

body turn. Now we are facing each other. I still can’t see anything, but can feel the slight huff of his breath on my lower lip. He places a hand on each of my shoulders.

My skin is screaming to be touched. Pleading with me in a way my body has never pleaded before. Making its case like a lawyer in court. Miss Chambers, I think you’ll see, based on the evidence provided, that this boy wants to touch you, and you should respond by jumping on him, wrapping your legs around his waist and kissing him until he falls over.

Someone driving on the road must be using their headlights, because in an instant, we are shot through with the electric white light that fills the tunnel.

The light breaks something. It gives him sense. He takes half a step backwards, and lets his hands slide from my shoulders, to my elbows and then away altogether.

“Well,” he says, finally, “look who’s playing sardines again.”

And for the second time in our new friendship, Roe O’Callaghan leaves me, rejected in a tunnel.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I DREAM ABOUT THE HOUSEKEEPER AGAIN THAT NIGHT. A cold snap hits and I wake up with clouds of my own breath hanging in the air.

I’m following the Housekeeper along the Beg, but she is perpetually a step ahead of me. I snatch at her gown, her wet hair, her icy, sculpted fingers, but I can never get a grip on her. When we reach the underpass, she turns around to face me. That’s when the water comes. The muddy river water that fills up my stomach and lungs, spilling out of my mouth, dirty and tasting like copper.

Sometimes I get a sense that Lily is there, watching somehow. It’s not something I can explain or point to, just a general feeling that only makes sense in the slippery dream logic of the Housekeeper’s world. Lily is there, but not visible.

On Monday morning, I see Roe on the bus.

“Hey,” he says, moving aside to make room for me. “Wow, are you OK?”

“Yeah,” I reply abruptly, scanning my uniform for stains. “Why?”

“You look like you haven’t slept. And believe me, I know what that looks like.”

“I haven’t,” I say, and for a moment I consider telling him about the dreams, and the Housekeeper, and the sense that Lily is close but unable to show herself. But it’s too much. Too weird. Too silly. And his theory about CoB is solid, even if it doesn’t exactly ring true in my head.

“I’m just worried about her,” I say, truthfully. “And … I don’t know, I just have this feeling that she’s near by.”

Roe nods, looking relieved to have a partner in melancholy.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“There’s a CoB meeting in town. They approved my Facebook request. Do you want to come?”

“Uh … sure. If you think it’s safe.”

“What? Are you afraid of getting brainwashed, Chambers?”

Oh God. He’s used my last name. Lord protect me from beautiful musicians who call me by my last name.

“No,” I reply, my voice a whole octave higher than I want it to be. “Let’s do it.”

“The meeting is at eight. Meet you at the river around seven? We can walk in together.”

“Sure.” Great. The river. The site of nightmares and constant sexual rejection.

That day, the story of the woman with Lily is around the whole school. It sours the glamour for people, I think. Running away with a strange man, or even being kidnapped by him, has a hot tinge of danger to it. Running away with a strange woman is a different proposition.

“Huh,” I hear one girl say. “I guess it makes sense she was a lesbian.”

“Oh, come on,” says another. “Everyone knew Lily O’Callaghan was a lesbian.”

“Have you seen her brother?”

“I know. Clearly it runs in the…”

I walk out of the room. I don’t think anybody notices.

At lunch, I tell Fiona about the almost-kiss in the underpass. She is furious, which is comforting.

“You can’t just do that,” she rails. “You can’t just… What did he do, again?”

“Sort of … nothing. He steadied me from falling over and then his face was, I don’t know … very close to mine.”

“Huh. It sounded sexier the first time. Go through it again.”

So I do. The darkness. Our bodies touching. The slight warmth of his breath on my lower lip. The way he said we were “playing sardines again”.

“Ughhhhhhh, kill me. Kill me dead.”

“Why do you think he’s being so … I don’t know, such a tease?”

“Wow, problematic.”

“You know what I mean. He seems to really like me. And he wants to spend all this time with me. And…”

“Maeve. His sister is missing. Can you imagine how screwed up his head is right now?”

I don’t have to imagine it. I’ve had the nightmares, felt the guilt, hung on to the desperate, cosmic pull of the tarot cards. I still can’t banish the idea that the cards have something to do with Lily’s disappearance.

But Roe is smart. I keep reminding myself of that. Much smarter than me – and he might be onto something with his CoB lead.

And let’s face it, at this point, if he asked me to spend the evening with him at a maggot lovers’ convention, I would say yes.

I get home at half four, and make a plan to do my homework, walk the dog, eat dinner, and head out. None of that happens, though. Instead I spend the whole afternoon in my room, looking at my eyebrows with a pocket mirror, plucking two hairs, and then feeling guilty that I am taking any care with my appearance at all.

This is not a date, Maeve.

I put down the tweezers, my skin red and throbbing. How can things be going well and terribly at once? On the one hand, I have a new, incredibly fun friend who seems to really like me. A hot boy wants to spend time with me. On the other hand, my best friend is missing, my entire school thinks I’m a