‘So, you can sense where your power is going to work?’
‘Maybe.’
Meg beams as she clutches her acorn necklace. ‘This is amazing. I love graveyards.’
‘That’s very on-brand for you.’
As we pack up our things, I realise with a healthy dose of fear and excitement that it’s becoming quite on-brand for me too. I’m starting to enjoy this.
Meg gets a black taxi up to the graveyard, agreeing to wait outside until my family leave. I feel like I’m in a terrible spy film as I greet Mum and Tommy. I climb into the back seat, carefully placing the backpack with the camera equipment at my feet.
‘All right, cuz?’ asks Cormac. He’s wearing a black sweatshirt. Should I be wearing something black too? Is there a dress code for graveyards?
I grunt an answer then stare out the window as we drive through the grey stone arch of Milltown cemetery, resisting the urge to hum theJurassic Parktheme tune.
I find going to graveyards incredibly weird. It’s not something we did in London, because, well, we don’t know that many people buried in them. But ever since Granny and Granda McCutcheon died, Mum has always visited their grave when we’re here. Their funerals were just a year apart and I didn’t really know how to behave at them. I was too young. The main thing I remember is feeling lost at seeing Mum and Uncle Tommy so upset.
We park and walk through the graveyard, Mum’s arm linked in mine, a bunch of flowers in her other hand. We pass graves with bouquets of fresh flowers laid out, one with a red glass candle holder – a brave tea light surviving the breeze – and even one with a battered pink teddy bear, which makes my stomach plummet. Sadder still are the ones with nothing on them, barely legible names on the weather-beaten, weedtangled stone.
Maybe nobody’s alive to remember those people.
I blink that cheery thought away as we arrive at my grandparents’ gravestone. Their names, Liam and Marie McCutcheon, are engraved on the polished granite.
‘You’ve kept it lovely, Tommy,’ says Mum as she bends down to leave the flowers beside a statue of the Virgin Mary and a pot plant with pink flowers, Nanny Marie’s favourite colour.
Tommy puts an arm round her. Something about this place brings out a softer side in him. I remember the taut pain on his face as we all stood shivering by the grave at Granda Liam’s funeral, his arm gripped around Sheila as she held the hand of a three-year-old Fiona.
Cormac sniffs and I look away as he holds his hands together in a mumbled prayer.
My gaze settles on an older woman in a red coat clutching rosary beads in her wrinkled hands. A lump lodges in my throat as I imagine whose grave she’s at. A husband, a sibling, a child? Is she alone, like Nanny Bet?
‘You OK, love?’ says Mum.
‘Yeah, are you?’ I ask. My neck burns as I realise how stupid it is to ask that at the grave of her parents.
She smiles a little. ‘Yeah. I might just take a minute though.’
I nod and that’s when the pain pierces the back of my head. My hand flies up instinctively and Mum’s eyes widen in concern.
‘Thought it was a wasp,’ I say. ‘I’m going to go for a walk. See you back at the house.’
‘You don’t want a lift?’ says Tommy, frowning.
‘No. But thank you.’ The pain is getting worse, and in the corner of my eye a light is flaring. ‘It’s a nice day and I…love graveyards.’
What?
Mum and Tommy give me a look.
‘Don’t be heading into town again, OK?’ says Tommy. ‘Those buck eejits are playing up.’
‘I won’t. See you later.’
The light is shining from about a hundred metres away. As I start walking towards it, the smell of earth and blood mixed with salt fills the air.
I message Meg.
I’m having a vision!
