All Our Hidden Gifts (All Our Hidden Gifts #1)

by Caroline O’Donoghue

The story of how i ended up with the Chokey Card Tarot Consultancy can be told in four detentions, three notes sent home, two bad report cards, and one Tuesday afternoon that ended with me locked in a cupboard.

But that friend doesn’t exist, and I’m not sure I would deserve them if they did.

I hate that — acting up. Why are people always in a hurry to categorize you being funny as you being a sociopath? When a girl is quiet, they just say, “She’s quiet. It’s her personality.” If she’s a massive overachiever, they say she’s ambitious. They don’t question where it comes from or why. Joanne was so completely anal about school that she gave herself stress-induced psoriasis during her Leaving Cert, and all anyone had to say was that she was goal-orientated.

“Nice people smile and listen and say, ‘Oh, no, how terrible’ when they hear a sad story. Good people do something about it.”

It doesn’t fall out of my brain the minute I move on to something different, like school stuff does. It sticks, like song lyrics. Like poetry. Like feelings I already had but finally have a map for.

sitting on her own with a book, her long dark-blond fringe falling into her eyes. I can see red swollen spots around her temples, acne breakouts where the grease from her hair touches her skin. How often is she washing her hair these days? Lily isn’t dirty, per se; it’s just that she doesn’t really like to live in her body. She doesn’t like to notice it. If she could be just a brain in a jar, reading books and drawing, she’d be much happier.

“Go raibh maith agat,” she thanks me in Irish.

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

Putin has that sort of evil where you could see him sacrificing a virgin on an altar to win another election, y’know?”

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.

“I mean, I’m not really into makeup or jewelry or anything, but I feel like the only reason I’m not is because everyone expects you to be as a girl, y’know? Like, whenever I put it on, I’m so aware of how I’m supposed to be wearing it. It kind of ruins the whole experience.” He nods, looking at me as if I’ve started speaking a language he hasn’t heard since childhood.

“That family needs grace,” Dad says, shaking his head. “That family,” Mum says, standing up to take out our biggest frying pan, “needs lasagnas.”

“Right, so, you saw that everyone was really, really young, right?” “Yes. It was crazy. Like, our age. Fiona and I tried to research them, but hardly anything came up.” “Right? Somehow Children of Brigid has managed to keep its name out of the papers, but there have been all these weird reports lately about a spike in young people going religious. Joining ‘organizations.’”

“Like Scientology? Aren’t those guys famously into hounding people with their lawyers?” “That’s what I’m thinking. Anyway, they seem to be really good at attracting young, vulnerable teenagers. I’m thinking that maybe they managed

Lord protect me from beautiful musicians who call you by your last name.

This isn’t flirtatious banter. He’s scared out of his mind, filling the freezing evening with nervous Paddington references.

The interviewer asked him how he had recruited his followers. Simple, he said. He just approached groups of girls at shopping malls, singled one out, and told her that she had beautiful eyes. “If she said thank you or even just laughed, I moved on,” he said. “But if she tried to deflect the compliment or looked down at the ground, I asked for her number. Because that girl was the one with the hole inside of her.” That is what it is like inside the apartment at Elysian Quarter. I am standing in a room full of people with holes inside of them.

They want broken kids

A boy confesses to having suicidal thoughts. Aaron tells him it’s only natural, normal, to want to take matters into your own hands when life is upsetting you, but that the true answer to finding self-satisfaction is to work on the world around you, not to hurt yourself. To channel your life into positive work.

Aaron’s response to virtually everyone is that they are confused. Having sex is a result of confusion. Being gay is confusion. Having depression is confusion.

“I guess they break people down and build them back up again under the guise of some crap games. Maybe the religion stuff comes later. When you’re already dependent on Aaron and his hugs.”

“Je ne regrette rien,” she says softly. “I regret nothing. It’s a stupid saying.” “Is it?” “If you’re an even remotely empathetic or flawed person, you should feel regret. If you behave badly, you should look at it, and learn from it, and go on to treat people better.”

“What if the thing you did is too bad?” I ask. “What if the person never forgives you?” Mum looks at me steadily. “Sometimes it isn’t about getting people to forgive you,” she says simply. “Sometimes you have to do the best you can with whatever they’re prepared to let you have.”

“We have two copies of the same Jeffrey Archer book.” “Well . . .” “Frankly, I’m offended we have one.”

“You’re going to live your fecking life,” I say, trying to summon every bit of authority I can muster. “You’re going to live your life, and you’re going to wear a dress when you want to wear a dress and go by whatever name you want, and we’ll be here.”

Why should a twelve-year-old have to think about their gender? Or their sexuality? Is it naive to think that childhood should last a few more years?”

Yes please explain your fucking purity books, your guides for girls, all the christian curricula for teaching us we are only to be breeding stock servants for the men who own us. Why should a tweve year old have to think about any of that

“Exactly. Let kids be kids. Without it being sexual.”

Sure, as soon as that's possible for any girl.

think a lot of us have just . . . assumed that things were getting so much better. So progressive, y’know? We’re in this liberal Ireland and all that. I think we all got a bit too proud of ourselves too soon.” She gulps and rubs at the tender skin underneath her black eye. “I think this is the backlash.”

“Hey, why are you snuffling?” “I’m scared,” I say. And then: “I’m scared for you.” “Ah, sure, look — there’s no point in being scared. I’m lucky. I’ve got a great family and a great girlfriend, and I’m smart, and I’m hot. I’ll be fine,” she chuckles. “But not everyone will be.” “No,” she agrees. “Not everyone will be.”

“I love you, too. But don’t be worrying yourself about this. It has nothing to do with you. Just try your best to be there for people more vulnerable than you. Keep your eyes and ears open. Speak up if you see something messed up. OK?” I hold her close and try to find a way to tell her that it has at least a little to do with me.

“Fair enough. Well, let me introduce you to Mr. MAC.” Roe sits on the edge of the bed, and I start working on him. I smudge coffee-colored shadow across his eyes, then draw inky lines across the lids, trying my best to flick upward. I remember Michelle boring us all about “cat eyes” at school. Roe, though — he actually looks like a cat. I let him put on his own mascara because I’m too afraid of poking him in the eye. I dab a tiny bit of pearly highlighter on his cheekbones so they glow when he catches the light.

And finally, thank you to an English teacher I had when I was fourteen, who went by Miss Cotter then but who I’m pretty sure got married and is called Mrs. Richards now. You liked my stories, you thought I was funny, and you introduced me to Margaret Mahy. You, I think, were there when the story really started.