The Dark Corner

They all told us about breasts, armpit hair, bleeding. A religion teacher once mentioned mood swings, which didn’t even begin to cover it. The big thing we should have been warned about though, the teenage problem that caused the most anguish, was a burning, insatiable desire to be popular. I say popular, but I would have settled for grudging acceptance. That desire caused Ciara and me more trouble than any training bra. 

The two of us were neighbours, and had basically shared the same mental space since we were four. Anything that I heard of or thought of or dreamed about, I would immediately let her know. We were more like twins than friends. She was at my house so often my dog liked her more than me. 

Most of the adult world was mysterious to us, and we enthusiastically filled in any gaps in our knowledge with unfounded speculation. During long meandering conversations, games and monologue sessions, we started with a grain of truth, then nudged each other further and further along the path of exaggeration, into the realm of fantasy. A man across the street who lived alone had killed his wife and baked her into a pie. Ciara’s father was secretly a spy who drove to Russia every Saturday afternoon to shoot baddies and jump out of burning buildings. Both of us could fly if only we found a secret key, made out of feathers and kept in a ruby box. And there was a witch three streets over who lived in a caravan beside an abandoned house. A witch who could give you anything you ever wanted, if you were brave enough to ask for it. 

We couldn’t stay in this fantasy world forever, of course. But we were still at it when we were thirteen, long after other children had stopped – certainly any of the kids who lived near us. Not growing up only really began to cause us trouble when we started secondary school. 

Practically everyone in our graduating primary class went to a nearby state school. But Ciara was going to Assumpta College, which was private. So I begged and pleaded and whined and screamed at my parents until they agreed to pay my fees. I couldn’t imagine going to school without her. 

The start of secondary school was business as usual: coded messages, secret whisperings, and the exclusion of our classmates. At one point we even tried to make up our own language. We ate lunch together in the yard and sat beside each other for every class. Except for art, which Ciara didn’t do, where I sat alongside the room’s only empty chair. The other students didn’t find our behavior endearing. 

Over the years, as we grew, our unpopularity grew alongside us. Our fantasizing didn’t sustain us like it used to, and it started to seem silly, so we stopped, and returned to the real world. We began to talk about the same things as other teenage girls: mostly mean schoolyard gossip, with a bit of pop culture thrown in. We started to be more sensitive to the sneers and taunts of our fellow teens. In third year, Amy Green, in a faux concerned voice, told Ciara she should throw out her skirt, since she was too fat to pull it off. In fourth year, I had to steady myself when I read bathroom graffiti saying Ciara and I were gross, ugly, and the only people who would ever fuck us would be each other. I tried to steer her away from that stall, but of course she eventually saw it. She took it worse than I did. These weren’t isolated incidents. 

Often, when Ciara was staying over, one of us would start ranting. We’d go on about the superficiality of our classmates, how nobody had given us a chance, how the more popular students weren’t any better than us, and how we didn’t even want to be friends with them anyway. This rant was repeated and expanded and revised when we spent time alone together, which was very often. It became something to be expected during our sleepovers, like how the homily is expected at a mass. 

One autumn evening Ciara was sounding off in this fashion as we both walked home. At the start of fourth year, we had joined Newspaper Club, in a misguided effort to try and make more friends. The newspaper was called Assumpta’s Times, and was really closer to a yearbook, with only one edition coming out every school term. Getting involved really hit home to me how unpopular we were. Untouchables, basically. The other students working on the paper weren’t exactly the coolest kids in class, but even they shunned us. I remember one particular girl who looked terrified when I sat beside her to ask a question. She didn’t want to lower her social standing by speaking to me. 

Newspaper Club was after school, so we were walking home later in the day than usual. There were no other students on the road. Coming up on our left was the house where, back when we were children, we had decided a witch lived. The spiked fence was rusted, and the gate was held on with twists of wire. The house was separated from the other buildings by a big garden, which was rare for our neighbourhood. This garden was wild and ragged, and was fighting to take over the decaying building it surrounded. Green shoots burst free where the rotting roof met the walls. The side door and one of the windows of the house were boarded over, and the window planks were being choked by an expanding hedge. There was a caravan beside the house, where the occupants seemed to spend most of their time. There was often a light there in the evenings after dark. 

I overheard my parents talking about how the council had tried to get rid of the caravan, but never quite succeeded. Something always got in the way. Once an employee even drove up in a tow truck, but he ultimately drove away again empty handed. 

“I mean, it’s not as if we decided they were popular.” Ciara was in full flow, talking loudly as we passed the house. “I don’t think anybody likes them. I know I don’t like them…” 

A woman in the garden looked up when she heard Ciara’s voice. Her clavicle stuck out at a strange angle, and her hair was long and matted. We had seen her occasionally in the garden, or in the window of the caravan. Once we’d seen her helping an old lady traverse the weeds. 

She walked over to the fence, taut face watching us closely. Her eyes were suspicious and searching. She had a star shaped birthmark on her left cheek. Years later, she died a grisly death, after running out of the garden in front of a van, screaming and waving her arms. I was with my parents once when we ran over a deer, and I find it hard to think of this lady now without bringing that animal to mind, lying on the side of the road, life slipping away, chest pumping up and down like a bellows. 

“They just decided themselves that they were the most popular girls in school, and everyone else just sort of goes along with it…” Ciara stopped, after she noticed the lady with the birthmark beckoning us over. 

“I know how you can get what you want,” said the lady. She was leaning over the fence, arching her body as if trying to block our path. 

My mouth was too dry to talk. “What?” asked Ciara, confused. 

“You know what I mean.” She pointed at the caravan. The back of her hand had a jagged cut on it. “Mrs. Hearn can make you have lots of friends at school. So many friends, you won’t know what to do with them all.” 

She seemed to be waiting for us to say something, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to speak. 

“Mrs. Hearn can make you as popular,” she said, “as Carmen Holly.” 

I ran first. I didn’t know if Ciara followed me or not. I was only aware of the slapping of my feet on concrete, my schoolbag bouncing, my gasps for breath. I didn’t look back until I’d reached the end of the street and saw my friend some distance away, walking towards me. The lady with the birthmark was gone. 

We talked about that encounter for weeks. At first Ciara laughed at me for running, then we both laughed at how bizarre the whole thing had been. Neither of us had ever heard of Carmen Holly, making the woman’s claim about popularity seem pretty stupid. The name became a punch line to one of our many private jokes. 

“That top’s not really working for you. But don’t worry. I can make you as popular… as Carmen Holly!” we would say and laugh. 

The following day though, without discussing it, we started walking a different route home from school. And I never thought about that encounter again without a slight tightening in my stomach. 

Another year in school went by. Another year of averted eye contact, sneers, secretive crying, and reciprocal monologuing. Amy Green overheard us in the yard and told Ciara her laugh sounded like a pig. Ciara didn’t laugh again for a week. Not even when it was just the two of us. 

One Wednesday, in Newspaper Club, Ciara and I were taking a break from writing a snarky, unpublishable article about the hockey team. Ciara was flicking through old issues of Assumpta’s Times. I was staring out the window, watching a pigeon peck at a sandwich, when I felt something grab my arm. 

“Look at this,” whispered Ciara. I couldn’t tell if she was excited or scared. She turned the book around, which was open on a page showing an attractive teenage girl standing on stage clutching a trophy, head turned slightly to the left, smiling at the camera. 

“Look at the caption,” she hissed, jabbing her finger below the picture. I looked down and immediately understood. 

“Carmen Holly wins national debating championship,” it read. The issue was from 1987. The very first year the school paper had come out. We combed through it, finding Carmen Holly on almost every page. She captained the hockey and basketball teams, was voted school captain, and was clearly leader of the popular crowd. A photo from the debs showed her surrounded by beautiful, slim girls, all with equally attractive boyfriends on their arms. 

“She’s real,” said Ciara, staring at me. I knew instantly what she was going to do. 

After we saw that article, going back to the decaying house was all she talked about: on the way to school, at break, late at night in my bedroom. There was no topic she couldn’t drag back to that subject. She argued that it would be no good if only one of us was popular. We both had to see Ms. Hearn, so that we could be transformed together, and still remain friends. 

But fear held me back, initially at least. At the time, I couldn’t think of anything better than being beautiful and adored by other teenagers, scoring in a big game or drinking cans with boys behind the rugby club. Ciara was aware of all this of course. I had told her my deepest desires a thousand times. She knew I would say yes. It was only a matter of time. 

When I finally agreed to come, it was on the condition that, if I changed my mind and said I wanted to get out, we would both leave together. Nobody would be left behind. Ciara readily agreed, nodding her head with enthusiasm. She would have gone along with anything I said. 

That Friday, we walked the old route home from school and stopped in front of the house. Before long, the lady with the birthmark came outside and smiled. Her middle front teeth were rotten. 

She told us to come back in a month, in the middle of the night. We were each to bring a used menstrual pad with us. I was shocked when she said this, but Ciara was unperturbed. If anything, this mad request seemed to convince her that the whole thing was legitimate. 

I got my period first. I kept the pad hidden at the back of my sock drawer, wrapped in a plastic bag. Ciara got hers a week later. When the time came, we arranged to meet in my back garden at one in the morning. My room was on the ground floor, and I could easily slip out my window. 

Ciara had warned me not to fall asleep, which was ridiculous. I spent the start of the night lying on my bed, fully clothed, staring at the clock. I heard her rap on the window at ten to one, and I climbed outside. I thought I would feel better when we were together, but her expression made me uneasy. Her eyes glowed, and she seemed to be fighting the urge to smile broadly. In her mind, I realised, the wish was already as good as granted. I began to remind her of our deal about turning back and she quickly reassured me, cutting me off mid-sentence. 

The lady with the birthmark was waiting for us in the garden, silhouetted by the warm glow of the caravan windows. She walked to the rusted gate and ushered us past the threshold. 

The inside of the caravan was small and made even smaller by a staggering volume of clutter. Dimly lit pendants, porcelain figures and other bric-a-brac filled every inch of shelf and table space, spilling onto the floor in some areas. The smell of burning incense permeated, but underneath this odour there was a faint tang of rot and decay. Stepping further into the caravan, I saw half eaten dinners and mouldy ready meals mixed in with the other debris. Mrs. Hearn was seated at the opposite end to the door, sitting on a cushion, behind a pot resting on a hotplate. There was a small lamp and a few lit candles surrounding her. 

The old lady was small and wrinkled, with yellowing grey hair wrapped in a green ribbon. She was wearing what looked like a hospital gown, and its front was covered with countless food stains, combining to look like a parody of a bib. Heavy wooden bracelets weighed down her wrists. When we were younger we said she was hundreds of years old, and her appearance did nothing to disprove this. Except for her eyes. They were sharp and fierce and young, and they sparkled faintly in the flickering lights. 

Mrs. Hearn gestured with her wrinkled hands for us to sit on the floor, and then give her our pads. She sniffed each one and touched them with the tip of her tongue. After staring at us closely, she put them in the pot, which was by now emitting a considerable amount of steam. 

She leaned forward to stir the contents, and I saw behind her what looked like a Virgin Mary statue, but with the eyes smashed in.  

I turned to Ciara, who was watching Mrs. Hearn carefully, like someone about to sit an important exam, eager not to get a single question wrong. I tugged on her wrist to draw her attention to the statue, but she shook me away. 

Mrs. Hearn began to mutter under her breath. We leaned in to hear, but she wasn’t speaking English, or any other language I recognised. 

“Ciara,” I whispered. No response. I tugged her sleeve again. “Ciara!” 

“Stop! You’ll ruin it!” She pulled her hand back. The woman with the birthmark shushed us loudly from beside the door. I turned around. She looked hungry, expectant. 

Mrs. Hearn took two chipped mugs, dipped them into the pot, and handed us one each. The contents smelled of dirt, liquorice and sweat. The mug burned my hands. The vapour mingled with the smell of the room and made me feel unsteady. Mrs. Hearn resumed her chanting, not even glancing at us. I thought back to when we were small, and how we had often talked about the witch who lived in this house: how she lived, what she wore, what she looked like. The figure in front of us seemed so similar to what we had conjured up in our imaginations. It was as though we had summoned her with our whispers, our shudders. It was as if reality had molded to fit our childlike games. 

The room seemed to grow smaller. I felt trapped, as if in a nightmare. Mrs. Hearn made a gesture for us to drink. I saw her look at me as she did so, sensing my discomfort, and I thought I could see a flash of worry in her eyes. She desperately wanted me to consume the liquid, to finish the ritual. 

I dropped my mug and pushed myself to my feet. The fear I had been keeping at bay all night rushed over me and took control. I leaned over Ciara, trying to pull her with me. 

“We need to go!” I shouted. “We need to…” 

Her slap sent me reeling backwards. She didn’t even look to see if I’d fallen. Instead, she furiously cupped her hands around her mug, scared that even a single drop might have been spilled. Then she started to drink greedily. The contents must have tasted foul, but that didn’t matter to her. 

I staggered towards the door, tripping into a pile of rubbish before righting myself, and pushing my way outside. The woman with the birthmark made no attempt to stop me. She was gazing at Ciara triumphantly.  

The last sight I saw before leaving that caravan was Mrs. Hearn staring at me with malevolence, while Ciara swallowed the last of her cup, my spilled liquid pooling around her crossed legs. 

My next memory is of later that night, crying on my bed and clutching my pillow. I knew Ciara’s life was going to change, but because of my cowardice, I was going to be lonely and repulsive forever. I hoped Ciara would visit me on her way back home, but I was still waiting for her knock on the window when my mother called me for breakfast. 

The following months confirmed my fears. Ciara got a growth spurt. Her acne cleared. Her family went on holiday to Bundoran and she came back with a perfect tan and bleached hair. She used to always burn, and her hair was naturally frizzy and unmanageable. Now it looked like a L’Oreal ad. She bought a whole new wardrobe, which accentuated a curved figure she had also mysteriously obtained. 

Her facial features must have stayed the same, since I still recognised her. But somehow she seemed conventionally beautiful. She looked like the type of girl who could be on the cover of a magazine, which would have been a laughable thing to say in the past. 

Along with her new wardrobe and hair, she acquired a gang of friends. She could often be seen striding the school halls, talking animatedly, while Amy Green hung on to her every word, and laughed sycophantically at her jokes. 

In our final year, I was spending a Wednesday evening at Newspaper Club. Ciara was no longer a member. She had turned into quite the athlete, and the newspaper meetings clashed with her hockey training. She didn’t talk to me anymore. She even pretended not to notice me when we passed in the corridor. Initially I had been holding out, waiting for her to apologise for slapping me. By the time I realised this wasn’t going to happen, she had long since moved on.  

I knew she thought I had chickened out by not drinking the potion, and that any misery I suffered now was entirely my own fault. I didn’t blame her for this. Sometimes I silently agreed with her. At any rate, our friendship was over, and I was now just an unpleasant reminder of her former lack of status. 

I spent the rest of secondary school alone. Looking back, it feels like I was crying almost the entire time. My parents tried to get me to see a counselor, but I refused. I started eating less and could spend forty minutes at a time sitting in the shower, staring at the tiled bathroom wall, letting the water wash over me. 

I was thinking about Ciara one evening as I flipped through a pile of old school photographs. Mr. O’Donnell, the teacher who ran newspaper club, had asked me to go through them. It was thirty years since Assumpta’s Times began, and I was looking for any old pictures that might be suitable for the anniversary edition. 

I looked at seemingly endless photos of girls in eighties and nineties haircuts. They were sitting exams, graduating, playing chess, smiling while the headmistress spoke. I turned over one photo, and another one, and another, until I picked up one that made me gasp, and fling it back down onto the table, as if it were red hot. 

It was a picture of Carmen Holly, hockey stick mid-swing, about to strike the ball while her opponent trailed behind her. She looked radiant. This was the only candid photo of her I had seen. Every image from her yearbook had been posed, and she had tilted her head to the left. Now I understood why. 

She had a birthmark on her left cheek. It was in the shape of a star. 

From that day onwards, I waited. I saw Ciara captain the hockey team, and get cast as Maria in the school’s production of West Side Story. I saw her win the school English prize, give a class valedictorian speech, and get the “Best Dressed Student” award. That was a prize voted for by the sixth years which basically determined who was the most popular. 

I was still waiting when I got accepted to DCU to study communications, and Ciara got BESS in Trinity. I waited so long I almost forgot about waiting, and moved on to other things in my life, and tried to put my school years behind me. But I’m not waiting anymore. 

Now I live in my parents’ old house with David and our two girls. My mother moved to a small apartment nearby after my father had a heart attack. She calls over regularly. She can’t get enough of the girls, which is lovely. David’s company went public, and thanks to that, we were able pay for Mum’s apartment without even taking out a mortgage. 

When I’m out pushing the stroller, I often follow our old route back from school. Passing through these familiar surroundings, I always keep an eye out for Ciara. I sometimes see her in the garden or coming out of the caravan. She might be hanging out washing or emptying a bedpan. She’s aged badly, and she’s so thin her bones are clearly visible, just like Carmen Holly. Of course, she’ll never meet my gaze. Instead, she scurries inside, pretending not to notice me, slamming the grimy door behind her, ready to attend to Mrs. Hearn’s every whim. 

Seán Egan is a writer from Dublin. His story The Playwright was shortlisted for the 2024 Michael McLaverty Short Story Award. His radio play, Murder, He Podcasted, was broadcast on Dublin City FM. He also wrote and staged plays in college, one of which won a student writing award.