FOR THE SPLENDOUR WITH WHICH SHE SHINES

They had told me that Aoife was having trouble finding a flatmate; no-one wants to live with a prophet. The Gumtree ad was harmless enough: she didn’t mention anything about cleanliness or noise, but had strong opinions about Hildegard of Bingen. My own Venn diagram — a remnant from my Catholic school days — was probably the reason she accepted my application. She held the interview in her front room, the blinds shuttered despite the honeyed light outside. Crows rattled and scraped in the old townhouse eaves. The scent of incense lingered. A roving map of stars was projected onto the wall behind her, so that her face was constantly charted in constellations.

Her eyes were the first thing I noticed: a shade of brown so light they appeared amber. She would later tell me this was one of the best things she inherited from her Nonna, the other hand-me-downs an eclectic mix, ranging from the ability to make flawless ravioli to a tendency to sing operatic arias when distracted. The most obvious and least socially acceptable inheritance, of course, was her gift of prophecy.

“Would you like to ask me anything?” she said at the end.

I thought briefly of the writings which sprawled across the coffee table, the way the air shivered and bent around her as if around a candle flame. Her voice was not what you’d imagine when you think of oracles and mystics — it was distinctly