An Bhean ag an Doras (The Woman at the Door)

A story inspired by the Irish myth of the witch Carman, and Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann (tribe of the gods)

An Bhean ag an Doras:

An Irish Ghost Story

By Christina Muldoon

 

She sat in front of the fire while I sat to the side of it, not taking my eyes off her for a moment. I regretted inviting her in almost immediately, but I was a small child at the time, taken in by her wailing and the sight of a wee babe in her arms, despite my mother having solemnly told me to keep the door bolted until her and my father’s return. Though our parents didn’t raise us in the religion of the christ god, we were still raised to be charitable and to help those around us who needed aide if we were able to offer it. And thus it was, that horrible evening all those years ago, when my mother left the house in the middle of the storm to search for my father who was unreturned from his work, leaving myself and my younger brother alone.

There was nothing about her that was obviously suspect. She was just as road weary, as rail thin as any of our other countrymen at the time. Her behaviour was that of a dog that had been kicked repeatedly and learned to live without affection. She was young, and even in her malnourished state, she was a beauty. Her eyes and hair were dark, and if she had been cleaner, her lank hair would have had a full, natural curl to it. Her skin, though pale, had an olive tinge, giving the impression that she had foreign blood, but other than that, there was nothing about her that set her apart, except for something… something I couldn’t quite place at the time. But where most adults dismiss such feelings, children hang onto them and use them as shields against the danger they face. I didn’t know what was amiss, but something definitely was.

Slowly, she sipped at the soup I had given her. My mother had a pot of it simmering on the fire for occasions such as this. We often had people knocking at our door, as our house was not far from the main road, which had more and more people on it every day to get to the boats. Like pilgrims to a holy site, these travellers came from all over Ireland, intent on making it across the ocean. But not every person made it. Every day, my father would go out early and move the bodies of men, women and children who had died in squalor and misery in the muddy road. Many of them looked as if they had fallen asleep, whereas some looked as if they had just laid down and given up, forfeiting their souls to a god that had not been seen in Ireland since the beginning of the blight, and yet they still put their faith in him anyhow. My mother encouraged me to have pity for these poor wretches. They may have died in miserable circumstances, but it was with a hope in their hearts that they might reach the boats in time, and that those boats would lead them to a new, better life in Canada or America.

It was only every so often, but the ones who were still strong would come to our small cottage, compelled by something other than themselves to knock at the door. From the moment those broken people entered our home, their countenance changed. They were never hostile, never stole from us or hurt us. They never questioned why or how we managed to have soup that had unspoilt potatoes, and carrots and onions that would have been considered property of the Crown. They merely sat and ate the nourishing soup that my mother always had ready, anticipating their arrival. Sometimes, father would catch one or two rabbits and give them to my mother to add to the soup if she so wanted. He never approved of what she did. He believed she was inviting trouble with her Christian-like charity, quiet and innocuous as it was. 

The people ate the soup in contentment, their bodies present but their minds elsewhere. My mother would speak with them, offering encouragement and hope for their journey. Once they were done and their bellies were full, they would stand and calmly leave, as if sleep walking. But before they crossed the threshold, my mother would take them softly by the shoulders, look them in their vacant eyes, and offer them a final blessing unlike any other. 

It was in a language not known to Irishmen of the time, but rather one that was long dead to Men. It was the sound of an Irish soul, a deep, ancient language that was understood now only by the rocks and sea, the trees and the glens, and the spirits that had been relegated to the shadows ever since Pádraig brought the christ god to our shores. It was the voice of Ireland Herself. Though no human spoke it anymore, it was understood in the bones of anyone from the Isle, no matter the god that they worshipped or allegiances they had. For no soul is born of itself, a solitary thing belonging to just one person. A soul is a piece of all of those who have come before you, whose own lives allowed your life to be possible. We share and intertwine these pieces, creating a tapestry that can never be unwoven, no matter our ignorance or denial. Wherever we go or who we are in this world, we may rest easy knowing that the best of ourselves is shared with others, though we may not know or remember them, and we are therefore never truly alone, nor ever away from our home.

This was the knowledge that my mother imparted to those who came across our door. My mother, speaking on behalf of Mother Ireland, blessing her children and apologizing for her failure to keep them safe, but sending them off with love, hope and grace. It was the very least she could do.

 

She didn’t speak much at first, this strange, quiet girl. She appeared barely older than myself, as if she could be my older sister, and yet she had a child to care for. Like so many mothers at the time, she had no man with her. This sight was common to me: Many children were without fathers, many women without husbands. Even at that early age, I knew that not all men were good like my father. Some were dishonourable. Some left when faced with familial responsibility, some claimed love merely to satisfy their lust, and some were just violent, and many children were sadly born of that violence. As I sat across from her, I wondered about her child’s father, and hoped rather naïvely that the small boy was loved by him, whomever and wherever he was.

She ate her soup awkwardly, as she refused to place her child down. Some women held their children continuously like this out of comfort for themselves, but sometimes it was to keep the child from being taken by hungry dogs or nibbled by rats. These women, driven mad by hunger, grief, and hopelessness, sometimes had a notion that merely holding their child was enough to keep it healthy and alive. It was this same logic that had them still holding their children long after they had died. My parents would try to make me to look away, but I often managed to see those poor broken women, the light gone from their eyes, holding a lifeless child like some sort of a horrific doll. 

One woman stopped us on the road a few days previous, telling my father that the child in her arms wasn’t hers, but another one that had been placed there as she slept. I remember him pitying her, assuring her that she could rest easy knowing that her child which had been swapped with a fairy changeling was now in Tír na nOg, forever young, forever happy, forever healthy. But the woman, in her grief, said that it wasn’t even a changeling, for changelings resemble the person they’ve been swapped with, and this simply was not her child. I heard my mother stifle a scream as the woman pulled back the shawl to reveal a baby that had been dead for days, beginning to change to the colours that were brought on by rot. My mother held me and my brother closer then, perhaps fearful that this woman, in some morbid trade, would try take one of us to replace the one she had lost, whether to Death or to the Fae. Over and over the woman screamed, switching between rage and grief, that the child was simply not hers, not hers, not hers. 

I had always seen my father as a good man, one who loved his children. In a time when many men abandoned their families, our father cherished his. I saw him be affected when he saw dead children and their mothers wailing for them. He understood just how easily grief could shatter someone’s soul, and thus to this woman, he gave his empathy. He knew one couldn’t reason with madness, so he sympathetically nodded, letting the woman know that he understood her pain and confusion.

She stared at my father for a time, eyes wild, as if she were trying to see into his soul and find the answers she needed. But slowly, her face cracked and the truth poured out of her, raw and heart-breaking. Her child was gone, and it didn’t matter where to, because she couldn’t retrieve him either way. My mother wouldn’t have wanted me to see, but she too was frozen at the sight of this poor, anguished woman. All of us stood stock still as we watched her hope crumble into bitter ash of reality and despair. Slowly, the woman let go of my father’s gaze, turned, and left the road, her shoulders slumped, wandering aimlessly into the spoilt fields with the child’s corpse in her arms. She no longer had need of the road to the New World, because there was no world without her baby. Her cries carried on the air like a banshee well into the night, until it ceased completely and never sounded again.

 

I had thought about that encounter for days, and continued to replay it in my mind as I observed our guest and her sleeping child. Though she appeared emaciated, her child looked relatively healthy: chubby cheeks, pink lips, and a beautiful head of curly hair, so blonde that it was white. She followed my gaze and pulled the shawl tighter as if protecting him from the threats that a small girl posed. Feeling uncomfortable, I felt the need to speak. Before I had time to think, I blurted out the first thing I had often heard my mother ask other women about their children:

“What’s his name?”

She regarded me closely, almost confused by the fact that I had a voice. She didn’t answer, and I thought perhaps she had difficulty hearing, so I repeated myself. Something changed in her countenance then, and she softened, though she still seemed on guard.

“Lugh. His name is Lugh.'' She paused then quietly added, ''He's named for his father.”

Fearing a return to silence, I continued to talk, grabbing wildly at any kind of conversation.

“My Da’s name is Lugh as well.”

“Is it?” 

She asked almost lazily. Something about it made me regret telling her.

“Y-yes.”

A small silence as she fixed me with a venom stare.

“And where is your da?”

“In the fields. My mumma went to find him.”

“And she left you alone, did she?”

Her voice was so soft. It terrified me.

“She left me to guard the house.”

She laughed a bit then as she uttered, “Oh,” as if holding back her judgement on my mother’s choice to leave us alone. This roused my obstinate soul, and my blood boiled. My chest puffed and I felt as if I had grown two feet to challenge this woman’s assumption about my capabilities and my mother’s belief in them.

“I can do it. I’m brave.”

She kept her eyes on the fire.

“I have no doubt that you are, little one. I can see why your mother trusted you to look after your young brother. Who would dare cross you?”

She glanced over to where Rónán was playing in the corner with a toy, and a small smile came across her face.

“He’s very sweet, isn’t he? He looks about the same age as my son.”

Fear crashed over me like a rogue wave on the rocks, and I my body went taut. Rónán was clearly older than her child, if only by a year or so. The delusion that they were similar made me wonder about her sanity, and if she was like that woman we met on the road. She glanced back at me and saw it.

“Never worry, little one. I don’t hurt children.”

Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes then, and she blinked them away just as quickly, and clutched her young son closer. As she stared back into the fire, something as black as her hair came upon her, and it almost seemed to me her eyes went even darker. She stared hard into the embers that reflected in her eyes, giving their blackness a small pin prick of reddish light, and I found that she resembled the demons that Christians often spoke about. I was terrified to move, terrified to have her there, terrified to speak. Like a rabbit in a snare, I froze in the face of huge fear, made myself look as small as possible, and waited for it to be over.

“You strike me as a brave girl, one who will rise to a challenge, and won’t sit back down, even once she’s lost the fight.” She scoffed and shook her head. “Such bravery always breeds foolhardiness and pride. So let me tell you something, little warrior, that will perhaps save you time and precious energy in your future: The world doesn’t want girls like you. Girls like you are a needless b***h. The world wants girls who listen, first to their fathers, then to their husbands. Girls who bend to the will of Men. And if they don’t… then they are forced to bend until they snap.”

She looked away from the fire then and directly at me, but the small reddish light stayed in her dark eyes.

“I used to have three boys. They were my eternal soul and my daily joy, but their father didn’t want them, he only wanted me. He didn’t even acknowledge them as his own. There are still women now who are like that: who let their children live as b******s so that they might live with a bit of security. But I was brash and wanted more for my boys. So, when I asked for it -- when I requested that he be a father to his children -- he left. And in his wake, he scattered stories about me. Small lies like seeds that he knew would grow wherever he dropped them. He spread slander and vicious tales about how I was a w***e and witch from a foreign land, and that my three boys and I had brought with us famine and death. He merely implied that we were the cause of it all, but implication was all he needed.”

“A while later, he returned with three of his men and a mob close behind. He didn’t say or do anything. He just watched as humans pried my boys from me, as his children screamed in agonizing fear. He watched as I was dragged to a hole in the ground and thrown in with the rats and mud. And despite my cries for mercy, he walked away, never looking back. He was regarded a golden warrior of the people who had defeated a witch and her demon offspring, while I was left there to rot in the wet of the earth and my own filth, ripped from my children. All because I wasn’t the compliant woman that he demanded that I be.”

I sat frozen somewhere between pity and horror. Her story, or at least the sentiment of it, wasn’t unheard of. Many upper-class men had mistresses and illegitimate children who were mistreated and dropped as soon as there was a whiff of scandal. But even in the lower classes, there were men who hurt their wives and daughters. Women walked in public with their faces bruised, lips split, blackened, swollen eyes continuously staring at the ground, made meek and compliant. So many women were mistreated and dominated by men. They were merely seen as property and something for breeding, like dogs. I saw it then and I see it now. I had no reason to disbelieve or mistrust her story.

“Why did they let you out?”

She looked at me dazed, almost as if she had forgotten I was in the room.

“What?”

“Well, you’re here. Surely, they took pity and let you out.” I gestured to the child in her arms. “You found one of your boys.”

She softly snorted and regarded the babe.

“This is a new child. Not one of the three.” She sighed, and her voice changed. “And there was no pity. I had to wait for a very, very long time, but I finally managed to escape.”

“How?”

A small pause.

“A famine happened, and my cell was forgotten. I walked free.”

I breathed slowly, unsure if I should ask.

“Did you ever find your boys?”

Her eyes welled and her grasp on her child slackened.

“No. And I know that I never will.”

She looked down at the child and suddenly regarded him with so little emotion, I feared she might toss him into the fire. It shocked me that only minutes ago, she held this child with security and care, but it had soured into resentment for him not being one of the children that she had lost. She sat looking at this child who wasn’t one of her first three, and I felt such sadness for him. His mother was comparing him to siblings that he would never know and was laying fault with him where there was none.

“Is your father a good man?”

The abrupt change in conversation was so jarring, I looked at her wordlessly for a moment before she looked back at me with a look that seemed to say, “Well?”

“Yes, my da’s a good man.”

“How? Tell me how he is a good man.”

Her demeanour was as changeable as the weather of our island: sunshine, beauty and calm one moment, a threatening black tempest the next. Clearly, she had an awful image of men in her head, which I imagine was propagated by her sons’ father, so I thought I would do my best to replace it with a good one. And so, I told her the truth:

“My father is unlike any other. He teaches me to read and write. He hugs my mother every day before he leaves and every night after he comes back. He sings to my brother and I and tells us stories of the old gods of Ireland. Sometimes, he makes silly faces and voices and makes us laugh. He kisses us every night before we go to bed. He never hurts any of us. He only has love for us.”

I sat hoping that the description of my father’s goodness would help change her, help restore whatever faith she had lost in men and their ability to be good to their families, especially in trying times. But instead, she looked as though she was trying to force a reaction. Or restrain one. Finally, a small smile cracked between her lips, and she said, “He does indeed sound like a good man. A man who would do anything for his family. One who would be very sad without you.”

I had half a mind to keep going, to keep telling her nice stories about my father, but she immediately placed the half empty bowl down and announced that she would now take her leave from the house. Standing slowly, she cradled the child and tucked one end of her shawl around him, anticipating the wind and rain.

As she left our house, a feeling of relief washed over me. The sooner I could put this whole strange ordeal behind me, the better. Before she crossed the threshold however, she slowly turned to me while pulling the other end of her shawl up around her head, and smiled in such a way that it didn’t meet her eyes.

“Go raibh maith agat as cuireadh a thabhairt dom, a dhuine bheag.”

“Thank you for inviting me in, little one.”

Something in her smile, in her way of speaking to me made my heart slam in my chest. Although she was leaving, she felt just as dangerous, if not more so. Her smile was indeed one of thanks, but not a timid, humble gratitude of those other travellers who came to our door. It was a look of someone who wanted something, yearned for it, and had found a remarkably simple way to get it. With one last look of her stalking eyes, she turned and walked away from our home, her ever silent child wrapped in her arms, and disappeared as if they themselves had become part of the darkness.

 

My parents returned not long after. I was so relieved at their return but said nothing of our visitor. Like every child, I feared the wrath of my parents. I thought of what might happen if I was honest about what I had done: I imagined my mother’s chastising words, the disappointed look on my father’s face after I told them what I had done, even though it was out of kindness. Then I imagined them beginning to bicker, each one blaming the other instead of understanding that it was an honest mistake committed by an innocent child who was left to her own devices. I didn’t want my parents angry, with me or with each other, so I remained outwardly quiet, inwardly ashamed.

As their wet clothes dried in front of the fire, my father ate soup to warm himself and I leaned against him, hugging his leg, and my mother nursed Rónán. The normality of our familial life brought with it relaxation on my part, and I resolved to put the young woman and her child out of my mind.

Later, as my mother was laying Rónán in his cot, my father laid me in mine. I hugged his neck tight, happy to have him home, my strong, authoritative father. No harm could happen while he was with us. He wouldn’t allow it. He hugged me and kissed me back, the course hair of his beard tickling my face, and he whispered that he was so proud of me for being brave and protecting the house while he and mumma were away. I felt a twinge of guilt and fear which must have showed on my face, as he leaned over and assured me that I didn’t have to be brave anymore, that he was there to take care of us all. I momentarily considered once again telling him about the woman, but my exhaustion outweighed the burden that I felt, and I drifted immediately to sleep.

 

My dreams that night were unlike any I have ever had. They were bright and clear, more like I was reliving a memory instead of random pictures produced by my unconscious mind.

It was the middle of the day. The sun was out and in any other context, it would have been an incredibly beautiful one. I found myself standing in the middle of a crowd who jeered and cursed my mother as she held my screaming brother close to her chest. The crowd threw stones, mud, and rotten food which bounced off of her head and back as she sheltered Rónán from the attack. Blood sprang up on her hands and face where she had been struck by the particularly fast and sharp rocks. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t run from the mob, but then I realized that it was because she was confused by the attack, as every glimpse I got of her usually beautiful face was replaced with a grimace of disorientation and terror. This was an ambush on a small, unassuming family.

 Someone produced a torch and set her small, solitary hut ablaze. As she screamed in horror, a woman stepped out of the crowd and attempted to snatch Rónán from her. My mother held him fast, but as one bold action often incites more just like it, three people stepped forward to subdue my mother as two more helped to wrestle the terrified, bewildered toddler from her grasp. My mother let out an animal-like scream as they began to bind her arms behind her back, leaving her to watch helplessly as her dear Rónán disappeared into the raucous.

As my eyes tried to follow where they had taken my brother, they unexpectedly turned to the very back of the crowd, to four men on horseback. They were dressed in traditional Celtic warrior garb, with even their horses dressed as if ready for battle. It seemed so odd, considering they sat still and silent, merely observing the crowd that was literally tearing this woman’s life apart, like a rock face observing a storm. Despite their battle clothes, they were dressed resplendently, as if they were some sort of royalty or equally revered figures. I was unsure what made them shone, the sun or their own beauty.

All four sat in an equal line, but one in particular stood out to me. Something in his countenance held authority and a quiet confidence that seems to imbue true leaders, and therefore I deduced that he was theirs. He was blonde and clean shaven, but the sun was behind him, throwing the details of his face into shadow.

Suddenly, there she was in front of me, the woman at the door. She was holding my brother who was now peacefully sleeping in her arms. Her wild face was all I could see as she stared boldly into my eyes and repeated her parting sentiment like it was a curse: ‘Go raibh maith agat as cuireadh a thabhairt dom, a dhuine bheag.’

 My body jumped and woke me immediately. I was ripped from the nightmare, from the bottomless heartbreak of my mother, the innocent terror of my brother, the frenzied mania of the crowd, and the frozen indifference of the four warrior gods. I awoke to feel sweat on my back and tears already on my cheeks, and I began to cry in earnest, extreme emotion smothering me like a heavy blanket. Unable to sort my confused emotions into coherent thoughts, I just laid in a ball and sobbed.

I heard movement in the darkness and felt my father’s strong hands come around my small body, lifting me under my arms as if I weighed nothing. He held me close as I wrapped myself around him, needing him to take some of this fear from me. He swiftly carried me out of our communal bedroom so that I wouldn’t disturb my mother and brother. The flames of our fire had died, but the coals still burned, giving off a comforting warmth against the storm which continued to rage outside. With one arm continuously wrapped tightly around me, my father picked up a chair with the other and sat it in front of the hearth so we might still be warm as he rocked me back to comfort and calm. He whispered into the top of my head, asking me if I had had a nightmare. I nodded against his chest, and he made soft, comprehending sounds in response. He began to sing a lullaby to me, a lullaby, like everything else my father had taught me, that was in the Old Irish. As he sang, intent on relaxing me back into sleep, it only made me cry harder as it was a constant reminder of my grievous mistake.

In the years since that merciless night, I have come to learn a great many things about my family. We didn’t follow the christ god, yet we attended mass for fear of being accused of being heathens, or worse, Protestants. We lived close enough to the village to be known, but far enough to be forgotten in everyday goings on. And though we spoke the common Irish in public, we spoke the Old Irish at home and in private. For the Old Irish wasn’t just our heritage, but there was a magic woven into that speech that was kept alive by our speaking it, no matter how faint its pulse was. It was the magic that drew people to our house to be fed, that allowed my mother to grow any vegetable that she wished, and let my father catch elusive rabbits. This magic made us different, and being different is dangerous anywhere, but that which made us vulnerable also protected us.

We lived quietly but comfortably, hidden in plain sight by a Force unknown by humans, but this spell only worked if we kept its secret. My parents knew how to harness this power, but being a child at the time, I was under strict instruction to only speak the Old Irish at home with my parents, never to anyone else. And I unwittingly broke that rule with the woman at the door. In my panic to overcome the quiet between us, I had spoken reflexively, and had unknowingly sealed my fate.

Like so many children, one of my greatest fears was disappointing my parents. And though I knew I had broken the one unbreakable rule of our house, that wasn’t what had upset me. It wasn’t what woke me from my dream, and it wasn’t what kept me sobbing into my father’s chest in front of the dying hearth.

Her final words felt odd to me somehow, and the uneasiness of it was like hearing a rat in the walls. It was the dream that made realization grab at me like a hand out of the darkness: her final sentiment was in the common Irish. In my haste to fill the void created by silence, I spoke without thought and reverted to the language I spoke most often. But more disturbing than my childish mistake was the fact that when I spoke to her in the Old Irish, she understood and conversed with me in that same language.

Even as a small child, unaware of the complexities of larger matters that are much more obvious to adults, I knew that there was something sinister in the implication of our exchange in such an old, mystical language, supposedly spoken by none except our small family. My heart pumped this feeling throughout my small body, forcing these thoughts and emotions into every corner of me, filling me with dread and fear of what I had let into the house. The heaviness of the burden felt like lead in my veins and chest, and I wondered how my father was able to lift me at all. That same heaviness drifted into my eyelids, and despite the anxiety that was screaming in my head, I found myself falling back asleep against the warm, solid, calming in-and-out rhythm of my father’s body. There was a small vibration in his chest from his soft singing, his heart providing a steadfast beat for the song he was singing just for me, his thick arms holding my small frame with tender grace.

Thus, the last image in my conscious mind was a curious one: it was that of my father sitting astride a horse, three men by his side, staring at something with a cold sterility as if he had never loved anything in his life.

*   *   *

I woke completely and suddenly. I was back in my bed, tucked in I assumed by my father. I looked vaguely out of the two small windows of the room we all shared. The storm was finished and had now passed, leaving everything still and calm outside. I was surprised that I couldn’t even see the sun rising. My father always woke early, but never before the sun. If he were up and out of the house already, my mother too would be waking soon. I looked over to their bed to see if she was already up, and my heart jumped into my throat. They were both still there, sound asleep and undisturbed.

So why then did I hear the bolt of the door scrape open?

No… it couldn’t be. The door unlocked only from the inside. And if I heard the bolt, my parents would have. My father had the ears of a fox and my mother had ears, well… like a mother. They would have heard someone entering our home. No… no one was in the house. We were fine. We were safe. The sound I heard was probably the tree outside blowing in the wind and scraping the stone walls, as it sometimes did if the breeze was right. We were fine. We were safe. 

I swaddled myself in this belief and felt sleep returning to me when I heard something else scrape raggedly on the walls. It was a sound like nails being slowly dragged, just as one drags a blade across a stone to sharpen it.

This sound was not outside, but inside our home.

I don’t know why I didn’t scream. I wish I had. I wish to all the gods, old and new, real and make-believe that I had screamed and had woken my parents to the intruder. But something stopped me. I have thought many years since that perhaps I had dreamed it all, as no one ever alerts themselves in a dream, no matter how terrifying. But if it was a dream, it was torturously real, and it then turned into a never-ending nightmare.

Our cottage had two rooms -- our bedroom and the kitchen -- and my bed was on the same wall as the small door that connected the two. My little mind raced as I stared hard at it through the darkness, horrified at what was lurking on the other side of the lintel. The moon was full that night and threw its light through windows of the croft. The clouds that were left over from the storm drifted quickly over the moon’s face, causing the shadows in the room to change and shift, distorting the shapes and changing what I knew to be true into something unknown.

As I watched the doorframe like a hawk, a movement on the floor grabbed at the corner of my vision. It was quick; the shadows shifted fast, and nothing was as it appeared, but I thought I saw a hand grab at the darkness, like someone climbing a rock face. It was a darker shape, a shadow within shadow, and it was darting here and there across the floor, always staying out of the pools of moonlight, closer and closer to my parent’s bed. Once it was safely in the dark, with no chance of being touched by the moon, that was when it began to rise from the floor. Slowly but steadily, it came into view, like a selkie woman stepping out of the depths, coming ashore to find a human husband. But this was no selkie. It was an abomination.

What emerged from the shadow on the floor was akin to a gnarled, ancient tree bobbing out of stagnant water, something that once gave life now poisoned and waterlogged by its entrapment. It’s skin, if you could call it that, looked like tree bark made of black stone, with thin, spindly arms that looked fragile as twigs and ended in a skeletal hand. The fingers were longer than any I had ever seen, and they curled in an arthritic malice. Those hands looked frail, but I had no doubt they had grabbed many an unsuspecting person and pulled them into the darkness before they even had time to scream, like a snake snapping its prey. Its backbone jutted out beneath tight skin, looking like a repulsive ladder that bowed at the top, giving the monstrous crone such a hump, it looked like it had two heads. The hair from its scalp was sparse and scraggly, like a corpse whose hair had rotted off the skull. It came up out of the shadows facing away from me, and I prayed it would stay that way. I didn’t dare look at its face.

With half of its legs still in the puddle of shadow, it looked down at my sleeping parents, both of whom were unaware of the demon that currently watched them sleep. It looked down at them, and I saw its arm slowly come up and the fingers unfurl, like a butcher mindfully taking his knives out for his work. As the gruesome hand softly came down over my father, my mother sighed in her sleep and turned to him, her graceful hand resting on his chest. In response, my father’s head lolled towards her, reciprocating her love.

The hag snatched its hand back so quickly, it was as if it had been burned. It stayed like that for a moment, staring at my parents, at these two people who were so in love, they even expressed it in their sleep. Slowly, the hand that pulled away from my father closed into a tight fist, and it began to tremble. It was a tremble that happens when a blind rage sets in. I don’t know what happened then. Perhaps, despite my trying to remain silent, a small sound escaped me, or perhaps she knew all along that I was awake. Either way, she spun quickly to face me, and it felt like the end of the world.

Even in the dark, I could tell that she was looking right at me, but I didn’t see her face. I had no way of telling if she even had one. All I could see through the dark were orbs of reddish light peering at me from out of the depths of her skull, like embers reflected in darkened eyes. 

Then, she let out a shriek. It was like no sound I had ever heard before or since. It was worse than any thunderstorm, any blizzard, or gale. It was so loud, I thought it would shake stones loose from our walls. It was a shriek like she had taken on all the suffering of the world. Her shriek was one of pain, loss, wrath, and revenge. She wasn’t directing it to anyone or anything. Not to me, or my parents. It wasn’t for Ireland, nor against the British. It wasn’t because of the blight, nor was it because of the death, disease and destruction that ran rampant on the island. It was a shriek of unrealized emotion. Everything that she had ever felt yet kept trapped within herself was finally brought into being and let loose. It was for the years -- centuries -- of being blamed, being shamed, cursed, and neglected. It was everything that was put on her, that she took on herself, and carried like a burden on that bowed back.

All of it, she let go in that guttural, petrifying sound.

I clapped my hands to my ears and shut my eyes, unbelieving that my parents weren’t waking to this cacophony. Curled in a ball under my blanket, not even my tears could escape my eyes which were clamped shut. My breath came in sobs as I prayed to Anyone who would listen for it to please, just stop and leave us be.

Suddenly, the shriek changed. It sounded like someone completely different, though the pain was just as raw. The shriek still filled my ears, but it no longer filled the world. I opened my eyes to my mother racing towards my cot and lifting me ferociously as she sped out of the house, screaming for my father. The action of it all was so fast -- mere seconds-- yet I remember it in slow, excruciating detail:

It was no longer night, but the early hours of the morning. It looked like it would be beautiful, a rare day indeed where the sun shone brightly without the obstruction of clouds. As my mother lifted me, I noticed that she had Rónán’s blanket in her hands, the blanket that he slept with in his cot. A cot which showed no movement, nor which any sound came from.

I stared at the spot where he slept only a foot or two from my parents, willing my brother to make a sound, though I knew none would come. As my mother lifted me, my gaze came up over the edge of my brother’s cradle, and shock hit me so hard, I peered emotionless at the awful sight: I had expected to find his bed empty, but it in fact was not. It did have a child in it, but it wasn’t my brother. It was a different child entirely, one much younger than him, a baby that had clearly been dead for days. A baby that, in its short life, looked as though it had chubby cheeks, pink lips, and a beautiful head of curly hair, so blonde that it was white.

*   *   *

So many years have passed since that awful night. I have grown and scoured the Earth for them. I have mapped the world, followed clues, forged documents, and travelled endlessly, hoping that I might catch sight of them in a crowd, see my brother’s sweet face or hear her voice.

The World has changed so much around me in that time. Nothing is as it once was. Society evolves. People move on. The already dwindling magic of the world is all but dead, leaving only traces of itself, like tendrils of smoke after blowing out a candle. The horrors of the Famine are now history and an epitaph to a black time of suffering for the people of our island. It’s studied in schools, written about in books, monuments erected, documentaries and movies filmed. All trying to capture the abysmal suffering that has long passed. But I still suffer. Every morning, I wake from dreaming of them, and the hole in my heart reopens. 

Many would give up. Many would return home, return to what they know and perhaps strive for normalcy. But she did get one thing right all those years ago: I am a warrior, and I don’t sit back down, even when I have supposedly lost. In many ways, I have become my own legend, a figure that is doomed to spend eternity looking for what it has loved and lost. But so be it. What is right is always worth such a struggle.

When I dream of them, it is always the same. I have dreamt it almost every night since Rónán disappeared. Many would say it is guilt preying on my mind, showing me what I wish I knew, but I don’t believe it is that. I believe that it is her, challenging me to keep going, to keep chasing them, though I will most likely never find them, just as she has never found her boys. However, I don’t believe that she enjoys this torture. I believe that it is how she tests my resolve and dedication, seeing how far, how long, and how real my love is for my brother. And I suspect that she loves the morbid, distanced companionship of it. She understands my pursuit because she herself would have done it were she free to do so all those years ago.

In the dream, I stand only a few feet from them. We are somewhere in a crowded area, with many people walking past us not paying attention to our small tableau.

We are hidden in plain sight.

I am frozen to the spot, urging my brother -- who is still small -- to look up at me, to see me, to recognize me. But he can’t see me, can’t sense me. All he sees is her. He sees her and he loves her, this false mother. He loves her because she is the only mother he knows and remembers. She bends to tie his lace, a skill he should be taught by our father. She straightens his hair, an act of love he should experience from our mother. And she rebuttons his coat as protection from the cold, like the protection I should have been able to give him as his older sister.

 She smiles at him then, sweetly and sincerely. He throws his arms around the thief who took him from his cradle and proclaims to her, “I love you so much, mummy!”

She closes her eyes, savouring the moment, hanging tightly onto the love that she ripped from us.

“I know. And I love you too, Lugh.”

She named him for his father.

She opens her eyes then and looks at me. As our eyes lock, her smile spreads to her eyes, as if she has found her joy. She then stands, never once breaking her gaze with mine, until she finally turns away with my brother’s small hand in hers, and they disappear into the crowd, leaving me to startle awake, tears flowing from my eyes.

 

Reviews

[Tom]

A nightmarish, forboding tale from ancient Irish folk-lore, here the suffering of so many local peoples through dire poverty resulting in all kinds of actions/interactions with others, malevolence, deviance commonplace if only to gain solace and repreive from the cruel world that was famine stricken Ireland, even a child not safe outdoors or indoors such was the times ...

Enthralling from beginning to end, thankfully tho I live solitary within an old country residence, my only trusted companion a loyal canine mongrel yet she will keep intruders away from crossing my door either day or night, including any such spiritual apparitions with willful wrongdoings their modus operandi and so I can sleep in serenity! ( I hope )