Night Cries

Connor O’Neill angrily wiped the hot tears from his face as he ran, oblivious to the thorns and branches that slapped at his face and tugged his clothing. He briefly rubbed his thighs and backside where they still burned from his father’s belt. Soon he came to a glade where a few last rays of the sun reached from over the tops of the ancient oaks and ash trees, and he threw himself on a small hillock, the long summer grass muffling his sobs and soaking up his tears. His sobs quickly became screams and screeches of anger, pounding his fists into the turf as rage tore through his twelve-year-old frame. He was angry with his mother, with his father, and especially with his seven-year-old brother Seamus, whose constant tagging along and tricks finally made Connor shove him. That shove in turn earned Connor a trip to the woodshed with his father, who lectured him the entire time about how it was his responsibility to take care of his little brother. Finally, exhausted, Connor hid his face in the crook of his elbow, feeling the warmth of the earth beneath him as he continued to cry softly.

With a start and a gasp, Connor sat up in the dark, looking around him in confusion, trying to figure out why his room didn’t look right. Not far off, an owl hooted, pulling another startled gasp from him. Alarm turned to fear as he remembered that he wasn’t at home, but somewhere in the middle of the forest. Shivering with both fright and the cool of the night, Connor hugged himself and rubbed his arms, looking around. Not even sure which way he’d entered the glade, much less which way home was, he started yelling for his mom, his dad, anyone that could bring him home. He started crying again, and wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve while he tried to figure out what to do.

He jumped to his feet, eyes wide at the sharp noise he heard nearby, relaxing when he realized it was just the bark of a fox in the woods. His relief turned ice cold, however, when the fox seemed to be answered from the other side of the clearing by an eerie, unearthly, terrifying wail. Banshee! (or bean sidhe, as his grandfather would have named them) his brain screamed, backing away from where the cries were issuing. As the wailing continued, and seemed to be getting closer, Connor turned and ran headlong into the woods, crashing through the underbrush. As he ran, his grandfather’s stories came back to him, about how the bean sidhe were faeries tasked with foretelling the deaths of the O’Neill clan. Far off meant the death of a family member, but nearby, and following, meant the sidhe was coming for you. And if one should actually see one of the grey, ghostly maidens, Death was only a step behind.

Connor stopped at the edge of the forest just before the bogs, his chest heaving with exertion and fear. He struggled to calm his breathing, finally holding his breath to try and hear if the bean sidhe was still nearby. At first he heard nothing at all, but then from back the way he came he could hear a long, keening wail, which seemed to be coming nearer. He could also hear the whisper of the underbrush, and the occasional snap of a twig as she got closer and closer. He even thought he heard his name in the sidhe’s cries, and ducked behind a large willow tree, his heart hammering like a bodhran. Sliding down the truck of the tree, Connor quietly picked up a stout oak branch nearby, determined not to let the bean sidhe take him unopposed, youthful optimism overriding centuries of folk wisdom about the futility of such a plan. Holding his breath again, Connor waited until he heard the fae’s step just to his left. Screwing his eyes shut tight against even the chance of seeing his death, he jumped out behind the shadowy figure near him, swinging his makeshift cudgel with all his might, cutting off another blood-freezing cry as he connected. He made another couple of blind swings, and encountering nothing, opened his eyes a crack. Seeing nothing, Connor dare to open his eyes all the way, looking around for some evidence of the ghastly creature that had been hunting him. At first he saw nothing, but then his gaze was drawn to something in the bog in front of him, slowly beginning to sink. His smile of triumph froze on his face as he realized that the face staring up lifelessly at him was not that of a ghostly young woman in a grey cloak and winding sheets, but that of his own brother Seamus. Once more the terrifying, keening wail ripped through the silence of the glade – but this time torn from the depths of Connor's horrified soul.