.png)
The Banshee Roisin Series; The Beginning
A new series of channelled short stories from the Banshee. This is the first.
Her tale
Roisin sat by the fire and wept. Her mother had not returned and she was alone. Again. She stared through the rough shutters into the darkness and rain and was sure that this time she would not return. She was truly alone.
So she stepped out into the wild. She stepped out into the darkness and the mist grew. The wind swept in from the coast as it always did and she found comfort in the salt spray.
‘Mammy!’ she called out into the mist. Only hearing her own voice bounce back off the growing mist. Knowing that she should return home, but fearful that her mother needed her, she kept walking. ‘Mammy!’
And then she saw her; the white figure on the cliff edge. The cloud cleared for a moment and she saw her there. Misty white trails of hair and clothes. Stood facing the edge of the cliff and looking down.
Intrigued she stepped forward; fear in her heart gone, only interest at this mythical creature. One who others only spoke about in whispers, but one she had heard calling her in her dreams since she was a wee dote of a babby. When she had been left alone and small, the white woman had stopped her leaving the shack of a house, or burning herself on the embers of what remained of the fire or from running too close to the cliff edge as she grew older. She had not seen her for some time; mindful of the fact that others felt this beast only brought ill. In this moment, she knew truer than ever, that she was a benevolent and beautiful creature.
And so Roisin stepped forward and whispered ‘Mammy?’ into the mist. The cloud still soaked up most of her words but the creature turned none the less. The Banshee’s pale smile spread across her mouth wide, and then quickly turned to horror as she lurched forward towards the girl.
Roisin stepped towards her also and as she did, realised she had wandered too close to the cliff edge and her footing slipped. She tumbled and the Banshee reached out towards her trying desperately to reach her through the distance and mist.
The woman in white had realised, all too late, that rather than seeing the broken body of her loved soul child at the bottom of the cliff, she had instead had foresight.
She screamed her way down the cliff edge, even more heart broken than she had been a short time before, cursing her gifts. She clutched at her little one, rocking back and forth, and wailing her pain. From a place deeper than the bottom of her gut, from the centre of the earth itself, she pulled on her pain and let it rip from her mouth. Never had a passing been so utterly devastating; and she had mediated many. The one wee one who she had always kept safe, who despite the whispers from others in the village, had never viewed her with fear. Not her; please anyone but her.
As her sobbing and heaving ebbed away to moans and cries, she looked up at the cliff edge, cradling the child still. Where she had been minutes before was instead Roisin. Looking down; looking confused.
The Banshee appeared at Roisin’s side. ‘I am dead aren’t I?’ she said, with more of an even tone than the Banshee expected. ‘Yes my love you are. I am sorry’. She placed her hand on the child’s heart and a flutter of deep pink rose petals fluttered from it, twisting and circling in the wind and mist, until they lay over her tattered remains on the rocks below.
‘Don’t be sorry mammy’ she said ‘For I am truly home now’.
Comments