Shriek: Legend of the Bean Sídhe

by Jennifer M. Barry

  Well, after his mom died, his dad had been impossible to live with. He’d had no other choice before turning eighteen, and since achieving adulthood, saving money had seemed smarter than finding his own roof. His dad, he was used to, though.

  The real shitter on his day was Jerry Garber. Just the thought of that man’s gaze touching Sara made Ridley’s skin crawl. If Garber ever had the nerve to put his hands on her, Ridley’d find himself under a new roof anyway—the prison’s roof.

  The rage that rolled through him was baffling. She wasn’t his girl—couldn’t be his girl. Even if she were older and wiser. Even if he weren’t the son of the town drunk.

  Sara’s mom was the mayor, and that meant no one was good enough for her daughter.

  Something about Sara had been different that morning. The sly, upturned corner of her mouth had given him new reason to even consider her lips. And those big blue eyes that had always stared at the ground or out the window while taking his order—well, they’d looked him over, almost brazenly before she realized what she was doing. She’d looked like someone who could handle him and his shitty life. Maybe even like someone who could make things better.

  Well, until she’d dumped ice water on him. To be fair, that was enough to rattle anyone.

  He chuckled and his hand slipped off the sandpaper and over satiny wood.

  “Ow, shit.”

  His vigorous sanding had smoothed away too many of the rough edges. A good thing, he supposed, since he’d have gotten a hell of a splinter otherwise.

  His plans for a rustic dining table in some million-dollar cabin were ruined. Not like he could have sold it anyway. Where would someone even find a millionaire cabin owner who needed a table? Maybe Sara’s mom would know someone.

  Wouldn’t that be a trip?

  “Whoa. Look to the trees. Three o’clock.”

  In a carefully choreographed move, Kristen and Sara turned their heads to the right and found the guy Audrey had spotted. Eyes wide and heart pounding, Sara whipped her head forward and met Audrey’s gaze.

  “Isn’t he gorgeous?” Audrey vibrated with excitement, the way she often did when encountering a hot guy.

  Sara trembled for a different reason. In the brief moment her gaze had met that of the man dressed entirely in black, she’d felt an inexplicable connection, a familiarity that prickled her skin. And then pressing black at the edges of her vision.

  “He’s staring at you,” Kristen hissed. She hadn’t looked away, and didn’t until Sara elbowed her in the ribs. “Ow, bitch. That hurts.”

  “You should go say hi or something.” Audrey bit her lip, disappointment plain on her face, but she wouldn’t begrudge her friend a fling with a hot guy.

  Sara shook her head and peeked at the man out of the corner of her eye. As she’d suspected, he still stared in her direction. Audrey could definitely pick them. Dark, close-cropped hair set off his pale skin, making the sharp lines of his jaw and the jut of his cheekbones even more prominent. His intense stare sent unpleasant warmth curling through her belly, so she turned away again.

  “Not my type. Let’s get coffee before the next movie.”

  “Do you even have a type?” Kristen led the charge toward the local café, gossiping and walking at the same time.

  An image of Ridley cramming French toast between his full lips assaulted Sara, and she felt heat rise from her neck. Her attraction to the older man wouldn’t have surprised Kristen and Audrey, but the depth of her feelings would have.

  “Not Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome back there. The tall and handsome is just fine, but there was just way too much dark.” Dark as the black that threatened to creep in again as she thought about him.

  “Do you think he was wearing black underwear, too?”

  “Jesus, Kris. One-track mind.” But an image of Ridley in his black boxer briefs slammed into her head.

  The fear of the moment had slipped away and Sara was able to tease with her friends again. The farther they walked from the man who’d creeped her out, the better she felt.

  “I wouldn’t mind finding out.” Kristen tossed her hair and licked her lips.

  “Well, he only had eyes for Sara.” Audrey nudged her friend before stepping to the counter to order an iced caramel latté.

  “Think you could find out for us?” she continued.

  “Same,” Sara said, her words directed to the barista. “And no way. Seriously, he was hot, but super creepy.”

  Kristen led the way to a table in the corner, talking over her shoulder as she bumped into other customers. “Dark and dangerous-looking doesn’t equal super creepy. But then, Nick still looks like he’s twelve. Maybe you do have a type.”

  Mention of Sara’s last boyfriend made her wince. Poor Nick. He really did have a baby face. Big brown eyes, round cheeks, knobby knees. Cute, though, and so nice. A varsity baseball player, he’d also been pretty athletic and popular with the rest of the students. There just wasn’t a spark—not for Sara, anyway.

  She’d lusted after Ridley through her whole four-month relationship with Nick. Their late-night phone calls ended so she could wake up in time to see Ridley during her morning shift at the diner. When she’d been crowned prom queen just a couple months before, she’d pictured Ridley on her arm instead of Nick.

  They broke up the next day. Well, Sara had broken it off. Nick had handled the rejection pretty well, if crying for ten minutes and texting her every night for the next week counted as “pretty well.” She hadn’t heard from him since his thorough hug on graduation night.

  “Yeah, Nick wasn’t my type either.”

  “Is he still texting you?” Audrey leaned forward, pity warring with glee in her expression. “Maybe you should just…hang in there a little. When his body catches up with his personality, he’ll be hot.”

  Kristen scoffed and loudly slurped the last of her latté. “If he’s not there yet, he’ll never be. He’s eighteen years old, for Christ’s sake.”

  “He’s got plenty of time.” Sara kicked Kristen under the table, but the blow lacked any real heat. “He stopped trying to call and stuff after graduation. Maybe one day I’ll see him in the grocery store, and I’ll be sorry. Because he’s not done.”

  As the girls left the coffee shop to return to the theater, Sara closed her fist around her pepper spray. The fear may have subsided, but her instincts and intelligence were still flying high.

  She settled into her chair and dug more candy from the oversized tote to pass around, but her gaze darted all over the darkening room. Cary Grant’s face filled the screen, old-world handsome but still not enough to crowd out the creepy hot guy. He was dangerous; somehow, she knew that. She would know if he entered the theater, too. His presence would skitter like a low-grade electric current on her skin, like a whisper in her mind.

  But why? Why was the stranger so very familiar?

  “You said you’d be home by ten.”

  Sara froze, hand on the doorknob. She’d known her mother would be waiting, had known there would be words. Fifteen minutes after curfew was unacceptable, even from someone as well-behaved as Sara.

  She’d crept to the door and winced at the click of the lock, pissed that she had to sneak into her own house. She was eighteen now, for God’s sake. Well, at least she didn’t have to worry how she could possibly disarm the house alarm without her mom knowing. That ship had sailed.

  “We just got caught up chatting after the last movie, Mom. No big deal.”

  Sara’s mom stood and stepped around the kitchen table. She still wore her black pumps and pencil skirt after ten o’clock at night, dark hair still in her customary French twist. A cup of coffee sat cooling next to a bowl of fruit salad. Probably the only food her mother had eaten all day.

  “I’m the mayor of this town, young lady. Your behavior reflects on me, and that reflects on all of Cedar City. We’ve talked about this.”

  “Jesus, Mom.” Sara didn’t even have the energy to fight. Would she ever be perfect enough?


  “Watch your mouth.” Still youthful in many ways, Sara’s mother had developed severe frown lines. They were showing.

  Sara dropped her oversized bag, still full of uneaten candy, and kicked it into the corner by the back door. With one hand, she yanked the elastic out of her ponytail to let her hair, so much like her mother’s, fall down her back. The other hand clenched into a fist but hung uselessly at her side.

  “I’m eighteen, Michelle.” She only used that name when she felt her mother was too busy being mayor to be a mom.

  Once upon a time, her mom had been easier to talk to, nicer to hang out with. When Sara was in middle school, they’d bonded during shopping trips and mother-daughter lunches at cafés in the city. Sure, her mom had been busy as one of only and handful of lawyers in their tiny town, but she always made time for Sara.

  Until she’d decided to run for mayor, and suddenly keeping up appearances had been all her mother worried about.

  “My house—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Your rules. You don’t even know how good you have it, do you? Valedictorian. Prom queen. President of the choir. Track team all-star. Virgin.”

  Mom flinched. “Sara.”

  “I’d understand if I’d been out raising hell or something. But I wasn’t. I never do. I’m the very definition of a good girl. All I did was overshoot my curfew by a quarter of an hour. And what the hell do I even have a curfew for, anyway? I’m not a kid.”

  Her mother’s blue eyes—the only other thing Sara felt she had in common with her mom—turned to ice. “You’re acting like one right now. When you can be an adult, I’ll start treating you like one.”

  Sara’s chest heaved, filled with words she wanted to say. But to say them would prove her mother right. She clenched her jaw against the onslaught that threatened, wishing her dad were home from the diner to defuse the situation.

  “I’ve acted like an adult since I was twelve, and you know it. Staying out later than I meant to is the only thing you’ve ever had to worry about. And even then, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

  “Go to your room.”

  “Oh, my God. I might as well be twelve again. How far away do I have to go to college to get you off my back?”

  With measured steps, Sara’s mother stalked across the kitchen and stopped just inches away. One well-manicured finger pointed to the stairs. “I can guarantee you Chapel Hill isn’t far enough. Now get upstairs. And you better not be late for work again tomorrow. Your father will tell me.”

  Sara stomped away, sandals clicking loudly on the hardwoods through the living room. Three steps up, she stopped and turned. “You do know that kids with strict parents go wild when they’re finally not under their moms’ thumbs anymore, right? If I do rebel, it’s gonna be crazy.”

  The last thing she saw before turning to flounce up to her room was her mother’s face drained of all color, save for the vicious slash of thin, red lips curled into a frown.

  3

  A siren screamed through the night. Sara’s eyes popped open, vision hazy at first but then the stars overhead slipped into focus.

  Stars? Had she slept outside? Her last memory was waving goodbye to Kristen before driving home, so she hadn’t held an impromptu campout with her friends. No, she clearly remembered putting on her pajamas and climbing into bed.

  Back to the stars. Oh, and the siren. The shriek grew closer, bringing the flash of red lights. More sirens, and then blue lights. What was she missing?

  Sara stretched her legs and winced as they scraped across sharp stones and dried grass. Her bare feet already bore scratches that oozed small droplets of blood. Her first sleepwalking incident had been over a week ago. When nothing else happened, Sara had dared to hope that her nighttime stroll had been a one-time thing.

  Guess not.

  She stood, wondering if the sirens were for her. Had she wandered miles away from the house again? Her parents had probably called the police, who’d managed to find her…here. Wherever here was.

  The sound of a door crashing open ripped through her thoughts. A woman’s voice followed.

  “He’s in here. Hurry!”

  Sara crept closer to the house. She knew that voice. Mrs. Barker was the school librarian. Why the hell was she at Mrs. Barker’s house?

  From a spot behind a large maple, she chewed her thumbnail ragged and watched a paramedic team with a gurney follow the librarian into the house. Two of Cedar City’s finest followed, talking just loudly enough for her to catch the last of their conversation.

  “—fell down the stairs.”

  Only when her fingers protested did Sara realize she’d dug her nails into the bark of the tree. She stood frozen, waiting for something—anything—to explain why she was there and how. After a long silence, punctuated only by the alternating red and blue of the ambulance and police car, she got an answer.

  The front door opened again and the gurney emerged, this time carrying someone. The sheet covered the face. Mrs. Barker followed, her voice carrying through the still night.

  “I don’t know. He sat straight up in bed and reached over to see if I was okay. Then he asked if I’d screamed. I don’t know what he was talking about. I was awake and reading a book. Didn’t hear anything. But he swore someone screamed. Before I could stop him, he jumped up and ran out of the room.”

  An officer nodded and diligently wrote down every word. Mrs. Barker scrubbed at her cheeks and then yanked a handful of hair at her temple. A sob broke. Then a low wail.

  “Then there was this sound, like thunder. I ran after him and found him there. His neck all twisted.”

  Words jerked and stuttered around gasps and shudders. Anything else she said was lost to the sound of the ambulance doors slamming. The drivers turned off the lights. No speed was needed to deliver a dead body. Mrs. Barker let an officer tuck her into the front seat of the squad car so she could follow.

  Sara was left in silence again with even more questions.

  That same hook snagged the base of her spine, jerked her forward and pulled her feet off the ground. Arms and legs flailing, Sara yelped and tried to grab branches on her way up. The wood and leaves slipped through her fingers, leaving splinters and bloody scratches behind. As she cleared the tops of the trees, her direction changed. Instead of up, she moved forward, over the hills and creeks, the summer air warm on her bare legs and arms.

  And then the stars above blinked and disappeared, leaving only black.

  “What the hell are you doing out here, Sara?”

  Dad’s voice dragged Sara back from the brink of madness. Her house loomed ahead, windows dark except one. Home again.

  Instead of screaming sirens and the memory of a shriek in her throat, the only sounds were from tree frogs and an occasional cricket. The only evidence of her crazy flight was a T-shirt torn and stained from her journey through the trees.

  Before she could offer any sort of explanation, ridiculous or not, her father closed the distance between them and dragged her into his embrace. Tears pricked at her eyes as she reveled in the love and comfort he offered, made even more poignant after the horror she’d just witnessed.

  “Mam warned me,” he muttered into Sara’s neck. When he backed away, he searched her face with his gaze. “You’re…shrieking, aren’t you?”

  Oh, God. How could he even know? Sara wasn’t even sure what was going on when she woke up in random spots far from home, throat still on fire from a shriek in someone else’s voice. Her stomach did a somersault and lodged somewhere near her throat. Swallowing around it, she nodded slowly.

  “I think so.”

  Dad’s expression softened, and with it, the lump in her throat. Someone knew what was going on. Someone could give her answers. Maybe. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe it ran in the family, and he was about to have her committed.

  “H-how do you know about it?”

  Her father cradled her face in his hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “The moment we found out we were havi
ng a girl, my mother told me. Your mother thought she was crazy. That’s, uh…that’s why you haven’t seen much of your grandmother since you were a baby.”

  Knowing she wasn’t alone eased the crippling fear she’d felt since the moment she’d become aware on the gravel road near Salt Lick Creek on the night of her first sleep walking incident.

  “Why is this happening to me?” She clung to her father and wet his shirt with her tears.

  He brushed a hand over her hair and plucked away a few leaves and twigs. The gesture was meant to comfort, but Sara had to smile at what she probably looked like.

  “I don’t know enough to give you the answers you need. You’ll have to go see your grandmother for the full story. To be honest, she may not be much help. She’s never been the same since my dad died.”

  Sara hadn’t even realized her father was still in touch with her grandmother. Of course, he wasn’t the kind of man who would cut off contact with his mother, no matter how Sara’s mom might have insisted. Her father was a good and solid man, one who cared for his family with his whole heart, no matter the signs of insanity they might have shown. His tight hold on his her as she stood barefoot and covered in dirt at an ungodly hour said it all.

  “I do know what you’re called…or what she called you. You’ve even heard it before. Your grandmother says you’re one of the bean sídhe. A banshee.”

  A tingle, starting with the top of her head and ending with her toes, left her numb. Mumbled words tripped from her mouth as she went limp.

  Again, the ground disappeared from beneath her and she moved through the air toward the back deck, but this time in her dad’s arms. He kept talking, but she couldn’t hear anything he said. Only the word banshee over and over in her head.

  Her dad wrestled open the sliding glass door and settled her onto a kitchen chair at the table. She nodded once when he asked if she’d be okay, but she really wasn’t sure.