Shriek: Legend of the Bean Sídhe

by Jennifer M. Barry

  Banshee? She’d heard of them, the banshees, but not much. They weren’t real, just stories from Irish folklore in the books her grandmother had given her as a child. Books her mom had hastily placed high on the bookshelves so that Sara couldn’t reach. Dad had pulled them down on the nights her mom worked late and read her the stories as she drifted to sleep. As she got older, the books had been read less and less, until they were nearly forgotten.

  Her father bustled about the kitchen and then disappeared down the hall. When he returned, he handed her some painkillers and slid a stack of manila envelopes closer.

  “You’ll feel better after you get a little sugar and painkiller in you.”

  He sat next to her. “While the tea was brewing, I dug a few things out of the hall closet. Stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day since just after you were born. You look like her, you know?”

  Sara sat up straight and stuck her right thumbnail in her mouth. With her left, she reached for one of the envelopes. Her dad opened the clasp and tipped the contents onto the table.

  There, in black and white, her face stared back.

  Shaking fingers lifted the photograph. “This is your mom?”

  “Yep. Beautiful, isn’t she? So much like you. Same bone structure. You can’t tell in this picture, but her hair was red. Dark red. You got your mother’s coloring, but everything else is Mam.”

  “Mam? Like they say in Ireland?” Sara bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling.

  The Irish word sounded so funny in her father’s southern accent. With his graying red hair, ruddy cheeks, and sharp eyes, he was obviously Irish to the core.

  “Say it again,” she demanded.

  “Mam.” He slid the photo back across the table and picked it up, a sad smile tilting the corners of his mouth. “I used to use a lot of Irish slang that I picked up from her, but everything’s faded with the years.

  “She and my dad were so in love—I remember that clearly. I think something broke inside her when he died. I was only nine years old when we got the call. A logging truck ran his motorcycle off the road.”

  Sara jerked upright and slapped the table. Her grandfather had a motorcycle? Her father startled but then chuckled.

  “Yeah, her parents hated him at first. Rough around the edges.”

  Her mind flew to Ridley, with his kind eyes and soft words. How he took the ribbing from the other guys during breakfast every day with his eyes downcast and a patient smile. “I know. Bad boy turned good.”

  Her dad covered her hand with his and squeezed. His eyes were just a little too knowing for her comfort. “Not bad at all, as it turned out. Just from a bad situation.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t know him.”

  “Well, it’s not too late for you to know her. She just lives about an hour away, over in Burnsville.”

  Sara whipped her gaze toward her father. How could her mom have kept her from a grandmother who lived only an hour away?

  “I know. I didn’t like it either.” Her dad seemed to read her thoughts. “But when you were born, your gran told your mom and me that you’d be the next in the family line to carry the banshee curse. She was adamant.”

  Banshee.

  He continued. “Your mom thought she was batshit crazy. Told her to stop her nonsense, but Mam was determined to make Michelle see reason. She wouldn’t stop trying to give your mom tips and pointers to help you adjust when the time came. Just made her look even nuttier.

  “I still go see her every Sunday, but your mom… Well, your mom wanted me to stop taking you with me when you were two. You probably don’t even remember meeting your grandmother, do you?”

  Sara thought back, straining for some memory, but finally shook her head.

  “I can’t believe she’d keep me from my own grandmother.”

  Of course, if her mother thought she was protecting Sara from a crazy old lady, she’d have done anything. That didn’t make things right, but Sara could. Sara could go see her any time. Like, tomorrow.

  “Come in; come in.” The old woman stepped away from the door and gestured for Sara to follow. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you again, Sara.”

  In that moment, the crazy lady with a million cats became Sara’s grandmother. Tears filled her eyes as Sara mentally cursed her parents for keeping her away from someone so important to her history, her genetic makeup, her being as a whole.

  She was short and thin as a stick, her shoulders hunched against time and pain and disappointment. Green and purple material swathed her frail form, but Sara couldn’t make out any particular design. It was almost as if she’d gathered scraps from around her house and just draped them over her body. Sara could see why her mother thought the woman was crazy and even why her father would agree to keep Sara from seeing her, but it didn’t stop Sara’s rush of affection.

  “I told your da it would happen one day. It always skips generations. Only time I’ve heard of it skipping more than one is when a boy was born.”

  It was a quick segue into Sara’s reason for visiting, but she let it happen, hoping the two could catch up on more personal things after the business was out of the way.

  The old woman led Sara through the foyer into what could only be called a living room, but she couldn’t see the furniture for all the cats and quilts and ancient magazines. When told to sit, she glanced around for the freest space, but there was none. She shoved aside a gray longhair, who hissed at the disruption and curled up in the empty spot.

  “I started the screams when I was eighteen,” her grandmother began. “We lived in County Wicklow. Do you know where that is, dear?”

  Sara shook her head. Ireland was always at the back of her mind—simply a spot on the map, a place where her ancestors had lived. If pressed, she could point out Dublin and Belfast, but that was where her knowledge ended.

  “’Tis a beautiful part of the country, just south of Dublin. I’ve missed it for nearly fifty years. Don’t know why I never went back. Running here did nothing to stop the curse, as you now well know.”

  “You left to stop the screaming?” Sara couldn’t imagine uprooting her whole life and moving around the world. But if she thought it might make the night shrieks stop, she would consider it.

  “Ma’d watched her mam nearly go mad, and when the same started with me, she decided to leave. The spirit just followed. Could’ve moved to Australia or Antarctica. Wouldn’t have mattered. There were fewer Ó Néills here at the time, so I didn’t shriek as often.”

  Sara’s stomach did a tap dance before trying to escape through her spine. “O’Neill? Did you…?”

  “Oh, yes, dear. We sing for one specific clan, and that’s the Ó Néills.”

  “But none of the people who’ve died so far were named O’Neill.” Sara thought back to Old Hank and Mr. Barker.

  “Of course, the family lines are blurred and diluted from marrying different races and last names, so you’ll sing for anyone who has Ó Néill blood. But if there’s someone actually named Ó Néill nearby, rest assured, you’ll watch as the Spirit kills him—and sooner rather than later.”

  Sara sat, stunned, as the older woman heaved herself up from the cushions of the couch. Ridley’s last name was O’Neill. Of course, so was his father’s, and if the rumors were true, that man deserved a painful and surprising death after the way he’d treated his wife and son.

  She thought about the first man she’d screamed for, the quiet loner in the woods, and then the poor librarian’s husband who’d tumbled down the stairs. Neither seemed to deserve death, though she couldn’t be sure how or why the victims were chosen.

  “I was quite close to two cousins, one near me in age and one a few years older. They both shrieked. The older one, I think her name was Brigid, she told me we each have our own family. Hers was the Ó Briain clan. Me other cousin…ah, blast it. What was her name?”

  The pieces snapped into place one by one, but still the puzzle was a jumble. Sara shrieked for O’Neills, and Ridley
’s last name was O’Neill. It had to be a coincidence, right? Maybe he wasn’t the right O’Neill or something. Still, she should warn him, shouldn’t she? Tell him that he might die an early and unnatural death at the hands of a vengeful spirit?

  No, that wouldn’t work. He’d think she was crazy. Maybe he’d work together with her mother to have her locked up forever.

  Still, she could maybe find some way warn him to be careful, especially on his motorcycle. She thought again of her gran’s husband, who’d lost his life on a bike in the Carolina mountains.

  “Neve,” Gran cried in triumph. “That was her name. I think I even have a photograph of us when we were in primary school.”

  The old woman shuffled away, unaware that she’d interrupted the stirrings of a panic attack. As silence settled in the bright little kitchen, Sara’s chest tightened, closing off necessary breaths. How could she close her eyes every night, knowing she might open them to watch Ridley die?

  “Yes, yes,” her grandmother muttered from the next room. “And one of Brigid, too.”

  The world snapped back into focus as her grandmother sat back down at the table. A pile of photographs spilled over from the haphazard stack she carried, and one slipped over the edge of the table into Sara’s lap.

  Three tiny girls smiled up at her with gap-toothed grins. They couldn’t have been older than ten, still losing teeth and waiting for new ones to fill in. Her grandmother was easy to pick from the group. Gran looked just like Sara had in fourth or fifth grade.

  She flipped the photograph over and smiled at the names there. Aine, Brigid, and Niamh.

  “Oh, is this how you spell it? I thought it was n-e-v-e.”

  Aine glanced over and nodded. “Aye. It’s a beautiful language, Irish. You’ll probably pick up a lot of the rules as you go along.”

  “Well, nothing makes sense so far. If I didn’t know better, I’d make your name rhyme with train. If I spelled it how it’s pronounced, it would be a-h-n-y-a.” Sara focused on the photo again, first on Aine again and then the other two girls. “So the girl with dark hair is Brigid, and the blonde is Niamh?”

  Her grandmother nodded. “We weren’t close until we started the singing. Our own grandmothers helped us fill in some of the blanks, but it wasn’t much. Brigid was very diligent in keeping information about her nightly journeys. She started a journal and was researching the family she lamented. Her gran had a book, too.”

  “You didn’t do that for the O’Neills?” Sara asked.

  “Oh, I probably should have, but I didn’t know what good it would do. I just wanted to stop shrieking as soon as possible. Maybe they found out more after I moved. We tried to keep in touch, but letters took too long to travel from here to there. I haven’t heard from either of them since your father was born.”

  Sara dug through more photos and papers, a mission forming in her mind. “So there were three of you. Maybe there are two others out there right now just now learning they’re banshees.”

  “Four more.” Aine interjected so casually that Sara almost didn’t catch the significance.

  “Four? There are five of us?” Sara’s digging became more frantic as she searched for anything that might support her grandmother’s words. Photos, news clippings, journal entries—the table was filled with pieces of the past, but she couldn’t make sense of anything.

  “Five singers; five families. Our songs are for the Ó Néills. The others would sing for the Ó Grádaighs, Ó Briains, Conchobhairs, and Caomhanachs.”

  Sara closed her eyes and pushed away the mess in front of her. “I’ve never even heard those names. Maybe they just don’t exist anymore. What happens in a line goes completely extinct?”

  “Oh, there’s always someone left from the original line. Over the years, bloodlines thin from marrying different races and nationalities, but it’s still there. It will always be there.”

  “So, even though those names aren’t around anymore, the blood is. Got it.” There was no way to stop the madness, not even if the family name died out.

  “Anyhow, those names are still around. They were Anglicized. You probably know them as O’Grady, O’Brien, O’Connor, and Kavanagh.” Gran shooed a cat away and pulled one sheet of paper from the chaos. “I wish I knew more, but I ran away from my troubles. Take this with you. Maybe you can use your computer to find something.”

  The scrap was covered in spidery writing, nearly illegible, but Sara did make out a name at the bottom. A letter from Niamh. A clue! Maybe a clue. Maybe Niamh wasn’t alive anymore. Who knew? She took the paper anyway and tucked it into her bag.

  “Now, let’s have some cake and you can tell me all about yourself.” Aine swiped the piles into a box and turned to retrieve a half-eaten pound cake from the counter next to her small refrigerator. “More tea?”

  4

  “Where’ve you been?”

  Ridley winced, sure he could only understand the slurred words because he’d had years of practice.

  “Work, Dad. Someone’s gotta keep the lights on around here.”

  Charlie O’Neill’s belly entered the room before the rest of him. Ridley could still see some of the young hellraiser his dad had once been, but the years and the alcohol—and probably drugs no one had heard of—had destroyed any life left in him.

  “Are you mouthin’ back at me, boy?” Bloodshot, rheumy eyes narrowed. The belly moved forward, fueled by a full day’s worth of beer.

  “Well, what have you done to keep this place up lately?” Ridley tossed his bag into a broken-down chair in the corner and started to toe his boots off.

  Stale alcohol fumes and cigarette smoke hung in the air, stronger by the moment with each of Charlie’s labored breaths. Spittle bubbled at the corner of the older man’s lips as his mouth moved around unsaid words. When the sounds did form, they didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “I bought this house before you were born, you ungrateful son of a bitch.” The angrier Charlie got, the easier Ridley could understand him. “I don’t need you walkin’ around here all high and mighty ‘cause you got a job.”

  One boot flew across the room with the force of Ridley’s kick. The other stuck, and he had to bend to loosen the buckle. Fingers wrestled the metal, arms shaking with the strain of holding back punches. When the shoe didn’t give, Ridley strained up and roared at ceiling. Black edged into his vision, threatening to take him under.

  “Who you callin’ a son of a bitch, you bastard?” A step toward his father, the man who’d provided a roof but not much else. Dizzy with hatred, he stepped again and stumbled. “You haven’t lifted a finger to help around here since I turned fifteen. I’ve been out breakin’ my neck every day and managed to graduate high school. Not that it’s done me any good. Still got the same job with that fine education I ‘bout killed myself over. All so you could stay in beer and cigarettes.”

  He finally succeeded in loosening the leather strap but didn’t get the shoe all the way off before his dad hefted himself across the room, eyes now wide and rolling.

  “You’re so smart? You can figure out how to get your own house.”

  Ridley ducked just in time to avoid the beer bottle on a collision course with his head, his heart leaping in a crazy dance in his chest. The glass slipped from his father’s hand and hit the opposite wall with a crash.

  “You’re insane!” Ridley jumped back several feet and grabbed for his boot.

  As he bent to wrestle one back on again, a heavy glass ashtray whizzed over his head. Another beer bottle, a dish followed by a shower of stale crumbs.

  “Shit,” Ridley yelped. “How much did you drink this time?”

  The living room was too small. He had no time to duck the onslaught of items hefted in his direction and nowhere to run. The fire in his chest turned to ice. The fog of fury lifted. When his dad lifted the flimsy side table next to the La-Z-Boy, Ridley didn’t even think. Instead of standing still and taking it, the way he’d done his whole life, he crouched low and leapt.

&
nbsp; With a grunt, Charlie took Ridley’s shoulder right to his oversized gut. The table cracked across Ridley’s back as the old man went down, but Ridley didn’t let the pain stop him. He pushed on through, driving his father into the dingy, aging kitchen. Charlie’s bare foot caught a crack in the linoleum, and both men went down.

  “Is this what happened to Mom, you sorry piece of shit?” Ridley roared. “Did you lose your temper, drunk off your ass, and hit her with a table? Don’t tell me you loved her.”

  Charlie froze. The fight drained out of his arms, legs, and eyes. “You get out of my house.”

  Cold. His words were so cold.

  Ridley didn’t even stop to think. He jumped up and left his father there on the floor while he shoved his foot back into his shoe and stomped down the hall to his room.

  With the door locked behind him—a useless piece of security against his father’s drunken rage, really—Ridley dragged a suitcase from his closet and started shoving clothes, shoes, and papers in without really looking at what he packed. Just before slamming the case shut, he stopped and reached for the battered teddy bear his mom had given him before she died.

  Most the time, the bear sat on his dresser, untouched but ever-present. A reminder of a woman he couldn’t even picture in his mind anymore. Maybe even a talisman of sorts that kept him from falling over the edge into hopelessness like his dad. A symbol of long-ago love that held Ridley on the straight and narrow with the thinnest of threads, so that his reputation never became his reality.

  Charlie still hadn’t moved when Ridley emerged with the battered suitcase and the teddy bear.

  “And don’t come back, neither.”

  “Oh, I won’t.” Ridley took one last look at the sad lump of man on the floor. “Sleeping on the ground will be better than one more night under this roof.”

  The moment the door slammed behind him, Ridley wondered what he’d just done. He stared at his motorcycle, which had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now he wished for a truck or a car where he could at least stay dry if it rained.