Dates with A Banshee

It had been a long time since Ann felt the beat of her heart. Many considered her soulless. Perhaps dead. Ann, as she pondered all these rumors, had come up with her own: she was deaf.

It was not such a bad thought. She could, of course, listen to her mother’s scolding and the hollers of the owl that lived in the attic. But she could not hear herself. She screamed at herself in her mind, cried out to stop herself when she did wrong or lied. But she never listened. Therefore, she was deaf.

Her mother, Aoife, had always seen her daughter as a troubled child. She listened to her daughter’s cries in the night, her wails as she trembled and ached. No amount of bloodletting or herbs or chants had managed to fix her. She stared somberly into the distance, contemplating the point at which her childhood had run away and abandoned her. I am not an adult, she told herself. Am I meant to feel like one?

But she ignored these questions. She was deaf, after all.

“Muireann,” her mother had called to her. “You need to eat.”

Ann was ten years old. She laughed.

“Mama, why do I eat when my stomach only ever manages to turn itself over?” Ann turned back to the window. “I’d prefer to sleep in peace tonight.”

Aoife frowned. Ann spoke too well for her age. She had become wiser after suffering all of those internal tortures. Forgotten how to play, how to smile.

Her mother left her to starve on the windowsill.

Ann had learned long ago that her pain and illness were not her fault. Her family lived far from civilization, days from even the closest village, and thus had no choice but to multiply with themselves. It was a dark reality, but one Ann was accustomed to. Her father was Aoife’s brother, and their three offspring were nothing short of terrifying. Ann’s brother had died with two brains, her sister gone merely moments after leaving the womb. Ann was terminally ill.

A better fate than her siblings, she supposed.

Focus, Ann scolded herself. We haven’t time for these ramblings. You need to sleep.

Tomorrow was the day her family harvested potatoes, and Ann’s frail fingers and brittle spine couldn’t handle hours of work on top of exhaustion. She took a sharp breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

Well. So much for sleeping.

Ann turned her head to the window. A frail woman had seemed to drape herself in Ann’s windowsill. Her form was frail, nothing more than a skeleton with skin plastered on. Her tresses were smooth and thin, like the cocoon of a moth, and it blew elegantly off her shoulders.

The woman screamed.

“You again,” Ann grumbled. “Tell me, do you have any words of condolence, or are you simply going to sit there and create a cacophony for the entire forest to hear?”

She didn’t respond.

“Typical. If you do not leave once I count to five, I shall grab my arrow and let it shatter your skull until you’re begging-”

Ann blinked. The woman had disappeared.

“Devilish fairies,” Ann hissed. “Can’t stay away for five seconds without reminding me I’m dying.” She rolled over and sighed dramatically. Her body ached with each breath.

Another scream.

“I will grab the arrows this time!”