I heard an Is she okay? The voice was strangled, frantic, familiar.
I heard a Give her space, child. A strange trick of my hearing made the words sound like they were coming from three voices at once.
Something lifted me up. I stared into the gray face of a banshee, tangle of hair and wild eyes. Her grin was full of teeth. I wanted to scream, but my throat was salt crystals, crow claws.
A warm hand slipped into mine. Squeezed. I hardly had the strength to feel her touch, but still she held me.
Mandy. She’d come back for me.
The world swam away.
* * *
—
I came to in a cottage with a thatched roof and whitewashed walls. In the corner there was a clunky old television set with wonky reception playing one of my favorite reality TV singing shows. From somewhere inside the house, three voices sang along.
I struggled to sit up. A rough, thick blanket covered me, stuck with coarse gray hair that was probably a horse’s, but also maybe a bull’s. The room spun.
My clothes were not my clothes: a tunic and long sweater I vaguely recognized but could not tell from where.
Outside, the wind screamed and the storm battered at the rattling, single-glazed windows, whistled through the cracks, and left small pools of rain on the chipped white paint of the sills.
Beside the front door, lying with his eyes closed, his sides heaving with breath, was a bull. The bull. The bull whose skull I sat with inside a salt circle while Mandy chanted words to the waves. The bull whose eyes stared at me through the window of a bus on a busy street in Dublin. The bull I’d seen, impossibly, in a series of connecting fields. The bull who had brought me down to the shore.
“Are you really Julia’s bull?” I whispered.
The creature opened his eyes and looked at me. Slowly, he nodded his huge head.
I wanted to ask Where am I? but it seemed like a stupid question. The answer was right outside the window. Windswept cliff face, rain slanting sideways on the gale. Waves crashing in the darkness.
Obviously, the end of the world.
There came the sound of footsteps from farther inside the house. I clutched the rough blanket against my legs. Into the small living room drifted three women. They moved with eerie synchronicity to circle me. Three gray ghosts: hags with matted hair and wide mouths.
I wondered if they would push me down the cliff. Tear out my salty throat with their teeth, leave scratches like red lines all up and down my skin.
Their skin was so pale it had a gray hue. Their hair was silver and tangled. Their nails were long. They surrounded me.
“C’mere,” the banshees cackled. “C’mere and we’ll tell you a story. Come closer while we tell you our tale.”
The tea was strong in front of me, stirred thrice about the pot. Not much of a weapon if it came to it. The bull blocked the only exit.
“A good cup of tea is a witch’s brew,” the old women said together with wicked grins. “Heals all ills.”
“I’m not ill,” I said, voice almost choked with terror. I made to stand, run away, but they held out their hands to stop me.
“Listen to us, Deena,” said the three banshees. “We know your story. We are of your kin.”
“My family?” The salt still scratched my throat.
“That’s right. Quiet now and listen. Hear how we’ve been looking out for you all this time. Hear how well we know your quest.”
“You cursed us.” Behind my voice spoke Mary Ellen, spoke Julia. “You’ve ruined so many lives.”
“Oh, pet,” they said. “Oh, love.” Their voices hit each syllable at the same moment, created an uncanny chorus. “We never cursed you. We only ever wanted to keep you safe.”
“Bullshit.”
The bull himself raised his head, huffed warm air through his ringed nostrils. It sounded a lot like the word stay.
“You like stories, don’t you?” the old women said. Beside the teapot sat a stack of letters. Mandy’s letters. Mine.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Have a cuppa.” One of them pushed the tea toward me. “Have a cookie. We’ll turn down the TV and have a little chat.”
“Where’s my sister?”
“Your sister?”
“Yes. Yes. My sister. I came here to find her. Where is she?”
The banshees looked at each other, looked at the bull, nodded in tandem. “She’ll be along shortly. Don’t you worry about that.”
My head swam with the strangeness of it all.
“When?” I demanded. “When will she be along? Where is she?”
A sudden loud knock on the door answered me.
“There she is now,” the witches said.
The door opened to reveal Ida, rain-drenched and windswept.
“Oh, Deena, thank God,” she breathed, and she rushed into the house to embrace me. Behind her came Finn and Cale, followed swiftly by Rachel.
Rachel grabbed me so hard by the shoulders I thought they would be shaken clean off.
“What were you thinking?” my sister shrieked. “What in the goddamn world were you thinking? You could have drowned. You could’ve been joining Mandy in her fucking grave and I would have had to bury both of you. Oh God—”
Rachel collapsed in a heap at my feet and great shuddering sobs shook her body, came out in a keen that sounded like an endless scream. The others stood in stunned silence.
The three banshees disappeared into the kitchen to boil the kettle for more tea. Finn helped Rachel up and she sank onto the couch beside me, head in her hands.
“They called us,” Ida explained softly, perching on an armchair by the fire. “Those women. They found you on the shore and got Finn’s number from your phone. We’d already told Rachel you were here. She was already on her way.”
Rachel’s breath was ragged from her wailing, her sobs now as short and harsh as a cough. She kept her face hidden behind her hands.
I didn’t know what to do. I had been so sure it would be Mandy at the cottage door.
“Did you see Mandy?” I asked. “Is she here?”
Three faces stared at me in silence and sympathy. Maybe they were no longer angry. Maybe they thought I was going crazy.
“She’s not here,” Finn said finally. “Deena. You knew she wasn’t going to be here.”
My fingers traced the raised patterns of the sweater I was wearing, the stretchy floral tunic underneath. “Then how come I’m wearing her clothes?”