Banshee
Heather Graham
Copyright © 2020 Heather Graham
Banchee
Copyright © 2020 by Slush Pile Productions
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Banchee is a work of fiction. The people and events in Banchee are entirely fictional. The story is not a reflection of historical or current fact, nor is the story an accurate representation of past or current events. Any resemblance between the characters in this novel and any or all persons living, or dead is entirely coincidental.
A short, first-person story for Halloween! (Approximately 5,000 words.)
For Kelsey, "spooky" ran in the family. Her life was filled with crazy tales and legends, and Halloween was a beloved holiday.
It was all just fun--until one certain Halloween.
Then, it was time to wonder!
The Republic of Ireland
“Here, we be celebrating, and in all manner! Ghoulies, ghosties, monsters—oh my! And the dead! They be allowed to rise the one night, and all manner of mist and madness, mayhem and evil might be afoot!”
My great-grandmother rolled her eyes at me, serious and being playful and mischievous all at the same time.
“Now, Granny—” I protested.
I was just thirteen at the time. I loved Halloween as did most kids my age. But that year, my parents had pulled me out of my grade school in Wheaton, Illinois, for a week so we could visit Granny O’Boyle in her home, a little village just outside Dublin. I loved her—she was crazy, but crazy fun. We often came to see her during the summer. I just didn’t understand at the time why we’d had to come now.
And I seldom knew when she was telling me her tales what was true—and what was storytelling.
And I hadn’t wanted to leave my friends at Halloween.
“Don’t you be ‘now Granny-ing’ me!” She said. “I heard you talking to your mom, you’re missing your homeland and mates and the great American Halloween tradition. Well! Y’need to know the whole of it. Aye, you see, girl, the first celebration here was Samhain, and that’s before the time of our Good Christ, back even before the time when the Romans came to try to conquer all and take over. But the Romans, now, they brought with them their own festivals at first, and then a hundred or so years later, we had the Christian concept of honoring the dead. Well, lass, yes, the idea was always to honor the dead on their special night. But to our ancestors, it was the time when the earth changed, when the herds came home and the crops were brought in, and it was the night when the dead could rise. Now, there might also be evil spirits afoot! So, some wore masks and costumes to keep them away. As time went on, it all became one, the eve of All Saints Day, the Roman festival of Feralia, and the old concept of a night for the dead.”
Granny O’Boyle nodded solemnly to me, and then gave me a serious smile. “Now, mind you, as I’ve warned you, the banshees are about all the time!” She wagged a finger at Kelsey. “And if you don’t spend your time behavin’, child, they’ll be getting’ you in the outhouse!”
That had scared me once, but my cousin—older by five years—had finally decided to remind me that we didn’t have an outhouse—nor did Granny O’Boyle.
“Now, what are your plans for the night, lass?” she asked.
“Um—well—”
“Oh, right then! It won’t be an American Halloween. But there will be lovely fun in the village square.”
“Are you coming with us?” I asked her.
“Ah, girl, no, but I’ll be awaiting to hear about it. Now you be careful—Stingy Jack just might be out there.”
“Stingy Jack?”
She shook her head—saddened by my lack of any real knowledge.
“Well, you see there was this saucy fellow named Jack hundreds of years back. He was always looking for a way around something and thinking himself a smart fellow. So he got the devil to have a drink with him, and then pretended he lost his wallet. Well, he got the devil to turn himself into a coin to pay for the drinks—but instead Jack placed him in his pocket with a silver coin—the devil can’t escape silver, you know. Jack finally let the devil go with a promise that he’d not take his soul for a year. In a year, Jack talked the devil into getting something out of a tree for him—and he caught the devil up the tree and placed a big silver cross right on the tree. Well, came time and Jack, like all men, died. Now, Heaven wouldn’t have him, why would he be welcome there? And the devil was fuming furious! So he wouldn’t take old Jack either—he sent him out in the dark between worlds with nothing but a candle to light his way. Jack put the candle in a turnip—”
“Pumpkin!” I said.
She sighed deeply at my interruption.
“Turnip! And cut holes in the turnip gourd so the light would go through. And there you had ‘Jack with a lantern,’ or Jack-o-lantern.”
“But we use pumpkins.”
“It’s still a Jack-o-lantern.
She leaned close to me. Granny was a tiny woman, thin and fragile to look at. My father had once told me she was tough as nails. She lost my great-grandfather and brought her family to America when times had gotten rough, settled them all in and started them on a new life, raising my dad when his parents died soon after the move. Then, she had returned to the old country after I was born to care for her brother until his death. And here she had stayed.
My dad often told me she might look small and sweet—but she was tough as nails. Despite the charm of her tales and the wonderful way she could make me laugh, I believed him.
“You stay close to your parents, you hear?” she demanded, her voice a little rough. “You don’t always be a-listening to me. There’s evil afoot, and there’s the good, too, but there’s no guarantee there will be a leprechaun around to help if you’re in trouble.”
“I thought leprechauns were evil because men were always after their gold.”
She waved a hand in the air. For a minute, she wasn’t looking at me. Her green eyes were clouded and distant.
“No, lass, there’s evil in this world, but there’s the good, too. And sometimes, we don’t see the good for the evil. Take the banshee. She’s a cry in the darkness. She takes on our pain and our loss. She cries for us, because otherwise our pain might be greater than the human heart can take.” She seemed to give herself a shake, mentally and physically. “Banshees . . . well, they are just those lost to us already who try to warn us and help us along.” She seemed distant again. “You’ll go to the cemetery, of course. Bring gifts to those of our loved ones who are departed. Uncle Liam, now, he likes a wee bit of Guinness on his grave, and Uncle Michael, well, he’s partial to Jamison’s. Now, your parents know—only a wee bit. They’d be destressed by the waste of too much good Guinness or Jamison’s. Uncle Peter is partial to a good strong cup of tea, while Aunt Mary Kathleen prefers coffee.” She paused again, looking into the air as if she were looking into the future or the past.
“There was the night they saved me, you know,” she murmured. “The man they called the Shamrock Strangler was on the loose. It was a Halloween long ago, so long ago. I was young and beautiful then. I was meeting your great-grandfathe
r in the cemetery so we could honor those gone before us and then . . . I was waiting by the great winged angel that rises over the family plot near the church. And I felt the mist and heard the whisper. I believe it was Mary Kathleen. There was a sob to her voice, a banshee cry, and she warned me to run and run fast. I turned to do as she said, and as I did, I saw him. He was twisting a tie in his hand, ready to wrap it around my neck. He was looking right at me, and I tripped, but then I heard the voice of a little leprechaun urging me up and . . . he stayed behind. He tripped the Strangler and I screamed and screamed . . . they caught him that night. You see, the banshee and the leprechaun . . . they saved me.”
I was silent.
I mean, I knew we couldn’t have banshees in the outhouse because we didn’t have an outhouse.
Was this another tall tale?
She gave herself a shake and looked at me. “Now, you go, you stick with your mum and dad.” She wagged a finger at me. “And you’ll tell me about it—and that you behaved—when you come back. And no tales! Don’t be peeing on me head and trying to tell me it’s raining!”
That was one of my favorite sayings of hers. I used it at school once—and got into a great deal of trouble.
But no tall tales? After the story she had just told me?
I promised I’d be good—and stick to my parents like glue.
Halloween in the village turned out to be fun. There were more homemade costumes in the village, and they were clever, terrifying, and charming. There was dancing, and dunk tanks, lots of food, and all manner of games. But people went to the cemetery; my folks and I were no different. Granny’s husband was buried there, along with many of my ancestors who had come before him. My mom and dad brought flowers, but I did see many people pouring libations on the ground about their graves.
I wasn’t frightened when we went, though it was a wonderfully atmospheric cemetery. Hundreds of years old and attached to an old church, it had every kind of grave you could imagine, tombs, vaults, in-ground, small mausoleums, and all kinds of angels and sheep and other memorials. Our “family” plot did have a great angel standing in the center of the area, and many names were etched into the stone at her base. I thought about Granny’s story. And I listened for banshees and looked for leprechauns. I didn’t see any. But I imagined what the place would be like on a night with the moon casting down a glow and a fog rising.
I wondered about Granny’s story.
But my parents were trying hard to make me have fun for Halloween—far from the friends I should have been with.
When we returned I told Granny excitedly about everything we did, and she listened and smiled and stroked my hair. “Ah, child, you’re a lovely lass—and I love you dearly. I’ll always be looking out for you, you know.”
We returned home when the week was over. I had to return to school and my parents had to return to work.
But I quickly learned why it had been so important to go.
Granny died before Thanksgiving. My parents had determined not to bring me to the funeral; only my dad would go.
“She loved you so much,” my dad explained. “I wanted your memories to be good. I wanted you to laugh with her. I wanted her to see you—and she was very firm as you know she could be—I wasn’t to tell you she was sick.”
“But—” I protested.
And said no more.
I could have tried harder to hold on!
There was no holding on; I knew that. As human beings, we like to try to control everything. We can’t control death.
But before my father left for the funeral, I had to speak with him. He was packing when I went to his room. He gave me a sad smile. “What’s up, Kels?” he asked.
“Granny told me a story about being saved by a banshee and a leprechaun.”
“Granny had great stories,” he said.
“But was there really someone called the Shamrock Strangler?” I asked.
He stopped packing and frowned at me. “Yes. And Granny was there the night he was caught.” He hesitated and smiled, putting his arms around me, and drawing me to sit with him at the foot of the bed. “I believe her banshee might have been a young woman running through the cemetery; he’d tried to buy her a drink, and something had warned her there wasn’t something right about him. The cemetery had been near, and she’d seen it as a place to hide because she’d known he was coming after her. And the leprechaun? One of the townspeople trying to help at the time was a midget, and he tripped the fellow before the police got there. At least, that’s what the newspaper reported. The old clipping is in the attic somewhere. Granny . . . well, she was fierce and funny and wonderful. And a great storyteller!” He winced. “She brought an entire family from Ireland, worked hard—and when she was needed back home, she returned. I loved her so dearly. And I will miss her. But she’ll always be with us, you know?”
I nodded. I had cried myself out when I’d first heard the news. I knew it was the way of things; she’d led a long and full life and had been in her early nineties. I just wished . . .
I wished I’d been able to hang on.
“I want to come with you.”
“You were with her while she was alive, Kels. That’s most important.”
“Please! I’m a good student; I won’t mess up. Please. And I’ll put my allowance toward the ticket—”
That was the first time I’d seen my father really laugh since he’d received the news that it was time to go back.
So, instead of just my dad going, my mom and I went, too. And I was glad. I’m not sure why. The ceremony was beautiful—she’d been loved by many people. And she was buried beneath the angel in the family plot next to all those she had loved.
I did not hear the cry of the banshee. Her ghost did not whisper to me. But I told her goodbye, and I would always love her, and somehow maybe love does carry on.
Years passed and I grew up—celebrating St. Patrick’s Day fiercely with my family each year in honor of those we loved who had died.
And also because my dad just loved St. Patrick’s Day, and there were plenty of people in Chicago of Irish descent—and not—who also loved St. Patrick’s Day.
I went to college and discovered I loved history and wanted to teach. I was probably influenced by another European trip, one during which I toured a concentration camp. I could never forget the saying by philosopher George Santayana over the gate—Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
I became a teacher and I found—even in teaching factual history—it was also fun to relate some of Granny’s stories. The kids got a kick out of them.
I was just twenty-three on the Halloween that made me realize Granny might not have spun such tall tales.
Mark and I had just gotten engaged, but he was in the military, and he was deployed soon after we celebrated the event. So on Halloween, I was with friends and we agreed we’d go to a costumed event at a local restaurant and bar. We chose to be a cast of characters from fairy tales. While I wanted to be the wicked stepmother, I was designated to be sleeping beauty. Janice already had a great costume for the stepmother, and Nan wanted to be the fairy godmother.
The restaurant was on a side street, far from Chicago’s bustling downtown area, in one of the oldest suburbs. I would never have gone alone at night—the area was too dark and happened to be across the street from one of the oldest cemeteries. At night the gravestones and monuments, crooked and broken and decaying, caught only the moonlight and seemed extremely sad. I wasn’t afraid of cemeteries—I liked them! The history to be found on old gravestones was amazing. I was just smart enough to know that while Chicago was an amazing city, it wasn’t without crime.
But that night, of course, was Halloween. And the street was alive. The band playing for the event was up-and-coming and exceptional. The place had been decorated to the nth degree—skeletons, goblins, pumpkins, witches, and more were everywhere. A wooden hearse—bearing a skeleton as the deceased—welcomed guests outside the front door.
/> The band was as good as they had been advertised as being. People danced on the open floor and sat around at the many tables circling it. We ran into other friends from Northwestern, and we all ran around switching tables to catch up. We danced with partners and in groups. Janice had a great time flirting with the bass player during his breaks. He seemed to be a nice guy when he joined us a few times at our table.
Nan, smiling, whispered to me, “Good-looking dude. Long hair, typical musician. Cool kind of way of moving around!”
He had never been formally introduced to us—it wasn’t until he left the table that Janice sighed and said, “His name is Hank Miller. You’d have thought his parents would have given him a cooler name. Like Wolf, or Saxon, or . . . maybe Liam, or something like that.”
Nan laughed and waved her fairy godmother wand around. “’A rose by any other name . . .’” she quoted.
“Yeah? Well, Shakespeare got to make up his own names!” Janice said.
It was while we were seated at the table with Grant Woodrow, who had graduated the year ahead of us, that we first learned about the man the media had dubbed the Second City Slasher. The killer had apparently received the moniker soon after we’d met up for night. Grant had seen the news on his cell phone. He’d been lamenting the fact we couldn’t meet his girlfriend as she had to work that night—when he looked up and said, “Oh, Geez! Another one.”
“Another . . . what?” I asked. Grant was dressed as a vampire, a rather awkward one. He was a big man with ruddy cheeks. I hadn’t known him that well in college. We’d shared a few classes, but had never been close. He was always polite, and I hoped I’d always been polite and friendly in return.
He frowned, looking at his cell phone.
The rest of us had been talking, and bizarrely enough, not one of us had pulled out our cell phones besides Grant.
“I’m sure everyone heard about the woman who was found dead a few weeks ago—pulled out of the Chicago River. News just out, an hour ago, another body had been pulled out of the river.”
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