by Faith Hunter
Ray tossed the Sunday paper into the house and shut the front door, going down the few steps of the front walk and following the small path to the driveway. He walked up to the woman and crossed his arms. “Well?”
The woman turned to him and he noted that what he had first taken to be black clothing was actually dark reds and greens. She was, perhaps, in her early twenties, fair of countenance, with emerald eyes and a mane of auburn hair. She looked distantly familiar, but the connection eluded Ray and he discarded it.
“Ah, the man of the hour!” She hadn’t put down the megaphone, although she did turn to greet him. He grimaced. It hadn’t been hard to get her attention, at least.
With great effort, Ray forced a friendly demeanor. “Do you mind keeping the volume down a little bit?” He put a hand to his temple. “It’s Sunday morning, after all, and most of my neighbours are enjoying a little lie-in. You understand.”
“Sorry, but I can’t be doing that.” Despite her words, the young woman did shut off the megaphone, apparently realizing the patent absurdity of bellowing at someone a few steps away. “It’s my job to mourn your death, y’see.” She gave him a winsome smile, evidently convinced that the matter had been settled, and held up the megaphone again, with every apparent intention of resuming.
Ray’s brow crinkled a little bit. He looked down at himself. He certainly felt fine, a mounting headache notwithstanding. “I suspect you may be a little early. Hopefully by at least a few years, although I suppose accidents happen.” His tone was dry, but he scowled at the young woman anyway. Perhaps this was some sort of obscure threat? “Who hired you to do this?”
“You are an O’Connor, aren’t you?” The young woman lowered the megaphone again, apparently annoyed at the continued interruption. “Ray O’Connor? Of the Dublin O’Connors?”
Ray ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I’m certainly Ray O’Connor, miss…although not of Dublin for at least four generations at this point.” He was never certain if he was supposed to count the first generation, so he erred on the side of caution. “Why?”
“Well, it’s only fit that an O’Connor, be he noble of spirit and goodly of mind, be mourned by his family bean sidhe, isn’t it?” The woman huffed. “Spend a few short generations away from home and you forget the old ways. What do they teach in the schools here, I ask you? Can’t even recognize a household spirit of mourning when you see one.”
Ray bristled. True, there hadn’t been a comprehensive comparative mythologies class when he had been teaching, but there was nothing wrong with the education system… “Wait, bean sidhe…” his voice trailed off, as umbrage was replaced by confusion. “You’re saying that you’re a banshee? A wailing woman that sings a lament in front of the house of one who has died or is soon to?”
The self-proclaimed banshee gestured to herself, as if presenting as evidence her presence, garb, and megaphone. “The same. I can think of a thing or two I’d rather be doing on a Sunday morn myself, comes to that. Duty called, however, and you’ll not be finding me or mine wanting in answer to such a summons.” She gave a mock curtsy with the long dark skirts she wore.
Ray frowned. He did recall some tales saying about as much, taught on his grandmother’s knee. On the other hand, a great deal of his heritage had been left on foreign shores, with every effort to assimilate for years before his birth. Beyond an abridged family tree and a few special observances around St. Patrick’s Day, he was familiar with few traditions observed by his ancestors.
“I…have some questions.” He wasn’t a superstitious man, he knew—he reassured himself of that, firmly. Good and bad luck were just probability and causality, and neither magic nor faeries had a place in his set of beliefs. Still, there was something curiously compelling to this visitor’s surety, and that alone was enough to keep his curiosity piqued.
“Well I don’t have answers for you! I’m a supernatural mourning spirit and a psychopomp, not a reference book!”
Ray’s frown deepened. “Now see here, miss. If you’re here to mourn my death, what is it that I’m supposed to have died of then? As I said before, I’m remarkably healthy for a dead man.” A good head of indignation built up behind him. “In fact, if you’re supposed to lament my death, I rather feel like I should protest the stand-up routine, too. You’re not exactly singing, are you?”
The woman bristled at that. “Well pardon me. Not all of us are blessed with beauteous singing voices. You’re getting mourned, as is your due, but don’t get snippy with me just because you didn’t warrant the next great voice of Ireland.” Ray felt it possible he had touched on a sore point. “And if you must know, you’re to electrocute yourself when you take the coffee pot from the machine. Unlikely, really, but a freak chance of wiring and there you go.”
Ray blinked, bemused. “Do you think there’s a good chance of that happening at this point?”
The self-proclaimed banshee closed her eyes and breathed out deeply through tightly pursed lips. “I don’t suppose I can convince you that you didn’t hear that?”
Ray turned and headed back into his house. “No.”
Just to be safe, he unplugged the coffee maker before drawing the pot from its cradle. That afternoon, he went shopping for a new machine.
* * *
Monday
If bad comedy was an unpleasant way to wake—or, Ray chuckled to himself, to have at one’s wake—then having a distressingly authentic Punch and Judy show set up in front of his house added little to lunchtime. He hadn’t seen the strange woman claiming to be a banshee for over twenty-four hours, and while he hadn’t been—quite—ready to write it all off as a prank or similar, neither had he elected to let it trouble him. Life was, after all, what you made of it, and by seventy, he was pretty good at putting a positive spin on every day.
It was that or become salty and crotchety, another old man that hung around the local barbershop and groused about how life had been better before all these young people had shown up to ruin the concept of youth. Ray shuddered at the thought. He wasn’t a polyanna, but if you were only as old as you felt, then those men must have been in their late second century. Feeling young and vital by comparison and inspired to prove it, he’d decided to go out for a jog.
He rounded the corner to home and frowned on seeing the small puppet theatre that had been erected on his driveway. So, she was back. If it was a prank, it was an unusually committed one—if it was something else…well, he wasn’t entirely sure just what it was. Weird, definitely.
Ray had seen a Punch and Judy show once before, when he had been much younger. It hadn’t been well received. They had never had the same popularity outside the UK, and by that point the themes of domestic abuse hadn’t exactly been the last word in comedy. The puppeteer had been skilled, but there was something profoundly creepy about abusive puppets.
Both of which were dressed as mourners. And—yes—even the crocodile had a small piece of black crepe covering its eyes.
Ray came to a stop in front of the stall. “I’m pretty sure that puppet shows aren’t a suitable lament either.” Punch turned to him, his swazzled voice incomprehensible in reply. Ray tried again. “And I don’t talk to the puppets. Get out here.”
The young woman emerged, frowning. “Look, do you have any idea how hard it was to lay hands on this stuff? Especially on short notice.”
Ray folded his arms over his chest. “I’m fairly certain that’s neither my fault nor my problem. What are you doing?”
The banshee huffed. “Well, since you didn’t like the stand-up routine, I’m exploring alternate venues of oral expression in an effort to lament your upcoming death. It so happens that I did a paper on Punch and Judy shows when I was pursuing an arts degree and I knew someone who had a setup I could borrow.”
The puppets said nothing, but the banshee still held them tense and Ray squirmed a little. There was the disquieting feeling that remaining silent was their own choice, rather than the result of their puppeteer not giving the
m words. The carved faces were ghoulish and mocking.
“Look, I’m not sure I buy your premise,” Ray found himself very carefully not thinking about the short that he’d discovered in his old coffee machine, “but if you must insist on pretending to be a banshee, and you feel this strange need to harass me, then why don’t you just sing? It’s traditional, and at least people would have some idea what you were doing.”
Ray couldn’t make out the woman’s reply—her usually strident tone was all but a whisper, and he strained to hear her muttering.
“I beg your pardon?”
She scowled. “I get performance anxiety, alright? I don’t have a very good singing voice and I get worried that I’ll be judged harshly for it.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “And…well, I’m doing my best. When you cork it, you’ll be mourned, and I’ll have done my bit for your branch of the family tree, or what’s left of it at any rate.”
Ray was bemused. “When I cork it? Going to die again, am I?”
The woman nodded. “Noon on the dot. You make yourself a tuna sandwich and choke on a bone that wasn’t removed.”
Ray frowned. “Well, there are two problems with that.” He gestured at the house. “Now that I know the dangers of my canned tuna, I think I’m going to have the ham. No offense, just not looking to snuff it right at the moment. Two, it’s already five minutes past.”
The banshee closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. “Not again.” She gestured at him. “Look, everyone dies sooner or later. Nature of being a mortal. From the Greek, I think. Mort. To die. Al. One who does. Get on with it, already!”
“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t exactly accurate etymology.”
The young woman ground her teeth. “Spirit of death. Psychopomp. These are things that I am. Reference guide? I am not. Dictionary? Not that either. Why won’t you just die? It’s your time! I checked, believe me.”
Ray was getting frustrated. “Just take your damned puppet stage and get off of my property.” He gestured at his home. “Nobody in this house is dying today. Not for your convenience, not for your entertainment, and not for your stupid puppet show.”
As he stormed into the house, he could swear that he heard, in the back of his mind, a tiny, tinny voice cheering.
That’s the way to do it!
* * *
Tuesday
There was a one-man band on his driveway.
Ray groaned. Strictly, it was a one-banshee band, being played inexpertly. She hadn’t been a bad puppeteer, and the banshee had the panache, if not the material, of a decent comic, but he didn’t care to speculate what had inspired this particular bit of foolery. Apart, of course, from his ever present oncoming death.
A brief flash of imagination had him wondering if he’d have to put up with this every day if he lived another thirty years. He shuddered. His copy of Bullfinch hadn’t said anything about being annoyed to death.
His first couple of attempts to get the woman’s attention were unsuccessful, due in no small part to the massive bass drum on her back, beating out what he presumed to be the polka equivalent of a requiem. Eventually, he walked in front of her and waved his hands, managing to get her attention away from the sheet music on a small stand strapped to her shoulders.
The banshee spat out the harmonica. “Yes?”
He gestured at the entirety of her outfit. “Really? A one-man band?” His gesture continued, frustration exaggerating his movements until the question described by them became existential in scope. Ray sighed, running a hand through thinning strands. “Why?”
“Well, you didn’t like the puppet show, and you weren’t a fan of the stand-up comedy, so I figured I’d go musical this time.” A shrug, accompanied by the clanging of a top hat cymbal. “Since you seem to have this obsession with singing. Plus, I included the traditional element of wailing on the harmonica! Pretty clever, huh?” There, for a moment, was a hopeful smile, familiar from dozens of students that had hoped a moment of cleverness could make all the difference.
Ray snorted. “Words fail me.” This was proven false as he continued in the same breath. “So if you’re so self-conscious about doing a poor job with the singing, how can you play this array so badly without shame? I feel like I should also point out that I have no intention of dying, but if you didn’t listen the first two times, I can’t imagine why you would now.”
The banshee carefully unstrapped the rig—the main part of it at least—and set it on the ground. “Alright. First of all, rude.” She frowned. “I don’t control the times of death. I merely come to herald it and serve to ease the pain of passing. That you will die or not is not something of which you must convince me, but the world.” There was a moment’s pause, as she composed herself and organized her thoughts. “The thing is…nobody expects that a bean sidhe should be good at being a one-man band, or a puppeteer, or a comedian. You have no idea the kind of pressure that comes from the expectations.”
Ray’s heart softened a little at that. As a teacher, he’d seen too many kids trying to live up to expectations that they hadn’t felt ready for or been able to face. Sometimes they had powered through it, and sometimes they had been broken by it, but every time he’d seen it, he’d known that it was one of the hardest things in the world to face. On the other hand…
“Look, you can understand my attitude. You might not be a mortal…” and here he wasn’t certain if he was simply humoring her, or if he’d come to believe it himself, “but portents of death don’t exactly put one at ease. What’s supposed to happen to me this time?”
The banshee’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, no. You’re not going to get me with that old trick this time. Every time I tell you how you’re going to die, you then go and avoid it. If I tell you, you won’t even get into the shower.”
There was a pause. She closed her eyes. Ray, familiar from long experience with the appearance of someone slowly losing their patience and possibly their mind, heard her slowly counting backward.
“Five, four…Aw, crap.”
“Right. I’m…going to go to the gym, maybe. And have a shower there.” He glanced at her. She made a gesture of dismissal. “Should I be calling the exterminator or the electrician?”
The banshee had bent over to collect the discarded pieces of her one-man band outfit, but rolled her eyes. The moment had unquestionably passed. “Just put down a non-slip mat.”
* * *
Wednesday
Ray disliked yard work, but was also strongly against plant detritus cluttering his lawn or garden. The conflict of values ultimately lead to the distasteful chore being done as quickly as possible, so that more pleasant pursuits could be undertaken.
It was late afternoon and Ray was not a little on edge. The banshee hadn’t shown up yet, and there was a certain hesitating anticipation in the air, like waiting for the other shoe to drop. He didn’t wish to jinx it—not that he believed in jinxes per se, but it didn’t hurt to be careful under the circumstances—but perhaps she had finally given up? It was bittersweet, that possibility. He had friends, but no close ones. He didn’t dwell on the prospect of death—he tended to try to keep active—but it was comforting, somehow, to think that when he was gone, he would be mourned.
Inexpertly, but still.
And, as if on cue, the sound of loud declamation from the front yard. It sounded like blank verse, but it was impossible to be certain at a distance.
“The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones…”
Ray wasn’t sure where the banshee had gotten a ruff. It wasn’t like one could just buy one these days. Still, given her usual dark costume, it didn’t look entirely out of place. Definitely eccentric, though he was coming to expect eccentric from her.
Then again, she didn’t seem to have any difficulty sourcing unusual props and costumes. He wondered if it was a banshee thing, or if she was particularly suited to set and costume design. It was impossible to tell without knowing other banshees and he didn’t know anyone q
uite like her.
“Hold it, Brutus.”
She looked over at him, voice faltering slightly as her concentration was broken. “Marc Antony, actually.” She gave Ray a sheepish grin. “Maybe not the most flattering passage for you to walk in on, but … not bad, right?” It was that same hopeful smile again.
She was persistent, obnoxious, and not a little macabre. She had undertaken what could be described by the uncharitable as a campaign of harassment and she had persisted for days. And yet some online research had revealed that banshees weren’t bringers of death, but heralds of it. Beings intended to ease the transition from life to death, to mourn the passing of a life, and to ease the moment of a painful transition.
It was odd. If the neighbors had taken offense, they had said nothing—and that was definitely not the style of the neighborhood association. They were happy to squawk about any number of other issues, and he was quite certain that a great deal of pearl clutching would have occurred. Another sign that this might be the genuine article, a herald of death—there was nothing like a community of pensioners for whistling past graveyards and being wilfully blind to a manifestation of the Reaper.
Or perhaps it was all a coincidence. Stranger things, he was sure, had happened, although he found himself hard-pressed for examples when put on the spot.
He turned back to the banshee in Elizabethan garb. “I stand corrected. Marc Antony.” He tried to remember Julius Caesar from his college years. “If you say you’re going to read my will next, I’m going to have to direct you to my lawyer.”