Witch Grannies - The Case of the Lonely Banshee

by Gary J Byrnes

  The car roared down the familiar, bumpy lane to the All-Seeing Eye’s mountain top lair. Guard trees jumped out of their way, waving mighty branches as they zoomed by. Emily sat up front with her Granny, while four more witches crammed in the back, the last curled up in the rear of the stationwagon where the cats normally travelled. Because they were all so worried about Emily, three more witches flew behind the car. The last of the coven stayed back at the cottage, worrying and looking things up on the WWWW – the Witches’ World Wide Web.

  When Emily’s crew arrived at the top of the mountain, the All-Seeing Eye was waiting for them. She looked utterly beautiful, as usual.

  ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ she said.

  Well, we did ring you, thought Emily.

  ‘Emily,’ said the All-Seeing Eye, ‘you look absolutely fabulous, darling. You are, as they say, blossoming into a stunning young lady.’

  Emily blushed, she wasn’t used to such direct compliments.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, as it is the correct manners to accept a compliment graciously. Anyway, Emily really was blossoming into a stunning young lady and she kind of knew this, so it was great to hear it.

  She winked. ‘You want to come and see my banshee detector?’

  ‘Did you spot anything?’

  ‘Come on girls!’

  And the whole gang trooped up the spiral staircase, one witch staying down at the front door, just in case.

  Up on the viewing platform, hidden by a permanent layer of cloud from the ground below, a new device had been brought out on the gleaming brass rail. It was like a giant, golden hairdryer.

  ‘They’re mad about their hair, those banshees’ said the All-Seeing Eye, shaking her head.

  The detector was trained on the River Shannon. Emily had the first look through its viewing lens. As she pressed her eye against it, she felt the detector’s humming, felt a breeze on her face.

  ‘It works like a reverse hairdryer,’ explained the All-Seeing Eye. ‘It sucks in the air and picks up on banshee activity. The banshee’s scalp and hair are very powerful and fragments of it light up like fireworks. When ye rang me, I picked up a signal near the cottage and followed the trail back towards the river.

  Emily saw the fireworks alright, bursts of them, coming from the one spot, seemingly in the middle of the river, just downstream from the footbridge across to Doonass in County Clare.

  ‘So this is banshee dandruff I’m looking at?’

  ‘Exactly. Good, isn’t it?’

  Emily felt a shiver go down her spine. Everything was going weird. Deep inside her brain, she felt an urge. An urge to go there. To the river. Then she realised where she was and made herself focus on the job at hand.

  ‘We have a hair for you,’ said Emily.

  The All-Seeing Eye seemed shocked.

  She said ‘You have an actual banshee hair? Like, really?’

  ‘Like, really.’

  ‘Let’s see.’

  Emily had placed the hair into a plastic bag, which she removed from her denim jacket pocket and opened carefully. The All-Seeing Eye peered into the bag. Even in the gentle moonlight, the hair gleamed like silver. As if it possessed some kind of a life force of its own.

  ‘A banshee hair,’ said the All-Seeing Eye, enthralled. ‘This is… incredible!’

  Emily and the other witches brightened up considerably. This was progress.

  ‘So what can it tell us?’ asked Emily eagerly.

  The All-Seeing Eye made a funny expression, said ‘That’s something I’m not too sure about. I’ll have to do some experiments. It’ll take the night, at least.’

  Emily was disappointed, her shoulders slumping in unison with the other witches. The All-Seeing Eye took the plastic bag with the banshee hair and hurried off downstairs to her lab.

  The urge came back over Emily. She could almost hear the river gurgling, smell its dampness, taste its wetness.

  ‘We have to get to the river,’ she said. ‘Come on, there isn’t much time.’

  CHAPTER 7. BREAKFAST WITH A CLONE

 

  While the real Emily was drawn into the banshee’s grip, her clone carried on with life as usual back in the capital. Malcolm knew something was up at breakfast. Emily greeted him with a cheery ‘Good morning!’ as she reached for the Sugar Puffs. Normally she snarled. And it was a Monday.

  After a quick phonecall, he knew what was what, so he began to have a little fun.

  ‘Emily?’ he began.

  ‘Yes, Malcolm?’ she munched, her mouth full of milky breakfast cereal.

  ‘You like me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And you’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You’re my brother, silly,’ she said, pinching his cheek. Talk about laying it on thick with the clone spell.

  ‘Okay. Okay,’ he said, smiling to himself as he ate his Weetabix with blueberries and drank his orange juice. The possibilities were endless. Their father came into the kitchen, his hair messy. He hadn’t showered, but he was wearing his work suit, dark grey with lighter grey stripes, thin ones. Odd.

  ‘See you kids later,’ he said, not even making eye contact, grabbing a bright green Granny Smith apple. ‘Got to fly. Literally.’

  Then he was gone.

  Off to the airport to get on a plane to go to Brussels for work.

  Mam left just after him, a blown kiss for each of them, going to town, to work. ‘Be good at school,’ she said.

  Emily finished her cereal, then wiped her mouth, got up, went to the sink and washed her bowl and spoon. Then she washed Malcolm’s things, dried everything and put them all away in the press and drawer. She’d made her lunch earlier, much earlier, so she packed that into her schoolbag.

  ‘Ready, Mal? We don’t want to be late.’

  Oh, this was going to be hilarious.

 

  CHAPTER 8. GROUND CLOUDS

 

  The path down to the river was quiet. Too quiet. A fog began to rise as they left the car park.

  ‘Ground clouds,’ muttered a witch.

  ‘A pea souper,’ muttered another.

  ‘Ground clouds?’ said Emily, though she didn’t really care. All that mattered was the air of a beautiful song that she swore she could hear off in the night. A woman’s clear voice. It was coming from the direction of the river, just a hundred metres away, down near the footbridge.

  ‘Yes, ground clouds,’ said the witch. ‘That’s what fog is. Y’see darlin’, it’s just water in the air, it’s always there. And when the ground temperature gets within a couple of degrees of the dew point, well, Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And the water vapour condenses into tiny jewels of liquid water, so light they float on air. And that’s what fog is, same as what clouds are. The rain is just further condensation, the water droplets get too heavy and they fall down on your head.’

  ‘Can you hear that?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Hear what? That owl up in the old castle?’

  ‘No. It’s like singing.’

  The witches stopped to listen, with powers beyond those of any human.

  ‘No. Nothing. It must be the banshee.’

  They laughed uneasily.

  Emily smiled.

  They walked on down the muddy path towards the river, big horse chestnut trees looming overhead in the fog, which fell down denser as they neared the footbridge over the river to County Clare.

  The singing came on again, stronger, like it was…

  The fog, the fog.

  Suddenly Emily was alone.

  CHAPTER 9. A SPLASH IN THE NIGHT

 

  Her world, the river, was dark. Dark like the time before the world was made. There was a memory in her, a collective, genetic memory of the time before she was spawned. Sprouting from the egg and surviving alone in the chaotic waters, surviving and growing so that only the most cunning of predators are a threat. This was not achieved by luck
. She was born with a knowledge, all salmon were.

  But her knowledge was somehow more advanced. She saw the seasons change, the years pass, yes. But she also knew the history f her ancestors dating back two thousand years. She also knew of witches and humans and animals and birds and fishes. She knew that her river – her family’s river – had changed. The ebb and flow of nutrients was clear to all her senses. But the poison was another thing. There was a sour taste to everything.

  The salmon of knowledge patrolled her territory. A distant splashing caused her lateral fin to react, to jerk, so she investigated. The salmon waited beside a cluster of smooth rocks, the water calm above, maybe the height of two herons, the hazy moon a white splash.

  The splashing again, much nearer. There! A human, a female, emerged from a hole on the riverbank and swam to the surface. She lived here, in the world of the fishes.

  The salmon stayed where she was, tried to work out the significance of the human. A witch? Most certainly. But who? Why?

  She glanced at the moon every few seconds, tasted the water constantly.

  What did it mean?

  CHAPTER 10. OUT OF THE FOG

 

  And out of the fog came a person. A woman. A beautiful woman with long, silvery hair. She seemed very old, but her age made her more beautiful.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You want to watch out for the river in this fog. Sure, you’d be swept away.’

  ‘I’m scared,’ said Emily. ‘Granny!’ she called.

  But the sound of her voice was muffled by the fog.

  ‘Are you looking for your granny? Sure, come on, this way.’

  She put her hand on Emily’s shoulder. She didn’t pull Emily, but Emily felt herself move. She wanted to go with her. The woman looked trustworthy. Could she be even more beautiful than the All-Seeing Eye? This was all that Emily could think about as she followed the woman through the fog. The roaring river sounded like it was near, very near.

 

  The All-Seeing Eye rushed up the spiral staircase, still wearing her black lab coat. Breathless, she grabbed the banshee detector and moved it around the perimeter rail until it was pointing towards the river.

  She pressed her eye to the viewfinder and flicked the rangefinder, closer and closer to the shimmering green signature that was a banshee. There. There! The banshee moved closer to the river. Her signal was so strong that it reflected off somebody beside her. A young girl. Emily!

  The All-Seeing Eye pulled her iPhone from her lab coat pocket. She called Granny Annie's number.

  'Any news?' said Granny Annie.

  'Bad news,’ said the All-Seeing Eye breathlessly. ‘The banshee is down at the river and she's got Emily!'

  'Where are they exactly?'

  'Let me check again. Oh. Oh no.'

  'What? What?'

  'They're gone.'

  CHAPTER 11. INTRUDERS

 

  The salmon watched as the human woman and the child came into the water and drifted down to the hole and out of sight, just flowing, dark shapes. There was little she could do to take her mind off this occurrence. So she waited in the rocks and waving weeds, tasted the water, watched the roof of her world slowly brighten as dawn broke and the fog vanished as quickly as it had come.

  A taste came up river to her, the bitter taste of salt and the sea. She remembered her vast trip of the past four years, across the Great Salty Ocean to the White Land. A salmon smile crossed her lips as the memories flashed into her mind.

 

  The tide of salmon, her friends, family and river relatives as they gushed out of the Mother River estuary and met the tribes of the other rivers, all drawn towards the mysterious Great Salty Ocean. The sense of excitement there, that bright April morning, as the fresh water mixed with the salt and the squeals then, and clicks and, smooth, grey, hot monsters that cut through the salmon. She learned later that a pod of dolphins lived in the estuary. Mainly because salmon was their favourite meal.

  She escaped, into the vast unknown. The unusual and fantastical creatures that she met, mostly harmless. But the black and white demons waited for them in ambush, the water filled with their high-pitched screeching as they laid countless ambushes. Gigantic, hot creatures with eyes that glistened and teeth that flashed as they cut through the streams of salmon, the water red with cold blood. But she survived.

  The clouds of red krill, great populations of tiny shrimp that covered vast areas of water so that the salmon could just swim through, her mouth open, feasting like the queen of fish as the krill turned her flesh pink.

  The dolphins, beautiful creatures who also loved to feast on salmon. She could hear them coming from miles away, all their whistling and clicking, so she’d sink to the seabed and just wait until they left. But she listened closely to their language, practised it when they weren’t around to hear.

  Once, nearing Greenland, the mysterious icy island at the top of the world, she chanced upon the same salmon she’d met that early day in the river as she hid from the dragonfly nymph. A baby no more, he was now a strong young man salmon. They spent some time together, comparing krill, discussing orcas and dolphins and sharks.

  Then there was the time she met a poor and bedraggled and confused creature. She looked kind of like a salmon, but her skin was dull, her eyes sad, her fins ragged. Sea lice clung to her gills.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the salmon.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the fish replied. ‘I lived my life in a net cage in the sea with thousands of brothers and sisters. Each day food, some kind of pink pellets, fell from the sky. And every day some of our number were lifted to freedom. Then I found a tear in the net and felt a distant, fuzzy urge to leave that place and come out here. I don’t know why I’m here, or what I should do. Do you?’

  The salmon had heard the seagulls chatter about farms, where fish are kept in captivity and fed chemicals to turn their flesh pink, as well as antibiotics and other poisons, until they are killed for the dinner table, whatever that was. But she’d never believed the stories, until now.

  ‘I think you have escaped from a fish farm,’ she said.

  ‘A fish farm? I don’t know what that is. But I know that I prefer it out here!’

  ‘The ocean is a wonderful place. You should explore it, taste it, eat some krill. Enjoy yourself.’

  The escaped salmon, smiled, at last understanding who she was. She swam off into the blue vastness.

  Then there was the Great Being, drifting on the surface of the open ocean, her calls radiating through the depths for miles. She was hot also, but she was a friend to the salmon. The salmon stayed with her for a day and a night, listening to the stories of her voyages and the hunters that terrorised her kind for many long years.

  'What are these hunters?' the salmon asked the great blue whale, whose species were the largest living creatures in the history of the planet (this whale in particular was actually the largest blue whale specimen who had ever lived. But neither she nor the salmon could know that).

  'Humans,' said the whale. 'They live on the dry land, but they can travel across water also. I've even seen some in the water. They like to hunt water creatures. They eat us.'

  'Eat us?' cried the salmon in alarm. She didn't understand. 'I eat the little krill and some worms and flies and other small things.'

  The whale couldn't bring herself to tell the salmon that her flesh was prized by the humans, the bears, the killer whales, the sharks.

  'Just be careful, little one. When you see anything larger than you, swim fast in the opposite direction. You'll find your course again easily enough.'

  'I can taste it,' said the salmon proudly. 'A taste of fresh water, cutting through the salt. And another flavour that I can't describe.'

  'And never trust the humans,' said the whale. 'They don't just kill for food, they actually enjoy the act of killing. They do it for pleasure, some of them.'

  The salmon shuddered, then bade the whale farewell and dropped below the moonlit s
urface of the Atlantic as she homed in on the taste that called to her. The estuary dolphins waited, as did the nets and the hooks. But she was smarter now, her experiences had given her great knowledge. Wisdom.

 

  Never trust the humans, thought the salmon. As she waited for any kind of movement from the hole where the old and the young humans had gone, a glittering prize dropped to the riverbed before her. It was like a brilliant creature from the ocean. It glistened like the quartz crystals upstream, dangling colours swaying in the current. She wasn't hungry, she would never eat again once she’d come back to Mother River from the Great Salty Ocean, but the salmon was somehow drawn to it, not seeing the barbed hooks or the strong line that led up to the surface and the fisherman's rod.

  CHAPTER 12. IN THE BANSHEE'S LAIR

 

  The banshee held Emily's hand tightly as they swam effortlessly though the depths of the Shannon. The current was strong, but the banshee seemed to control a powerful magic.

  They disappeared down a hole and emerged onto dry land, a great open space, a kind of airy cave, Emily feeling like Alice in Wonderland. The banshee led Emily to a round rug with a bright light shining straight down onto it, from a hole in the roof. They stood there for a few seconds, then they were bone dry.

  The place didn't look like a cave at all, with vast tapestries across the walls, depicting scenes of ladies lounging in gardens, dogs, even a parrot. The floor was wooden, finely-polished boards. An enormous crystal chandelier hung from the roof of the cave, like diamond tears trapped in time. There were candles in great candelabras, but none were lit. There was a great selection of paintings along the walls, each in its gilded ornate frame. They were mostly portraits, really old, from a time when the men had bigger hair than the ladies and people liked to pose with dogs. One frame stood out, the great crest of some long-forgotten family. A great bookcase stood at the side of the room. It contained many bound volumes, the books' titles picked out in gold.

  On the other side of the room, the skin of a great tiger covered the wall, its glassy eyes watching the scene, its teeth and claws bared: ferocious things, but useless against a rifle. The bullet hole in its side could be seen by sharp eyes. There were some carved wooden chairs scattered about there, with delicate tables for playing cards or chess upon. Three sets of heavy curtains hung there also, all frills and tassels and thick rope ties. But there were no windows.