The old woman sat on a stone at the crossroads, knitting to pass the time.
Well, maybe not so old. Twoscore years and seven wasn’t so many when her own mother, God rest her, had died that very spring, having had her full threescore and ten. Still, on nights like this, when she was aching in ways she never had when she was younger…
Any road up, she was too old for what she was doing. It was the kind of thing that young girls in stories did (and still younger girls in real life dreamed about doing) for their sweethearts, not…
Ah. There now. A high, mournful keening in the distance, getting closer by the minute. Too late to worry about young girl’s stories and being too old now.
She couldn’t help but smile as she packed her knitting away. To think: she’d been just about ready to give up. Well, who could blame her? The stone was cruel hard after hours of sitting, and the wind was chill, and there was no reason to believe any of it would work. But here she was. Guess there’s something to those old stories about crossroads after all, she said to herself as a dark, hooded figure with eerie, glowing blue eyes appeared out of the night. Now what to do about it?
She didn’t think on it long. She was who she was, and there was only one way she could ever deal with such a thing: stand up, brush herself off, step into the advancing figure’s path, and say “Good evenin’.”
The hooded figure stopped short, and the keening, which had been growing ever-louder as it approached, stopped as well. And did her eyes deceive her, or did the blue lights within the hood…blink?
There was a pause; if the hooded figure had been human, it would have seemed to be collecting its wits. Finally, it seemed to succeed, answering in a woman’s voice as high and sweet as the keening had been:
“Who are you, mortal, that you dare to approach the banshee?”
The woman just smiled and held out a hand hardened by a lifetime of work. “The name’s Bridget Flanagan,” She answered. “And you?”
The banshee held up a hand that looked…remarkably similar to her own…and wagged a finger at her. “Oh, no you don’t,” it said. “You’re not getting my name out of me that easily, mortal.”
Bridget dropped her hand and shook her head.
“You’re too used to dealing with wise women and cunning men,” She chuckled. “I’m neither. Just makin’ me manners.”
“So you say,” the banshee retorted. “But you people never seek out the Fair Folk unless you want something. You go after the fairies for wishes and the leprechauns for gold, and I can guess what you want from a Banshee. Who is it?”
Bridget’s face fell. She’d never heard tell of a fae who was shrewd, for all their mischief, or who had no interest in playing games.
Everyone learns, I s’pose, and forever’s a lot more time to do it than twoscore years and seven. Best to be about it, then.
“Me daughter,” she answered. “First birth is always the hardest, but she’s as strong as her old mum. She’d have been fine if she hadn’t taken fever.”
“ Rotten luck,” The banshee said. And did she actually sound…sympathetic? “I’m sorry, truly, but there are rules. And spirits, be we angel, devil, or sidhe, don’t have choices about following rules. That’s for you mortals. I sing death; that’s what I am. There’s nothing to be done.”
But Bridget Flanagan wasn’t one to be put off so easily. “ Nothing?” She countered. “My Patrick has been run in by the law enough times for me to know that some rules have more give than others. Sometimes, yes, you go in the lock-up…but other times, you pay your fine and go your way.”
“ Oh, human…” the banshee sighed. “What are you trying to do?”
“You say you sing death,” Bridget pressed. “Does it have to be anybody’s death in particular?”
The banshee raised its hands and shook its hooded head.
“Human…Bridget…no. Just stop. I’ve heard this so many times before. What you want is forbidden.”
“Ah, there now, that’s an interesting thing,” Bridget said triumphantly, pointing as she always did when she had someone good and pinned down. “You tell me it’s forbidden, but nobody bothers to forbid something that can’t be done. There’s no laws against counterfeiting by shitting gold coins, after all.”
“Bridget,” The banshee said, taking hold of the pointing hand and – not ungently – moving it away. “If I could do what you wish, not a child would die in this world as long as there was a parent left to say ‘take me instead’.”
Bridget just shook her head. “Oh, come now, what kind of fool do you take me for? Fool enough to think Old Man Death would find taking me sooner rather than later to be a deal worth making?”
“What deal are you making, then?”
Bridget grinned to herself. She had the spirit’s attention now. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been to these parts, you know. Do you remember?”
“I’ve been to all of Ireland,” The banshee answered “I remember it all, but I don’t know which part you want me to remember right now.”
“When last you were here, you sang for my husband.”
There was a long moment of silence. If the banshee had been human, Bridget would have guessed that it was stunned at being confronted by someone who’d been hurt by its work, at being forced to think of that person as someone who hurt instead of a simple singing engagement.
But it wasn’t human, now was it? Surely a creature who “sang death” couldn’t feel such things.
But sure, and didn’t that sound like a sigh that came out from under its hood before it spoke again. “Bridget, I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m afraid that doesn’t change anything.”
“I didna think it would. And there’s no need to be sorry.”
Pause.
“…what’s that again?”
“Jimmy Flanagan was a good man, God rest his soul, and I loved him.” Bridget said. “But his death was no harder than most I’ve seen – a heart attack is head and shoulders above what our Meaghan is facing right now – and my heart didn’t break when he died.”
“No?”
Bridget shook her head. “No. I loved him, but I never could love him the way other wives loved their husbands. When he took me to bed, it was doin’ me duty, not kickin’ up me heels like it is for most women at least once in a while.” She interrupted herself to shake a finger at her spectral companion. “And not because his idea of getting me ready was ‘brace yourself, Bridey’. Jimmy did the best he could, poor man.” She paused a moment then, and her eyes went very far away, and when she spoke it was much softer. “And I never knew why. Why I couldn’t love him like that, I mean…until I heard you sing, and it was like a mermaid instead of a banshee.”
The eerie blue lights within the cowl blinked, and the hooded head cocked. “What in the name of Oberon’s knickers do you mean by that?”
Bridget rolled her eyes. “Ye bewitched me, that’s what I mean. I couldn’t tear meself away. If I’d known ye would be this easy to find, I would’ve come to you on the moment.”
“Well most people don’t want to find – “ The banshee began. Then she realized what she was saying. “Are ye daft, woman?”
“Most likely,” Bridget admitted. “I certainly thought the other girls mad when they acted like I’m acting. Thought my way with my Jimmy was more sensible. Now they’re thirty years past it and I’m acting like a girl with her tits just starting to bud making calf eyes at a boy at her first dance.”
“And I’m…the boy?” The banshee asked, still struggling to understand just what this mad human was saying to her.
“You are.”
And then she gave up. “Do you even hear the words you’re saying to me, mortal?”
“I do,” Bridget answered, her former flippant tone gone. “Mad I may be, but I’ve told you before, I’m no fool. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t heard something else in your song. Pretty as it is, I don’t think it’s sad just because you’re singing about death.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the banshee said, the blue lights in her cowl flickering away for a moment.
“I think you do,” Bridget said, relentless. “I told you what my marriage was like. I know what lonely sounds like, right enough.”
“I’m a death spirit. I don’t get lonely.”
“Oh?” Bridget said, as casually as if she’d just learned it was olive-picking season in Spain. “I’d’ve thought you’d be all the more lonely for that. Touching so many lives, but never being part of any. Guess I was wrong. Thinking of you too human-like. I’ll trouble you no more.”
With that, she started to turn away.
“Wait.”
Very carefully hiding her smile, she glanced back over her shoulder.
“Yes?”
“Suppose this…madness of yours had any substance. What would you do about it?”
Bridget shrugged. “Stay with you. That’s pretty much the only cure for lonely I know.”
The blue lights within the hood went very wide, and there was a sudden silence. Bridget had heard storytellers talk about “the world holding its breath”. She’d never imagined what it might be like, but it was probably to be expected, dealing with one of the fae.
Then the silence broke, sudden and sharp as thunder, and there was nothing but the scream: high and furious and coming from everywhere and driving into her ears and her skull like white-hot spikes. Winds rose all around them, and grass started to die away from the path as birds fell from the trees.
Then, just as quickly, the wail was gone and it was just the banshee shouting at her, but she knew enough to take that seriously: “You dare to mock me, mortal woman?” the spirit screeched.
Doing her best to keep her hand from shaking, Bridget wiped a trickle of blood away from her nose, then turned to face the banshee as calm and confident as if she was arguing with her next-door neighbor.
“You know me name,” She said. “I’d thank you to use it. And if there’s any in Eire that’s fool enough to mock one of the Good Folk, that fool isn’t Bridey Flanagan.”
The winds went still, and the edge of the brown circle in the grass around them stopped advancing.
“But…” The banshee protested. “You can’t be serious.”
“Serious as me Meaghan’s sickness,” Bridget retorted. “I won’t lie to you: what’s happening to her is as much a part of this as anything else. A child in danger can give a mother courage she never knew she had…even when that child is a grown woman herself with a wee one of her own. Maybe even moreso: that wee one is going to need her mum more than she’ll ever need her old grandma. And besides…” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer. “And besides, Meaghan loves her Joseph the way I never loved my Jimmy. I want her to have that. She deserves it.” Then she looked full – almost defiantly – into the blue lights in the darkness. “And so do you.”
This time, the blue lights didn’t waver. “And you?” The banshee asked in reply.
“I’m not the one who needs convincing,” Bridget volleyed back. “This was all my idea, remember?”
“I remember,” the banshee said. “You’re very brave, Bridget Flanagan. But you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“ Actually, I do. And if you don’t, I guess I need to be a bit less subtle-like about it.” She scratched at her cheek thoughtfully. “Now how do the lads do it? It’s been so long since I was on the receivin’ end. Oh, aye, that’s it…”
She hiked up her skirt, got down on one knee, and took one of the banshee’s hands. It was a woman’s hand, as she’d expected, but surprisingly big and rough. Or maybe not so surprising – hadn’t she sometimes heard that the banshee also washed shirts?
Ah, well. Best get on with it, ‘fore she lost her nerve. Just like the lads.
“Oh, most beautiful, wondrous banshee whose name I don’t know because you won’t tell me, would you do me the honor of becomin’ me wife? I have nothin’ to offer you but the true devotion of an honest heart and two hardworkin’ hands, but – “
With another wail – this one a simple cry of pain that caused no harm to woman nor grass nor birds – the banshee yanked her hand free: “Stop it! Stop it!”
She must have wanted to walk away and yet not, because she started pacing: up the road and down the road, away and back. Bridget just stayed down on her knee, though she knew the longer she stayed the harder it would be to get back up (and she’d have the devil’s own time as it was, with the night as cold and damp as it was coming on to be).
She’d made her proposal, and now she had to wait for an answer. Just like the lads.
It didn’t take the banshee long to pace her fill, though. It wasn’t but a minute before she came to a stop before her farmwife suitor, hands on hips.
“What do you think I am?” She demanded. “A nymph? A dryad? Some elf-lady who sits on a cushion all day listening to her charmed mortal poets making verses for her? I’m a death-spirit!” Then her voice lost its strength, and the next words came out sounding suspiciously like sobs. “I’m hideous! No mortal can bear the sight of me, let alone actually want to stay with me! Oh, you’d put on a brave face for a time, but all the while you’d be looking for some way to get yourself free!”
Was that all? Oh, it’d be one thing if she’d be struck blind or dead to look at her new bride, but the silly creature was just talking about ugly, and what was a bit of ugly? Did the poor thing think Jimmy had been some golden-haired angel?
“Well now…” Bridget said as she climbed to her feet (saints have mercy on her knees!). “Why don’t you let me be the judge of what I can bear?”
She reached for the banshee’s hood, and the spirit actually flinched away from her.
“Don’t…”
“Easy now,” Bridget soothed. “This won’t hurt.”
With a sigh, the banshee closed its eerie blue eyes, and let Bridget take hold of the hood. She drew it back slowly, just in case blind or dead were still options, but then she saw her sweetheart’s face and she smiled.
Like her hands, the banshee’s face was nothing but a normal woman’s. A rather handsome one, actually, with a strong jaw and gray hair cropped mannishly short.
“Oh, aye, hideous you are…” Bridget grinned.
The banshee flinched again, and Bridget hurried to reach her point.
“…when you stand next to Queen Mab all day, as I’m sure you must. Here among us mortals, you just look like your younger days are behind you, and sure, isn’t that what being mortal is? You’re a handsome woman.”
Then, before the banshee could open her eyes, Bridget Flanagan leaned in and kissed her.
The last lips she’d kissed had been Jimmy’s and those had always been rough and chapped by the wind. These were soft. There was a flare of blue light as the banshee’s eyes flew open, but it went out again as they closed and she relaxed into the kiss.
Finally, as all good things must, the kiss ended.
“Yes.”
“What’s that, then?” Bridget asked. She thought she’d heard…she hoped…but it had been such a whisper…
“I said yes, you madwoman,” the banshee said, suddenly all business. “Now listen: there’s only one way to do this. Takin’ you with me, that’s nothin’. What’s one more fae takin’ one more mortal to Faerie with ‘em? The trick…” She wagged her finger at her mortal intended. “…is letting your Meaghan stay. That’s a call I’m not allowed to make. But then, leprechauns aren’t allowed to just give their gold away, either. I can do it if you make me do it.”
For the first time that evening, it was Bridget’s turn to blink and stare. “That makes not a lick of sense,” she finally managed.
“Congratulations on your free will,” the banshee snapped. “Do you want to waste time rubbing it in my face, or do you want to get to business? Makes no odds to me. I’ll live forever, but your Meaghan won’t.”
“Right, then,” Bridget said. Explanations later. “How do we go about this? Do I need to twist your arm?”
The banshee shook her head. “No. Introduce yourself to me again.”
“…do what?”
“No more questions. Introduce yourself.”
Giving up all hope of understanding, Bridget held out her hand as she had earlier that night. “The name’s Bridget Flanagan,” She repeated. “And you?”
The banshee took her hand firmly and shook it. “Siobhan.”
It took Bridget a moment to realize just what had happened. When she did, her jaw dropped in amazement and a little horror. Meanwhile, the ban…Siobhan…laid a hand to her cheek and made an exaggerated face of shock.
“Oh, no,” She said, her voice perfectly bland. “Curse you, wily mortal, for you have tricked my name from me. What would you have me do?”
“No…” Bridget stammered, now fully horrified. “All I wanted was a name I could call you by, not…I never would’ve asked…with your name, I can make you – “
“Aye,” Siobhan interrupted. “And I can kill you by raising my voice. I guess I’ll just have to trust you not to hurt me, and you’ll have to trust me not to hurt you. Isn’t that the way mortals do it anyway?”
“Aye, but…”
“But me no buts. My stepdaughter isn’t getting any healthier.”
That brought Bridget’s attention back to focus, but quick. She might have said something, but Siobhan wasn’t waiting.
“Now repeat after me,” Siobhan said “I, Bridget Flanagan…”
“I, Bridget Flanagan…”
“Bind thee, Siobhan, daughter of Morrigan…”
“Bind thee, Siobhan, daughter of…” Bridget’s eyes went wide. “Morrigan?”
“Don’t sound so impressed,” Siobhan said impatiently. “The old crow left litters everywhere, but they don’t like telling that in the stories. Now go on: ‘…to this bargain’.”
“ …to this bargain.” Pause. “What bargain?”
Siobhan sighed. “You tell me.”
“Right.” Bridget wracked her brains for a moment. She was one of the sharpest bargainers in the village come market day, but she was dealing with the fae now. If she put one word wrong…
Finally, she knew she was as ready as she’d ever be:
“Uh…to this bargain: that my daughter Meaghan shall recover from her illness completely, and live a long, healthy life. In exchange, I’ll go with you, and spend the rest of forever with you if you’ll have me.”
“Done.”
They stood looking at each other for a moment.
It was Bridget who finally broke the silence: “Is that it, then?”
Siobhan nodded. “You were expecting a dramatic lightning flash, perhaps?”
“I suppose I was. So…” What to say, now that the business was done. “…your name is Siobhan.”
Brilliant. Again, just like the lads. When they’re thirteen.
Siobhan just smiled, though, and somehow the glow of her eyes seemed warm.
“That it is.”
Ah, well. Go with what’s working.
“Not what I was expecting.”
Siobhan snorted. “There’s Gloriels and Snowblossoms enough in Faerie. A simple name is enough for me.”
Bridget smiled and reached out to take her beautful spirit’s hand. “Me, too. But what about all the…I’m going to say hundreds…of times that name is said each day in Ireland?”
Siobhan’s gentle smile turned into a wry grin. “They’re not talking to me when they say it, now are they?”
Bridget gave a loud bark of a laugh, but calmed down almost immediately, thoughtful.
“What has you so quiet?” Siobhan asked, gently tugging at her hand.
“Oh? Oh, it’s just…that’s all the wedding we’re liable to have, isn’t it?”
“Aye, I’m afraid so,” Siobhan shrugged. “Regrets?”
Bridget answered by leaning in for another kiss.
“Never,” she said when they finally came up for air. “Now, a bit earlier, did I hear you callin’ Meaghan your ‘stepdaughter’?”
“I suppose you did,” Siobhan said, looking nervous. “I wasn’t meaning to be taking away from anybody. It just seemed the right – “
“Better than I dared to hope,” Bridget said as she turned and started toward town, dragging the startled death-spirit she’d married along with her. “Come on, then. Meaghan will be wanting to meet her new stepmum before we go.”
