The Whitest Flower. Brendan Graham
nightmarish images began to fill her mind. But before the dream could take hold, Ellen was startled into wakefulness by a high-pitched wailing.
But the wailing did not stop with the dream. This time the keening was real – she was sure of it. She listened, alert, by the fire. There it was again: a single, solitary voice. For a moment she thought it was the high-pitched cry of the fox, but this was longer, more drawn out. The sound had come from down towards the lake. She moved stealthily to the window and removed the burnt-out shell of the plica.
The night of All Souls was bright, with a waxing moon riding high across the clouds, seeking openings through which to aim its beams down onto the waters of the Mask. There, they would splash out across the lake’s surface – ripples of pale yellow, reflecting back up to the moon its own watery light.
As she listened, Ellen could hear the sounds of the valley, the ever-yelping dogs of Derrypark, the lap of the lake-water. And between these sounds she heard the stillnesses of the night, those silken moments she loved, woven with silence, snatched out of wonder.
For a moment, the moon lost its hide-and-seek game with the clouds, and the lake, deprived of its light, was lost to Ellen’s view. But when the Samhain moon reappeared, the sight which met Ellen’s eyes chilled her to the very core of her being.
There, hovering over the lake, two or three feet above it, was the outline of a woman, all in white, moving slowly towards her. The woman was not walking, nor was she in flight, nor borne up by anything visible. Instead she glided slowly over the water through the veil of the moonlight, her long white hair tinged by the moon’s yellow hue.
Ellen’s hand shot to her mouth to stifle the cry. Oh, God – would it never end, this eve of All Souls?
She looked back into the cabin, identifying the sleeping forms of her family. She was, indeed, awake. And if she was awake, then this was a portent more terrible than any dream could bring. She had no doubt as to the identity of her apparition. Hadn’t she heard her own father tell how the Banshee – the supernatural death messenger – had appeared to him on the three nights before her mother died.
Ellen was seized by an icy coldness. Whose house was the Banshee visiting this night of souls? She watched the airy figure glide in from the centre of the lake towards the shoreline, her white dress unruffled by the movement, until she reached the place where Ellen had studied her own reflection in the water the day she discovered she was pregnant. Invisible claws tightened on Ellen, cutting off her breathing, constricting the movement of her heart. Then the Banshee floated over the land, the trail of her hemline caressing the stalks above the potato patches. Ellen closed the door, knowing that it went against all the tradition of the night. She would welcome the souls of the dead, but not she who came to call the living. Not the Banshee.
And still the death messenger moved inexorably towards the village. Who did she come for? Ellen racked her brain for households where there was someone old or infirm – these were the houses the Banshee usually visited. Perhaps it was Ann Paddy Andy – she’d been failing with that croupy cough since St Swithin’s Day. Or Mary an Táilliúra, the Tailor’s wife. Or Peadar Bacach, Old Lame Peter, with that stump of a leg. The long, damp winters were hard on him. It could be any of them. The death messenger, she knew, followed the old Irish families, those whose names began with ‘Mac’ or ‘O’, as if she belonged to them.
Then the knowledge hit her as if the whole weight of the world had crashed down on her. She slumped against the window, as if to block the power of the Banshee’s death-call from entering the cabin and finding her little family. The old ones said you should never look the death messenger in the face, or she would take you, sucking the soul out of your body through your eyes. But Ellen didn’t care. Rather herself than one of the children. Rather herself than Michael.
The Banshee stopped about thirty feet from the cabin. Now Ellen could see her face, beautiful and sad. She saw the tears that welled up and ran down her cheeks – lamenting the one she was about to call.
Then the wraith opened her mouth and emitted a low-pitched, throaty sound that ran through the ground and up into the walls and door of the O’Malleys’ cabin. Ellen stood shaking uncontrollably, as the sound raised in pitch and intensity.
It was the death keen, like the noise the old women made at wakes: high, and sorrowful, and lonesome. Yet it surpassed any sound that could ever be made by a human being. The keening of the Banshee found its way into the marrow of Ellen’s bones as if her whole body was soaking up the sound, it living in her.
Then, slowly and deliberately, the woman in white drew from her raiment a transparent silver brush. The brush glided effortlessly through her hair, the long strands offering no resistance. As if they required no brushing at all. Again and again, the woman stroked the long tresses, as lovingly as Cáit had stroked Ellen’s own fine tresses, and Ellen in turn had stroked Katie’s and Mary’s.
Ellen stifled another cry – she must not think of any of her children, nor Michael. She must not be part of whatever death the Banshee would foretell. Ellen tried to will herself into the mind of the apparition, forcing the harbinger of death to choose her instead of them. This she did, but with the sure, sickening knowledge that she was not the one called.
The first pale glow of dawn began to creep in over the mountains, suffusing the wraith with light. As the brightness intensified, the Banshee began to fade away, disappearing again into whatever half-world from whence she came. The keening, too, grew weaker, melting away into the sound of the rising north-easterlies.
Ellen’s whole being collapsed. No longer able to support herself, she turned, looking for her small family, afraid for them. As she sank into an unconscious heap below the window, the last act of her conscious mind was to register the two dark heads of Michael and Patrick where they lay sleeping. And the two red heads of Katie and Mary, side by side, arms and legs entangled – trying to be one again.
When Michael awoke a few hours later, his first act, as always, was to reach for Ellen. He was unconcerned at finding an empty space beside him, for Ellen was often the first one to be up and about. But when he heard Mary call, ‘A Mhamaí, a Mhamaí, what’s wrong?’ he leapt up from where he lay immediately.
Ellen was in a crumpled heap beneath the window, her shawl partly covering her. She was deathly pale. He shook her by the shoulders as the children gathered round, sensing that something was amiss.
‘Ellen, a stór, wake up,’ he said, fear in his heart for her and the child she was carrying.
Ellen opened her eyes dazedly, struggling to focus on Michael’s face.
‘What is it, what ails you?’ he asked. ‘Why are you here with the shawl over you?’
Ellen made a great effort to see the faces crowding around her – trying to pick them out one by one. When she saw they were all there, she smiled faintly at them.
‘See, she’s all right!’ said Katie.
Now Ellen could see Michael’s face. It was strained with worry and the confusion of not knowing what was wrong with his wife. Weakly she reached out one hand to him. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute. A drink of water from the rock, and I’ll be fine,’ she said wanly.
Patrick was first up to fetch his mother a cup of spring water. As she sipped it, Ellen felt the cold strength of the water bring her round and fortify her. She put her hand to her stomach, afraid the fall might have done damage, but to her relief everything seemed to be all right.
‘The baby is grand – thank God – and so am I,’ she said, more strongly now. ‘Now, don’t be worrying all of you, and making an old woman of me before my time.’
‘Did you see something last night, a Mhamaí?’ It was Mary, perceptive as ever. ‘Did the wandering soul come into the house?’
‘No, of course not, Mary. I just got up a while