My body sags back against the pillow, but the relief is short-lived. The memories hit all at once. Yesterday in the woods, the black fog, the hospital,him. The stranger with the predator’s gaze and eyes the colour of cut emeralds. The man who shouldn’t have been there. The man who watched.
My mouth goes dry as I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shake away the image of him. The way he stepped out from the shadows. How my skin prickled like it wanted him closer, even though my mind screamed,run.
Fuck.
My hands clench the blanket tighter around me, my knuckles whitening. Was it a dream? Was I dreaming that my handsome green-eyed stranger was there? I can’t get rid of the thought as a sick twist of doubt coils in my gut.
It felt too real, the way our eyes locked, the way my name felt on his tongue even though I never gave it. Or did I? The haze makes it worse, blurring what might be a dream and what could be a memory. I swallow down the rising dread, forcing my eyes open. The shadows in the corners look deeper than before. I tell myself it’s just exhaustion, that my mind’s playing tricks but a part of me knows better.
He was there and I think a part of me wanted him to be.
Still aching, I force myself upright and stumble from the bed. My limbs feel like they’re made of lead, every step scraping a groan from somewhere deep in my chest. Each breath I take threatensto drag the nausea up with it. I clamp my jaw shut and urge it back down where it belongs.
In the bathroom, not thinking, my hand twists the shower knob until the water runs scalding hot. Steam curls around me, thick and suffocating. My body sinks down onto the tiles because my legs won’t hold me up anymore. My hands fumble as I try my hardest to peel my clothes off but I can't. I’m trembling so hard that the fabric clings to my skin. In the end, I give up.
Saddened, I press my forehead to my knees as the water beats down on me, hot enough to burn yet never hot enough to cleanse.
When the shivering stops, I try again. Fumbling at soaked seams, tugging cloth from my limbs as though I’m peeling off layers of skin. It’s clumsy and pitiful, but eventually I get it done. Once I'm naked under the spray, I scrub at my hair, my nails scraping at my scalp until my arms give out.
Not wanting to collapse in the shower, I turn the water off and with no skill whatsoever I step out of the shower. Standing frozen, dripping. A ghost in the mirror. My eyes look hollow and my lips are cracked from whispering prayers that never get answered. With a huff, I drag a towel from the rail and wrap it around me like a shroud, then sink to the floor again, my forehead pressing down on the cold porcelain.
A headache claws behind my eyes, promising a fresh wave of agony. I can’t face it again, not now. So, I hesitantly crawl back to my room, my wet hair leaving a trail. I collapse onto the bed, too tired to care that the damp is soaking the sheets, or thatmy skin is freezing beneath the towel. I tug the blanket over my shoulders, bury my face in the pillow, and squeeze my eyes shut against the darkness pressing in at the edges of my mind.
With my body here and my mind buried in the dark where she lives. I drift through my shift as if I’m not really here. Every blink behind my eyelids drags me back to her. The ghostly shimmer of her skin, the way her eyes sliced straight through me as though she owned every piece of me without even trying.
It’s sick, how much I crave it,how much I crave her.I feel it crawling under my skin, a constant itch I can’t scratch. My hands twitch when I think about her throat in my grip, or maybe my throat in hers. Either way, I’d welcome either. Anything, so long as it means I’m close enough to drown in her.
Orders blur together and I barely hear the noise around me. I just nod and fake a smile.
Inside I’m feral, rabid with want. If people only knew what kind of thoughts coil around my brain like barbed wire, they’d run screaming.
By the time I clock out, the obsession is chewing holes through my ribs. I need more; the memory isn’t enough. It’s never enough. I want her in the flesh, cold or warm, alive, or spectral, it doesn’t matter. I’d let her ruin me. I’d thank her for it.
It should scare me, how far I’d go. However, fear is long dead in me. All that’s left is the hunger.Níl sin ach ag éirí níos airde.(That’s only getting louder.)
Every cell in my body is screaming at me to go to her house, to stand in the shadows like a loyal dog waiting for scraps. I force myself to turn away, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw aches. I need to know more first. I need to understand what she is, what she’s made of. Before I sink my claws deeper.
The library is cold and stale, the hum of the fluorescents a constant static in my ears as I tear through pages that smell of mildew and lost things. None of it makes sense at first, just half-baked ghost stories and folklore whispered by drunks.The Dullahan,(the headless horseman,) the Red Nun… all of it useless.
Then I find something, a brittle old book onTír na nÓg.(The land of youth.) It’s a place where death and immortality tangle like lovers. My pulse kicks up as I trace the lines on the page with my finger, trying to remember the scraps of stories my parentsused to spill when they were drunk enough to talk about the old ways.
Forcing myself through my memories I suddenly remember the wailing lady of the night. A carrier for death. A beautiful omen, soaked in blood and grief.
For hours I tear through anything I can find. Folklore books with cracked spines, dusty records of deaths nobody’s touched in decades, half-baked tales of restless dead and ancient omens scrawled in the margins by madmen. My eyes sting, my throat’s dry, but I can’t stop. My need for her has roots now, deep and coiling. I have to know.
I’m ready to toss the last brittle page aside when something catches my eye. A scrap of yellowed paper tucked between two pages, brittle as old bone. I almost miss it,almost.The image on it pins me to the spot as if a knife stabbed me in the gut.
The banshee.
It’s black, white, and grainy, while also clear enough to feel wrong. A woman is on her knees in the dirt, her hair long and dripping like oil, masking half her face. Her mouth is open mid-wail, you can almost hear it through the paper. However, it’s not her grief that makes my pulse spike like a drug, it’s what curls around her. That same black fog. Clinging to her bare skin. It coils around her shoulders and her throat. It spills onto the ground as if it’s leaking from her bones. I swear it’s moving even now, writhing on the page.
It’s looks just like her… Croía.
My breath’s ragged as I drag my thumb over the image, smearing the old ink. This is no bedtime tale. No harmless ghost story whispered to frighten children. She’s real, the banshee. I saw her.Brain sí lena domhan.(Touched her world.)
The fucked-up part is… I crave more. The cold dread in my veins. The power that hummed under her skin when she strangled that bastard’s ghost. The way that black fog made my lungs burn and my cock twitch in the same breath. A laugh rattles in my chest, sharp and wild. I choke it back and I force my breathing to calm. However, my mind is already gone.
Ní fheicim ach í.(All I see is her.)
