Chapter Four
In America, when someone dies, guests bring food to the family as a symbol of support. When the news of my grandfather's death broke, even though my mother hadn't spoken to him in nearly a decade, we were besieged with trays of meats, cheeses, and pastries. In Ireland, it seems that tradition is flipped, at least according to my grandmother.
The house, bigger than I remember it being, is filled with the sweet and salty smells of Irish delicacies. One look at the dining room table showcases a feast of cabbage soup, shepherd’s pie, soda bread, sausages, and at least six pounds of potatoes of every imaginable combination. All of which my grandmother prepared herself. If what I remember about my grandmother is true, she's not the buffet type. She'll demand a proper dinner. Everyone will have to sit. Everyone will be expected to talk and get along as though we have some connection other than blood.
But thoughts of food and forced conversation take a backseat right now. I have no time for them. Not with her around anyway.
I watch the girl with seafoam eyes make her way across the living room. Everytime she moves it reminds of that night in the alley, the one I finally managed to convince myself must have been a dream. The fact that she exists says that it was not. The fact that she is here says that it is not over.
But why is she here? What does she want from me, and how did she weasel her way into my extended family? I'm looking at her intently, trying in vain to gleam some clues about who she is. Here, in the daylight, she looks nothing like the intimidating force I remember. In fact, she's got an almost bookish quality about her in the way she shyly moves around and ducks conversation. She's ordinary.
"She's a looker."
My grandmother's words pull me out of my thoughts.
"What? Oh... yeah.” I mumble, a million miles away from that sort of thinking. "Who is she?"
"An American girl your grandfather took a liking to. She wrote 'em a letter, said she liked his books and she wants to be a writer. And ye know yer grandfather. Three days later she was on a plane. She's been his assistant for three months. Or... I suppose she was.... would be the right way to say it now."
There's a familiarity in her pain, in the way polite conversation wraps its way back around to death. I remember that clearly from when my father died. You think you're safe, and then some picture or an offhanded phrase sends you shivering again.
I want to know more, but there's no way I can press my grandmother, not now anyway. I content myself to watch seafoam girl and try not to make it too obvious.
"You know yer grandfather loved ye don't ye Bell?" my grandmother asks, squeezing my wrist. I don't know whether I bristle at the name or her touch, but I do. I nod and she continues. "And ye know he left no will. I guess he figured I'd take care of all that. Still, he wanted ye to have something."
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a dull silver key.
"A key?" I ask.
"Upstairs in the West barn, where yer grandfather used to tinker, there's a box that goes with that key. It's yers son." She lets go of my wrist, but gives it a little pat. "Ye were very special to him. Very special indeed."
She turns and goes toward the kitchen, before looking back at me. "All that can wait though. Supper's on.”
The large wooden table sitting in the dining room is filled to capacity. We pass food as furiously as conversation. It's all very salty and, try as I might, there's nothing familiar about any of it. I'm halfway through the cabbage soup, hoping there's a Chinese takeout place close by, when I notice seafoam girl. She's somehow managed to escape having to eat with us and is visible through the window. She's maybe two hundred yards away from the house walking through the meadow.
"May I be excused?" I ask sharply. My grandmother looks at me as though I just stabbed her in the chest, but my mother nods and I wait for no other consent. Rushing out into the, now chilly Irish air, I head in the direction I saw her.
I run through the rolling green hills of the estate. Soon I see her, a dot on the far end of my vision. How fast is she?
"Hey!" I shout, though the wind muffles my yell.
"Hey! Stop!" I repeat, but she vanishes behind a hill. I make my way there, but she's gone. I stop, grab my knees, and try to catch my breath. She's literally nowhere, and I remember how she seemed to appear from nothing in the alley.
I let out an exasperated sigh and decide to turn around when I see the barn, the one my grandmother mentioned. I'm already here so I decide to go ahead in.
Large and dark, what little illumination there is comes from the building's skylights. Though; on a day as cloudy as this one, they provide little help. I make my way up the creaky stairs and into the small compact room where my grandfather spent most of his time. In addition to being a writer, he enjoyed fixing things. Even junk that no one else would touch often found new life in his hands.
I rifle through the dark until I find something cold and metal. I pull up on it and brush away the mounds of dust. Taking it downstairs, where at least I could see my hand in front of me, I slip the key from my pocket, and slide it into the small silver box's hole until I hear a click. My mind races with the thought of what might be inside. I pull it open and it creaks with age.
The contents of the box are not what I imagine. No money, no treasure. There is, in fact, nothing that looks to be of any value. I pull out a piece of paper and flip it around. It's an old photograph. My grandfather, young and strapping, stands against a white fence, his arm wrapped around the shoulder of a man that looks exactly like him.
"He has a twin?" I mutter to myself and place it back carefully. Beside it sits a copy of his unfinished manuscript, what would have been the final chapter in the Emerald Invaders series. And besides that, curled up as though it were a snake, sits a small golden necklace. Not fancy, it looks like something one would find in one of those toy grab machines, except that a large red stone hangs from the end. I take it into my hands. Too light to be real, I concede that it's probably a fake I'm about to put it back when it starts to glow in my hands.
Bright red light pulses in sharp flashes, as though it were communicating something in Morse code. Then, as quickly as it started, it stops. I snap my head over as a low pitched wail sounds from just outside the barn. Its’ quiet at first, but grows quickly. Suddenly, a woman with skin so pale it's translucent appears at the barn door. She's thin and floats toward me. The tips of her feet graze the ground and her mouth, cracked and open, emits the horrible noise. I want to move, to run. I want to fight or scream, but I can do nothing. Almost upon me, she licks her lips. A shiver runs up my spine. The wail encompasses me. I can't hear anything else. I can't see anything but her. With her long drab hair hanging lifelessly on her shoulders and her sunken cheeks stretched out into an unholy yell she moves closer.
I am about to faint when a hand steadies me. It pushes me forward and I trip as we begin to move.
"Hurry up. Those things aren't slow." The seafoam girl grabs my hand, and pulls me behind her. We gain ground, but if the urgency in the girl's demand is any indicator, that thing won’t be far behind.
I gather my bearings and try to keep up, fighting the urge to look behind me. With the house at least a half a mile away, I start to get winded.
"Where are we going?" I cough out. "The house is the other way."
"There," she says, pointing to the growing wall of fog mounting at the edge of the property.
"Mistrunner," I say, remembering what my attacker's words that night in the alley.
The girl stops for a second and shoots me a look. "Just try to keep up."
The wail grows louder as I begin to stumble over my feet. She pulls at me, thrusting me into the smoke. The pale creature rears back as seafoam girl and I disappear into the mist.