The Echo of the Banshee’s Cry

Part 1: The Cry

In the stillness of the night, when the air was thick with fog and the sound of the sea crashing against the cliffs echoed in the distance, Erin O’Malley knew the Banshee had come. The village of Tullymore, perched on the western edge of Ireland where the land crumbled into the Atlantic, was no stranger to tales of the Bean Sídhe. The old ones spoke of her with reverence and fear, a harbinger of death whose cry would pierce the air before someone was claimed by the shadows. But to Erin, the Banshee was a story—until the night she heard her wail.

It had been a night like any other, or so it seemed. Erin had returned home from the fields, her hands sore from the day’s work. The autumn winds were growing colder, carrying the salty breath of the sea into every crevice of her small stone cottage. As she stoked the fire in the hearth, she found herself thinking of her father, Padraig, who lay in bed upstairs. His breathing had become shallow, his body thinner each day, and though he was old and his time was surely near, the thought of losing him still gnawed at her heart. It was just the two of them now, as it had been for years.