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“Jesus.” Swallowing down a gag, I covered my mouth with a hand. Lizzie didn’t have a tongue like a washing machine. While we had only kissed twice and used tongues during one of those kisses, I was quietly confident that no one could kiss as well as Lizzie Young. “Unlucky, lad.”
“Yep.” Feely finished hammering the peg into place before craning his head back to look at me. “What’s on your mind, Hugh?”
“You don’t want to know.”
He smirked. “Try me.”
“Seriously, lad.” I shook my head in warning. “The only place the thoughts in my head should be spoken about is in a confession box at mass.”
“Okay, now youhaveto tell me,” Feely chuckled, abandoning the tent. “Come on, lad.” He stretched out on the lawn and grinned. “Out with it.”
Knowing I had only two potential candidates to talk about this with—Feely or Gibs—had me thinkingfuck it.
Sitting my ass down on the lawn, I spilled my guts to my friend, all the while renewing my resentment toward the man I once called Dad.
I was three months shy of twelve and puberty had kicked in with a vengeance, bringing with it body hair, hormones, a voice that deepened daily, and a momentous growth spurt.Everywhere.
I was far from uninformed when it came to the birds and the bees. I knew how everything worked like sex, periods, puberty, ejaculation, masturbation. You name it, I knew it. But there was a monumental gap betweenknowingwhat to expect from your body andunderstandingthat something when it arrived.
I couldn’t go to my mother for reassurance about the things happening to my body, and I shouldn’t have had to go to my friends, either.
Ishouldhave been able to go to my father.
Twenty minutes into our conversation, it became blatantly evident that, while Feely was the oldest of us and the resident expert on farm animal reproduction methods, he didn’t have a bull’s clue about his own species. This resulted inmeexplaininghisreproductive organs tohim.
To be fair, I thought Feely had even less luck than I had in the paternal department. He had Paddy Feely to turn to, the poor, misfortunate bastard. Even the closed door my father hid behind was more understanding than Feely’s dad.
By happenstance, it turned out that erecting the tent in my back garden became an invaluable teaching tool, and by the end of our talk, I was quietly confident that, should Feely be given a surprise test on the matter, he would pass with flying colors. Meanwhile, I found myself just as emotionally ill-equipped to handle my raging hormones as I had been when I woke up that morning.
THE BANSHEE OF BALLYLAGGIN
Lizzie
AUGUST 28, 1999
“THAT’S NOT HOW IT GOES,” GIBSIE PROTESTED WHENPATRICK FINISHED HIS RETELLing of a local ghost story. “What utter bullshit.”
We were camping out in the back garden of No. 4 Avoca Greystones and the boys were attempting to terrorize us with spooky stories and ghoulish tales.
Meanwhile, I was quietly confident that nothing they conjured up could rattle me half as much as my sister’s behavior this summer had.
For the longest time, I thought I was the only one with problems in our family, but since returning from her trip to Liverpool, Caoimhe had continuously proved me wrong. She spent most of the summer crying in her room, and when she wasn’t crying, she was screaming at our parents about the unfairness of her life.
According to Caoimhe, she was over eighteen and deserved to have her boyfriend stay over whenever she wanted. However, since falling out of favor with our father, she was quickly realizing the life of privilege she’d enjoyed since birth was exactly that: aprivilege. The fact that privileges could be revoked at any time was another cold, hard lesson she was facing.
Not only was my sister’s boyfriend forbidden from stepping foot on our property, but she would have to repeat sixth year inthe local public school while Mark got to repeat his final year at their old school. Dad refused to pay another year of tuition for Caoimhe to attend Tommen College. His decision had caused eruptions at home, and I was glad to be away from the house for a night.
“Feely has his facts all wrong,” Gibs declared, drawing my attention back to the present. Wrestling the torch away from Patrick, he shone it on himself before announcing, “I know thetruestory of Grainne Ní hÓigáin, otherwise known asthe banshee of Ballylaggin.”
“Tell us, Gerard,” Claire encouraged, all the while sidling up to her big brother for protection.
“Legend has it Grainne was a witch,” he began, making his voice sound extra creepy for special effect. “The townspeople knew Grainne dabbled in the occults, but back in those days, a lot of people in Ireland practiced paganism and worshipped priestesses, druids, spirits, and deities, so Grainne was left alone by her neighbors. They were happy to live alongside her, providing she didn’t practice her sorcery on them.”
“But she did, right?” Claire interrupted, hooking arms with Hugh. “She did something bad, didn’t she?”
“Worse than bad,” Gibsie confirmed solemnly. “On the night of the full moon, on the sixth day of the sixth month, Grainne took six children from their homes and drowned them in the Ballylaggin river.”
“Why?” I asked, intrigued because this version of events was way freakier than Patrick’s version. “Why drown the kids?”
