All of Them Vampires!

Athenry, County Galway, Southern Ireland, August 1941

Athenry, County Galway, Southern Ireland, August 1941Throughout the world there was a war on but ostensibly not in this quiet corner of Kiltullagh, at least not for Mairead Sarony that warm August afternoon. She had just put one year old Daniel in his bassinette, with the hood thrown up of course. Grandma Mary was always on to her about such things. How the devil she knew Mairead always wondered for the old lady was as blind as a bat, or at least she pretended to be. Mairead believed Grandma Sarony to be pretending to be blind when John-B introduced her to his family. His Ma was dead; his Da had joined the Fenians north of the border, so it fell to Grandma to bring up her grandson John-Byron and his sister Marie-Clara. Marie-Clara’s own husband was away doing his bit for the war effort. What Mairead knew of her 26 year old husband was that although he was an Irish Catholic he wasn’t into all that partisan stuff against the British and believed that everyone was equal in the eyes of God. To join the RAF had been his dream, though all Mairead knew of it now was that his job involved some undercover work for the British and that she hadn’t seen him in more than six months. Shading her eyes she steered her gaze across the cornfields as she had done these past few months searching for his return. Here in their little white walled cottage, the war could have been on another planet that her eight year old nephew Hughie was always reading about.

“There’s life on other planets you know Aunty Mai” he enthused. “Sure, honest, there is.”

Hughie was out there now kicking his football about like a lost soul. Everyone knew he missed John-B. If the war hadn’t come and he hadn’t joined up John might have been a famous footballer by now. When they sent him to train in England Mairead, who had never left Galway in all her twenty three years, wondered what the women in London were like. Marie-Clara reckoned they were glamorous and would probably eat two Irish boys for breakfast and spit them out, but she was just being bitchy. John-B would never fall for all that glamour, though he was a good looking man. He could have had any girl he desired in Athenry but it was Mairead O’Connell that he set his cap at. He said he loved her sweet nature, her gentle manner. When he got her pregnant they got married in the little chapel in Athenry. Because he was so far away and she had heard nothing from him, now she had cause to wonder what he was doing. Was he missing her as dreadfully as she missed him?

“Mai, Mai, come quickly!” Marie-Clara’s voice conveyed panic, disturbing Mairead from her musings.

Marie-Clara was five years Mairead’s senior but she seemed to look up to the younger woman.

“What’s wrong?” Mairead paused to check on Daniel asleep in the warmth of the sunshine.

“It’s Grandma! I think she’s having a fit!” Marie-Clara wrung her hands on the long white apron she wore about her blue dress. She’d been in the process of baking and her long dark hair was piled high on her head and tidied into a floral turban.

“What?” Mairead raced into the kitchen. She discovered the old lady rocking back and forth in her favourite armchair, her sightless, once pale blue eyes, milky white with cataracts, were open wide and staring. Her ancient gnarled fingers clutched at the stuffing protruding from the much worn chair.

Grandma was in her early eighties. It was common knowledge that she possessed the ‘second sight’; was the seventh child of a seventh child.

“What ails you Grandma?” Mairead shook the old lady by the shoulders as if to bring her out of it.

“It’s John-Byron! He’s dead. I know he is! I heard the banshee outside my window last night. I heard her wailin’. He’s dead but living. Do you understand? Living but dead!” The bony fingers gripped Mairead’s hand so savagely as to bruise it.

“What the hell’s she talkin’ about Mai?” Marie-Clara regarded her sister in law uneasily.

Mairead reasoned how much Marie-Clara resembled her brother so that it hurt. The self same dark hair, intense brown eyes; eyes you could almost drown in.

“What does she mean, living but dead?”

Hughie Sullivan kicked at his football idly, paused to rub at his eyes, smearing them with the dust from the field, when he caught sight of a man coming through the cornfields. Was it Uncle Johnny? His heart leapt in anticipation only to lapse disappointed. Uncle Johnny was more than six feet tall. This man was shorter in stature and a fraction plump with dark hair and a small spade beard. He wore the great coat and uniform of an RAF officer. Curiosity getting the better of him Hughie headed through the fields to intercept the man. It was strange that he failed to recollect seeing any vehicle. Maybe he’d come by aeroplane.

The man’s bearded features broke into a smile when he saw Hughie.

“Hello Son.” His accent was one of softly spoken English. “Does a lady by the name of Mairead Sarony live hereabouts?”

“Yeh.” Hughie retrieved his football and tucked in beneath his arm. “She’s my auntie” he offered. “What do you want with her, Mr? Is it about Uncle Johnny, cos he’s in the RAF.”

The man was definitely an officer, a Squadron Leader maybe.

“In that cottage over there.” Hughie pointed to the little white house nestling in the valley.

“What’s your name son?” The man ruffled Hughie’s hair, who found himself staring as if hypnotised into the stranger’s eyes, noting that they were so dark that it was like he was looking into a bottomless pool.

“It’s Hughie. Hughie Sullivan. Is it about Uncle Johnny?”

“Yes, yes it is” the man said in sombre tone.

“Is... is...” Hughie swallowed. “Is he dead?”

The man cleared his throat before replying. “Yes, I’m afraid he is son.”

Hughie doggedly followed the man across the fields. Immediately they appeared Grandma Sarony was at the door with Mairead and Marie-Clara. Hughie reasoned that he was the man of the house now with his dad away and poor Uncle Johnny gone. Although he was only eight years old he attempted to prevent the tears from falling. He loved Uncle Johnny so much, but the women needed protecting now.

Suddenly Grandma Sarony surprised the two women by actually managing to spring out of her chair as if she were forty years younger. The man opened his mouth to introduce himself as Colonel William Sefton. The old lady habitually wore a silver crucifix beneath her faded homespun grey dress but now catching the sunlight crucifix flashed faster than a gunslinger’s weapon half blinding the man. He averted his head, shielding his face with his hand.

“Put that away mother” he told her, and lowering his cap he closed his burning eyes.

“Don’t mind her” Mairead said touching Sefton’s arm lightly. “She’s afraid, as we’re all afraid. It’s this terrible war. You’ve come about John-B, my husband, haven’t you?” Her words ended on a broken sob. Her golden hair, caught by the sunlight was enough to melt the heart of the hardest individual. Sefton witnessed the tears standing in her eyes.

“What happened, Mr Sefton?” she asked.

“He was shot down in a field in northern France in a place called Rambouillet, or so I believe. As his commanding officer I thought it only fitting that I cam to Ireland personally to inform his wife and family.

John-Byron Sarony was a damned lucky man to have such a beautiful wife, Sefton realised. His gazed levelled to the bassinette outside in the afternoon sunshine over which Mairead was leaning, her shoulders shaking with her uncontrollable sobs. The other woman, she had introduced herself as John-Byron’s sister, placed a comforting arm about her shoulders.

Only Hughie and Grandma realised there was something indefinably strange about William Sefton, for this ancient Irish woman, although blinded by age but born with the ‘second sight’ was not convinced, although she could not bring herself to tell the children that her beloved grandson John-Byron was not really dead as Sefton claimed, but still alive, if one could call it living.

“Hughie, Hughie! Get a mirror quickly now boy; a big one.”

Grandma almost screamed at him whilst Hughie continued to observe the stranger’s departure as if he were either frozen to the spot or the man had hypnotised him. Mairead lifted the baby from his crib and she and Marie-Clara had disappeared into the cottage.

Grandma’s blindness had obviously prevented Sefton from looking into her eyes and hypnotising her as he had the others.

At Grandma’s command Hughie had raced into the house, to return with the large oval mirror from the bathroom.

“Hold it up to your eyes boy, then look back at it child.”

Grandma’s voice rang with so much urgency that Hughie was left with little choice than to obey her. Holding the glass aloft, he centered it on the cornfields beyond.

“What do you see boy, what do you see?” she repeated urgently.

Hughie's heart did a double somersault. “Nothing Grandma, only the fields. What is it?”

Grandma Sarony crossed herself several times and clutched at her crucifix. “He’s dead but living boy, I told you. Dead but living, and if I’m not much mistaken so is my grandson...”