This could almost kill me

Long, dark, unkempt hair lays limp in her face and crashes like waves over her heaving chest. There’s a chill in the air, but she doesn’t notice. Her lungs are burning. Her head feels like it’s going to explode. Her heart feels numb; and she has a theory that the louder she screams, the more she feels. This is her theory.

I’ve known Oona for years, but never like this. I went off to university in the United States for several years. She had changed, and she won’t tell me what’s changed her. She just tells me that she spends more time alone these days. I ask myself, “More time alone where?”

Another unearthly howl rolls through her body and out her mouth. She seems to be looking for something in between howls. I don’t wonder what she’s looking for. Whether she’s figured it out isn’t important, but I know what she is. Who recruited her, I’m not sure, but I want to destroy them. One doesn’t simply become a bean sidhe of one’s own volition.

There it is: she’s spotted it—the source of her moans. I thought we would be safe just going out to dinner, but apparently people die everywhere. Her toes create arrows pointing to the man down the sidewalk who is lying on his deathbed. I don’t wonder; I’m sure of it. Why else would Oona be screaming right now? She’s typically a very tactful woman.

Eyes glow in our direction as she lets another deep growl fill the night air. She can’t stop it from coming. She’s explained it me—the process. It starts out like a dull throb right behind the heart before moving slowly to the brain, where it generates heat and light, creating a migraine-type reaction to the body. Instead of getting a true headache, though, she loses control of her vocal chords—which burn with bitter dryness the moment she starts howling. She thinks it’s a chronic head cold—I think she’s in denial. As if she knows I just thought this, she gives a little cough. She’s still a baby. Her vocal chords aren’t used to the scorch, yet.

There is a woman kneeling over the newly deceased man. She weeps openly as she realizes what Oona is, and why she is making so much noise. There seems to be no other noise in the world. Oona growls, but I can tell it’s letting up. The man is gone. The bean sidhe’s work is done. All that is heard, now, is the quiet weeping of the woman and the footsteps of awkward passers-by. I pull Oona into the nearest shop. It’s a macaron shop. The smell is exhilarating. Oona is still panting with the effort of coming down off the bean sidhe high.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” her hoarse voice mutters once she’s gained control of her vocal chords.

“Don’t be. You can’t control it; but you know I’m going to kill whoever that son of a bitch is who did this to you. Once you tell me who said son of a bitch is…” I reply, waving the stunned saleswoman over. She’s across the counter from me in an instant. She’s almost too quick. I look at her suspiciously. She looks innocently back. I order my pastries without further question.

Oona apologizes without the knowledge that there’s more than one supposedly mythical creature out in the world, and I’m one of them. I’m one of the others. I am a fortune teller—a true one. Not the type of person who will do guesswork around a customer’s life in order to gain a buck. I’ve never earned money off of my…curse. But what I know about Oona’s future is haunting. It’s something I refuse to tell her, even if she were to find out that I know.

I can’t tell her, but I can tell you: the reader. Because this is the introduction to a tale—a large tale about a woman who falls in love with a man, a man who is completely taken with her. A man for whom she later screams. This is a tale about how cruel life can be to love—especially to the love felt by a bean sidhe. This is the tale of Oona’s future broken heart and the beginning to a century of the loudest deathly wails Ireland has ever beheld.