The banshees (bean
sídhe) come now in
greater numbers. You have heard their
wailing in the winter months? And you
thought it was just the wind whipping around the corners of the house and
stealing down the chimney? You thought
it was the wailing sigh of the winter storm?
That is what you are told as a child so you will not be afraid, and that
is what you carry with you as an adult so you do not have to confront them. It is just as well because it is not an easy
task.
But they are there, down by the streams in the woods,
wailing at their work and plight. Matted
red hair flies in the wind as they wash the soiled and torn garments in the
streams. Like Lady Macbeth they cry,
“What? Will these hands ne’er be
clean??” She rubs her hands together
over and over, but she fails to wash away the guilt that surrounds her,
threatening to devour her completely.
So, too, with the banshees as they wash their dirty laundry, wailing at
the unfairness of life, crying at the futility of it all.
There is a red-haired boy among them, wailing at the
stream’s edge. He washes a blackened pot
over and over in the stream, pouring out the dirty water, crying at the
uselessness of his actions. They let me
walk among them sometimes, so I ask him why he washes the pot. He does not answer, but he looks at me with
enormous reddened eyes and points a bony finger into the pot. I look within and I see nothing, but I do not
always have the banshee sight. It comes
and goes. He keeps pointing within and
then shrieks terribly and accusingly at me, and so grievous it is that I back
up quickly in fear.
He returns to his washing. He must wash the pot that carries a dark
secret, but each time he pours the water back into the stream, it is blackened
further. Will this pot never be
clean? Perhaps if he were to go upstream
and travel back in time, he could find how the pot had been ruined in the first
place. That is not his privilege, although
he fantasizes he might do so. Still, he
is strong. He will continue to wash the
pot. Someday the bottom will wear away
completely, and the fresh water will finally pour through. But today is not that day.
I continue on. The
banshees do not want me among them for very long, if at all, and the feeling is
mutual. The animals leave their muddy
prints everywhere in the receding snow.
They know the banshees, too, but they stay in the Land of the Living. This is because they are smarter than we are
and always have been. There are too many
tracks for me to follow. It will be a
good year for hunting. It is good to see
the signs of life again. Not life
itself, of course. That has a habit of
eluding me, but the signs of life are there, and that is certainly better than
the wailing bean sídhe.
February has left me, after gashing its usual hole in my
soul. Still, I am standing. I am stronger than February knew, and March
regards me with a wary eye. And well he
ought to. I remember again that I am a
match for anything, so I pick up my pack and place it back on my
shoulders. I cannot remember why I had
removed it in the first place. Perhaps
it was temporary insanity. It must have
been winter’s darkness playing with my mind.
Again. No matter. The road is long, but I do not care. Come for me, March, in like a lion and out
like a lamb. Kindness is a misfortune I
can bear.
