Banshee Who Helped Fight Crime

 

Harbingers of death, the Banshee is both feared and dreaded. Feared, because of the unknown, dreaded, because to hear one keening outside your window, means a loved one is doomed to die within the fortnight. However, have Banshees been given a bad rap? One woman, from the village of Carlingford believes so.

Ena O’Brien’s husband, Alphin had been bravely fighting prostate cancer for the last two years. After having just undergone his second round of chemotherapy, Alphin had been severely weakened, his health was deteriorating fast. Doctors warned Ena, that her husband’s time on this earth was short. It was decided then that Ena would stay home, and nurse her husband in his last days. Fifty years ago, when Ena stood before her family and God, she promised to love Alphin through sickness and in health, until death parted them. Those words were just as true today, as the day she had first spoken them.

Many nights, Ena and Alphin would sit beside each other in the living room, next to the fireplace. Sometimes they looked at old photo albums, remembering days past. Those photos always brought a bittersweet lump to Ena’s throat. They had been young and free; the whole world lay before them. Now the curtain was about to be drawn closed on this part of Ena’s life forever, she was deeply saddened. Tonight Alphin sat in his easy chair, while Ena read to him from his favorite book ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ by James Joyce.

It was hard for Ena, to see her once robust husband, reduced now to a shell of his former self. Alphin rested his eyes, taking slow shallow breaths. In some ways, Ena had begun to accept the inevitable. Alphin suffered day by day, as Ena watched on helpless. More than anything she wanted his pain to go away, for him to know peace once again. There came a wailing sound outside the window. It made the hair on the back of Ena’s neck stand up. That cry, went down into the very depths of her soul.

“Love, “said Alphin opening one eye, and peering at her “what’s the matter?”

“You didn’t hear that wailing noise just now?” Ena asked unnerved.

“No dear, ”Alphin replied snuggling down deeper into his easy chair “Can you continue reading, your voice relaxes me,” he said sleepily.

Ena tried to continue reading, it was tough, the wailing had started up again outside. She could take no more, Ena got up from the loveseat and pulled back the curtain to look outside. There was nothing, and still she had the pricking sensation of being watched. Ena went and sat back down, and tried to continue reading.

The sound of glass smashing in the dining room had Ena on her feet again. Her heart was racing as she peered around the corner, into the next room. A man in black was trying to climb through the window he had just smashed. Ena ran into the living room, and picked up the phone, calling the police as fast as she could. There came a yelp from the dining room and then silence.

“What’s going on?” Alphin asked, sitting up in his chair, alert.

Ena held her finger to her lips “I think we are being burgled,” she whispered.

The police showed up on the scene within minutes. They searched the premises, while Ena and Alphin sat in the living room sipping tea, trying to calm their nerves. A little while later, the police returned from their patrol of the area. An interesting turn of events, the police actually caught the men who had tried to break into the O’Brien’s house! One man had been found hiding in the bushes at the edge of the O’Brien’s property.

It was an odd statement he gave the police. He claimed that just as we was about to enter into the O’Brien’s house, something grabbed his shoulder. Thinking it was his partner; he turned to tell him to stop messing around, and keep watch for the police. It was not his partner he saw behind him.

There stood a tall woman; she wore a white flowing gown, her hair was wild and unkempt. Angry black eyes stared out at him; her mouth was open in an eternal wail. In her hand she carried a bag, which dripped a substance, blood. The would be thief backed slowly away from the house. Then the creature let out an unearthly cry, and charged. Running for dear life, the man jumped into the bushes, and waited there until the police found him. Needless to say, he was quite shaken.

Alphin died that Sunday. There were days that Ena hoped would never end and now would never be again. Through the pain of her loss however, she knew there was someone watching out or her. When it was her time to part this earth, Ena hoped to great death as a friend.