🐦‍⬛ Declan Turner & the Banshee

February 1985

County Donegal, Ireland

Declan Turner wandered along the narrow lane, his boots scuffing the damp earth as he made his way home from checking his flock. The February fog hung thick over County Donegal, curling around the hedgerows and swallowing the moonlight. At sixty-eight, Declan had spent a lifetime roaming these hills.

He had always felt safe here, between his family’s pastures and the warmth of his home. But tonight, an odd sense of unease clung to him, a whisper of something not quite right in the heavy silence. The mist clung to his face and clothes and he would be glad to be home in his comfortable recliner, the nightly news playing in the background.

The full moon, which, on other nights, illuminated the hills with silver light, was nowhere to be seen. Declan could barely see his own hands before him, relying instead on muscle memory to guide him back to the homestead. His wife would be waiting with a steaming bowl of stew and her fresh-baked soda bread. Their son, visiting from university in Dublin, would be there too, filling the house with his sharp mind and political opinions. At twenty-five, he had taken longer to finish his studies due to illness, but Declan and his wife were proud of him—proud of the way he had persevered to nearly complete his degree in architecture.

As Declan trudged along he knew it was pointless to check the time. His son had bought him a wristwatch that lit up with the press of a button, but he stubbornly preferred the weight of his great-grandfather’s old pocket watch. He slipped his hand into his coat pocket, feeling the steady tick of the familiar timepiece. A comfort. A tradition. One day, his son would inherit it.

As Declan rounded a bend in the path, he stopped short. A thrill of fear shot through him.

Ahead, a woman stood with her back to him, facing the stone wall that overlooked the coast. She wore a flowing white gown—Victorian in style, its lace and layers out of place. The sight of her sent a chill through Declan’s bones.

She shouldn’t be here.

"Excuse me, miss," Declan called, his voice uncertain in the thick fog. "Are you lost?"

Slowly, she turned.

Long, dark hair shifted around her shoulders as if in a breeze, though the air was still—too still. Declan felt his breath catch in his throat and he froze. The silence deepened, pressing in on him.

Then, he saw her face.

Where her eyes should have been, there was only empty, shadowed hollows. Where her mouth should have been, a gaping black void.

A wail erupted from the woman—not merely a cry, but a piercing, soul-rending keening that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

The banshee.

Declan's heart slammed against his ribs. His breath came in ragged gasps. Pain bloomed in his chest, sharp and unrelenting. His fingers clenched around the familiar pocket watch as her scream rang in his head.

The chain snapped and the watch tumbled to the ground, landing with a soft clink on the gravel path.

Declan staggered backward, his vision darkening. His body lurched against the stone wall, and then he fell.

The wind carried the banshee’s wail through the hills, reaching every home in the valley.

At their dinner table, Declan’s wife and son froze, the hair on their arms standing on end. A cold dread settled over them.

His wife whispered his name.

His son whispered, “Father.”

They looked at one another, eyes wide with the same terrible knowing. She made the sign of the cross, whispering a last prayer for her husband.

Then their son bolted for the door, snatching his coat and flashlight. The fog was beginning to thin, but he ran blindly through the mist, breathless, feet pounding against the earth.

He reached the family’s pastures, searching frantically.

“Father!” he shouted.

Something glinted in the beam of his flashlight. A small, golden object. His father’s pocket watch.

He bent to pick it up, fingers trembling.

No one should be out in this weather, not even the most stubborn shepherd, but his father never listened to him. His mother had learned to let Declan do what he would; there was no arguing with him.

Lifting his flashlight, he shone it along the path, the beam cutting through the mist. No sign of his father.

He saw the gravel was disturbed and edged toward the stone wall, heart hammering, afraid of what he would find.

The light skimmed the jagged rocks far below. And there, broken among the waves, was his father’s body.

"Father!" His cry was swallowed by the wind and sea.

Shaking, he clutched the pocket watch—still warm from his father’s hand, still ticking in its old comforting way.

The banshee’s wail echoed once more, fading into the night.

And then, silence as the fog thickened again and a cold grief welled up inside him.