A Town Better Forgotten

In 1847 a man named Peter Malone left Ireland for America. He was a hard worker, a good man by all counts. Like many in Ireland, his family had once been part of a healthy, functioning community. Then the English came. When he left, his town was on the brink of decimation, and his family was reduced to just three members. Him, a man fleeing; his sister, a woman planted like an oak; and his nephew, a child half-orphaned by the greedy fists of English soldiers. Peter’s family had magic in their blood. His great-great-great-something grandmother had been a wise woman, lauded by her community, capable of great feats of healing, holder of fantastic stories. Through the generations that magic had been diluted, and topped up, inter-married, and spinstered, forgotten and recalled. By 1847 it lived on only in those 3 people. Peter, who had an uncanny sense of what was to come; his sister Grace, who had The Cure; and his infant nephew Anthony, who would grow up to be a man of incomparable good fortune.

           In 1851, the year his wife gave birth, Peter Malone was murdered. They were living, by that time, in a town a few days' ride out of Boston. There is no point in telling you the name of the town because you will not know it. Not anymore. It has been all but erased, and for good reason. Peter worked a few years in Boston, made some good investments, some better bets, the magic in his blood singing through him. He met his wife, Sadhbh, married her, and then bought them some land to farm in that small, idyllic town. One family owned much of it. Landlords, and proprietors of most they surveyed. They were called Hughes, and were headed, at that time, by Rufus Hughes. 

Rufus was an angry man, a drunk with a mean temper and little patience. He saw Sadhbh Malone as a prize. Something he wanted. The fact that she was both married, and genuinely enamoured with her husband, was of little consequence to Rufus. He wanted her to be his, and if she would not be his willingly, he would take her against her will. The hiccup in this plan was her husband. See, Rufus Hughes had money and influence, which in America meant something, and in their town made him second only to God in terms of power, but Peter Malone had two fists and 28 years’ worth of hard graft scored onto his body. When Rufus pinned Sadhbh Malone down in the barn on the edge of her property, rabid and drunk, his hands mauling her clothes like the teeth of a wild dog, her husband, with his foresight, came running. Peter Malone beat Rufus Hughes until he could not walk, and then a little more for good measure, slung that sorry excuse for a man over the back of his own fine horse, and cantered across town to the Hughes’ house with it tied to his own mare. 3 weeks later a group of 10 men, 5 of them Hughes, the other 5 their employees, killed Peter Malone. He didn’t go down easy, but the numbers were not in his favour and, as is the way with cowards, when it became clear Peter could beat them all the honest way, one of them shot him in the back. Peter Malone bled out in the centre of the small town he had chosen for his family, whilst his pregnant wife watched on, keening a banshee’s wail.

           As Peter’s blood soaked into that ground, thousands of miles from Ireland, it called across the sea. To the blood in the veins of his sister, and nephew, to the bones in the iron-rich ground of Donegal, to the cliffs, and the sea, and the magic that permeated it all. As Peter’s blood soaked into that ground, Ireland called back. There was rage, and there was sorrow. Fury and power and ruin. Generation on generation of it. Perhaps it was because of Sadhbh, her wail, her call to arms, the frightened, frightening shriek of a woman bereft, of a woman scared, of a mother and a wife: a wail that echoed through time, woman after woman, wife after wife, mother after mother, kneeling in blood soaked earth, scorching it with her wrath. From that day onwards, from the day they killed Peter Malone, things would never be the same. Or rather, from the day they had ordered the killing of Peter Malone, the Hughes family would never be the same.

A town better forgotten, August 1991.

Birdie had never lived in a house with a plaque outside it before. The farmhouse was old, and beautiful. It would need some work, sure, but it was work she was pleased to do. Boston was nothing but a memory in her rearview, a shadow cast off by the brilliant New England sun. The plaque read ‘Here lived The Malone family, do not forsake their memory,’ in English and beneath that, in italics, ‘Is leo-san fuil an mhallachta, is leo-san toil an ollphéist.’ Birdie had been born and raised in Boston, so she recognised Irish when she saw it, even if she didn’t understand it. Admittedly, it was a little foreboding for a memorial plaque, but there was a certain gothic charm to it she enjoyed. She brought the last of her things in from the car, setting it all in the empty living room. The seller had told her it had been empty for a long time, his grandmother the last member of the family willing to live in the town. He’d been there when she arrived, sitting on her porch, waiting to give her the keys. For all its emptiness, the house was well kept. No animals had made their mark. In fact, if Birdie hadn’t known it had been empty the last 5 years, she wouldn’t have known. Other than the dust, thick as February snow in some areas, there was no indication at all that the house had been virtually abandoned. She surveyed the house from the living room, peering through to the kitchen, dated but functional, to the sunroom right at the back. On the other side of the hall she could see the reception room she was going to turn into a library, and when she wandered back out to the entrance way she could see the land through the door, her car parked in the rutted make-shift drive, and the stairs up to the bedrooms and bathroom. Someone had already gone to the trouble of hooking the place up to water and electricity, no cheap feat, now all Birdie had to do was clean it up and live in it. A fresh start.

           She spent the first couple hours putting her furniture together, and then Birdie headed into town. The road was pitted, and ill-kept, but clearly defined and easy enough to follow. She parked up outside a dusty storefront labelled ‘Hughes’ General.’ The door was unlocked, although no one was behind the counter. Birdie grabbed a basket and filled it with essentials. Eggs, bread, long-life milk, salt and pepper, some chips, a bag of coffee, and a medium-priced bottle of white wine to celebrate her move. They were well-stocked, even if everything was knock-off instead of name brand. She approached the counter. There was still no one there.

           “Hello?” She called, leaning over the counter slightly, looking to see if there was a back room.

           “Hello.” Said a voice, right behind her. Birdie flinched hard. A woman had appeared, seemingly from nowhere. She was small and aging badly. She looked, well, decrepit. Which sounded mean, but there was no other fitting word. She was wrinkled and age spotted, hair greying and thinning, skeletally slight, and arthritically gnarled. 

           “I’m sorry,” Birdie gasped, heart in her throat, “I didn’t see you there.” The woman nodded, then made her way haltingly round the desk. She plodded or shambled, maybe, was the better word. There was no register, instead she noted each item down on a notebook beside her, each word taking a long time to form, and beside it jotted a price. Birdie paid cash and took her brown paper bags gratefully.

           “Thank you.” She said, moving to turn away. The woman’s hand shot forward with shocking speed and clamped around Birdie’s wrist.

           “You bought the Malone place.” Her voice was creaky with age, but her eyes were clear and piercing.

           “Yes.” Birdie confirmed. She tried to tug her arm back, but the woman held fast.

           “What did little Paddy Malone tell you about our town?” Little Paddy Malone was 6ft 2, and played football all the way through college, and part of the way through grad school. He was 34 years old, and he’d been both handsome enough and funny enough that, if he’d shown even the slightest interest, Birdie would’ve abandoned the sale and moved into his swanky apartment in Beacon Hill. They’d met 3 times, twice in Boston, and once that morning when he handed her the keys. He’d told her nothing about the town beyond the fact he was selling a house here, and no one in his family lived here anymore.

           “Nothing.” She answered honestly. The woman released her as suddenly as she’d grabbed her.

           “Foolish boy. Selfish.” The woman was muttering, more to herself than to Birdie. She could hear her pulse, feel it in her temples.

           “Why?” She breathed, anxiety like a palpable force, like a storm in her chest.

           “Wrong, lying to people.” The woman’s voice seemed to come to her from a distance, distorted and wobbly, as though through water. Birdie’s heart, if it was even possible, seemed to beat harder. She could feel her mouth moving, her tongue shifting back, the air bouncing off her palette as she asked.

           “Lying?” The woman whipped her gaze back from where it had wandered, as though remembering, suddenly, that Birdie could hear her.

           “Don’t go asking questions now, girlie, you’re in it now. Don’t go out at night, don’t step foot on the Hughes’ property without an escort, and don’t, whatever you do, follow the voices.”

A town better forgotten, October 1991.

           “Mr Malone, this is Birdie Carroll, again. I really need you to call me back. There are things you didn’t tell me, things no one will tell me. I need to know what’s happening. Please call me back. I really need to talk to you.” Birdie sighed as she rang off. This made message 50. She started dialling the next number from memory. As usual it rang until the machine picked up.

           “Hello Ms Johnson, I am Birdie Carroll, I bought a property from your employer Mr Patrick Malone, and I am trying to get in touch with him as a matter of urgency. This is the 50th time I have contacted you both, please can you pass this message onto Mr Malone. It is imperative I speak with him immediately.” Birdie hung up and placed the phone back in its cradle. She had barely made it back to the kitchen and her cooling coffee before the phone rang. She stopped. Birdie turned on her heel. There had been comedy, the first few times, in delivering such dire warning down a Hotlips landline she’d had since she was 19. Then the novelty, no pun intended, had worn off, and she had almost considered replacing the phone just so she felt less foolish. Now, oddly, it was reliving. She picked up the phone, the familiar contours of the beige-pink receiver grounding her.

           “Hello?”

           “Birdie?” She knew the voice.

           “Paddy.” She replied, using the nickname the locals gave him.

           “You have to stop calling me Birdie, you have to stop asking questions.” There was an anxiety in his tone, and she felt her nervousness evaporate, as ire rose in her blood.

           “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do, Paddy Malone. I deserve to know what’s happening. You sold me this house, I am in it now, don’t you understand? The Hughes came here, the day after I moved in, and stood in a perimeter around the farmhouse. Everyone I ask about it says I’m dreaming. Then the voices started. Whispers on the wind, cries in the night. Then people started going missing. There are things in the night. Monsters. No one will tell me what’s going on. Who are the Hughes? What do they have to do with this house?” Her tone was acerbic, lemon juice tart and filled with rage.

           “I can’t answer those questions Birdie, you don’t know what you’re playing with here. It’s a nice house, and it’s a nice town. Plenty of people have good lives there. Put it out of your mind. Live your life, follow the rules, nothing bad will happen.” Patrick sounded reasonable, but now she had him on the phone Birdie realized she was too furious to be reasoned with.

           “Do you remember Lindsey at the General store?” It was a threat, and it sounded like one.

           “What about Lindsey?” He sounded wary now, like he’d finally started paying attention to her, like suddenly Birdie was someone of consequence.

           “Lindsey says your blood matters here, your family is important, she says, and I quote ‘the land calls to Malone blood,’ she says I can use that to make you come back here. I asked her why I would want you back, and do you know what she told me?” Birdie had reached a place beyond anger, a calm, icy place. Her voice was level, her heart slowed to its resting beat, her hands steady.

           “No.” Patrick breathed, maybe in answer to her question, but from the desperation in his tone, more likely because he’d realized it was over. She had him.

           “She told me that for as long as you’re gone, I am stuck here. That The Hughes control the town, and they need someone in this house, that the Malone’s have been trying to escape that responsibility for almost 150 years, since the first day it was theirs to escape, and that you, Paddy Malone, are the first to succeed.” Birdie could hear him breathing hard on the other end of the phone, like he was running. Perhaps he was, in a sense, running. Away from her, away from this place, away from his responsibilities.

           “You don’t understand. I couldn’t do it. Mine… they were bad. The worst they’d been since Sadhbh Malone, since the first years. You’re so nice, Birdie, don’t you understand? I thought yours would be better.”

           “I don’t understand,” Birdie snapped, “how could I? No one will tell me.” The words hung in the air for a long moment. She took a deep breath.

“You have 5 days to come by yourself, Paddy, before Lindsey and I bring you here.”

Patrick came of his own accord, arriving 3 and ½ days later without further intervention. He looked good, better than she did at any rate. The last time they’d seen each other Birdie was a stunner. An ex-muse divorced from her artist and free at last. Now she was a mess. She looked as if someone had taken all the best parts of Hollywood starlets, Bette Davis’s eyes, Elizabeth Taylor’s complexion and colouring, and Jane Russell’s bone structure, and gifted them to a woman on the brink of demise. She was a shadow of herself.

“You look like shit.” He told her. Which she would have resented if it wasn’t true, and if she hadn’t threatened him the last time they spoke.

“Thanks. You don’t.” She felt like a character in a western, standing arms crossed on the top step of her porch, looking down at this man, his head up to her shoulders even though he was standing on the ground. He’d come to rescue her in that story. In this one, she was his ruin.

“You got me here,” he told her, flinging one arm out to encapsulate the acres of land around them, “now what?” Birdie had been asking herself that since the moment the call ended. Then she’d marched herself down to the General store and asked Lindsey some more questions. 

“I’m going to leave,” she told him, picking up her bag, tucked just out of his line of sight, “you’re going to stay.” There had to be someone in the house. That was the rule. That’s why he’d been there, waiting for her with the keys. Those times he’d met her in Boston someone else stood vigil. It’s why the house was so well-kept. But Patrick was a fool. She didn’t need answers now, she’d worked it out. Worked out enough, at any rate, to know staying here wasn’t an option.

“No -I- you don’t understand, the occupant-”

“No, Patrick, you don’t understand. It’s not about the person in the house. Have you never read the plaque out front? It’s about Malone blood. They’re still your nightmares, you're just not here to witness them anymore.” That was the secret. The thing no one would tell her. The Hughes were monsters, they were the ones killing things, people, and for whatever reason they all thought they were hers. Her demons. But they weren’t. Is leo-san fuil an mhallachta, is leo-san toil an ollphéist. Theirs is the blood of the curse, theirs is the will of the monster.

“I have a life, Birdie. Please.”

“I have a life, Patrick. This is your curse. I’m leaving. The only way to stop me is to hurt me, and between us I don’t think more blood will solve this.” He looked pitiful, shrinking under her gaze. Her heart ached for him, even as her blood smouldered. Birdie kissed his cheek as she passed him.

“I’ll come back for you, Patrick Malone.”

“No, you won’t” He breathed. 

He was wrong. But that’s a different story.