Up Flew the Jackdaw

Gem is one of the unlucky ones, the one child in every seven who Magic forgets to bestow a Gift upon. And, as an extra unhappy bonus, she gets to be terrified of birds. Years later when her Gift finally surfaces and she should be happy that Magic didn't forget her after all, she discovers that to claim her Magical inheritance she must overcome her fear of all feathered creatures. Then Gavin, her son, manifests his Magic while little more than a baby, but his peculiar ability to restore youthfulness to the old brings its own problems, not to mention hordes of old people. And worst of all, there’s Buddy, who died one night in a car accident, but is still turning up on Gem’s doorstep, day after day, asking for his Fortune to be read, desperately seeking a future when his life is already over.

Up Flew The Jackdaw is a novelette of approximately 17,000 words.

Sharon Irwin comes from the West of Ireland. She has been shortlisted for both the Hennessey New Irish Writers, and the Francis Manus Short Story Awards. She has also received an Honourable Mention in the The Best Horror of the Year Anthology.

Many years ago, after a car accident, she was given a sofa to sit on, a cup of tea in hand, and an enthralling account of the very many family deaths her rescuer had endured, all of which had been foretold in some way by the curious behaviour of birds.

This narrative obviously lodged itself in her subconscious, mutating slowly into a story of a woman who finds her Magic by learning to read the subtle gestures of those very creatures.