“My name is Bridget O’Neill and I didn’t know where else to go.”
A blanket was draped over her shoulders as she sat at the end of the conference table, sipping a cup of hot tea that Jenkins had procured for her, his objections to her presence not eliminating his manners apparently. She glanced around the office, taking in its eclectic décor, before turning back toward Stone and the others.
“So you’re really the Librarians?”
“Guilty as charged,” Baird said. The cat was obviously out of the bag, so Stone figured Baird didn’t want to waste time playing games. “But can I ask how it is that you know about the Library?”
“A friend of a friend works for DOSA—the Department of Statistical Anomalies—so when I found myself desperately in need of help with … a very unusual situation … they quietly pointed me in your direction. Said there were some people in Portland who might be able to help me.”
“What friend of a friend, precisely?” Jenkins asked, sounding rather like a prosecutor interrogating a witness on the stand.
“Oh, I can’t possibly betray that confidence,” Bridget replied. “It was strictly off the record. ‘You didn’t hear it from me,’ that kind of thing. The last thing I want to do is get anybody in trouble after they went out on a limb for me.”
Jenkins frowned. “I see,” he said suspiciously.
Stone bought her story, though. DOSA was a top-secret government organization that definitely knew plenty about the Library. Not too long ago, a small army of DOSA personnel had temporarily occupied the Library before finally handing control of the place back to Stone and the others. DOSA’s operations and files were super-hush-hush, but, with that many people involved, some info was bound to leak out eventually. Stone could readily imagine an anonymous DOSA agent steering Bridget toward the Annex, if only on the Q.T.
“You’re protecting your sources,” Stone said. “I get that.”
Jenkins did not press the point. “Please proceed with your story, Miss O’Neill.”
“All right.” She gripped the teacup with both hands. “Anyway, all I really heard was that there were some unusual ‘Librarians’ who specialized in … situations like mine. It sounded ridiculous at first, but … I was grasping at straws, so I hopped on a plane to Portland and … here I am.” Her voice cracked. “Please, I’ve come all the way from Chicago. You’ve got to help me. If not … I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Her desperation was obvious, not just in her voice, but in the lengths she had apparently gone to in hopes of finding help with her as yet unspecified problem. Stone had to wonder what strange, presumably supernatural dilemma had brought her to their door.
“What exactly is your situation?” Baird asked.
Bridget took a deep breath, and a bracing sip of tea, before getting down to brass tacks. “You’re going to think I’m insane.…”
“Trust me,” Stone said. “‘Insane’ doesn’t begin to describe most of the stuff we deal with on a regular basis.”
“What about a banshee?”
If she was expecting them to react with shock or disbelief, she was mistaken, but her announcement both intrigued and concerned Stone. He had no doubt that banshees were real, but he had never personally dealt with one. This was new, potentially dangerous territory. From what he knew of them, banshees were not exactly good news.
More like harbingers of death.
“Oh dear,” Jenkins said. A look of pity crossed his face, which Stone knew could not possibly bode well.
First Saint Patrick, now a banshee, Stone noted. Just a coincidence, or was there a reason that all roads seemed to be leading to and from Ireland at the moment? Come to think of it, Saint Patrick’s Day was only days away.…
“You believe me?” Bridget sounded both surprised and relieved.
“No reason to doubt you,” Stone said. “Why don’t you tell us the whole story?”
“Okay, you asked for it.” She took another sip of tea before diving in. “It started small, to be honest. I’d be awakened in the middle of the night by this weird wailing noise coming from somewhere outside. It was annoying and, yeah, a little creepy, but I didn’t think much of it at first. I figured it was just the wind or a distant car alarm or something, so I would just roll over and try to get back to sleep, but, as time went by, the wailing started sounding louder and closer, almost like it was closing in on me.” She shuddered under the blanket. “I live above my pub, on the second floor, and one night when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I went to the window and saw a woman crying in the alley behind the building. I called 911, thinking she might be in trouble, but when the police arrived she wasn’t there anymore … and it turned out that none of my neighbors had reported any disturbances. It was like only I could hear her.”
She paused for a moment, remembering.
“That was when I started to wonder whether I was losing my mind, and it just kept getting worse. Night after night, but not every night, she was out there, wailing beneath my window. If it was the same woman, that is. She was almost always dressed in gray, but some nights she looked different than on others.…”
“Let me guess,” Stone said. “Sometimes she was young, sometimes she was older and more matronly, and sometimes she looked like a withered old hag.”
Bridget nodded. “Exactly.”
“Maiden, mother, crone,” Stone said. “The triple aspect of the goddess. It’s a common motif, particularly in Celtic art and mythology.”
“Quite right, Mister Stone,” Jenkins confirmed. “And the banshee is indeed known to take those three guises, among others.” He looked like he was tempted to exposit more, but restrained himself—for the moment. “Please continue, Miss O’Neill.”
She went on with her story. “After I struck out with the police that one night I got so desperate that I tried confronting her … them … her … myself, but it was no use. By the time I ran downstairs to the alley, she was gone. But I could still hear the wailing all night long.”
Thus explaining the heavy shadows under her eyes, Stone reflected. He wondered when she’d last gotten a decent night’s sleep.
“Finally, one night the wailing was louder than ever, unbearably so. I got up to go to the window again, to scream at her to shut up, no matter what the neighbors thought, and … she was right there.”
“Down in the alley?” Baird asked.
“No, right outside my window. Staring into my bedroom, hovering in the air … like a ghost.”
“Or a banshee,” Stone said.
Bridget nodded, trembling at the memory. “That’s when I knew—or finally admitted—that this was nothing natural, and that I needed help outside the ordinary … from someone like the Librarians.”
She sat back in the chair, awaiting their reaction.
“So what do you think? Am I crazy or not?”
Stressed, yes, Stone thought. Insane, no. He wasn’t getting a tinfoil-hat vibe from Bridget. “I’m not an expert on banshees,” he said, “but you don’t seem crazy to me.”
“Me either,” Cassandra said. “You’re having a sane reaction to an insane situation.”
“Me three,” Ezekiel added. “Who wouldn’t be worried by some sort of ghostly Debbie Downer getting all emo on them?”
Baird appeared to be taking Bridget seriously, too. “Speaking of experts,” she asked Jenkins, “what can you tell us about banshees?”
Bowing to the inevitable, Jenkins went into lecture mode, which was pretty much second nature to him by now. Exposition was his comfort zone.
“Banshees,” he began, “are Irish spirits whose keening foretells the coming of death. Although somewhat ghostly in nature, they are actually a variety of fairy. Indeed the word ‘banshee’ derives from the Gaelic bean-sidhe, which, roughly translated, means ‘woman of the fairy.’ Traditionally, they cry for members of certain venerable Irish families—including, I’m afraid, the O’Neills.” He cast a distinctly sympathetic look at Bridget. “I should stress that the banshee’s cry can be an omen of impending doom or merely a warning of same, allowing for a chance at averting it. There’s some wiggle room there, depending.”
“Depending on what?” Bridget asked tensely.
“Just depending,” Jenkins said. “It’s not an exact science.”
“But a banshee isn’t actually dangerous in her own right?” Baird asked. “They don’t attack or kill people?”
“That is correct,” Jenkins said. “They are harbingers, not avatars of death. At worst, a banshee’s cry heralds the coming of the Coiste Bodhar, a death-coach that carries off the newly dead to whatever awaits them beyond this life. The Coiste Bodhar, let it be noted, is said to be driven by the Dullahan, a headless coachmen who, once summoned, never returns empty-handed.”
Bridget paled. She clutched her chest with one hand, nearly spilling the tea. “Never?”
“Not once the death-coach has come for you,” Jenkins stated soberly. His voice was both gentle but direct, not unlike a physician delivering a terminal diagnosis. “Forgive me for asking, Miss O’Neill, but have you any reason to fear that your life may be in jeopardy, aside from the possible manifestations of a banshee?”
She hesitated briefly before answering. “I had a heart attack about a year ago, right out of the blue. Turns out I had a congenital heart defect that went undetected my whole life until…” Her voice trailed off as her hand came away from her chest. “I’ve had surgery since, to correct the defect, but there were complications and, well, nothing’s guaranteed.” She struggled to maintain her composure. “So you can understand why this banshee business is so disturbing to me … beyond the whole scary, supernatural thing.”
“Oh, I can understand,” Cassandra said. “Believe me.”
“We all can,” Stone said.
Bridget put down her tea and looked expectantly at the Librarians and their Guardian. “That’s my story, as sad and bizarre as it sounds. What now? Can you help me or not?”
Stone pondered her question. It seemed to him that there were three vital questions still to be answered: Was there really a banshee haunting Bridget, what exactly did it mean, and was there anything they could do about it?
“Give us a few minutes to discuss your case,” he said, reluctant to answer on behalf of the others without consulting them. “In private.”
After she’d left the room, Jenkins said, “I’m not unsympathetic to the young lady’s plight, but the Serpent Brotherhood must remain our top priority. We cannot allow our efforts and attention to be divided while the Brotherhood is out there, up to heaven knows what kind of ambitious, possibly apocalyptic deviltry. Need I remind you that the last time we clashed with the Serpents, they very nearly unraveled the fabric of time and space?”
Unwilling to leave their visitor unattended in any part of the Library, Jenkins had provided Bridget with an umbrella and asked her to step outdoors while the team conferred. Stone had thought that was a bit extreme, but then again, it wasn’t like they had a secure reception area.
“But you heard Bridget,” Cassandra protested. “Her life is in danger. We have to save her!”
“Sadly, it may be that she is beyond saving,” Jenkins said. “If the banshee is indeed foretelling her demise, it could simply be that her time is almost upon her … of perfectly natural causes. A tragedy, to be certain, but fate is not always kind.”
“No!” Cassandra said vehemently. “I’m sorry, Jenkins, but I was told the same thing for years, regarding my tumor, and I let myself believe it for too long. There’s always hope, even if it’s only a slim one. We can’t just give up on her. I’m not going to give up on her.”
Stone agreed with her. “You said that sometimes the banshee’s wail is only a warning,” he pointed out to Jenkins, “not necessarily a death sentence.”
“That is correct,” Jenkins conceded, “but how many other lives might be lost if we divert our attention away from the Serpent Brotherhood?”
“I worry about that, too,” Baird said. “The Clipping Book alerted us to that toppled monolith, and whatever was buried beneath it, for a reason. That’s the case the Library wants us focused on right now.”
“Excuse me,” Ezekiel piped up. “Ireland … Saint Patrick … banshees—am I the only one seeing the connection here? Who says this isn’t the same case, just coming at us from different directions?”
Stone considered the possibility. The fact that they seemed up to their ears in Irish folklore had not escaped his notice, but it was hard to see an obvious link between the “serpent’s bones” in Ireland and a haunting in Chicago.
“What you are saying?” Stone asked. “That Bridget is mixed up with the Serpent Brotherhood somehow?”
“I don’t have a clue, mate,” Ezekiel said, “but what’s with all the Irish stuff all of a sudden? We really think that’s a coincidence?”
“Could be,” Cassandra said. “We’ve run across various items from Greek mythology over the years, on unrelated cases. Maybe we were just overdue for a spike in Irish magic instead … as a matter of statistics.”
“Or maybe there’s a connection we’re not seeing yet,” Baird said. “I’m not a big believer in coincidences when it comes to possible enemy action.”
“Coincidence,” Jenkins agreed, “is often merely a failure to see the proverbial forest for the trees, but that still leaves us with the question of where best to direct our efforts—toward the unknown object uncovered at the monolith or toward Miss O’Neill’s predicament?”
“Why can’t we look into both?” Ezekiel said. “I mean, it’s not as though there’s only one Librarian anymore. What’s the point of having a whole team of us if we can’t cover more than one base at a time?”
Good question, Stone thought.