The Mná Feasa

1963

An old doctor, his bald head reflecting the lights above, rushed to a patient's side, eyes quickly surveying her state. The flesh of her whole body was charred except for her face, which remained pristine and pale, the skin soft and shining in the fluorescent light. The charcoal skin crinkled in on itself, burns going deep through her body. He could see the shine of white bone deep beneath the layers.

“Third degree burns,” he announced to the room full of ER staff. Their group made eight in total: two surgeons, four nurses, an anesthesiologist, and Dr. Coolidge.

“Heart rate?” he shouted out as a mousy looking nurse pressed a stethoscope against the victim’s chest.

“140!” she called.

“Breathing?”

“Irregular!”

Cold washed over Dr. Coolidge. He snapped his finger, grabbing the attention of the two closest nurses. “You two,” he demanded loudly, “go get Nurse Ó Súilleabháin in here! Now!”

A look passed between the nurses, but they nodded and rushed from the room. He ran again to the patient’s side. He pulled back her soft eyelids and shined a light to her eyes. The pupils of her bright blue eyes contracted quickly. His lips pressed into a thin line.

“Heart rate dropping,” the mousy looking nurse called out beside him.

He turned to look at the heart rate monitor.

One-hundred.

Eighty.

Sixty.

Forty.

The piercing screech of the machine belted out into the room.

“Her heart is failing!” a younger doctor shouted out.

Then the line went flat. The shriek grew. Dr. Coolidge ducked away from the deafening sound.

“Defibrillator!” the young doctor yelled.

Dr. Coolidge took a step back, eyes trailing over the scene. He looked towards the door and sent out a silent prayer. Be fast, Nurse Ó Súilleabháin, he begged.

“Clear!” the doctor shouted.

He pressed the metal against the young woman’s chest. Her body heaved upwards, jerking with the force of electricity. The lights flickered above.

“No pulse,” a nurse supplied.

“Again.” The doctor began to rub the pieces together when the door flung open. One of the nurses Dr. Coolidge had sent came inside. She hunched over, resting her hands on her knees as she heaved, trying to breathe.

“We have her,” she told the elder doctor.

“Everybody out!” Dr. Coolidge shouted loud enough to silence the room.

Every eye turned towards him. The young doctor looked down at the defibrillator in his hands, then back up at the older man. “But–”

“No! Everybody out!”

The room settled. Everyone slowly set down the things in their hands and turned towards the door. The young doctor lingered in the doorway, a hand resting on the frame. He turned to look at Dr. Coolidge, his lips pressed into a tight line. He shook his head, eyes darkening, and stepped out of the room.

Dr. Coolidge took off his glasses and rubbed his hands over his face. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what they thought, not as long as they didn’t know what was really going on. He didn’t think he, or Nurse Ó Súilleabháin, could deal with the repercussions.

1938

A young girl sat on the kitchen counter of the cramped apartment she shared with her mother and grandmother. She watched through wide eyes as the women flew about the room. They opened cupboards and pulled things off of shelves in a flurry of motion, all the while humming a tune the grandmother had learned in her youth. The girl bounced up and down with excitement as candles were set on the table.

“What do we get to do first?” Airmeith squealed.

“We light the candles,” Mam crooned, scooping the girl off the counter and setting her before a small altar.

The makeshift shrine was littered with pictures and drawings of the women that came before.  Her grandmother had been cooking all day to leave the ancestors food, which filled the room with a sweetness that made Airmeith’s stomach growl.

“Why do we light candles?” she asked, tilting her head up towards her mother.

“To guide the spirits back to our realm,” Máthair Chríona said.

Airmeith nodded sagely. She believed every word that came from her grandmother’s mouth was more important than anything anyone else even thought. She was born far away in the homeland; she held the wisdom of the ancestors better than anyone else. Even so young, Airmeith knew her grandmother had walked a world she could never understand.

“We are mná feasa, a stóirín; healers,” she told the child. “We are here to fix the broken, to guide the weak, to save whatever we can. And it is the magic of our ancestors, their love and our love for them, that makes the impossible possible for us.”

“That’s why we celebrate Samhain?” Airmeith asked.

“It is,” her mother said. “Today is the one day a year the veil between our world and the spirit world is the thinnest.”

“Do you think they’ll give us wisdom?”

The women laughed, tilting their heads back in harmony as the sound issued forth. Airmeith followed suit, unsure of the reason but all too happy to be a part of it. Mam reached down and stuck her fingers under the child’s armpits, eliciting another wave of laughter.

“I want to be a good healer,” she gasped, her laughter petering out.

“You will be,” Mam replied, kissing her atop the head.

Máthair Chríona nodded. She reached out a hand and pushed a curtain of dark hair from the child’s face. “You must remember that desire,” she said. She looked over to the altar, hand settling on a small golden frame. Her forefinger brushed over the charcoal drawings of two women within it. “A piece of wisdom my own máthair chríona gave to me: magic is gentle, a healing force, an extension of nature. We are merely the vessels of the natural world that can take hold of it. Remember that, a mhuirnín, and you will do great things.”

“Tell me about the homeland again,” Airmeith pleaded, eyes wide as dinner plates.

Máthair Chríona hummed, touching a finger to her chin. “Back in Ireland, when I was a babe, everyone celebrated Samhain,” she said, sitting beside the child at the table. “We collected in the house of our spiritual leader, a witch more connected to the spirit world than the rest of us. We’d sing songs and light the candles and leave food for our ancestors to come back and visit us.”

“Could she go to the spirit world?”

“No, no,” her grandmother chuckled. “Only the dead can travel to the spirit world.”

Airmeith sat up straighter. “How do they get there?”

“Creatures known as the mná chaointe, keeners, help them there,” Mam explained. “They use sound to help the soul from getting lost on its journey to the land of the dead. But that’s just a tale.”

“Oh no!” Máthair Chríona exclaimed, turning to her daughter. “The mná chaointe are very real. They only appear to the strongest of witches, but they help every soul pass on.”

Mam pursed her lips. Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed her mother. “Alright, that’s enough for tonight.” She bent down and scooped Aimrieth back into her arms. “It’s time for bed. You need to welcome the Fall in the morning.”

“Goodnight Máthair Chríona!” Airmeith called as her mother pulled her into their joint room. “Happy Samhain!”

“Happy Samhain, a mhuirnín,” the old woman called back.

1949

“I’d like you to meet someone,” Máthair Chríona said, stepping through the door.

Behind her followed a pale woman, her hair red as flame and her eyes bright as day. She stood with her back straight, and her chin jutted out slightly.

“Hello,” she said, the words dripping with confidence. “I’m Kristine.”

“She’s mná feasa,” Máthair Chríona explained.

Airmeith took another look at the girl. Kristine couldn’t have been more than two years older than her—baby fat still lingered in her cheeks—but there was something in her eyes that made her look older, a sort of darkness that sharpened her bright gaze. Airmeith took a step forward, extending her hand, but the older girl merely looked at it.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Airmeith offered. “What’s your family name?”

When she was a child, Máthair Chríona would tell her stories of all the old Irish families. Most of them even she had never met, but they lived on in the memories of the Ó Súilleabháin women.

Kristine’s brows narrowed and her eyes brightened to a piercing shade of blue. “I don’t got one,” she growled.

“Kristine’s tradition has been lost,” the grandmother explained. “I found her while I was collecting in the park this morning, felt her power. So raw and untamed.” She rested a hand on the older girl’s arm and tightened her lips. “I knew I had to help. So many have lost the old ways.”

Mam nodded her head in sympathy. “Come on in, I’ll make you some tea.”

“Thank you.”

1938

Airmeith shot awake, salt on her lips and her throat raw. She climbed out of her bed and creeped towards the door, reaching up for the doorknob. She flinched from every shadow, every sound of the city that pushed its way through the windows, as she padded along to her grandmother’s bedroom.

With a light push, she opened the door and stuck her head inside. “Máthair Chríona?”  she whispered, voice trembling.

“What is it, ​​a mhuirnín?” her grandmother croaked, voice heavy with sleep.

“I’ve had a bad dream,” the small child whimpered.

“Oh dear,” the old woman said. “Come in, come lie with Máthair Chríona.”

Airmeith creeped over to the side of the bed and let her grandmother lift her up and push her deep beneath the old quilt that smelt forever of her grandmother, like wildflowers. She didn’t know where the smell came from; they’d only ever lived in the city. She nestled her face against the old woman’s chest, listening to the sound of her heart beating.

“Can magic die?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“Can your magic run out? Can it go away forever and never come back?”

The old woman paused. She shifted, clutching the child closer to her chest. “Not on its own,” Máthair Chríona mused. “One must be unwise with their power, must waste it away or stop taking care of it in order for it to go away.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that if you don’t respect your power, if you stop treating it like a gift and more like a necessity, it may not trust you anymore.”

Airmeith pressed her ear against her grandmother’s chest, listening to the older woman’s heart beating. It had never occurred to her that the magic that flowed through her veins was a limited recourse, that she could lose it. The thought sent a chill down her spine.

Máthair Chríona chuckled a little. She reached out a hand and smoothed back the child’s hair.  “Don’t worry, I have never seen a mná feasa lose her powers...” She drifted off, staring at the ceiling. After Airmeith had thought the old woman had fallen back asleep, she said, “My magic has grown weaker since leaving the homeland.”

The little girl sat up to look her grandmother in the eyes. A shadow fell over the old woman’s face, bathing her in darkness. Airmeith shivered. “Do you miss Ireland?” she asked.

“Oh, very much. But if I hadn’t left, I never would have met my John, and then I never would have gotten you.” She tapped a cold finger on the little girl’s nose, eliciting a giggle.

“I hope I can give my magic to my daughter one day,” she whispered, lying back down.

“Me too, a mhuirnín, me too.”

1950

“Traditional healing is a slow process,” Máthair Chríona said, as she pressed the pestle into the mortar, grinding the herbs inside. With the other hand, she stroked the feathers of the pigeon she had saved from the windowsill. “Mná feasa have magic in their blood to strengthen the power from the Earth. We can weave ourselves into the spells and expedite the process.”

“Yeah, Máthair Chríona. You’ve told us ‘bout a million times,” Kristine grumbled, pouring water into a wooden bowl and watching the contents fizzle.

Airmieth pressed her lips tightly together. She restrained the desire to roll her eyes at the older girl as she continued following the instructions. “Maybe it’s important to be reminded.”

“Well, some of us don’t need remindin’, Some of us can do magic without reminders.”

Something hot boiled in Airmieth’s chest, but one look from her grandmother kept her at bay. The girl stood, the motion sharp, the sound of her wooden chair scraping against the linoleum floor like a screech. She crossed the kitchen in two quick steps. Her hand shot out towards the cabinet and pulled forth a mason jar full of crushed herbs.

“Kristine, can you remind me what the components of this mixture will do?” Máthair Chríona asked.

“Lavender’ll soothe, tea tree for infection, lemon’ll fight off bacteria.”

“Good!” The older woman spun towards her granddaughter. “Now, Airmieth, a mhuirnín, what will the magic help?”

“It will help the actual healing,” the young woman recited, “the binding of flesh with itself, the straightening and strengthening of bone, the–”

“Rekindlin’ of life-blood and soul,” Kristine finished. “Yeah yeah.” She looked down at the pigeon splayed across the table, its right wing twisted at an odd angle. Airmieth inhaled sharply. “But how’d we know that? Like, for sure?” the older girl asked.

Máthair Chríona opened her mouth to answer when Airmeith began to speak. “Because that’s what’s taught, Kristine. That’s the way of our people! What don’t you understand about this?”

“Have we tested it? Why do you blindly follow?”

“I- It’s not- I’m not–” Airmieth’s face had gone red. This was the millionth time they’d had this argument, yet it hadn’t ceased to rile her. “Máthair Chríona is wise. Why do you question her wisdom? We’ve welcomed you with open arms and–”

A pained sound lifted up from the table. The women all turned to look at the bird in all of its pitiful agony. The grandmother sighed and put down her powdery paste. “Airmieth, take this and apply it to the wound. Remember to keep the chant in your heart, to will the creature towards healing.”

The young woman nodded, lips pressed together, Kristine forgotten. She reached a shaky finger into the mortar and procured a drop of the salve. She held her breath, holding her tongue between her teeth, and lightly pushed it onto the pigeon’s wing. It let out a soft cry, tilting its head away from her. It fell back to the table, eyes closing.

Airmeith closed her eyes. Please, she thought to herself, please. She imagined the flesh stitching it back together the way she’d seen them do in class, pictured a little feathered scar across the wing like a mountain built of perseverance. She willed it to be so. She imagined disease flushed from it, rolling over the edges like an avalanche. She willed it to be so.

But when she opened her eyes, the pigeon’s wing was nothing but wet with blood and paste.

“Very well, a mhuirnín,” Máthair Chríona sighed. “You did your best.”

She nodded and folded her hands towards a little bit of rope tied to a chord around her neck. “Put him in the garden box to rest.” She nodded her head again, this time towards the girls, and turned back to her bedroom.

Kristine turned fast to Airmeith, the corners of her mouth turned up. “Don’t matter how many times you say the things she says back,” she said, “you either got the magic or you ain’t.”

“Like you could do any better,” she snapped back.

“Watch.”

Kristine shoved both hands over the broken bird, pressing them down into its flesh with a crack. She closed her eyes and a rush of electricity moved through the room, making the lamps flicker. The radio turned on with a start, blaring out news of communists found meeting in secret basements around the city.

The hair of Airmeith’s arms stood. Her mouth went dry. She tried to call out for the girl to stop, but the noise didn’t leave her throat. Smoke filled her nose. Her eyes began to water. She looked down at the bird, burning to ash in Kristine’s hands. She lurched forward, pulling the woman off of it, throwing her to the floor.

Kristine looked up at her, eyes bright with anger and magic.

“I’m more powerful than you’ll ever be,” she told her, voice thick like thunder in the summer.

“But I’ll always be a better healer.”

1954

Airmeith sat on a plastic chair beside her grandmother, the fluorescent lights of the hospital room beating down on her. She ran a wet cloth over the old woman’s forehead while her mother read from an old book of folktales. There was an easy comfort in the way the three of them sat together, even if Máthair Chríona had never been sick like this before.

A pressure built up in Airmeith’s chest. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She looked up, towards the door, but there was no one there. Something crackled across her flesh, a heavy sort of electricity, and panic began to well up under her skin.

A restlessness moved through Airmeith. She stood, unable to contain herself. “Who–” she began, when her eyes settled on a creature in the corner.

Airmeith jumped back, brows raising. The creature’s head snapped up, revealing a pale face lined with age. Sun spots scattered its flesh like mold, running up and down the sides of its face. A tangled web of bright hair obscured its eyes from view, but Airmieth could feel their gaze through her. A shiver ran down her spine.

“Who is that?” she asked her mother, voice shaking.

Mam turned and followed her gaze to the corner. Airmeith noticed her eyes were red and puffy. The creature reached a wrinkled hand towards its face and pulled a dark scarf closer around itself. The woman turned back to her daughter. “There’s no one there,” she said, voice dead and flat.

“No, Mam, the– the thing. Right there–” she pointed “–who is that?”

“Airmeith, there’s no one there.”

The creature took a small step forward, then another. Airmeith noticed its feet were bare, trailing flakes of dried mud behind it as it walked. Its motions were swift and clean, its dark scarf trailing on the floor behind it as it placed itself at the foot of Máthair Chríona’s bed. Power surged from it in waves. It rolled over Airmeith like honey dripped from the jar. She struggled against the way it dampened the sensation of her skin.

“Don’t get any closer,” Airmeith warned, unsure what she would do if the creature did. “Tell me who you are.”

“Airmeith!” Mam shouted. “There’s no one there!”

“Tell me your name!” Airmeith called out. Her fists shook at her sides. She wished she had drawn up a rune or tied a knot around her grandmother, anything to stop the monster before her from approaching.

“Stop it!” Mam shrieked. Tears rolled down her cheeks in torrents.

“The bean chaointe.” A soft voice offered from the bed.

Every head in the room swiveled fast towards the hospital bed. Máthair Chríona looked up at them. Calm radiated out from her like soft rain after a drought. She smiled softly at the creature, nodding her head as if to address an old friend.

“A keener?” Mam whispered, falling back into her chair. “No, it can’t be.” She reached a hand out, grasping at her mother. “No, no it can’t be a keener.”

“It is time, a stóirín. I am going to see my sweet John again.” Her eyes shifted over to Airmeith, a small smile settled on her lips. “Come, a mhuirnín.” She reached out a hand for the girl. She took it. “Do not be afraid.” Her eyes lifted up again, searching. “Where is Kristine?”

Something sour settled in Airmeith’s chest.

“Don’t worry about it.”

The old woman pressed her lips together in a tight line. Something in Mam’s eyes shifted. She looked down at her mother’s hand clasped in her own. Something heavy settled over Airmeith’s heart as she watched her mother lean down, resting her forehead on Máthair Chríona’s forearm. Her lips moved, but no sound reached her daughter’s ears. Her grandmother’s blinking slowed and her breaths shallowed as the bean chaointe reached her hands over her legs. The motion pulled back on her dark sleeves, exposing bright white skin, spotted with sun and time. She spread out her fingers, sending a wave of power so strong Airmeith fell to the ground.

“Give Pappi a hug for me, won’t you Mammy?” her mother asked through a sob.

“Always.”

Suddenly, the bean chaointe threw her arms up into the air. Her mouth opened wide, black tar dripping from her lips, and began to keen. It was soft at first, a moan built of the truest sorrow. But as she continued it grew. She threw out the sound, letting it echo off of the walls, bouncing around in a fury. She wailed and screamed and sobbed and the sound reverberated through Airmeith’s skull, blurring her vision.

The black ooze splattered out of the monster’s mouth. It fell to the floor in great heaping globs. It stuck to her tangled mass of hair like dew drops caught in a spider web. It climbed down her chin and clung to her face, enveloping her in blackness and she screamed and cried and wallowed.

Her body convulsed with power as the screaming built. Airmeith coughed, the taste of copper strong on her tongue. She wanted to shout out for it to stop, for the keener to go away. The sound was too much. It pierced through the bone of her skull and burrowed deep into her brain. Like a needle, ultra sharp, or a mace, stretching its spikes out, scrambling the blood and tissue and neurons into a soup.

And then it was over.

The room was silent.

Airmeith’s head was hollow.

And her grandmother was dead.

1953

Kristine had been training alongside Airmeith for the past three years. The older girl’s magic was dark, still raw and untamed. It reminded Airmeith of fire. Her mother told her it was the element of rebirth, but she left out the destruction and devastation that had to happen first.

It is the magic of our ancestors, their love and our love for them, that makes the impossible possible for us. Can you use magic without having known your ancestors? She had no one to greet on Samhain, no one to call out to for guidance or help. Can you be spiritual without spirits to guide you?

It unsettled Airmeith, the way Kristine’s power roiled under her skin. It burbled and crackled out like lightning waiting to strike. Not like Mam’s or Máthair Chríona’s magic, still electric but soft, like the heat of a hug or a cup of tea. Airmeith feared the way Kristine’s power sent the hairs standing on her neck and the way the older girl’s eyes glowed bright blue with magic. Magic is gentle, a healing force, an extension of nature. We are merely the vessels of the natural world that can take hold of it. Kristine always scoffed at the way Máthair Chríona insisted they weren’t gods.

“If God gave me power, why shouldn’t I use it?” she’d ask haughtily.

“There aren’t any gods,” Máthair Chríona would answer, “only people, plants, and animals.”

“Well, I grew up believin’ in God,” Kristine would say, crossing her arms over her chest. “I ain’t givin’ up on my traditions for yours.”

Airmeith couldn’t figure out for the life of her why her grandmother put up with such back talk. The woman had always had the patience of a sow, but this? Airmeith wanted to reach across the table and strangle the girl. She wanted to shout, those aren’t your traditions! Those are the traditions of the people who took ours away. Our art is dying because of the traditions you're holding on to.

“I know you don’t like me,” Kristine told her once.

They were standing on the roof smoking the cigarettes Kristine had snagged from her uncle’s desk drawer. She lived with the man, but he never paid her much mind. Airmeith ignored the bruises that welted on Kristine’s arms. If she didn’t want to talk about it, she wouldn’t bring it up. Máthair Chríona noticed too. She insisted Kristine move into their little two-bedroom, but the girl was too bullheaded to accept the additional kindness.

“What makes you say that?” Airmeith asked.

“I ain’t from an old family,” she said simply. “I don’t got the years of moms teachin’ their daughters how to do shit. Not to mention, I ain’t studying to be a nurse like you.”

Airmeith took a pull from her cigarette. “I want to use the power for good. If we used to be healers, what’s stopping us now?”

“Men.”

Airmeith laughed a little, the sound shifting into a sigh. She rubbed at her temple. “No one said it was going to be easy. After all easy things-”

“Easy things ain’t worth doin’. Only things worth doin’ are hard,” Kristine completed the quote, waving her hand in the air. “You know, I think Máthair Chríona said that to me at least seven times my first week here.”

The girls looked out over the city skyline. Cranes groaned in the distance, piling up stone and glass. Airmeith tried to remember the Manhattan of her childhood. She was born two years after the Empire State Building pushed its way up into the sky, right after the depression when the city got back on its feet and began to work hard enough to make up for lost time. Were things simpler then, or was she just too young to remember the complication?

“You didn’t answer my question,” Kristine said, blowing smoke from her nose.

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t you like me?”

“I don’t dislike you, Kristine. I just...” Airmeith sighed and rubbed at her temple, trying to figure out the right words. “It bothers me how you don’t respect the magic you wield. We’re not here to do as we like, we’re here to help the members of our community, and I think you don’t take that seriously enough.”

Kristine’s nostrils flared. “What if I don’t got a community? Huh?” Her voice was getting louder, echoing off the roof. “What if I don’t got people to serve.”

“Then you don’t deserve the gifts you’ve been given!” she exclaimed. Something boiled under her skin, begging to be set free. “You don’t have a community! You don’t even belong here. Not amongst the mná feasa, especially not with my family!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you too!”

Kristine dropped her cigarette, crushing it under boot. She crossed her arms over her chest and in three even strides crossed to the door, kicked out the stopper, and stormed down the stairs, letting the door lock behind her.

Airmeith stood there, seething. She took another pull of the cigarette and coughed on the bitter smoke. She didn’t like Kristine, the girl was right about that. She tried to hide it for Máthair Chríona’s sake, but it was eating her up inside. Kristine wasn’t one of them, no matter how much her grandmother insisted she was. She was an outsider, not locked out from her ancestors, but willingly turned away. She had accepted the modern world like it was the place she belonged, and it angered Airmeith. To have such raw power, such intense instincts, and throw away tradition? To be welcomed into the home of an old family and spit in their faces? Sometimes, Airmeith wished Kristine would burn the way her magic did.

1958

Three women stood in the breakroom at Manhattan General Hospital nursing cups of coffee in their socks, their hospital mandated shoes lying discarded under the table. Airmeith had been a nurse for exactly three months, and she found the work far more grueling than she’d expected. She’d helped Mam and Máthair Chríona make and sell salves and teas for years, but standing on her feet all day, running around at the whim of a doctor who thought he knew better than her, and dealing with patients with little to no patience? It gave her a permanent headache right behind her eyes, and a new shooting pain from her left knee to her hip. She was tired in a way she had never been before.

“What’s that you wear around your neck?” Janice asked, pointing to the cord that laid against Airmeith’s chest.

“Oh this?” she asked, pulling it from under her uniform. Her heart began to pound in her chest. “It’s silly.”

“Is that rope?” Lydia asked, sticking out her lips.

“It’s a knot,” Airmeith explained. “Back when my grandmother was living in Ireland, she was taught that tying up rope in a special way would protect them. I wear it to honor her memory.”

The lie came easy, spoken a dozen times to a dozen people. She’s learned in her years of normal human activity that most weren’t very fond of the things they couldn’t understand or explain, so she gave them easy answers. They were never full lies, for lies tore away at the soul, but little omissions of truth, enough not to be asked any further questions. It was easier this way; easier not to explain how the knot would protect her from harm, that it actually did hold power.

A sudden shock ran down Airmeith’s spine. She felt the hair of arms stand on end. Her gaze snapped up, eyes wild, breathing shallow. A slow, pulsing power fell over her, thick and heavy. The force of it sent her down into a chair, clutching her head in her hands.

“Airmeith, oh my! Dear, are you alright?” Lydia asked, rushing towards her.

“Have you had enough water today?” Janice followed. She moved towards the fridge as another wave of magic flowed through the room. It drifted over her skin like a dark blanket, pushing her own magic down inside. She gasped against the pain. A sudden panic gripped her. She knew this sensation. She stood, her legs wobbling beneath her.

“Amy?” a voice asked. The nurses turned quickly to the door as Dr. Coolidge walked into the room, his nose buried in his clipboard. “Amy, are you in here?”

“It’s Airmeith, sir,” she said, rubbing at her temple as the dark power fell over her again. Her vision blurred and her ears began to ring. She looked around hopelessly. The dark magic threatened to crush her.

She looked up at the doctor. His lips were moving, but no sound escaped. Her throat was closing in on itself. A cold sensation ran down her from head to toe. She knew this magic.

Terror pulled Airmeith down the hall. She pushed past Dr. Coolidge, stumbling over her feet. She didn’t know where they were taking her. She didn’t even know she had moved until she was standing in the delivery room, four startled members of the hospital staff staring at her.

“She can’t be in here!” a lithe doctor yelled from the foot of a bed. “Get her out of here.”

A nurse took a step towards her, but she didn’t even see her. There, in the corner, stood two women-like creatures dressed in black, their feet bare. They were holding each other’s hands like vices, brown, streaked nails stabbing through molded skin. The floor between them was stained black with the ooze that dripped from the puncture wounds. Their heads snapped upwards when Airmeith entered the rooms. Eyes searching her from somewhere beneath the tangled messes of hair that wrapped around their faces and shoulders like thorny vines.

“Bean chaointe,” Airmeith whispered.

She had never seen two at once, never felt such raw, dark power. The  force of their stare sent her back into the doorway. She staggered, gripping at the metal frame. Fingers clawing for something real, something tangible. Her throat tightened. She gagged on her own tongue, air lodging in her throat. Two of them. Mná chaointe.

She took a shaking step forward, bleary eyes searching the room for meaning, purpose. Why here? Why two?

The door swung open again behind her and Dr. Coolidge appeared, breathless.

“What is the meaning of this?” the lithe doctor yelled, standing. “I need all of you out of here! This woman is in active labor!”

He gestured to the small woman on the hospital bed, her face pale and damp. The hospital gown wrapped around her torso shined a sticky shade of red. The color dripped down onto the sheets, her legs, the gloves on the doctor’s hands. Her eyes began to roll to the back of her head. Her mouth twitched in pain.

Dr. Coolidge sent out a hand to steady Airmeith. Or perhaps he meant to take her. She couldn’t tell. People were speaking, words floating around the room, but none of them settled in her ears.

“I can help her,” Airmeith whispered.

The realization settled over her like cold water. She had never been so sure of anything in her life. Her eyes swiveled back to the creatures in the corner. They were walking in tandem towards the girl. Right feet. Left feet. Right feet. Left feet. Dried mud flaked off, leaving behind a trail beside the black goop that dropped from their clasped hands.

Airmeith pushed through the ocean of power and out of Dr. Coolidge’s grasp. Her vision blurred and her body ached. She could feel each muscle pushing against each joint. She looked to the hospital bed. A single drop of blood dripped cascaded down the metal leg.

Another hand grabbed her from behind. The strong scent of latex wafted up into her nose. Airmeith shook her assailant away. Something in the back of her mind told her she shouldn’t be able to, that he was stronger than her, but his hand fell away as easily as a feather.

She reached the woman at the same time as the mná chaointe. They stared at her through their webs of hair. In one moment, they stretched their unclasped hands out over the woman’s feet. She copied them, her own hands shaking. She pressed her memory deep, deep down into the caverns of her mind.

With every fiber of her being, every muscle in her body, every nerve ending, every singular blood cell, she pushed against their magic. The strain of it sent her body into shivers. Her vision began to glow bright white.

Then everything went dark.

1954

Airmeith slouched down onto the big armchair in the living room. She straightened her legs, letting them stretch out towards the table that sat in the center of the room. Her head fell back against the chair, eyes angled towards the water stain on the ceiling and let her heavy eyelids fall closed.

“Long day, a mhuirnín?” Máthair Chríona asked from her rocking chair, setting down her book.

“I think I might just hate university.”

“Oh, come now, you don’t mean that.” Her grandmother chuckled, the sound low and sweet in her chest. Airmeith leaned into the sound. Maybe it could heal the strain on her brain.

The older woman cleared her throat. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you about Kristine.”

Airmeith restrained the urge to scoff. She sat up, opening her eyes to give her grandmother her full attention. “What about her?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and even.

“I think you need to be kinder to her.”

Something cold washed through Airmeith’s body. She wanted to stand, to throw something across the room, to yell at her grandmother. She needed to be kinder? She did? She took a deep breath, centering herself.

“Kristine is struggling, a mhuirnín. She’s trapped with that man-” she spat the word like a curse “–in that tiny apartment. She works two jobs and spends her free time picking up broken bottles and coming here. She needs our love and support, that’s why I brought her to us.”

She wasn’t trapped, Airmeith knew that. She had sympathy for her, sure. She knew that Kristine’s uncle hadn’t been the kindest man, but she also knew Kristine hadn’t been the kindest woman. She knew what she’d signed up for when she turned Máthair Chríona’s offers down.

“Airmeith, please, try to give her some empathy. She’s... I think she will be moving in with us very soon. Your mother will come share my room with me and Kristine will-”

“Oh no!” Airmeith leapt from the chair. She looked down at her grandmother’s calm face, anger booking through her. “I will not share a room with her! How could you ask me to do that?”

“She needs help and kindness. The mná feasa will bar neither from any living soul. You will give both to Kristine or so help me you will be finding another place to live.”

Something stung deep within the girl’s chest. She took a shaky breath, looking down at the older woman. Tears welled up in her eyes. She’d choose Kristine over her own grandchild? Her own flesh and blood? Only one of them was a real healer, only one of them believed in and trusted the old ways.

Airmeith felt the pinch of cold air across her cheeks before she’d even known she’d left the apartment.

1958

“What was that?” Dr. Coolidge wrapped a hand around Airmeith’s shoulder, fingers digging into her shoulder.

He had gently guided her from the room in a blur of shouting and color and the wails of a newborn baby. The moment they reached the hallway, he spun her around to face him. She tried to move from his grasp, but her head was reeling. Her body didn’t respond in time with her mind. She jerked back to face him. His face blurred in and out of focus.

“Amy, what the hell was that?” his mouth opened wide as he shouted, little drops of spittle sticking to the space between his lips.

“She... she was dying... the baby... I had to help them.”

“You’re a nurse, and not a very good one at that.” He pulled off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his face. “First you run away from me without a word, then you–” He looked up at her, face turning red. “Dr. Smith had it handled! The woman was perfectly fi-–”

“No! No, he didn’t... he was–” She swayed a little, her stomach lurching. She bent over, her face suddenly cold. There was no warning before food and bile tore its way up her esophagus, burning its way out of her mouth and onto the tile floor. What the hell had she done? She looked up at Dr. Coolidge, ears ringing. His brows were knit close together. His mouth was moving, his lips blurred in and out of shape.

A sharp pain reverberated through the right side of Airmeith’s skull. She looked up at Dr. Coolidge, eyes wide as he rubbed at his hand.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded, voice softer now.

Airmeith lifted a hand towards her cheek. Tears welled in her right eye. The skin of her cheek began to sting.

“You were in shock.” He said it like it was an explanation.

She swallowed. “I– She was going to die. She and her son–”

Dr. Coolidge took a step back. “How do you know it was a boy?”

Airmieth grabbed at her temple. The panic was subsiding, the electric thrill of the mná chaointe was gone, replaced with an empty nothing. She reached an arm around her core and sat on the tile, resting the back of her head against the wall.

“You won’t believe me,” she whispered.

“Try me.”

1963

Airmeith stood, staring out the window and onto the Manhattan skyline. The dull screech of mná chaointe rubbed at the back of her mind. It echoed through the halls of the hospital, audible from almost everywhere inside. The magic swelled against her ankles like the waves of the sea. She’d gotten used to it all in her years working at the hospital. It wasn’t hard; the pain of the magic, the way it tried to snuff out her own, was never insufferable unless there were more than one at once. The pairs, the triplets, those sent her body into a panic. Death lurked at every corner, and what she often told her mother was true: she let most of the dying die. But the sound? The sound made her want to die. It crashed against her skull like a raging sea against the hull of a mighty ship.

She took a swig of her coffee, hoping it would stave off the exhaustion that lingered at her edges. She wanted to smoke. She wanted to lie down on the tiles and stare up at the ceiling until the fluorescence made her vision blur. She wanted rest. She was too young to crave respite as much as she did. Máthair Chríona would laugh at her, say she didn’t know the half of it.

“Nurse Ó Súilleabháin!” a voice called from down the hallway.

She turned quickly to find a nurse a few steps away from her. Airmeith’s heart plummeted in her chest at the look contorting the other woman’s face. Without a second thought, she dropped her coffee cup into a trash bin and ran towards the nurse. She led her through the hospital and into a room where Dr. Coolidge waited, alone. It was always this way, just the two of them. He said it was to protect her from prying eyes, but she knew it was to keep the knowledge of magic hidden from as many as possible.

Dr. Coolidge rushed towards her. “A young woman, around thirty,” he began to explain as he fell into a quick step beside her. “Third degree burns over nearly her whole body. Her heart has stopped, you need to be fast. We have no more than five minutes until we’ve completely lost her.”

“I can help her,” Airmeith said as the door to the medical suite swung open.

A surge of power nearly stopped her in her tracks. She didn’t need to look to know a bean chaointe stood in the corner. The creature would be staring at her.

Airmeith liked to think she had learned the language of the keeners over the years. She thought, perhaps, that she understood the subtleties of the glances, the glares, the way they’d fix their shawls or drag their feet. Maybe they felt her power pushing back against theirs. Maybe they knew why she came.

She didn’t look back at the monster. She could tell from the subtle push of its magic that it was unhappy with her arrival. Then the waves shifted. From her other side came a rush of electricity, sending her hair on edge. She gasped, memory taking hold in her mind.

Airmeith turned fast to the woman lying on the bed. Dread pooled in her stomach. It sent cold into her face and down her body. She stared at the woman, eyes wide.

“What? What is it?” Dr. Coolidge feverishly asked, taking a step forward. He looked down at her, brows knit together, but she did not notice him. Her eyes were stuck on the figure in the bed.

“I know this woman,” Airmeith said. Her voice sounded distant; she wasn’t even certain she had spoken the words.

Nausea rolled through her as she surveyed the creature before her. Her exposed skin blistered out in splotches of red and black, but her face and hair were left perfectly intact. The unblemished skin shone white as the sheets beneath her, her hair a familiar fiery red.

“Excuse me?”

“Her name is Kristine.”

1954

Airmeith paced in her grandmother’s hospital room, picking at the dried paint on her hands. Her eyes kept flitting back to the poor old woman, images of the night before flashing in her mind. Anger boiled up in her chest. She walked over to the plastic chair in the corner, kicking it with all the force she could muster. Again and again, she slammed her foot against its metal legs until the chair fell to the floor with a clang.

She looked over to her grandmother, nausea rising in her throat. Máthair Chríona belonged on a hilly field in Ireland. She deserved to be picking wildflowers and humming her tune.

A bang in the hallway drew Airmeith’s attention away. Kristine stood in the fluorescent lighting, her fiery hair tied tight behind her head. Airmeith tried not to remember the way she’d looked last night.

Kristine flinched from the doorway, taking a step back as if burned. In a moment, her eyes connected with Airmeith’s. They burned into her like wild flames.

“Did you put up a protection against me?” she asked, nostrils flaring.

Airmeith planted her feet strong, as though the words could blow her across the room. She crossed her arms over her chest, as if to hide the dried paint on her hands. When she spoke, she willed her voice to be steady, not to shake or clog in the center of her throat.

“Yes.”

The dark witch took another step back, lowering her arms to her sides. Airmeith’s heart quickened in her chest. It bashed itself against her ribcage like a bird towards the outside world. Her eyes shifted towards the runes she’d painted along the doorframe, down to the knot clutched in her fist. They were strong, she was strong. Kristine could not break her magic. She was not strong enough.

“I have a right to this room, Airmeith,” Kristine shouted. Her arms crackled with electricity. The hair on Airmeith’s neck stood up on end.

“No, you don’t.”

“She’s my máthair chríona too.”

“You forfeited that relationship, Kristine. You made your choice, now you have to live with it.”

The dark witch cocked her head to the side, brows narrowing. “Don’t confuse your anger with her well-being, deirfiúr beag.”

“You don’t get to call me that!” Aimeth shouted back. She could feel the rope of the knot digging itself into her flesh. She shoved every ounce of her consciousness towards the runes. She willed the witch away, willed her far, far away. The drawings on the walls glowed with power, drowning the room in light. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear a pained yell, but she didn’t care.

1958

Dr. Coolidge paced back and forth behind his desk. His glasses rested in one hand, the other being used to rub the flesh of his face.

“We can use this.”

“What?”

He hadn’t said a word since Airmeith had explained who—or what—she was and what she’d done. He’d lead her back to his office and sat her in a chair. For fifteen minutes she’d watched him pace. Back and forth and back and forth across the carpeted floors. She tried to look around the room, to read the words in the shiny frames hung on his walls, but her eyes couldn’t settle on anything but his face. Terror was clawing its way up her throat. She pulled the trash can closer to her side.

“We can use this,” he repeated. “You can... You can prevent death. I mean–” he laughed, the sound bubbling up from his chest like a screech–“don’t you understand what this means? If you can–  Oh my God this is amazing! Think of the possibilities!”

“I can’t prevent death,” Airmeith said.

“Then what did you just do?”

“I saved their lives.”

“From what?”

“From...” she fell silent, looking down at her socks. The tips were stained brown with bile and dust.

Dr. Coolidge sat on the other side of the desk. He slid his glasses back onto his face. “We can’t use it unless you explain it to me, Amy. Isn’t that why you’re a nurse, dear? To save lives? Work with me here.”

She hesitated, looking up at the older man. His eyes were lit in a way she’d never seen them, a glow emanating beneath the surface. He was a doctor. She was one of the mná feasa. What was really the difference between them anyway?

“Not everyone can be saved. Some lives are over and there’s nothing to be done. But some lives... some lives aren’t done. Some lives are being cut short by unnatural causes. I can... The mná chaointe scream differently when they’re taking one that isn’t meant to die yet. They... they mourn the loss.”

“How can I know who to save if I can’t hear the...” Dr. Coolidge trailed off. He leaned across the desk, inching closer to her.

“I can show you.”

1962

“I don’t understand,” Mam said, shaking her head. “There weren’t any precursors? Any warnings?”

Airmeith sat at the kitchen table, rubbing her hands. She looked up at her mother, eyes wide. “Well, I’ve been having dizzy spells recently, but I didn’t think anything of it.” She was often tired–she over-worked herself, used her magic to its limits. Today, after she’d saved a car-crash victim, the dizziness consumed her.

“What happened, exactly?” Mam asked for the third time.

“I don’t know!” Airmeith tossed her hands in the air. “I don’t know. I... I stepped out of the room and my head was spinning. I looked down and–” she paused, the memory gripping onto her. It sank its nails into her mind, replaying like a nightmare.

She stepped out of the surgical suite, heart beating fast in her chest. She could hear her pulse rushing through her ears. The sound echoed through her mind like the crash of waves against a rocky cliff.

Then the pain started. So sudden, so strong, that she fell to the floor. It started in her hands. She ripped off her latex gloves, desperately trying to release herself from their sticky confines. She looked down at her fingers and gagged.

The veins of her hands had turned black. Her fingertips were numb. She watched as the flesh of the backs of her hands began to peel back. It fell to the floor in flakes. Out oozed black waste. It gooped out of her hands and dripped down her fingers onto the tile.

“Hmm.” Mam stood up and crossed towards the stove. The motion drew Airmeith back to the present. Her mother reached up into one of the cabinets and pulled forth a dusty, leather-bound book.

“Do you think–” Airmeith hesitated, fear clawing its way back up her throat. She swallowed hard. “Do you think it's the same thing that happened to–”

“We can’t be certain of anything,” she settled on a page, eyes quickly skimming over the words. “What happened before was unprecedented as far as I’m aware.”

A shudder ran down Airmeith’s spine. She wanted to forget. She wanted to erase the past eight years from her mind. Let it all be blank and empty. Let the numbness consume her.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t erase her memory any easier than she could deny the thought that dawned in the back of her mind.

“It’s dying, isn’t it?” Airmeith asked, looking up at her mother. “My magic?”

The truth of the statement settled deep into her chest, like a stone dropped into a calm river. This was the way it would be. She did not treat her magic as a gift, but only because she wished to spread it to as many people as she could. She had only worked at the hospital for seven years, but in those seven years alone she had saved countless lives. Back in Ireland though? Back in the old days? She would have had a small community, enough people that she’d only ever have to use that power, that deep strength, a handful of times over the course of her entire life.

Mam frantically flipped through the old tomb, searching for answers on the handwritten pages. The faster she flipped, the calmer Airmeith was.

“What does it say?” she asked, resignation washing over her.

“It says you have to stop.” Mam snapped the book shut and dropped it to the counter. “You’ve pushed yourself too hard for too long. You’ve used the depths of your magic beyond their proper use. You cannot prevent anyone else’s deaths.”

“I don’t prevent death, Mam. I heal. I help. If–”

“It’s killing you, Airmeith!” Mam snapped, her voice raising a decibel.

The young woman leaned back in the chair, the words striking her harder than any blow possibly could. Her mother softened, drifting across the room to squat before her daughter. She rested a hand on her thigh, lifting the other to brush dark waves from Aimieth’s forehead.

“You cannot save very many more people, a stóirín. If you do, the magic will take you with it.”

1954

“What have you done?” The shout issued forth from somewhere deep within Aimieth’s chest. She stared down at Kristine, heart pounding, throat closing. Her eyes swiveled back to the man lying on the kitchen floor, the sticky red liquid dripping from his eyes like tears.

Kristine looked up at her. Her chin jutted out a little, her brow even and steady. Her blue eyes brightened at the challenge of Airmeith’s gaze. “I did what I had to do.”

She said it like it was simple, obvious. Her voice dripped with a calm certainty that sucked the air from Airmeith’s lungs. Bile rose in her throat. She tried not to look at the man, which only made her eyes focus on him more. She stared at the blood drying to flakes on his cheeks, at the blue welts across his chest, like electricity frozen in flesh.

She realized with a start she knew who he was. The dark beard on his chin, the mass of messy hair on his head. She had been in his apartment, she realized, she had watched Kristine steal his cigarettes.

Airmeith could not contain the bile any longer. She let it spill from her lips onto the linoleum floor and tried to ignore the way it burned her esophagus. Once her stomach had been emptied, she turned back to Kristine, eyes wild.

“You had to kill your uncle?” She demanded to understand. How? How could anyone do such a thing? How could Kristine justify this?

Kristine shouted, drawing herself to her full height, “He had to pay for what he’d done.”

“And you get to deliver that punishment?”

Magic is gentle, a healing force, an extension of nature. We are merely the vessels of the natural world that can take hold of it.

She took a step back from the dark witch, away from the dead man on her kitchen floor. She came back from class to find him there, Kristine crouched over him like the monster from a children’s book.

The door swung open with a crash. Máthair Chríona rushed into the room, her head clutched in her hands. Her nightgown stuck to her skin with sweat, her hair wild around her head. Her pupils dilated when her eyes landed on the girls standing in her kitchen. Her eyes swiveled quickly towards the corner, then to the man on the floor. Airmeith tried to look, tried to see what she saw, but there was nothing there.

“Out of the way!” Máthair Chríona shouted.

The girls jumped back as the old woman fell onto her knees before Kristine’s uncle, the man who had housed her for twenty-three years. Máthair Chríona shot her arms out over the body, hands steady. Her eyes squeezed shut. The electric pulse of magic floated through the air, sweet and sticky like honey in the summertime. It slid over Airmeith’s skin like a caress, rushing forward towards the man.

Máthair Chríona began to hum her old tune, the sound strained on her lips. Then, without warning, she fell down onto her back. Airmeith screamed, bending towards the old woman. She watched in horror as the veins of her hands turned black. The blistering ran up towards her throat, over her face, and disappeared into her hair.

The air was sucked out of the room as Máthair Chríona’s skin slowly peeled back, letting black ooze from beneath. She let in a shaky breath. Her arm reached upwards, blindly grasping for Airmeith’s. The sensation of warm goo on her arm startled the girl back into herself. She looked around frantically until her eyes locked with Kristine's.

“Call 911!” Airmeith shouted to the traitor, grasping at the old woman. “Now! Hurry!”

1963

“Kristine?” Dr. Coolidge echoed, looking down at the woman.

“Yes.”

The certainty that had been growing in Airmeith’s stomach slowed to a stop. The dull pulse of heavy magic she had grown so used to in the past five years washed over her. You cannot save very many more people, a stóirín. If you do, the magic will take you with it.

She turned to the keener, back straight and chin stuck out.

“Who are you here for?” she asked the creature.

The woman stared back at her through a tangled web of hair. She reached up a wrinkled hand to pull her cloak closer around her shoulders. Airmeith’s mind was fuzzy, she could not think straight, could not decipher the subtle motion.

“Airmeith, it won’t be long until the damage to her brain is too severe. We have no more time to waste.”

She turned back to Kristine. Bile raced its way up her throat. She looked down at her gloved hands, remembering the dark that oozed out from them, remembering the black veins on her grandmother’s face. If you don’t respect your power, if you stop treating it like a gift and more like a necessity, it may not trust you anymore.

“One of us is going to die,” she told the still body on the bed. “Will it be you or me?”

“What are you–” Dr. Coolidge began. Airmeith turned to face him, determination strong on her face, and the man stopped. He nodded, his jaw clenching. Even if he did not understand Airmeith, did not know her ways or her reasons, he had grown to respect her. The mná feasa demanded that respect.

The bean chaointe took a step forward leaving a muddy footstep in her wake. Panic clawed its way up Airmeith’s throat. She looked down at Kristine. Airmeith knew it was she and she alone who could decide whether to save or condemn that woman.

One of them was going to die. One of them was going to return home.

We are mná feasa, a stóirín. Healers. We are here to fix the broken, to guide the weak, to save whatever we can.

Airmeith was not a killer. She spent her life saving everyone she could. Could she live knowing she’d killed one of the few people her grandmother had loved? Could she live with the knowledge that she hadn’t done what she’d promised to do?

Airmeith took a deep breath. She let the air well up in the depths of her stomach. She tried not to think of Mam. Poor Mam who’d been separated from the homeland her whole life. Poor Mam who would be all alone without her. Maybe Kristine would go home. She wouldn’t apologize for Airmeith’s death, but maybe she’d stay by Mam. Maybe she’d have a daughter and Mam would be her Máthair Chríona. She’d teach them the lessons of the past, keep the tradition alive. Maybe they’d sit together on Samhain and welcome Airmeith back to the land of the living.

A tear slid down Airmeith’s cheek.

She and the bean chaointe took a step forward at the same time. She didn’t look at the creature. She couldn’t see. She felt a hand on her shoulder. Dr. Coolidge said something, his voice sweeter than she’d ever heard it. She wondered if he would miss her or her magic more.

Airmeith took another step forward. She’d hug Máthair Chríona for Mam. She’d hold the old woman tight. She’d follow her around as she introduced all the ancestors.

Another step. Her hands were shaking. A groan issued forth from the charred creature on the bed. Her eyes opened, bright blue sparking to life.

Airmeith hesitated. She remembered the look in those eyes when she found Kristine standing over her own dying uncle. She remembered the way her grandmother’s veins went black with the force of her dying magic.

“I can save her,” she said. Was it to herself? to Máthair Chríona? to Dr. Coolidge?

The bean chaointe took a step forward. Kristine groaned. Airmeith’s pulse rushed through her head like a river.

The keener’s arms flung outward over the dark witch’s legs.

Airmeith threw her arms over Kristine’s legs.

The bean chaointe turned to face her, eyes wide.

Pain reverberated through her arms. It pierced through her veins like ice water.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She hoped the sound carried its way to her mother’s ears.

Everything went dark.

The keening began.