edublerps, llc

Aunt Brigid

They were gathered there for Martin’s funeral. They’d been at the wake the night before, and were all nursing miserable hangovers as they sat in the nave of the small stone church, listening to the old priest’s rambling, monotone mass for the dead. It was nearly over, and Stover, for one, couldn’t wait for the burial. Martin was to be interred in his family’s plot in the tiny cemetery beside the old country church.

A freezing rain was falling, driven by a howling wind. Stover was feeling pukey, and didn’t expect to be capable of keeping his breakfast to himself for much longer. He looked around, hoping for distraction, and noted that the church was anything but full.

Where was Martin’s family? Stover wondered. He’d had a large one, though Stover knew he’d been on the outs with his eldest brother for some years, over a matter that Martin hadn’t bothered to share with his friends. “Amen,” intoned the mourners, in answer to the priest. Stover left the pew and took his place at the casket with the other pallbearers. He recognized Gilly and Bob and Sam, but had no idea who the others were. They left the church, hunched in their overcoats, each with one hand clutching the coffin handles, the other struggling to keep collars closed against the elements. Those in attendance began leaving the pews and shuffling for the doors behind the pallbearers, donning rain gear as they, to a person, looked out at the unfriendly weather and paused slightly before girding themselves and stepping over the threshold.

They carried Martin to the side of the grave and rested the coffin on the portable bier, from whence it was lowered into the ground by a couple of funeral home employees.

Martin and Stover and Gilly and Sam and Bob. Together forever, that was the plan when they’d all been fourteen. Things don’t always work out the way you’re certain they will in your dewy youth, and their tight-knit band, brought and held together by the various dysfunctions of their financially-stressed working-class homes, had dissolved. So gradual as to be imperceptible, the bonds were loosened and severed by jobs, marriages, and the usual bunch of shit slung at each one by an indifferent world, that must be dealt with and cannot be ignored.

“S’pose Aunt Brigid’s gonna show?” Stover turned to find Gilly at his side, looking at the casket lying in the grave, as the few mourners dispersed and the gravediggers started to refill the cavity.

“Who?”

“Why are these guys shoveling in the dirt by hand?” said Gilly. “I thought they used backhoes for this stuff now.”

“I don’t know, maybe too expensive for a little church in the sticks? Who’s Aunt Brigid?”

Bob joined them. “You don’t remember Aunt Brigid? Martin was terrified of her, back when we were kids. I think she was actually a great aunt twice-removed, or something like that – shirttail relation, ya know? Dried-up old lady, four-feet nothing tall, always wore these long, gray old-fashioned dresses. Had a real Irish accent, Martin told me the family could barely understand a word she said.”

“I didn’t know Martin was Irish,“ said Stover. “I mean, his last name was Braun – German, right?”

“Yep. But Aunt Brigid was from his mom’s family. O’Brien, O’Bannon, O’Brannigan, something like that.”

“Well, if she was old and petrified thirty years ago, she must be dead by now.”

“You’d think,” said Bob, “but I saw Martin’s mom a couple years back, just a chance encounter on the street. We were chatting, talking about getting a coffee and catching up, when this tiny, ancient woman walks up behind her and puts her hand on her shoulder, says it’s time for them to be going. Took me a second to recognize her, but it was Aunt Brigid. She looked the same as I remembered, hadn’t aged a day. Of course, she looked so old back then, I don’t know if she could age any more and still be identifiable as human.”

The workers having finished with the grave, Martin’s wife Ingrid laid an armful of flowers on the mound. Gilly, Bob and Stover went over to her, to give condolences and proffer whatever assistance they could.

“I heard you mention Brigid,” she said. “Did you wonder why none of Martin’s brothers or sisters showed up today? I mean, yeah, he and Tommy are – were – still not speaking. All Martin would tell me, in fifteen years of marriage, was that Tommy did something he, Martin, could never forgive, and that was how it was. But he and the other siblings got along to various degrees, like any large family. The reason none of them came was that they’re all scared.”

“What?” said Stover. “Why would they be afraid to come to their own brother’s funeral?”

“Because,” she said, “of Brigid. Brigid O’Brahney, by the way, Bob. Brigid O’Brahney died in 1843, in Ballincar, in County Sligo, Ireland.”

“She so did not,” said Gilly. “She was at Martin’s confirmation party. She told me a dirty joke about a leprechaun and a Catholic priest. I liked her, she was funny.”

“Be that as it may, Brigid died more than one-hundred and fifty years ago. She’s a banshee, the spirit of a deceased woman from an Irish family who haunts the family forever after. Martin told me about her when his mom died, and I’d have thought he was off his meds, except he wasn’t on any. The banshee appears right before someone dies and wails outside their house, sometimes every night for a week or more, until the person dies. Usually it’s someone who’s already sick, but sometimes, like with Martin, it just happens. But when Brigid shows, an O’Brahney dies. I didn’t believe it, until she came to visit, and Aunt Mary died the next day. Six months later Brigid returns, Uncle Conal dies two weeks later. The next time we saw her, Martin’s youngest sister, Fiona and his cousin Ciara died in a car crash. Coincidence? Maybe, but…when Martin answered the doorbell last week and saw Aunt Brigid on the porch, he nearly fainted. She left after a cup of tea, but Martin heard the keening every night, right up until the stroke. Funny, I didn’t hear a thing, but that’s how it supposedly works.”

“Now that I think of it,” Gilly said, “Martin’s grandfather died not long after that party.”

“So why the fear of going to the funeral?” Bob said.

“If Brigid were to make an appearance, it would mean another death. None of Martin’s family is getting any younger. Everyone but poor Fiona, of course, and Maggie, the next youngest, are over fifty. Larry’s got a bum ticker, Molly’s clinically obese, and Kathleen is, well, Kathleen. I think she might be next in line for the banshee position, should Aunt Brigid want to retire.”

Ingrid left for the reception in the church hall, to be consoled by strange people eating donated casseroles and deserts, and drinking weak church-event coffee from an industrial-sized urn. Bob, Gilly, Sam and Stover stayed behind, sitting by the grave in the steadily-falling rain, passing a bottle that Gilly produced from a raincoat pocket, and reminiscing. Had they been in Ireland, and been a lot younger and much better-looking, it would have made a whiskey commercial.

“Damn it, Stover,” Bob said, “stop bogarting the booze. Hey, you guys remember that time we all pissed in a beer bottle, then leaned it up against old man Jenkins’s door and knocked on it? I never knew Martin could run so fast. When old Jenkins came after us with that shotgun, I thought we were all gonna need clean underwear.”

“Yeah,” Stover passed the bottle. “What about when Suzy Finstead told Sister Clementa that we were calling her Sister Dementia when her back was turned? I thought that yardstick was going to strip the hide off my ass right through my jeans.”

The whiskey bottle gurgled, then flew onto the grass behind them. “Dead soldier,” said a voice. A scratchy, creaky, age-inflected voice, with an Irish lilt. Stover, Sam, and Gilly stared at Bob, who turned to see what was drawing their attention. An old woman sat next to him, tiny and wizened, dressed in old-fashioned, drab-colored clothing. “That Martin,” she creaked. “What a feckin’ eedjit. And yourselves, as well, am I not right?”

Stover hadn’t the slightest idea from where this crone had appeared, and could tell by the faces of the others that they’d also been taken by surprise. “You Martin’s grandma or somethin’?” Gilly asked, his voice slurred by the whiskey.

“In a way.” She chuckled. “You know, Martin considered you boys to be his brothers, got on with you four far better than with his natural siblings. By the way, my name is Brigid. You can call me Aunt Brigid, if you’d like, since I think of you as my nephews.” She cackled, Stover would have said uproariously, if that were even possible. What in the fuck, he wondered, was going on? Was the alcohol going to his head and causing hallucinations? Was someone playing an elaborate joke on them? Gilly, Sam, and Bob seemed just as puzzled as he. He turned to confront the woman, but she’d disappeared. Without a trace. Moved pretty fast for one that ancient.

“Weird,” said Stover, and the rest nodded their agreement. No one had much to say after that, so they headed to the reception, keeping their thoughts to themselves, not certain that the last few minutes had been real or some sort of shared illusion.

That night, Stover heard the wailing.