Midnight in Glengalough, not far
from where the River Boyne flowed into Dundalk Bay on the East Coast of
Ireland. Once a prosperous abbey, the abbey had died and the town had moved
east to be closer to the river and the Irish Sea.
Young Hamlin O’Boyle should never
have been there in that graveyard in the middle of the night. If the stories
were true, if he had known the stories, he would never have gone there even in
full daylight, but he wasn’t from Glengalough. He was from the Bog of Allen,
three days ride west.
“Just follow the river, son,” said
his father. “Here’s money for the ferry over the Blackwater. Just keep the
River Boyne on your right, and you’ll come out okay in the end. Even a boy as
simple as you can follow the river, can’t you?”
Of
course. Certainly, Father. No, I’m not one bit frightened to ride to the sea
alone, to see grandmother. It’s only three days and two night, alone, just me
and the horse, in the wilds, by myself!
Like so many other things in life,
it was simple; but it sure wasn’t easy. He had doubled back twice: once, when
the road wandered too far from the river, and he was sure he had lost his way;
and once again, when he had come to a fork and took the right fork, the lower
fork, the fork that should certainly have wandered back to find the Boyne, but
had instead taken him back up into the hills. He had lost hours of time. Now,
he was running out of food and felt he was so perilously close to his
destination that he dared not stop, even when darkness fell.
Frigga, his palomino mare, paused in
the middle of the ancient graveyard. She pawed the overgrown tufts of grass,
and shook her head at the tilted gravestones.
“Easy there, Frigga,” said Hamlin,
his voice trembling.
Frigga snorted, and to the boy, it
seemed that the chuffing meant, “Easy? Bah! You’ve gotten us lost in a
graveyard, and you want me to take it
easy?”
He patted her neck and looked over
his shoulder. There must have been 30 gravestones in various stages of falling
over. He saw a low wall that looked like a giant snake slithering through the
darkness. His heart sang when he saw a small stone outbuilding, but even in the
darkness, he could tell the roof had fallen in, and it was too small to be
anyone’s home.
He looked up. “Oye! What is that?”
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I think it's going to be a hoot. You'll soon be able to buy the story here.
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