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mind over matter
The Donnelly family has always had its share of strange folk.
There was Great-Aunt Maeve who was born with a caul and pulled from the womb tangled in the blue body of her own twin. A lot of people claimed they had the second sight but Maeve actually did: she had a gateway into the world beyond, because of the dead twin, you see. Her hair turned white on her thirteenth birthday. She spoke in tongues and walked the hills at night with her face as pale as her nightgown, and not a few people said that a visit from Maeve Donnelly was nearly bad as one from the devil himself. She sat up straight in bed the night of her thirty-ninth birthday, screamed as though the hounds of hell were after her and dropped dead like a stone.
And then there was Uncle James Donnelly, who cheated death in his fishing boat so many times there was tell he'd sold his soul for eternal life. He lived to be a hundred and two, a bachelor until the end, and rarely spoke: but his laugh was enough to chill a strong man to the marrow. He owned a huge black dog that had feet the size of a bear: they'd run together, both howling at the moon.
Martin Donnelly (third cousin) could tell a man the hour of his death and be right to the minute: Eve Donnelly (Maeve's half-deaf niece) claimed to have an eye in the palm of her withered hand and read marked bible verses through a locked metal box just by putting her palm on the lid.
So no one really took much notice when Bridget Donnelly's second boy changed a glass of water into a glass of shandy that wasn't half bad, and from there to a glass of decent stout; or could turn a dead horse into a working car with little more than a splitting headache afterwards.
Donnellys were strange folk, after all.
There was Great-Aunt Maeve who was born with a caul and pulled from the womb tangled in the blue body of her own twin. A lot of people claimed they had the second sight but Maeve actually did: she had a gateway into the world beyond, because of the dead twin, you see. Her hair turned white on her thirteenth birthday. She spoke in tongues and walked the hills at night with her face as pale as her nightgown, and not a few people said that a visit from Maeve Donnelly was nearly bad as one from the devil himself. She sat up straight in bed the night of her thirty-ninth birthday, screamed as though the hounds of hell were after her and dropped dead like a stone.
And then there was Uncle James Donnelly, who cheated death in his fishing boat so many times there was tell he'd sold his soul for eternal life. He lived to be a hundred and two, a bachelor until the end, and rarely spoke: but his laugh was enough to chill a strong man to the marrow. He owned a huge black dog that had feet the size of a bear: they'd run together, both howling at the moon.
Martin Donnelly (third cousin) could tell a man the hour of his death and be right to the minute: Eve Donnelly (Maeve's half-deaf niece) claimed to have an eye in the palm of her withered hand and read marked bible verses through a locked metal box just by putting her palm on the lid.
So no one really took much notice when Bridget Donnelly's second boy changed a glass of water into a glass of shandy that wasn't half bad, and from there to a glass of decent stout; or could turn a dead horse into a working car with little more than a splitting headache afterwards.
Donnellys were strange folk, after all.
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They were born on Beltane, but her sister died on Samhain.
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I like this a lot--the casual, tall-tale tone really makes it.
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(I think Aunt Maeve should have woken up screaming on the night of her thirty-ninth birthday, though.)
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superstition ftw.
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Were its feet really the same size as a bear or the same size as a bear's feet? ;-p
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I sure did! My internal copyeditor is hard to suppress though unfortunately...