Irish Mist - Sean's Story (Mary O'Reilly Short Story) Read Free Page B

stood up and walked to the doorway. “Your mom is asleep right now, but your Grandma is awake. I’ll have her sit with you while I cook.”
    Sean smiled and wondered what all the special treatment was about, but he didn’t dare ask, in case questioning things might cause them to reconsider.  He started to push himself up to a sitting position, but winced as a pain shot through his arm.  He pushed down the blankets and looked down at the white bandages wrapped around his forearm.
    “Do you remember what happened?” his grandmother asked from the doorway.
    Sean looked up and shook his head. “I thought I remembered something about the woods,” he said. “But every time I try to concentrate on it, it floats away.”
    She came closer and pulled up a wooden chair next to the couch and sat close to his head. “Do you remember the woods?” she asked.
    Nodding, he tried to picture it again. “Yes, we were playing hide and seek,” he said slowly. “I wanted to find a great hiding place, so I climbed the fence and went into the woods.”
    “And once in the woods, what did you see?” she asked.
    “There were, you know, woods stuff,” he replied. “Trees, bushes, rocks and…”
    His eyes widened and he quickly turned his hand over and looked at the scrape across his palm. “There was a girl,” he said, staring at his hand. “And she cut me with her knife. She cut me because I was poisoned and we mixed our blood.”
    His grandmother took his hand into her own and studied the wound.  “Aye, ‘tis so narrow you wouldn’t know it was a cut, just a wee scrape that didn’t break the skin. A fairy cut no doubt.”
    “What?” he asked, meeting her eyes.
    She wasn’t teasing.  She wasn’t telling a story.  His grandmother actually believed he’d been cut by a fairy’s knife.  But that was impossible, wasn’t it?  There were no such things as little people.  No such things as fairies. No such things as…
    “Well, Sean, you’ll have to make due with grilled cheese,” his father said, as he entered the room carrying a plate filled with food. “Will that work?”
    Sean nodded absently. “Yeah, da, that will be great,” he said.
    “What’s wrong?” his father asked, looking back and forth between Sean and his grandmother.
    Knowing how his father felt about fairy tales, Sean decided not to tell him what his grandmother had just suggested. “What happened to me?” he asked.
    Timothy pulled over a TV tray and set Sean’s food on it, then he pulled up another chair and sat alongside his mother-in-law. “Well, the doctor said there’s a vine in the woods that has some pretty nasty thorns on it and the leaves are actually a hallucinogen. He figures you got caught up in the vines and struggled to get out and the plant matter got into your wound, causing your hallucinations.”
    “What hallucinations?” Sean asked.
    Timothy chuckled. “You kept talking about a monster with long claws and a red-haired girl with a sword. It would have been pretty funny if we hadn’t been so frightened for you.”
    “Yeah, pretty funny,” Sean agreed half-heartedly, glancing over to his grandmother who met his eyes and shook her head quickly.
    Taking a deep breath, Sean nodded to her and turned to his dad. “Good thing the doctor knew what he was talking about,” he said. “Or else the rest of you might have thought I was crazy.”
    “Yeah, I’d hate to have to lock up my own son,” Timothy teased.
    Sean picked up the sandwich and took a bite. “Yeah, me too,” he murmured, “me too.”
     

Chapter Six
    (present day)
     
    The Grant Park Garage was nearly deserted, except for a few vagrants who were looking for a place to shelter from the cold Chicago spring rain.  Sean hitched up the collar of his jacket as the wind blew rain down from the sidewalk above.  Watching water run in rivulets down the stairs and across the cement into the drainpipes as he walked down the stairs, he wondered if the rain was ever