Page 169 of Releasing 10
“Because she wanted the gift of eternal life and made a deal with the devil in order to get it,” Gibsie replied in an eerie tone. “And the blood of six innocents was the devil’s price.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Patrick mused, looking as invested as the rest of us. “Your version’s way better, Gibs.”
With a smug look on his face, Gibs continued with his tale. “When the parents of the six children awoke in the morning to find their children missing from their beds, all hell broke loose in the town. Search parties were formed, and everyone went out looking for the missing children.”
“Shit,” Hugh muttered, rubbing his jaw. “This is actually class, Gibs.”
“When the lifeless children were eventually discovered on the edge of the riverbank, all six of their bodies were missing their hearts!”
“Holy crap!” Claire choked out, wide-eyed and terrified. “The witch ate their hearts?”
“Worse,” Gibsie replied. “She took their hearts back to her house and placed them on her unholy alter.”
“That’s how the townspeople found out who killed the kids?” I asked, shifting closer to Hugh’s other side. “Because they found their hearts in Grainne’s house?”
“Exactly,” Gibsie agreed, shining the torch at me before retraining the light on his chin. “When the townspeople of Ballylaggin caught up with Grainne, they were enraged.”
“What did they do?”
“They sought the help of another witch,” Gibsie continued, enthralling the rest of us with his tale. “A powerful priestess from a nearby village.”
“To do what?”
“The parents of the dead children, along with the rest of the townspeople, decided the punishment should fit the crime and convinced the priestess to do their bidding. Determined to inflict an eternity of torment upon Grainne, they persuaded the priestess to cast a curse so vile, so despicably unmoral that it had never been heard of before then.”
“What was it?”
“They didn’t think death was enough of a punishment for Grainne’s crimes, no matter how painful or slow that death came, so along with the priestess, the townspeople conjured up a curse that would chain her for eternity in limbo.”
“Limbo?” Claire arched a brow. “What’s that?”
“Limbo is where ghosts live,” I explained. “They’re not in our physical world, but they’re not gone, either.”
“Exactly. It’s like the in-between after you die,” Hugh added, while he draped a reassuring arm around each of us. “You’re not on earth, and you’re not in heaven or hell. You’re in limbo.”
“So that night, as the sun set in the west and the priestess summoned the powers of her deities to enforce the curse upon the evil witch, the townspeople of Ballylaggin tied Grainne Ní hÓigáin to a stake on the hill outside her house and burned her alive.”
“Holy shit, Gibs,” Patrick breathed, shaking his head. “Please tell me there’s more.”
“After her death, the townspeople thought they had seen the last of the witch, and they had, for a time…”
“Until?”
“Until six years later, when another six children disappeared from their beds, only to be found the following morning in the exact same spot on the riverbank and with their hearts removed from their lifeless bodies.”
“Okay, what the hell?” Claire squealed, looking panicked. “This is too much.”
“Legend has it the priestess made a fatal error when casting the curse,” Gibsie explained in a deathly cold voice. “One that—on the sixth day, of the sixth month, every six years—allowed the witch to return. Free to roam the townland of Ballylaggin, in search of six more children.”
“Oh my God, I have the heebie-jeebies so bad,” I snickered, burrowing into Hugh’s side.
“Because she drowned the original children in the river, she was forbidden by nature to cross water, trapping her wandering spirit to the town land she died in, and legend has it that, late at night, when the sound of wailing screams fill the darkness, it’s Grainne screaming in the afterlife, as she relives the pain of being burned alive.”
“Holy crap, Gibs,” Hugh exclaimed, sounding impressed. “That was epic.”
“So there you have it,” Gibsie chuckled, finally breaking character and resuming his playful mood. “Thetruestory of the Banshee of Ballylaggin.”
Meanwhile, the only thing the rest of us could do in that moment was give him a round of applause.
