The Whitest Flower. Brendan Graham

be ignited – to crackle and hiss and flame and spark into glorious life again.

      Just as the old black wood was liberated by fire, so too this night of celebration freed the people of the valley. A people not yet suffocated by hundreds of years of an alien culture seeking to dominate, to drive out the old ways of this land. A people not yet made joyless by the starched, imposed strictures of the Catholic Church.

      ‘Fire is life.’

      Ellen looked for the bright stars that formed the handle of the Plough and smiled, knowing the Máistir was there, wise as ever.

      She felt a tug at her elbow. It was Mary, all bright and rosy from the heat of the bonfire.

      ‘Come on, a Mhamaí, give me your hand and we’ll do the circle round the fire.’

      Ellen, surprised by Mary’s initiative – normally Katie was the one doing all the pulling and tugging – bent down and gave her quiet child a hug. Perhaps Mary was at last, getting out of being so backward about coming forward, as Michael put it. It wasn’t easy to be the outgoing one, when you had a twin sister who ran at life, day after day, fit for anything – and everything.

      ‘Of course, a stóirín,’ she whispered.

      Mary grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her towards the ring of people forming around the fire. Someone took Ellen’s other hand as it trailed behind her, but she took little notice of this in the general melee.

      Ellen spotted Katie on the far side of the bonfire, pulling Michael into the ring as Mary had done with her. She could imagine her twins plotting and scheming, the whispered argument: ‘I’ll get Mammy and you get Daddy.’ ‘No, I’ll get Mammy and you get Daddy.’

      Slowly, the ring of fire-dancers, their hands joined, began to move to the right around the fire. Ellen, feeling a cold grip on her left hand, turned to see who it was. With a start she saw Sheela-na-Sheeoga grinning at her, flickers of light darting across her face, giving it a wild look.

      ‘Dance easy round the fire, Ellen Rua. Dance easy tonight.’ The old woman’s voice rattled out to her through the crackling sound of the bonfire. ‘For it’s no harm you want to be bringing on yourself this night when the evil ones fly in the air.’

      Ellen hoped that Sheela would not notice the unsettling effect her presence was having. Why had the old one to be always on her shoulder, appearing out of nowhere with some ominous-sounding message? It was as if Sheela had appointed herself both midwife and guardian for this child. Ellen rued the day she had gone over the mountain to see the old cailleach.

      ‘Everything is fine, Sheela,’ she heard herself saying.

      Sheela-na-Sheeoga’s eyes glinted back at her, the flickering of the fire adding a demonic intensity to them.

      ‘Let you pick up the burning ember and pass it round yourself to purify your body. Let the fire protect you from the evil ones.’

      This advice seemed to Ellen to bring a chilling dimension to the old custom of casting the embers. Glad of the excuse to break off physical contact with the woman, she grasped an ember. Contrary to the old one’s admonitions, she did not pass it around her body, but slowly and deliberately made a fiery sign of the cross before casting the ember high into the Halloween night. It turned and twisted as it rose, sizzling and crackling as it cut a path through the air. Starwards it climbed, hanging in the heavens, until at its zenith it flared brightly. Then, like a fallen soul, it dropped. Only a dark, dull redness remained, in stark contrast to its previous showering, sparking glory. Now, thought Ellen, it will burn out alone, hidden in the blackness beyond the Crucán, dying in its own ashes as they returned to the earth.

      ‘Ellen, are you all right?’ Michael appeared at her side looking worried. He had noticed that she seemed preoccupied of late, as if she had drifted into a place that was beyond his reach. At such times she seemed to him like a spirit-woman. Her body was there – you could touch it, feel it, taste it – but her elusive spirit slipped between your fingers.

      ‘Ah, I’m fine, Michael. It’s just the night that’s in it, and thinking of those who are gone. Nothing ails me. Sure, isn’t it the same with everyone else here?’

      Katie rushed over to them, her face all alight.

      ‘Did you see that?’ she burst out. ‘I hit one of them – I hit an evil spirit.’

      ‘Ah! Hush that talk now, Katie,’ said Patrick, a little unnerved by the Halloween ceremonies.

      ‘No, but I did – I swear! I threw my lighted stick up in the air, and it went up above the smoke, and then I saw it hit this black thing in the sky, and I heard a sound like a screech. I did! I did! I’m telling you!’ Katie stamped her foot in exasperation.

      ‘I believe you, Katie.’ Mary’s quiet voice penetrated the commotion.

      ‘See!’ said Katie, throwing her arms around her sister.

      ‘Twins know these things because they’re special. They just know!’

      The big bonfire died down, its timbers, weakened by the flames, crumbling and sliding into the pit of glowing ash-whitened wood. Eddies of wind swept in, picking up the ash and floating it into the hills and the valleys in busy flurries of fire-snow. The demons that lurked in the flames continued hissing and spitting, inviting the onlooker in even after their long, ever-beckoning fingers of flame had departed, quenched for another year.

      Around the valley, the fires which had roared into the night were now just a row of red, angry eyes dotted along the hillsides. Eyes which by morning would be closed.

      The O’Malleys returned to their cabin. Michael took his knife and scooped out a turnip that Roberteen had got somewhere, then carved eyes, a nose and a mouth to make a púca. Finally, he took a small piece of lighted turf from the fire and placed it inside the turnip. Patrick, who had been clamouring to be allowed to help, positioned the turnip in the window opening. The Halloween púca sent out an eerie yellow glow. Its gashed face smiled evilly, the burning innards sending out a sickly wet smell.

      The next night – the eve of All Souls – the O’Malleys’ cabin was filled with a strange mixture of fear and excitement. The prayers took longer than usual as the family recited the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, offering up a decade each for the Máistir, Cáit, Michael’s mother and father, and all dead relatives. The dead of the village and all the souls in purgatory, waiting to be released through the prayers of the faithful on earth, were also included.

      The Rosary finished without any of the usual ‘trimmings’, except for the prayer to Mary: ‘… to thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping’ – or ‘morning and evening’ as Katie put it, referring to all the praying that took place at this time of year.

      Next came the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, which Ellen gave out in a toneless chant, and the others answered:

      ‘Pray for us!’

      ‘Have mercy on us!’

      ‘Pray for us!’

      ‘Have mercy on us!’

      The continuous chanted responses induced a trance-like state in the younger members of the group, providing much-needed release from the pain of kneeling at prolonged prayer.

      Afterwards, as the children settled down to sleep, Ellen laid out five settings for food, although they themselves had already eaten. Katie and Mary watched with great interest, but Patrick, showing his disdain for pisreoga – superstitions – had turned his face away and gone to sleep. As she set each place, Ellen whispered an explanation to the twins: ‘This place is for the Máistir.’ They nodded their assent, agog with the mystery of it all. ‘And this one is for my mother, Cáit. And this for your other grandfather, Stephen, and beside him Sarah.’

      Before Ellen could explain further, Mary, in hushed tones, half-afraid the spirits of the dead would not come if they heard the noise of children, asked: ‘And who is the