One of the problems in the world today is the willful blindness people exhibit. Take fairies for example, all around are images of pretty, dainty fairies with diaphanous wings and little pointy faces and people believe that they are sweet and good fluttering around the flowers all day. Then you have the other people who emphatically deny that fairies exist. They each hold firmly to their belief, willfully choosing their world and never the twain shall meet. I can in all honesty tell you they are both wrong.
You ask how I know this, I am of the Sidhe commonly called fairy. I am not one of the dainty, delicate fairies. You wouldn’t know if you passed me in the street and you have very probably passed me by without a second glance. Your belief or disbelief doesn’t matter because some things are beyond belief they just are. Death is my master and I am compelled to keen when death is in my vicinity. I am the Bean Sidhe or as you say it Banshee. You may even have heard me sing, my stage name is “The Screaming Banshee” and sometimes when I let loose on stage I can even shatter glass.
I moved quickly down the street, a tall, muscular woman with brilliant green eyes and a head of unruly flaming red hair. I was due at the stadium ten minutes ago, normally I was very punctual but I could not manage to get myself into a rhythm today, I was all out of kilter. Something big was coming, Death was strumming the cords of the alterverse and I was being strummed along with it and it was making me irritable.
I arrive at the stadium just as Rick, my manager, came out the side exit phone in hand, hearing the crunch of my boot on the concrete he looked up.
“Where have you been? You have kept everyone waiting” he yelled.
Rick is a yeller; normally I can handle it but today.
Fuck off, it’s only been fifteen minutes” I snarled in reply
“What’s gotten into you? Is it that time of the month” he shot back.
I swear, steam was starting to come out of my ears. I don’t have a time of the month but on behalf of every other woman I know I was ready to slap him down. Before I could get a word out He turned on his heel and pulled open the exit door and yelled over his shoulder.
Get in here; we need to get the rehearsal under way.
I stalked in behind him a fury was building up inside of me. My skin was crawling as if spiders were creeping all over me.
Entering the stadium proper, I saw the band all set up working through the rundown for tonight. They could easily do it without me; we had done this set up so many times we could all do it in our sleep. Rick insisted we do a pre-show run.
Brendan, our drummer, looked up and caught my eye.
“Hey Kaylin, what’s up, you’re not lookin so good” he asked
“Just a bad feeling” I replied walking over and jumping up on the stage.
“You be right for tonight”
“Yeah, let’s get on with it”
We ran through the rehearsal, without a hitch and broke for refreshments before the show started my skin was crawling the whole time. Whatever was coming was bad. I couldn’t pin it down if it was going to occur at the show or somewhere else.
The opening act “The Fleeters’ completed their session and everything was going well. Rick was happy with the packed stadium. It was our turn to go up. We got into place; I was still feeling irritable but I was a professional so I went on stage ready to give my best.
Things were going well; we were into our third number when the call hit me. Death was here, ready to collect large numbers. A catastrophe was going to occur in the arena. Before the call took me over completely I signaled Brendon DEATH in the old sign language. It was up to him to sort something out all I could do now was give into the call. My voice began to rise in a eldritch wail, under-set with a haunting keen. The decibels swarmed up the range as my scream rang out; the band kept the music twining around my scream.
Other screams join mine as the earthquake hit. The building shimmered and shook, people began running in every direction. As I screamed and the band played on the building began to collapse. My scream pierced through the noise the earth made as she shrugged off her years of sleep. I could hear the voice of the earth a low counterpoint to my eldritch wail.. Time expanded out and contracted in, the band members were scrambling off the stage looking for safety. But there was not safety anywhere.
My scream faded out as Death, glutted, move away. The earth’s voice continued to rumble deeply through my bones. I picked my way from the stage out through the area that had been back stage. I let my gaze flow over the bodies twisted in the wreckage without trying to identify them. At the back door was my stalwart Brendan, I ran into his arms. “Take me home” I wept.
I have been among humans too long; I have lost my detachment I needed to return to the Fae.
