Especially for Halloween, we present an extract from Twiggy Woman, the new book from award-winning author Oein DeBhairduin.
Featuring chilling black and white illustrations by celebrated artist Helena Grimes, Twiggy Woman is a collection of ghost stories rooted in the oral tradition of the Irish Traveller community. Like a flickering lamp, these eerie tales illuminate the threads between our mundane outer lives and the mysterious, wild and spooky visions of our inner worlds. With his lyrical prose and rich perspective, Oein guides us into the darker corners of the mind, always with the comfort of knowing that we won't be left there.
There once was a home among the green fields of Mallow that held under its shelter a family of four. There was the mother, the father and two kind-hearted children. To their neighbours and wider family they had the blessings of the best of most things, of new clothing, of fresh food, of sweet music and enough books to read that no evening would be without an adventure. What most people did not know nor see was that there was another force within their home, of which they dared not speak.
The father of the family, while proud and of good standing to all those outside of his own front door, was harsh within the home. He had a will as unbending as wrought iron and an anger that smouldered like dried kindling. He was strict to the point of cruelty and expected all things in the home to work like clockwork. Having little patience for mistakes, he was brutal when they happened. He would rage and shout, tear towards his wife and children and swipe at them with sally rods.
At night the mother and children would cry and wrap each other in their sorrows and pain. But in the morning, they would dress themselves with smiles for their neighbours and go about their duties, letting none know that the difference between life inside and life outside was as stark as night to day.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Listen: Award-winning author Oein DeBhairduin joins Ray D'Arcy
This is how it was for a very long time, until one night, while sitting in her bed, the youngest of the children gazed out her window to the trees and dared to whisper, 'If only someone could help us.' While none within the four walls of the home had heard her plea, someone, something, somewhere, had.
That someone began to move with sluggish steps towards the child’s home, her weather-worn leather boots with their frayed seams and loose heels dragging slowly through moist soil, rustling the crumbled leaves and winter debris as she passed. She brought a deep staleness withher, that of ancient bog oak and festered moss. She wore a thick and heavy cloak of tanned leather,
smirched with sod and clay, which hung from her bony body like the heavy draperies of a mansion’s windows. There was a belt of thin umber twine around her waist, and the cloak’s long hood concealed her face. On her back was a wicker basket of twigs she picked up along her travels. Some fell out as she walked, leaving a trail for anyone with the eyes to see to follow. At times, she would stop to sleep, standing against the trunks of trees, holding on to them with her hands. She was so soil-ridden and earth-baked that she could not be distinguished from the tree she leaned against.
A few nights after her plea, the child sat peering out the bedroom window. The light of the crescent moon cut down through the darkness of the night. She noticed a new tree in the garden. She could not tell if it was a fruit tree or a blackthorn. Each time she looked at it, it seemed to get ever nearer and its branches seemed to wave to her. When it was close to her window, she woke her sister and they both watched in fear as the tree drew nearer to the pane, until the outline of the twiggy woman emerged in the light cast from their room. She was tall and angular, her limbs like the branches of a leafless winter tree. Her skin was bark and thick with moss and spiderweb. And she moved as rigidly
as the timber she was crafted from. Her feet were a mass of rooty tendrils that spread out and gripped the ground beneath her, pulling her closer to the window and the fearful children.
They called out to their parents and their mother quickly arrived, wrapping herself in her robe, alarmedat the cries from her children. Listening to their tale, she moved toward the window. However, she could not see what the children could, for the veil of age often clouds the eyes. Children with a sight unhampered by age and by assumption see the world for what it is rather than what we expect.
Twiggy Woman is published by Skein Press - find out more here.
