It was a sum­mer night.

Cicadas burred from ends of branch­es. Pix­ies rolled, tit­tered in their leafy beds. Sil­ver-limned clouds passed over a porous, bloat­ed moon. The lit­tle town in the val­ley kept silent, wrapped in mist.

Far over town stood an aus­tere, hill­top tow­er. Ivy and wasps’ nests blot­ted the black eyes of its win­dows. Creep­ers cracked the green­ing brick, near­ly cov­ered the nar­row door. Bats peeped and flit­tered about the crag­gy roof.

Three fig­ures climbed the tree-spot­ted path which wound to that tow­er. One, trail­ing cig­a­rette smoke, spoke. 

“Hork,” she said, flour­ished a com­mand­ing palm. “Pass it, mate.”

The bespec­ta­cled Hork tucked away a sweaty lock, jig­gled a squat whiskey bot­tle. “S’pose.” She passed it over.

“Horkheimer, you’re putting that down like spice ton­ic,” * said the third, a lank-haired boy swing­ing a half-brick in a sock. He gri­maced. “I worked for those pence.”

“Lis­ten,” said Hork. “If you can’t call me Yselde, you cer­tain­ly can’t use my last name.”

“What Hork is say­ing,” said the first, wip­ing her mouth. “Is that she despis­es her fam­i­ly name.”

Hork rolled her eyes. “Where’d you nick those pence, any­way, Jan?”

“Who says I nicked them?” said the boy.

“You nicked them,” said a puff of smoke, hand­ed away the bot­tle.

“So lit­tle trust, Dere,” grinned Jan, tak­ing it. “But, yes, I nicked them from Pro­fes­sor Ottle­ston’s desk.”

“Ottle­ston keeps coin in her desk?”

“In the fac­ul­ty build­ing.”

“Seems like a trap.”  

“Does­n’t seem to have been a bad idea to me,” said Jan, tip­ping back the bot­tle. Brown liq­uid sloshed in the neck. 

“You know what’s a jol­ly bad idea?” said Hork. She point­ed up the hill. “This shite.”

“Horky Dear­est, if we’re to run off to Draum** and be cut­ters, we need to find some mon­sters,” said Dere. She puffed, frowned at some dox­bells flee­ing her dart. “Or, at least, some dan­ger. So we don’t go into it fresh.”

“Hey, remem­ber, I’ve killed a mon­ster,” said Jan, ges­tur­ing with his sock-flail.

Hork rolled her eyes again. “Blud­geon­ing a top­ple with a broom does­n’t count, dolt.” †

“It had old Grand­moth­er Twee. Swear it was going to eat her.”

“Grand­moth­er Twee,” said Hork. “Is a mouse, and even she could have killed it with less effort.”

Jan scowled as they crest­ed the hill. “Not like either of you have seen a mon­ster,” he mut­tered.

“Hey, we may yet, tonight,” said Dere.

“Not like­ly, I say,” said Hork, cran­ing a glance at the tow­er. They were with­in the build­ing’s shad­ow, now. Net­tles and the rem­nants of gar­den beds rough­ened the ground. “Asy­lum shut down a hun­dred years back,” she said, kicked a tuft of spiny grass.

“We know, Dear. But every­one in town hears the screams. They shut it down with the afflict­ed still inside.”

”The screams,’ ” exclaimed Hork, exag­ger­at­ed­ly. “Are a wild­cat get­ting shagged in the hills.”

“So this isn’t a bad idea, then, naysay­er?”

Hork pursed her lips, looked at the tow­er’s shad­owed eyes. “Well, it can’t hurt to be cau­tious.”

Jan perked up. “You know what peo­ple say about their lifes­pan.” He pulled to the head of the group. The tow­er was a few strides away. Ivy near­ly obscured the cracked stoop, the pit­ted door, the heavy bar set from the out­side. Jan set down his bot­tle and weapon, set to work try­ing to lift that gird­ed beam. He strained, groaned. “Help?” he pro­nounced, indig­nant.

Dere flicked her cig­a­rette away, joined him. She looked expec­tant­ly at Hork. The last girl made a show of clean­ing her glass­es before help­ing. Togeth­er, they lift­ed. Ivy snapped, slith­ered away. The beam creaked, shift­ed, tum­bled to the ground.

“Ick, it’s left me splin­ters,” said Dere. 

Hork frowned at the beam where it lay. “Some­one’s replaced it. That can’t be a hun­dred years old.”

“Means there’s shite inside,” said an eager Jan. He gave the door a kick. It shud­dered, skid­ded inward a few inch­es. Jan peered through the crack. “Shite, lads, it’s the King of Mildew.”

Dere scoffed. “Come on, Jan. Kick it in like a real cut­ter.”

“Right.” Jan wound up, gave the door anoth­er heel, stag­gered back. “Bloody stuck.” He set a shoul­der against it, pushed. The hinges shrieked. “Final­ly.”

Jan stepped back, picked up his rude flail, ges­tured to the door. “Pearls before porks,” he said, look­ing to the girls. †† Dere scowled at him, like­wise extend­ed a hand. “Brawn before beau­ty.”

Jan shrugged, pulled a can­dle from his pock­et. A match snapped. The tal­low sput­tered. “Here we come, mon­sters,” said Jan. He raised his sock, slipped through the door­frame. Dere paused behind, lit a new cig­a­rette. She glanced at Hork, raised a brow. Dox­bells float­ed over her eyes. “Future cut­ter?”

Hork adjust­ed her glass­es. “You two have fun.”

“Suit your­self.” Dere dis­ap­peared into the tow­er.

Hork idled about, kicked at some net­tles. She looked out over town, watched can­dles flick­er­ing in win­dows, smoke begin­ning to rise from the bak­ery chim­ney. She looked up at the tow­er, watched bats flit about the win­dows. 

From inside, Jan called ener­get­i­cal­ly. “Shite, Hork, there’s blood­stains! You’ve got to see this.”

“My hayfever and I are per­fect­ly fine out­side the King of Mildew’s Cas­tle,” yelled Hork.

“Fine.”

Squint­ing, Hork peered through the rot­ted brick door­frame. Some wood­en struc­tures were bare vis­i­ble in the dark. She neared clos­er, put her head in the frame. Some weird scaf­fold lay on its side, just meters in the door. Man­a­cles hung there, lay from lengths of chain. Some browned stain spot­ted the floor. Hork huffed, gri­maced, moved to slip inside.

With­in the tow­er, there was a small shriek, Jan’s voice. Then, a wet, heav­ing scream. It rip­pled in the night air; a forced, elon­gat­ed bark. Hork stum­bled back, clutched at her ears, fell. A crash and thump­ing foot­steps emanat­ed inside the tow­er. They neared. Dere appeared in the door­way. 

Hork screwed up her face. “I told you! I told you this place was…” she trailed off, star­ing at Dere.

The girl was spat­tered face to knees in drip­ping, clot­ty red. 

“Ban­shee,” she mut­tered, and faint­ed.

Kin of the Hills

Once upon a cer­tain time of super­sti­tion, folk believed in a sin­gu­lar mon­ster. An oth­er­world­ly, bloody-mouthed crea­ture with a pen­chant for scream­ing. All who heard its cries would fear, for it her­ald­ed death. Folk had a name for this her­ald: Ban­shee.

At dawn, it could be spot­ted by the lakeshore, wash­ing the clothes of those to die. At noon­day, it could be seen curled in the dim cor­ners of barns, sharp knees tucked to brow, rock­ing, rasp­ing doomed names. At night­fall, it’d be heard high in the hills, scream­ing through its bloody teeth.

Those who died by the ban­shee’s call­ing met no usu­al end. They were said to dis­ap­pear. Only long after would they be seen, thin and bloody-lipped, trans­formed into lat­er sea­sons’ ban­shees. It was for this lin­eage they were named. In old the tongue of Lyre­ness, they were baen síd­he, or “kin of the hills.”

While such a time of antique super­sti­tion is passed, the mon­ster’s name still lives on Coastal tongues. It now denotes the true her­ald of that omi­nous scream: Ban­sheeism.

Many a hill­top is host to an old ban­shee asy­lum. ‡‡ These aus­tere build­ings are repos­i­to­ries for wretched, sick­ened crea­tures. They are home to the lin­ger­ing vic­tims to ban­sheeism.

Ban­sheeism is a slow, degen­er­a­tive ague. It lingers for weeks before ever caus­ing such minor pains as fever and rest­less sleep. Months lat­er, it brings attacks of intense, bark­ing cough. This is ban­sheeis­m’s most def­i­nite symp­tom. 

The sick­ness quick­ens there­after. Man­ic con­fu­sion occurs as bleed­ing abscess­es form in the lungs. Behav­ior at this stage is typ­i­fied by mad attempts at wash­ing clothes spat­tered by gory cough. It is at this time that most pre-ban­shees are iden­ti­fied. Most will be ban­ished to the near­est still-func­tion­ing asy­lum. § Though this ban­ish­ment is ter­mi­nal, it is viewed as a woe­ful mer­cy. For, despite their mon­strous con­di­tion, ban­shees are still regard­ed as peo­ple. Asy­lums often oper­at­ed under a pre­tense of rest and future reha­bil­i­ta­tion. Under the lie that is hope for a cure.

In their mania, pre-ban­shees refuse food and water. They grow ema­ci­at­ed, prone to still­ness. The cough fades. Soon enough, mania gives way to tor­pid­i­ty. Ban­shees at this stage, for they are prop­er­ly become ban­shees, are known to hud­dle in cor­ners of asy­lum cells, knees to chin, breath rat­tling in flu­id-filled lungs. Only if dis­turbed will they snap alert, vicious­ly attack or flee. These moments of alert­ness are accom­pa­nied by a resur­gence of cough. 

This cough, once a pained series of barks, becomes akin to scream­ing. Ban­shees heave, spew gouts of path­o­gen­ic blood through shred­ded vocal cords. This scream is ban­sheeis­m’s defin­ing symp­tom. It is also its mode of trans­mis­sion. 

Ban­shee asy­lums were built to pre­vent this bloody trans­mis­sion. By iso­lat­ing those affect­ed, it was thought ban­sheeism might be erad­i­cat­ed. Such an effort was nec­es­sary, as grey salt proved inef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing the sick­ness. Thus, the ban­shees were shut away, often under a pre­tense that they might be lat­er cured.

Unknown to folk at the time, ban­sheeism affords a boon of seem­ing­ly-end­less life. Even after decades of death-thin lin­ger­ing, a ban­shee may still cling to tor­pid exis­tence. Unwill­ing to kill their inmates, the asy­lum keep­ers of old barred their doors from the out­side, aban­doned the ban­shees to rot. §

Some hun­dred fifty years lat­er, these asy­lums still stand. They loom, large­ly ignored, over qui­et val­ley towns. Folk can ignore them, but they can­not for­get, for on thun­der­ous nights, they can still hear the cry of the ban­shee.

Note

At time of writ­ing, I lived mere miles from large 19th cen­tu­ry men­tal asy­lum. Beau­ti­ful archi­tec­ture, TB ward notwith­stand­ing.

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