The Pirate Princess: Return to the Emerald Isle by Matthew Morris Read Free Book Online Page A

you see a kayaker on the water anywhere near Race Point?”
    “There was no one on Race Rock Light and no boaters on the water , Shay. No one but you or your mother would be out near The Race on such a windy day with the tide going out. You must have seen that ghost from the TV show, over.” With the last response they heard laughter in the background.
    “A woman with white hair out on Race Rock Light ?” Nanny said, looking more serious. “Ya didn’t tell me about this.”
    “I haven’t had the chance to tell you yet. As we were coming up towards Race Rock Light, we saw an older woman sitting on the sea wall. We figured she was one of those crazy ghost hunters that had paddled out there, because she was in a long, grey dress just sitting on the wall.”
    “And crying!” blurted Meg, surprising her family . “I heard her crying as we approached.”
    “ I already told you that was the rigging singing, Margaret Grace,” Shay said sternly.
    “No it wasn’t . It was just like the crash last night. You didn’t believe me about that, but Nanny heard it also.” Meg pleaded, “Nanny, as we neared Race Rock Light, I heard a woman wailing and crying on the wind… And then we saw her on the wall. She was bent over and combing her hair and…and…crying. I know it was her.”
    “Meg, Sweet Pea, you are overtired and emotional and you are letting your imagination run away with you ,” said Mark, trying to ease the situation.
    There was an awkward silence and then everyone noticed that Nanny Sullivan was crying.
    “Nanny , what’s wrong” said Eileen.
    “He’s dead,” she said , wiping tears from her eyes. “It all makes sense now … Everything. I knew I had heard that crash before and the ‘ shee confirms it.”
    “Mom, who is dead? ‘Shee?’ Do you mean banshee? What are you talking about? I think we all need to calm down, take a deep breath, and pull ourselves together,” said Shay.
    Eileen grabbed her grandmother’s hand. “Who’s dead, Nanny?”
    “My father.”
    “Your father. Mom, I didn’t even know I had any living grandparents… And now you say one is dead.”
    Nanny stared into the fire , motionless for what seemed to be an eternity. She then spoke, not lifting her gaze from the burning turf. “I was a little girl, only about Meg’s age… I was playing out in the fields. It was a lovely day… I was watching a beautiful white cow that I had never seen before, walking along the lough when a storm came in out of nowhere off the Atlantic. Me father and brother were out fishing as usual and me mother came out to the field where I was and rushed the two of us into the cottage for shelter.
    “The storm was fierce and the wind cut through the walls of our cottage like they weren’t even there. All afternoon me mother and I waited and prayed that me father and brother would walk through the door in their oilskins, but they never came… It was a long and heart-wracking day, but I had fallen asleep somehow.” She paused and took a sip of her tea.
    “In the middle of the night, there was a loud and terrible crash that shook the house to its foundation, that woke me from me sleep. With the storm blowin’ outside, I thought something had been thrown onto our little cottage, but me mother knew what had happened.” The recollection of the crash made Nanny’s hand tremble, causing her tea cup to clink in its saucer.
    “ Me mother told me that stormy night how the old families are watched over by the spirits, and when someone from an old family passes to the other side, the fairies knock the houses of their kin to let them know. When me mother heard the crash, she knew right then and there that me father and brother were dead. She was crying and inconsolable for the rest of the night.
    “The next morning the storm had passed and we went out to the shore to look for the bodies .” Nanny Sullivan looked up from the fire and said to them, “First we heard her, for her keen is known all across