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

the land and sea. The melodious and sad wail was coming from the banshee mourning the death of her kin. We walked towards the shore and we saw her on the rocks in the distance, in a grey cloak, crying and wailing as she combed her white hair. Me mother and I rushed towards the ‘shee but when we reached the rocks it was gone. Then, miracle upon miracles, we found me father on the shore, clinging to his life along with an oar from his missing currach, but me brother was nowhere to be found.” Nanny reached for her handkerchief to dry her tears again. “We carried me father home and nursed him back to health, but we never recovered me brother’s body.”
    Meg looked up from Nanny and then over to her mother, who looked like a deer in headlights. Nanny cleared her throat and continued, “Me father was never the same after. By day he sailed around the ocean and at night he walked the shore, always searching for his lost son. I stayed by his side as much as I could, but he would not let me go to sea with him no matter how much I begged. One day I got so fed up with being left behind that I swam out to him as he was pulling away in his boat and he had no choice but to bring me on board. He begrudgingly took me along. We sailed along the coast, from island to island looking for the remains of me brother. The next day he didn’t say a word to me but waited at the door of our cottage for me to follow when he left, so I knew he wanted me to come along. We searched all over and spent a lot of time on the Atlantic. A family friend lent us a sailboat and we pushed out our search even further. It was on these searches that eventually he taught me the skills of the sea and navigation. One night, after a long voyage, he gave me the compendium that he had taught me with.” Nanny pointed to the object in Meg’s hands.
    “Day after day, week after week, month after month , we searched for my brother’s body. If it weren’t for the kindness of our neighbors we would have starved because me father had stopped fishing. Don’t get me wrong. I missed my brother, too, but you must move on at some point. After months of searching I begged him to come back to the world of the living and laugh with his wife and daughter. But a death at sea is hard to accept, for you never can say goodbye to the mortal remains, and me father was heartbroken from losing his only son. I was young then and didn’t understand everything, and I was also very headstrong. I could not get over me father’s refusal to let go. I stopped going out with him on his searches and we ended up fighting all the time. So when I turned eighteen, I hopped on a ship and left him and me mother behind.”
    Shay was dum bstruck. “Mom, I had no idea. Why haven’t you told me any of this before?” she said.
    “Hard memories are best left behind so they don’t weigh ya down,” said Nanny with a scowl.
    There was an awkward silence.
    “I have grandparents,” Shay wondered aloud.
    “You had them. I kept in touch with me mother by letter, as there were no phones on Inishbofin back then. She knew all about ya, Shay, but I never again talked with me father. It was a bad situation. He didn’t even let me know that me mother had passed on when she did. I had to learn that from a neighbor that knew our family. They were the ones who wrote to tell me she was gone, not him.”
    There was deep pain and sorrow in Nanny’s eyes and she looked down at Meg. “So now, with that crash and you seeing the banshee, I know that me father has left this world. The spirits know—they look after our family and are never wrong. I’ll make a call into his neighbor to go and check on him.”
    No one moved or said a word. They were all staring at the fire and letting this new information settle. After a minute Meg got up and hugged her grandmother, and the family soon followed her in a big group hug. After, everyone sat back down and sipped their tea in silence. Finally Nanny Sullivan looked out of