Free Flood by James Heneghan Page B

looks like a ring. Sometimes the Sheehogue will cast a spell, or play a
pishogue
, or trick, and they’ll build a ring of cowpats to fool you. Or they will grow a ring of clover, or spinach, which they can’t abide. Anyway, if you stand in a proper faery ring on special days, in the moonlight — ”
    â€œWhat special days?”
    â€œThere’s different opinions. But for sure there must be no letter
r
in the day or in the month.”
    â€œNo
r
?” Andy thought for a while, counting on his fingers. “That means only four days and four months.”
    â€œThat’s the truth of it, all right.”
    â€œSo let’s say it’s a Sunday evening in May and the moon is shining and you find a faery ring. What do you do then?”
    â€œTo find the gateway to Tir Na n’Og, you walk around the ring nine times widdershins — that’s anticlockwise — and you will see the gate open in front of you. Walk through the gate, and if the Sheehogue like you, they will put you up on a white horse and off you will gallop to the land of youth.”
    â€œAnd if they don’t like you?”
    â€œThey will conjure a pishogue. You might walk through the gateway and tumble down a steep bank head over heels, for instance, and when you get up, the gateway and the faery ring have disappeared.”
    â€œTir Na n’Og sounds like a hard place to find.”
    His father nodded. “It is. The back of beyond could be anywhere: deep under the ground or the ocean. The Sheehogue never tell. On top of all that, they like to enchant us with their pishogues. They can be cruel, too. Did you ever feel sharp pains or twinges in your side or your knee or some other place, and you don’t know how they got there or where they came from?”
    â€œMother said they were growing pains.”
    â€œShe was wrong, God rest her. It’s the Sheehogue up to their pishogues, shooting their darts into you. They like to see the commotion on your face. And it’s often the Sheehogue who cause the papers and leaves to swirl along the street and the dust to blow in your eyes. You turn your head sharp-like when you glimpse a bright color, or youclose your eyes against a sudden burst of sunlight, and you walk smack into a heap of doggy do. Ha! It’s the Sheehogue having their fun! And the louder you swear at them, the more they laugh at you. Sometimes, if there’s no wind, and it’s quiet enough, you might hear a faint tinkling sound, like tiny bells; that’s the sound of the Sheehogue laughing.”
    Andy smiled. He was warm and drowsy. Tiny bells. His father’s voice. He was four years old again. “More,” he murmured. “Tell me more.”
    A heavy truck splashed by in the street.
    â€œThe Sheehogue are almost impossible to see. They don’t make things easy for us, except sometimes, at a certain time of year, when the moonlight is shining on the thorn trees, anyone passing by with two good eyes in his head can see the Little People playing and dancing, and the faery music can be heard for a mile around. But men and women know to turn their heads away from the thorn trees because if they see the Sheehogue, then it’s the terrible bad luck will come to them, sure as grass is green and thorn berry is red.”
    â€œHave you… ever seen them, Father?”
    â€œI have. Once. When I was a child like yourself.”
    â€œAnd did you turn your eyes away?”
    â€œI did not. Children are exempt. If your heart’s a child’s heart, and if your eyes are clean, then you need never fear the moonlight or the thorn trees; you can look at them all you want and the Sheehogue will wave to you and bless you as you pass by and call your name.”
    â€œWill… they know… I changed my name… to Andy?”
    â€œThey will know,” whispered his father.

    â€œI love the old stories,” a Young One said wistfully. “Do you