“Will the sídhe be out and about tonight?” Aisling asked, leaning forwards in her chair.
“Yes,” said Granddad.
“In Eamhain?”
“Dún Gréine. That’s their sacred space.”
Dún Gréine was only a ten minute walk from Eamhain. Aisling had picnicked there with her dad. “What do they look like, grandad?”
He put his finger to his lips. “Better not be caught discussing the sídhe,” he said, “or Meg will send you packing and I’ll be in the dog house.”
Aisling laughed. She knew that she and grandad, her buddy, would talk when the coast was clear. She’d tweeze the information from him later. A plan was forming in her mind to borrow a torch and some batteries from grandad’s garden shed, go to Dún Gréine and ask the sídhe if they knew what had happened to Bláithín in 1965. Grandad must have read her thoughts. “The sídhe,” he said with a heavy sigh, “inhabit an alluring parallel world. Keep your snoopy nose out of it or you’ll find yourself sucked right in. Never, ever tamper or trifle with beings from other dimensions. Anyone who has trespassed on Dún Gréine lands on May eve or Hallowe’en has suffered the consequences.”
“What consequences, grandad?”
He frowned, dropped the speech he was working on, glared at her and said: “The sídhe are always on the lookout for young ones like you to work for them below as nurses and midwives.”
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