• A toddler ran a head of her young mother in front of the thick woods. She came up to one of the massive trees and pointed up, begging to climb up them. Her mother laughs at her and shakes her head no. The toddler is too little to climb the tree; the mother is too little to climb the ferocious Irish tree.

    The little girl pouts and sits on one of the branches and as she does a loud groaning and creaking sounds occur.

    In a flash the branches pick up the little girl and toss her in the air only to catch her again. The mother screamed. The tree was alive!

    The mother ran away, back to their small cabin and away from her bewitched child and the bewitched tree. Never for a second does she worry about her child, or what she is doing to her in the future.

    The child was not only too little to care about her mother at the time, but too busy with the tree that was tossing her into the air as it lovingly stoked her hair like a relative and her giggling and occasionally nuzzling the rough branches.

    After a few hours the father came home from work mystified at his child sleeping under the branches of a large oak and his wife, nowhere in sight. As he picked up his little girl a man appeared behind the trees. Looking just like his sleeping daughter the man walked up to the other man and told him the news. That child did not belong to him and his wife paid no heed to the child’s welfare and left her all alone.
    The Father held the young girl to his chest even tighter as he asked the man who he was. The man simply replied that he was the child’s spirit father, “born to you, but mine.”
    The father was many things, a good catholic, a good husband, a good father, and most of all a good Irishman. He knew what was precisely meant by “Spirit father” and who this dark man was. With a reluctant sigh, the father handed the Faerie his child.






    Annam Looked at herself in the numbly. Her face was pretty in a fallen way and her skin was pale, but the most remarkable feature was her eyes. They were a spiritual grey, so transparent you could see the bottom of them. She moved away from her vanity and walked across her room and down her small house’s halls.
    “Good morning sweetie!” her father exclaimed. At the age of 40 and he never looked a day over 21, Annam looked exactly her father down to the tee.
    “Good morning Da.” She grabbed her breakfast stool and sat next to her father.
    “I was thinking, before summer vacation is over and you go to high school, I wanted to go down to Tara Hill.”
    “Why?”
    “Because we haven’t been in awhile and I just love going down to Tara Hill.”
    Annam shrugged her shoulders, it was fine by her.

    After breakfast Annam packed her bag, got dressed, got her hiking boots laced, and followed her dad out to his car. From the car they drove two hours to a small inn_ The Golden Apple. Following them getting situated in their room, Miach and his daughter walked about the hill until night time.

    “Let’s go back to the room now Da.”
    “No, wait I’ve got a better idea.” Miach ran over to the gate in front of the hole in the hill and cut through the chain with Annam in tow.
    “Dad this is illegal! What are we doing?!”
    He looked over his shoulder with a smile and pushed the gate open. “Come on scared-y cat.” Annam’s dad grabbed her hand and dragged her inside the mountain. He pulled out 2 sleeping bags and laid them down on the floor and pointed to the purple one. “Sleep,”
    “Why are we doing this?” she asked growing weary quickly.
    Her father turned to her again; the playful mask gone. The resemblance of them, gone.“Just do it, or it’ll be my head.”
    “Wha-”
    He advanced on her, “I took way too long to do this. I was supposed to do this about 3 years ago.”
    Annam suddenly feared her father. “What do you mean? What are you going to do to me?”
    He gave her a dry smile. “It would be my death even if you have a scratch on you. So don’t worry, just sleep.”

    Feeling suddenly tired she laid down in her sleeping bag and curled up, trying to obtain some warmth.

    She instantly fell asleep.
    And she started to dream, vivid dreams.
    A man tall and dark on an onyx horse rode up to her and held out his hand. “Annam Cara, soul friend, soul daughter, the angel of death come to me.”