BY THE LIGHT OF MY HEART
by Pat McDermott

Excerpt

Sligo was a haunted place, and Tobernalt had more than its share of spirits. Tom sensed them all around him. He'd never seen one, despite his grandmother saying he could because he'd been born in the afternoon. On each of his previous stops to the well, he'd only met elderly visitors, mostly women, seeking to cure their ills.

"Maybe today, Gram," he said, missing the kindhearted woman who'd raised him.

Whomever he met today, he meant to look his best. He'd brushed his coat and trousers before leaving Bundoran that morning, but his hulking six-foot frame seemed to draw the mud from the road to his clothes like an angler's lure drew salmon. A few good pats swept the worst of the splotches away.

After rinsing his hands in the stream, he adjusted his tie and straightened his cap. The mist from Lough Gill had dampened the tweed, but at least his head was dry. When his hair got wet, it curled to a wild black tangle.

He paused near the entrance to the well to touch a square pile of stones that predated Christian times. The locals had named it the Mass rock because it had served as an altar for the saying of secret Masses during penal times, when the English put a price on the heads of the priests. One legend said St. Patrick himself had left the imprint of his hand upon the stones.

Tom moved on and gazed about the woods, hoping to catch his first glimpse of a fairy. A lady's bicycle caught his eye instead. Its owner had leaned it against a hazel tree. The old girl would be up at the well, saying her prayers or drinking the water to relieve her aches and pains.

When the crumbling stone wall encircling the well came into view, he saw no one. He approached the sacred spot circling clockwise as he should, offering a silent prayer of thanks that Tobernalt was his for a little while.

The water gushing from the well's solid sheet of rock dallied briefly in a frothy pool before spilling into the stream. Above the site, a rainbow of torn rags dotted the leafy branches, each strip of cloth representing the supplication of a devout pilgrim.

Doffing his cap, Tom knelt and wet his fingers. The water's icy cold refreshed him. He blessed himself-and then he froze.

Was that a face in the pool beneath him? Fatigue after the long drive from Donegal surely had him seeing things. He squeezed his eyes shut and looked again.

The face still bobbed in the water: a woman's face, heart-shaped and pale in a frame of long wavy hair as dark as his own. Eyes blue and pleading transfixed him, compelled him to stroke her rippling cheek. When he touched the water, she faded away.

"Wait!" he tried to say, but a sudden languor had stiffened his tongue. The birdsong above him changed to the loveliest music he'd ever heard. Wave after wave of a haunting harp melody set his soul awhirl. Faster and faster went the tune. He dropped to the grass and fell asleep.