A story remembered in Under Lough Owel, after a wish was tied with a twist of wool and the stem of a storm-blown daisy.
Every morning, Maudie O’Byrne sets two plates. One for herself. One for whoever might visit unseen. She says it's habit. But the second chair is always pulled out just enough, like it’s been used recently.
She boils her water until it screams.
No one’s been in her kitchen since the ash tree came down during the thunderstorm of '98. It fell fast. No damage to the house, but Maudie said it changed the pitch of the wind that slips through the chimneys. She hasn’t opened the back door since.
The room smells like tea and stone and an old damp Bible.
The kettle lives on the hob. The butter dish is always turned north. She stirs her tea four times, clockwise. Never fewer. Never more. Orla says that’s a charm-keeps the roof from cracking under pressure. She’d know. She tried it after the ice storm and swears it worked.
No one sees Maudie much now, but smoke curls from her chimney like breath held in. And when it rains, the drip in her sink keeps time with something not entirely this-worldly.
There’s a whisper that she speaks to the storm through the glass-tells it what not to take next. And it listens.
Orla keeps a feather she found on Maudie’s sill. It’s grey with a black tip. Pinned in her ribbon catalogue, she wrote beside it:
“Stormbound. But never broken."
Psst: Ribbon filed. Feather pinned. The kitchen holds.
A story remembered in Under Lough Owel, after a wish was tied with willow bark and bitter leaf.