Tír na nÓg

I would give anything to see Mom again. I was five when she died. Dad remarried and we moved. That meant a new school, which I hated. My friends were misfits who vaped and skipped class. So I did, too. When I was 12, I got labeled as having an “antisocial disorder.” That was harsh. It was my life that was disordered.

So Aunt Anam and Uncle Nog invited me to live with them in the boonies of  upstate New York, where they were converting an old house into a B&B. They didn’t know—and thus didn’t tell me—that it was haunted. Ancestral ghosts lurked like secrets in the shadows of closets, under beds, and in corners of the barn. I called them the Invisibles.

They became my friends, and introduced themselves one by one, spelling out their names in funny ways. Like Edmund, who scribbled his name on the foggy window of the parlor one night.

“Look,” I pointed. Instead of seeing a name, they saw their dog yipping and prancing.

“What do you see, Angus?” Anam spoke to the dog as if he were a person. “You see a ghost?” If they only knew!

One morning, while Nog and I were painting Adirondack chairs, L-U-N-A appeared in puffy white letters against an azure sky.

“Nog?” I pointed. Luna was Nog’s favorite aunt. She used to live here. “Do you see it? L-U-N-A.” He squinted his eyes and cantered his head.

“Can’t say I do. You’ve got quite the imagination, though.” He sighed. “Poor Luna. As she got older, she started talking to people who weren’t there. The family thought she was demented.” If I told Nog I saw—and talked to—the Invisibles, he would think I was demented. “That’s when I knew she was crossing over.”

“Crossing over?”

“Yes, to the Otherworld, where everyone she had ever known really did exist. Now if only Knobby could cross over.” His voice dangled much as the brush did from his right hand.

“Knobby?”

 “Yes.” My uncle stared at the house. “The family patriarch. He was my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.” He counted the generations on his paint-smudged fingers. “That makes him your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.”

I’d never heard of great-greats.

“Knobby came from Ireland almost 300 years ago, fleeing a famine. He was an indentured servant. Supposed to work for five years for the folks who paid his way. But the old rascal escaped. Ended up here. Told everyone he was royalty.” Nog twinkled. “That would make you a princess.”

“Whoa!” I always knew I was a princess. I gloried in that while Nog babbled and painted. By the time he finished, he had transformed a lowly chair into a throne. One that would accommodate me, the princess.

“So why haven’t I heard of him before?”

“Anam doesn’t like it when I talk about him. Actually, it’s the legend she doesn’t like, that Knobby is still among us, waiting…”

“Waiting?” My widened eyes scanned my surroundings. “Is he a zombie?”

“No, no.” Nog grinned.

“But you just said he’s like three hundred years old, and he’s still hanging around. So he’s undead.”

“Well…” Nog rubbed his square jaw. “In a way that’s true, but not really. He gave up his body, so he’s dead. But he hasn’t crossed over yet.”

“What’s this ‘crossing over’? To the Otherworld? Is the Otherworld Heaven?”

“Not quite.” He pointed his brush toward the lake. “See how the surface mirrors the sky, clouds, trees. Like heaven reflected on earth. But if you look beneath the surface, it’s a totally different world. And if you swim under water and look up, you see the sky, clouds, and trees—the opposite of this world. The Otherworld.”

“So why doesn’t Knobby cross over?”

“He has unfinished business.” No way. Undead things wandering around with unfinished business? I wanted out. But Nog continued. “He’s waiting to convene a céilí…A big party with family and friends. He needs to assemble the clan to name a new leader. Then he can cross over.”

I looked to the Invisibles, who had gathered to hear Nog’s story. Were they the clan? Were they waiting for an invitation? They nodded as one.

“Sometimes I think I can almost see him. Up there.” He pointed toward the roof. “The porch is gone. You can’t see it.”

But I could see it. And a man sitting there. It was fuzzy, like a heat mirage. I adjusted my glasses and blinked him into focus. Holy crap! I saw what Nog was describing: round face, bulbous nose, watery eyes, oversized ears. Dizziness consumed my head and a tug seized my stomach. I was crazy. Demented.

“They say he sits alone.” Indeed he did. “Cold pipe in his left hand, half pint of tepid ale in his right, a bat on his shoulder…” A bat! Was Knobby a vampire too? The apparition shook his head and disappeared, just like Luna’s name.

“Enough!” I shouted. “This Irish zombie hangs out with bats—but he’s not a vampire. He drinks warm beer and waits forever for a party that nobody shows up for, and he escaped starvation to—to come here?” I spread my arms to demonstrate the absurdity of anyone wanting to live in this vast emptiness. “And he’s waiting to cross over there?” I pointed to the lake. “To an upside down lake called the Otherworld?”

“Tír na nÓg,” Nog nodded. “In Irish, it’s called Tír na nÓg. The Land of Eternal Youth. Heaven on Earth. A shimmering realm full of life, where happiness lasts forever.”

The Invisibles surrounded me, calming me down.

“Is Mom in the Otherworld? Can I go there? To see her?”

“No, my love. Only if you cross over. And I’m not ready for you to do that.”