The house is almost silent when sunset comes. It is January, and yet we have had no need for coats today, It is too warm. The Cailleach is awake; winter will stretch long this year.

Most of my classmates will be more pleased than not of course - they don't understand. But it's a bad omen, in a way.

Because numbers are sacred, or the ones strung together today are, For I am a triplet one of three and the third of five altogether. And we turn sixteen at dawn.

Therefore, this is our seventeenth Imbolc. Officially.

It is in the end, rather expected. For the entire month, it has been bad sign after bad sign. We knew, and ignored them all.

That is what you call being a fool. But you can't blame everyone for trying to ignore it -- Máthair is pregnant, and we can't alarm her so. Athair says it's dangerous, though there must be harm approaching on its inevitable course if these omens are to believed.

I know that my sisters and brothers are trying to gather as much good luck as they can, but Ciaran saw a magpie yesterday and almost had a panic attack over it. So I think it's all for nought.

Though I did find a halfpenny a few days ago.

Maybe it'll be fine.

Maybe.

~

There's hints of a coming storm as we get ready for the festival -- just the three of us, just me and Saoirse and Roisin. We're the girls, after all. It's the job of unwed girls to carry the Brídeóg through town.

Of course, Malachy has little problem with that, and Ciaran is almost seven. He'll be in bed before anything really starts happening tonight.

We wear white, all three of us in identical white dresses, and I leave my hair alone. Roisin insists on straightening hers, even when Saoirse points out that there are clouds gathering over the hills to the east, and goes far enough as to add a clip into it.

I think she might be trying to impress someone.

Saoirse herself ignores Roisin when she complains about the dress -- "Why do you always have to wear that old thing?" -- so maybe it's just an identical triplet thing. They're the ones who look like perfect copies of each other. And that's fine. I don't exactly stick out when we're all lined up together.

But yeah, there's a very noticeable scorch mark on Saoirse's dress, back from the time she wanted to help Máthair with the ironing while she was pregnant with Ciaran. Once we grew into them, she's always claimed that one.

We're not entirely sure why, but that's Saoirse for you. Incomprehensible.

Before the night is over, there'll be enough mud on the hems of these dresses to make Izzy Carr mad. Whether that's the original classic version or the Jacqueline Wilson one is up to interpretation, but it'd drive someone mad. Probably us, since we'll be the ones cleaning them.

"Aoife?"

"Mhm?"

"Do you really not even want a hairband?" Saoirse is holding two, even though we all know that I'll not bother. I'll regret it later - I always do - but I never bother with anything to keep my hair out of my face on nights like this one.

It's important.

~

Though technically incorrect to do so, we start the actual festivities, the bonfires and such, at sunset on the first. If you measure the days midnight to midnight, it makes sense. And we're trying to be accessible to anyone who doesn't quite understand measuring sunset to sunset.

I understand that. Midnight is consistent. Sunset is not.

At Imbolc festivals, anyone can be convinced that magic exists. I see the wonder in the eyes of a few newcomers, a girl who hesitantly offers her help and shyly places a reul-iuil Bríde upon the Brídeóg.

"My friend said that was something she used to do," she informs us, pulling her hair out of its plait. She's not dressed entirely in white - as she tells us, she's only ever heard stories from a friend, and some details get lost over time - but everyone in the group knows Isla Tiernan. She's the new one in Rivlen, and everyone knows basically everyone else in Rivlen. It's just how things are.

In the end, we let her follow behind us as we make our slow, stumbling way through the streets. Little Eabha Quinn is hardly able to keep up with the rest of us, so we're forced to move slowly.

That's what starts it all.

There's some streets, you see, which are more risky than others on nights like this one, the nights of the festivals. Imbolc and Bealtaine and Lughnasadh and Samhain - and the solstices, the equinoxes.

They're all nights where some people, the ones who call this witchcraft, the ones who believe that what we do is sick and evil... they're the nights when people make their threats.

I've never heard of people acting on them, but this Imbolc, the signs were there.

It's Roisin who starts whispering the prayers first, in some sort of panicked desperation. Why she does it isn't clear, but everyone's soon muttering along. An awkward, disjointed chant kept up by all but Isla, who's gone about as pale as our dresses.

"Bride of the earth,
sister of the faeries,
daughter of the Tuatha de Danaan,
keeper of the eternal flame.
In autumn, the nights began to lengthen,
and the days grew shorter,
as the earth went to sleep.
Now, Brighid stokes her fire,
burning flames in the hearth,
bringing light back to us once more.
Winter is brief, but life is forever.
Brighid makes it so."

Maybe that just makes it look worse. Maybe if we'd all kept our mouths shut and pretended that people weren't watching us through the windows, it would have been fine. Or maybe if Isla pretended to be 'chanting' along.

If it hadn't looked like she was an unwillingly participant, out of place-

But things happen around the number seventeen. Apparently it's unlucky in Italy. Which... which makes such little sense! It's sacred, that's what we know.

Isla ends up singing something under her breath instead, something I can barely hear beneath all the panicked whispers from the other girls as we move to a more welcoming street.

"An Tri numh
A chumhnadh,
A chomhnadh,
A chomraig
An tula,
An taighe,
An teaghlaich,
An oidhche,
An nochd,
O! an oidhche,
An nochd,
Agus gach oidhche,
Gach aon oidhche.
Amen."

"What's that?"

She goes red now, which is a little bit of a relief. "Just... just something I heard once or twice."

"Is it-?"

"Eilidh? Yeah."

There are only a few more streets to go when a window opens above us, and someone shouts.

That ends up being everything they need.

We're jumpy enough, memories of hushed whispers and loud taunts racing through our heads like the fastest of cheetahs. It gets us to jump, and gets us to scatter, and everyone knows smaller targets are easier to hit.

I take off in the opposite direction to Saoirse, who I know will be taking charge of the younger girls. She's the oldest, it's in her nature.

But Roisin makes her flight with me and Isla and two others, Cait and Marsaili. And we run like there's wolves at our heels, as though we'll be swallowed up in a moment.

And I can't help but think, as we run, that this isn't right. That I'm leading our mad break for safety, leading the 'charge' for... for where? The woods? Our homes?

Where do we go now?

Someone's crying, but we can't stop, we don't have the time, the luck, the risk is too high.

It's a silent conversation, but I know when Roisin's agreeing with me.

The woods are the safest for tonight.

We hide together, because that's how we're safest, and I don't let my mind wander to Saoirse and Eabha and the others. It's too late to think of that now.

~

It's when we're walking back into town that we see the magpies, but none of us can quite agree on how many there were.

I say three.

Roisin, four.

A disparity between three and four is easier than three, four and seven, but that's what Cait and Marsaili manage.

And Isla tells us that we're being way too superstitious.

Nobody listens.

I can still smell smoke in the air, and I can't tell if it's the remains of a recently extinguished bonfire or my imagination.

Either way, I can safely say that Rivlen has not been reduced to ashes in suspicious places, so there's... something good of all of this.

Then again, I shouldn't be too confident in that.

We do actually turn seventeen next year, after all.

_______________

1463 words

Translations:

Máthair: Mother
Athair: Father

The sacred Three,
To save,
To shield,
To surround,
The hearth,
The house,
The household,
This eve,
This night,
Oh! this eve,
This night,
And every night,
Each single night,
Amen