An Under Lough Owel Story in Three Episodes
Episode 1: The Hanging Day
The suit appeared at dawn, dangling from a length of twine outside the Weaver’s Cottage - not pegged to the line, but tied by its own sleeve, as if it had offered itself up in surrender. It was not new, though it smelled of lavender and peat-smoke. Its fabric shimmered strangely when caught by mistlight, and some villagers swore it changed color depending on who looked at it. The buttons were bone, the lining stitched in handwoven green. Inside the collar, a faint inscription had been sewn in crow-feather thread: "Worn yesterday. Meant for tomorrow. Waiting now."
No one claimed it, though word quickly spread that it belonged to the youngest Cancer Sister - -whichever that might be. The three sisters-Elsie, Marla, and June-gathered at the edge of the green, peering at the garment as if it might speak. Or bleed. They disagreed, naturally, on who it was meant for.
Blenheim believed it was hers. She had dreamt of it the night before - folded in her mother’s lap, pressed between pages of an unwritten book. Bridie laughed bitterly and said she remembered it, thank you very much, having once unstitched its seams in a former life. Berna merely crossed herself and whispered something about the holy laundry of the soul. None of them touched it. Not yet.
The suit hung all day, neither dampening in the mist nor stirring in the breeze. Children tiptoed past it. A heron landed beside it and did not move for an hour. That evening, as the moon slid low across the lough, the suit exhaled once, long and soft, like the sigh of a laundress done for the day.
On the second morning, the suit was gone from the line.
Blenheim found it first, not where she expected-not folded on her windowsill or laid across the garden bench-but worn by Bridie, who was walking down toward the fog-slick pier with her head high and her bare feet silent against the stones.Berna said nothing. She only watched from behind the curtain, clutching the rosary that once belonged to their mother, now worn so smooth it had forgotten how to count sins.
Bridie, in the suit, was a different creature entirely. Her gait had lengthened. Her eyes seemed to hold more than the lough's reflection - something beyond, some silken shadow of what would be rather than what was. The suit did not fit her so much as it carried her, the way wind carries the scent of a storm yet to form. When she reached the pier, she knelt.
Not to pray. No. She reached into the lake with one gloved hand - yes, the suit had gloves now - and pulled out a crumpled envelope. Damp but sealed. The name on the front, in an unfamiliar hand: “Return to Sender. Tomorrow, if not today."
She opened it. Inside were three small tokens:
- a button carved from salt
- a thread snipped from the edge of a burial cloth
- a folded list of undone tasks, written in invisible ink.
Behind her, the village paused. Even the birds.
Berna stepped out of the house, finally, and shouted: “Bridie, take it off! It’s not yours! You know what happens when you put on something meant for another day."
But Bridie didn’t turn. She only whispered: “Tomorrow needs mending. I’m wearing what little hope we have left."
Then she rose and walked up the hill toward the disused chapel, where the suits of the dead were once laid in rows on winter vigils, waiting for the dawn Mass that never came.
They waited all night for Bridie to come down from the chapel.
Berna boiled water and paced. Blenheim lit three candles, though one guttered out again and again, no matter how she shielded it. The wind had shifted -- now it smelled of starch, salt, and something scorched. Like a seam iron left too long on mourning cloth.
At dawn, the church bell rang. No one had pulled the rope.