“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild,
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.” – W.B. Yeats

Conla picked early sage in her garden. Her family traditionally made a lamb stew for their midsummer feast. Her mother, Bronwyn, was inside their house braising the lamb with spring onions and chives. Conla heard her neighbor’s voice, and turned to see him walking under their archway with its pink roses and purple clematis.

“I can’t find a thing! My jackets are missing their buttons. My trousers all have holes. My wallet and keys are missing again! Are you doing this to me?!” Conla’s neighbor in the white cottage next door was Seamus O’Flanagan. Their two houses were the only ones for miles in that wild part of County Wicklow. The American had retired and come to the old country to write and paint, in the county of his ancestors. His wispy white hair was standing up in the wind, and his cheeks were red with anger.

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