Girl in the Dead of Night

amháin

"Volunteers needed: Competent Gaeilge speakers (students welcome) with clean background checks and enthusiasm to work with teenagers. Full room and board provided."

Anna clicked apply.

She found herself on the coach to a village on the west coast of Ireland called Taobh Aigéin. Local rumours say if you stand at the pier on a clear day you can see the empire state building across the Atlantic, but this is also a village where people recreationally used to take moonshine so she took that with a pinch of salt.

An alternative to a summer spent terminally online is nothing but appealing. Post university her friend net is shrinking, and her Master's dissertation is looming both with an end to her university experience and her life without retinol creams. She has a kit bag full of classic Gothic novels and literary criticism, a Macbook, and 200 words in a document that she shouldn't be so proud of.

Anna shares the coach from Dublin with about 3 people, an elderly couple with heaps of shopping bags, and the bus driver. The music in her ears and the slow momentum of the bus lulls her in and out of sleep. Her luggage is under the bus and she has a kit bag full of books beside her, mostly for her assignments, since the Irish countryside isn't well known for its super speedy wifi connection.

With every empty stop, they lurch further out of the world, the connection on her phone sparking in and out, the clouds growing thicker and the sheep growing more numerous. She is listening to a podcast about Dracula and the homoerotic undertones of impaling with a wooden stake.

They pass a few signs for Taobh Aigéin and when she exits the bus there is no sign of the elderly couple, she wonders if she missed them getting off, but she could have sworn she saw them when she walked down the aisle.