Wolf Blood

Hallucinations

The next morning Niamh was sitting in the kitchen, with her grandmother's diary, a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote down all the things she should have looked up on the internet because she didn't go into much detail in the diary. She was writing something that had caught her attention when her mother walked into the kitchen.

"Good morning mum," said Niamh in a hoarse voice.

"Good morning love... still with grandma's diary?" asked the woman, making herself a coffee.

"Yes. Since we're talking about it, do you know why grandma likes the supernatural?" the girl asked looking at her mother.

"Galway is very unique, as was your grandmother." the woman took a sip of coffee. "Read some of her books."

Well, it made her ask even more questions, so she decided to listen to her mother and chose some of her grandmother's books. She read pages and pages of topics that seemed fanciful until a week earlier but were real. Wiccans, druids and rituals were real, they existed, and, her grandmother, her Aoibhgreine was a wicca. She couldn't believe it. She had to talk to someone about it, and that someone was Andreas, her colleague at the pub. She hoped she wouldn't make a fool of herself and come off as schizophrenic.

"Andreas!" the girl exclaimed as soon as she walked through the door of the pub.

The light-eyed boy looked at her with a smile on his lips. Luckily they were alone.

"Tell me Niamh!" the boy exclaimed in turn, amused.

"I have to talk to you about something serious." having said this the girl took the boy's forearm to take him into the bathroom that the staff used.

She took courage with a deep breath. "My grandmother was a Wicca."

She watched the boy's gaze become more serious as he wet his pink lips with his tongue. Andreas ran a hand through his hair. "And you just found out about it now?"

"What?" asked the surprised girl. "Did you know?"

"All Galway knows." the boy replied, smiling at her.

"I, I didn't know... when I came here I didn't even recognize a boy who, apparently, I always played with as a child!" the girl exclaimed with her hands in the air.

"It's a protection we use for anyone who leaves Galway and knows our secret:" Andreas explained, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"Shall we use? Are you a Wicca?" the girl asked. The voice had become higher than usual, causing the boy in front of her to burst out laughing.

"Yes," Andreas replied.

"I thought I had become schizophrenic," Niamh said amid laughter, making Andreas laugh too.

After talking and changing into the pub uniform, they set up the tables and opened them to the customers.

Two hours later they found themselves packed with people. They ran left and right, taking orders and carrying plates piled high with food. Niamh was trying to figure out how to carry four plates of food at once when a shadow covered her, obscuring the plates in front of her. She turned and saw Ewan smiling at her.

"Do you need a hand?" asked the boy.

"Yes please." the girl replied smiling at him.

The boy moved to the side and after taking two plates he waited for the girl, who took the other two, and followed her to the table. They placed them in front of the customers and both walked away.

"Thank you, Ewan, you're an angel," Niamh said patting him on the shoulder.

"You're welcome. The boys and I just arrived." the blond scratched the back of his neck. "Do you know if he's single?"