Bleaksummer - 𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫 ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ǝɹoɔ

brain: let's change everything, again.

me: no.

brain: pls.

me: fine.

“M’ tired.”

Her voice is small, and sinks into the ripples of the surf in front of them, syllables sticking to the chill in the breeze. The sun sinking below the waves, throwing splotches of pink and orange into the tide. Saoirse and Darragh had run to the edge of Spiriod, tensions in camp Shea were bubbling over and they needed respite, or out all together, but the closer they got to the edge of town, the wearier their limbs became. Leaving them with the next best thing; the coast. 

“I know love.” He sniffed, the scent of sticky sweet doughnuts wafted over and his stomach rumbled. They had come all this way and just sat. Sat, and talked. The quiet Shea needed a break too sometimes. Peeping at him through salty tendrils of hair, plaited sloppily at her breast, she studied him, Derry was weathered as the cliffs overshadowing the bay, lines set into his face peppered with the dying embers of the auburn in his facial hair, it had all been snuffed out. It suited him, age, getting older, a mop of white hair at furrowed brow. Though she supposed neither of them could say they were wiser or better off for it. For all the troubles they were determined to turn their backs on, the need to help their family seemed to be the thing pulling them under. Part of them wanted to go back to being the kids in the caravan park, a town girl on the wrong side of the tracks. Her parents had fuckin’ despaired at the time, but they just didn’t see what she did, and he hadn’t failed her yet. They got off that site, and as the business grew, so did their fortune.

The tide was coming in, salty blue trickling closer and closer to sandy toes. Saoirse found herself making bets with the water, daring it to slip under her and soak the fabric of their clothes. Wash away a multitude of stresses, pull it from their pores and yet, as she looked back to her right, her husband had shuffled further back and was smiling at her, hand outstretched. 

Irises tracked the length of his arm and she reached for it, allowing him to pull her closer. The smell of stale beer on his breath and the aftershave she had bought him for Christmas last year; cinnamon, vanilla, bourbon sat in the crook of his neck. The warmth of his skin and the scent of it was home to her. Not where they were. He had given her everything, a home, a platform to have a career, beautiful children. His family were different, not all of them - steadfast as they were to protect their own, they had no desire to cut the cord, only to drink themselves deeper into wonderland - but it wasn’t wonderland at all, and none of them were Alice. Instead they were ensnared in a cocaine powdered trap and the more they wriggled, the deeper the teeth sank. It puzzled her, putting things on the line in the name of wealth and perpetual success. Sure, they did it as a team, won and lost together, lived and died by the Shea name, but sitting on the outside, she could see the toll it had taken over the years, the lost opportunities, the missed connections, any honest passions. Anything they had was tangled within the brambles Michael had grown around himself. 

Far be it past her to say, but it was too far gone for them to release them - best they could do she supposed was to chop them off at the ankle, bloodied and alive than risk watching them be mauled one by one by the stark reality of this life they had woven. Win or lose. 

Darragh would be the one to tell the tale at the end of it all, she had no doubt, and whilst his moral compass flickered from time to time, he had never lost sight of the simple pleasures and achievements the rest of his kin had. 

Long finger wandered into the breeze to tap the end of his nose, beet red in the fading sunlight. “Doughnut Mr. Shea?” He caught the end of her finger between his teeth and let it go to replace with a kiss. 

“Ye spoil me, Mrs Shea.” 

“Don’t forget it.”

There they sat, on a cool sand, faces smothered in powder kisses. Sticky and indulgent they pulled at a grease stained bag for beige wonderment. Enjoying sweet treats as a child would. Gulls whirring near by as if vultures looking for their carcass. Flat yellow feet pattering wanting prints in the sand, getting deeper with each pace. Everything deserved minute indulgence from time to time, and so she stood, scattering sugar crumbs among the birds, wings catching the wind to land, beady eyes not meeting hers for even a second as beaks picked at gooey dessert. 

Grinning widely, she turned to Darragh and her heart sank, his blue eyes nestled in his phone. It wasn’t like him, to be sure, but as his eyes scanned mystery text, she too felt the pull, the itch in her feet to return home to duty. To pop the bubble. 

Just then she shivered, and phone screen went dark, birds flew away. 

“We’d better go, love.” He murmured, the disappointment evident on his slumped shoulders, sticky hands thrust into the sand he shook it off as he stood as if a snake shedding skin. His features had darkened but he reached for her, as he always did and planted a kiss at her temple - cinnamon, vanilla, bourbon. He would always be hers, first and foremost, before any other familial duty. 

“Mick’s had Absinthe done over, a warnin’ m’ guessin’.”

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐒 are synonymous for where their elders crash landed. One of the only big travelling gypsy families to have grown roots and remained. They were drawn to the energy in its earth, and chasing the money they had heard on whispers could be had here. Four generations later, and they still remain, a mainstay and a respected one. Having finally made their fortune they could stand to see it crumble at the greed of one man.

None of the women take their husbands name, and until Michael Shea, women ruled the roost; men never did last long within their family.

Incredibly traditional in practice, it is thought the magicks they harness are stirring something even they can't hold down. Their family are no longer tied to the purity of their roots, corrupted and ugly, 5 siblings, all with a gift - except for the brothers. Some say this is the reason he turned, not able to harness or truly understand what it is to be powerful.

The beings behind the trees, those inexplicable, beyond nature trees at the edge of town, the boundary between stone and moor, where heat meats damp, are becoming more active. The sisters find it comforting to meet here, undisturbed by them, or their inhabitants.

Rare though it is, every born Shea woman has a gift, be it the ability to see beyond the veil of life and death, to charm dogs, read true fortunes and control the weather with emotion.

The pull in Spiriod, and the familial turmoil has forced their hand, and turned some intentions. While some sisters enjoy the thrill, others crave to pull from darkness and return to their roots. Afterall, personal gain never lead to anything good in white magic, did it?

There’s a light, and it flickers - philip watched his wife circle it, a look of exasperation mottling her face, and yet the image let solemn lips crack open into a smile. Be it that his gut tells him she is his wife, but the commitment says otherwise…or be it the idiocy he finds in watching her struggle rather than her asking for help, it curls the corners of slack maw all the same.

The hallway lightbulb, it was another something he had promised and not gotten around to. He watched her turn it on and off, each glow of the bulb illuminating a new line of frustration. Their house had so many knocks and notches now from a variety of fuckery and now it bore the scars of their life there. In truth, he liked it that way, in every crack lay a memory.

Both of them had the money to fix it and then some, but there was an unspoken understanding that they’d get around to it, the thin veneer of perfection was undone with a closer look, but it was them. It was their space and it illustrated every fight and every make up. Every kiss, every shag - the 𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 in the oak floor, the creak in a floorboard set free the laughter they forgot about when times felt too tough to bear.

Albeit it was a ‘man’ way to think of things. For his wife, it was merely something else for her to bleet at him for. It ignited the ever present need in her; to nest, and home make, regardless of whether or not there were children present. Their lives had never been any different, even after all this time. It held the ever present guilt that he hadn’t been able to give her children; they both blamed themselves but took care not to dwell.

He watched her ferret from room to room, and knew by now the exact moment she’d snap and call him out for the useless son of a bitch he knew he could be. Philip was his 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫’𝐬 son, god rest her soul, and there was something in him that loved the banter, the opportunity to rise and fulfil the husband character he so 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲. To prove his point; to make it upto her and force them back into the small box in which they just were : in love with each other and each of their imperfections.

He knew the life they shared wasn’t perfect, it was hardly the shit fairy tales were made of but it suited them.

The smile grew wider over the lines in his face, and he relished in the ache. Philip rubbed grubby mit through the mop of inky locks at his scalp, stubbing out puthering tab end in waiting ashtray. Blair was made for him, and he her.

Crossing one boot over the other, he leant back in his chair, and he watched as his dainty wife shot a look over her shoulder, blonde tendrils tumbling past her shoulder blade, he wanted to 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧, he thought.

𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. Everyone said he used to laugh, and with her, with her there was still some cause to. To cat and mouse, to play house like children would.

Cerulean irises fluttered to the banal on the television, a ticking wheel of some bullshit American dream game show. “Feck me, Shirley, the answers fuckin’ 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞.”

It was just enough, a whisper of change in the air and he watched dainty palm make contact with the living room door. Blair crackled, an electricity to their coupling. To be sure, she was on the ceiling now and in probability rules she could have shorted the electrics in the whole house with her temper alone.

His eyes flickered again to meet hers.

“What’s wrong bird?” Door handle met drywall and slotted into the last fight hole it made. Long fingers reached for the next cigarette, running the filter over his lower lip, he lifts struck match to tobacco.

“Are ye’ yankin’ my fuckin’ dick Lip?”

He blinked, raising a playful eyebrow. Shaking the match out, he watches grey smoke meet the blue of his cigarette, curling around one another, and allows himself a moment to dwell on glowing embers.

“And why would I be doin’ that?” He inhaled, slowly, measured, turning his head back towards the tv. “M’ just watchin’ television, love.”

Anger meets television screen as she launches the laundry basket perched on her hip at blue glow. “Catch Phrase?! Ya kiddin’ love- you ain’t watched this with any degree of seriousness ever, n’ Stephen fuckin’ Mulhern turns me stomach the diddy wee cunt.”

She sighed, exasperated, and pottered to the hallway. He pressed his lips together, brimming with adoration for the fire in her, comical that her reactions were always gigantic even in the face of the smallest inconvenience.

This was it. The 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐞 - she’d make to do it herself, teetering delicately on step stool, he watched every curve of her and resigned himself to the fact she’d ruined him for all other women. To be sure - he was more than okay with that.

He sighed, hauling himself up off the chair on which he had sunk. “Baby.”

“Fuck off will ya? I’ll do it myself.”

“Baby.” He moves towards her. “Son of a bitch B, let me do it would ya? You’re gonna fall and snap ye chuffing neck, and then ye'd definitely be no use at all.”

“Philip, I mean it, go away.”

He laughs, a low chuckle; and she blows, swinging for him, but she stumbles, he grasps her hips. And he couldn’t be happier to be right it fills him with a warm glow, same as the one he feels at the crown of his head as flat palm meets it. Still - he clings to wriggling woman.

Slowly, he props her onto her feet on the floor, and moves to twist flickering bulb from its mount. “Let me do it, darlin’, a’ said I would didn’ I?”

She sniffs, resigned, an unexplained smirk on her face. For a second he thinks he’s won, before thumb and forefinger find the heat in the bulb.

“Mother fucker.” He spits and she crumples beside him. Shaking his hand he turns. “You little bitch.”

Laughter breaks and he scowls. “Ya fuckin’ useless with me even now love. Cmon, rinse ya fingers and do it with a rag next time.” She takes his hand in hers and leads him to the sink, tending to the growing redness on his fingertips.

Fuckin’ perfection. P’haps it was time after all these years to make an honest woman of her, neither of them even mentioned it much anymore.

She won, even when she didn’t. His wife. His Blair, she was a force of nature and would outsmart him even in 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡.

He could still remember the first time he saw her, fuckin’ statue of a woman - perfect, she was. A mop of blonde ringlets atop biblical features and he knew, in the moment her eyes et his that he wanted to pick at all of her loose ends, unfurl her as if he were a kitten clawing at the soft fibres of a ball of wool, to be the making of her and her undoing. Truly, Tadgh wanted to own her, to crawl inside the soft folds of her flesh and pull her inside out. 

What Tadgh hadn’t accounted for, was the mouth on her. A crass, uncouth American girl. A diamond in the rough with none of the sensibilities he would expect of someone who looked the way she did. He found himself needing her, for a time, she made the voices in his head shut the fuck up, and the first time he’d had her he was sure he’d heard the goddamn angels sing. This creature in his bed was far beyond what the scrappy gypsy lad had thought he’d been destined for, and he’d met her before his finances were something to chase. 

She was loyal and as vicious as a fuckin’ chihuahua, and she had him wrapped around her finger, they grew in power together. For a couple that appeared to have everything, it pleased them to play silly games, each pushing the other to their limits, enjoying the chaos they left around them. Faithful, though they weren’t, it did something to him to watch her in the throes of passion with others, smashed flesh and writhing bodies - it always begun well, until the rising mould of jealousy put rancid taste on his tongue, and the events had seen him put more than one innocent head through a window, all to reclaim her and fuck on the funeral pyre. Nothing rattled them. Nothing at all, nothing until - she told him with eyes full of bewilderment, that she was pregnant. 

Those tiny fingers and toes, his Violet, it was inconceivable to a man like him that he had been blessed with something so perfect. Sure as shit convinced him love wasn’t in his vocabulary until he had held her. A creature as heavenly as her mother, and for her he swore he’d serve them on his knees until he perished. A nuclear family, they weren’t, but they were as close as he could muster to perfection.

So it was sods law after all these years of marriage she’d decided she loved pussy, too. He wouldn’t divorce her, though, no, divorce wasn’t in his vocabulary and that little mousey headed little bint would come to learn that no matter how close she’d think she was getting, Rose knew where her bread was buttered, and understood as much as he, that they were property of the other one and on more than one occasion he’d had to unfurl clenched fists when he’d seen them together; I will not hit a woman. He had some morals, after all. Rose toyed with him and he was a dog for her. To him, it was just another game, to her, it was the beginning of something new, a tingling she didn’t yet quite understand.

+ #BLEAKSUMMER …  a collection of ill-fated misfits crammed in a little Irish town crushed into the cliffs by the sea since the 14th century; narrow passageways carry irish folk-horror, insipid melody and debauchery. A place where nothing is what it seems, and the unexplainable claw through the veil at its mortal inhabitants. SPIRIOD, IRELAND is just outside Donegal, and underneath it’s picture perfect postcard exterior, is a hairy underbelly of family warfare, 𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖌𝖞𝖕𝖘𝖞 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖈𝖐𝖘 and where bloated aristocracy leaks out over the cobbles.

𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬: the roster, guidelines

+ an exploration of : earthbound gothic horror, parapsychology and clairvoyancy, the victorian approach to death, familial dread and yearning, severe feelings of loss and betrayal, dream weaving, the effect of money and power on a psyche, the rot and crumbling at the centre of british aristocracy, Irish Catholicism and catholic guilt, creatures of the night in all of their forms, damp earth and mossy knolls and perhaps the odd seance.

These characters are original and are often involved in themes including but not limited to:  𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑, 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇, 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐌𝐀, 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐋. If this will be triggering for you, please proceed with caution and ask all the questions you may need to feel comfy if you wish to interact with my muses.

This tale follows three families.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔰: bound to the earth the town was built on, the Shea family have occupied land in Spiriod since the beginning. Ancestry derived from fortune tellers, mediums, witchcraft and gypsies. Travellers who ground to a halt at the moor side and have settled here ever since, their modern day descendants are rotting from the inside out. They are everything their forefathers would have despised, new money, drug running and cheap tactics. That is, except for Orla, who tries her best to remain faithful to their roots; she, her son and her niece are the three threads holding it together.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔏𝔬𝔠𝔨𝔢𝔰: sin takes it’s form in the Locke family, old money and more of it than god. So why here? At first it was a quiet playground, a holiday home - walls left to creak in the cold winter months. They are everything the british aristocracy breeds at Eton and spits out to torture those less fortunate. The untimely, and suspicious deaths (depending on which side you stand on of course) deaths of their mother and father meant the Locke triplets could have a go at playing empire themselves, with Philip at the helm (he used to laugh more, life now is less funny) and Spiriod seemed the most unassuming place to start, with it’s close links to Belfast, Dublin and it’s British cousins, they are spreading their poison anywhere that will listen. 

𝔗𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔢𝔯𝔰: common as all muck, and have island hopped from Merseyside, UK to try their luck at a new life over the puddle. Law and order, working class woes and family values hold them together. They haven’t had the best luck, but it’s starting to look up, and they’re shaking hands and working with the most influential people in town. Will it last, or will their efforts make hairline cracks into chasms?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!!!! 💖🥳

Thank you sm my BABY ♥️♥️♥️