SWNOVELS Chapter 8
After Monty left his office, his mind went back to the last lot of the dreams he has been having. Was, whatever this strange thing is, its intention seems to be clear. It is attempting to hook up his daughter with this Montague O’Hara. The smooth talking Mr O’Hara seems to be an intelligent sort of fellow, but he fears he may make his living selling all of this mystical bullshit to rich fools.
His biggest fear and worry, concerning the chest, Frank has kept to him self. He has lost his Midas touch. For all of his working life, picking the winners from the looses, in the investment game, he has always found to be easy. He has not a clue, how he does this, but he always gets it right. For him the right investment always just pops into his head. This has stopped happening.
He of course was rich, but he would not consider himself a fool. None of this fantasy and mythology crap would have fooled the likes of him in the past. When he was young he remembers his great aunt Mary, she would have been in her ninety’s then, She had been the last of the family to have been born in Ireland. She was only a baby when she made the trip across from the old country. The young one who died on that voyage was her twin brother, Michael. Aunt Mary had been just over one hundred years old when she died. She was one who definitely believed in all of these leprechauns, faeries and other Irish mythical beings.
As a young child, he can remember, some tales, Aunt Mary would recite to all the young ones, all gathered around, sitting on the floor, in front of her. One such tale was about a creature, the Dearg Due.
This creature was a form of female vampire. Before, turning into this creature, she had been the most beautiful young woman in the whole district. She was madly in love with a hansom young farmworker from her father’s lands. But her father promised her hand in marriage to a powerful and wealthy nobleman. After being forced into this marriage, she died of a combination of a broken heart and refusing to eat or drink.
Her husband took another wife, while her body was still warm in her earthy bed. Only one person however, mourned her and cried a river of tears over her grave. This was the hansom young farmworker. The story goes, that on the anniversary of her death, she rose up out of her grave, now a supernatural being. Her new purpose was vengeance. Her first victim was her own father, finding him sleeping in his bed, she creeps up on him, and sucked the life out of him. Next it was her husband, she sucked all the life out of him and his new wife. This surge of life and blood surging through her body, was not enough, she needed more, so she went on a rampage that lasted to dawn, when she had to return to her grave.
Once a year, on the anniversary of her death, she sets out on a wild rampage for one night. The legend has that her earthly remains are buried at Strongbow’s Tree in Co Waterford in the southeast of Ireland. It is said: the locals pile stones on her grave every year on the eve of her death, thus preventing her from rising and sucking the life’s blood from their fleshy bones.
Frank always remembers this story as it was from County Waterford in Ireland where his family were from.
This Montague O’Hara seems to be an interesting character. I better check him out a bit. So with the aid of the internet and a few discrete inquiries, Frank Sullivan was now starting to get a more complete picture of this Mr O’Hara.
The basic information on Mr O’Hara was easy to find, he is thirty-two years old and single, an academic with a PhD specializing in old European Folklore, did well at university but has never held a permanent academic post at a major university, given his reputation in the field of his choice, this would be unusual.
This is where it became a bit more difficult to find out a bit more about Montague O’Hara. It seems he is the illegitimate child of a woman from a very snobby and somewhat pretentious British aristocratic family. These pompous twits do not like Mr O’Hara being related to them. It seems they have been blocking him from ever achieving any sort of academic position worthy of his talents within the British Isles.
Why this Leprechaun O’Hara, that has been invading all of their dreams, wants to see his Gloria and this man joined together, he has not got a clue. Heck all of this mythology crap, to him a few short weeks ago, seemed totally impossible to believe. With no cause or justification, only some weird dreams to go by, Frank Sullivan now feels that the one who is going to finally melt the icy heart of his daughter, Gloria, is going to be a certain Montague O’Hara. if this is going to happen, he plans on being prepared.
Gloria Sullivan has always considered herself to have an intelligent and logical mind. She has never let herself be ruled by her emotions. These she has always kept well under control. She has built up a reputation as one of the icy, calculating and toughest young lawyers in the city. One or two have attempted to get in there and melt some of that ice surrounding her heart. Of those that have tried, none have succeeded. She sees, emotions as a weakness, that if she allows her icy heart to melt, she will lose her edge, the one that makes her so formidable opponent in her chosen career.
This well-defined hard-nosed approach to her life and career, is being threatened. All quite unexpectedly and from someone who should not be able to turn her well-defined world so completely upside down. Monty O’Hara, a cheap trickster, a specialist in profiting from exploiting rich fools with all this mythology bullshit. She is certain Mr O’Hara himself, does not believe any of the bullshit he is selling.
Why can’t she stop having these dreams ? Dreams that feel so vivid and real, when she is dreaming them. Monty O’Hara who she feels has, so little integrity in the real world always ends up being the hero who saves her in these dreams. The Leprechaun O’Hara, Monty’s father in these dreams, always encouraging her to fall madly in love with the dashing Montague O’Hara.
She is no fool. Gloria knows these are just dreams. The real life Montague O’Hara is more of a scoundrel than a hero, so why, awake in the real world, has he manage to dig his way into her icy heart. Now when awake in the real world, in the presence of Montague O’Hara she feels safe and protected from all harm. Worse still, she as in the dreams has started to feel desires around this Monty O’Hara. She wants to hug him, kiss him and do way much more.