Curse Of The Sourceress (The Story) (Chapter 1)

"Lisa arrived home from school one Friday afternoon. After getting off the school bus, she began walking back towards her house. Turning the corner just down from the bus stop, she walked onwards. As she approached the house, she noticed a car parked on the opposite side of the road with the bonnet up. It appeared to be broken down. Lisa couldn't see anyone nearby so she immediately assumed that the owner must have gone for help. She eventually reached the front gate and then made her way into the driveway.
The house itself was a fairly standard two-storey semi-detached council house. It had three bedrooms upstairs and a kitchen, bathroom and living room downstairs. There was also a smaller shower upstairs as well. At the back there was a medium-sized garden. After getting inside, Lisa made her way upstairs to her bedroom.
Once she'd changed clothes, Lisa folded her school uniform up very neatly and then placed it in her wardrobe to the left of the door. She then sat back down on her bed,with her mobile phone and iPod charging in the electrical socket just under the drawer. Taking her diary and pen off the drawer, she then began making an entry:
"Dear diary.
Had a fairly ordinary day at school today, apart from that fight in the school canteen at the 11am break! Goodness me! What a mess was left afterwards!I can't say for certain, but I strongly suspected that maybe Sharon and her gang were the ones behind it."
Lisa stopped writing. She got up from her bed and stretched herself. As she did so, she felt a sudden, sharp cold tingle in the back of her neck. She walked over to the window and looked down into the driveway. Down below, standing just outside the main gate was a rather tallish-looking woman. She appeared to be very professionally dressed in a suit.She had been standing beside the broken-down car talking on her phone. Lisa guessed that she had been talking to a local mechanic. This unknown woman had stopped talking on her phone and was now looking directly up at Lisa.
Lisa then watched as this unknown woman walked into the driveway and up to the front door. A few moments later, Lisa heard the doorbell ring. She immediately left her diary and pen on her bed and went downstairs and opened the door.
"Hello, young lady." said the woman with a smile. "My name is Maeve and my car appears to have broken down. I was trying to ring the local garage but my battery has gone dead. Could I come in and use your phone?"
"Yes of course. "replied Lisa. "Come in. I'm Lisa by the way."
"Thank you Lisa. I'm so sorry for being such an awful pain like this." replied Maeve as she followed Lisa into the hallway.
"Oh not at all. We sometimes get this kind of thing here. You're not the first, Maeve." answered Lisa as she led Maeve into the kitchen.
Lisa showed Maeve where the phone was and she then let Maeve get on with making her phone call

Meanwhile Andrea and Katherine were at the local supermarket to do their weekly shopping. They had just parked in the car park on the right hand side of the building. While Andrea went over and paid for the parking ticket, Katherine jumped out and bounded almost effortlessly across the car park towards the line of shopping trolleys.
Andrea walked much more slowly, stopping a few times to say hello to a few people she knew. As she made her way towards the entrance, she noticed a group of young teenagers having around outside. They appeared to be quite a boisterous bunch. It then very quickly became apparent as to why.
"Excuse me!" she said to a staff member as he pushed another unused trolley back into the line.
"Yes madam. How can I help you?" he asked rather politely.
"Could you tell me where those young people got that alcohol from?" she asked.
"Probably from the local off-licence down the street." he replied slightly out of breath.
Andrea nodded rather solemnly.
("I'll have to have a word with those people at some stage!")
Meanwhile, Katherine was busy bouncing around from shelf to shelf putting, throwing almost everything she could see into the trolley, which was just over half-full.
When Andrea eventually found Katherine she moaned,
"Oh no Kathy! Not again!"
"Why?! What's wrong with it?" exclaimed Katherine rather innocently.
"We don't need all of that stuff! It's just too much!"
"Yes well. Each to their own." replied Katherine somewhat casually.
Andrea was not about to have an arguement with Katherine. It had been an extremely long day's teaching and she was feeling pretty tired.
"Alright Kathy," she sighed. "But we WILL need to at least some of that stuff out. We just can't afford all of it."
Katherine let out a rather unhappy moan.
"Come on!" Andrea said trying to sound as soothing as she could taking the handle of the trolley.
Even though she wasn't too happy about it, Katherine took a number of items out.
"What else do we need?" she asked after a moment's thought.
"Eh? Milk. We're going to need more milk." replied Andrea.
"I'll get that. Be back in a moment." Katherine said making her way towards the far end of the supermarket.
As Katherine headed off, Andrea grimaced slightly.
("Lisa?!...What on earth?!....No!")
Katherine had reached the dairy section. She had just picked up a large milk carton and was about to head back, when she suddenly started experiencing an extremely serious and painful migrane.
She just about managed to put the carton back on the shelf before she dropped it. She then held on to the shelf's edge, she began breathing in and out extremely deeply.
A member of staff saw this and came up to see if she could help.
"Are you okay, miss?" she asked.
Katherine eventually managed to recover.
She stood upright.
"Yes thank you. I'm fine. Just got a little bit of a headache." she replied.
Katherine managed to pick up the carton of milk and then made her way back to join Andrea, who had finished the shopping and was now making her way back towards the checkouts.
When Katherine eventually rejoined Andrea, she had already paid for the shopping and was now making her way towards the exit.
The group of young people were still hanging around outside.
As Andrea walked past them pushing the shopping trolley, three of the young men whistled at her but she just slowly shook her head. She continued walking until she reached her car. Once there, she opened the boot and began loading the shopping into it.
Katherine, on the other hand, had already seen the unwanted attention that Andrea had just received.
She felt a little bit jealous at his.
"Well then!," she exclaimed rather bitterly. "I can see that you're getting all the attention again....as usual!" as she got into the passenger seat and closed the door. with a slight bang.
"I can't help that!" replied Andrea rather innocently as she got in, having already put the shopping trolley back with the other ones.
"Of course you can't!" snapped Katherine somewhat bitterly. "You're the only who ALWAYS gets the most attention!"
Andrea closed the door and put her seatbelt on. She then turned to Katherine.
"We're not going to have this conversation yet again, are we Kathy?"
Katherine just remained quiet, even though secretly she was privately absolutely seething underneath.
"In that case then, let's go home." Andrea said starting the engine.
Katherine also did likewise, though she never took her eyes off her slightly-elder sister.
Andrea put the car into gear, released the handbrake and they drove out of the car park, turned right and then continued on their journey towards home; ironically passing right by Maeve's occult shop in the process, although neither of them at the time had any idea of just how significant a role this shop would later on play in their lives

Back at the house, Maeve finished her phone call and had just left.
("So that's Lisa! I can't wait to meet her mother!')
Maeve went back over to her own car. She rather casually put down the bonnet, got into the driver's seat, closed the door and then miraculously started the engine without any great degree of difficulty and then drove off.
By now, Lisa was in the living room watching some afternoon television when Andrea and Katherine arrived back home.
As they drove into the driveway, Andrea couldn't see any sign of danger. Pulling up and stopping just outside the front door, both women could see that the house appeared to be exactly the same as when they had left it. Everything appeared to be okay.
"Looks like you were imaging things again Kathy!." remarked Andrea as she stopped the car.
"I don't accept that!" snapped Katherine as she got out and headed straight for the front door.. "I'm telling you I know what I saw!"
"Well there's nobody here now!"
Lisa opened the door. The next thing she knew Katherine had swept her up in her arms.
"Lisa! Are you okay?!" asked Katherine as she held her rather tightly.
"I'm fine thanks Aunty Kathy!" exclaimed Lisa. "Ow! You're squashing me!"
"Let her go Kathy!" Andrea said rather sternly.
Katherine let Lisa go. Lisa gasped for a few moments but eventually maanged to regain her breath.
"Is everything okay Lisa?" Andrea asked as she opened the car boot.
"Apart from Aunty Kathy trying to kill me?! Yes mum. Everything's okay!" replied Lisa.
"Good. You can help me bring in all this shopping then so." Andrea replied.
"Why don't we just use our, you know, "gift"?" Lisa asked.
"No!" Andrea replied rather firmly. "We can NEVER use our "gift" in public! Too dangerous!"
"Okay then." Lisa replied taking two of the shopping bags out and carried them back into the house.
"Oh my!" she remarked. "That's an awful lot of shopping for three people!"
"Well it should be." replied Andrea. "It cost enough."
As Andrea carried the extremely heavy bag into the hallway, she winced suddenly.
"Ow!" she exclaimed, arching her back slightly in pain.
"What's wrong mum?" Lisa asked as she placed the last two bags just inside the door.
"I seem to have done myself an injury!" Andrea exclaimed.
"Well then. Why don't you go into the living room and rest for a bit. I'll get Aunty Kathy to help me with this shopping."
"Good idea!" Andrea said as she gave Lisa an affectionate kiss on her head. She then headed for the living room while Lisa and Katherine then took the rest of the shopping into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Maeve had driven into the centre of Craughhill town. She parked her car beside an old butcher's shop, got out and then made her way up the street towards where the local post office was. She eventually came to a rather slightly ancient-looking, single-level shop next to the local pub. From the outside it looked like any other traditional Irish shop. it had a slightly lower than usual roof and was painted in a pale navy-blue colour. The sign just above the door was carved in an ancient-looking Celtic cross with what looked like a magical pentagram in the centre. The sign itself read the following: "Dark Magic Occult Supplies Lid." This was Maeve's shop.
Besides being a part-time substitute teacher at the Loreto Convent, the local secondary school, Maeve also had a lot of love of the occult. She was very into reading all about history with modern Irish history from the around the 1800's to the present day of especially particularly interest. From reading various books on the subject, she had great admiration for all of the great men and women involved and also, of the courage the face of great adversity. She had also absolutely cried her heart out when she had read about the Great Famine and the enormous human coast of it all.
As she kept reading these accounts, Maeve couldn't help but think
("Oh my! Where on earth was I when all of this was going on?!")
The real truth of this was that Maeve knew exactly where she'd been all that time. She had never told anyone about it as it was her own secret. And anyway, nobody would have believed her if she had told them, which was absolute fine with her. Maeve took a set of keys out of her jacket pocket, opened the door and went inside.

Àndrea and Katherine had now had their dinner and were in the process of cleaning up the dinner table.
"That was a good meal wasn't it?" Katherine casually remarked.
"Yes it was." replied Andrea as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.
"How were things in the school today?" Katherine asked. "I heard there was a bit of trouble in the school canteen."
Andrea nodded.
"Yes there was. I didn't see what actually happened as I wasn't there but from what I heard, some of the junior girls apparently decided to have a food fight and the whole thing just simply got way out of hand." Andrea told her.
"Was there much damage done?"
"Well it took quite some time to clean up the school canteen but it was eventually sorted."
"I see. Where's Lisa?"
"She's upstairs having a shower. She and Sean have a date tonight." replied Andrea as she washed her cup and then placed it on the draining board.
"I don't like that guy Sean!" Katherine remarked rather bitterly. "He's getting too close to Lisa for my liking!"
"Now, now Kathy! You must allow Lisa to have some amount of freedom."
"I'm only doing what mum told us to do!" complained Katherine. "We're supposed to be looking after her and teaching her the ways of magic!"
"Looking after and teaching her, yes! Not smothering her!" exclaimed Andrea.
"I know that Andrea!" replied Katherine. "Don't forget, she IS the future of our family line. I just want to try and make sure that's ready for all that awaits her!"
"Don;t worry Kathy. She WILL be!" replied Andrea as she sat down at the table next to her sister.
There was a long pause. Then the doorbell rang.
"That'll be Sean." Andrea said. "I'll go and tell Lisa. You go and let him in. And Kathy, go easy on him, will you?!"
"Of coure I will....I DON'T think!" Katherine muttered under her breath.
("Okay then Sean! Let's have a look at you, you little git!")
Katherine marched very purposefully out of the kitchen and into the hallway. Some of the crockery rattled and shock slightly as she walked past.them.
"Hey! Go easy down there, will you?!" came Lisa's voice from upstairs.
When Katherine got to the hall door, she paused and composed herself slightly and then very slowly and cautiously opened the door.
An extremely smart and well-dressed young man stood there. He nodded rather politely on seeing Katherine.
"Hello Kathy. Is that lovely neice of yours at home?" he asked.
"My name is Katherine, young man!" Katherine replied rather sternly as she stood in front of him, completely blocking his way. She had both arms folded and an extremely stern expression on her face. "
"Oh come on!" Sean exclaimed as he kept trying to force his way past her.
The next moment the door had slamemd shut in his face sending him flying through the air. He eventually landed with a hard thump on his backside about ten feet away.
("Ohh! So THAT's how it's going to be, is it?!")
He managed to pick himself up and, somewhat slightly dazed amd confused, made the extremely brave decision to try again.
And once again, the door was slammed shut in his face and he was again, sent flying through the air, only this time he landed, head first, in a rather large hedge.
("This is absolutely bloody ridiculous!")
Lisa, meanwhile, was upstairs changed into a pair of black trousers and beige top. As she dryed and brushed her hair, she heard all of the commotion downstairs.
("Oh no! Not Again!")
She switched off the dryer, gave her hair a quick brush and then headed downstairs.
Sean, ever persistent, was still trying to get into the house, despite Katherine's best efforts to try and keep him out.
"Now luck!" he said rather angrilly. "I've just about had enough of this!"
"Oh have you now?!" countered Katherine. "Well I'll show you!"
"Aunty Kathy?! What the hell is going on?!" Lisa asked as she came down the stairs.
"Sean!"
"Lisa! Thank goodness!"
"Are you okay?" Lisa asked.
"I'm alright....just about!" Sean remarked as he rubbed his head. "Just a little bit annoyed at the way I'm being treated!"
"Hang on a minute." Lisa said as she closed the door over slightly.
"What's been going on here Kathy?" she asked.
"I'm just trying to protect you Lisa!" grumbled Katherine.
Lisa couldn't help but smile at her aunt, despite the fact tha she and Sean seemed to be at loggerheads. Lisa then adopted a slightly sterner stance.
"I know but you have to let me breath and do my own thing! I'll be fine!" she said as gently as she could sensing how slightly upset Katherine seemed to be.
Even though she wasn't really feeling that happy, Katherine somehow just about managed a smile. She then gave Lisa a kiss on her forehead and then very softly said, "You go on and head off with Sean."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I suppose he has made the effort to be here at all now." Katherine said rather relucantly.
"Well we WERE heading out anyway." replied Lisa as she got her coat off the coat rack.
"Okay. Well then enjoy yourselves but be careful!" Katherine said rather solemnly.
"See you later." Lisa said as she went out the door to join Sean.
As soon as Lisa and Sean had left the house, Katherine closed the door using her own magical powers. As she made her way back towards the kitchen, she saw Andrea standing just outside the kitchen door.
"Are you causing trouble again, Kathy?" Andrea said half-joking, half-serious.
"Now why on earth would make you think that/!" Katherine replied rather coyly as they both headed back into the kicten.

Lisa and Sean were now down at the local community centre. A large two-storey building, it had been constructed during the economic boom. It had an indoor 25-metre swimming pool and gym on the ground-floor level. On the first floor was a indoor bowling alley and amusement arcade. On the second floor was resturant and dining area which included the toilets.
It was a regular haunt for young people from both the local and surrounding areas.
Lisa and Sean were ijn the middle of a great game of bowling when Lisa suddenly noticed a slight commotion over towards their right hand side. It appeared to be coming from the general direction of the amusement area.
Two girls appeard to be arguing over something fairly trivial. As Lisa and Sean watched, both girls suddenly started physically attacking each other. Within a matter of only a few moments, more and more people had now become involved. The staff tried to do what they could to calm things down but as things gradually got worse, they eventually realised that they really needed some serious help in order to try and deal effectively with the situation.
Lisa had just brought her bowling shoes back to the counter and had received her own street shoes when someone pushed extremely roughly against her. She was knocked against the nearby doorframe. Slightly stunned for a moment, she eventually managed to recover. It was then that she saw her assailant.
"Sharon! I should have known it was you!"
"Why! If it isn't little Lisa! Craughhill's little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes!" Sharon exclaimed rather sarcastically.
"Did you have anything to do with this mess?!" Lisa asked trying to sound quite stern.
"Are you accusing me of causing this?!" Sharon angrilly snapped.
Lisa lowered her voice.
"I'm not trying to accuse you of anything Sharon." Lisa said quite calmly. "I'm only asking you a question."
"Well I don't have to answer it!" Sharon exclaimed rather defiantly.
She managed to go out the door. As she did so, Lisa watched her.
("Door!!....Open!!")
Suddenly without warning, the door swung open rather abruptly. Unfortunately for Sharon, she just happened to be standing right next to it. As it opened suddenly, the edge of the doorframe hit Sharon on the left hand side of her face with such force that she was completely knocked unconscious.
The sudden and abrupt violence created a massive shockwave that vibrated and echoed all throughout the whole building. This immediately caught everyone's attention. Gradually the fight began to break up with people navy beginning to appologise and help each other.
Sharon's four friends, Laura and Gillian, who were her two sidekicks, Aisling and Aoife, had crowded around the unconscious Sharon, now lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. They were all in a state of completely stunned silent shock.
Laura and Gillian were both desperately trying to get the staff to call an ambulance. Aoife was standing there in complete disbelief while Aisling was crying slightly.
As Gillian kept trying to revive her, Laura, on seeing Lisa, immediately turned on her in a rage.
"This is all YOUR fault Lisa1 You bitch! YOU did this!" she raged.
"I...I....Don't...!" Lisa stammered.
Just as it seemed things were about to get nasty, Sean along with two members of staff accompanied by an amublance team from the local hospital, hurried towards them. While the staff managed to restrain Laura and Gillian from attacking Lisa.
Sean went over to where a visibly shaken Lisa stood. He very gently asked if she wanted to go home. Lisa quietly nodded yes in reply.
As Sean and Lisa made their way out of the community centre, the ambulance men carried Sharon on a stretcher into the ambulance. Lisa watched this and felt extremely upset at this.
"I hope that Sharon will be okay!" she said sadly. "I don't know how on earth that happened!"
"Don't worry Lisa. She'llbe fine." Sean told her. "Anyway, let's get you home."

Back at home, Andrea had made herself a cup of her favourite herbal tea. She then walked back into the living room to watch television. As she watched the evening news, she couldn't help but slowly shake her head at some of the awful news reports.
("So much unnecessary evil in this world! If ONLY people would just learn to THINK and consider all of the potential consequences of their actions!")
She was immediately brought back to reality by the sharpe, urgent ringing of the doorbell.
She put down her cup of tea on the coffee table, got up and made her way into the hallway.
When she opened the door, she found Sean very gently holding an extremely frightened and trembling Lisa in his arms.
"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed. "Lisa! What on earth happened?!"
Lisa immediately sprung into her mother's arms and held on to her extremely tightly. Andrea managed to calm Lisa. Then she said, "Sean! What happened?!"
"She had an extremely upsetting experience at the community centre earlier, Andrea." Sean told Andrea as he made his way into the kitchen.
"I see. I;m just going to take Lisa upstairs to be but when I come back down, I'd like you to tell me exactly everything that happened." Andrea said as she made her way upstairs with Lisa.
After a few moments, Andrea came back down. When she made her way back into the kitchen, Sean was already sitting at the table checking his mobile phone.
"So then Sean." Andrea said as she took out a chair and sat down next to him. "What exactly happened earlier? Please tell me the whole story from the beginning."
So Sean told Andrea the entire story of what had happened. As he spoke, Andrea kept listening very intently and a look of quiet and resigned recognition seemed to cross her face.
When Sean had finished, she looked at him straight in the eye.
"It's finally beginning to happen, isn't it?" she said rather softly.
Sean nodded slowly.
"Yes." he said. "I think that Lisa is only now just beginning to discover not just who she is, but also more importantly, WHAT she is!".
"Well then." Andrea said as she got up from the table. "I think we'll just have to handle whatever happens next whenever it happens. Do you need a lift home?"
"No thanks. I'll be fine. "replied Sean. "See you again. Let me know how Lisa is, won 't you?" Sean said as he got his coat and headed for the door.
"Okay then. Just be careful out there!"
"Aren't I always? Goodnight Andrea."
"Goodnight Sean. Safe Home!"
When Sean had left, Andrea was about to head up to bed herself, when she began to receive a telepathic message:
("Andrea!!...Andrea!!")
("Mother!")
She paused for a moment. Her thoughts then began to go all the way back to her and Katherine's own respective childhoods. As Andrea began remembering, she smiled and chuckled to herself at all of the warm memories. But then she began to remember one particularly incidentr while made her shiver slightly. But this memory quickly faded away. It was only then that she started becoming aware that she wasn't the only person in the room. A gust of wind rattled the windows. This brought Andrea back to reality and forced her to turn around. When she did, she saw the figure of an elderly-looking woman surrounded by a mysterious and rather ancient-looking magical aura of navy blue and white. She had extremely long waist-length silvery-grey hair. Her face was extremely aged with numerous battle scars; the result of many centuries of magical experiences. She was dressed in what looked like ancient medieval Irish clothes and wore a celtic headband around her forehead.
Andrea knew exactly who this was. This was Aine; their mother and one-time former High Priestess of a group of descendants of the legendary Tuatha De Dannan.
"Hello, my darling!" Aine said, smiling extremely warmly at her eldest daughter.
"Hello mother." replied Andrea as she went over to her her.
As they embraced, Aine couldn't help but carefully examine Andrea.
"Goodness me!" Aine exclaimed. "You look so beautiful!"
Andrea blushed a little at this.
However, she eventually managed to get herelf together, enough to ask Aine, "What are you doing her anyway?"
Aine took a couple of deep breaths before she replied.
"Well I was in my cell in the Spiritual Realm worrying about you three when the Seelie Court informed me that I could visit you and....well....here I am!"
"How much time do you have this time?" asked Andrea.
"Not too long. About twelve hours or so." replied Aine. "Just enough time for me to catch up on all this gossip!"
"Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Yes thank you." replied Aine as she sat down at the kitchen table. Andrea made two further cups of herbal tea for both of them and then sat down beside her mother and told her all the latest gossip.

Meanwhile Katherine was down at the local pub, The Wine Tavern. A traditional West of Ireland pub, it had been in the town of Craughhill for many years. It was owned and run by the O’Kelly family. A adjoining nightclub, the Starlight, was located on the left hand side of it.
Katherine was sitting over on the far side of the bar surrounded by a group of her friends. One of these was a man by the name of James.
Katherine was extremely drunk at this point. In fact, she was so inebriated that she was completely out of it. She had numerous young men almost hanging off her. To everyone else, it appeared to be quite embarrassing.
By complete coincidence, Maeve also happened to be there as well. She wasn’t in a particularly good mood. Her daughter, had apparently had a serious accident at the local community centre and had subsequently been taken to hospital.
She was sitting in a quiet corner of the pub just casually observing all the fairly lively activity that was going on. She was more than only accutely aware of Katherine’s exploits.
As Maeve watched, Katherine was extremely intimately involved with a number of much younger man.
(“Doesn’t that woman have ANY form of personal self-control at all!”)
Maeve kept watching Katherine and her antics. But this wasn’t the only thing that she noticed. After a while, she finished her drink and then got up and made her way to the ladies’ toilets. As she washed her hands by the sink, Katherine stumbled extremely drunkenly in.
She had a certain degree of trouble in just trying to go to the toilet. Firstly, the toilet seat kept popping back up every time she tried to put it down. She kept cursing and swearing as she struggled with it but eventually managed to get it down. Then, as she went to the toilet, the two adjoining partitions separating the other toilet cubicles, suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed. Then the hand dryer started up creating an enormous vortex of wind which blew up toilet paper and an absolute variety of many other different things all around the place. Finally, the water taps began sprouting water. Eventually, after a few rather tense moments, the whole thing miraculously disappeared almost as if it had never actually occurred.
After a while Katherine managed to get herself together enough to be able to manage to make her way out of the toilets.
By this stage, it was now 11:30pm. As Katherine made her way towards the bar, the staff had just called for last orders. Some young men had decided to try and chance their arm to see if they could get a free drink, even though it was now past the time. Two or three of them were crowding around the two barmen.
“Please! Will you guys go home?!” one of the barmen pleaded.
“Oh come on man! Give us a freebie!” one of the young men said.
“No! We can’t! We’re not allowed serve any more drinks after half-eleven! It’s against the law!” the second barman persisted.
The first young man then made an attempt to try and throw a glass bottle at the first barmen.
Seeing what was just about to happen, Katherine immediately marched over and forcibly grabbed the young man by the scruff of the neck.
His friend immediately made a move to try and save his friend but then he too, just like Sean, also ended up in an extremely unfortunate position; in his case, he ended up being thrown against one of the coffee tables.
“Are you two okay?” Katherine rather casually asked the two slightly shocked barmen.
“Yes but was that really necessary, Kathy?” the first barman asked.
“Oh don’t worry about him!” replied Katherine as she watched the second man managed to recover, though extremely badly shaken. “He’s not too badly hurt. He’ll more than likely suffer nothing more than a fairly bruised ego.”
The two barmen nodded; allbeit somewhat reluctantly.
“And as for you, young man!” she said rather sternly continuing to hold him firmly by the scruff of the neck. “I think it’s time that you went home, don’t you think?!”
“Here! Let go of me you crazy bitch!” the young man yelled as he kept trying to struggle his way out of Katherine’s seemingly cast-iron physical grip.
“Not a chance, pal!” Katherine said slightly threateningly. “Now move it!”

With that, and despite the young man's serious protests, Katherine marched him straight out of the building.
When they got outside, Katherine set the young man down on his feet again, much to his enormous relief.
"What the hell did you do THAT for?!" he yelled at her.
Katherine on the other hand, was not about to rise to this young pup. Instead, still slightly inebriated herself, she suddenly grabbed the young man by the collar of his shirt, and immediately started kissing him quite passionately, much to his absolute shock and surprise.
Unable to resist her advances, he beckoned her back to his car where they spent a number of extremely passionate moments.

At this point, Maeve had made her way back to her car. She got in, put on her seatbelt and then started the engine. After closing the door, she drove out of the car park and turned right in the general direction of home.
She decided to pay a quick visit to the hospital to see if Sharon, her daughter, was any better. As luck would have it, the hospital just happened to be right on her way home.
She arrived at the hospital at around 11:45pm. She parked her car in the car park on the right and walked into the reception area. The brightness hit her squarely in the face and she winced slightly. It was an extremely quiet night; this being a Monday night. There were only two women on the reception desk. One of them gave Maeve a friendly nod as she made her way up to the ward where Sharon was.
She spoke to the family doctor about Sharon's condition.
"Well. She's suffered only a mild concussion but the good news is that, as far as we can see it, there doesn't appear to be any serious or permanent damage. She might, however, experience nothing more than some occasional bouts of temporary memory loss." the doctor told her.
"I see." replied Maeve rather stoically. "Well I suppose that's some good news!" Maeve said sighining rather heavily with relief.

After the doctor had left, Maeve looked at her watch.
12:10am.
She left the hospital, got back into the car and then continued on her journey howewards.
Her route took her along various country roads. It was also a moonlit night. The whole whole open countryside was absolutely bathed in brilliantly clear moonlight. The whistle whisled and howled and in the navy-blue night sky the stars all twinkled and shone brightly.
At one point, tired from all her driving, Maeve eventually stopped the car in a small layby to rest for a bit. She checked the time on the car's radio.
12:45am.
She wounded down the car window and then took a couple of deep breaths of the cold, but crisp night air.
She couldn't help but think all the way back to the Ireland that she had previously known......"