A peat cutter finds a body in the Lough Derg
bogs, preserved but with its mouth sewn shut.
The local priest burns incense at the site.
The researcher, Dr. Caoimhe O’Donnell, arrives
to examine the remains. She documents the
stitching pattern—identical to a 1920s police
report of a missing girl.
She discovers a carved stone beneath the body,
etched with a spiral and a name: Eibhlín. The
same name appears on a 1917 ledger of women
arrested during the Rising.
A local pub owner, Seán, warns her not to dig
deeper. His father once tried, and was found
dead in the bogs, hands bound with rope.
Caoimhe traces the name to a 1922 court case
where Eibhlín was accused of witchcraft. The
trial was dismissed, but the verdict was never
recorded.
She returns to the bogs at night, using a metal
detector. A second body emerges, also stitched
mouth closed. This one has a silver ring with
the same spiral.
Seán’s sister, Máire, approaches her. She claims
the bogs are a threshold between worlds. The
stitching is a binding spell, meant to trap
spirits.
Caoimhe finds a journal in a hollowedout tree.
It describes a ritual where women were buried
alive to contain a spirit that fed on grief. The
last entry is dated 1923.
She visits the old courthouse in Clonmel. A
clerk shows her a sealed file: Case 1922047 –
Eibhlín Ní Bhroin. The file contains a single
page: “She was not human. We made her so.”
At midnight, Caoimhe returns to the bogs. The
wind carries a voice, speaking in a dialect she
does not recognize. The ground shifts, and a
third body rises—Eibhlín, her eyes open.
The spirit points to Caoimhe. She understands:
the ritual was never finished. The women were
not prisoners—they were anchors.
She pulls the stitch from Eibhlín’s mouth. The
spirit howls, and the bogs begin to churn. The
wind dies. The bodies sink.
Caoimhe leaves the journal in the tree. The next
morning, the bogs are still. No one speaks of
what happened.
The researcher’s name is never mentioned in any
official record.
