The train arrives at Clontarf Station under a
grey sky. A woman steps off, coat pulled tight,
eyes scanning the platform. She has not been
back in twenty years. The station is smaller now,
the tracks rusting at the edges. She walks
through the village, past the pub where her
father once played darts, past the school where
she learned to read in English and Gaelic. The
air smells of damp earth and burning peat.
At the edge of the village, she finds the stone.
It is halfburied in the field, mosscovered,
carved with symbols no one remembers. Her
grandmother’s stories surface—of a place where
the old gods still walked, where the land
remembered everything. The villagers avoid the
area, whispering about the “wicked stone.” She
touches it, and the ground shudders. A sound
rises from beneath, like a breath.
That night, the lights flicker in the cottage
she’s rented. The radio plays static. She hears
a voice—her own, but older, speaking a language
she does not know. The walls pulse. She writes
down the words, hoping they will make sense.
They do not.
The next morning, the priest visits. He warns
her to leave. “This place is not for you,” he
says. She refuses. The villagers gather at the
pub, muttering. A boy from the school claims he
saw her talking to the stone. The police arrive,
but they do not stay long. The stone is not on
any map.
She begins to dream of a woman in a green dress,
standing at the edge of a lake. The woman points
to the stone. In the dreams, the stone is whole,
not broken. She wakes with aching joints and a
taste of iron in her mouth. The village starts
to change. The fields grow darker. The children
speak in riddles. The stone’s symbols glow
faintly at dusk.
On the third night, she returns to the stone.
The air is thick, heavy. She places her hand on
it again. This time, the ground opens. A tunnel
yawns beneath her, lit by an eerie blue light.
She descends, step by step, until she reaches a
chamber. The walls are lined with stones like
hers, each humming with a different rhythm. At
the center, a figure sits on a throne of roots
and bone. It turns. Its face is her own, but
older, worn, knowing.
The figure speaks. The words are not in any
language she knows, but she understands them.
The stone was never a relic—it was a gate. And
she has opened it. The figure offers her a
choice: stay and become part of the world
beneath, or return and carry the knowledge with
her. She chooses to return.
She climbs back through the tunnel, the stone
sealing behind her. The village is unchanged,
but something is different. The air is lighter.
The children laugh without fear. The priest no
longer comes. She leaves the stone where it is,
but now she knows what it is. She writes the
story down, not for anyone else, but to remember.
The stone remains. The world remains. But she is
no longer the same.
