The pitch at Croke Park is still warm when she
steps off the bus, boots scuffing gravel as she
walks past the old chapel where the priest once
warned of spirits in the soil. The village has
not changed—same cobbled lanes, same rusted
gateposts, same hush that follows her like a
shadow. She is known here, though not by name.
Only by the number on her jersey, 14, and the
silence that comes when she passes.
She sleeps in the attic of her aunt’s house,
where the floorboards groan like a living thing.
At night, the wind moves through the eaves, and
the walls seem to pulse. She dreams of a girl
with a red scarf, running through a field of
bent grass, her feet leaving no mark. The dream
repeats, each time ending with the girl
vanishing into the earth.
The villagers avoid her. They speak in hushed
tones, eyes flicking to the hills beyond the
town. A new festival is planned—Samhain Night, a
revival of an old custom. The mayor says it’s
for tourism, but the men who build the bonfire
wear masks, and the women chant in a tongue that
does not belong to any language she knows.
On the eve of the festival, she finds the old
well behind the church. It is sealed with a
stone, but the dirt around it is fresh. She digs
until her hands bleed, uncovering a bundle
wrapped in linen. Inside is a child’s dress, a
locket, and a letter written in a hand she
recognizes. Her own.
The next morning, the village is empty. No one
answers her knocks. She walks to the field where
the dream always ends, and there, in the center,
stands a circle of stones. The air hums. She
steps inside, and the ground opens beneath her.
When she rises, it is not the same day. The sky
is wrong, the trees are taller, and the people
wear clothes from another time. A man in a green
coat approaches, his face familiar. He says her
name. She does not know him, but he knows her.
He offers her a choice: stay in this world, or
return to the one she left.
She chooses the field. The moment she steps back,
the stones collapse, and the village reappears.
The bonfire is lit, the villagers gathered. She
walks forward, unafraid. The fire swallows the
night, and when it dies, the air is still. The
girl in the red scarf is gone.
The next match she plays, she scores a goal. No
one asks where she was. No one mentions the well.
But in the stands, a child with a red scarf
watches, and does not blink.
