The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

into the night.
    But the lunacy, for lack of a better word, was part of the charm of the people and their stories. So she would use it. Explore it. Immerse herself in it.
    Revved, she turned to her machine, leaving the tapes and letters alone for the moment, and started her paper.
     
    They say the cottage stands on a faerie hill, one of the many rises of land in Ireland under which the faeries live in their palaces and castles. It’s said that if you approach a faerie hill, you may hear the music that plays in the great hall of the castle under the deep green grass. And if you walk over one, you take the risk of being snatched by the faeries themselves and becoming obliged to do their bidding.
     
    She stopped, smiled. Of course that was all too lyrical and, well, Irish a beginning for a serious academic paper. In her first year of college, her papers had been marked down regularly for just that sort of thing. Rambling, not following the point of the theme, neglecting to adhere to her own outlines.
    Knowing just how important grades were to her parents, she’d learned to stifle those colorful journeys.
    Still, this wasn’t for a grade, and it was just a draft. She’d clean it up later. For now, she decided, she would just get her thoughts down and lay the foundation for the analysis.
    She knew enough, from her grandmother’s stories, to give a brief outline of the most common mythical characters. It would be her task to find the proper stories and the structure that revolved around each character of legend and then explain its place in the psychology of the people who fostered it.
    She worked through the morning on basic definitions, often adding a subtext that cross-referenced the figure to its counterpart in other cultures.
    Intent on her work, she barely heard the knocking on the front door, and when it registered she blinked her way out of an explanation of the Pisogue, the Irish wise woman found in most villages in earlier times. Hooking her glasses in the neck of her sweater, she hurried downstairs. When she opened the door, Brenna O’Toole was already walking back to her truck.
    “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Brenna began.
    “No, you’re not.” How could a woman wearing muddy work boots intimidate her? Jude wondered. “I was in the little room upstairs. I’m glad you stopped by. I didn’t thank you properly the other day.”
    “Oh, it’s not a problem. You were asleep on your feet.” Brenna stepped away from the gate, walked back toward the stoop. “Are you settling in, then? You have all you need?”
    “Yes, thanks.” Jude noticed that the faded cap Brenna squashed down over her hair carried a small winged figure pinned just over the bill. More faeries, Jude thought, and found it fascinating that such an efficient woman would wear one as a charm.
    “Ah, would you like to come in, have some tea?”
    “That would be lovely, thanks, but I’ve work.” Still,Brenna seemed content to linger on the little garden path. “I only wanted to stop and see if you’re finding your way about, or if there’s anything you’d be needing. I’m back and forth on the road here a time or two a day.”
    “I can’t think of anything. Well, actually, I wonder if you can tell me who I contact about getting a telephone jack put into the second bedroom. I’m using it as an office, and I’ll need that for my modem.”
    “Modem, is it? Your computer?” Now her eyes gleamed with interest. “My sister Mary Kate has a computer as she’s studying programming in school. You’d think she’d discovered the cure for stupidity with the thing, and she won’t let me near it.”
    “Are you interested in computers?”
    “I like knowing how things work, and she’s afraid I’ll take it apart—which of course I would, for how else can you figure out how a thing works, after all? She has a modem as well, and sends messages to some cousins of ours in New York and friends in Galway. It’s a marvel.”
    “I suppose it is. And we tend to take it for granted until we can’t use it.”
    “I can pass your need on to the right party,” Brenna continued. “They’ll have you hooked up sooner or later.” She smiled again. “Sooner or later’s how ’tis, but shouldn’t be more than a week or so. If it is, I can jury-rig something that’ll do you.”
    “That’s fine. I appreciate it. Oh, and I went into the village yesterday, but the shops were closed by the time I got there. I was hoping to find a bookstore