Orla arrived home from school on February 1st and found her grandmother staring into a crystal ball.
“What are you doing, Granny?” asked Orla.
“Don’t you know, dear? Imbolc is a time for divination.”
Imbolc was one of the four pagan festivals of the year. The majority of people in Ireland stopped celebrating them after the country converted to Christianity. But the village where Orla lived recently began celebrating them again. This was thanks to her grandmother, who somehow (some say with the use of magic!) convinced everyone that it was a good idea.
“Now, dear, I know Samhain is your favourite festival,” said her grandmother. Samhain was on October 31st, the same day as Halloween, and the village celebrated it with an enormous bonfire. “But Imbolc is special, too. You see, on the evening of each festival, a portal opens.”
“A portal?” Orla stared at her grandmother, stupified.
“Yes. On Samhain, that portal is between different worlds, the world of the living and the world of the dead. But on Imbolc, it’s between different times, the past, the present and the future.”
“Nonsense,” said Orla’s mother, looking up from her newspaper. “Don’t listen to your grandmother, Orla.”
Orla’s mother wasn’t the only one who didn’t agree with her grandmother’s beliefs. Some of the other children called her a witch. Maybe she was a witch, but she was a good witch, and Orla loved her.
Granny gave Orla one of the green scarves she had given to everyone in the village to wear at the festivals. Orla was going to wear it to the Imbolc feast, which preceded a disco for older children.
“I’m going to help organise the disco,” said her grandmother, as they were leaving. “So take your bicycle, and when the feast is finished, you can cycle home. But be careful on that hill,” said her mother.
Orla tried to be careful when cycling home that evening, but she went down the hill faster than intended. By the time she saw the truck, it was too late to stop or change direction. The truck was coming directly towards her. She saw her life flash before her eyes, the past she’d lived and the future she would never live.
“Nooooo,” she shouted. She felt the impact, and then she was flying through the air. But she landed, not under the truck, but under something else.
It was a woman. A woman with hair as red as Orla’s, wearing one of her Granny’s green scarves and an expression of total shock. Orla didn’t know her. But she looked familiar.
Other people were shouting now. They were people from the village, running towards her.
“I’m okay,” she told them, and she was, thanks to the woman. Orla wanted to thank her for saving her life, but she was gone.
The next day, Orla went to every house in the village looking for the woman, but she couldn’t find her, and nobody knew who she was.
“But she must know someone from the village,” insisted Orla to her grandmother. “She was wearing one of your scarves. Someone must have given it to her.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll try to find her tonight, using magic.”
Later that night, Granny entered Orla’s room.
“Did you find her?” asked Orla. “Do you know where she is?”
“Sometimes knowing interferes with the magic,” responded Granny, mysteriously.
“Huh?”
“You’ll understand one day, I promise. But I want you to promise me something now. Promise me you’ll come home to celebrate Imbolc every year.”
Orla promised, and she kept the promise, though it became more difficult when she got older and lived in Dublin.
“Oh Granny, I’m 22,” she objected, arriving home late one February 1st. “I’m too old for a disco.” Her grandmother simply stared at her until she conceded.
“Okay, if it makes you happy,” said Orla. “But I have to freshen up first.”
The feast was finishing when she put on her green scarf and left the house. She walked up the hill thinking – as she did every year – about the woman who’d saved her life. She saw a young girl on a bicycle, cycling down the hill towards her, a girl with hair as red as hers. And then she heard the truck. It was coming in the other direction. It was on the wrong side of the road. Without thinking, Orla flew through the air, knocked the girl off the bike and landed on her.
Orla was running to tell her grandmother what had happened when she realised she already knew. This was why she’d made Orla promise to return every year to celebrate Imbolc.
