**Visit Dark Faerie Tales today for her Spooky Legends Guest blog with Bekka Black and a chance to win iDRAKULA**
Happy Halloween! It seemed only fitting that we end Spooky Legends with the most famous urban legend of all: Dracula. Kersten Hamilton, author of the goblin Paranormal YA debut, TYGER TYGER due out on November 15th, gets that honor along with her character Vee Williams. Don’t miss the giveaway a copy of TYGER TYGER and a necklace. See details below.
And for more chances to win Tyger Treasure, Kersten Hamilton is giving away twenty hand-made necklaces in November and December to celebrate her new book Tyger Tyger! The pendants were created by book blogger Melissa at Books and Things http://melissawatercolor.blogspot.com/ and each necklace is beautiful and unique. Enter here to win this necklace, and have fun hunting for the rest!
Kersten Hamilton is a prolific children's writer known for her fast-paced, dramatic storylines. She is the author of twenty-four books for children and works with the house church movement in her home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Vee Williams on “The Vampires of Ireland”
by
Kersten Hamilton
“I’m going to wring your neck, Charles Williams,” I said as the engine of my rental car sputtered and died. I would. Just as soon as I found him. I pulled my cell phone out of my purse — no service. Of course.
My brother had been supposed to meet me in Killarney over a week ago. It had taken me six days to find out that he’d set out on foot into the Magillycuddy Reeks, the wildest mountains in Ireland. Looking for Dracula. Well, stories about Dracula, anyway. Charlie was a mythologist — an expert on myths and legends — and his specialty was finding the seed of truth behind the stories.
His current obsession with the blood–sucking dead had started at a folklore conference at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi in Romania, were a colleague had explained that vampires were not native to Transylvania. They were immigrants planted there by Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula.
And so we had come to Stoker’s native Ireland to research the neamh-mairbh, the walking dead.
I shouldn’t have come along. I’d known better than to follow Charlie on his adventures since I was ten. That was the year my 12-year-old brother convinced me to spend the night in the cemetery down the street, waiting for our newly deceased neighbor, Mr. Greenslade, to rise as a zombie. Sometime during the night I’d fallen asleep, and Charles Williams gave up on Mr. Greenslade rising as an undead.
I woke up cold and wet and all alone, and ran home screaming, sure that zombies had eaten my brother’s brain — only to find him at the kitchen table finishing off the Cheerios and writing in the little notebook he always kept with him.
Following Charlie had led to one disaster after another ever since. Dozens of disasters. Like my rental car dying on a misty mountain road.
The car’s tires crunched on gravel as I steered to the side of the narrow road. I tried to start the engine. It wouldn’t even turn over. I flipped on the emergency flashers.
This time it was different, though. Charlie had been missing for a week, and I had to find him. I knew I had to find him. Because something was wrong. I’d felt it before, when Grandmother Baker had died.
I peered into the mists. Had anyone even passed me on the road? Not going up. A group of bikers had passed me a few moments before, going in the opposite direction. Not the cardio-conscious kind, pedaling across the country in tights; the greasy kind, with leather jackets and loud mufflers. They must have been headed to the pub ten miles down the road, as it was the only one I had passed. I could hike ten miles to keep them company, walk the other direction up the road, hoping for cell reception at the top of the hill, or I could sit in my car. In the dark. Alone. Waiting for zombies.
“Up the hill it is,” I said. As I reached for the door handle a child’s hand slapped against the outside of the widow, finger splayed in warning. My heart stopped — until I realized that it was not a hand, but a leaf lifted by the wind. I gritted my teeth and opened the door.
Ghost children. That’s what I got for following Charlie. The nightmares would be next. These adventures always gave me nightmares.
I locked the car and started walking. The low sun cast my shadow into the mist, where it marched along beside me like a creature of damp and darkness. It reminded me far too much of the fog that had settled around us when we visited the grave of the Dearg–due under Strongbow’s Tree in County Waterford.
The Dearg–due had been a beautiful girl before she had either been murdered or died of grief when her lover jilted her; Charlie wrote both versions of the story in the notebook he always kept in his pocket. They buried her under a tree, but before long she was up and walking again, looking for lonely men on darksome paths. And when she met one she’d dance for him until she drove him mad with lust, then kill him by sucking his blood. Very similar, Charlie had pointed out, to the girls of Count Dracula’s harem, sexy and seductive.
We’d been on our way to our next stop — the grave of the evil Abhartach in Parish Derry — when Charlie had gotten a call from the head of the Irish Folklore Commission inviting him to a symposium in Dublin. Charlie’d gone to the symposium, leaving me to collect the stories of Abhartach.
Whatever Charlie had heard at that symposium had sent him walking into the Magillycuddy Reeks.
The road I was following split, one branch angling down, and the other going higher still. I still had no cell coverage, so I went up. Almost immediately, the wind picked up, tearing my mist–shadow to shreds and pulling at my jacket. It was cold enough to make me wish for a coat, and strong enough that I had to lean into it. Fat raindrops were staring to fall when I saw the inn — a rambling place that looked as if it had grown out of the rocks themselves. But the lights in the windows were bright enough, and the people I could see inside looked happy.
I stepped through the door, fighting the wind to shut it behind me. By the time I’d managed it, everyone in the room — a young couple sitting very close together, a girl by the window, two young men, and a plump woman in an apron — was staring at me.
“Do you have a room?” I asked.
The plump woman shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “We’re full up just now. You’ll have to go on.”
“Mother,” the girl by the window said, “let her stay. It’s almost dinner time.”
“Absolutely no—“
“Let her stay.”
“Ella!” the older woman said sharply. “Don’t use that voice on me, young lady. I won’t have it.”
The door opened behind me and a young man came in. It was clear that he was related to the dark haired girl. In fact, everyone in the room must have been related. They had the same dark hair and dark eyes, and slightly varied versions of straight noses and full lips.
“There’s walkers in this wind, Mother,” he said.
“We have a guest, Liam,” the older woman said. “Don’t frighten the girl.”
“Walkers?” I asked. I hoped it wasn’t a ghost story. The wind was already crying around the eaves. I didn’t need a scary story. Not tonight.
Liam looked at his mother. She pressed her lips together.
“When the walls between worlds grow thin,” Liam said, “those that should by all rights and reason have traveled on come back, carried on the mountain winds.”
It was a ghost story.
As if on cue the door slammed open. Ella screamed, and I whirled —
— to see Charlie come through the door, another young man close behind him. Charlie laughed and pulled a leaf from his hair. “You should see your faces.”
“If it isn’t old Mother Ciardha,” the young man with Charlie said, “And how’s the brood?”
“They were fine until you blew in, Michael.” Mother Ciardha said his name as if it were a bad word. “You know we don’t serve your kind here.”
“You’ve mentioned that before.” He stepped toward me and offered his hand. “You must be Vee. Call me Mike.”
I took it, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“You met Charlie at the symposium?” I asked, pulling my hand away a little faster than I meant to.
“No,” Charlie said. “I met him down the mountain in Seanchill.”
“You can’t stay,” Mother Ciardha said. “Either of you.”
“Let’s discuss that,” Mike said. “In a bit more privacy.”
“Go on,” Mother Ciardha said, and the young people left the room, going back through the dark hallway, glancing over their shoulders as they went.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as Mike and the old woman stepped away from us.
“Don’t worry about it,” Charlie said, pulling me toward the couch. “They’ll work it out. They’ve known each other forever. Tell me about Abhartach.” He took his notebook from his pocket. “You can’t imagine how sorry I am to have missed seeing that.”
“Charlie,” I leaned close. “Is there any chance Mike is a —” he was going to laugh at me if I said it. But I had felt something when I touched Mike’s hand. Something unnatural.
“A what?” Charlie whispered, following my glance toward Mike.
“A ghost.” I felt stupid saying it, even before Charlie burst out laughing. Both Mike and Mother Ciardha turned to look at us.
“I’m sure he is not a ghost,” Charlie said, loudly enough for them to hear. “Now, what did you find out about Abhartach?”
“He was a chieftain,” I said, “and a dwarf, who tortured and killed his own people until they sent a messenger to the great Irish hero—”
“Fionn MacCumhaill,” Charlie said.
“You know the story?”
“They put Fionn in all the best stories. Go on.”
“The people begged Fionn to kill the evil dwarf and stop the abuse. So he did.”
Charlie looked up from his notebook. “That’s it?”
“Of course that’s not it,” I dragged my eyes away from Mike. At least Mother Ciardha was watching him closely. “Abhartach rose from his grave and demanded a bowl of his servant’s blood to sustain him. Fionn killed him again, but again he rose up.
“So Fionn talked to a saint in the woods, who told him to run Abhartach through with a sword of yew wood —”
“A wooden stake!” Charlie said.
“— then bury him upside down, surround his grave with thorns and put a large rock on it. That was the end of him. What did you find in Dublin?” I asked.
“Notes from a lecture by a man named Sean O’Suilleabhain, about a keep inhabited by blood–drinking shape–shifting fairies. And you’ll never guess what it was called.” He held his notebook out to me, and I studied his scrawling handwriting. Dun Dreach–Fhoula underlined twice.
“That, little sister, is pronounced Dun Drockola.”
“Where is this keep?”
“In Magillycuddy Reeks,” Charlie turned toward Mike and Mother Ciardha, who were still talking, and I smacked the back of his head.
“Ow,” he rubbed his thick skull. “What was that for?”
“It’s been more than a week, Charlie. You could have, you know, phoned. I was scared to death that something had happened to you. I thought you were dead.”
“Dead?” Charlie pressed his hand dramatically to his chest. “You shouldn’t worry. As Peter Pan used to say, ‘To die would be a very great adventure!’ ”
“Aristotle,” I corrected. “J.M. Barrie stole it from Aristotle. And they’re both dead.”
Charlie laughed. “We’ve found all the pieces, Vee. Everything Bram Stoker used. Sexy blood-sucking creatures, wooden stakes, shape shifters. It’s all right here in Ireland. In several different stories of course, but a good writer knows what to leave out, thank goodness. Count Dracula could have ended up a blood–thirsty coochi–dancing dwarf.”
“A red–headed, freckled coochi–dancing, shape–shifting dwarf,” I said. “With an Irish brogue. That doesn’t sound too scary. So we’ve tracked the vampires to their lair. Can we go home now?”
“I’m going home,” Charlie said. “There is just one more thing I want before I do.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. About the thing in the graveyard.”
“Shut up, Charlie,” I said.
“You’re supposed to say, ‘I forgive you, Charlie’.”
“No,” I threw a couch pillow at him. “Because I don’t. I still have nightmares about that stupid graveyard.”
“I’d never let the monsters get you, little sis. I swear. C’mon, say it! ‘I forgive you, Charlie’.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Charlie shrugged and moved over by the fire with Mike. He looked up from writing in his notebook to catch me watching him, and winked.
I shut my eyes, and eventually did sleep. Charlie and Mike’s voices ran through my dreams, which started with Mr. Greenslade eating Brainy-O’s on a tombstone, and ended with the Ciardha clan, many more than I had really met, standing around the room, their backs to the walls, their eyes fixed on Charlie…and Michael, who threw off strange rays of light when he moved, like sunbeams peeking through clouds.
When I woke, the fire had gone out. The room was so cold I was sure the only reason I hadn’t frozen was because Charlie had tucked his coat over me. I had almost forgiven him until I realized that I was alone. Everyone was gone. Charlie had done it again. He’d left me.
I opened the front door and found that someone had brought my car up. Probably one of the Ciardha boys. There was a note tucked under the windshield wiper. It said Seanchill.
I pulled the map out of the glove compartment. Seanchill was less than five miles away. They were probably having breakfast. Only when I arrived there were no restaurants in Seanchill. Houses and shops were boarded up. The only living beings I saw were an old couple walking hand in hand down the street. I parked the car, and walked after them.
“Excuse me,” I called. “I’m looking for two young men,” I said. “They would have been through town this morning.”
“There’s been no one through town for days,” old woman said.
Her husband hesitated. “There was the body they brought off the mountain last week.” They walked on.
I shoved my hands in Charlie’s coat pockets, and a chill started to spread inside me. His notebook. The notebook Charlie never left was in the coat pocket. And why would he have left his coat on such a cold morning, when we could have all come together in the car? None of it made any sense. My hand was shaking as I took a picture of Charlie from my wallet.
“Wait,” I called, running after them. “Have you seen this man?”
“It’s the boy they found,” the old man studied me. “Was he a friend?”
“My brother,” I said. “What happened to him?”
“He’d been…torn by beasts.”
“And his blood drained.”
“And how would you be knowing that?”
“He was looking for Dun Dreach–Fhoula.”
“Saints preserve us,” the old woman crossed herself. “The tomb of the shape-shifters. The house of Maither Ciardha!”
“Your brother’s buried in the yard at St. Michaels.” The old man took my arm to keep me from falling. “We put him in holy ground.”
St. Michael’s. The brood had not been staring at Charlie. They had been watching the angel that was with him.
“We won’t let the bodies sit,” the old man was saying, “not when they’ve been at them, no matter what the authorities might say. We give them a decent Christian burial.”
“Thank you,” I managed.
I stood over the fresh grave at St. Michaels, hugging Charlie’s notebook until the cold started to make me as numb on the outside as I felt on the inside. I opened it to the last page.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.— Aristotle, Peter Pan and Charlie Williams.
Ps – I’ll love you forever, Vee. C’mon, say it!
“I forgive you for the zombies, Charlie,” I whispered. “Thank you for saving me from the monsters.” A sudden wind lifted the bright autumn leaves from the freshly turned earth, whirling them around me before it tossed them, light as Charlie’s laughter, into the clear blue sky.
Thanks so much Kersten. Come back anytime!
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Giveaway
Giveaway courtesy of Kersten Hamilton
One signed copy of TYGER TYGER & a necklace made by Melissa at Books and Things 
Teagan Wylltson's best friend, Abby, dreams that horrifying creatures--goblins, shape-shifters, and beings of unearthly beauty but terrible cruelty--are hunting Teagan. Abby is always coming up with crazy stuff, though, so Teagan isn't worried. Her life isn't in danger. In fact, it's perfect. She's on track for a college scholarship. She has a great job. She's focused on school, work, and her future. No boys, no heartaches, no problems.
Until Finn Mac Cumhaill arrives. Finn's a bit on the unearthly beautiful side himself. He has a killer accent and a knee-weakening smile. And either he's crazy or he's been haunting Abby's dreams, because he's talking about goblins, too . . . and about being The Mac Cumhaill, born to fight all goblin-kind. Finn knows a thing or two about fighting. Which is a very good thing, because this time, Abby's right.
The goblins are coming.
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