Kathryn Kulpa
The Banshee and Me
The banshee was humming, plaiting her long black hair, combing it with a bone comb. It looked like the spine of a fish. Like a fishbone somebody in the funny pages would throw to a stray cat. It looked like a comb a mermaid would use. Were mermaids related to banshees? I didn’t know; I’d never met one before. Neither of them.
I’d ask the banshee, but direct questions only made her scream, loud and shrill. I’d learned that quick enough.
The humming wasn’t so bad, a kind of airy trill like a towhee on the wing.
I hadn’t summoned the banshee. She just came.
I’ll put on the tea, I said, not a question. I could understand how she disliked them. Questions made me nervous, too. Waiting for questions to be asked, even more.
I made a pot of tea, poured four cups. One for my mother, one for me, and one for the banshee. And one for any other uninvited guests who might happen by, fairies or angels, as my mother had taught me.
I have a decision to make, I’d told my mother last night. She said to ask for help from above.
Should I marry John Tay, I asked the banshee when we met, and she screeched like a cat who’d caught her tail in the door, so I put that question aside.
John Tay was a church-goer. A steady earner. Would be a fine father, my mother said, and it was true that when we’d walk out together he’d talk about how many children we would have, but he’d never actually asked me to marry him. It was more a plan his mother had made with mine, and he just went along.
But a girl likes to be asked.
There’s a ship that sails in the morning, I told the banshee, and I put a cup down close by her, but not so close she couldn’t ignore it. The banshee was white as winter milk, but her lips were red. I wondered were they red all on their own, or was she “painted,” as my mother called it. You don’t want to be a painted minx like that Rosemary O’Shea, my mother said.
But sometimes I did.
Once I picked blackcurrants, rubbed the broken berries over my lips and cheeks, imagined myself a different kind of girl. High colored. High stepping. A girl who wasn't satisfied with things as they are.
My mother had names for those girls. A bold baggage if you were the paint-wearing Rosy O’Shea type. A man-woman if you were a bloomers-wearing suffragist.
If you were a woman who didn’t stay where God put you, you could be sure my mother had a name for you.
My mother’s one hand was telling beads on her rosary while the other lay out a spread of cards. Never put all your eggs in one basket, my mother always said.
John Tay is a decent man, my mother said. A good provider.
There’s a ship that sails in the morning, I said.
My mother lay down the tower, struck by lightning. Her breath whistled in sharp, but she pinched her lips shut.
The banshee said nothing. She finished her tea, nodded to us both, walked to the door. A not very communicative banshee, I thought, though as I said, I’d never met one before.
I opened the door. The banshee took my hand, clasped it tight, and walked off.
You won’t regret marrying John Tay, my mother said, as if it were settled.
I stood in the doorway, looking out. The banshee was gone; the lane was empty. A towhee perched in a thicket, branches scritching as it foraged for berries.
I opened my hand, saw the three blackcurrants the banshee had left me. Bit down, felt purple juice staining my lips.
There’s a ship that sails in the morning, I said.
Kathryn Kulpa is the author of A Map of Lost Places (Gold Line Press) and For Every Tower, a Princess (Porkbelly Press). Find her stories in Best Microfiction, Flash Frog, HAD, Milk Candy Review, and Women’s Studies Quarterly. She is a 2025 writer-in-residence at Linden Place in Bristol, Rhode Island.
