For Donal, the worst part about working the family land wasn’t the actual work. It was the repetitive tasks and how they left his mind to wander—often to places he’d rather not visit. A shadow often lurked in the back of his mind and the only things it was good for were pulling a fight out of thin air, intrusive thoughts and tearing himself down.

He walked back from the shore of Ballyness Bay with a stack of seaweed. His extended arms ached as he held the stack away from his shirt. In a day or two they’d use the plants in the parts of the fields that struggled to grow, but for now it was a slimy clump that smelled faintly of rotting eggs. As he surveyed the beige, cracked fields that lied between him and the house, he doubted if the entire bay held enough seaweed for the job.

Their land ran up to the bay head where wide stretches of sand met water. Smaller rivers dug through the nearby shore like eels squirming to reach the sea. It had several inlets on all sides, and from their home Donal could see almost the entire bay extend to the northwest. On good days, he could see the entrance to the sea. Outside of some low and gloomy clouds offshore to the north, near Tory Island, it was a brisk but gorgeous day set to the sounds of crashing waves and gull calls.

He stacked the plants in the smaller hut. His eyes lingered over the sight of his home basking in the afternoon sun. True, he and his brother were struggling with the farm, but the house had been in their family for several generations now, built out of stones dug from the neighboring grounds. Many nearby families weren’t as fortunate. Their homes were built from the same mud-covered wattle that comprised Donal’s small outbuildings.

His last task was to replace the muddy daub layer on the outbuildings’ walls. This morning’s anger was now frustration, but it wasn’t with Finn. Donal would not, could not, ever say it aloud but Finn was right. The farm was struggling and he was making it worse. Why was he giving his brother such a hard time?

The shadow in his mind had some ideas.

He only stayed because you were too scared to leave Mam and Da’s house, it told him. If you two fail, he gets to go where he wanted to go all along and you can be Murrough’s problem. This was never going to work out; why are we trying so hard to pretend otherwise?

A loud snap disrupted Donal’s spiral. He had lost his focus and pushed a sizable hole through a wall near one of the corners of the larger hut. Without a second thought, he flung the mud-filled pail and yelled.

He wiped his brow and looked skyward. It was now four hours past midday. Finn had not returned. What’s more, Siobhan never came. Even if she rode up to the house at this very moment, she’d have little chance of making it home before sunset. She wasn’t coming.

It didn’t sit right with him. Finn was rarely late—or mistaken—in regards to day-to-day plans. Today he was both. Given how Donal started their last fight, he considered himself responsible for anything that happened to his brother.

He walked back to the house and grabbed a spade that leaned against it. Donal either would meet Finn on the road or find out what happened to him. He stared at the house, but thought better of bringing any extra equipment.

****

For as sparse as his fields looked, the random vegetation was growing well. Sycamore and aspen trees popped out of the thick blackthorn and ferns that lined both sides of their road as it led southward. It dipped and climbed as it led to the left. At times the space between the hedges was so narrow Donal wondered how anyone could navigate a wagon through it.

It dawned on Donal that Finn or Murrough held the reins whenever he left the farm and by this point he was either lost in thought or asleep. Has the road always been this narrow?

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He reached the crossing with the road to Ards Beg and glanced west. The new road descended as the roadside flora spread apart to reveal a landscape painted in an unseasonable shade of brown. Green only appeared in small dots and thin lines along the edges of individual fields.

The three closest towns to Donal’s home, however, were to the east. In that direction the road was wider but the undergrowth and trees that lined it were just as thick as his own road. He passed a clearing with a few houses near the crossing. Donal could hear the voices of a family behind one and stopped. Did they see his brother? Finn was good about talking with the neighbors and keeping up appearances and niceties, though Donal knew that his brother found that harder to do than working the fields. If Finn made it here he’d be home by now. Donal resumed his walk to the east.

He would have better luck if he stopped someone traveling from that direction. They would have passed him. The road climbed hills and wound through valleys without any travelers from the east. The only sound came from trees blown by wind from the bay. Unease crept over him as the road crossed a small river. An unseen animal shook the brush along the north side of the road. The sun was low, but still above the trees; surely some people were on the road home.

Donal walked this main road for another half-mile. The blackthorn on the north side of the road stopped at a short stone wall. It was well built and only the amount of ivy that covered it told the wall’s true age. The house behind it reminded Donal of his own, only larger and more ornate. He was measuring up some of the structure’s extra rooms and finishing touches when a yell echoed from his right.

It was faint, further up the road and unmistakable. Finn’s voice was growing louder, though he still could not be seen. Donal ran toward his brother’s voice. As he neared the end of the property to his left, a new noise chilled him from head to toe, rooting him in the middle of the road.

It resembled the squeal and blow of a horse, but far lower in pitch. It reverberated for an unnatural length of time, rolling like thunder. His body compelled him to retreat, but Finn’s yelling had stopped. Donal’s concerns lied not with his own safety but Finn’s. Forward he went.

Donal neared the end of the stone wall. A road branched to the north on the other side. He backtracked from the crossing and dove into the copse along the southern edge of the road to assess the situation.

The sun behind Donal dipped below the treeline, darkening the road in either direction. As the hoofbeats grew louder, the echoes that bounced off trees and vegetation shortened. A dreadful silhouette crested over the farthest visible rise. It approached with purpose, though not in full gallop. He couldn’t make out any details, but Finn grunted with every bounce of the darkened shape.

The undergrowth provided Donal enough cover to creep closer. He held his breath with every rustle and snap of small twig that his movement made. He lurched at the sound of rustling and cracking from across the road before convincing himself it was his own echo.

The rider was now six hundred feet away and the shadow’s odd shape confused Donal. The horse was larger than most that traveled this road, but that didn’t explain the curves above it.

Three hundred feet away. From this distance, Finn’s form laid across the back of the rider’s horse, his head pointing to the far side of the road. He was bound.

Two hundred feet. Two lights flickered in front, bright as small lanterns but ember red. Donal never saw the like of the combination.

One hundred feet. The rider’s shadow clung low to the horse, the posture of someone that ducks their head even with their shoulders. Inches below, the two lights intensified. Donal mistook them for the rider’s own eyes. He sank backwards into the brush to avoid detection.

The rider slowed as he made the turn north, displaying his profile to any onlookers. Donal realized that the glowing red lights he saw must have been the horse’s eyes because its rider was missing his head.

Donal rubbed his eyes.

It’s an illusion from the long shadows at sunset, he told himself.

As the rider traveled north past the property between them, the clearing allowed the last few rays of vermilion sunlight through the trees and onto the rider’s back. Donal could not deny—or explain—what he saw.

He clenched his teeth and squeezed a fist downward with a grunt of frustration. “There’s nothing else for it,” he muttered.

Donal jumped out of the blackthorn and sprinted to the corner of the stone wall and stopped. He leaned his head past the edge to confirm the rider was not looking behind—if a headless man could even do such a thing. He stepped toward the middle of the road, ready to resume his pursuit.

He didn’t hear the three quick footsteps approaching from the rear on his left. He did, however, feel the flying tackle and the hand over his mouth as he was knocked across the road and into the treeline on the right.