Mr and Mrs O'Reilly, of No. 4 Ashford Crescent, Glenhaven, on the foggy coast of Ireland, were experts at presenting themselves as quite ordinary and normal people. Any interest in the strange or mysterious was the last thing on their minds; they never bothered with such nonsense.
Mr O'Reilly was a man of about 45 with broad shoulders and a sturdy build. He had worked as a foreman at the Glenhaven shipyard for many years, meticulously combed his beard and carefully kept his dark brown hair cut short.
Mrs O'Reilly was 39 years old, tall and slender, with wavy black hair that fell over her shoulders. Her green eyes reflected the typical Irish spontaneity, and she was adept at watching her neighbours over the garden wall.
Their youngest son Sean, 15, was the apple of the family's eye; after all, he had to be the first of all. With his brown hair and freckled cheeks, he was a mischievous and moody boy.
The O'Reillys were proud of everything they had, but they had a little secret that no one knew about. And that secret would one day change everyone's lives...
There was no way the O'Reillys could accept a family as mysterious and different as the Vexleys. Mrs Vexley was Mrs O'Reilly's sister, but they hadn't seen each other for years; in fact, Mrs O'Reilly pretended she didn't exist. For her sister and her family did not fit into the orderly, quiet life of the O'Reillys. They did not want to imagine what the neighbours would think if the Vexleys were seen on the streets of Glenhaven. They had heard that the Vexleys had a little boy, but they had never seen him. That boy was reason enough for them to stay away from the mysterious world of the Vexleys, because the O'Reillys didn't want Sean to get too close to such a boy.
When the O'Reillys woke up on that foggy, cold Irish morning when our story begins, there was not the slightest sign of the strange and mysterious events that would soon change the whole atmosphere of the town. Mr O'Reilly was sipping his coffee in the kitchen, wearing the most ordinary shirt he had chosen for work and humming an old Irish song. Mrs O'Reilly was sharing the latest gossip from the neighbours as she hurriedly got little Sean ready for breakfast.
None of the family noticed a black crow fluttering past the window. It was half past eight in the morning. Mr O'Reilly picked up his bag, kissed Mrs O'Reilly softly on the cheek, tried to kiss little Sean goodbye, but failed; he was too busy picking up his breakfast food from the table and throwing it on the floor.
"Little bugger," Mr O'Reilly chuckled to himself as he left the house.
He got into his car and backed out of the narrow, cobbled garden of No. 4 Ashford Crescent. And at that moment he noticed the first sign of something strange: At the corner of the street, at the edge of the pavement, a crow was standing there, staring at him.
For a moment Mr O'Reilly could not comprehend what he saw. Because in the black crow's beak there was something thin, like a piece of parchment, like a piece of a letter. But that was impossible. He rubbed his blue eyes. When he looked again, the crow was still there, but there was nothing in its beak. Maybe it was the morning grogginess, maybe it was the play of light...
He locked eyes with the crow. It was as if he was not content to look at it, but was trying to see through it.
Mr O'Reilly shook his head and continued to watch the crow in the rear-view mirror as he turned the corner. The crow was still there. Motionless. His eyes were still on it.
Now he was glancing at the sign that said Ashford Crescent, or no, actually he was just looking at it; he wasn't trying to read it. Just then he noticed something out of the corner of his eye: A yellow cat sitting on the stone wall in the distance. But this yellow cat could neither study the signs nor read the writing... after all, cats couldn't read.
Shrugging slightly, Mr O'Reilly put the cat out of his mind. Driving his car carefully, he drove into the centre of town, towards the harbour where the shipyard was. He had decided to think of nothing else today except a large order for a propeller, which he hoped to take delivery of as soon as he got there.
But as he approached the centre of Glenhaven, something else replaced the metal shards and drawings in his head.
As he tried to make his way through the morning's heavy traffic, he noticed a group of people on the side of the road, dressed in long, hooded dark clothes.
Their fabrics rippled gently in the wind, their gait almost silent. At first O'Reilly thought it was a new street fashion. But then... some of the faces among them were old. And no young man would wear an emerald green feather-embroidered coat just for the sake of elegance.
Mr O'Reilly was always uneasy about the strange clothes they wore around their backs. "I suppose it's just another silly new fashion trend," he thought.
He tapped the steering wheel with his fingers. His blue eyes caught the crowd formed by the group a little ahead.
They were all whispering excitedly and gesturing with their hands.
Mr O'Reilly's eyes caught a glimpse of an elderly man in the crowd. He was noticeably older than himself, and he was wearing a long emerald green coat with feather embroidery. And in broad daylight!
"No way... The nerve!" he muttered to himself.
Then it dawned on Mr O'Reilly:
This had to be some kind of ridiculous street demonstration in the town square. Probably a fund-raiser... or an advertisement for a theatre group that couldn't get on stage. What else could it be?
Yes, it certainly was. The traffic began to move and Mr O'Reilly was in the shipyard car park in a few minutes. All he had on his mind were the new propeller parts and the assembly drawings.
Mr O'Reilly sat in his narrow office on the ninth floor with his back to the window, as he always did. If he hadn't done so, it might have been a little more difficult to keep his mind on the job that morning.
Because even though he didn't realise it, something was going on outside.
He didn't see the crows in the sky, soaring silently over the town. But he saw many people walking on the street.
Their mouths were agape, watching the black crows circling overhead one after the other, pointing at them with their fingers. Some of them had never seen a flock of crows in their lives, much less one so silent in broad daylight.
But for Mr O'Reilly, the morning was quite ordinary. It was a crow-free, uneventful morning. He shouted at nine different employees, made five emergency phone calls, shouted some more. By noon, he was in a good mood. To change the mood, he wanted to stretch his legs and go out and buy a fresh doughnut from the bakery across the street.
As he was walking out the door, the strangely dressed people he had seen in the traffic in the morning and forgotten had already faded from his mind. Until he met some of them again in front of the bakery...
As he walked past them, he looked at them without averting his blue eyes. He didn't know why, maybe because of the way they were walking, maybe because they were walking away without trying to make eye contact, but he shivered slightly. A strange uneasiness filled him.
They were whispering excitedly.
At first Mr O'Reilly had taken them for beggars, but there was not a purse in sight, nor an outstretched hand. As he passed them with a warm scone in a paper bag, a few words of their conversation caught his ear. "The Vexleys, yeah, yeah... I've heard of them." "...their son... Cillian was his name..."
Mr O'Reilly suddenly stiffened. A wave of fear swept through him that he could not recognise. For a moment he looked round at the speakers as if he was going to say something... but he suddenly gave up.
He crossed the road quickly, almost as if he was running. When he reached the stairs of the shipyard, he went straight to his office room. He told his secretary not to disturb him and closed the door. Then he picked up the phone and started dialling the house number.
But just as he was about to press the last button, he stopped. He withdrew his left hand, put the phone back and, twitching his moustache, began to think.
"No... this is utter rubbish," he said to himself. Vexley is a very common surname.
Cillian is... an ordinary child's name.
It had to be a coincidence, nothing more. But the uneasiness, it didn't go away.
And he wasn't sure if his nephew's name was Cillian. He hadn't even seen the boy. Perhaps his name was Conall... or Cormac, Mr O'Reilly wasn't sure. But in any case, there was no point in bringing it up with Mrs O'Reilly.
She would have been uneasy at the mere mention of his brother. In fact, it was hard to blame her; if one had a family like the Vexleys, one would be uneasy too.
But what about... those people?
The ones wearing those strange, long overcoats?
That group in the centre of town, whispering strangely?
In the afternoon, he couldn't keep his mind on his work. Ship engines, propeller axles, technical drawings... all blurred in his mind.
At five o'clock, as he was leaving the building, he was so lost in thought that he accidentally bumped into someone at the exit door.
He staggered back. It was a skinny old man. "Excuse me," Mr O'Reilly grunted.
But the man didn't seem to mind the collision. On the contrary, his smile was so big that several passers-by had to turn round.
The man was wearing an embroidered coat, a mixture of purple and black, the fabric shimmering in the dim light.
"Oh, stop apologising, sir," said the old man in a thin but clear voice, "nothing can spoil my mood today! At last... the Shadow Oath has fallen! And believe me, even the likes of you should celebrate this day."
Mr O'Reilly's face turned ashen. What "Shadow Oath" was that? And what was implied in that last sentence?
The man quickly disappeared into the crowd and out of sight. Mr O'Reilly was frozen in place.
He was very confused. He ran at full speed to his car and drove fast towards home.
He hoped that everything that was happening was a dream. But he had never hoped for such a thing before, because he did not believe in imagination, and they were not a family of believers anyway.
As he pulled into the car park at number four Ashford Crescent, he saw the yellow cat that had caught his eye that morning. The cat was sitting quietly on the garden wall. He was sure it was the same cat; the lines around its eyes were just like the old one.
"Shh!" whispered Mr O'Reilly.
The cat did not move. It just looked at him, suddenly hard and attentive.
Mr O'Reilly wondered if this was ordinary cat behaviour.
Trying to pull himself together, he opened the door to the house.
He was still determined not to tell his wife what had happened.
Mrs O'Reilly had had an ordinary, quiet day. Over dinner, she talked about the little troubles the neighbour's daughter had been having lately.
She was proud of little Sean's constant repetition of a word he had just learnt, "maybe not".
Mr O'Reilly, as usual, tried to be calm and normal. After Sean was put to sleep, he went into the lounge to watch the evening news: "Birdwatchers across the country are reporting an unusual sighting today. The crows, normally active at night, have been observed by hundreds of people flying in all directions throughout the day since early morning.
Experts cannot explain the reason for this sudden and strange change in the crows' behaviour."
The reporter's voice seemed to grin with a slightly mocking tone at the end of the sentences.
Extremely mysterious. And now we have a weather report from Liam O'Connor in Glenhaven. What do you reckon, Liam, are we going to see another flock of crows tonight? "Well, Kate," said Liam, "it's hard to say, but it wasn't just the crows that were behaving strangely today. Callers from all over the town, as well as Galway, Cork and Belfast, said that instead of the expected rain they were seeing bright lights and a strange glow in the sky!
We've got the Dawn Festival coming up, maybe they're already making preparations!
But it's definitely going to rain tonight."
Mr O'Reilly froze in his seat.
Strange lights shining all over Ireland? Crows soaring low in the daylight? Strange people in strange clothes wandering the streets of Glenhaven? And to top it all off, whispers about the Vexleys... always whispers...
Mrs O'Reilly came into the parlour with two cups of hot black tea. She couldn't keep quiet any longer. She had to say something. Mr O'Reilly cleared his throat nervously. "Well, darling Maeve... have you heard anything from your sister lately?"
As he had expected, Mrs O'Reilly's face suddenly took on a look of anger mixed with surprise. They had been acting as if she didn't have a sister for a long time. "No," she said in a stern voice. "Why do you ask?"
Mr O'Reilly averted his eyes.
"There were strange things on the news," he muttered. "Crows... flashes in the sky... lots of strange people in town today..."
Mrs O'Reilly interrupted him: "So?"
Mr O'Reilly cocked his head.
"Well... I was thinking... maybe... all this... you know... has something to do with those lunatics."
Mrs O'Reilly took a small sip of her tea, her lips pressed tightly together. Mr O'Reilly considered whether to tell her that he had heard the name "Vexley".
But... he decided he couldn't risk it. "Their son... well... he's Sean's age, isn't he?" he said, in a tone as if he were just talking for the sake of it.
Mrs O'Reilly nodded stiffly. "I suppose so. What was his name? Colin?"
"Cillian. It seems to me to be a very ordinary, common name."
A heaviness came over Mr O'Reilly that he could not explain at that moment.
"Oh, yes," he said absent-mindedly. "I think so..."
That night, as they went upstairs and prepared for bed, they did not say another word about it. While Mrs O'Reilly was in the bathroom, Mr O'Reilly went to the window of the house and looked out into the front garden.
And there it was... The yellow cat he had seen earlier was still sitting quietly on the stone wall. Unmoving, standing tall against the cool Glenhaven evening.
As if... waiting for something to happen...
Was he imagining things? Could all this strangeness have something to do with the Vexleys? If so... if these oddities had anything to do with them, and if anyone in this town found out that they were related to the Vexleys, Mr O'Reilly could never bear the shame of it. Later that night they went to bed. Mrs O'Reilly fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. But it was not the same for Mr O'Reilly. His mind was in turmoil, and though his eyelids grew heavy, his thoughts would not rest.
Just before he fell asleep, he tried to console himself: Even if the Vexleys had something to do with it, she thought, they wouldn't go near her or Mrs O'Reilly.
The Vexleys knew very well what both he and Maeve thought of them. There was no way they would ever interfere with their... ordinary, decent lives again. He yawned, turned slowly on his side. "He won't mess with us..." she whispered. How wrong he was...
As Mr O'Reilly drifted off into a restless sleep, outside, on the stone wall, the yellow cat was still wide-eyed. It sat as still as a statue, staring unblinkingly into the night. As if... waiting for something to happen.
The yellow cat seemed to be fixated on the far corner of Ashford Crescent in Glenhaven. It didn't move the slightest when a car door slammed from a side street, or when two crows swooped low over it. Not even its feathers trembled.
He stood there like a statue on the stone wall until midnight. It neither blinked its eyes nor turned its head.
And then... A man appeared at the corner of the street where the cat was staring.
He appeared so suddenly, so quietly that it was as if he had risen from the ground like a whisper.
The cat's tail trembled, its eyes squinted.
The only thing that pierced the silence of the night was the rustle of dry leaves blown along the wall by the wind. But now... he was there.
Such a man had never been seen before on this quiet, ordinary street in Glenhaven.
The man was tall, his silhouette stretching out into the night. Despite his slender, erect posture, his long grey hair and white beard down to his chest whispered that his age could not be expressed in ordinary measurements.
But his age was obvious: At least eighty, perhaps much more... But the vitality in his body and the fire in his eyes were still there.
His clothes were as extraordinary as he was:
He wore a heavy coat in deep white tones that swept the floor. On his shoulders was an embroidered cloak, fastened with dark leather straps. On his feet were old but sturdy boots with silver buckles, and his every step echoed down the road.
And in his eyes... Those eyes seemed to look through the flame, through round, thin-rimmed spectacles: bright, watchful and very alert. His nose, long and arched, looked as if it had been broken several times in the past, but his expression was that of a man who knew everything and revealed nothing.
And around his neck, hanging down to his chest, was a strange necklace: It was attached to a thin, flexible metal braid that did not look like a chain, but like a spider's web. At the end of the pendant was a drop-shaped plate inlaid with black stone. In the centre of the plate was an intertwined star pattern with seven points, and in the centre of the star shone a blue point of light that flickered almost alive.
This necklace was no ordinary ornament. The symbol on it was a sign from ancient times, an object of power bound by an ancient oath that only the chosen could wear.
This man's name was Fintan Malloran.
And with his arrival, nothing in Ashford Crescent would ever be the same again.