Chapter 17 Searching for Killian
MAGDALENA
Traveling to Dublin from Cambridge turned out to be almost too easy, but at the same time, I was nothing but a girl who’d never gone anywhere significant without my family.
The first trip turned out to be a disaster.
Don’t get me wrong, Ireland looks like a place where fairytales are born, but everywhere I went, I felt lost. The old buildings and streets quickly blended.
I couldn’t understand anything the people said to me, and they couldn’t understand me with my thick French accent.
Sometimes, my paranoia would spark, and I felt like I was being followed, so I’d take a sharp turn and get even more lost, stumbling into areas of the city that were not deemed safe.
Eventually, on the first afternoon, I managed to grab a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the nearest Irish Traveler site.
Of course, he turned around and asked me to repeat, but then he simply drove.
Soon, all the touristy cafés, stores, and hotels disappeared.
The neighborhood was dirtier, many of the buildings abandoned or rundown and almost falling apart.
The few people walking in the streets looked exhausted and unhappy.
I’d never been in a place like that—Monaco had no poor areas.
The taxi drove off as soon as I got out of it.
I simply started walking through the streets of the halting site.
It didn’t take long before I had children of all ages following about a yard behind me.
It made me smile how some of the toddlers following me were doing it in their unicorn-shaped cars.
The whispers soon became shouts. “Hey! Who the hell are ya?” When I finally stopped walking and turned around, the whole street was packed with kids.
“Who the fuck are you?” one boy asked.
“You looking for someone?” a girl with a much softer tone asked.
I chuckled because they sounded exactly like him. It was as if I were home. Their faces … If I chose an eye here, a lip there, it would be him. I was so sure it would be the place where I’d find him.
“Does anyone know a Killian Oster?” I raised my voice so they could all hear me.
They whispered among themselves, and many shook their heads.
Please. Please give me some information, anything at all.
The bang of a door closing caught our attention.
To my left, a woman climbed down her steps to the street, joining the kids with a protective demeanor, her eyes scanned me up and down then glared. Her arms crossed over her chest.
“What you want?” Her chin lifted toward me. Her glare didn’t scare me because I was too saddened by their answers already. My heart was dying of loneliness, so cold and alone.
On the cusp of wailing inside my mind, I managed to beg, “I need to speak to an elder. C-can you please help me?” My voice broke.
Killian, come on. Please. Please. Please.
I shut my eyes tight and took a deep breath, hoping the painful hollowness that was spreading in my chest would disappear.
Later that night, I tossed and turned, feeling stupid for being so optimistic; of course it wasn’t going to be that quick and easy.
Dublin
Sites outside Dublin
Belfast
Galway
Sites outside Galway
Cork
Sites around Cork
Magdalena (18 years old) September