There was a house in the hills beyond Cill Rónáin that nobody could quite locate.
An old shepherd remembered seeing it beside the river, where the ground was too marshy for a house to stand. A farmer insisted it had once occupied the end of the village lane, though his father had said it was already there when he was a boy. An elderly woman maintained that she had been born in it, but could never remember where she had gone to school.
The house appeared most often around Samhain.
People who had seen it described a stone building with a red door, a chimney, and three windows facing the west. Beyond that, their accounts differed.
Some said it stood beneath a hill. Others said it stood on top of one. One man claimed that he had walked past it every morning for forty years without noticing it, until one evening it was standing in his garden.
Nobody could explain how it moved.
Nobody could explain why it moved.
And nobody could remember seeing it actually move.
A young woman named Aisling first encountered the house on her way home one Samhain evening.
She had been visiting her aunt in the neighbouring village and had taken a path through the hills to avoid the long road. The light was fading, and a cold mist had begun to gather in the hollows.
She saw the house quite suddenly.
It stood beside a low stone wall, with a red door and a curl of smoke rising from its chimney. A lamp burned in one of the windows.
Aisling was certain she had never seen it before.
She approached the door and knocked.
It opened almost immediately.
An elderly woman stood inside.
“Ah, there you are,” she said. “We were beginning to wonder.”
“I'm afraid you've mistaken me for someone else,” Aisling replied.
The woman looked at her carefully.
“Have I?”
“I don't know this house.”
“That's all right,” said the woman. “The house knows you.”
She stepped aside.
Aisling hesitated, then entered.
The room was warm and comfortably furnished. A fire burned in the hearth, and a table was laid for supper. A man's coat hung beside the door, and a pair of muddy boots stood beneath it.
“Will you be staying?” the woman asked.
“Only for a moment. I need to get home.”
“Of course. Supper will be ready shortly.”
Aisling looked around.
There was something familiar about the room. The wooden dresser, the blue crockery, the little clock above the fireplace — she seemed to have seen them before.
Then she noticed a photograph on the mantelpiece.
It showed a small girl standing beside a woman in front of the house.
The girl was Aisling.
She recognised the coat she was wearing. It had belonged to her mother, and she had worn it on the day of her seventh birthday.
She picked up the photograph.
“Where did you get this?”
The old woman glanced at it.
“It's been here for years.”
“But this is me.”
“Yes.”
“And my mother.”
“Yes.”
Aisling turned the photograph over. There was no inscription.
“When was this taken?”
The woman looked puzzled.
“When you came.”
“Came where?”
The woman smiled.
“Home, of course.”
Before Aisling could answer, a man entered from the adjoining room.
He was tall, with grey hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
“Is supper ready?” he asked.
“Nearly,” said the woman.
He turned towards Aisling.
“Have you brought the child?”
“What child?”
The man looked surprised.
“The little girl, naturally.”
Aisling stared at him.
“I haven't brought anyone.”
He seemed disappointed, but not particularly concerned.
“Perhaps next time.”
Then he went into the kitchen.
Aisling looked at the old woman.
“Who are these people?”
The woman was arranging plates on the table.
“People who live here.”
“But where is here?”
The woman stopped.
“Why, here.”
Aisling felt that she was getting nowhere.
She walked through the adjoining rooms, hoping to find a door leading outside. The house seemed larger than it had appeared from the road. A narrow passage led to a small sitting room, where a young man was reading beside the window.
He looked up.
“Hello, Aisling.”
She stopped.
“Do I know you?”
“Of course.”
“Who are you?”
The young man closed his book.
“You used to come here every Thursday.”
“I don't think I ever did.”
“You did when you were young.”
Aisling looked at him more closely.
He had the face of someone she recognised, though she could not place him. Then she realised that he looked rather like her brother, who had died when she was a child.
“Are you...?”
The young man smiled.
“Not quite.”
He returned to his book.
At the end of the passage was a door she had not noticed before. She opened it and found a bedroom.
It was her childhood bedroom.
The little wooden bed stood beneath the window. Her old dolls were arranged on a shelf, and a faded blue dress hung behind the door.
On the bedside table lay a book she had been given for her tenth birthday.
Aisling picked it up.
Inside the cover, in her mother's handwriting, were the words:
For Aisling, when she is old enough to understand.
She had never seen the inscription before.
She turned towards the window.
It looked out upon her own cottage in Cill Rónáin.
She could see the kitchen, the lamp burning above the table, and the little garden beyond the back door.
Then she saw herself.
Aisling was standing outside her cottage, just as she had been earlier that evening, preparing to leave for her aunt's house.
The other Aisling turned towards the door.
The young woman at the window stepped back.
She watched as her other self entered the cottage and closed the door.
A moment later, a light appeared in the window.
She heard footsteps behind her.
The old woman had followed her into the room.
“It's time you went home,” she said.
Aisling pointed towards the window.
“But I'm already there.”
The old woman looked out.
“Yes,” she said. “You are.”
“Then which one of us is here?”
The woman considered this.
“Both, I should think.”
Aisling turned towards her.
“Does this house belong to my family?”
The old woman smiled.
“Your family has belonged to this house for a very long time.”
“But I don't understand.”
“Not everyone does.”
Aisling followed her back through the passage.
The man was sitting at the table now, and the young man had joined him. There was an empty chair between them.
“Will you not stay for supper?” the old woman asked.
“I really must go.”
“Of course.”
She opened the front door.
Outside, the mist had lifted. Aisling could see the hills and, in the distance, the lights of Cill Rónáin.
She stepped out.
“Will I find this house again?” she asked.
The old woman stood in the doorway.
“When you need it.”
Aisling looked back.
“Where will it be?”
The woman laughed.
“Where it always is.”
Then she closed the door.
Aisling walked down the path towards the village.
When she reached home, her kitchen lamp was still burning. Her coat was hanging behind the door, and her boots stood beneath it.
She looked at the clock.
It was the same time as when she had left.
On the table lay the book she had seen in the bedroom.
She opened it.
The inscription was still there, but beneath it, in a handwriting she did not recognise, someone had added:
For Aisling, when she remembers where she has been.
She put the book away.
The following morning she asked her aunt whether she knew of an old house in the hills.
Her aunt looked up from her tea.
“Which one?”
“The house with the red door.”
“Oh,” said her aunt. “That one.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Her aunt thought for a moment.
“Your grandmother was born there.”
“I thought she was born in the cottage by the river.”
“She was.”
“But you just said—”
“I know what I said.”
Aisling waited.
Her aunt stirred her tea.
“Your grandmother used to say that the house moved whenever nobody was looking. She said it had been doing so for generations.”
“Why?”
Her aunt shrugged.
“Perhaps it was looking for somewhere to settle.”
“And did it ever find somewhere?”
Her aunt looked towards the window.
“I believe it did.”
That evening Aisling went into the garden.
The mist was gathering over the fields, and beyond the stone wall she could see the dark outline of the hills.
For a moment she thought she saw a chimney.
Then a light appeared in the distance.
She watched it for a long time.
The following morning, her neighbour came to borrow a spade.
“Have you seen it?” he asked.
“Seen what?”
“The old house. It's standing beside my garden.”
Aisling looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I'm sure. Red door, three windows, smoke coming from the chimney.”
He paused.
“Strange thing is, I was born in that house.”
Aisling smiled.
“Were you?”
The neighbour nodded.
“Though I can't remember where it used to be.”
That night, as the village settled into sleep, a light appeared in the upper window of the old house.
Someone stood behind the curtain, looking out.
And somewhere in Cill Rónáin, a child woke from a dream and asked her mother why their house had moved.
Her mother told her to go back to sleep.
But in the morning, the child would remember that the house had been somewhere else.
And that someone had been waiting for her.
