𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄 | 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

🌹 Chasing Four-Leaf Clovers

Author's Note: Dated "January 21, 2010", this story came from me living vicariously through my characters LOL I've always had a deep love of Ireland because of my heritage so this sort of just came into being. I wish I'd finished it and written more about them actually being in Ireland so who knows, maybe I'll come back and write more for it later. Or perhaps just something similar in nature. On a side note, the song at the beginning of the story was composed entirely by me. I'm not really sure that that's a selling point though LOL Either way, I hope y'all enjoy <3

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Mmmm...Ireland, oh, Ireland,

How I love that land,

the land of a thousand faeries,

and rolling green hills,

Oh, Ireland, Ireland,

Oh, my Ireland,

I love you so...

The music drifted through the cracks in my windowsill, filling me with overwhelming joy and unexpected happiness. Where it came from, I couldn't say. Even to this very day, the notes appear in the wind, tickling my ears and my senses.

Still groggy, I lifted myself up out of bed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. As my gaze adjusted to fresh sunlight, I couldn't help but to admire the many trinkets dotting my room: a carved elephant figurine from Africa, an Eiffel Tower key-chain from France, and even a surfing kangaroo complete with his own pair of sunglasses from Australia. They were all gifts from my mother, mementos she had picked up on her own travels from before she met my father. They were all so lovely. But my favorite figurine remained the dancing leprechaun playing a flute.

It was the very first I had received - itself a gift sent straight from Ireland by my grandmother. All of my mother's family still lived there, in fact. I felt a melancholy tug at my heartstrings then for I had never met my own grandmother. Or my cousins, aunts, and uncles. Nan made sure to send me pictures, though, in the mail along with her fanciful letters of enchanted gold and faery sightings from when she was a child herself.

Nan always sent letters to mom, too, ever since she moved to America. And each time, my mother had sent one back, promising to visit soon.

Somehow, though, the visits never transpired. Always a lack of money or even time. Something always just seemed to get in the way, some excuse not to go. Of course, the first excuse and distraction came in the form of the man who would become my father. At the time, he had been a tall, brunette American with shining cocoa-brown eyes. They fell in love quickly and subsequently married within a few months. Mom sent letters to Nan, of course, promising that directly after the wedding, her and her new husband would return to Ireland.

Nan scouted out a house close to hers while my parents began to make plans and pack their belongings. Moving was nearly finished when two problems arose. My father got a job promotion he couldn't turn down and there would be a new addition to the family - my eldest sister, Eileen. Suddenly, they couldn't travel and although Nan was overjoyed to be a grandmother for the very first time, she became disappointed that they would not be able to return as soon as she had hoped.

The months came and went until finally, four years had passed. The income was higher than it had been, dad's job offer hadn't been all that it was promised and my parents had made the decision once more to move back to Ireland. But again, mother fell ill and after a doctor's appointment...discovered it wasn't an illness after all. Welcome baby no. 2, Lanie (that would be me, by the way)...and baby no. 3, Leo.

In the small town of Mullingar, Nan was reading mom's new letter and sighing to herself sadly, "Not this year."

Another four years passed and we were ready to go...again. That's when everything changed. It started when mom got sick (and not from pregnancy this time). A couple weeks recovery and she was fine...and then dad and Eileen caught her illness. And so that cycle continued until the whole family had it. Leo and I, although the youngest, recovered fastest. But...dad wasn't so lucky. His "cold" persisted until finally, it warranted a visit from the family doctor.

He ran some tests and eventually concluded it was more serious than he, himself, could handle. He recommended a doctor in London, England by the name of Dr Elsworth. Money was tight but there was no choice - he needed to be taken to England. So the

"Not this year." mom said to herself as she broke the glass jar stocked full of dollars and coins labeled "Ireland" with a hammer.

The flight to England was tiring and the short stay in a run-down hotel was rough but for dad's sake, we made it through. However, sitting in the waiting room for good or bad news was enough discomfort to bring me nausea. In the end, though, the doctor gave us dark news with a light of hope hidden within. As it turns out, dad had an autoimmune disease that made him more susceptible to different kinds of illnesses. They gave him medicine to take and he would recover. Sadly, there was no cure and it would be a life-long disease for him.

It took dad four weeks to finally recover enough to return to work. And by then, the funds for Ireland had been depleted. I could see the disappointment and lingering sadness in my mother's haunted gaze sometimes. I think it's when she truly gave up on the idea of going back home.

Both my parents took on odd jobs to make a bit more money but the "Ireland" jar never seemed to get quite as full as it had been.

One day, my eyes lit on something moving near the trees just outside the window of my bedroom. Something sparkling with tiny wings. That familiar music came drifting back to my ears once again and I couldn't help but wonder if the haunting melody and fairy stories would be the only taste of a homeland I would never truly know.

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