Twelve Months to Midnight

The Irish government has sent two envoys to the Otherworld that never came back. This happened in the years 1980 and 1981, our first two years under a new Taoiseach. Now, I’m not saying that the Taoiseach in question was to blame. There’s certainly no evidence that he loaded the envoys with questions designed to benefit him directly. Especially as he had all minutes of the Special Cabinet Meeting shredded afterwards. But the third time was indeed the charm and all subsequent envoys from him were sent with the same standard list of inoffensive questions that each Cabinet has used ever since. I stepped back out onto the grass of the Park, facing the way I had come from. I wasn’t aware of having done a full about-turn, but stranger things had happened when gateways were involved. Everything was as I’d left it a moment before, but for the absence of Cormac and the cars from the Department of Foreign Affairs. I turned around to examine the gateway. The ribbons and markings that Cormac had s...

William Shakespeare sure knew a thing or two about writing. He could coin a phrase or rhyme a couplet like nobody’s business. But everybody knows that. What less people know is that he was also involved in the occult. He didn’t practise magic himself, but he definitely moved in the same circles as those that did. This is why, when he wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream , he got so many details almost correct. And by “Shakespeare”, I mean the actual guy who wrote the plays; not the glove-maker’s son from Stratford who got to put his name on them. “OK, who else was a wizard?” asked Sam. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed with a sheet wrapped around her, toga-style. Her red hair was tousled and she had to keep tossing her head to get loose strands out of her face. All-in-all, it was a very distracting sight as I tried to pack. “There’s been loads of them.” “But none in charge? I can’t believe one wizard hasn’t used their powers ,” and here I could see the sheet move as she ...