The Night

Catherine slept over my house in the summer of 2011. It was a fun night, with us watching movies, making s'mores, laying on the grass and counting the stars. For a moment I didn't worry about her, and she as acting like her old self. We talked about how wonderful our new life would be, what color our room should be, the color of the curtains, that good stuff. Just her and me, in a world of our own.
We soon got tired, and as always, she slept with me. No, we didn't engage in maritals, if that's what you were thinking. We always slept in each other's bed since we became girlfriends. She curled up next to me, and together we fell asleep.
I woke to the sound of hysterical sobbing.
It wasn't my mother; she was dead asleep. It wasn't my brother of my father; they too were asleep. It definitely wasn't me, and it wasn't Catherine at all. But in the dead of night I could hear someone in the house crying in a way that I have never heard before. I don't know where it came from, or who was crying, but it chilled me to the bone. I wanted to go look for the source, maybe even comfort them, but the fear was stronger than my curiosity. Again I looked at Catherine, who was facing away from me. Instinctively I shuffeled closer, wrapped an arm around her, and closed my eyes. The crying continued.

I could do nothing else but listen and pray that it would stop soon.

To be honest I don't know how I did it, but I finally managed to sleep. The morning came, and the crying had finally ceased. Catherine was already in the kitchen, sipping her tea and reading the news. At first I wanted to talk about the crying I heard last night, hoping that perhaps she would have any idea. For some reason I decided against it. Maybe I was just being paranoid and it would turn out that one of my family members was crying. But...but it didn't sound like any of them.

Catherine wanted to go to the bookstore to pick something up and invited me to come with her. The entire drive there was in complete silence. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white. I don't think I saw her blink. I placed my hand on her shoulder, and her features softened.
Once we arrived, my beloved raced to the mythology and folklore section. Catherine had always been facinated by Irish folklore, as I already mentioned, and had several books on the topic. But she also had a ravenous appetite for folklore of the rest of the British Isles. Rebecca jokingly called her a walking encyclopedia on anything and everything relating to that subject. It was cute.
But watching Catherine flip through those books, desperate to find...whatever she was looking for, wasn't cute or in any way endearing; it was frightening. Wordlesly, anxiously, she ripped a book from its place from the shelf and tore through the pages in what looked like desperation. But as she picked up another book, a coughing fit shook her, and it fell to the floor.
I forgot to mention before: Catherine had been having these odd coughing fits on and off for a while. She went to the doctor for them, and he could find nothing wrong. Not even when she brought up that she had been having strange boughts of nosebleeds. I forgot what the doctor said, but he gave her something that was supposed to help. It did nothing.
She picked up the book and brought it to the cashier's, wordlessly paying for it and walking out the door. I couldn't get a good look at the title; she held it so close to her chest. We sat in the heated car for a little while.
"Are you okay?" I asked. I hoped that she would say something along the lines of, 'yes, I will be fine.' But all my Catherine did was weep. We sat there, in the heated car, as I held her. She told me that she loved me over and over again, and while I said nothing, I cried as well.
I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a part of the title: 'Fear Dubh.'