I noticed the flames from the bonfire in the distance.  I had become used to this sight each year.  For the past number of years, I had learned to blend in with these strangers and knew that I was now considered by many a valued member of the community, a shoulder to cry on, to some, even a friend.

They had accepted me without question when I arrived.  The surgical scars did not scare them away.  In time I began to see myself as they did and forged a way of making sure that here I would belong and no longer have to hide.

But Halloween was the one time each year where I still struggled to accept their rituals.  I attended the bonfire of course; my absence would have been noted.  The foolishness of a whole community standing in a field, staring at the dancing flames.  The children laughed and ran around as their parents rubbed their hands, complained about the cold and occasionally shouted at the many offspring of the community to keep back.

But this year I was finally looking forward to the bonfire, the Halloween celebration where everyone would gather and rejoice.

I watched them walk towards Dan Gillen’s field, carrying their flasks, wrapped in their winter scarves, laughing and joking about old ghost stories.  I wondered did anyone ever remember my story, would they dare speak it aloud in public.  No surely not, secrecy was the reason that Willie Brennan had been able to live freely and now held the esteemed position previously held by his father, GP for Ballytoomin.

I had loved Willie Brennan from the moment I met him so when he asked me out that Halloween in 1947 I didn’t hesitate to meet him in Dan Gillen’s cow shed.

My mother could have told me it would end in tears, the Brennans were not for the like of us and only wanted one thing.  I fought back the tears of regret as strongly as I fought off a drunken Willie Brennan for as long as I was able.  Cowering in the shed, I wondered how I could explain this.  Nobody would take my side.  I had gone there willingly.  Lying in the cold dark, I cried for the courage to expose the truth.

The first bottle landed close to my feet and shattered into flames.  The smell of gasoline swamped the air along with the sound of laughter from outside.  The flames spread quickly and consumed me.

Willie Brennan would maintain that he did not know I was still there, what happened was just youthful foolishness.

The community closed in fast and it fell to the father of the man who had viciously attacked and burned me to send me away to the big city hospital where God willing they could do something but he thought it unlikely.

Rumours of my death spread quickly and I did nothing to dispel them as inside I was truly dead.  Weeks turned into months and with loving care I started to live again.

I waited until enough years had passed to ensure there would be no suspicion and I learned to mimic the accent of the nurse who had shown me such kindness.  I would return a different person, a new woman, a woman with a story of a terrible factory accident in my youth.

I stared at the community of Ballytoomin as they prepared to light the bonfire.  I was careful to make sure that I had hidden the gas canisters carefully beneath the pyre. They would pay the price for their secret, for siding with the doctor’s son who never had to be held accountable.  I heard the explosion behind me as I walked down the old bog road.

It was time to disappear and die.  I knew I could do it, again.