One canal.

Four dates.

1751. 1756. 1804. 1960.

Conceived. Started. Opened. Closed.

A new date added now as the Grand Canal begins to flood beyond control.

Basements fill first and fast. Black slime and waste water rises. Drains clog. Sandbags are deployed but do not work.

Boats are floated to save the elderly.

Helicopters pluck corpses from ruined trees.

#kidlit#scifi#horror#mystery Bara Cailín – Daily adventures published at http://t.co/KxyB9BNVIN TRAILER https://t.co/79PM3B1STT

— Barnaby Taylor (@BTDublin2012) September 13, 2015

And so it rained.

Rained like never ever before.

Falling hard and straight and long.

Dark clouds lay low in the sky like a hateful pall.

Spewing.

Incontinent.

Unchecked.

Endless.

Unceasing.

Amaranthine.

Filling the streets.

#kidlit#scifi#horror#mystery Bara Cailín – Daily adventures published at http://t.co/KxyB9BNVIN TRAILER https://t.co/79PM3B1STT

— Barnaby Taylor (@BTDublin2012) September 13, 2015

So those cosmic cogs and folds and gears and sinister synapses beyond the sense of those of us still left alive continue to grind and grate and turn and as they do so the Second of TheFive finds the moment opportune and duly crosses over fresh with purpose to surprise the world by taking the form of the bridge over the Grand Canal called Clanbrassil.

#kidlit#scifi#horror#mystery Bara Cailín – Daily adventures published at http://t.co/KxyB9BNVIN TRAILER https://t.co/79PM3B1STT

— Barnaby Taylor (@BTDublin2012) September 13, 2015

As a new snow now falls on the world I want to pause and thank you all for following the daily adventures of Bara Cailín – I really appreciate it. I hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them. Chapter Three will start tomorrow so you don’t have to wait for long.

I know that everybody always wants everything from you whenever you engage with anything online but if you are so minded please could you also tell your friends and share the links? That would be wonderful.

I am currently working on the next phase of the project and hope to have more news soon for you all.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already seen it please watch and share the Bara Cailín trailer on Twitter.

#kidlit#scifi#horror#mystery Bara Cailín – Daily adventures published at http://t.co/KxyB9BNVIN TRAILER https://t.co/79PM3B1STT

— Barnaby Taylor (@BTDublin2012) September 13, 2015

The world looks small from above and without.

Now as ever but imbued with a new poignancy.

Tide and pull begin to change and slightly ever so slightly the world hangs different on its axis now.

Just to one side.

Askew.

As the ambulances continued to unload the assembled crowd began to sing.

With a low moan at first, a collective mumbling, the voices of the crowd soon found a common purpose.

Gradually the full range of the human voice found expression on this awful night as father and mother, son and daughter, friend and stranger joined in.

At first the driving rain damped the singing but it wasn’t long before the voices of the gathered triumphed, winning the night as they sang the song of the abattoir.

Never a nation to miss a chance, the path to Dún Aonghasa is littered with people pushing wares from bockedy prams.

Bottles of water. Single cigarettes. Bags of broken biscuits. Shower caps. Cheap umbrellas.

‘This is simply hateful,’ said Mac. ‘Like the shrines of old where a bleeding statue begats an army of hawkers and peddlers.’

He spoke to the crowd.

‘Do we never learn?’

But what with the rain and the sellers and the journey no one was listening.

On Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands.

Dún Aonghasa.

The site of a prehistoric slaughter. Hundreds of thousands of men destroyed.

Sharp stones embedded in the bedrock to damage horses.

A place for the performance of rites.

On the edge of a cliff above the Atlantic.

Looking down you feel the urge to join the waves. Time is marked by the endless beat of the sea on the rock.

Amidst the multitude, an old man and a young girl struggle up the hill in the blinding rain.

You are wet through before you wake here.

‘The best way to understand what is going on is to see a Tuning in action,’ said the Rock Star. ‘I was going to have one here but that was before this.’ He looked at the wheelchair.

‘A Tuning?’ asked Mac.

‘A ceremony of acknowledgement, ‘ replied the Rock Star. ‘Quite the thing at the moment among new devotees.’

‘And where would we find one of these Tunings?’ asked Mac.

‘Dún Aonghasa,’ said the Rock Star.