December 22, 2025

The old house at the edge of Coldwater Pass had stood for over two centuries, and so had the stories. Every Yule, someone claimed to hear a cry in the wind—long, mournful, like a woman grieving into the snow.

The Morrow family always laughed it off.

Three generations packed the house that year: parents, children, and old Aunt Edra, who muttered charms into her tea and clutched a rosary that had never seen a church. She was the only one who didn’t laugh when the wind changed pitch after sundown.

“It’s her,” she whispered. “She comes on the longest night. Always has. Your grandfather heard her the night before his heart gave out.”

“Banshees are Irish,” scoffed Ethan, the eldest son. “We’re barely Midwest.”

Aunt Edra’s eyes didn’t blink. “You don’t have to believe in her. She believes in us.”

That night, as the family toasted mulled cider and sang old carols, the wind outside wailed like a wounded animal. It started low, almost musical. Then rose into a high, keening scream that seemed to shatter the glass between centuries.

Everyone froze.

A shape moved outside—a pale woman, draped in ice-misted tatters, her face hidden beneath a veil of drifting snow. She didn’t knock. She watched.

The room felt colder. A frost bloomed on the inside of the windowpane. Aunt Edra stood first.

“She’s not here to harm,” Edra said. “But someone’s time is near.”

They argued, accused Edra of superstition and fear-mongering. But no one could explain how the fire died all at once. Or why every clock in the house stopped at midnight. Or why little Claire, the youngest, said she saw “a lady crying in my room” just before dawn.

The next morning, Edra was gone. Peaceful, in her rocking chair by the window. Her rosary frozen in her lap. She had gone to meet her own warning.

And the banshee? Gone with the wind.

But now, each Yule, the family doesn’t laugh. They listen. They light candles in every room. And when the wind begins to sing, they leave a chair by the fire, empty and waiting—for whoever the banshee may be calling next.