The Language of the Lost

August in the city of Galway was a furnace, and the pavement outside my cousin’s flat radiated heat like a skillet. I was seventeen, visiting from Dublin, and the novelty of freedom had curdled into a restless boredom. My cousin, Declan, and his friend, Sean, had dragged me to a dusty Gaelic football pitch behind the old industrial estate, a patch of ground surrounded by cracked concrete and the skeletal remains of a factory that had closed before we were born. We were the only ones there, and the game was a slack, sweating affair, the ball thudding dully against our sticky forearms. When we finally collapsed near the rusted goalposts, the sun was dipping behind a shoulder of grey clouds, staining the sky the color of a fading bruise. I lay on my back, the coarse grass prickling my shoulders, and let the smoke from a salvaged cigarette curl into the air. Declan had rolled us some in the harsh, cloying tobacco he’d nicked from his mother. We passed it around, the silence comfortable, the heat a blanket over our bones.

Then the car appeared. It wasn’t a car anyone would drive here. It was a vintage black sedan, polished to an impossible shine, with chrome details that glared in the failing light. It rolled to a stop about twenty meters away, its engine a low purr. The driver didn’t get out. Through the windshield, we saw a pale silhouette, motionless. I felt a cold knot tighten in my stomach, a primal unease. Declan laughed, a nervous bark. ‘A ghost,’ he said, trying to sound brave. Sean, who had been raised more traditionally, whispered, ‘Don’t look at it. Don’t give it a chance to speak.’ The instruction was old, a story from his grandmother about the fear an Bealtaine, but it felt absurd under the flat August sky. I looked anyway.

The man in the car rolled down the window. He was old, with skin like crumpled paper and eyes that were almost colorless, the pale blue of a winter sky. He didn’t smile. He just looked at us for a long moment, then said something in a language I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t Irish, though it had a similar lilt. It was guttural, with guttural consonants that scraped against the air. Declan froze, the cigarette burning his fingers. Sean was already scrambling to his feet, mumbling a prayer. But I was transfixed. The words, whatever they were, crawled into my ears like insects, and for a bizarre, dizzying second, I understood them. Not as meaning, but as a command. They were telling me to come closer. To follow. The man tilted his head, and I felt my leg twitch, urged to stand.

I didn’t move. Instead, I said the only thing that came to mind, a phrase my mother had taught me long ago, when she was still with us, a remnant of her own childhood in the Gaeltacht. ‘Fan go fóill,’ I said. ‘Wait for now.’ It was a small thing, a tiny defiance. The man’s eyes widened, and for the first time, something like surprise flickered across his face. He repeated the words back, but wrong, mangling the vowels. Then he said more, his voice hardening, and this time, the words did not just tickle my ears; they pressed against my skull, demanding entry. I could feel a pull, a physical tug, toward the car. Declan yelped and stumbled backward, his eyes wide. Sean was already running, his sandals slapping against the concrete.

The man spoke again, and this time, the words were a blow. The air thickened, and I saw something in the backseat of the car—a shape, dark and irresolute, that seemed to be waiting. I knew, with a cold certainty, that if I stepped forward, that shape would claim me. The language was a veiled doorway, and he was the doorkeeper. I thought of my mother’s voice, the lilt of her Irish. And I spoke again, the words shaky but true. ‘Gabh ar do sháimhín só,’ I said. It was an old phrase, my mother’s favorite, meaning ‘take it easy’ or ‘rest easy.’ It was a blessing, a farewell, a shield.

This time, the man recoiled. The car engine revved, and the window rolled up with a sharp click. The sedan turned around and drove off, its taillights two red eyes disappearing into the dusk. The air returned to normal, thick with heat and the smell of dry grass. Declan helped me to my feet, his hands trembling. ‘What the hell was that?’ he asked. I shook my head, my throat dry. ‘I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.’ But I knew the words had been a key, and I had used them to lock a door. From that day on, I was never without a phrase of Irish on my lips. I learned as much as I could, the old words, the forgotten words, and I taught them to anyone who would listen. I never saw the pale man again, but I’ve heard of others who did—people who walked into that factory, that field, and never came back. They didn’t know the words. They didn’t have the language to say no.

Now, years later, I live in a small coastal town, and I work as a translator. I translate documents from the ancient Irish texts, the ones with the looping script that look like spells. And sometimes, at night, I hear that guttural voice on the wind, calling out in a language that predates memory. But I always have a phrase ready, a rope of sounds to anchor my soul. I’ve never forgotten the kindness of my mother’s language, and I’ve never stopped speaking it, because I know the alternative. I know the shape in the backseat, and I know the words that open the door. I choose to stay on this side.

My cousin Declan once asked me if I was afraid. I told him, ‘I am,’ and I am. But fear is a language too, and I have learned to speak it. I have learned to say, ‘Fan go fóill,’ to the void. And so far, it has listened.