Blood Ties

by Gina Whitney

  “What the fuck?” I said to myself. I felt like such a hypocrite. I had to get to James. He would know how to handle my predicament. He would tell me what to do.

  I entered my bedroom filled with the expectation that James would make it all right. I knew he’d tell me it would be okay and only good would come out of this. He would tell me to take it easy; he’d handle it. Like he always did.

  “James, something weird is happening to me,” I said as soon as I got into the room. He was standing at the window with his hands in his pockets.

  “What’s wrong?” He didn’t turn around.

  I went to him and presented myself, programmed to get a hug. He still just looked out the window.

  “James?”

  He turned to me. He looked so lost. “Something’s wrong, you said?” He asked like he’d just caught on to what I’d told him.

  I knew then that I could ask him for comfort, and he would try his best to give it to me. But he would fail because he needed his strength to come to terms with killing his brother. This was an extremely disturbing revelation to me—that there would be times when I couldn’t even rely on James.

  “Oh, nothing. Can I get you anything?” I asked.

  He turned back to window. “No.”

  I walked out and closed the bedroom door behind me. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. So I just stood at the door and looked down the hallway. I hoped Aunt Evelyn or Addison would snap out of their funks and come to my rescue. I waited and waited. No one came up those stairs. For the first time since all this got started, I had no one to lean on. And I had absolutely no clue what to do next.

  The number was thirty-three. Catherine and her minions had devoured thirty-three innocent men, women, and children that day.

  Chief Weylen stood amidst dried pools of blood and bits of graying flesh. Body parts were strewn about the reservation in arrangements that almost seemed purposeful. The few whole corpses were collected in a collage of sheets from survivors’ houses.

  The injured were gathered up on makeshift stretchers and carried to a provisional triage. This was necessary, as they could not be taken to any mainstream hospital or clinic. Not only would the shape-shifters have to explain how they were injured, but there were the exams and blood work to be reckoned with. Those clinical tools would show that the wolves were in no way normal physiologically.

  Chief Weylen had foreseen the need for medical care a long time ago and financed two young shape-shifters’ medical-school educations. These doctors lived double lives. In one they were both prominent New York City physicians. In the other they were holistic medicine men for the tribe. The two doctors, despite the catastrophic injuries, worked adeptly to service the wounded. With the rest of the tribe acting as impromptu physicians’ assistants, everyone dealt the best they could with missing limbs, massive blood loss, contusions, bruises, and broken bones.

  The hours of caring for the infirm went well into the night. After they were all attended to, Chief Weylen and the elders prepared the dead for the next life. The chief took out an eagle’s quill that had been passed down for centuries, and used only during times of death. He dipped it in ink and wrote names in the Book of the Dead. He had never had to write more than one name at a time…until now. The bodies were cleaned, anointed in essential oils, and dressed in traditional regalia. As the elders adorned the bodies, the common thought was how only ten protégés could kill so many.

  Though the shape-shifters were Native American in descent, the origins of their lineage could be traced back to the original coven. Many of their burial practices reflected this. Thirty-three funeral pyres were surrounded by dazed family members. The fetid smell of gasoline emanating from the kindling did not bother them at all. Some young wolves brought Kaya’s body over to the chief. She was dressed in a simple pink dress with a garland of baby’s breath around her head. To the chief she looked like a napping flower girl. He was thankful her face had not been disfigured in the attack, and her injuries had been concentrated from the chest down. Kaya’s beautiful face, so peaceful, would be his last remembrance of her. The chief fixed her hair and kissed her forehead. Before he became overwhelmed, he signaled to the young wolves to place her atop the pyre.

  Duty called, and Chief Weylen steadied himself. His presence loomed large as he adroitly addressed the grieving crowd. The spirits were with him as he found just the right words to guide and support his people. As the tribe followed him in fervent prayer, the elder woman who’d given Grace the bracelet looked on. Being wise, she saw how her people’s anger and hate boiled within them so strong it poisoned the air. She knew she had to do something to repair the damage done to their once-tranquil souls.

  Julie stayed inside the chief ’s house for the duration of the ceremony. In no way could she could bear seeing Hari laid out like a butchered piece of meat. She watched her parents gripping each other as if they were facing a ferocious storm. Her mother wore her open-sored grief like a shroud for everyone to see. Her father, however, closed his up, knowing if he let his agony go, he’d die right there himself.

  Each family selected someone to take up a torch. The chief was the last one. They all held the flames to the incendiary kindling under the corpses. Thirty-three fires blazed up, hauntingly illuminating the bodies’ white coverings. The wails of women and usually strong men echoed throughout the clearing.

  As the fires consumed the pyres, the once-bright linens wrapping the bodies changed colors: from stark white to spotty beige, to dark brown, to black. The red glow of the fires reflected off Chief Weylen’s eyes as he breathed in the smell of incinerating flesh.

  “Goodbye, Kaya, my love,” he said with dying embers falling around his face.

  The next morning the reservation was a virtual ghost town. There were no children playing. No joyful, chattering adults sitting on porches. The birds couldn’t even bring themselves to sing.

  The elder woman opened her cottage door and was immediately struck by the morose atmosphere. She turned right back around and emerged from the house a half hour later. She carried a water bottle, a hand towel, and a small bucket of water. She trudged past the smoldering remains of the pyres and headed toward the sweat lodge.

  Though the lodge was primarily a male domain, the old woman had a rebellious streak. She had been breaking the traditionalist rules about women communing with the spirits in the lodge since her teens. The spirits that came through to her during trances gave her not only spiritual knowledge but scientific information. Outsiders were always amazed by how she had no formal schooling but was able to tackle problems like engineering, chemistry, math, and such.

  Before entering the hut, the old woman smudged with sweet grass and left her slippers outside. She entered, and once she closed the flap, the area was nearly pitch black. The interior was lined with a tarp, and there were many ancient buffalo hides on the floor. The elder woman ducked down as she made her way to the altar space in the middle of the hut. She was mindful as she lit the twigs in the pit and heated the carefully selected stones. When they were red hot, she ladled the purified water from her bucket onto them, creating a remarkable sauna. It took her old bones a while to sit down. But once she did, she began to pray her way into a contemplative state, and then into a total trance. As more and more steam rose from the stones, the ancient spirits awakened.

  “Great spirits, I come to thee in great peril and distress. Our people have been attacked by the vilest of evil. Many have been lost.”

  The foggy condensation was aglow with crimson from the rocks. The figures of spirits snaked through the vapor, appearing and disappearing intermittently.

  “My family is trying to deal with the horrible occurrence, but the thought of hateful vengeance is overtaking their minds. It will consume them and snuff out their goodness. Tell me what to do.”

  A humanoid form smoked out from the rocks. It was small and did not speak, but the old woman understood it all the same.

  Later on that night, Chief Wey
len mindlessly rocked in his favorite chair with a stiff, blank expression. The television was tuned to a cartoon on some kids’ channel. He couldn’t think of the name, and had always thought it such a silly show. But he had watched it so many times with Kaya. He looked over at her empty beanbag chair and imagined she was there watching it with him.

  There was a weak knock on the door. In his dissociated state, the chief thought it came from the TV. After a few seconds, there was another knock, harder this time. This finally roused him. He slowly stood up as if he carried a weight of sadness across his back. He walked past Julie, who was staying with him. She stared out the window to where Hari’s body had been cremated. She wanted to stay close to his ashes until they were cool enough to collect.

  The chief knew it was wrong, but he hoped it was not a tribal member seeking council or comfort about what had happened at the bonfire. He had nothing to give anyone else. He opened the door and was surprised and relieved it was the old woman. She had no immediate family affected by the massacre, so she would not need much.

  “Evening, Chief. I don’t mean to bother, but may I come in?” the elder woman asked.

  The chief looked with confusion at the still-beading sweat on her brow. “What is this about?”

  “I was concerned about our tribe, and spoke to the spirits on what to do. They have a message for you.” The elder peeked around the chief at Julie. “And for her too. You both cannot let evil turn you into scornful people. You have to allow peace to reign, and help the young woman named Grace.”

  The chief gave an unconvinced laugh. “Help those monsters? Did you not see what they did? They infiltrated us.”

  “Aberrant creatures attacked us. The visitors did not.”

  “If you are referring to the one called Grace, I beg to differ.

  She ate one of us.”

  “True. I had to overcome much opposition within myself to get past that. But the spirits have told me she is true, despite what she did.” The old woman pointed at Julie. “She has to go back to the witches.”

  The chief stepped onto the porch with the old woman. “Are you crazy? I won’t let Julie go back into hell.”

  “The spirits said she has to go back. That is what she’s has been fated to do. She plays an important part in this.”

  “You want me to send her back to the evil ones.”

  “She has to go back.”

  The chief crossed his arms. “And what if I refuse?”

  “There will be a great judgment upon you. For not doing what is right. Opting for what was easy. The lazy path has always been being hateful and vengeful. You must overcome your human instincts and go to your higher ones.”

  Chief Weylen knew the old woman had been endowed with special spiritual power, and if she said it, it was right. But he still did not want to accept it. “They don’t deserve our help. They were the ones who let those Ancients—those evil beings—into their bodies, so consumed with revenge they were. And this is the result of it. We and all the earth have to suffer the consequences of it.”

  “That is why it is so important for Julie to go back to them.”

  The chief looked at the piles of ashes that were once bodies in the clearing. “Kaya was all I had.”

  The old woman put her thin-skinned hand on his shoulder.

  “Let Julie go back. She has to. There is no other way.”

  “Julie is suffering so at the loss of her brother. And with her strong will, she will balk at your request.”

  The elder woman smiled. “The spirits anticipated that. That’s Julie’s nature. But understand that her pain goes deeper than her brother. Her love for Grace was strong, and she feels her friend left her behind, and now sees her only as a servant. Despite that, with prodding, Julie will go back.”

  The chief looked at Kaya’s pyre. “I guess that’s all then.”

  Throughout the night not one hour passed that James did not shout out. And he only screamed one word: “Adrian!”

  His oceanic rocking back and forth made me seasick in my own bed. I gathered my pillow and the comforter, and left James with the thin sheet. I tried to escape the room quietly, but he sat straight up and looked at me.

  “Adrian?” he asked.

  “No, honey. It’s only me. Go back to sleep.”

  He grinned at me with half-closed eyes and put his head down. Fuck, that really creeped me out. I got out of there as quickly as I could.

  The hallway was faintly lit with tiny wall lamps. I started toward the stairs, the lamps acting as guideposts. As I drew closer to the ritual room, I noticed James’s bloody handprint was still on the door. Why hadn’t I paid attention to it before? My first thought was simply to hurtle myself over the banister to avoid passing it. But I wasn’t too sure of my skills as a trapeze artist.

  “Just don’t look at it,” I told myself as I got closer to the door. I passed it with a little hop, landing in front of the door leading to the attic. Whew, I thought. I walked down the hall a little farther, but stopped. The pendant around my neck started to glow. Mother was calling me. I turned and looked at the attic door.

  It suddenly dawned on me that through all this bullshit, one person had never showed up to help. No words of encouragement or sage advice, let alone protective influence. That absentee person was my mother, Ilan. My lip quivered as anger rose up in me.

  Who the hell did Mother think she was? She was the one who had started all this long ago, and I was owed some answers as to why she was MIA. I marched up the attic steps, making sure not to wake the others. I didn’t want them to try to stop me from cussing her out.

  The mirror was still uncovered from when I’d spoken to Mother for the first—and, might I mention, the last—time. I closed my eyes and tried to summon her. “Come on, Mother. Show yourself.” I was being as cordial as my anger would allow me. But nothing happened. I rubbed the pendant, thinking that would help. “Where are you?” Still nothing. Now I was really pissed.

  “I don’t even know you all that well, but this is probably so typical. You fuck people over, disappear, and expect them to do your dirty work for you. Fine! Whatever.” I ripped the pendant off my neck and threw it at the glass. The only thing I wanted was to destroy that mirror so Mother would never have any more influence on me.

  I put all the force I could muster behind a kick aimed directly at the center of the mirror. However, instead of breaking, the glass warped and liquefied. It looked like an aqueous wall of silver. When I tried to touch it, I was sucked into the mirror. My body compacted into a long cylinder the diameter of a pencil lead. And then I turned into pure light.

  Like popping out of a vacuum, I arrived at what appeared to be the Valois castle garden, but it wasn’t. I was surrounded by a hyper-real world. The colors were exceedingly exaggerated, with an intensity almost too great to bear. The ground was soft and cushy like condensed foam, but covered in the most-lush grass imaginable.

  I was drawn to a narrow path that led into the woods. Deep inside there was a gazebo where a figure sat serenely, her back to me. I recognized her immediately as Mother and realized I was not on the Valois estate, but her personal realm. It existed somewhere between heaven and earth, life and death.

  Though the sun was shining, diamond-like snowflakes fell. As I tried to storm over to let Mother have it, I saw the snow miraculously dissipating right above my head. None ever hit the ground.

  “I’ve always loved the snow,” Mother said in the softest voice.

  I stood in wonder for only a brief moment, as I had a more pressing issue to take care of: getting some answers from my mother. But the closer I got to her, the harder it became to walk. I looked down, and the grass was like green molasses sticking to the bottoms of my feet.

  “What in the heck are you doing to me?” I asked.

  Mother did not turn around. “The grass is a safeguard. I will not permit anyone, including you, to approach me in anger. I am not only your mother. I am a high priestess in the Valois court, and I will be tre
ated as such.”

  I thought, Really? Now’s the time you pick to power trip?

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said sarcastically. The grass turned back to blades, and I was allowed to regain my footing. As I walked toward Mother, she stood and turned to me—smiling, of course.

  “I see you are angry, my dear.”

  “Angry? Naw. Things are really swell right now.”

  I waited for her to come down and at least give me a hug. She stayed rooted. “How do you like this place?”

  “What are you talking about?” I wondered why we were discussing nonsensical stuff.

  “My heaven. You’re in it.”

  “Okay, so?”

  “I created it. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?”

  “I don’t care about your heaven. I’m here to tell you about yourself. You lied to me.”

  Mother went on with her own conversation. “I created it like I created you. And what I create is beautiful and has purpose. And I didn’t lie.”

  “Everything has gone wrong. You said you’d be there. Instead you sit here in your storybook paradise. It was selfish and stupid for you to create me. You should have dealt with Catherine on your own. Putting it off on me wasn’t fair.”

  “You were not only made for a mission. You were made out of love. You were always more than a golem.”

  Oh, here we go again. Some other shit I don’t want to know about myself. I took the bait and asked anyway. “What’s a golem?”

  “A golem is a being made to serve its creator. You’re more like a half golem. I needed something that had the potential to be more powerful than any of us natural-born witches could ever be. That’s why I created you. That’s why you are unique. That’s why other witches are terrified of and hate you at the same time.”

  All I could do was laugh and cry at the ridiculousness of all this.

  Mother went on. “I know your confidence is low, but you can do this. You’re the only one who can achieve the task. ”

  “How could you do this to me?” I asked.