CHAPTER 10: PICK UP THE BONES I

(ALICE COOPER)

She reaches her hometown by late afternoon of the fourth day. It’s a small town, with that matching mentality. Everyone knows everyone else and their business. People notice the strange car immediately. It takes no time for old timers to identify her face. Even her absence of ten years didn’t wipe their memories. They gawk at her, but no-one waves or nods a greeting. This suits her perfectly. The last thing she needs right now is for someone to wave or stop her for a chat. She doesn’t want to answer questions right now. And there will be questions, of course. Plus, the urgency since she left Dominique has only increased. It is a constant pressure bearing down on her chest, making breathing difficult. Because of this, she chooses to not stop in town, but heads straight to The Farm.

The car has another smell. A weird aroma of burning. She isn’t worried or surprised in the least. It has brought her this far. Further than she hoped, anyway. Blair applies the brakes as soon as she turns into the brick driveway. She sighs, gets out of the hot vehicle and slams the door shut. She wrinkles her nose at the burning smell, which is denser now that she is outside. Leaving the car unlocked, she walks to the huge cast-iron gate. Maybe someone will come by and steal it. They probably won’t get far. Even if they do, the car brought her home, thus fulfilling its purpose. After ten years of waiting, Blaire Naphara is home.

The entrance to The Farm is as impressive as she remembers. To each side are walls, six feet high. As they cleared the fields, the largest rocks were kept aside for these walls. Steel and wood combined in intricate patterns of trees and snakes for the gate. They were designed by Red King himself. Above the gate is a wide wooden name board, branded with NAPHARA HOMESTEAD in snake-like letters. Although this is the official name of the place, everyone referred to it as The Farm. Farming and ranching are the Snake Clan’s business. Gardens and orchards with fruits, vegetables and herbs. Cattle for meat, milk and cheese. Chickens for meat and eggs.

At the gate, she inhales deeply before lifting her eyes to scan the landscape, expecting to see the fields of summer crops. Blackened earth, scourged beyond recognition. An icy shiver runs up her spine, into her shoulders and neck. Then it hits her heart like a fist. She grips the gate with shaking hands, in dire need of an anchor. Knees turn to jelly below her and her body slams into the steel gate. Her fingers slip and she spills onto the familial soil like a balloon filled with water.

“It’s not only the car…” she whispers as the realization reaches her mind.

The air is all wrong. It smells of sulfur with strong undertones of blood. Fire and brimstone and blood. This is familiar to her. The aroma of violence. Clear indications of a battle. Battle is her business, as farming is her family’s business.

She closes her eyes, pressing fingers over the lids to keep them from jumping open. Her heart whispers oh, gawd, no repeatedly. Blaire reaches out with her mind, in search of birds for the spell to see through their eyes. And she finds them. Hundreds. A shiver runs down her spine as she moves from one bird to another, seeking a sparrow, a skylark, even a nightingale. She finds none of these. Only carrion birds remain on the farm. Ravens. Crows. Hawks. Vultures. Owls stirring in their slumber as her mind passes them. Birds of death. She hated them from childhood. Bearers of bad news. They follow doom like a shadow.

Inhaling a shuddering breath, she drops her hands to her sides. There is no time for a breakdown. And it might be only the fields that burned, anyway. She’ll need to investigate before giving in to despair. She rises slowly, wiping her hands on her hips, before carefully tucking loose strands of hair behind her ears.

“It’s just the fields,” she tells herself. “The rest will be intact, I know.”

Walking down the lane, she keeps her eyes on her feet, counting her steps until she reaches a hundred. Lifting her eyes from her dust and ash-covered shoes, she looks to the left and then to the right. Everything, as far as her eyesight reaches, is burned. She swallows the lump rising in her throat, pushing the panic down.

A sense of danger creeps into her heart with icy fingers. Nothing seems familiar about the place. There are no sounds of laughter or people in the fields singing as they work. No smoke rising from kitchen chimneys into the clear sky. No smell of dinners being prepared. No sight of children at play.

She casts a quick spell to see the history. It’s not a clear vision at all. For that, she’ll need more time and the right ingredients. Right now, though, she only needs to see a vague picture to confirm a fresh fear rising from within the dark abyss inside. There will be time for deeper investigation later tonight, or tomorrow. The vision is blurred. Barely visible dark shapes moving in slow motion, but it’s all she needs. The shapes streaming across The Farm are strong and muscled. Four legged and fur covered.

Bykov. The Bull Mafia Tribe. Luka’s family had run out of patience. Or King Vasiliev broke their Blood Oath. Ten years she stayed away from her home to protect them from precisely this, but apparently it was all in vain. She might as well have stayed home, enjoying her family’s love and care. She has missed out on so much in those years. Engagements. Weddings. Births. Graduations. Deaths. Shit, ten years of dinners, working side by side in the fields, hugs, jokes, wiping away tears, hearing voices rise and fall. Ten years of highs and lows that she completely missed.

Now she runs down the slope into the valley where the charred remains of homes scream out to her. Her feet find their way to her family home, where Skye, her youngest sister, would be living now. She rushes through the front yard towards the back door. She finds the first bones beneath a cloud of smoke in the backyard, where she played with her sisters in the shade of the large trees. Hop scotch. Cops and robbers. Skipping rope. Tea parties. She falls down on her knees in front of a bloody thigh bone, stripped bare by meat eating rodents and birds. Tears roll down her cheeks. She reaches up to touch the wetness, bringing her wet fingers to her mouth. As if in a trance, she licks her fingers. Salty bitterness.

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Blaire Nathara is crying. Actual tears.

In this place, where they ate thousands of meals in the shade of ancient trees. Family weddings with tables dressed in white tablecloths and red and yellow wildflowers. Funerals in somber black and purple. Now the old trees, which were here when Red King arrived, are still burning, sending smoke plumes up into the sky. Ashes dance in the air, covering the scene, and her, in gray and white dust.

She doesn’t even try to fight tears. They roll from her eyes and over her cheeks, dripping on her dusty shoes. Turning back to the path, Blaire finds her father standing in the middle of the road. He looks exactly like he did the last time she saw him, which only reminds her that he is a specter. He no longer belongs to this earthly domain. She wipes at the tears blurring her vision. Her father is gone, died years before she left. Never before did he appear to her like this. But here he is, standing in front of her now. She knows in that moment, without him having to say anything. She doesn’t need to see the rest of their homestead. His presence is all the evidence she needs. There is no-one left alive on The Farm. Nobody escaped to safety. If there were, they would have been here to greet Blaire Naphara, Red King’s prodigal daughter.

Slowly she walks to meet him, each step she takes brings a deeper sadness to her. She is glad to see him after such a long time. Never in her life did she think they’d ever meet again. Not while she was still alive, anyway. But here they both were, and she wished the circumstances were better.

“Hello, daddy.”

“I knew you’d come,” he says when she reaches him.

His smile is warm and inviting, just as she remembers. There are a few gray hairs in the dark hair, and wrinkles on his sun-tanned face. She remembers his skin felt like leather beneath her fingers. He is clean-shaven and smells like oranges and his favorite cherry tobacco.

“Who sent the dream message?” she asks, remembering the vivid nightmare that brought her home.

“Red King himself.”

She smiles, shaking her head from side to side. “He always knew how to punch me right in the gut.”

He lifts his arms, tries to take her hands, but the hands reaching out have no substance. He is a mirage, a hot summer shimmer on her cold, lonely road. There is nothing more she needs right now than a warm hug from the man who taught her how to love.

She locks eyes with him, her heart aching with the pain of loss. “I’m so sorry, daddy.”

He shakes his enormous head from side-to side. “This is not your fault, bear.”

The nickname drags her back to childhood days, sitting on his lap with her favorite brown teddy bear. He’ll be singing while mother cleans the kitchen. A slow love song. Something that Frank Sanatra or Nat King Cole would sing. And mother would look at him with those puppy eyes, shaking her head from side to side, but with a smile. The night always ended with my mother's favorite. She can still hear it now, his deep voice drifting in the surrounding air.

I’ve got you deep in the heart of me

So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me

I’ve got you under my skin

As if he can see her thoughts, he smiles. But everything changed. Nothing is the same. First, he and mother died. Then Gavin, Luka and Catriona. Now everyone is gone.

“Of course it’s my fault,” she says, continuing the conversation as if the past didn’t hover between them. “I’ve made so many mistakes. This would never have happened if I didn’t kill Luka. I should never have married him. Red King warned me. You did too.”

“We all made mistakes,” he whispers, tears running down his cheeks. “Stop trying to carry all of it alone. There were people who knew about Luka and Catriona, but kept it secret. They were not really discreet after Gavin died, but you were too deep in the process of mourning to notice.”

“But my mistakes…” she gestures at him and then the blackened scene around them.

“Luka’s mistake,” he insists. “Catriona’s mistake. You only reacted to what they did.”

She turns away from him to look at the burned fields where vegetables used to grow. She hasn’t even been to the warehouses or the cattle folds and chicken coops. If the Bull Tribe didn’t show mercy to any human of the homestead, she assumes they didn’t show any to the livestock either. Why would they?

“Semantics,” she tells her father.

“And King Valliev should have called a meeting first. That is the tradition between tribes. If he knew the circumstances of Luka’s death, I’m sure the end result would have been nothing like this.”

She turns back towards him, swallowing the anger rising within her. There are important things to do now. She can’t allow anger to take control. It will wreck everything, like it did ten years ago. Revenge is best served cold and with a clear mind and a well thought out plan. All of this started because she rushed into a bedroom with a gun. Spurred on by pure anger.

“Don’t even try to explain their actions,” she says. “It won’t satisfy my wrath.”

He holds out a hand to her. Something sparkles on the middle finger, drawing her eyes. Grandma’s ring. Or rather, Red King’s ring. At his death, it went to Grandma Sophie, who ruled the clan until her Aunt Ailsa took over. The ring went from grandma to her aunt. It was meant to go to Blaire, but she wasn’t here at Grandma Sophie’s passing. The ring always goes to the leader of the Snake Clan. With it comes the responsibility of carrying the legacy forward.

“You are next in line,” he says. “No, you are the only one in line, Blaire. You can’t turn away from this anymore. Since you were a child, Red King crowned you as his successor. You have always been the one he wanted to lead.”

Anger rises in her like a forest fire. He must notice the change in her attitude, because he shakes his head with a sad expression.

“You need to lead now. There is no time for revenge.”

She snorts, looking away to the burned fields. “Lead what exactly? Lead who?”

“Not everyone living on this farm was born from Red King’s line,” he answers. “Some were friends who made a Blood Oath. We were a family tied by blood. Either born to it, or oathed to it. In Red King’s eyes, those were the same. Once you start rebuilding, the people will come. New family. This place will be everything it used to be. A nourishing home.”

“I can do both,” she insists. “I can rebuild after I have my vengeance.”

He gives her a stern look, but there is nothing he can do to stop her. They both know this. He has no power in this earthly domain. Only words.

“Blaire,” he says with a voice as hard and sharp as freshly crushed gravel. “You are all that is left of us.”

“Precisely. I am all that is left. And the Bulls will pay for what they did here. I was the one who killed Luka. I made a Blood Oath with King Vasiliev. Ten days of grace. He promised me. Those ten days are still in play and then I come to find this. I won’t forgive this atrocity.”

She turns away from him before he can say another word, running towards the gate where the car still stands. Leaving the gate open behind her, she rushes away from the memories of the past and the nightmares of the future. She dives into the car, slamming the door close behind her. Yet, despite wanting to get away from her father’s words, there is a tether keeping her tied to the place. She can’t leave now. There is still work to do.

Her family needs a funeral.