~~ It has magical properties because it’s a “magical” property. - Karen ~~
“Mr. Turner, where are you taking me? What is going on?” Kiara was trying to keep her voice calm, but she was quickly losing any semblance of self-control.
“Now, Ms. Spiegel, it’s alright...” Fred Turner’s smooth drawl held a hint of condescension. Kiara’s pulse quickened. She practiced the feature-smoothing technique she had taught herself during all those video conference calls. As she began to calculate the approximate distance back to the main road, they came to a stop in front of a perfectly round patch of bluebonnets in full bloom. A solid circle, the size of a house. Bluebonnets bloom in March and April, not the middle of July in near record heat. And, not in the dead middle of a pine forest. But, here they were, and so was Kiara.
Mr. Turner’s grin widened as he watched Kiara get out of the car and walk towards the flowers. He seemed to let out a small sigh of relief when she turned to him with an equally wide smile.
“I’ve never seen....so many at once,” Kiara stammered.
“It is quite magical you might say,” Fred responded.
Something tugged at Kiara’s mind, but she quickly pushed it down. Don’t be ridiculous, she thought.
“Welcome to your new property, Ms. Spiegel. Here is your birthright.”
“My birthright?” Kiara was still mesmerized by the expanse of flowers in front of her.
“Why yes, your birthright. This is the Land you inherited, along with all it contains.”
There was a wistfulness in Fred Turner’s voice that Kiara could not understand. It puzzled her as she watched Fred gaze at the bluebonnets, a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were staring into the ground and something was staring back. Fred let out a soft, deep rumble, almost a growl and a purr mixed. The sound startled both out of their shared reverie.
Just at that moment, two young boys appeared in the clearing. They were scruffy, one with a shock of black hair, the other had hair so blonde it looked silvery-white. They wore matching tattered tee-shirts with Spider-Man designs on them and shorts that were stained and worn. Neither boy had on shoes.
“Hey there!!” the boys sang out in unison. Kiara staggered back a bit at the abrupt arrival and unkempt appearance of the boys.
“I told you boys to wait!! Miss Kiara hasn’t even had a chance to catch her breath! Now you two come up in here, scarin’ her and makin’ a ruckus!” Fred scolded the boys.
Bashfully, the boys mumbled “We’re sorry”.
“It’s OK,” said Kiara. “I was just surprised, that’s all. Where did you two come from anyway?”
“Oh, the caves.” “They’re right over there and we can’t wait to show you.” “Yeah, you’re gonna love ‘em!” “Can we show her?”
The boys clamored over each other in excitement. Fred just shook his head and chuckled.
“You boys are too much sometimes! I haven’t told her about the caves yet.”
“Haven’t told her?!?” The shock in the boys’ voices was genuine. “But, Mr. Fred, you need to tell her. That’s why she’s here, right?”
“Mr. Turner, what’s going on? Why am I here? And, who are these boys? They just popped out of nothingness? Why do they know me?” Kiara was trying to remember the fastest way to the highway. She was glad she had on running shoes. She was ready to bolt.
“Alright, alright, everybody simmer down,” Fred Turner was using all the Southern charm he could muster to diffuse the rapidly escalating situation. He knew it was a risk bringing Kiara out to the Land, but he needed her to claim her birthright and awaken the magic in the ground beneath them. Without that, he would be forced to remain as he was, a very appropriate Southern gentleman lawyer, alone except for Karen and the twins. All of them, and those like them, would be resigned to life in Lakeview, Texas until Lakeview, and Texas for that matter, were no more.
“Miss Kiara, I truly apologize. You’re right, I have not been upfront with you about everything. Frankly, I was worried you wouldn’t make the trip if I had given you more information. I can see that I might have misjudged you and the situation. I’m very sorry about. Let me start over.” Fred waited, hoping for some sign that she would hear him out.
“Go on…”, Kiara said, still looking towards what she thought was the highway, even though the thick forest absorbed the sound of the cars and completely obscured the view.
“Thank you, ma’am! First, these are the twins, Nor and Not. They live out here in the woods on your Land. They take care of each other, and me and Karen help out too.”
“By themselves?” Kiara said incredulously. “Where are their parents? Are you and Karen their parents?”
“Um, well, their parents were killed a long time ago. They look young, but you’d be surprised at their maturity. I knew their folks and promised that I would keep the boys safe. Now that you’re here, you’ll need to understand why they live on your Land.”
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“This isn’t “my Land” yet, Mr. Turner. I haven’t signed anything.” Kiara was trying very hard to gain some balance after the car ride, the bluebonnets, and now the revelation that there were orphaned children living in the wilderness on her family’s property.
“Yes, I know, you’re right. But, just give me a chance to explain.” Mr. Turner’s imploring expression touched something in Kiara. “Please, you only have to listen. You’ve come this far.”
He was right. Kiara had complained and put up a front about how miserable going back to Texas would be. But, deep down, she needed something here. She didn’t understand what, but the puzzle pieces of her childhood needed to be put in order. Somehow this very appropriate Southern lawyer had answers that she needed.
“Fine. But, we talk at the tree line.”
They walked along the same dirt path that brought them to the bluebonnets. Dried pine needles crunched under her feet, and an oddly cool breeze wafted through the trees. Once Kiara could see the road, she stopped and looked at Fred Turner.
“Alright, Mr. Turner. I’m listening.”
“OK, things may not make sense to you at first. Do you remember the last time you were out here? It musta been 20 years ago. You met me, and Karen. Your momma brought you out here, but she couldn’t find a way to explain it to you. Now that she’s gone, it’s up to me. It helps that you’re older now, but you may not want to believe me.”
“I remember being here when I was 8. Coming here with her was my last good memory of East Texas. Once we moved, Mother never mentioned Swamp Camp Road or Lakeview again. But I don’t remember meeting you then. How do I know you’re not lying to me?” Kiara was still apprehensive, but that memory with her mom nagged at her. Her mother had wanted to tell her something. She had been nervous, and in the end the two of them had turned around just before they could cross the tree line into the woods. Her curiosity to know what her mother wanted to tell her was winning out over her fear.
“Well, I got no reason to lie to you. But, if you decide not to believe me, you will condemn me, Karen, the boys, and my family to a fate that will destroy us. I don’t want that, and I will do just about anything to prove to you that I am being sincere.”
“Your momma’s name was Ruby Lane Smith. She was born here in Lakeview. She had you 28 years ago, and you never knew your daddy. She was considered an outcast at the time, and worked at the gas station, the hospital, and weekends at that run-down hotel outside of town. When you were 8, she had saved up enough money to move the two of you to Austin. She kept working two jobs, but you were able to go to Westlake High School and get a scholarship to SFA. You got your degree, then moved up North. The only other time you’ve been back to Texas was when Ruby passed. You took care of her those final few weeks. Once everything had been settled, you went back North.”
“What your momma never told you was that, besides your uncle, you are the sole heir of this property. And, it is your birthright to claim this Land and restore it to its true nature.”
It hit Kiara like a brick. Her mother’s last days, how she just lay there and looked out the window. The guilt over not coming home sooner. The desperation in Fred’s voice. The wonderment of the bluebonnets. Kiara looked back at the woods, feeling that she needed to go back to the trees, the Land.
“You keep saying that this is my “birthright”. What exactly do you mean Mr. Turner?” Kiara turned to look him in the eyes.
“Your bloodline is connected to this Land, quite literally. Your ancestor, Cora Garriott, was buried in the middle of that field of bluebonnets when the building that stood here was torched. The folks who lived in Lakeview back then felt that she was a threat to them and how they lived. They didn’t know that she had protected them. And, she was responsible for helping so many of those like me. But, now we have to protect ourselves and hope that someone from Cora’s lineage will claim the Land again. Please let today be that day.”
As Fred stood there, fear and worry clouded his face. He looked expectantly at Kiara.
“What about my mother? She was obviously a descendant of Cora’s. Why didn’t she claim the Land?”
Fred hesitated. “Your mother abdicated her birthright. She knew you needed to get away from here. Part of claiming your birthright means you can’t leave. You have to stay near this place, or you die. I mean, you can go a little ways out, like to the county line. But, you can’t leave for any longer than 28 days, or less depending on the cycle of the moon. Upon leaving, you must return before the next full moon. If you don’t, you will die.”
“Well, that seems dramatic. So, what do you have to do with this?”
“By having a descendant near by who has claimed the Land, me, and Karen, and the twins can go on living here. It gives us a chance to be ourselves and be among the good folks of Lakeview. When there is a time where the Land isn’t clamed, we have to stay as we are and we are unable to be our natural selves. When your uncle died, the Land was no longer claimed by birthright of Cora’s lineage. With your momma abdicating her right, we became trapped. But, now that you’re here, we have a chance to be ourselves again.”
“My uncle died when I was 8. It’s one of the reasons we moved. You mean to tell me that whatever it is my family does, it hasn’t been able to happen for 20 years? And, I don’t know what you mean by ‘be yourselves’. You look pretty normal, although you sound downright crazy. Die after 28 days? That sounds like witchcraft or the occult or something. My mom and certainly not her family would ever believe in something like that!”
“It’s not devil-worshipping. It’s magic. Actual, true, ‘science cannot explain it but it is real’…magic. We are the remnants of that magic.” Fred looked at the boys, who had settled into the thick pine needles carpeting the edges of the forest floor.
Kiara’s heart leapt. Magic? Like all those fantasy books she had read, all the sci-fi movies she had watched, all the D&D games, video games, and comic books that had been her salvation as a child? Like that?!?
“So, how do I “claim the Land”? Do I just say that this is my property? Don’t I have to sign some deed or title or something?” Kiara’s voice was tinged with a little sarcasm, and a little anxiety. What if this was real?
Fred could hear the doubt in her words, but he needed so badly for this to happen.
“Legally, yes, to keep the folks at the Town Hall happy, there is paperwork. That’s part of it. But, you have to go back to the Land, to the caves. When you claim your birthright, you must shed blood onto the Land that you claim. It can be a drop, from a pin prick. But, the Land has to know that you are really from Cora’s bloodline.”
The Land has to know? How could the Land know?
“Once you shed your blood, just say that you claim your birthright as the heir of the Land. You should be able to feel it once it’s done.”
And, if it’s not real, I’m just going to follow a crazy old man who doesn’t sweat and two boys who don’t bathe into an underground cave in the middle of Podunk Texas where there is no cell service, no one to hear me scream, and no way to leave.
“Lead the way….”, Kiara gestured to Fred. The boys jumped up and whooped and danced. Fred looked like he was about to break down into tears.
“The entrance is back this way.”