Blood Ties (28 page)

James and I rode in the car alone on our way to the reservation. The others had decided it was best for them to ride separately in Aunt Evelyn’s minivan. They were so trying to avoid James’s bad vibe.

Ever since he had found out Adrian had attacked me, James had been my shadow—to the kitchen, the yard, the bedroom, everywhere. I drew the line when he wanted to sit in the bathroom while I took a shit. Though James was with me physically, his mind was elsewhere. He barely spoke and took in no food or drink. I could see he was devising a plan to find and destroy Adrian.

I did drink the sheep’s blood he brought home, but it did me no good. I was weak, and my stomach was churning with nausea. Everyone was telling me I needed to feed; however, I still refused to eat another human being. I figured willpower would get me through it. But it wasn’t working. I reasoned I had to give it more time.

Up ahead and above the forest, I could see smoke billowing from the bonfire. I’d never actually been on the reservation. The few times I had come into the area, it was only to go to Julie’s house, which was down the street. It still surprised me that no one in town had any idea werewolves lived there.

Our caravan pulled up to the reservation’s behemoth gate. An acne-faced young man acted as a guard of sorts—more of a welcoming committee. The gate was actually two large swinging doors made of white wooden panels. On them was painted the wolf insignia of Julie’s tribe. This entrance was not built to keep the world out. It was constructed in honor of tribal heritage and nature.

The young man radioed to someone up ahead and then waved us in with a friendly smile. The newly paved road was shaded by a canopy of aged oaks and elms. It led to the main area of the reservation, where there was a bustling general store, a small bank, and a gas station. We drove deeper into the residential area dotted with mobile, small ranch, and bungalow-style homes. I was able to catch the coded wolf sign that was strategically yet subtly placed on each building.

The residents were a joyful people, sitting on their front porches, enthusiastically engaging one another with lively chatter. They waved as the minivan carrying Julie and Hari drove past them. This was the first time I’d seen Julie put on a genuine smile since our fight.

As we drove by her old elementary school, I was reminded that I’d never really known her at all. She had a whole other life I was not privy to…and that life was good. These Native Americans were not the downtrodden victims I was so often told about. They were a proud, capable, and strong people. It was obvious where Julie had inherited her fortitude from.

We pulled up to a modest, two-story house. “Well, are you ready to meet the chief ?” I asked James.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “As soon as we’re done, I can take care of some other business.”

I decided to give him his space—a little time to find his composure. I got out of the car.

Oops, forgot the knife
, I thought, and went back to the car and got the blade Amari had given me. I slid it into my boot and made sure my jeans covered it. I almost hadn’t brought it, believing I’d be amongst friends. However, Aunt Evelyn had told me to get used to carrying it because “you never know.”

I joined the others, who were already out of the minivan. Aunt Evelyn looked at James, raising her brow. She was not happy that he was still in a funk, and went straight over to him. James huffed when he saw Aunt Evelyn coming his way. His mind was already preoccupied, and the last thing he wanted right then was a speech.

But, as usual, that didn’t deter Aunt Evelyn. “Take the scowl off your face. I know you’re upset over Adrian. However, you cannot let that impede our mission here. We need the chief ’s help and can’t give him any inkling that there is discord among us. Let’s not give him a reason to change his mind. Too much is depending on this.”

James put on a front and pretended to relax. “See? I’m smiling. I’m okay. I’m not going to mess any of this up. I promise.” But inside he was churning with too much animosity to simply wish it away. And he still didn’t fool Aunt Evelyn.

“There’s nothing we can do about you now. Get the gifts,” she said.

As we all gathered the peace offerings, James held my hand. “I love you. You can never know how much,” he said.

“I do know. I love you too.”

We followed the others up the winding walk lined with solar garden lights. Little children watched us, looking fascinated. But as soon as they sensed James’s angst, they scurried away in fear.

A wolf symbol hung like mistletoe over the front door.

“Here goes nothing,” Hari said right before he banged on the door with the huge, wolf-faced knocker.

After some time Chief Weylen opened the door. He was a large, jolly man with a full mane of grayish-white hair. With a wide smile and opened arms, he first welcomed Julie and Hari inside the house. “Oh, children, welcome home. We’ve missed you.”

The three of them huddled in a three-way hug. Then, in line with protocol, Julie and Hari took their places behind the chief. He turned his suspicious attention toward James and me.

“Well, I guess it’s safe for me to let you in,” said the chief. I could hear the acrimony in his voice, and that he had second thoughts about us being there. As we witches walked past him, he peeked outside and looked at the sky. It was a sunny day, but a dark cloud seemed to be hanging over the reservation. He took note. “Hmph.”

We only took a few steps into the house when the chief stopped us. “Wait,” he said, then went over to a table and lit up a tight wad of dried sage. He came back to us and performed a smudging, swiping the sage’s smoke all around our bodies.

Chief Weylen swiped over James more than anyone else. “You have many bad thoughts, young man,” the chief said to him. Aunt Evelyn gave James a disappointed look.

“I guess you’re all okay now,” Chief Weylen said. “Except you, young buck. But I’ll let you stay anyway,” he said to James.

The chief started toward the back of the house. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come on.” I could feel he was still being very cautious with us witches as he led us to his kitchen. He made special efforts not to touch us. If one of the witches got too close, he skirted us like a running back going for a touchdown.

Hari saw my confusion. “He doesn’t want to be contaminated by evil,” he explained, half joking and half serious.

We all piled into the kitchen, which was the size of a sardine can. “We brought you some gifts,” Aunt Evelyn said to Chief Weylen, still trying to sway his favor in our direction. I saw the chief ’s shoulders relax as his heart softened—not because of the gifts, but because Aunt Evelyn was trying so hard to impress him.

“It has been a long time since we’ve interacted with our long-lost brethren,” he said. “Too long.”

Chief Weylen paid no mind to the gifts, but put a comforting arm around Aunt Evelyn’s shoulders.

I noticed that there was a large, skinned hare splayed on the newspaper-strewn table. “That morsel is for the bonfire tonight,” Chief Weylen said as if he could taste it already. We all took seats and watched him perform culinary alchemy. With the precision of Joël Robuchon, he chopped up the rabbit with a meat cleaver. He kind of reminded me of Leatherface the way he brought that big-ass knife down. He then threw the pieces into a stewpot of searing olive oil until they developed a golden-brown crust.

“Thank you for allowing us to come to your home. We appreciate your help,” Aunt Evelyn said. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the aroma of the rabbit.

Chief Weylen julienned carrots, onions, and celery. “Apparently I had no choice.” He started a roux. “It appears we are all in this together.”

The smell of the vegetables as they hit the roux was heavenly, even to my sickly stomach. I thought this surely must have been the ideal way to hash out world differences: over a pot of homemade stew.

The chief wiped the juices from the rabbit onto his apron, and addressed me. “I didn’t know what to think of you. But the spirits tell me you have a good heart… A heavy heart, but a good one nonetheless.”

A young girl, about six or seven, bounded in. “Julie!” she screamed. She leapt from clear across the kitchen, strong and high, into Julie’s arms. Even at such a young age, she was mastering her wolf powers.

“This is Kaya, my granddaughter,” Chief Weylen said, his eyes brimming with adoration.

Kaya was one of the most beautiful and happiest children I’d ever seen. Her eyes were oddly shaped—totally round, like black buttons. Her jet-black side ponytail skimmed her sundrenched shoulders. She had dimples that ran a mile deep when she smiled.

“She was all I had after the death of my son and his wife. She’s my life,” the chief said with a mixture of joy and pain.

Kaya hopped out of Julie’s arms and took center stage in front of all of us. “Papa, I learned it.”

“Okay, show us then,” the chief said. He plopped down on a chair with all the usual parental expectation. As a result we were all squeezed in tighter than we were before.

“What’s she talking about?’ Hari asked.

The chief responded, “Kaya has learned words from our sacred text. She’ll read them to the tribe at tonight’s bonfire.”

Kaya held up her hand, her fingers tipped with multicolored nail polish from a kiddie makeup kit. “Hail, hail, great Wolf Spirit, within this circle I have made. Great Spirit, beseech me when my night duty calls. For by day I walk as man. When I die I will serve thee evermore with haste.”

Though the spell was to be powered by the participation of all the wolves during ritual,
something
was summoned. The trees outside rustled, and the wind moaned and kicked up in response.

Hari joked, “So you conjured wind.” Everyone laughed. James even smiled sideways.

“Oh, you be quiet, Hari,” Kaya said, punching him in the side.

The chief ’s laughter was interrupted when he happened to glance out the window. The ominous cloud had descended upon the reservation even more. Without a doubt Chief Weylen knew something terrible was coming.

The picnic benches were lined up in rows. It so reminded me of my old high school cafeteria.
Shudder.

At every place setting, there was a mat made of oyster shells woven with tan muslin. They looked pretty, but I could tell they would be impossible to eat on. The elders sat at tables draped with deer skins. The coverings smell like putrefied roadkill, and that did nothing to alleviate my sick feeling.

I noticed a group of deeply wrinkled women sitting in a circle. They had been diligently making pretty, beaded bracelets for this occasion for weeks. I looked around and saw that some of the adults already had enough of these bracelets to cover their arms from wrist to shoulders.

The most elder of the women hobbled over to me. She didn’t speak; she just slid a bracelet on my arm.

Hari said, “Grace, consider yourself fortunate. That is a badge of honor. I’ve never seen one offered to an outsider.”

The elder woman hugged me and then pulled back, disturbed. “Hari, she is so thin. Haven’t you been feeding her?”

Hari and I looked at each other. He said to the elder woman, “It’s complicated.”

The elder woman could not tolerate my skeletal frame, and dragged me to the food. Amused, James followed. The large buffet table had traditional dried beef and pork. Smaller tables had grilled and smoked meats and fishes. And of course there was Chief Weylen’s rabbit stew. There were definitely no vegetarians on this reservation.

The chief stood on a raised platform and called everyone over. He said a moving blessing over the food and then encouraged us all to dig in. The guests converged on the food with gusto. But I was so tired; all I could do was sit on a bench.

James brought me a plate of food—the rarest meat of the carnivores’ feast he managed to snatch up. “You look horrible,” he said, holding a forkful of deer tenderloin in front of my mouth.

“You say the sweetest things.” I managed to eat the deer, but I still wanted to throw up. It was so undercooked that its juices flowed down my chin.

“You’ve got blood all over you,” James said. He seductively ran his tongue across my chin, licking the blood off me. He was coming out of his funk, and that made me start feeling a wee bit better.

I looked over at the chief. His attention was diverted from the celebration. He was looking around as if he sensed something. He moved closer to the tree line and peered deeper into the woods. Staring back at him from the darkness were many glowing eyes.

The chief signaled to the others with a warrior yell. From then on everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion. Catherine’s protégés stormed out of the woods in an immediate and fierce attack. The natives all instantly morphed into wolves and responded in kind.

And then there she was. Finally, after a twenty-one year wait, I saw her. With profound greatness and evil, Catherine emerged from the darkness.

It took only seconds for our eyes to meet. Each of us seemed paralyzed by the other’s presence. Our fangs popped out with thick venom dripping—that had never happened to me before. Catherine twitched and squirmed until she broke free of her bewilderment. I was still fighting to break out of mine as she ran toward me with some kind of terminal velocity. However, James was moving just as fast, and tackled her. It sounded like he hit a brick wall.