Beyond The Blood

Josephine Taylor

“Wake up.”

I woke to a rush of wind through the window and a knock at my door. I open it to find all the lights on and my oldest brother Killian at the door beckoning me to come downstairs where I meet the stare of two pale police officers holding their hats instead of wearing them. They were standing in the door frame letting in the cool air of a storm that had yet to begin. When I look back at Killian, I really looked at him. I saw the hurt and the pain. As Killian asked them to come inside, I stumbled down the stairs trying to process what was going on around me. I knew. I knew that the police officers were going to ask me to sit down. I knew they were going to tell me that my parents were never coming home. I knew. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. Nonetheless, I let them say their piece; I barely heard every other word they said, but I heard enough to picture my parents’ 2014 Tahoe running off the side of Bent Mountain and crashing into the Tucson River. I could see my mother in the passenger seat no doubt wearing her favorite baby blue sundress: the cotton one with purple lilies scattered across the bottom hem. She always wore that one on date nights with Dad. I could imagine her DOA as a tree branch punctured the passenger window and my dad holding her hand as they hit the water only to hold her hand until the end.

As the images flash through my mind, I hear the familiar creak of the top of the stairs. Killian’s head shoots in that direction, and mine follows his. I curse myself for not thinking of the two boys in the room down the hall from mine. “Jo?” The sleepy voice breaks my heart more than anything. “Go wake Fin, Addy. Wait in your room, I’ll be up in a second.” I add a soft smile so he doesn’t cry. Adler is the youngest of the Brooks family and the spitting image of my dad. He had brown curly hair that can never be tamed and a big goofy smile that matched his wild hazel eyes. But there would be no big goofy smile tonight, no, tonight there would be tears in his baby eyes. No 11-year-old should have to feel the things he’s going to feel tonight. And yet there was no stopping it. Adler walked down the hall past my parents’ room, which will never be the same again, and back to the room he shares with Finius. Finius was almost two years older than Adler. They used to be inseparable as kids but ever since Fin hit middle school he’s been transitioning into an angsty teenager and I'm not sure his skinny body can handle any more of that.

Killian and I let the police officers out into the rain. They asked if we wanted to call anyone but the only two people I’m worried about telling are the two little boys upstairs. After shutting the door behind them, I turn to go up the stairs when Killian says, “We should go get Miss Crane.”

“Miss Crane? Why?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what to do. Aren’t there things we should be doing? A funeral? Financing? We won't be 18 until next month, technically we don’t have a guardian. We…” I watch him come to the conclusion he’s spiraling. Killian has always been the perfect son, smart, athletic, kind to strangers, but if you ask me he tends to cross the line of “smart” into “know it all.” But in this moment, I see him for what he is: a boy; my twin. It reminds me that we are just kids. Kids who have no choice but to do this together.

I look at him, “Breathe, storm is coming in. We will tell Miss Crane and everyone else tomorrow. I don’t know but I do know that there are two boys upstairs who need us. We will process and deal with it together.” I blink away the tears and remind myself to breathe too.

We stand at the bottom of the stairs for a moment and Killian is the first to take a step and I follow him. Each stair feels like a million miles, by the time I reach the top I feel the wave of exhaustion wash over me. I tell my feet to keep moving and they do. I refuse to look in the direction of the bedroom on my left, refusing to breathe in the perfume of my mother’s favorite candle that is always on the burner. Just keep going.

I open the door and I see the two boys sitting together on Finius’ bed. Killian walks in first and chooses to wheel over one of the gaming chairs at the tv, while I decide to jump into bed next to Adler and force them to scoot over. I put my arm around Addy and pull him in so tight I hear him squeak. When I let him go I see Killian staring at me.

“Spit it out KK,” Finius says.

I jump in for Killian: “The police stopped by and they said there was an accident. Mom and dad were driving home from dinner at Catilina’s and they… they didn’t make it.”

Silence.

There was nothing but silence as grief filled the room. I held Addy so tightly his cries were stifled by my sweatshirt, while the older boys stared into the abyss with no words to comfort any of us, we sat in silence. Silence that slowly overcame each one of us where we were, and sleep welcomed us.

The next morning I woke up next to Adler in Finius’ bed, I turned over to look at the clock to see it said 1 p.m. I glance over to Finius sleeping soundly under Addy’s green turtle sheets. I guess it is time to start addressing the day. I sneak quietly out the room and head to the kitchen. Our entire house was your average suburban home: two floors with a balcony looking over the hallway to the dining room, with an island that separates the round kitchen table from the kitchen. Along the stairs, there were pictures of all my favorite moments through this life. Through the kitchen is an open living room where as kids we used to build forts between the two leather couches. We would pretend to go camping for the night and would awake to the sunrise coming from the two glass doors that overlooked the tiny backyard where we spent every summer around a fire, making s’mores, and catching fireflies.

I come down stairs to be greeted by Miss Crane moving quicker than I have ever seen without her cane. She wraps me up in her arms and I have to fight the urge to break down fully in her warm embrace. She eases her grip after several long moments and pulls to look me in the eye. I am trying to blink away the tears when she pulls me back into her arms. I catch my breath and wipe away the tears, “I’m just exhausted,” I say as I rub the crick in my neck.

“I have essential oils for that.” She reaches out and starts massaging my neck as I take a seat at the round kitchen table.

Miss Crane has been a part of our lives since I can remember. She’s lived in the house next to ours for the past 70 years. She was more like family, which is nice seeing as we aren’t really acquainted with many of our extended family. So all of us really welcomed the love she showered over us, Killian especially. Miss Crane could go on and on about how much time she spent watching us as babies. Mom and dad weren’t prepared for double the expenses that come with twins so they spent the majority of their time making ends meet. But by the time Finius was born they found their footing; mom spent most of her time at home with us. Still, at every birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas there was a seat saved for Miss Crane.

“Why use essential oils when I can just knock you right out,” Killian passes my chair pretending to punch me but stopping inches from my face on his way to the fridge.

“Oh men, so violent,” Miss Crane limped over to the chair next to me. “So what do you want to do today?”

“What should we do, what needs to be done? What about school?”

Miss Crane responds with words that ease my soul as she brushes my hair away from my face, “We will not worry about what should be done or what needs to be done. There will be plenty of time for all that later. I asked what you wanted to do.”

“I would love to do absolutely nothing all day.”

Killian pops his head into the dinning room, “I second that motion, it’s a waste day.”

Dad loved waste days. A few times a year, dad would wake everyone up and declare the day a waste day. There was only one rule, we couldn’t do anything productive. We would do nothing together, no responsibilities, no worries, just us. Sometimes it was a drive to the beach, or a trip to the mall, or a movie marathon and always ended with take-out. We had a rotating schedule of who had the final say on how to waste the day.

“It would be mom’s turn.” I hear Finius say from the top of the stairs. “And we all know what she’d pick.” Finius sits in the same seat he always sits in across from me.

“I guess it’s a puzzle day.” Killian says tossing Finius an apple before he sits down.

“Perfect. I’ll need my readers. And wake the baby, he’s going to need a big grandma hug.” She grabbed her cane propped up on the door frame of the dining room and left.

“I’ll get him, and please make real food dumbasses.” I get up as they argue over who has to make it, but I ignore it.

Upstairs I poke my head into Addy’s room and see him sitting on his bed. “Hey kid. You doing okay?”

“What? Oh yeah. I’m fine.”

“Come on. Fine is not expected from you.”

“Look, I know everyone looks at me like I’m the baby but I’m fine. It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me.” I am taken aback, I don’t know what I expected from him but he’s always been the sweetest and gentlest of us.

“Well good, today we aren’t worrying about anything. It’s a waste day.” He finally looked up at me. “Look, Addy. You can be whatever you want today. If you want to be sad, be sad. If you want to be angry, be angry. And after that it’s day by day.”

“Puzzle day?” He asked as he started to get up.

“You guessed it. You don’t happen to know where mom keeps her puzzles do you?”

“I helped her move most of them to the attic when she cleaned out the basement.”

“I’ll make Killian get them. The boys are making breakfast downstairs, go eat.”

After we enjoyed the fresh eggo waffles I asked Killian to help me find a puzzle in the attic. We had just found the ladder we needed to get up there when we heard the door open and we heard Miss Crane and the younger boys downstairs.

“I will hold the ladder, you go up and pick one out.” I told Killian.

“Why do I have to?”

“The attic scares me man, just go. Be a man.”

He groaned and mumbled something under his breath, but started to climb the stairs. A few moments later I hear him call my name,

“Jo! You gotta see this.”

I climb up the ladder and hear Killian talking in circles, “How many times you actually been up here? I have never seen half this shit.”

When I reach the top, I immediately cough through the dust and cobwebs. I look around the average looking attic. The ceiling was slanted on one side and Killians hair was mere inches from the tallest point. “I’ve only been up here once during a game of hide and seek, dad found me and started telling me it was haunted. Haven’t been up here since.”

“Check this out,” He opened a chest full of old clothes. He began pulling out clothes that looked 100 years old. He pulled out a few ivory button down shirts and several large fur coats. One was a soft gray that looked small enough to fit mom’s petite frame. Another was a smaller white one and there was a charcoal gray one with white spots around the same size. Then he pulled out a dress that took my breath away. It had long white lace sleeves that were flared at the ends. As the bottom hit the floor the bottom had purple lilies scattered across the bottom of the skirt. And a gold chain overlay that connected the straight neckline to the flowy cupcake skirt, that would have exposed a good portion of the midriff, “That’s her wedding dress. It has to be.”

“No way, mom wouldn’t even wear a bikini to the beach.”

“It is,” my voice was soft, I went to touch the silk like fabric. The moment my fingers touched the cool silk, my body felt a chill and there was a loud shrill in my ears. If it weren’t so high pitched I would have sworn it was a human scream.

When I opened my eyes, Miss Crane's long gray hair was waving above me.

“Give a girl some space, geez.”

“Don’t talk to me about space, you gave me a damn heart attack. I thought 2 people were dyin in this grimey attic today.” She scolded me as she helped me to my feet. She was stronger than I expected.

“No one’s dying anywhere.”

“I told you I am just tired. I think I just got overwhelmed. Did KK show you what he found?”

“I was a little preoccupied, but now that you're fine, look what I found.”

He held up a small canvas, it was a delicate piece of art of which the subject was Mom. Her long black hair had a cherry red tint in the sun, she was twirling in an open field with purple lilies scattered across the background. The artist captured her spirit on a canvas slightly larger than my hand. I was entranced by her smile, and I know whoever was holding the paintbrush was just as enthralled as I was.

“Look at her dress, then flip it over.”

It was her wedding dress. The back read: The best decision of my life.

It was their wedding day.

Miss Crane grabbed the thin canvas from my hands. She stared at it like she was floating in a memory; a soft smile on her face and a lost look in her eyes.

“Everything okay up there?” Fin yelled up the tiny opening in the floor. “We are coming up.”

“Miss Crane?” She didn’t respond to my voice. I grabbed it from her hands. “Were you at our parents’ wedding?”

“Yeah, yeah I was…” Her eyes, behind her glasses, met mine, but she didn’t seem to be looking at me. “I had never seen them happier.”

“Where was this taken? I thought mom and dad were married in the courthouse?” Killian speaks up as I pass the painting to Fin, who then shows Addy.

“Legally, here, they were married in the courthouse. But in their hearts, they married this day. Your mother had that dress made the day she met your father. Sketched the designs herself, it was the first day of Spring exactly a year after she graduated; she walked down the stairs in that dress and they ran. I was worried they had run off for good, called their closest friends, then followed them to the border fields and when I learned of the marriage we celebrated all night.”

“How come we have never heard that story?” Adler asks softly while staring at the photo.

“After we returned, Grey's parents were furious, claiming it wasn’t the right time for marriage. Threatened terrible things like cutting your dad out of the family and sorts.”

Adler handed the photo back to Killian and picked up the big black fur coat from the bottom of the chest. He began to slide it on, “It's heavier than I expected and hot. I thought jackets like these were just for movie stars. Who in Arizona needs a coat like this?”

Everyone’s eyes floated to Miss Crane, but she was silent.

“What the…”

Adler pulled out a piece of paper from the right jacket pocket.

7 snowflakes fall,

4 flowers bloom.

Ocean’s rise to unravel the lies

With courage of the wind scattering pieces of the lunar heart

Power will emerge from the forsaken.

The weak will stand tall with the born advocates.

“Let me see that.” In the blink of an eye, Miss Crane snatched the thick piece of paper out away from Addy.

She studied the piece of paper, “I haven’t thought about these words in a long time.” She looked up and looked around the room. She began tearing through the rest of the chest. She looked up, unsatisfied. She rustled through more boxes in the corner. “Where would she have put it?” She grumbled throwing old books and clothes on the floor. She reached a box of toys that squeaked as she threw it.

“What are you looking for?” Killian asked.

“Well I guess this is what we are doing today. I was going to give you a little more time before telling you, but my how the Gods have different plans for us today. Fuckin’ Gods, can’t give the kids a friggin’ break can ya?” She was looking up at the ceiling like a crazy person.

She pulled a blanket of what must have been a 60” frame to reveal the most magnificent painting I have ever seen.

“Woah,” Fin’s jaw dropped, “Is that a Monet or a Dicaprio?”

Miss Crane snorted, “Da’vinci, but no. It is an original Susanna.”

“Mom did this?” I asked approaching.

“She was quite the painter at home.”

“Home? She’s never painted here,” Killian said as he approached the painting, something in me wanted to hold him back but I let him approach.

“Home, in Sundance. Those are the lily fields of the outskirts of Sundance. Your mother spent any moment she could in the fields, absorbing the sunlight and earth’s vibrations.”

“She was always doing weird shit like that.” Killian chimed in. “Jo, seriously, you okay? No more passing out please.”

“They dance, the flowers, the grass, the clouds. They dance joyfully in the wind. Do you see it?” My gaze never leaves the painting.

“You see it, Jo?”

I look at Miss Crane and nod my head once and bring my gaze back to the painting.

‘What is happening right now?” Killian asks.

“Jo, what does it feel like?”

“It’s cold, like the first frost of the season is coming in, one that will be disastrous for the field. The sun is setting on the last warm day, and the earth is surrendering to the cold touch of death. But it all feels so familiar.”

“The fourth season in 120 years… You have been to the lily fields, just once. Your mother gave birth to you two there.”

“That cannot be sanitary.”

I am waiting for surprise or confusion to set in, but I feel nothing.

“The power that coursed through your mother’s veins when she was in labor with the twins gave her enough power to create a portal to this mortal realm. It hadn’t been done for hundreds of years, but you two gave her the strength and Claudia gave her enough urgency to do it without hesitation.’

“Portal? Like in the movies?” How Adler is processing any of the information Miss Crane is sharing, is beyond me.

“The mortal lands and Sundance were separated long ago, giving the powerless their own society to rule over. But there are still the powerless in Sundance and Claudia was busy trying to find ways to harness power from other witches, she was slaughtering and sacrificing the powerless to the Gods’ attempting to gain the favor of one. And she succeeded the Goddess of deceit, Mercedee found her betrayal amusing and granted her strength not seen in Sundance in hundreds of years. In exchange, she has been Mercedee’s puppet since.”

“Pardon my language but what the fuck?” Killian may be the smart one, but cannot handle a simple story. Fin and Addy are nodding along like they’ve heard the story before.

“Are you listening Killian Kove? Your father was the Warrior King’s first born, a Lupien Warrior with unmatched strength, your mother the most powerful witch. Making you the children of the most powerful King and Queen destined to bring harmony to the lands, but their legacy cut short by the betrayal of The Coven.”

“I am just waiting for the punchline because this has got to be a joke. Even if it were true, what are we supposed to do with it. Mom and Dad are dead, gone. And we are here living as ‘mortals.’ And I don’t know about you guys but I don’t feel any powers, I am just a kid trying to get into an Ivy.”

“Your mother kept this for a reason. She knew one day you would get to walk through those fields. Powers would not develop on this soil. Your capabilities come from different sources. None of you would be able to connect your power source in this realm.”

“We have to go back.” Everyone looks back at me like they forgot I was in the room. But I know in my bones, there is no stopping what is drawing us into this painting.