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Anna Grey Ivanovitch-Waya. five-foot six inches. Small waist, high, proud breasts. Hair is black with blue highlights. She is pretty, gentle, highly intelligent. And wishes she could die.
Anna closed her eyes and refused to see the cold black and silver casket of her second husband. Twice widowed. Only one child, and him a rebellious fifteen . . . no, Benny's sixteen now, and a few days. They survived another Moon of the Owl, another satanic murder-fest. Hundreds of others across the nation had not.
She glanced at Benny. He was staring at the casket, unmoving but for the muscles bunched in his jaws. They jumped occasionally, other than that he was unresponsive. He sprawled in the seat provided by the funeral director.
Her brother Charlie was muttering a eulogy to Carl. The man had to stop every minute or so to collect himself. Not like Charlie to be emotional about much of anything, but Anna guessed he loved the man too, tho' they were decades apart in age. Carl was like a son to Charlie, rather than the husband of his much younger sister.
Charlie pulled out a huge red, white, and blue bandanna. He draped it over the closed casket and stepped away. The sun shone down, a bright stream through the now barren limbs of the oaks, and for an instant the bandanna turned into a square of bloody cloth and eagle's heads.
A choking sound brought Anna to her senses. She turned and saw Benny doubled over, sobbing into his knees.
Even in the cool chill of the grave-side, the odor of the flowers was cloying, sickening to Benny.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Charlie stepped to his seat and sat heavily beside Anna. He reached over and lightly touched Benny.
"Let me alone," Benny cried. He leaped to his feet, stared wildly at the ani, the People of his mother's Longhouse. "You pack of hypocrites. Carl loved you. All of you, and you couldn't accept the man, could you? He wasn't a friggin whore, and I ain't either. No." He snarled at Charlie when the big man rose to his feet. "No." Benny jumped away from Charlie. "I don't need your pity, Uncle Charlie. To hell with all of you. I'm out o' here." Benny stumbled from the funeral services and stood by the road, shoulders hunched in the black denim jacket that had belonged to his first dad, Ben Grey. Coldly he stared at the small greenish cottage where Leda Melancowski had resided. An old raven stood on the rooftree and cawed his triumph of the dead woman.
Eat her eyes, eat her eyes . . . .
A long, stretched out limousine rolled and bounced down the road, crunching through the red gravel to stop before him. Warily he backed up a step.
The rear window slithered down.
Benny gaped at the beautiful woman, his eyes narrowing to mere slits of ice blue hate.
"Hello, Benny." Cindy VanTur's lips turned up in a cool smile. "Are you ready to come home, finally?" The chauffeur leaped from the car and stood alongside Benny. The chilling smile on the coarse, pocked face didn't quite touch his eyes.
"Screw off, you-"
Her pretty eyes flashed. "Shame on you, Benny. You owe me-"
"Not a dammed thing," shouted Anna. She ran down to the road.
"Take him. Hurry, James."
The man snatched up Benny. Benny punched him in the face, his knee hit the man's groin hard enough to crush bone. The man gave a bitter laugh and raised his fist. It smashed into Benny's face. Stunned, Benny's head lolled back.
Eyes flashing with rage, Anna shoved at the driver. The man back-handed Anna to the ground. The entire longhouse was on their feet with a roar.
"No." Charlie raced ahead of them down the slight hill. He raised his fists and the man reeled under Charlie's strikes and was rammed back against the car. The chauffeur spat out a mouthful of bloody teeth and lunged at Charlie, knocking the older man to the ground.
Cindy leaped from the car, teeth bared. Breath coming in short screams, she tried to pull Benny in.
Anna cried out and the air filled with ravens, chickadees, and too many other kinds of birds to count.
Far above them a golden eagle drifted in lazy circle eights under a faultless sky.
They swarmed over Cindy and the chauffeur, driving them away from Benny. Anna whistled shrilly. Benny's old mongrel charged from the woods across the road to attack the man and woman.
Shrieking and cursing, Cindy dived back into the car, her face and hands bleeding from the combined attacks of the dog and birds. Laughter floated down to her.
Charlie rolled to his feet. He grinned at his sister and heaved the massive chauffeur up. Stuffing the man in the front of the car, he gently patted him on one bloodied cheek.
"You take care, man," he said quietly. "But don't ever come back, or I'll finish the job the Project started on you, ok?"
The driver's breath fluttered. He groaned, taking the steering wheel to pull himself up.
In the back, Cindy rolled on the floor. She choked and gagged, weeping into the carpets. Anna thrust her head in.
Voice cold, she said, "Now do you understand why Leda and old man Ryan left my kid alone? Do you?"
Eyes wide and trembling, Cindy's mouth gaped at Anna.
"Have a care, VanTur," Anna warned in a chilling voice. "This is why Ryan and Melancowski are dead. This is why a man like Carl would take his own life to save my son. Benny belongs to the
Tsi:ge:Yu:i, to the God, and our God isn't about to let my son be destroyed, especially by trash like you. Lady, I'll eat your friggin liver first."
She backed out, her foot slammed the door of the limousine shut.
"If you know what's good for you, Cindy, you won't come back."
Charlie reached in and graciously started the car for the driver. He jerked the shift into third and grinned a show of all his teeth.
The man stared at Charlie and the limousine began to roll. He swallowed, choking on his own blood, and suddenly gravel spurted out from the rear tires and the car streaked away.
With a cold stare for his mother, Benny stepped out onto the tar-and-gravel Sandy Valley Road. He walked stiffly, arrogantly down to the Owl Holle Road.
The heavy planks spanning Laughing Woman Creek rang hollow under his boots. The waters were subdued, as if in response to the weight on Benny's soul. Quiet, almost gentle. He stared at the cottage.
By the unkempt, rocky drive, he paused, oblivious to the stares of the curiosity seekers. They braved their dark fears of the Valley's reputation to invade in response to the notice in the papers about the death of one of the men who had been a prostitute at the Janissary Project's infamous Manse on Fern Ridge.
Benny glared down, staring at the mouth of the drive. All the times he had come here, tooled around with Carl before Leda sold him and Ivanovitch to the Project . . . . Man, were had those days gone?
He was sixteen, and it felt like the world was already too much. Why did Carl have to die? It should have been him. That buck was meant for him, not Papa Bear.
Teeth bared in rage, Benny glanced into the sun.
"What? What the hell do you want from me?" His face was cold and freezing because of unacknowledged tears. He blinked slowly, spots dancing before his eyes from the brightness of the lowering autumn sun.
He stepped into the drive, stumbling over rocks that jutted under his feet, cursing at the weeds drenched with the night's rains, the water soaking through the new jeans his mother had forced him to wear.
No, she hadn't forced him. Not really. It was just, he didn't have the balls to do anything for himself right now.
The trail leading around the cottage and back to the 'Stone was narrow, hemmed in by towering, winter-black hemlocks. Rain water showered down on Benny with each breeze that disturbed them.
Eyes unseeing, Benny stumbled over the roots and rocks that covered the path. He crashed to his knees, crawled up, his mind hardly registering the jagged cut on his knee from a sharp piece of red rock. He jerked to a stop, breath deep and ragged in his chest, and staring, mesmerized by the Witch's Stone. Benny entered the glen.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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