Page 56 of All That Has Flown Beyond
“Oh. You’re not staying?” Kaiyo asked. He would have guessed they’d spend the free afternoon as a pack.
“Here?” she asked in confusion. Kaiyo looked around. Ahmik’s eyes were averted. Amaya looked at him with a faint amusement hanging on her lips.
“Never mind. Yes, that’d be good. Shit, wait, my mom—”
“Don’t worry, we called her,” Thea said, getting up. “She’s going to kick your ass, though.”
“What’s new?” Kaiyo smiled. Thea grinned back.
Kaiyo felt a sense of vertigo overtake him. He nodded at Ahmik and Amaya as he followed Thea and her family out. He tamped the panic down.
He was trapped in a place that had tried to kill him through exile. The shadow it had cast over him was the darkness of the pit of an unmade bed, of weeks without a shower, of the hollow centre of a sadness that simply didn’t care.
He took a deep breath. He’d survived this land before, and he’d do it again.
**********
It was as if it had been waiting for him.
The small house at the periphery of Garrow land had been overtaken by the forest. The cottage was made of a grey stone blushing with the green of moss. The windows were boarded up, some of the planks swollen, others decaying. The slanted, tiled roof was growing a garden of its own like an offering to the sky. Inside, it wasn’t much better. Grass had started crawling through, mushrooms sprouting in the dark.
Kaiyo fell in love with it instantly. Despite the skin of the house being mottled in green, the foundation was good. It had a functioning pipe and sewer system and was connected to a nearby power line. There was a wide space around it free of trees, as if they had been shy to approach, or waiting.
Kaiyo showed Ahmik the piece of land. “I’d have to fix up the house significantly, build a small cottage there for visiting packs, and a glass conservatory over by that side for my plants and office,” Kaiyo explained, speaking more to himself than Ahmik as he looked around the clearing again. He pressed a hand against the warm stone of the house. Kaiyo could almost swear it thrummed in response.
“Fine. I work in landscaping and Emil in construction, so. I’ll send him over. I’ll cover the cost of what you need,” Ahmik said. Kaiyo nodded. Although it made him uncomfortable, it was in balance for Ahmik to pay for Kaiyo’s accommodations, especially since Kaiyo would only be residing in them for a year.
Kaiyo micromanaged the speedy construction process. He made sure as much of the material as possible was well-sourced, that the greenhouse and cottage flowed with the lines of the forest, that they were as energy-efficient as possible. He would respect the land as if it were the living body of a person he loved.
Kaiyo stayed with his mother whilst the structures took shape, slumbering skeletons that gained muscle and skin. Although Adeline had tried to keep a steady face at the news of Kaiyo’s sudden bond to the land, he’d been able to see the warring happiness and worry in her eyes. She’d hugged him tightly, cradling the back of his head despite her shorter stature, like she had done when he was a child.
“You know I want you here, love. But no secrets. You start feeling down, you come straight here, or call me, or text me. I know it’s hard, but…”
“I know, Mom. I will. I swear, I…I’m not going back to that place. And not because it won’t call me, but because I’ll drag myself, tooth and nail, away. I wish Claudia were here, though…”
“Call her. She might be up for Skype sessions.”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Kaiyo agreed. “But I do need to get someone here to write me scripts for the antidepressants.”
“That’ll be a quick fix. Leave that to me, love, you have enough things to worry about.”
“Okay,” Kaiyo said after a moment of hesitation. It was good to accept help, he reminded himself. Isolation was a thin edge away.
Late at night, when construction had finished for the day, Kaiyo investigated. He’d turned blind to what had been happening on Garrow land the last nine years since the last summer he was there. He dug through newspaper backlogs, reached out to contacts who were known for keeping informed about the running of foreign packs.
The picture that revealed itself was not a pretty one.
Kaiyo had assumed the turbulent waters they had been swimming in as teenagers would die down as the pack regained its foothold. The Garrows were an old name, had been an established and respected pack with a line of fair Kephales well-advised by an old line of shamans. That, however, seemed to all be in the past. There was a long list of attacks on the Garrow pack that spoke to a fundamental disrespect to their claim on the land.
Kaiyo thought back to the state of the pack house. To the fact that they had only acquired one other member, Amaya, in ten years through something other than bloodline. Isla, he had noticed, wasn’t a werewolf, although Edu was. And the interactions between the pack members had been troubling. Kaiyo had put it down to the stressful situation, but maybe there was more to it.
Guilt built a fire that was nothing but acrid smoke in his chest. Kaiyo closed his eyes, his first instinct to push the emotion away. Instead, he breathed deeply, acknowledging it.
This had been his family. His future. Now, it was his land again. The emotion was normal, he told himself, but it did not reflect reality. His responsibility had been ripped from him by force. As much as he wished he’d been there to help, it simply hadn’t been his choice.
The present, however, was another matter. He had one year. He didn’t intend to waste it.
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