BLOOD TIES

JADE WILBURN

Fetid water and putrid green-brown sludge seep into the cracks of Olivia’s worn shoes. She grimaces with every squelching step, but she cannot stop running.

There’s no time to wipe the sweat from her brow nor to wash her brown forearms, streaked with still-wet blood. She cannot take even a moment to comfort her squalling newborn sister, Leila. Fresh from their mama’s womb and hastily tied in a wrap, the babe’s midnight-black skin is still covered in drying white birthing fluid.

If Olivia falters, even once, both of them will die as cannon fodder.

The faint thrum under her feet grows stronger. Leila cries louder. They’re lucky the houses this far from the town’s center are empty. Their families had been smart to take the government’s meager offer and flee as fast as possible.

Olivia curses under her breath as she shoves floating broken furniture out of her way. The main road out of town would’ve been faster but it came with a higher chance of detection. The narrow footpaths through the forest will slow down pursuers but getting there is eating precious time.

“Shush little one, everything will be okay. I promised Mama I’d protect you, remember?”

She ignores the floating corpses, so swollen that they look fit to burst with the slightest disturbance. As the water came, the ground turned so soft that their cemeteries had no choice but to spit up the dead.

There goes Miss Mabel with her one good glass eye and the other authentic one hanging out of the socket. Look at the Tyler children floating in a single file like soldiers—such a shame about the measles outbreak that took their whole family a few years ago.

The distant clamor of surprised shouts and bellows of rage behind her sends Olivia’s heart skittering off like a rabbit. Daddy and the rest of the townspeople must have found Mama’s cooling body, her womb empty of the child meant to be kindling for the curse.

The faint whispers of Ancestors long gone caress Olivia’s ears and urge her to stop running. They beg her to set Leila down in a patch of dry soil and complete the blood tie, tethering her sister to the earth as generations of their family have done.

We aren’t monsters, they coo. Their voices are ever moving, rolling around the edges of her mind like water sloshing up the sides of a cup someone is shifting back and forth. They wouldn’t do this if there was another way. They don’t want to see their hard work snatched away by white folks yet again—surely she must grasp that?

“‘Course I get it! Y’all actin’ like y’all the only ones who are angry!” Olivia hisses between clenched teeth. Did the Ancestors think she wanted things to end up this way? To stay here in this town and wait for the waters to rise, or high-tail it North with her sister to a state—Meatskin? Michgan?—whose name she can’t even pronounce right?

Sucking air into her heaving chest to soothe her aching lungs, Olivia’s focus loosens for a single moment.

A searing heat scorches a pathway through her veins and Olivia screams.

It wouldn’t hurt at all if you just let us in.

The tether between her and the land tightens its grip on her soul. The very air around Olivia wavers. Her forebears’ voices surge forward and she staggers to her knees.

Let us in, sweet girl.

It’s like fighting against the tide while it drags her down into the murkiest depths of her mind, generations of her Ancestors’ collective willpower subverting her own. Olivia lowers Leila—until an indignant squall from the babe pierces her fogging thoughts like a needle.

Taking a deep breath, Olivia stiffens her spine.

Get the hell out of my head!

With a mental shove, Olivia encases the voices behind a wall at the back of her mind. Whispering thanks to her sister, she stumbles back to her feet.

They have to keep moving.

As water gives way to dry land, Olivia cinches up her mud-caked skirts in one hand and runs. Dappled yellow-green sunlight guides her around squirming tree roots that grasp at her ankles.

“All this carrying on is pointless,” Olivia mutters under her breath. She ducks underneath the trembling threads of vine that snatch at her braids and scowls. “As if anything we do will keep us from losing our homes.”

Things had gone to hell the day the devil strolled into town.

As soon as the government representatives stepped foot inside the town limits, a rumble through the terrain warned them that strangers were in their midst.

Olivia’s neighbors groaned and sucked their teeth—tempers not at all helped by the day’s heat. One of the hottest places in the world is a Southern church on a summer afternoon and the pews were filled to the brim with sticky bodies. The box of paddle fans was empty but the flimsy pieces of cardboard seemed to only push the muggy air from one side of the sanctuary to the other.

If the two representatives were discomfited to have all eyes on them as soon as they stepped into a stifling room full of irritated Negroes, they didn’t show it.

Careful now, the Ancestors cautioned. It ain’t ever good when the government comes calling.

Olivia stiffened along with the others that heard the whispers. Other folks frowned, noticing the change in their neighbors’ body language.

Olivia’s mother wrapped her hands protectively around her swollen belly. She wasn’t the only one in their town who felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that the land underneath their toes was sentient. She couldn’t comprehend pledging to protect and care for it in exchange for access to the collective wisdom of their foremothers and forefathers.

Speaking with the deceased wasn’t a benevolent comfort and it didn’t matter if it was a practice carried over from the old continent; it was the devil’s magic.

Funny that he’s here, Olivia thought as the shorter of the two representatives stepped onto the pulpit. Perhaps I should ask him if it’s true.

“A few miles south, an army of the greatest engineers in the country is going to build a dam—big enough to fill up these Georgian foothills with the backwaters of Ole Hooch.” Blond hair plastered to his pale forehead, the representative laid it on thick. “This monumental reservoir will bring water and prosperity to a burgeoning American city.”

The second representative stepped forward, lanky as a scarecrow with the same blank stare. “Now we know no one wants to leave their homes, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made for the greater good. Of course, we’re prepared to compensate you.”

They named their price and Olivia’s mouth dropped. Only twenty-six dollars per acre? That was barely two-thirds of what their land was worth!

Shouts and hisses nearly lifted off the church rafters. Even Preacher Johnson looked fit to curse.

“Now, now . . . we assure you that the quoted price is more than fair for your land. It’d be in all your best interests to take it.”

The church fell silent. Olivia nestled against her mother’s belly, taking comfort in the movements of her unborn sibling as if the babe could feel her distress. How could they just leave?

Many of their families had been here since Emancipation. This land had been worthless and abandoned until their forebears poured their blood into the dirt, binding themselves as the earth is bound to the sun. Deeds could be ripped up, lost, burned, or simply denied. A blood tie held meaning far beyond ownership.

Yet again, all of our hard work is getting snatched away, the spirits hissed.

They always want what we got.

Seething, they gathered together as one and tugged on the strongest blood tie at their disposal. The Ancestors would have their say.

Swallowing in trepidation, Olivia watched as her father stepped forward. Her mama’s grip on her hand tightened. Though her mother had eventually been convinced to resume her wifely duties, she’d never forgiven her husband for going behind her back, binding Olivia when she was a child.

Her daddy had always felt the connection of his tether keener than most—he’d been tied to the land from the moment the midwife pulled his squalling body from his mother’s womb and mixed his lifeblood into the rich black soil.

“And if we don’t sell?” he asked.

Olivia tensed at the sight of air stirring around her father’s body, as if beings moved there, unseen, watching, waiting. His baritone deepened. His words reverberated, a multitude of voices speaking in tandem. “Should we expect to find crosses burning on our lawns while our homes are firebombed to force us out?”

Their Ancestors manifesting through him as they had never done before punched a spike of worry through Olivia’s chest.

The representatives hesitated. Their eyes jumped from Olivia’s father to the entire congregation, silently gauging if the whole room had spoken in unison or not. “By all means, that’s within your rights. But remember: It’s not illegal for the government to seize property if they deem it necessary—and who needs the Klan when we have the National Guard? A lake is gonna get built here whether y’all stay or not.”

Their jobs finished, they slipped back through the front doors of the church. Olivia let out a wet, shuddery cough. Her world had fallen out from underneath her feet and she felt oddly heavy, like she could sink into her seat and never move.

Her mother hunched over, pressing a handkerchief to the tears running down her cheeks. “How could they?”

Pew by pew, people followed suit as they exploded in a flurry of shouts and tears.

“We need to do something! They can’t do this to us!”

“Of course they can. We’re Negroes.”

“I’m sick of gettin’ chased away everywhere I go in Georgia. I heard life is sa-weet up North.”

“I got a cousin up North—says their white folks as bad as ours. They just think they’re nicer ‘cuz they ain’t the ones that whipped us.”

“I’m good with my hands and I know how to cut some hair. I’m sure I can find a job, send for the rest of y’all before that dam gets built.”

The malcontents were outnumbered by those who resigned themselves to leaving. There was no use in fighting to the death against superior numbers armed to the teeth with guns and dogs. Besides, blood ties weren’t the only way to commune with their deceased relatives. A new home would never be the same as the old, but better than no home at all.

The Ancestors disagreed.

They knew how to fix this: their knowledge wasn’t contained to crop rotation or how to tell when a storm’s coming. There were many great and terrible things they’ve passed down over the centuries. Roots and charms to make someone take to their bed on the brink of death. Spells to cause storms to wreck whole towns. Malevolent curses that allowed no one to desecrate the land without repercussions. And inside the church was all the fodder they needed for the invocation.

“No one is leaving.” Her father’s voice rang out with ominous finality. Olivia’s brow furrowed. Didn’t he hear? It wasn’t as though they had a choice.

She nearly choked on her spit as a violent force seared her brain, trying to rip its way inside. Neighbors yelled out around her, falling on the ground while their loved ones helplessly watched.

“What’s happening?” Olivia moaned, clutching her head.

Let us in baby, we’ll fix this. We’ll fix everything.

Embrace us and we’ll guide you.

Blood ties are supposed to be benevolent, two-way relationships— not abused with one party taking full control. Olivia’s tempted, to make the agony go away, to let them in—

“Olivia, we need to go! Snap out of it!”

The crack of her mother’s palm across her cheek shook Olivia free. Her mother pressed a hand to her belly, pulling Olivia out the back of the church, following a handful of people escaping.

“Mama, it’s the Ancestors. We’ve gotta help—”

“There’s nothing we can do for them.”

They ducked into a copse, taking shelter amongst the trees. Olivia helped her mother sink onto the soft carpet of grass.

“Listen closely, Olivia. No matter what happens, the most important thing is that we survive.” Her Mama clasped their hands together, her brown gaze feverish and solemn. “That is the best thing we can do for ourselves and our family. If something happens to me, promise that you’ll stay alive and take care of your sibling.”

Olivia pressed her palm over her mother’s stomach. Her lips tugged at the press of a tiny hand back.

“I promise, Mama.”

Stumbling out of the forest into a clearing right at the border, Olivia’s body trembles with sweet relief. The wooden stake with their town name painted on it in flaking black letters stands just ahead. Her head feels like it’s going to split as her forebears batter against her mental wall, but freedom is so close—

“Over here, Olivia!”

Her mother’s good friends wait just past the border marker; their tense expressions ease upon seeing her. The former schoolteacher, Mrs. Freedman, sits atop the wagon with her hands clasped and her black hair pinned in place. Her grizzly bear of a husband stands guard with a rifle resting over his shoulder.

Mrs. Freedman’s gaze cuts past Olivia. “Where’s your mama?”

“She didn’t make it. She made me promise to take care of her.” She lifts Leila for them to see. Mrs. Freedman stifles a cry while her husband’s face twists with sorrow.

“We can grieve later,” Mr. Freedman says. “We need to leave.”

As Olivia steps past the border, a root shoots out from the grass. It coils around her ankle, twining up her leg and throwing her off-balance. Leila lets out a blood-curdling scream. In her panic to secure her baby sister, Olivia loses focus.

The voices wash over her mental landscape, a tidal wave consuming her very being. Olivia falls to her knees in agony, one hand around Leila.

“Olivia! Get up, Olivia!”

We’ve got you now, baby. You’re never leaving us.

The deep baritone of her father’s voice is getting closer. The promise to her dying mother sears Olivia’s mouth—she swore to protect Leila and she cannot fail now.

Olivia throws the Freedmans a pleading look. “Take her . . . please! You must!”

Passing the gun to his wife, Mr. Freedman dashes across the clearing. He stops short of the border.

“Toss me the babe!” he bellows, his thick dark hands outstretched as far as he dares. Swallowing, Olivia summons her strength and heaves Leila over the boundary.

Trees crash to the rumbling ground, but Mr. Freedman is steady. Cradling Leila, he looks at Olivia and hesitates. She shakes her head. The Freedmans don’t have blood ties, but there’s no telling what’ll happen if he crosses back into the town limits.

“Godspeed, Olivia.”

Relief and terror churn through her veins like fresh butter as the wagon speeds off. Her sister is safe. She should be happy she kept her promise. She should be content that one of them will have a chance to live, to grow. To see a whole other side of the country where you don’t have to jump off the sidewalk for nobody, or work the soil all day in the sun for scrap wages.

But that won’t be her. The Freedmans would’ve saved her if they could, she knows they had to think of themselves and Leila, but— Olivia squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn’t want to die here.

Rough hands haul her bound form up from the cold ground. Her father’s empty gaze is unyielding. “It’s a pity we didn’t catch the child, but at least we have you.”

“Daddy, please don’t do this. It’s not too late. We can go north just like the Freedmans and start over. Just you, me, and Leila.”

“So we should just let them take everything from us, again? Would you rather we allow ourselves to get defiled without consequences? You should be grateful that we’re taking a stand.”

Defiance creeps into Olivia’s gaze and she straightens her shoulders.

“No, but do y’all really think cursing this land will repay all of the wrongs done to our people? You’ve hurt nearly everyone! How is any of this supposed to bring you peace?”

Her captors jerk back as if slapped. Her daddy’s brow creases, and Olivia’s breath cuts short. There’s a part of him still inside that cares, she’s almost sure of it.

The air around her father’s head lurches violently and hope turns to ash on her tongue as his face smooths.

“This is what’s best for everyone. One day you’ll understand, baby.” Olivia’s screams are ignored as she’s carried back to town.

Water splashes her face when she’s dropped on the floor of the church. Neighbors who didn’t escape surround her, clinging to one another in the freezing water. The black liquid caresses her neck in a lover’s embrace. Olivia’s ears ring from the cacophony of pleas and bargaining, entreaties to think of the children.

“We are,” Daddy says.

He turns his back on them and raises his hands as he begins the invocation. Salt leaks from Olivia’s eyes. She’s not making it out of here alive. Among the dying gurgles of her neighbors and loved ones, the Ancestors utter sympathetic tutting sounds.

Don’t cry, baby.

We’ll make them regret ever stepping foot on our territory.

Olivia counts the passage of time using the trash dropped by the people she drowns.

It’s the only comfort she’s been able to seize during her decades trapped in this half-life, a distraction from thoughts of her sister. The dates on Styrofoam containers with half-eaten sandwiches floating amongst the mild waves. Wallets spilling over with tiny squares. Cover girls beaming without a care in the world spread across the front of glossy water-logged magazines.

A small boat chugs across the lake’s surface, the loud whirl of its motors disturbing the placid green-blue water. Tearing her eyes from the laughing woman clad in white on the February cover of Vogue, Olivia eyes it with trepidation.

“Just keep going, don’t stop,” she whispers. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll be spared if they don’t linger. Maybe she won’t have to add another red mark to her ledger.

Aluminum cans fall overboard, speckling the water with synthetic hues of Coca-Cola red and Pepsi blue. An arm the color of rich sepia darts in the water to catch them to no avail. The cans join the rest of the trash snuggling into the dirt of the lakebed.

The water around her twists as the Ancestors stir, seething at the detritus. They never learn, do they?

The lake mud pulsates. Countless souls awaken in search of their new prey.

Olivia can’t help her own frustrated resignation. She always hoped skinfolk at least would have more sense. When she was alive, black folks had a healthy respect for the dead and went out of their way to avoid bringing any bad juju onto themselves. Surely the number of people who turned up dead or missing would send a clear message to stay away? Did the ones today think they were exempt from reprisal if they, too, defiled their Ancestors’ resting places because they shared the same skin color?

Now they would have to die for their foolishness.

Olivia glides through the crumbling, shadowed ruins. She joins the rest of the ghosts following the boat’s wake like a school of hungering sharks. She’d learned the hard way that the curse would take over her body and compel her if she refused to partake in killing anyone who breached the waters above their former town.

Her hands tingle from the phantom sensation of gripping someone’s throat. Olivia clenches them to stop the feeling. She doesn’t know if she can bear to snuff the light out of someone’s eyes again.

Her daddy flits gleefully ahead of the pack. “What’ll be this time? Capsize the boat? Wait ‘til one of them sticks their hand in the water and pull them under?”

Olivia wrinkles her nose in disgust. The curse may compel her to kill but she doesn’t take pleasure in it.

Some of the ghosts cheer her father on, the ones who had actively embraced the takeover of their bodies—nothing more at this point than physical manifestations of ancestral indignity. She turns toward the others, solemn-faced men, women, and children trapped here like her, the ones who still try to resist despite the futileness.

“We should hurry,” she mutters. “Try to reach whoever falls into the water before one of the others do. We’ll give them a quick death, at least.”

They nod in agreement.

The occupants of the boat cut the motor. The vessel bobs on the gentle waves as they laugh and chat with one another.

Her daddy positions himself right beneath the boat. With a fervent grin, he raises one of his hands. The sunlight disappears as the clouds move to cast the lake in gray shadows. The winds above-water begin to screech like banshees as they whip about in a frenzy. She can imagine the boat occupants panicking at the sudden change in weather, their alarm as the feral gusts and churning water rock the boat from side to side.

“Start the motor,” she pleads. If they hurry, they might make it to the shoreline before their craft capsizes.

The land isn’t finished yet. Her daddy curls his fingers in a come-hither gesture. Olivia gasps, sensing a rushing wall of water heading straight for the boat.

“No, stop! This ain’t right!” Olivia yells. She heads toward her father only to find her limbs paralyzed.

You can’t stop us, the voices whisper.

The wave crashes into the boat with a thunderous clap, flipping it upside down. Warm bodies fall overboard and the souls of the dead close in.

Her father reaches the first trespasser, a gangly boy barely out of his teens. When he notices the ghostly figures surrounding him, he lets out a garbled scream. “You should’ve never come here,” her daddy laughs. He drags the flailing teen deeper into the shadowy depths of the lake.

Nearby, a girl struggles against the ghostly hands clasped around her nose and mouth, fading quickly. Another boy isn’t quite so lucky; Olivia shudders and turns away from the tug-o’-war game he’s caught in.

A moving shadow catches Olivia’s eye and she turns slightly so as not to draw any attention. One of the boat occupants was thrown farther than the others—the brown-skinned girl she spied earlier is swimming toward the surface. Now that she’s noticed the last survivor, she can’t ignore her. A prickling sensation spreads across her body, her only warning before the curse forces her to act.

So intent on getting to safety, the girl doesn’t notice Olivia’s approaching figure until they’re face-to-face. A flurry of air bubbles escapes from the girl’s mouth as she screams. Several heads turn their way and Olivia grimaces. She needs to get this over with before the others come.

“I wish you hadn’t forced me to do this to you,” Olivia growls, reaching for her throat. Her fingers brush against the girl’s windpipe. Searing heat spreads across Olivia’s tongue. Lurching away in pain and disbelief, she presses a hand against her lips.

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

A memory from long ago tries to surface but it’s like swimming upriver through molasses. Above her, the girl breaches the lake’s surface. Olivia grabs her ankle and pulls her back below the water. She ignores the flailing and peers at the girl’s features.

Her deep-set brown eyes are wide in panic, but she’s seen them before—they’re the same as her daddy’s. She’d also know that upturned wide nose anywhere—she only saw that feature every day in her mama’s face.

Hands shaking, Olivia grabs the girl’s waist and thrusts her above the water to fill her lungs with air. A welcome relief from the guilt over her unkept promise warred with the ice-cold realization that she had nearly just killed her kin.

“What’re you waiting for?”

Olivia turns to meet her daddy’s menacing figure. The rest of the ghosts fan out behind him.

“Kill the desecrator.”

“Daddy, this girl, she—this is Leila’s child. Maybe even one of her grandchildren. She is our blood.”

“Remember, Olivia: your sister abandoned us. You think she even remembers who you are? Killing this girl . . . it’ll be like your sister’s come back to be with the rest of her family.”

Olivia stares in muted horror. They want her to kill her own kin?

For a brief moment, her chest cracks open and a half-forgotten feeling of bitterness spills out. Her sister had survived when that wagon drove away without her, sealing Olivia’s fate.

No, Olivia shakes her head. That^'s not true. It wasn’t Leila’s fault. She glares at her father and the rest of the ghosts as they whisper vengeance, edging her on to drag the desecrator in her arms back beneath the water.

Her foremothers and forefathers wrapped that root around her leg to stop her from escaping. Her daddy tied her to this godforsaken land in the first place, against Olivia’s and her mama’s wishes. There’s no reasoning with them and there never has been.

A frustrated grimace ripples over her daddy’s face. The ever-present voices are silent. There’s no searing pain in her skull, just a blessedly empty stillness.

Olivia still controls her body.

“Thank you, Mama,” she whispers. “I did promise you, didn’t I?”

“Kill her now!” the dead shriek.

Olivia’s eyes tighten with resolve. “No.”

She pulls the thrashing girl to her chest and shoots for the shoreline. A roar echoes behind her and the dead give chase. Olivia grits her teeth. If she can get the girl to dry land and out of reach of the curse, she should be safe.

A tree rips from the bottom of the lake and shoots toward them. Cursing, Olivia uses the girl’s wild movements as momentum to barrelroll to the side. The rush of water flips them upside down. Olivia regains her bearings and breaks the surface of the lake. The girl gasps, coughing. Her arms flail weaker than before.

The lake’s bottom rumbles like a primordial force, screaming out in misery.

It^'s our right to make them, to make everyone suffer for what was done!

“Y’all haven’t even killed the people that tormented y’all! That at least, I could understand!”

There’s only a few more yards to reach land. The girl sputters in her arms as they glide forward.

“What the hell is going on?! Let me go!”

“You wanna die here or not?!” Olivia snaps back. In all the years she’s been stuck in this half-state, she’s never been tired, but exhaustion drags at her limbs like shackles. The will to make sure her family survives is all that keeps her going. Will she pass along to the same plane as her Ancestors? Or will she fade away completely?

Hands grab at her feet but with a few vicious kicks, she’s free. Olivia grits her teeth. She can worry about her afterlife later.

The girl lets out a scream and clutches Olivia’s shoulder. “There’s a wave coming!”

A wall of water surges their way. Olivia hunches her shoulders forward.

If she times it—

Pushing herself past her limits to stay just slightly ahead of the wave, Olivia waits until it’s upon them before throwing the girl forward. The wave crashes down. There isn’t a Mr. Freedman to catch her this time, but the force shoves her niece up onto the shoreline.

Surrounded by the wails of what sounds like millions of tortured souls and her mouth tingling with what feels like joy, Olivia allows a relieved smile to come to her face.

“Olivia, please!” She turns to face the anguished face of her daddy. The water quakes around him and she blinks in astonishment at the sight of ethereal figures behind him, scores of her family over generations back.

“Don’t leave us,” he begs. “We’ve lost so much and we didn’t want to lose all of this—all of you—again.”

“I know,” she says. Because she does; she understands anger can simmer in your blood until your very bones grieve, as everything you’ve built is taken away time after time again for centuries. How there is only so much one can take before retribution begins to taste sweet on the tongue. But the problem with revenge is that it swallows everyone and everything around you, never satisfied until there’s nothing but ruin left.

“You and the rest of our people deserve peace. I hope one day that you find it.”

Turning to the water’s edge, Olivia takes a tentative step inland. Her heart soars when she doesn’t encounter any resistance. Forcing herself not to look back, Olivia strides toward her kin.

The girl scurries back on her hands and knees through the grass. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

“What’s your name?” Olivia urges. She manages what she hopes is a reassuring smile.

The girl hesitates, her eyes darting between Olivia and the parking lot behind her.

“My name is Olivia . . . Olivia Freedman. You . . . why do you look like my mother?”

Olivia takes a trembling step forward.

“It’s nice to meet you, Olivia. Your mother is my baby sister, though it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her. Can you tell me how she’s been doing?”