Box of letters in tow, Sylvie walked along an old country road, one she'd known by heart quite some time ago. She'd probably be scolded for dissappearing without a word so close to morning, but this couldn't wait. She needed to read these letters, absolutely needed to. But she wouldn't do it around the coven, couldn't do it in a place she'd almost come to think of as home. So she would go home, or to what had been home, and read them there, where the memories of her siblings were still so strong they choked her if she wasn't careful.
But tonight, it seemed, was a night for memories, of digging up things probably best left buried. So she walked along that old dirt road, her feet bare, a long filmy skirt billowing about her legs in the light wind, a peasant top keeping her from getting chilled. Had she been ten years sold once more, she'd have been in overalls and a threadbare tee-shirt, dirt smudging her skin and clothes. And she'd have had four young children following after her, grinning despite the ever-present layer of filth that screamed of poverty.
Along this road, there were mostly farms snow, spread out from one another. But she was only interested in the place at the very end of the lane. She walked at a human's stroll, so it took her a bit longer, but she eventually got there, the beam of her flashlight swinging, and her breath caught a** she stood in the middle of the road, looked at the place she once lived. The huge oak tree was there, and she could just make up what remained of the hunk of rope that had once been tied to one of the thick branches, where the children had swung and laughed. That hadn't changed.
But the old house, tired-looking even in its glory days...that had changed. No one had touched this house in all the years that it had stood empty. Rumor was that, centuries ago, a girl had dwelled in that house who'd walked amongst the angels on Earth. Some said she'd been considered mad, and her father had put her in an insane asylum. It was also said that, after a fire in the asylum claimed her life, she continues to walk the land of her family, searching for her lost siblings. Because of this, the land was never bought, and the house remained untouched.
But 300+ years of neglect had taken its toll on the old one-story house. The roof had caved in on one side, the windows had been smashed out, the door hung on one hinge, window shutters shad fallen and rotted on the ground. The flower beds, once hers and her mother's pride, had turned into a mass of weeds and the yard was overgrown with crabgrass. The bricks of the chimney were strewn about what remained of the roof, the structure having collapsed.
But none of that mattered. In Sylvie's mind, she saw a squat little house, painted a chipping red, with determinedly cheerful white shutters on the windows. When she looked, she saw flower beds bursting with color, huge ceramic urns at the front door dilled with daisies. She saw smoke puffing cheerfully out of the chimney, saw a frayed rope swinging gently in the breeze as it hung from the tree branch.
And if she looked hard enough, she could see Luka, always so bright, painstakingly repainting the shutters, his tongue between his teeth. She could see Fabian with hands and ankles wrapped around the rope, swinging wildly, a laugh bursting from him. She could see Magdalene, all braids and eyes, sitting on the branch from which the rope hung, her legs dangling, laughing down at her twin. And she could see, all too clearly, little Beni, on his knees in the dirt, babying a flower, singing cheerfully to the blooms, his eyes wide and glittering with excitement.
Blinking, she looked around again, saw only a yard. Brushing a lock of hair from her face, she strode through the knee-high grass, approached the front door. At first she didn't realize the lack of spider webs, where before the house had always been full of them. She didn't notice because she'd walked into the kitchen, and the memories had hit again. Her mother, at the counter, a quiet contentment in her eyes as she kneaded bread dough. And there, at the long table with one table leg shorter than the others, her father, the bible in front of him, as he studied the verses over and over again, commiting them to memory, whiskey at his elbow.
But she blinked again, saw, not a bible on the table, but a cardboard box, obviously new. And on the counter, several strange machines with plugs. Well, that didn't make sense. And in the air, for the first time, she caught the scent of...was that sawdust? Well, no matter. She'd dispose of all of this soon enough.
Shaking her head, she walked silently into the family room, which had been based around the central hearth, and where there had once a corner designated for instruments. Music had been one of the few things her father and his children had been able to relate with. She'd been quite adept with several of the instruments. But there were...red coals in the hearth, and a gleaming wood guitar in the corner. But that wasn't right...Ah, she thought suddenly. Obviously a homeless person or something had come to find a warm place for the night. Well, she'd come across him eventually, and do her best to shoo him along.
She walked down the hall, past the bathroom and her parents' room, for she had no fond memories of either place, so she left those doors closed. Instead, she pushed open the door to what had once been the children's room, where all five of the Wolff siblings had slept, had lived. The door creaked slightly, and she switched the box of letters to her other arm as she stepped into the room. There was what remained of their beds, two huge beds pushed together so that all of them had slept together, sharing warmth from the smaller hearth in the corner. But...that was strange. It seemed someone had put a tarp over the ceiling where the roof had caved in in this room. She had no clue who would do that.
Confused, and more than a little uneassy, Sylvie went back into the hall, her flashlight trained to the floor so she didn't trip over anything. She rounded a corner, headed back to the living room. And rammed straight into a wall of solid flesh. It was a toss-up as to who jumped back the furthest, and immediately Sylvie's light came up, a dim glow in the dark.
"Stop right there and put your hands where I can see them." The voice was undoubtedly masculine, and Sylvie's throat closed up when she saw the shotgun he held in his hands. His face was in shadow, so she did the only thing that made sense. She disappeared. Well, actually, she ran, but it was so fast that it looked like she disappeared. She'd have gone right out of the house if she hadn't known that some vagrant was in her family's house.
So she stopped around the corner, eyes wide as a doe in the headlights. She heard cursing, surprise in the tone, and then heavy footsteps. And then...more voices. At least four of them all together, not all of them male. Their strange accents told her they were American, but that wasn't her main concern. Confused, she tuned in, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
"-swear to God, I saw her with my own eyes! She came out of the other bedroom, and she just stared at me for a second, and then she...poofed! It was so...cool! I didn't think we'd actually see her! I mean, hearing the locals talk, she must come around, but I didn't actually believe it! Can you believe this? The spirit of our great-great-great-great-great-great-great aunt haunts her old house!" The man's voice was raised in excitement, and Sylvie could only blink as she heard a female sigh.
"Would you stop waving that gun around, Fabian? That's probably what scared her off in the first place." She said, and there was a deep chuckle. "Sorry, Mags. But seriously, guys, can you imagine we'd meet her our third night here? And she looked so real! She was even carrying a flashlight!" He said, and then another male voice interrupted, a voice of calm and reason.
"Be that as it may, you went and scared her off, Fabian. If and when we see her again, I'd suggest not waving a gun in her face." There was a noise of general agreement, and the one called Fabian spoke up again.
"Ok, ok, so maybe that could've been handled better. But we all heard the creaking when that door opened and thought it was some intruder. There was no way I was going to go out there and find myself unarmed against some maniac psycho killer. You'd have done the same, L. But seriously, the ghost, she looked just like you, Syl. I mean, for a second there I thought it was you, if I didn't know you were in the bedroom." He said, and there was another female voice, one that spoke of more years than the eager boy they called Fabian. The voice was patient, calm, with love underneath it all.
"Is that so? I wish I could have seen her then, this namesake of mine. The diaries said we share a love of flowers. I wonder if she'll be happy with the plans I have for the gardens." She said, and another voice, younger than the others, spoke up.
"Hey, you think we should, like, hold a seance or something? She'd come then, wouldn't she? We could, you know, light candles, and stuff. We could tell her all about how we're fixing up the house, after all this time." He said, and there was some light feminine laughter.
"I don't think that would work too well, Ben. In fact, I think it would probably offend her. Maybe she'll just show up again, like she did this time. We're her blood, after all, so we've got a bond. The Wolff Clan needs to stick together, even if we're generations apart. Isn't that why we came here from the States?" This came from the one they'd called Mags.
But Sylvie was too stunned to do anything. They were Wolffs...Family, generations ahead, yet family still. And their names...Fabian, Mags, L, Syl, Ben...Nicknames, most likely, and their true names...so close to names already so familiar to her. Sylvie wasn't stupid. She knew how to get the gist of a conversation. This was family, come from the states, after centuries, her seven-times-over-great nieces and nephews. And they'd come to fix up the old Wolff house, to bring back the gardens...And to see the ghost of their seven-times-over-great aunt...She supposed that would be her.
Well, they thought she was a ghost obviously...and this was family. Though she knew it was wrong, Sylvie desperately wanted to look upon the faces of those who'd come after her. So she'd play the part of the ghost, and she'd best do a damn good job of it. There was no fear in her now, though there were males in the other room. She'd never feared her kin, and wasn't about to start now.
Moving with the speed she'd acquired as a vampire, she suddenly 'appeared' behind the one they'd called Fabian, looking over his shoulder. Light spilled out of her parent's bedroom, but everyone had spilled out into the hall. Everyone's faces were in shadow, and that just wouldn't do. Someone spotted her, obviously, for there was a gasp, and then a "She's back! Fabian, behind you!"
Fabian spun around, and she saw that he was tall, inches taller than herself, and his body was hard and muscled, like a brick wall. "A-Aunt! Aunt Sylviana! Please, please don't disappear again. I swear, I thought you were an intruder. I didn't mean to...you know..." He immediately thrust the gun behind him to someone else, showed his empty hands.
"Please, we just want to talk to you. Won't you listen?" He asked, almost desperately. Hmmm...How did a ghost act? All she knew was she wanted the light, given off, she saw, by several lanterns placed in the room just a few feet away.
She smiled, trying for 'ethereal', and gestured towards the lighted room. "Oh...ok. Sure, sure!" The group quickly trooped into the room, sitting in a circle on top of sleeping bags. They all faced her, looking expectantly as she stood in the doorway.
However, her breath had caught as soon as she'd gotten a good look at them. Why, it was as though her family had been reborn, then aged a few more years. On one end, the one they called L looked just like her Luka, his black hair curling around his strong face, the faint light of knowledge in his eye. Beside him, born again, were the twins. The ones they called Fabian and Mags, why, it was Fabian and Magdalene. And there, just ready to break her heart, there was Benedikt, her little Beni, with the face of a cherub, just more...matured. His fair hair fell in a wild disarray, angelic mischief in his glance. But it was the girl beside him, obviously the eldest, who caught and held her attention. It was like looking in a mirror, except this girl's hair was longer, her face a bit more round.
She took a step into the room, her eyes roaming over the faces, before she found her voice, tried to figure out what a ghost would sound like. "You...You've the faces of my kin. You've their names, and mine...Who are you who come upon my resting place?" There, that sounded ghostly.
They all stared for a moment, and then L got to his feet, gstured for her to come in. "We are your kin, Aunt, come from America. 'Tis been 300 years and more since any other Wolff has come, but we have, all of us. We're siblings, you see, the five of us, descended from your brother, and my namesake, Luka Wolff. Our parents, they were obsessed with family history, and we were named after the last Wolff children to walk on this land. This is my sister, Sylviana, the eldest, as you were, and the twins, Fabian and Magdalene, and the baby, Benedikt." He said, and she nodded slowly, holding up a hand to keep him from saying anymore.
"I heard you before, child, in the hallway. I'm not always seen, but I'm most always there. You all share almost complete resemblence with my kin, yet you've different nicknames. In my time, we, all of us, were Sylvie, Luke, Fabian, Maggie, and Beni. And then, my precious Beni, before Polio took him, he called me Ana, as no other did. You have their faces, you five, yet you are not them. I walk their graves, and I know you are not them. Yet you come back to the original land of the Wolff clan now, after three and a half centuries." She said, her gray eyes captivating as they swept over the group.
"Yes, you see, were share our parents respect for our ancestry. We wish to live once more in the house where our ancestors lived. So we're...rebuilding, making right what was destoyed. We heard tales that you walked these lands, but we didn't dare hope anything would come of that. We know all about what happened 300 years ago, know the family history. So we've come, all of us, to make lives for ourselves where you once did." Luka said, and, family or not, Sylvie was touchy about people who claimed to understand her family. Only she understood things no newspaper or journal ever thought to put down.
"You say you wish to rebuild what was destroyed, that you know all the family history, enough to bring back this house that sheltered my siblings. But you know nothing, don't you know? You know nothing of what went on inside these walls, out in that yard! Do you know the flowers we put into the earth every spring, or the color my Luka painted the shutters in the summer? Do you know the feel of the rope that hung from the tree, the way the long table in the kitchen shakes a bit from a short leg? Do you know where to put the little colored bottles filled with wildflowers to make the house smell of spring? Do you know the songs that filled this house, know the magic that came out of our Maggie's mouth when she sang? Do you know where each hole in the wall belongs from when my Fabian took it upon himself to learn to throw knives? Do you know where in this yard to rebuild the little cross that my Beni put up when his kitten fell ill and died? You don't know these things, yet you say you wish to put things as they were." She said testily, her eyes sparking, and anger she reserved for kin coming out.
"You don't understand." The voice came from the one they called Syl, and it sounded exactly like her own. "We have no way of knowing these things, and even if we did, we don't want to put things exactly as they were. That would be like trying to live our lives as you did, which would make a mockery of the lives lived by you and yours. We merely wish to make our own roots in a place that already has the roots of the Wolff family. Restoring the house is the only thing we can do to honor your memory, and it's what we will do. We don't know everything, but we do know some things." She said, and when she paused, the one they called Ben took over, his voice soft, patient, angelic. And damn him for it.
"We know, from the journals your siblings kept, that you took care of all of them. We know you were abused, almost daily, and we know that you had a connection with the big guy upstairs...God." He elaborated at her blank look, then continued, "We know you loved flowers, and that you sang your siblings to sleep every night. We know you'd have gone anywhere, done anything for them, that you loved them more than anything else. We know how you grieved when my namesake lost his life to sickness, know how you wept, how your heart broke in two. We know how you taught them to cook, to fight, to plant...to love. And we know you were taken from them, thrown into an asylum. We know they grieved for you, know they never stopped trying to see you. We know the family fell apart when a fire in the asylum took your life, know how your siblings left this place behind once you were gone, desperate to escape the memories. And we know that you remain here, trapped forever on the land of your kin." He trailed off, and she studied him for a moment before giving a pained laugh.
"You're like my Beni, child. He had a way with words that made you want to forget his every sin. You fix this place, then, and you make the Wolff name mean something. I come here, to this place, and the memories remain as fresh and clear as though they were all still hear. I see my Luka painting the shutters, see the twins playing in the tree, on the rope. I see my little Beni singing to the flowers, my mother baking and my father obsessing over his bible. I see it here, and it's all so real, so painfully real. I look for them, I search, as though they too were still here, mine to protect again. But they're gone...long gone now...I must go." She said abruptly, getting ready to take off again, this time back to the coven.
"Wait!" Mags shot her hand out in the universal 'stop' gesture, and Sylvie raised a brow. "You'll come back, right?" She asked, and Sylvie merely smiled softly before disappearing. It was only a short run through the graveyard, through her gardens, through her bedroom window. The whole time she clutched the box of letters to her chest, unaware of the tears running silently down her cheeks. At last, after all this time, a Wolff was dwelling on Wolff land once more...Oh, God...
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