I was hot. Damn hot. A layer of sweat filled my coat and ran down my neck after escaping my helmet. Bright daylight and miles and miles of open horizon faced me. Nothing but blue sky and waist high corn everywhere I looked.
The hot breeze started to take the moisture from me as I stuffed the coat into my pack. Before I stood I pulled out my phone and opened it up. The face lit and the little words No Signal in the corner ruined my plans to phone home. I turned it off and put it away.
After a minute’s indecision I kicked the bike to life. Help wasn’t going to find me standing here so I rode a ways down the dirt road past the rows and rows of corn. After only a few miles I came to a metal mailbox. The name Pilot was painted on it, along with a bunch of familiar purple flowers. The driveway that it marked disappeared into green stalks.
I decided to look further down the road; I could always turn around if I didn’t find anything. After another ten or so miles there was another mailbox. From a distance it looked a lot like the first and as I approached I saw why. It also said Pilot and had purple flowers painted on it. The driveway disappeared into the corn. I reached around to the side pocket on my pack, pulled out the pen and tossed it on the ground beside the mailbox.
After another ten miles I spotted another mailbox. Pilot and purple flowers. My pen on the ground next to it. I hopped off the bike and retrieved it, returning it to my pack. I looked back down the dirt road then ahead again.
I put the bike in gear and turned onto the long driveway into the corn. The stalks grew taller as I went, after a mile they were over my head. The driveway turned and I emerged in front of a low farmhouse. Its deep porch stretched across the front and from what I could see went around the sides.
The roof of a large faded barn stuck up over one end of the house but otherwise there were only buildings. No cars, tractors, trucks. It was so quiet that the idle of the engine offended me. I turned off the bike where the cornfield ended and pushed it to the house.
When I neared the stairs up to the porch I put it down on the kickstand. I hoped it wasn’t deserted. It was the only place I could get to from the road. As I took off my helmet something moved in the shade covered chair on the porch. He’d been so still I hadn’t noticed him and by the time my head was uncovered he was standing.
I put the helmet on the seat of the bike and took off the pack. My back was soaked with sweat and the hot breeze couldn’t keep up with the moisture springing from my skin.
“You didn’t come to shoot me miss, did you?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. He was just a kid; curly red hair and all of twelve years old. Dressed like I remembered my grandparents in my father’s family albums.
“No sir. I forgot I had that out,” I quickly took it off and found room for it in my pack. He seemed satisfied it was out of sight.
“I don’t get visitors,” he said. “This place is very … private. Where did you come from?”
“California sir,” I told him. I was twice his age but I felt so small compared to his huge presence just a few stairs away.
“That’s not what I consider a place,” he said. “When did you leave California?”
“In the middle of the night sir,” I told him.
He shook his head and waited. I didn’t understand what he was getting at.
“You have somehow managed to travel here to me, but you don’t understand where you came from,” he asked like he was speaking to a child.
“I’m sorry … I’m looking for help.”
“By the sounds of things you surely need it miss,” he said. A little more condescending than necessary.
“Yes sir,” I acknowledged and waited.
He sighed. “Where you came from has a place and point in time. That is what I asked for.”
I nodded. “California. Mid-November … the year two thousand and ten.”
“That is a long way,” he said. “Have you ever travelled so far before?”
I was starting to understand. “Usually only a few days and a couple of thousand miles.”
“Usually?” he waited.
I thought about the dreamlike trip to see my daughter and tried to guess her age.
“I recently travelled twenty-five years.” I told him.
He nodded. “Well done. And how long did you stay before you had to come back?”
“Just a few hours sir.”
“Well. You have travelled twice that to see me here. I would guess you have only half that amount of time and you spent the first half hour driving past my mailbox.” He gestured to a chair on the porch so I went to it. He waited for me to sit and he sat next to me.
“I am Pilot,” he told me. “I know you. What name do you use now?”
“It’s Anna, sir,” I told him.
“Anna,” he said. “You are my son’s sister.”
It took a moment. “You’re Ray’s … father?” I asked.
Again condescending. “You will run out of time if you continue to be so slow. Perhaps you should ponder what I tell you later?”
“Yes sir,” I agreed.
“I see you have brought my nephew’s child to see me,” he stated.
“Yes … our daughter.” I would have to try and keep the strange family tree somewhat straight. No doubt it was very important that I understand it … at some point.
“Daughter …” he laughed. He threw his head back nearly tipping his chair. “Yes, a daughter … who has the gifts of a son.”
“My, my Anna … you have broken a lot of rules …” he sobered.
“Yes sir,” I paused. “That must be for a reason … I think that is the help I have come for.”
“Indeed,” Pilot said. “Don’t ask any more idiotic questions. You must understand the family first. What is the daughter’s father’s name?”
“Paul,” I told him.
“Paul’s father is my brother … Paul is one of your mates,” he told me. I opened my mouth and closed it before the question came out. He nodded approvingly. I hoped the answer was coming. “My other brother … he is your other mate. Do you know who that might be?”
I shook my head.
“He hunts you … he competes with Paul for you …” Pilot prompted.
“Damian,” I said. “Damian is his name.”
“Good job miss,” he said. “There were originally three brothers; Damian, me, and Paul’s father. He exists in your time.”
“Damian believes that he is a god among those who aren’t like us. He seeks to control them … to create an army of gods such as himself. Do you have any idea how our family grows?”
I shook my head. He sighed.
“We have sons … with women who have a very weak tie through their long lives. Imagine there is a chain connecting your Paul from one life through the next … for most people it is not a chain. It’s like a row of feathers; too easily blown away by the passage of time. The women in the family; theirs is like a thread. It exists, but it is weak and cannot pull along the memories of a chain.”
I nodded. What he said paralleled what Paul had told me about remembering Catherine.
“I won’t bore you with the whole family tree. Suffice it to say that your brother was my first son. Paul was my brother’s first son.”
“Paul’s sister is also mated to Damian … and to your brother.”
“Alina …” I sighed. To Ray, I finished in my head.
“Yes. Men like us and women like you don’t just come from the family … they just happen sometimes too. Don’t make the wrong assumption that we are all related. You have had a confrontation with one of us … yes?” he asked.
“Damian,” I said.
“No that is later … another one,” he told me.
I just nodded; he was talking about the man on the hill.
“You took his life.” Pilot paused. “Who is the man with the knife who helped you?
“Andre.” I told him.
“Another broken rule,” he waved his hands like he was dismissing the thought. “Do you understand that death by a knife in your hand breaks the chain for someone like me? Permanently?”
What I had suspected and told Paul while I was ranting at him in our room was true.
“Just feathers,” I whispered.
“Good. Perhaps you can bring us peace.” He thought a moment. “My brother you know as Damian must be stopped. He has taught our men that it is better to kill their women than to let them have a child with another mate. That is how Damian hopes to build his army; only sons loyal to him. That is not how things must be. Your Paul … has been fighting back with Damian’s rules. He barely remembers when things were different.
“He has killed you to stop you from having Damian’s child before …”
I looked at the ground. Nagging seeds of the memory of past betrayals from Paul started to form in my mind. The wind picked up a bit. A nice breeze made it through my hair to my scalp and cooled my head. More graced my hot skin through the slats of the chair. As I watched Pilot my hair blew into my face. His didn’t move.
“I believe my visit with you is ending soon,” I told him.
“Yes miss. It is,” he said. “You will have until the birth of your daughter to bring peace to the family. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” I told him. I had until then to cut Damian’s line free from him. I stood to get ready to leave. The seat of my pants was damp with sweat and the breeze felt good.
“He will come to you … for your child. You can count on that. You need not seek him out.”
I shivered in the heat.
“Damian’s child must also survive,” he paused to make sure I understood. “He is already mated to your daughter. The peace will not last without him. Their child is … important.”
The thought of Damian’s son and my daughter wasn’t a surprise. I stepped over the bike and kicked the engine to life.
“Perhaps she could send someone away,” he muttered to himself.
I stepped off the bike and kept a hand on the handle bars. I braced my feet a bit as the gusts got stronger.
He looked off to the side, speaking quietly. “I stay here … out of what the family has fallen in to. Perhaps I’m a coward … sending you to try and fix what I can’t.”
He took my hand in both of his and kissed my cheek. It was smooth … not the hand of a farmer.
“Thank you Pilot,” I told him.
He nodded. “You will return to Paul where he needs you the most … you travelled so far. You must have a strong place to focus on or you’ll be way off.”