Walking the Ley Lines

Packing for a Funeral

I'm a liar.

That's why you can trust me when I say that my grandfather was the spree killer Charles Starkweather. 

See, If I'd said I always tell the truth or that I never lie, you'd know I wasn't just a liar but a dishonest liar. Then when I talked about the strange things that grow like weeds in the periphery, you might not trust me. But a man honest enough to admit that he lies like everybody else, that's a man you can trust. 

Grandma met him, Charles Starkweather, in Nebraska after he climbed out of his grave, she even took his name and passed it down. It took another couple years before he died for real. 

Nobody liked him except her.

I placed white t-shirts into the old backpack opened on my bed. I didn't fold them.

Mother's dead, hence the backpack. Getting to the funeral was going to take days, maybe weeks. Especially since she told us all we had to walk there. She'd whisper it to us some nights after our bedtime story. Walking to a funeral is a penance to the dead; it's their world we're living on...so she said. She is, was, an odd woman.

I tossed in a couple of flannel shirts. Then sat down to a large pile of mismatched socks to pick out pairs.

My brother Ambrose...that's not his real name...was the one who found her, but he was the last to know. Lavinia had told us all a couple days before. She could have told him too, but they aren't on speaking terms. They had a falling out near the Arizona border while reading fortunes for the Apaches...the biker gang not the tribe.

I folded a couple of the sock matches I found and placed them neatly in a row on one side of the backpack. Each one was a different shade of black.

Family is important, that's what dad used to say. He could trace his line directly to Blackbeard the pirate. He kind of looked like him too, or at least the artist depictions of him I've seen in books.

Dad's not coming, but it's nothing personal. He's serving two life sentences in ADX Florence penitentiary in Colorado, same place they held the Unabomber. My dad got transferred there after hypnotizing a few guys. His original mistake was getting mixed up with a mob boss in Jersey.

I took my black suit out of the closet, a gift from dad back in the day. Italian made, the thing will last forever. Suits are tricky to pack. I set it aside on the bed, and tossed in a couple pairs of jeans.

She hung herself, my mother.

Strung herself up from an ash tree on the Vernal Equinox like one-eyed Odin. Ambrose said the neighbors were extremely upset. They never much liked our family. I tossed a bag of toiletries in the bottom corner of the backpack.

The bag reminded me that I still had to cut my nails, so I got pair of clippers and went to work, burning the clippings afterwards. It's not a good idea to leave unburnt bits of yourself around, learned that from Ambrose.

Oh, Ambrose had to change his name after one of his enemies whispered it three times at midnight while standing naked in the middle of Stonehenge covered in wolf's blood.

You have to admire that level of hate.

The UK locked the guy up, but he escaped a week later. Ambrose thinks he turned himself into some kind of bird. Lavinia thinks he made himself invisible, like I used to do sometimes when we were kids. I doubt it. Invisibility would be ridiculously complicated in a place filled with people paid to watch you.

I tossed in a couple pairs of underwear and my journal. My phone vibrated. I glanced down. It was Lavinia, my sister.

I hit ignore.

Lavinia....Lavinia is one of those people. You know the type. I couldn't deal with that right now. I didn't want to talk to anybody to be honest.

I slipped my suit into the backpack carefully so I could fold it without making a crease. As an afterthought, I pushed in a book I'd been meaning to read, a sequel to Julian Cosimo's, The Office Politics of Hell. Ambrose said the ending was very satisfying. I zipped up the backpack. My phone vibrated again.

I sighed. "Yes, Lavinia?" I said, pressing it to my ear.

"Did you just ignore my call?" she asked. She had a clipped merciless voice, like a lawyer.

"Yes," I said again. I could almost feel her presence bleeding through the phone.

"Listen, Zale," she said. "I am coordinating a lot of different people right now, and I need everyone on the same page. That means I need you to answer your phone."

"K," I said.

"Okay, updates," she said. "Daddy escaped from prison, and he and Uncle Camlo are taking mom's body to Nevada for the funeral."

"Wow."

"Yeah, heads up though. Daddy had to jump bodies to get out so he looks like a prison guard named Frank. I'll send you a photo, so you're prepared."

"Thanks," I said.

"I also wanted to see how you're doing with all of it," she said.

"Fine."

"I sense that you are not fine."

"I'm fine. I'm getting ready to leave, Lavinia."

She sighed. "Okay, walk safely and don't cross any graveyards or fairy circles. Also, remember that hitchhiking doesn't count, we are all walking the whole way."

"K."

"And Zale," she said.

"Hm?"

"Ignore a phonecall from me again and I'll poison your dreams so you fear closing your eyes for three months."

"Your husband is a lucky man, sis."

"Love you," she said, hanging up.

I pocketed my phone, 

picked up my backpack, 

grabbed my switchblade off the dresser. 

Then headed out.