By the time I made it back to Rocafort, I’d missed Dad’s funeral by three weeks, and Osric was waiting outside the sandwich shop by the train station.
“Seth,” he said, raising his eyebrows, waving me over. “I wasn’t sure you’d show.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
I took the chair across from him and lit a cigarette, trying not to look uneasy. During the day, the umbrella over this patio table probably would’ve been nice—but it was night now, and it just blocked out the streetlights, massing all the different shadows together. Mason would be good in this situation, but I hadn’t talked to either of my brothers for almost a year.
“It’s weird, man,” Osric said. “In this light, smoking your dad’s brand—you even smell like him. You could
be him.”
I stiffened. Dropped the cigarette to the pavement—a total waste—and ground it out. “Shut up.”
Osric shrugged, taking something from the messenger bag at his feet. In this dimness, his blond hair and ginger scruff seemed less mismatched.
“Here’s what I got for you,” he said, sliding a manila envelope across the table. “As far as anyone official’s concerned, your old man’s death is a mystery. He did have a pretty long list of enemies, Seth.”
“And as far as all the unofficial people are concerned?”
“Well, Christian says...” He considered me for a minute, then shrugged, looking back down at the table. “Christian says it might’ve been the Wolves.”
I shook my head. Christian was the big brother, but he didn’t always know best. “Dad finished the Wolves off years ago. Christian knows that.” I frowned down at the folder, then gave it a little wave, tucked it into the outside pocket of my overnight bag. “Thanks for this, man. I owe you one.”
After I’d slung my duffel over my shoulder and taken a few steps, he said, “I thought you were done with the family business, anyway.”
“Not the family business,” I said, walking away. “Just the family.”
***
I didn’t realize I’d picked up a tail till I was already halfway into the city, at a grungy all-night diner. The guy was bald—shorter than me, but bigger, too, in the kind of way that suggested he wasn’t just here to see where I went.
I waited till I’d put in my order for eggs and bacon, then headed to the bathroom, waited at one of the sinks. Under the fluorescents, my coloring looked all wrong—skin too pale, hair too dark, circles under my eyes like bruises.
The bald guy followed me in a minute later, one hand already reaching to his side.
I swung my duffel off my shoulder, nailed him in the gut. The equipment inside made it heavy enough to double him over, and he dropped the gun he’d just drawn. He moved to catch it—but before he could, I squared a kick at his knee.
He jerked away instinctively. Then he used that momentum to rear back, throw a punch at my nose. I dodged; it caught my cheek instead, breaking the skin over the bone in one white-hot split.
In the time it took me to blink, the man had already knocked me down to the grimy tile. He aimed a kick at my ribs. Another.
Another. Something cracked; judging by the way my ribcage screamed, it’d been me.
And then someone knocked on the bathroom door. The man glanced up—and that’s when I kicked out, knocking his feet out from under him.
He plummeted to the floor beside me. I reached over and bashed his head against the tile once. Twice—
“Seth?” someone said.
I froze.
My younger brother, Mason, stood framed in the doorway.
***
“Christian could've gotten you real ice,” Mason said, passing me the bag of frozen broccoli he’d just bought at the gas station behind us.
I shook my head, easing the bag up under my shirt, against my chest. The cold was almost as bad as the cracked ribs. “Thanks.”
He raised his eyebrows. All three of us looked a lot alike, half-brothers or not, but we’d all inherited different parts of Dad. We all had the same dark hair and light eyes, but I had his strong jaw, and Mason had his sharp cheekbones.
Christian was the only one who’d ended up with his easy grin.
“Lucky thing Christian had me tailing that guy,” he said. “You’re out of practice.”
I winced. “Osric said you guys think it’s the Wolves.”
“Might be. All Dad’s old pals have come creeping back, now that he’s gone.” He frowned, leaning against the rough brick of the gas station. “Why’d you come back?”
Because I hadn’t liked the guy, not for a long time, but somebody had to avenge Dad’s death? Because I hadn’t heard from my brothers in a year?
Because I missed my family was the truth, partially, but it would never sound like it.
After a minute, I said, “Because when Dad was alive, he owned us. And if we don’t put these guys down now, they’ll think
they own us.”
He looked up at me. “That why you left?”
And the truth was, right then, I wasn’t sure. There had been all sorts of reasons at the time—to get away from Dad, away from myself. To somehow avoid turning out just like him, like everyone knew I would.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m back now.”
He was quiet for a minute, then pushed off the wall, pulling out his phone. “I’ll call Christian. Tell him about that Wolf we left in the bathroom.” He paused. “It’s good you’re back, Seth.”
I gave a painful little laugh. “Jury’s still out on that one, Mase.”
But standing there beside him, clutching frozen vegetables to my cracked ribs, I couldn’t argue with him.
While he talked to Christian, I took out a cigarette, closed my eyes.
In the darkness, wreathed in smoke, either one of us could’ve been Dad.
Author's Note: This time around, my story was based on "
The Ogre of Rashomon." It's a tale about a group of highly accomplished knights, who have started hearing rumors that ogres are responsible for a series of mysterious disappearances. One of the knights wonders if it's true, but his friend insists it can't be: after all, they took out the ogre threat themselves. Ultimately, that's the kernel of the story that I kept for my version—the idea that some shadowy group the protagonist thought he took care of a long time ago is back, which also means fending off the revenge plot that's bound to be coming.
Bibliography: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki. Source:
Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.
Image Credit: "Smoking Cigarette" by
Lindsay Fox. Source:
Wikimedia Commons.
.jpg){kind=link}
