Keepers: Blood of The Fallen (2 page)

“I know, Mama,” I said, smiling. “Thank you.”

I took some of my old things back with me. They had my old room set up just how I left it when I was sixteen. All of my posters were still taped up on the far wall from my bed. It was nice waking to see those ladies posing and staring back at me. Well, when I was a teenager I liked it. As an older man, I felt like it was a little pervert-ish. I grabbed a couple of my old books. I loved the ones with the short stories in it. My favorite one was “Old Man Dan.” It was about an old guy who thought he was living in a forest, for free. He thought somebody was trying to kill his farm animals, but really he was just crazy. It was a little creepy, and those were the best stories.

I took back a couple of my old trophies. I grabbed the spelling bee trophy and the Tiny Mister Water Valley trophy, both of which read, “First Place.” Those trophies brought a childlike smile across my face. I also grabbed my old basketball sneakers. Amazingly enough, I could still fit those bad boys. That was all I wanted to take home. I figured the rest could stay there, in case I ever visited again. If the next visit was going to be anything like that one, though, I would probably never visit again. That was just how I thought. I was and still am a sentimental guy, so I don’t take kindly to when people ruin family time, with nonsense like being overeager and…baseball.

We hit the road again. Going back to Mississippi, it was the same thing, except that time, I got some rest first. The ladies didn’t make it down the road two hours, before they started snoring and foaming at the mouth again. I stopped at a gas station on the eastside of OK, and they didn’t even budge. I took pictures of both of them, and I posted them on Facebook, with the caption, “Road Trip with The Girls!” Needless to say, when they logged into their profiles and saw four hundred likes on the pictures, they were not happy.

As we were driving down the road, I couldn’t help but think about that owl. I wondered if it had gotten hurt even worse, and if it did, I wondered if it was still alive. Something in me made me stop in Pocahontas to check and see if the bird was still alive. I pulled up next to the tree, and Santana woke up.

“What happened? Did you fall asleep,” she asked, in a raspy voice. She sounded like she had been swallowing razors.

“No,” I said. “I saw an owl here a couple days ago. It was hurt pretty badly.”

“How do you know it was right here?”

“I remember this Sunny Smiles Farm sign. It was here. I don’t think it could have gotten very far.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“It only had one leg, for starters. And one of its wings was tied with a string. I was trying to help it, but it jumped from the tree. It went into these bushes somewhere.”

“Ok…I’ll help you look.”

It was broad daylight, so we would be able to see, but I knew the chances of the bird’s survival were slim. I still couldn’t help looking for it. It was something about the owl that made me want to help, plus, I just loved birds. We walked around for about ten minutes. Tana was moving the brush with her mind, like show-off she was, but I thought it was amazing that she was helping me look. She never saw the bird. I guess it was because she saw the look of determination on my face. And I was very determined to find it.

Eventually, after going about twenty feet into the brush, I nearly stepped on the owl. It was lying on its back, and its head was turned to the side, with its mouth open. I could see that the bird had been through so much. Its beak was cracked on the top. It looked like a slit, and it was only on one side of the beak. One of its eyes was barely open, and it looked like a tear was coming out of it. The wing with the string on it was badly damaged. It had a very nasty wound on the inside of it, closer to the body. There was no leg missing, because the owl only ever had one leg. There was a small gash in the side of its head, and it appeared to be slightly healed but infected, with yellow pus coming from it. It was starving, and it appeared to not have eaten in days. Its rib cage was showing, as though it was going to burst through its skin at any second. Its leg also had a small gash on it, on the thigh area. It was very hard to look at it, and I almost lost hope in its survival, until Tana said, “It’s alive!”

I couldn’t believe it. The poor thing was so badly beaten up that I thought it had been dead for at least a few hours. I was wrong. Tana could see it breathing. Its little bony chest slowly pulsating up and down. The wind blew gently, so its feathers were swaying, and that was why I couldn’t see its chest moving. It was no doubt in my mind that the owl was special, and we had to take it home with us. I ran back to the car and grabbed a beach towel from the trunk. I gave it to Tana, because I figured she would be gentler with it than I would. I didn’t want to hurt it even more.

Watching Tana pick up the bird, was like watching a surgeon perform an open heart surgery. She moved so slowly. She even moved slowly when she was bending down to one knee. As she scooped her hands under the owl, I could see her grimace. It was like she could feel what the owl was feeling, as she touched the injured wing, which had more wounds than I saw before. We knew that the owl was in serious pain, and getting it home would be a task in and of itself. Once we slowly walked back to the car, I woke Asia up and gave her a briefing on what was going on. She seemed as equally concerned about the owl’s health as we did, maybe even more.

As we drove back, I could see Asia in the rearview mirror, hunched over the owl in the back seat. I didn’t know what she was doing, but it sounded like she was doing something to the wounds. Every once in a while I could hear a small coo, and every time, Tana would turn around abruptly to see what was going on. Asia just kept telling us not to look, because the owl was already timid enough. She asked for my water bottle, but she didn’t tell me what it was for. I assumed it was to let the owl get something to drink or to take care of the wounds. I didn’t have any alcohol or ointments in the car. I made one stop for gas in Arkansas, and I was instructed to go inside and get bandages from the gas station.

By the time we got home, Asia was sitting up right with the owl lying in her lap. It had bandages around its wing, its waist, its leg, and one taped to the back of its head. Asia applied some sort of lotion to its beak. It was sleeping, but it seemed to be in much better health, and Asia didn’t look so sad anymore.

“Wow, what did you do,” I asked, with a smile.

“Nothing really. I just cleaned the cuts and put some bandages on it.”

“How’s it looking?”

“I think it’ll be fine. It was awake about twenty minutes ago, just lying here, staring at me. I gave it your water, when it woke up.”

“I figured. We should just take him inside, though. I’m sure he’s had enough sunlight.”

“I think she’s a girl…” she corrected me with a smile.

Apparently, our conversation woke it up. Its head was on a swivel as we walked inside of the house, and it looked happier than it did when I first saw it in the tree. Personally, I was happy about that. I thought it was pretty cool to see such a rare sight as well. We didn’t have a cage for it, since we didn’t anticipate having a bird, so we just let it stay in one of the guest rooms. It found a comfortable place in between the pillows on the bed. Asia sat it down on one pillow, and eventually, it wiggled deeply in between the two pillows and wedged itself in tightly.

Even though it had a beak, it seemed like it smiled a little, as it lie in the king-sized memory foam bed. Neither of us had ever seen a bird lie down like a human before. That bird seemed to love it. As fatigued as it was, I couldn’t blame it. We eventually left it to rest in peace, so we could go rest ourselves. That’s one memory I could never lose, because that was the beginning of a friendship.

We named the owl Cilandria, because it was a girl, and because Asia said she had a dream that the owl told her that was her name. I told Asia she was crazy, but she just gave me a look that I couldn’t fight off for too long. Her chinky eyes were tightly squinted, her tiny-but-full lips poked out, and she stuck her head out from her body like a chicken. I thought she was going to cluck-death-stare me to death. We laughed about that look later, but at that moment, there was no laughter. She was serious about the name and the dream. Santana just stayed quiet the entire time, biting her bottom lip, which I knew meant she was biting her tongue. She had gotten a little too used to not speaking up during the quiet times. Whatever, it was just a name, and besides, the name wasn’t too bad; it just sounded a lot like cilantro.

As far as pets go, birds were probably my second favorite animals, with dogs being first and cats being dead last. Cats were not a favorite at all, I couldn’t stand them, and maybe that’s why I liked dogs and birds. Cilandria, or Cilantra, as I called her, wasn’t a pet. She was more like a friend. She had grown on us rather quickly, and we were determined to keep her with us, if she didn’t get too homesick. She never put up a fight about it. She was so attached to Asia that she had become like an extension of her. It was funny, because Cilantra was so big, yet she could sit on Asia’s shoulder easily. Her having only one leg made that possible.

The day our peace was taken hit us like a ton of bricks. We were sitting on the couch, eating a humongous bag of trail mix, watching a movie, and laughing at Cilantra struggle with the sunflower seeds. She had fully healed within a month of us finding her, and her beak was stronger than ever. She did have scars, but her feathers covered them. It was very funny to see her head jerk to the side as she tried to crack the tiny seed’s shell in her mouth. She eventually just ended up eating the whole seed, shell and all.

During a car chase scene of a pretty good but cliché movie, we got a knock at the door. At first we ignored it, because we weren’t expecting company, and we just figured it was a Jehovah’s Witness. I still wasn’t very religious, although I had started to believe in God. Asia was a Catholic, and Santana was a Southern Baptist. The Jehovah’s Witnesses never stopped trying to convert us, and we couldn’t fault them for it, we understood their religion, after Asia explained it to us. Before I really understood it, I was one of
those
people.

I remember a time when a Jehovah’s Witness came to my door, and I couldn’t stand it. I would peek through the blinds, ever so slightly, just to see who it was. The moment I caught a glimpse of “Watch Tower” I would close the blinds, turn the lights off, and sit quietly, until they left. I made the “mistake” of letting them in once, thinking it would be quick, but they stayed for about an hour and made me feel uncomfortable in my own house. I got over it, eventually, and since I got the understanding of their religion, I haven’t had a problem with them.

After the second knock on the door, I looked at Santana, who looked back at me. I then turned and looked at Asia, who was staring at the television, trying her best not to smile nor look at me. Her cheeks looked like tight air bubbles and her lips were super tight. Her beautiful chinky eyes were very wide and glossy, like she wanted to blink but couldn’t. I then looked at Cilantra and said, “Cilantra,” she looked at me, “do you want to get the door?” The ladies burst into laughter. Cilantra was still staring at me, like she was saying, “Are you crazy or something?” Her head was turned to the side, like a confused dog.

I went to the door and opened it slowly. Immediately, I knew I should’ve looked out of the window first. It was a man, I assumed. He looked really banged up, and I didn’t think he was in much shape to demand entry, but he did. For our amusement, I let him in. Once he stepped into the light, we could see that he was covered in rags, but his arms and legs were severely damaged. His bones were clearly visible, and he didn’t seem to care or even feel it. He had big patches of skin and muscle missing, although, there was no blood dripping. We didn’t allow him to sit down, in fear he would damage the furniture. It was a little mean, but what are you going to do? The guy was filthy.

“Are you all right,” Tana asked.

“Oh yes. Yes, of course. What, this?” He pointed to his open wound on his arm. “This is minuscule really. It’s nothing. It’s just a little booboo. It’s not a problem at all. I’m more than ok, really I am. No worries. We have more important things to discuss. Don’t you want to know why I’m here, Keepers? I… Oh dear… Is that Cilandria?”

“What?”

“Cilandria, the owl of obscurity?”

“The owl of obscurity?” I turned to look at Cilantra. She seemed frightened; her eyes were shifting from side to side, looking at all of us one at a time. Asia was holding her. I assumed she grabbed her as soon as the little zombie-homeless-looking man said her name. “What do you mean, the owl of obscurity? Cilandria isn’t obscure. She’s an owl, and she does owl things.”

“No…No…No… She was born centuries ago from the tissue of a Fallen Keeper. No one knows who the Fallen Keeper really was, but he was so badly injured that he left behind a pool of blood and tissue. Cilandria grew from a piece of the tissue. She has a strange aura. You should be able to see this, Keeper. It is maroon in color, and it shines very brightly. No one knows what Cilandria can do, but we all know it is something wonderful. That is why she is obscure. She possesses a mystery within her.”

“Wait…so Cilandria is hundreds of years old, and was born from a blood sample?”

“Close enough. It is rumored that she possesses the same power as the Fallen Keeper that left her behind.”

I had never seen a bird show emotion, until that night. Cilantra was afraid. She pressed her back hard against Asia’s chest, and her eyes were still shifting from side to side like she was afraid we were going to give her away. I had no intention of doing that, even though I could feel the question coming, as the tension rose.