Chapter 39 MAKE IT SO
Sage bought several large bottles of water and a few snacks at the Inn’s general store, then took the haul out to the on-site playground.
Several family members were there watching the young play.
It was dark out, past bedtime, but no one felt like sleeping because many of them still had the feeling that Khain was in the Ula.
Sage could feel him—a little. The feeling wasn’t strong for her, like it was for others, but it was unpleasant.
For her, it was a feeling of not-rightness, a feeling of constantly being watched or hunted.
The feeling could be put aside when Khain was gone to the Pravus, but not when he wasn’t.
All day long, the feeling had been constantly buzzing between every thought.
It yanked at her attention, making her feel anxious and scattered.
None of them had their phones, so they didn’t know what was going on outside of the grounds of the Inn.
When Sage had driven through the front gate, her phone had been magicked out of her car.
She’d heard it go with a strange clink sound.
Nana White said they would get their phones back when lockdown was over, whenever that was.
The Inn itself had only a few office computers with access to the Internet, and they were all turned off and locked down by Nana White. Safer that way, she’d said.
Sage hadn’t told anyone about Reynard. The knowledge of his marking and his escape had eaten at her all day, making her constantly wonder about him, but she didn’t want to give her family more reason to be scared.
Sage reached the playground and passed out water and snacks to a few family members, then she went to the sand pit. Frannie was sitting close to Paisley, watching her play with one of her cousins. They all kept an extra eye on Paisley because of when Khain had taken her last year.
Paisley smiled and waved at her mama. Sage smiled and waved back. Paisley was 5 years old, but small for her age, with the cutest gap-toothed smile and long dark hair. She was Sage’s heart and soul, pride and joy.
Sage sat next to Frannie. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Frannie’s voice was tired and dull.
They sat there for a few moments, not speaking, and then Frannie said, “I hope this is over soon.”
“Me too,” Sage said.
“I have a gyno appointment on Tuesday.”
Sage looked closely at her cousin, suddenly alarmed. “You got your period?”
Frannie shook her head no, her expression fearful.
“Then why?” Sage asked softly, knowing the answer.
“Nana found a gyno who’ll take my uterus out when I turn 15.”
“15! That’s next month. You’re still growing.”
“Nana says I’m done growing.”
Sage growled under her breath. “She doesn’t know that,” Sage said, mad, but also confused, wondering why Nana White had never tried to coerce Sage into a hysterectomy, like she had many other females in the family.
The females in the White family were vulnerable to a blood disorder that was named after them.
White-Whittinger disease caused a female’s period to come during the full moon and be strong enough to kill her by bleeding out.
Each female who had the disease had to be medically treated every month once their first period came…
until they got a hysterectomy. Most of the affected got hysterectomies at age 18, or as soon as they’d had one young, because the removal of their uterus eliminated the disease, and there were other perks, too.
Females who couldn’t shift before, could sometimes shift after, and it even removed the Tether.
No one knew why, but it was theorized that once a female could no longer conceive young, she was of no interest to Khain.
“You’re certain you don’t want any young?” Sage questioned softly.
“Definitely.”
“Treatment’s not that bad,” Sage told her. “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t even remember it.”
Frannie didn’t say anything. Her expression was haunted, and Sage knew she wasn’t even thinking of treatment. She was thinking of Khain.
Frannie stared at her lap and spoke softly.
“Nana White wants me to get it done as early as possible. Mom can’t decide.
Dad won’t even talk about it…” She looked across the field, then back down at her lap.
“Last week I was thinking I was going to wait, but then this happened.” She looked up at Sage, tears in her eyes.
“If I get the hysterectomy I could leave Serenity. I wouldn’t ever have to be scared like this again. ”
Sage gathered Frannie into her arms. “You’ll still be foxen,” she said quietly, “You might still choose to stay with family at times like this,” she said, gesturing to Mina, who had no Tether and could leave Serenity but chose not to.
Frannie didn’t answer and Sage kept quiet, knowing Frannie was terrified.
Khain treated the foxen in Serenity like his property, but he only took the males for fighting, and only as adults, and only if he could find them, which wasn’t easy.
The females weren’t taken for fighting, but they were still sought by Khain, still stolen, used as servants, or sometimes killed or violated.
Frannie cried, soft sniffles she hid from those around them.
“This is why you like the vod, isn’t it?” Frannie said, her voice muffled by Sage’s hug.
“What?” The question seemed to come out of nowhere, and it caught Sage off guard.
“Because if you mate a vod, he’ll protect you from Khain.”
Sage barked a laugh and said, “It’s not that I like the vod, it’s that I think we should be working together.”
But she did like them, the bearen, too. Rhen help her.
Since she’d been working at Mugshots, she’d discovered she got along with them well and she respected them and enjoyed their company.
She was supposed to be spying on them, which she did.
She did her job well and she justified it easily, but still…
“Maybe you’re the vixie from the sign,” Frannie said, her voice soft.
Sage flinched. When she’d been younger, she’d dreamed of being the vixie of Vahiy sign number 742, but the older she got, the more she’d branded it impossible, and the more she hoped none of them ever saw sign 742 during her lifetime, or during Paisley’s.
“The captor asks the captive what he knows about Wisdom. The captive decides the captor’s worthiness. If worthy, a vixie takes her rightful place among the vod.” Frannie recited softly.
They were silent for a long time, each lost in their own thoughts.
Family members slowly drifted away, toward their sleeping bay, until it was just Frannie, Sage, and Paisley left.
Paisley hummed a little song while shoveling sand into a bucket.
Frannie and Sage were just sitting, staring at nothing.
“You girl,” Nana White called from somewhere.
Sage looked behind her. Nana was standing near a cabin, under a streetlight, all alone, her fox-pelt purse in both hands.
Sage got up. “I’ll be right back,” she said. She ran over.
“Tell everyone that lockdown ends tomorrow after I return,” Nana said.
“Return from… oh, ah—I thought…” Sage faltered. She had to go to treatment tomorrow night for three days. Paisley normally went out of town to stay with Sage’s mother during that time. Since they were all locked down, Sage had thought Paisley would stay with the family at the Inn—
“You thought what?”
“Why are we getting out of lockdown? What about Khain?”
“He’ll be returning to the Pravus to rest sometime tonight. The current assault is almost over.”
Sage felt nervous and she didn’t know why. “What about Reynard?”
“He’s alive and with his elder.”
“But… the poisoning?”
Nana White gave her a stern look. “Averted.”
“Averted—how?”
Nana White grasped her purse firmly and stood on her tiptoes to look down her nose at Sage.
“Don’t you worry about things that aren’t your business, girl. The vod had an ace in the hole and that’s all you need to know.”
Sage knew better than to argue. She didn’t say another word, but she still felt nervous and it was getting worse. She looked all around. The very air and atmosphere near them seemed to be disturbed by nothing and then a voice spoke like a thunderclap from all around.
“MAKE IT SO.”
Khain’s voice. Instantly hyper-focused, Sage crouched slightly. She checked Paisley and Frannie—they were still at the sandbox, both with their hands pressed to their ears, looking up into the dark sky. She turned back but the street was empty; Nana White was gone.
Sage ran for the sandbox. Frannie picked Paisley up.
Sage caught up with them, and the three of them sprinted to the sleeping bay.
They went quickly up the stairs, inside, through the corridors of bunk beds, and into the open room where their family was.
Everyone was talking at once. Some of the younger children were crying.
Two of her uncles were arguing heatedly near the center of the room. Chaos. Sage felt frantic.
From the far wall, her cousin Dex waved her over.
“Come on, this way,” she told Frannie.
They ran for Dex, dodging bunk beds and frantic family members. When they reached Dex, he pulled them close and took them behind some bunks he’d fashioned into a small enclosure.
“You three are with me tonight,” he said. “If Khain shows up, we go right out that door and don’t worry about anyone else—they can take care of themselves. My truck is parked outside. We’ll go straight into the hole.”
Frannie hugged Dex tight with one arm. Sage took Paisley so Frannie could grab him in a bear hug.
“I’m scared of the hole,” Frannie said into his shirt, “but I’m scared of Khain more.”
Dex patted her head. “Don’t be scared, vix, you’re with me now.”
Frannie smiled faintly. All around them, family members continued to talk and shout.
“What’s going on?” Sage asked.
“We heard Khain say, ‘make it so’, plain as day, like he was right in the room with us.”
“We heard it outside,” Paisley said. “Like he was right next to us.”
Dex booped Paisley lightly on her nose and smiled at her, then said, “Markham thinks it’s sign 698.”
Sage gasped. “698. I thought we were still in the middle 600s. What’s the sign?”
Dex shook his head, his expression dark. “Not sure. Uncle Benld thinks it’s sign 722 and I know which one that is: ‘A vod is marked. The beginning of the end has begun.’”
Sage almost fell over. Frannie let out a little squeak, then buried her face in Dex’s chest.
Out in the open area of the room, the others stopped talking and yelling, and after a moment, even the crying stopped. The silence was so unnaturally held that Sage peeked around the bunk.
Nana White was standing near the middle of the room, glowering at Markham and Benld. They bowed their heads and backed away from her and each other.
“The traitor vod, Grey Deatherage, was indeed marked,” Nana White said.
“Then these are the end days,” Benld said.
“Perhaps so, perhaps not.”
“How was the demon able to mark a vod?” Markham asked.
Nana White turned her gaze on Markham but did not answer.
“He ate the angel,” someone else said from a far corner of the room. “That made him strong enough.”
Nana White turned and looked into the far corner. “Did he?” she said lightly.
Sage didn’t know what to think. She’d been taught in school that Khain had captured an angel 25 years ago and held him in a special enclosure inside his home in the Pravus, and that he ate the angel a little at a time for energy, but she also knew that many in her family didn’t believe that. They called it a myth, a fancy story.
Nana White turned again, looking at each of them in turn. “Rex Brenwyn is no more. The vod have killed him. Grey Deatherage is now your primary concern.” She dipped her head. “After the demon himself, of course.” From across the room, she met Sage’s eyes, then she turned and walked out.
Sage hurried to the center of the room and in a loud voice said, “Everybody—lockdown ends tomorrow afternoon.”
There was a weak cheer, and then the others started talking again. Sage retreated into the tiny cave Dex had made from bunk beds.
Dex lifted his chin at her. “You sleep. I’m on first watch.”
Sage shook her head. “You can’t stay up all night.”
“Definitely not, since I’m driving Paisley out of town tomorrow. I’ll wake you up in three hours.”
Sage hurried to get Paisley and herself to sleep. Tomorrow would be a busy day.