I remember it like it was yesterday. My mother, standing in the hallway, holding the Christmas present I’d wrapped for my classmate Stella. I was 8 years old. Mom’s hand trembled.
“Is this a house of the cross?” she asked, clenching her teeth. “Do you love the Christ?”
“N-no! No, mom, I just-“
“You want to celebrate its birth?”
“Mom, it’s just for-“
She opened the front door and threw the present out on the driveway. I wasn’t thinking straight, so I just ran outside to get it; still in my pajamas.
“Burn it” she said, dropping a lighter on the welcome mat. Then she shut the door behind me.
“Mom!” I called out. “It’s cold! Mom!”
Naked feet in two inches of snow. The shiny red wrapping paper crinkling between my fingers. I kept banging on the door, trying to explain myself.
“Mom, please!”
I must’ve stood there for fifteen minutes. Then I lit the gift on fire. It was just this stupid pony figure I’d gotten from a Happy Meal, but I knew that Stella would’ve loved it. She collected them, and she didn’t have the purple one. It wasn’t even about Christmas, I just wanted to give her something without making it weird.
When all the red wrapping paper had turned to coal, mom opened the door. She stared me down. I tried to physically hold my mouth still, to keep my teeth from chattering.
“Is this a house of God?” she asked.
“N-no, mom.”
“Who owns this house?”
“Th-the… the Old Blood.”
“Who owns this family?”
“The Old Blood.”
“Who owns you?”
I looked up at her. She looked almost apologetic, holding a garbage bag in her left hand. She held it out to me, and I dropped the ruined gift in it.
“The Old Blood does, mom.”
“As it should” she nodded. “Clean your hands, then eat your breakfast.”
My family is of the Old Blood. Just as there were pilgrims from England throwing themselves overseas to avoid persecution from the English church, there were Scandinavian migrants fleeing something similar. Some, who mostly settled in New Hampshire, were those of the Old Blood. Not too far from Pittsburgh, if you know the roads.
“Long before the church burned witches on the hills of Nyland, and long before the Vikings hung disemboweled thralls from our birch trees, there was the Old Blood” my dad used to say. “And the spirits that govern the true laws of the world still await their due.”
It wasn’t easy being a kid in that household. Outside the house I was allowed to do whatever to blend in, but at home we were a strictly pagan family. I could go caroling, I could go to church, I could listen to sermons; whatever I wanted, as long as I didn’t bring any of it home. Home, where the Old Blood rested, was sacred.
We had our customs, of course. On Walpurgis night we would light twelve candles, one for each month, and eat a special kind of jam made of nettles. Instead of celebrating Christmas, we would perform a year-walk to protect ourselves from the influence of false prophets for another year. We still had a tree though, but we didn’t decorate it; it was meant as protection. Trees were of the old world, and bringing one into your home meant it couldn’t be tainted by the false faith.
But the biggest celebration of all, by far, was the summer solstice; the midsummer celebration. The day of the midnight sun. Dad would prepare a small table out of a fir tree, and mother would slaughter a chicken on it. She’d stuff the chicken with fir needles and spices, and then burn it along with the table in the back yard. Until the embers faded, we’d sit there, singing songs and sharing bread. It was a way to offer not only sustenance, but also labor, and love.
As you might imagine, it wasn’t easy to live by these customs and rules. If anyone asked us, we were Christian, but mom taught me that it was okay to lie to protect ourselves. The spirits didn’t listen to words, after all. They listened to our intentions. Still, I was terrified of someone finding out. Someone asking questions that I couldn’t answer. I had this gnawing feeling that people could just sense that there was something “off” about me, like it somehow showed on my face.
But I was no different from the other kids. I wore my graduation cap and shot rockets on the fourth of July. To those on the outside I was just this ordinary kid who preferred not to bring any friends home. I would’ve been happy living that way for the rest of my life, but fate had other plans.
The year I was scheduled to go to college, I sat down with my mom. I told her I’d met this girl, Lily. I told her how amazing Lily was. Her kindness, her bright smile, her nonsensical devotion to edible cupcake decorations. Lily and I had started to plan a life together, and I wanted my mom to be happy about it.
Of course, she wasn’t.
Yeah, Lily considered herself a Christian. She wore a golden cross, she sang in the church choir. She saw it more as a part of her cultural heritage rather than a religious devotion. Trying to explain this to my mother, however, was useless. She was furious.
“You would defile yourself on… on this whore of the cross?!” she spat.
That pretty much ended the conversation.
Ridding myself of that part of my life, Lily and I moved to Minnesota. I never told my parents where I went, so they couldn’t follow me. It was a real possibility that they’d try to get me back, or even harm Lily. Seeing how my mother reacted, I wouldn’t put it past her.
Since I couldn’t afford college without the support of my family, I found a job at a local warehouse. Lily would study for years on end, ending up with a master’s in aerospace engineering. Pretty advanced stuff.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that we decided to finally tie the knot, officially. I asked Lily to marry me, and she agreed. I asked her in the most appropriate way I could imagine; through cupcakes. She still has a soft spot for them.
This opened a can of worms though. Lily was insistent that I should ask my parents to be there for the ceremony, and I couldn’t explain to her why that wasn’t possible. My mom and dad, in a church, seeing their only son being married to a Christian woman? I couldn’t imagine it. Instead, I pleaded with her to just… not. We’d do well with her side of the family. That’d be enough.
For months, I thought the matter was settled. As summer came, Lily brought me along for a shopping trip to Minneapolis. She insisted on driving, and I must’ve fallen asleep somewhere along the main road. When I woke up, we were in the middle of nowhere. Just this big field, with a couple of houses. A large clearing, surrounded by fir trees and covered in high grass. It looked like an overgrown farm, possibly colonial.
I had a bad feeling about it. This was pretty damn far from Minneapolis. Lily was confident though, and pulled me along with a smile.
“Quite the surprise, huh?” she smiled. “Here we are!”
“It’s… something, all right. What is it?”
“Don’t you recognize it?”
Her smile faded. I tried to reassure her, but I just couldn’t see it. I’d never been there before.
“Your mom said you used to spend your summers here” she sighed. “Did I get it wrong?”
Apparently, Lily had looked up my parents and talked to them on her own. She wanted to mend the wounds and reunite us, as a surprise. For some reason my mom had lied to her and tricked us into the middle of nowhere. Standing there, halfway between the house and the car, I got this chill up my spine.
Tonight was the summer solstice.
“You don’t understand” I said. “They’re… they’re dangerous people. They’re abusive. They, they…”
“Honey, slow down. Are… are you saying you don’t know this place?”
“I’m saying I’ve never been here, and that… that they took us out here for a reason.”
Lily started to look nervous. I took her by the hand and hurried back to the car. I got in the driver’s seat and started backing out. We didn’t get far before the entire car shook with a sudden bang. Lily screamed. I noticed a set of one-way tire spikes ahead of us. All our tires had been shredded.
I glanced something in the rear-view mirror. People, at least six of them. I grabbed my phone from the charger and got out of the car.
“Lock the doors” I said. “Be ready to call for help.”
Lily started to dial on her phone and locked the doors behind me. She took a few pictures.
All six people walking towards us were dressed in white, with oxeye daisies weaved into their hair. And while I only recognized four of them in passing, the two in the front were far too familiar. Mom and dad, a few gray hairs older than last I’d seen them.
“I’m glad you came” mom said. “Is that Lily? She sounded so nice on the phone.”
“Just let us go!” I yelled back. “We don’t want any trouble!”
“Aren’t you staying for midsummer?” dad asked, looking heartbroken. “I thought that was what you wanted. Our blessing, for the marriage.”
“Not like this” I said. “Not tricking us.”
“Oh come now!” smiled mom. “Don’t pretend like you would willingly just come along if we told you to come out here.”
“Son, please” dad sighed. “Listen to her. This is important to us.”
“I won’t let you hurt her.”
“We won’t. Just come along, and we won’t hurt her” mom nodded. “But if I see either of you waving your phones around, I’ll have her tossed in the fire.”
We were out of options. Even if we called for help, they’d never get to us in time. Lily agreed; we had to play along. Leaving our phones in our car, we got out, and started walking up to the colonial buildings. We were about ten paces ahead of my parents and their entourage.
I was about to start conspiring with Lily when my thoughts were cut short. All over the tree line, I could see others emerging. Must’ve been at least twenty people, all dressed in white. Some whom I recognized, others not so much. Uncles, aunts, cousins… all kinds of distant relatives. We had a big family, but we’d always kept to ourselves. A handful of times, mom and dad had gone to see them without me.
Maybe this was what they’d been doing when the kids weren’t allowed to tag along.
Maypoles were being raised all over the clearing. Ten feet tall. Large crosses, covered in grass, flowers and red ribbons; with two large rings hung on each end. Six of them in total, evenly spaced. As each one rose, I could hear a jubilant yell coming from that direction. I’d heard about this sort of celebration, but I’d never seen it. The maypoles blessing the area as a haven for tired spirits.
Lily held my hand and leaned in close. She was shaking, and I wasn’t that much better off.
“What are they going to do?” she whispered.
“There’ll be a fire” I said. “Dancing, singing, breaking bread…”
I thought back on the fir tables my dad used to make for midsummer. The dull knife my mother used to cut the head off a chicken. How she’d spray the table in blood until the carcass stopped moving.
“A sacrifice” I continued. “Usually a chicken, but now… maybe a cow. A goat.”
“I-I… I didn’t know, I thought… I thought it was just some…”
“It’s all my fault” I sighed. “I just… didn’t want to expose you to them.”
She wrapped herself around my arm, sobbing. It broke my heart.
Once we got to the yard, there were smiling faces all around. Everyone dressed in white, carrying countless baskets of flowers. Oxeye daisies, dandelions, even a few sunflowers. Some yellow, some blue. All in all, it must’ve been close to thirty people. And in the middle of the yard stood a large table made of fir wood.
Someone touched my shoulder, and I almost fell over trying to get away. How my mother had managed to sneak up on me, I’ll never know. She wasn’t the quiet type.
“We’re getting ready for the bonfire. She needs to be involved.”
“I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
“Then you can start cutting the bread” mom continued. “It’s by the kitchen.”
We kept to ourselves, just observing the others. There were so many details one might’ve missed if one didn’t know where to look. For example, how they’d tied living snakes into the maypoles, to better absorb any corruption that would try to enter. Or how no one wore wool, as to wear fur of a prey animal would invite predators. A hundred little rules, all put to practice. And there Lily and I was, on our knees, cutting bread.
I could hear her muttering something under her breath. She had her thumb on her necklace; her golden cross. She was praying. Making sure no one could hear us, I leaned in close.
“Not here” I whispered. “I… they’re not rational.”
“Have you… have you done this?” she whispered back. “Are you part of this?”
“No, not like… not like this.”
“But you know what this is?”
“Usually, yes, but…”
Someone cleared their throat behind us. As I turned to see me dad, looking apologetically at me, I got to my feet.
“I’ll just borrow him for a few minutes” dad smiled. “We’ll be right back.”
The shadows were growing darker. In the old country, the midnight sun would keep the sky bright for days on end, but that’s not the case for Minnesota. Still, time was probably around 7pm, and it was still bright outside. It messed with my sense of time.
Dad looked back over his shoulder, to make sure we were alone. He faced me.
“You love this girl?” he asked. “You want to spend the rest of your life with her?”
“I know, she’s a Christian, but-“
“I’m not asking about that” he said, putting his hand on my cheek. “I want to know if you love her. The real her. Do you?”
I looked back on Lily, staring at me from across the yard. Of course I loved her.
I just nodded. Dad smiled and patted me on the shoulder.
“Then you’ll be fine.”
An hour passed. They prepared a large table in the middle of the yard, decorating it with flowers and branches. I was growing nervous.
My mother called out to the others, using an old herding call. This odd, howling noise, made to echo across fields. It was haunting. From every nook and cranny of the clearing came all these vaguely familiar faces in a sea of white. She spoke to them in the old tongue, and I could only make out a few words. She was giving thanks to the black-horned virgin, the goat-legged mother. The mountain spirits, and the lands who nurtured us. She talked about our offering, and the blessings we were thankful to receive. To bring new life into the steps of the Old Blood.
Then, my dad stepped out of the kitchen.
Naked.
It took me a few moments to realize what was happening. By the time I got to my feet, four men were on their way to hold me back. Lily just kept looking back and forth, not understanding. I was screaming. I don’t even remember what, it just… came out of me, like blood from a wounded soul. I screamed as they laid him out on the table. I screamed as they held the axe to the sky. I screamed my neck raw and my face flustered and red.
But all those screams turned to cries of despair as the axe fell.
This is why he wanted me to be sure. The greater the blessing, the greater the offering.
Among dozens of jubilant voices and cheers, I cried like a child.
They broke the table into pieces, using branches from a birch tree to spread the blood around. They cut him open, filling him with branches from the fir tree, and spices. A dead head biting down on an apple. All put into a pile, neatly decorated, and set aflame. Empty eyes refusing to meet my gaze, no matter how many times I cried his name.
We were dragged in front of the fire. I remember sitting there, leaning on my knees, watching the fire eat away at everything we’d put forth. Licks of flame peeling away at a body freely given.
Someone put a bowl into my hands. Bread, and some sort of walnuts. Lily got a bowl too, but hers was different. It was mostly sunflower seeds.
“Eat up” my mother said. “And you’ll have my blessing.”
Lily just stared into the fire. I could see the flames reflecting in her wide eyes. Her eyes were tearing up, as she forgot to blink.
I curled up next to her, and we ate together. It wasn’t much, it’d be over soon.
As we finished, they’d started to sing. I swear, they’d all grown taller. Like, a head taller. Their eyes seemed brighter. The sun still hadn’t set, even though it was well past 10pm. As the song grew louder, we were lead away from the others.
They’d dug a small hole, about three feet deep. Large enough for two people. Lily, mistaking it for a shallow grave, started to panic. I just held her close.
“It’s not that” I said. “It’s not that. It’s not that.”
They stripped us of our clothes and laid us down. They covered us in branches and leaves as my mother watched us.
“You’ve been blessed” she smiled. “And in the morning, you’ll be reborn.”
She looked different. Her eyes had lost their color, and her teeth had grown sharper. She, too, looked taller. Younger.
“You may marry however you want. Have many children. Come see me sometime.”
The singing from the bonfire had grown from hymns into screams, growing louder and animalistic. Two men were attacking each other, beating each other raw. One woman was slamming her head with a rock. An older man was trying to shovel as much dirt as possible into his mouth. They were completely losing themselves, driven mad by the flames.
As branch after branch covered us, Lily and I just stayed still, waiting for it all to be over.
In a matter of minutes, the world turned dark. The sun finally set. All we had was each other, and the howling of madmen. We curled up next to each other and waited for morning to come.
At some point, we must’ve fallen asleep.
I woke up to the sound of Lily choking.
She was tearing at her throat, desperately feeling for something.
Her necklace, holding her golden cross. She tore it off and breathed a deep breath of relief.
We pushed the branches aside. It was a beautiful summer morning. Birds were singing, and bees were buzzing about in the high grass. And there we were, naked and soot-covered.
The colonial buildings still stood. All that remained from the bonfire was a black spot in the middle of the yard. The maypoles had been taken down. I just sat there for a second, trying to wrap my head around it all, as Lily dry-heaved into the grass.
“Lil?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. I couldn’t blame her.
We picked up our clothes and made our way back to the car. The tires were busted, but we could call for help. For a moment we just sat there in our air-conditioned car, leaning back into our leather seats. I looked over at Lily.
There was something different about her.
She was slightly paler, and her hair had grown darker. Her eyes, usually a clear green, looked almost mud brown. She just stared straight ahead.
“Lil?” I asked again. “What are you-“
“Don’t call me that,” she interrupted. “That’s not my name.”
“What do you mean that’s not-“
“That’s not my name anymore!” she cried out. “She fucking baptized me!”
Lily turned to me, her eyes wild. She was different. Many of the little quirks I’d grown to love about her over the years were simply gone, or changed. Even her voice seemed darker, raspier.
“She baptized me and… and just… I feel it. I feel it in me, and it just feels… wrong. It moves. It rearranges all the pieces. It…”
I leaned over and held her against my shoulder. Even her cries sounded different.
We called the police. We got our car towed, and we filled out our reports. Lily showed the pictures she’d taken, but they didn’t show that much. We got to shower and change our clothes. For the better part of the day, we just talked to people. Other people; not so much each other.
A lot has happened since that day. There are no longer crosses in our house. Lily has asked me to call her by her new name; Kviga. At night, I can hear her talking in a strange language.
But she’s still… she. She still watches cupcake videos on YouTube, and she still smiles at me in the morning. She sings in the shower, and she kisses my cheek before we go to work. She’s still the sweetheart I fell in love with.
But something, deep inside, has fundamentally shifted.
I can see the way she stares into open flames. The way she wrinkles her nose when we pass by a church. I can see how comfortable she’s getting with a knife. How she doodles strange signs into her work notebooks.
We’re still getting married. That much hasn’t changed. I’m just marrying Kviga, not… Lily.
But that’s fine. It’s still her.
It has to be.