My therapist recommended keeping a journal to deal with the generational fear and trauma in my family. I don’t think she quite gets it, but she tries. Virtual therapy has probably been the single best thing that has happened to me recently. Then again, the bar isn’t very high. Maybe getting this out there to lessen my own mental burden is what I need. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I want to start this off with an apology and a warning: I’m sorry about the dandelions. We never meant for it to get this bad. But you have to keep killing them because once my family is all dead, you’ll die too.
I guess it’s a good thing that everyone eradicates them on sight; there’s an innate hatred of them that we hadn’t counted on. Every time I walk by someone launching an intense attack, it warms the cockles of my heart. And I get it: they spread if you just look at the dandelion puff wrong, and they take over everything. They’re tenacious, grow anywhere and are frustrating to kill. It’s just alarming to me because I know where they’re coming from.
I really should start from the beginning, but I don’t actually know the real story. It sounds like a bedtime story to others but it has been a cautionary tale for generations. It’s been in my family lore for so long that I don’t think I can not believe. I’ve heard it from my granny since I was a kid, and she heard it from her granny, and her from her grandpap. I’m supposed to pass it along, since I’m one of the few grandkids in my generation. From when I was a kid, I was told repeatedly to have a lot of kids to keep things going. My brother bought into it deeper than I did, but he’s always had a deeper sense of filial responsibility.
It was always just a story, until it wasn’t.
I’m just… so tired and so afraid of what’s out there. Living in fear is not a good life for anyone. I’ve been on the run for so long that I don’t even know where home is anymore. It’s irresponsible of me to have kids and subject them to this. I watched my older brother and his kids move from town to town constantly until my sister in law put her foot down. It’s not a stable home life for them. My sister in law nearly left him after the fourth move in as many years without an explanation.
She had a full meltdown when we finally told her. I nearly kicked his ass for not telling her when they were engaged. What kind of person doesn’t tell someone that they’re marrying into a cursed family, one that’s being hunted down by some sort of dandelion loving primordial entity? And once we’re all dead, it’s going to start killing everyone?
They compromised. He found a job as a traveling consultant and she kept the kids in one place, in the fucking desert of all places. I guess it makes sense because as tenacious as those little yellow fuckers are, they don’t do as well where there’s no water. She can keep up with the yard work with the help of some very handsomely paid landscapers, the kids stay in one place and my brother is still married.
Where was I? Sorry, I get sidetracked a lot. Blame some undiagnosed problem for it on top of my trauma. I never stuck around school long enough for someone to realize that I have problems, except that there are Problems in my family. I’m smart enough, definitely scrappy enough to survive. As far as problems go, getting a little sidetracked isn’t the worst.
Oh, right. The thing that comes when the dandelions hit critical mass.
We don’t have a real name for it. One of my more nature loving aunties called It some sort of nature goddess, but I know better, especially now.
Most people wouldn’t notice it, mostly because they’re not the ones It is trying to feed off of, at least not yet. My family has the honor of being the guardians, is how great-granny put it. The way I see it, some noble, do-gooder, idiotic ancestor of mine decided to take on this burden and spin it in a way so the kids won’t hate them.
My generation? We keep cursing that ancestor every time we move towns.
The curse doesn’t seem to get weaker, either, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. We didn’t know much; the family lore always said that if there are enough dandelions in one spot, something awakens, but it’s really so much more than just that. Once a kid hits puberty, they either trigger the dandelion growth or they don’t. The dandelions are like a homing beacon. As soon as there’s enough, It will awaken and start moving.
I remember an uncle who is even worse off than me. Last I heard, he’s living somewhere in the mountains where nothing can grow, or at least slowly enough that he can pick them off at a reasonable rate, somewhere in Asia I think. We jokingly, and not so jokingly, call him our last bastion.
I remember the first time I saw it. I lost my great auntie that day. The hospital said that she had a heart attack, but I know better. I saw what happened.
It wasn’t that long ago. She was living by herself when it happened, her own children scattered to the corners of the world and her husband had passed not long before that. I think there’s something to be said about belief, too. She happened to be one of the ones who would scoff at the old stories even though she weeded like a demon. She did it because her parents made her and she got into a habit of it, and even if she didn’t think it was true, she did it anyways.
Ever lived next to a neighbor where their yard gets infested and it looks like there’s no hope? Then they leave and everything goes back to being normal? Chances are, you lived next to one of my relatives. Probably a first cousin or something if it’s half of their yard. That was what my great-auntie’s house was like when she got older. I visited her when I could, between online classes for some stupid college degree. I usually stay with my sister in law and niblings to help out, but that summer I was with my great-auntie.
I helped her pour weed killer on those things when I was there long enough to make the growth go wild. I grew up with my mom believing and her seeing the near misses when she was a kid. She taught me that there’s no such thing as going overboard with the weed killer. I watched as the yellow flowers withered and went to seed and felt comfort at watching them die.
But even then, it wasn’t enough. I was young and arrogant. Maybe it was my hubris that made them grow rampant that summer, or maybe because of something else. I thought that the weed killer would be enough. Auntie was spry enough to get after it still but removing that many roots was too much for an old woman. I should have helped more that summer.
I still feel a lot of guilt for her death, but it’s nothing compared to what is waiting for us when the dandelions grow to be too much. I didn’t know until that summer that when the dandelions stay in bloom, that’s when it’s too late.
Auntie wasn’t even really all that old. My parents had me young, and my granny was barely in her forties when I was born. Auntie was my granny’s fun, younger sister. Her dark hair had strands of silver running through it, and crow’s feet marked eyes that loved to smile. To me, she was my beautiful Auntie. She had a curious sprinkling of freckles on her shoulder that she never could explain. Some of us had it and some didn’t. One of my nieces has a charming smattering across her cheeks, but not in the same way as Auntie’s. I wasn’t one of them, not for a long time.
This next part… it’s hard to write down. Even years later, it’s hard for me to say what happened. I’m sorry if the next bit comes across as a bit analytical. I still get upset when I think about that day too much.
It was a wet, muggy day. I was tired and feeling overheated from a day out in the yard but Auntie had promised to make her famous apple pie for dessert. I thought I had done a good job, and got through the worst of it that day, so I was feeling pretty pleased about things. The dandelions weren’t going to seed, so it made it easier to go ham with the removal. As soon as I got close to the house, I knew something was wrong.
The house smelled vaguely like burning pastry and there was an alarming amount of smoke pouring out of the oven when I walked in. The smoke detectors were screaming. I opened the windows and turned on the vent hood before turning off the oven. This had scared me; Auntie was usually very diligent about her baking and never left the kitchen when she had something in the oven.
I called for her. Her house wasn’t very large since it was only her now. There was enough room for the occasional guest, but it didn’t take long to walk through. She wasn’t in the house.
Her house was small, but her property was larger, much larger than any one of us would have liked. When great-uncle was still alive, he had to use a sit down mower to get everything. He died two years ago, though, which is why us grandkids rotated through to help her.
At that point, I was still hoping for the best. Auntie had fruit trees in the other corner. I went there, hoping to find her picking apples or pears so I could yell at her for being so careless and frightening me.
Have you ever had the skin prickle so much that it shocked you? That’s what it felt like when I got close to her tiny orchard. It was so sudden that my blood ran cold.
I remember this distinctly because I had been so uncomfortable earlier in the day. There was the heavy promise of rain later in the evening but the humidity was at critical mass for most of the day. The air near the orchard was bone dry, like something was sucking up all of the water.
Auntie was standing in the middle of her trees. She was facing me, with her eyes glassy and face slack. I yelled her name. She was close enough that she should have heard me even though I was still a few yards away. She didn’t move.
I stopped short when I saw the vines of dandelions snaked around her legs. They were monstrously huge, nearly the size of my hands. I know this because I had picked one up after I called the ambulance. They couldn’t help her, obviously, but I’m getting ahead of myself again.
I didn’t want to touch her for obvious reasons, but I wanted to smack her out of the trance. No one had really ever been clear about what an attack looked like because no one had ever actually seen it. They had only ever seen the aftermath, but no one had ever mentioned the giant dandelions, or the trance. So I didn’t have any idea of what I could do.
So of course, I did what any frightened, sensible person did: I picked up a fallen branch and started yelling obscenities while swinging it about.
The air in front of me darkened swiftly, forming a shape that honestly wasn’t much larger than me. I couldn’t see a distinct shape but its arm was clear enough when it wrapped around the other side of the stick and a leg kicked me in the chest, hard enough that I stumbled backwards and fell. When I looked up, the shape had become solid enough that I saw a face I had only seen in photos.
It was my twice-remove great grandfather. He died in his thirties, right before his third kid was born.
Except for the eyes. His eyes were hollow and empty of any intelligent thought.
I look like him, or at least a younger, feminine version of him, without the freckles sprinkled across his right cheek. That was something I was always told when I was growing up. It was one thing to always be told that you look like an old ancestor, but it’s another to be compared to one who was the last documented victim. I never liked mirrors once I was old enough to understand the implications. My superstitious family never really warmed up to me because of that, so I guess there’s some lingering resentment that was unique to me. I wasn’t really musing on those thoughts in the moment because all I could think about was how to save Auntie and how much my chest hurt from that kick.
It leaned forward, tilting its head in a curious manner that reminded me of a dog. The hair on my neck prickled as I scrambled backwards, until my back hit a tree. It followed me as I moved backwards, its features starting to blend and shift in a disturbing way. Shifting to be more feminine and older. The familiar crows feet from thousands of smiles creased the corners as it took on my beloved Auntie’s face. The curious start burst freckles faded from the right cheek and reappeared on its shoulder.
At the same time, it wasn’t her face. There was an energy about her that was both timeless and vibrant. There was a hint of hungry malevolence as the blank eyes stared at me intensely.
Auntie was still standing beyond it. Her face grew even more slack as her skin aged and she physically shrank. It was taking her life energy.
Its hand briefly stroked my cheek before straightening and turning. My skin burned where it touched me. I remember pleading with it to not take her. I was screaming and crying for it to take me. I didn’t notice it at the time, but the dandelions had vined around me to keep me in place as I struggled to stand.
But it didn’t. It moved towards Auntie with this unearthly, inhuman grace and touched her shoulder. Her body collapsed in a heap, looking far, far older than her previously youthful 60 years.
It only said one thing to me. I still remember it so clearly years later.
“It is not your turn, yet.”
It disappeared after that. The muggy heat returned in a rush and the vines that had bound me withered and crumpled.
I knew it was too late for her, but I still called an ambulance. I was hurting, too, so I went with them to the hospital. I was bruised and did my best to explain it away with some bullshit, that she was helping me with the apple gathering when she collapsed in the heat and I fell trying to get to help her. I know the EMTs didn’t believe me, but the lack of marks on her and the bruises on me sold the story.
My extended family grieved separately once word got around. If I had been shunned before for looking like a victim, I was shunned even more for being there when Auntie died.
Shunned for seeing it and living.
I guess that brings us to where I am now. Still grieving, still traumatized, still running. I haven’t been back to her house in years, and I haven’t seen my family in so long. My nieces and nephews only know my voice. I can never stop running now. I know this, and I see it when the dandelions are allowed to grow around me.
I’m marked with the same sunburst freckle pattern. It’s on my cheek, from where it touched me. It was a burn, and it should have scarred but it didn’t. I see it when I catch glimpses of it in the mirror. If I don’t stop running, I’m next, and whatever took my auntie’s face will take mine, too. That is my burden, and I’m sorry that you have to know now, too.