Brotherhood ~ Chapter 1

“I’d love to change the world
but I don’t know what to do
so I’ll leave it up to you…”

~ Ten Years After ~

 * * * * *

Damn, this place leaves a lot to be desired – at least that was my dismal opinion as I looked around the old abandoned town.  There really wasn’t much left, it having been all but swallowed up by the desert.  What a total letdown, I considered as I stood there biting my lip.  Even in its heyday, as Pre-Timers would have said, Winslow, Arizona, must have been a dive.

That was another Pre-Time adage which had never made any sense to me whatsoever – referring to a place as a dive.

After all, there was little water to be had in the desert.  Few natural water sources, anyway, and so where was one supposed to go diving?  We did know the locations of numerous water drops, as well as fuel drops – although how we had come by way of this privileged information hadn’t exactly been legitimate.  However, without possession of said knowledge, then my sister and I would not have been out here in the first place – period.  The desert was a deadly adversary, after all.

What was that saying of which our Uncle Eric was always so fond?  Oh, yeah – luck favors the prepared.

Turning around I looked at my twin sister who just slowly shook her head.

“I can’t believe that someone had actually written a song about this place, sis – really” Mac put in her two cents worth as she now stomped her way back over to the truck.  And there it was, yet another Pre-Time saying that perplexed me, right along with its ancient concept of currency.

Leaning up against the door of our vehicle, Mac folded her arms over her chest.  Crossing one ankle over the other, she leveled me one rather piercing glare.  I knew what she was thinking – we had wasted precious fuel to indulge my whim for this side trip.

So, like – was it my fault that this place didn’t live up to our expectations?  The song in which it had been named had made the place sound romantic in a rustic sort of fashion.  More like plain old rust, I considered with an inward sigh.

“Ok, Seanna – you tell me, just where is this fine sight to see?” my twin demanded but I could only shrug in return.

“Dunno, sis – I… I’m sorry I made you come all this way” I now apologized with a pout.

“Well, I know this much – a fine sight to see would be a man, any man, in a pickup truck” Mac grumbled under her breath.  “What a waste of water and fuel.”  Ok – so how many times was she going to make me apologize for it?  That was a question better left unasked, I knew, and so just let it slide.

“Do you want to stay here tonight or move on?” I wanted to know, crossing over to my twin and praying she wouldn’t try to throttle me.  Chewing on her lip, she glanced about, thinking.

“I’d say move on, sis – this place gives me the willies, like Uncle Greg says” Mac confessed, and when she would admit to being ill at ease?  Well, then you really needed to stand up and take notice.  “We can at least take a break for bit – my butt is sore” she now laughed, doing a complete turnabout there as her lips gave up an open and inviting smile.  Just like our father would, or so we had been told by those who had known him best.

“Yeah, mine too – I don’t know how people rode around in these mechanical offenses every single day” I complained.  I would have preferred horses, but that would have taken forever and we really needed to get to our Grandfather at The Legion, which was way up near Bryce Canyon.  I knew if we just showed up on his doorstep and could talk to him in private, about a Matter of Family, then he’d agree to help us reconnect with our mother and father.

The parents that we could not remember, no less.

I now recalled reading that in Pre-Time women actually gave up babies for what had been called adoptions.  Difficult concept, that one, of any woman willingly giving away her child – but that wasn’t our case, Mac and me.  Due to a sordid family history and a lot of bizarre circumstances, Mac and I had been abandoned by all accounts, by both our parents, and when we had been but young girls.

Abandoned just like this town, I now thought, finding myself suddenly overwhelmed by a profound sadness.  People had once lived here, after all – they had had families and things called jobs and money, and reportedly lived happy lives.

Leaning over the side of the truck bed, I now dragged out my pack.  Dropping it on the ground, I then started to rummage around inside of it.

“Whatcha doin’?” Mac inquired, watching me with intense curiosity.  Producing a Palm, I then turned to face her, offering her the device in my outstretched hand.  “What’s this for?” she inquired, suspiciously eying the device.

“Well, it is our birthday, after all… and… uh… I wanted you to have this” was my explanation, nervously waiting for my twin to accept the gift.

“Um, like – I already have one, Sean” Mac reminded me with a laugh as she looked from the Palm to me, confused.  I just sharply shook my head in return.

“Not like this one, you don’t – it contains personal journals, the history of us O’Reillys, of our Clan” I informed her and thus in response my sister wasted no time in dropping her jaw.

“No way – you hacked Uncle Kevin’s servers?!” my sister exclaimed in disbelief with a healthy amount of abject shock thrown in for effect.  As I slowly nodded in affirmation of her supposition, Mac then let out a long, low whistle.  “Damn – you really do take after our Mother.  Have you… uh… did you?” she started to ask, stumbling over her words.

“No, Mac, I have not read them… not yet anyway” was my truthful response.  “I haven’t even peeked at them beyond making sure that the files were what I suspected them to be.  I was hoping that we could read them together, just you and me, that is if you don’t mind?” I suggested with hope.  “I know how you feel about our family and all the rumors, but –” I tried to reason with my stubborn sister who now quite abruptly cut me off, making a rather rude hand gesture in conjunction with her harsh words.

“You are damn right about that, sister!” Mac blurted out, now backing away from the Palm as if it were a diamondback rattler, coiled and ready to strike.  “I have heard enough innuendos about our parents to last me an entire life time, thank-you-very-much.  I have no desire to audition that demented saga in their own words as well” she made abundantly clear.  I could only hang my head as I released a heavy sigh, disheartened by her adamant refusal.

Why did my twin sister always have to be so damn contrary?  She had inherited our Father’s propensity for being a hothead, which was certainly one family trait that she couldn’t possibly deny possessing.  MacKayla was an O’Reilly, like it or not – and a volatile Irish temper went right along with the territory.  Not to mention the fact that she had also inherited our Father’s love affair with lust, I considered in amusement of my sister – she could be more than a handful a times.

At any rate, when my twin had made up her mind, I knew it was final – just as had always been the case with our Father, or so we had been told.  It had been said that when he would make a decision he stuck by it for good or bad, right or wrong, do or die, I chuckled to myself.  No matter – it was the thought of the gift that counted, although I had had high hopes that my sister would read the journals with me.  I felt it was important for us to learn together the truth of our family history before we reunited with our parents.  We needed to audition their accounts, in their own words, and not just tales which had become bloated and distorted out of all proportion over the course of time.  However, I knew it would only be wasted breath just then for me to debate the point with Mac.  I’d just have to read the journals for myself.

“Fine – whatever, Mac… I don’t care, I’ll read them myself” I withdrew my offer, shrugging my shoulders in disappointed acceptance.  “I just thought that it would be a good idea for both you and I to do a little research before we finally meet up with Collin and Sierra, since they are the man and woman who breathed life into us, after all.  But if you’re not interested, then you’re not interested.  Happy birthday anyway, sister” I offered as I wiped a tear from my eye, the first of many to come, I knew.

“Don’t do that” Mac now brusquely made demand, in a huff stomping her foot.  She should have figured out by now that wasn’t going to stem my tears.  “Aw, c’mom, sis’ – knock it off already!” she then bullied, glowering at me, but I knew damn well that my tears were her weakness.  Mac, of course, would never admit as much, however, my sorrow was not contrived.  My heart was truly grieved by her rejection of my gift.  Of course, she had no idea the lengths I had gone in order to get those journals off Uncle Kevin’s servers.  He had his datacenter wrapped up tighter than some ancient place known as Fort Knox.

“Ok, ok – we’ll read them… together” she finally relented, throwing her hands up in the air in surrender.  “That will be my birthday gift to you.  How about that?  Why I ever let my little sister talk me into these things, I will never know.”  Little sister – yeah, Mac was a full three minutes older than me, so big sister indeed.  However, if that made her feel better, to be number one, then who was I to argue?  She had agreed to read our family’s journals with me so therefore I could ask nothing more of her than this.

Being unable to restrain myself, or contain my joy, I now threw my arms around my twin, delivering a heartfelt embrace.  One which Mac returned in kind, and then some.  If we saw eye-to-eye in practically nothing else, then at least we shared a great love for one another.

“Now is as good a time as any to begin, I suppose” Mac went on, sounding not quite so combative as she now broke our embrace.  “We intended to take a break anyway” was her reasoning and so walking over to that mythical street corner in that Pre-Time town called Winslow, Arizona, she then plopped herself down.  “So let’s just park our butts down here on this bloody corner to read firsthand accounts of our family’s multitude of scandalous sins.”  I could only laugh at her words – she could be so humorous when the mood took her.

Mac was in possession of one predominantly cantankerous personality.  Rumor had it that our Father suffered from exactly the same.  And did I mention that my twin had also inherited our Father’s gift for words?  Some of the things she would come out with were truly amazing, but perhaps not really given that she had a very high IQ.  We both did.  Good thing, too – otherwise we never would have been able to pull together the resources for this unsanctioned quest to reunite our birth parents.

“Thank you, Mac – thank you” I cried out of gratitude, smiling at her through my tears – tears of sadness now having turned into those of joy.

“De nada, Sean – happy birthday to you, too” she smiled back at me and a beautiful smile it was – what had been dubbed as the O’Reilly Clan’s trademark smile.  “As long as we start with Mother’s journals, then I think perhaps I might be able to choke down their delusional ramblings, one paragraph at a time.  Deal?” Mac offered and so I nodded once, brusquely – yes.

We then both proceeded to sit there on that legendary corner in Winslow, Arizona, in what had been known as the American desert southwest.  Mac took up her repose by leaning her back against the old lamppost, one leg drawn up to rest hand to bent knee.  I myself sat there cross-legged, settling in for our story hour.

Pulling up the file on the Palm which contained our Mother’s personal journals, I now began to read aloud.  We would relive through her words the incredible journey which had become her life, as well as our own, in this post-apocalyptic world.

“We are afraid of being in fear…” I thus began recital of  Sierra’s heart-wrenching saga.