The Cursed Blood
eaters, or land of the tree eaters. Stating that it was a rather dirty term for some “bark eaters” therein that he had met in his travels.A few folks even think the word is used as a slur meaning that someone was incapable of hunting and therefore had to eat bark to survive the harsh winters there. There is even a rumor in some circles that Mr. Lafitau had been found drunk and raving in the woods by a teamster who had had to knock him senseless and dump him into his a logging wagon, and that “Rontak” was the name of the horse that had pulled the addled missionary back to civilization.
Honestly though, who knows?
I can’t help but laugh whenever I hear it explained that way, as like all such silly nonsense that mundane Humans conjure up to explain encounters with the Fey, it’s partly true.
But mostly not.
Supposedly the first to venture in was the Mr. Lafitau. Who, after ignoring repeated warnings from a local Shaman (or Medicine man, or his favorite the Master—he never really tells anyone what he is and not many have the courage to ask him), encountered things he couldn’t explain in the deep, dark woods in what was then mostly harsh untamed wilds.
Evidently, he went a bit mad after that.
You may ask how I’m sure of this. How could I possibly even attempt to pass such silliness off as historic fact, right? Well, I know Master White Owl. He was there, and I can tell you three things about him. He’s ancient, he really has no sense of humor at all, and he never lies. If he says it, it’s true.
Simple as that.
Some advice, if you ever meet him. Don’t try to tell him he’s pulling your leg about this or anything else, no matter how farfetched it may sound. Otherwise he’s highly likely to take offence. You won’t like how he tends to deal with that.
Maybe, if you’re lucky, you might spend the next month or two learning manners in one of his aquariums as a frog being misted with a spray bottle and dining on crickets.
Well, back to the Adirondacks and the story, I suppose. It’s brutally cold in the winter. Has insane amounts of snow. Has a horrible thing called “black fly season” (yes that’s definitely as bad as it sounds) and is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places on the planet, bar none. It has lakes, rivers, streams, mountains, and seemingly endless stretches of pristine picturesque forests that are honestly a nature lover’s dream.
It’s also big, scary, and dark if you’re a thirteen-year-old in the back seat of a wood paneled station wagon having his life turned upside down.
At this point after the encounter in the parking lot I’d been pretty much unceremoniously shoved into the car. Mom had then torn out of there like a racecar driver, pulling to a tire squealing stop next to Dad’s Pontiac in the Pizza Hut lot.
I remember Dad—who looked like he had been having a rough day—was just getting out of his car. His tired smile melted away as he was urgently waved over into a hushed conversation through her cracked window.
They shared a hushed, serious, fearful conversation as she explained to my father (who looked like he might get sick the more he heard) what had happened in the parking lot.
Ten minutes later we were back at our house where, amidst the chaotic bustle of grabbing clothes off coat hangers and out of drawers, I’d been told that for the foreseeable future I would be living with my grandfather at his lodge.
Evidently there was nothing that could be done about it. It was for my own good and neither of my parents would let me in on the big secret as to exactly why that was.
In an effort to calm me down as the car was loaded up with all my worldly possessions. Mom had reassured me that it was a great, big place in the woods, and I’d be safe, happy, and learning incredible new things. Even promising that they would most definitely visit whenever they could.
At this, Dad gave her a funny, pained look that was accompanied by a grunt as he struggled with the last of my hastily packed luggage. But she just ignored him and went on and on like she was desperately trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince me that everything was going to be just fine and dandy.
I was even informed that for some reason I now had a “noble destiny,”—something that made my Dad flinch like he had been slapped. After which he barely spoke a word and seemed to find it hard to look at me, earning him more than one painful looking elbowing jab to the ribs by my mom.
None of the reassurance or talk of a “noble family business” as Mom put it really mattered to me or made a lick of sense on that impossibly long car ride. There was even a bit of a battle with a tantrum that now is a little painful to think about as I told my mom and dad (or to be more accurate I screamed at them with tears running down my face) in no uncertain terms that: “I absolutely didn’t want to go—that it was just a bullshit reason to get rid of me and that I hated them both and hoped they both died horribly for abandoning me like this.”
As I yelled my mother looked as though I had kicked her in the gut, wide eyed with her mouth open in an O as she stared. Absently fingering an odd black boat pendant that hung from a silver chain about her neck and always fiddled with whenever her and Dad had an argument or I did something that upset her particularly badly (she always laughed it off when asked about it, explaining it as memento of a rock concert she attended before