Chapter 64: Returning home and finding chaos!

Beverly

“What are you doing here? You abandoned us!” I noted the tears brimming as he spat poison in my direction. My father warned me that my brother was so consumed with finding my mother’s killer that he didn’t see anything else. He was neglecting the people, which was the worst part of it all.

“This is not what she would have wanted! She would have wanted us to live our lives. She wanted us to be happy!” I tried guilt in the hopes that the memory of my mom would pull him out of this slump he was in, but it just made things worse as he turned his anger on me and I stormed out of his office. There was no hope for him! My brother wasn’t going to give up his search. That left me with only one option. I had to take care of the people until he finally woke up to the reality of what he was doing.

With my father’s help, I quickly figured out what was going on and what wasn’t and what the priorities were. Maybe if my brother saw me doing his job, he would stop his ridiculous hunt! Sadly, nothing could pull him out of his office. The first thing that urgently required my attention was the water well! Our region had seen more rain than ever before and one side of the wall had collapsed into the well. Our people were walking for miles to get water from the stream.

I didn’t know much about how to fix the problem, but I knew I had to fix it. If there was one thing the witches had taught me, it was that, no matter what, life had to win. I quickly found out who was in charge of the upkeep of the well and found him drinking in the tavern at nine in the morning! My mother’s sudden departure had badly affected everyone in our pack. That much was clear.

After sending him to the kitchen for some seriously strong coffee, I checked in at the well. It looked far worse than I expected. I had no idea where the hell to start! All I could think of doing was to clear away the rubble for now so that we could see how much of the wall had landed inside the well. I jumped in and soon the people around me started to help move the rubble.

After a couple of hours, our well friend joined us, and he was sober enough to guide us on how to open the well. By late afternoon, the well was cleared, and we were gathering what we needed to rebuild the wall. The well couldn’t be used until the wall was up again, since it would be a safety hazard. Not so much for the grown-ups, but definitely for the young ones.

To make sure everyone got the water they needed until we fixed this situation, I set up a schedule of who should collect water and how often. I also had them bring the water to a central point for people to collect. A lot of people didn’t get the water they needed because they were too weak to collect and the ones who collected weren’t sharing.

It saddened me to see that our people had already forgotten what my mother stood for! If she saw them unravelling the way they had, she would have been so disappointed. I had to push on and couldn’t allow the sadness to infiltrate my heart again or all would be lost. As soon as the well situation was well under way to be fixed, I turned my attention to the food situation.

The vegetable gardens hadn’t been tended to since the day my mother died. They were almost completely overgrown in just a couple of weeks and I got started on clearing them and picking what we could use for food. The gardeners, thankfully, quickly jumped in to help and by nightfall, the gardens looked a lot better, and we had fresh food for the people.

I couldn’t believe how much I had gotten done in just one day and as I fell into bed that night, all I could do was think about what my mother would have done if she was in my position. Would she have taken over? There was no question! She would have kicked my brother under his ass if she saw the state he was in. My mother wasn’t one to wait around for people to do things.

She jumped in and did them. She worked alongside our pack, and she never saw herself as higher than anyone else. She loved with her whole heart. Cared with every fibre of her being and hurt just as badly whenever she saw someone in pain. My mother was the strongest person I knew and that was probably why everything was falling apart without her.

She wasn’t just the glue that kept our family together. She was the saviour of our home. She saved our people and now all of them depend on only her. They all depended on my dad as well, but I always noted the way people looked at my mom. You couldn’t miss the adoration in their eyes. That thought brought me to the reason why my brother was in such a state. Who could have wished harm to my mom? I made my way to my brother’s office in the early morning hours and found him fast asleep behind his desk. I read through some of the reports about my mom, and it was clear that she had been killed.

The pictures of her body with the enormous gashes were shocking. What could have possibly done that to her? Who could have hated her so much that they killed her so brutally? I hadn’t seen the pictures until then and I understood why my brother had become so obsessed about finding her killers. I had to be more sympathetic towards him. I had to find a way to help him.

I had to fix this. Not just for him, but for all of us. If we were ever going to find peace, I had to do something.