Chapter Forty: The Barclays Gather

Notes: Can't believe we're already at the end of another week! I want to mention that this perspective shift won't go on for the rest of the story, but I still hope you're enjoying Gen. I think being able to see Lydia from a different perspective is important as we go into this chapter and leading into the chapters for next week.

Oli and I sat at the dining room table for second breakfast as we usually do, him reading away but I was unusually quiet. It was Monday, the day that Lydia told me that all of my brothers and sisters would be at the family house once again, by request of Eerin who had kicked us all out ages ago with no warning whatsoever.

I tucked my black curls behind my pointed ear as I stared outside the windows to the beautiful day.

"I'm seeing my family today, I don't know if I'll be back for dinner," I said simply, not turning my light brown eyes in his direction.

"Hmm?"

"I might not be back for dinner."

"Why?"

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a moment to measure my patience. "I'm going to go see my family."

He set down his book. "Since when do you see your family members?"

"Since now. My oldest brother is wanting all of us to get together today. I don't know if anyone else is going to be there besides him and my sister Lydia but hopefully everyone will show up. It's been too long…"

"These family members of yours are thieves and bums and of unsavory character. I do not approve of you associating with them, except for your sister Elyssa since she's a Brownlock." He picked up his book again as if the conversation was over.

Sparks of anger were already flaring but I tried my best to compose myself.

"I really don't care about your opinion of my family," I said sharply. "I'm going and you can't stop me."

"Of course I can stop you, you're my wife."

I stood up from my chair, grabbed his book and flung it across the room. "Do it. Try and stop me Oliver! Try and stop me from going and seeing my sick and potentially dying brother!"

"Please, I know this whole act by now, Genevive. You do not have a dying brother, you're just trying to do all this to get attention."

"Oh fuck you Oliver! How could you say such a thing?!"

"You've said crazier things. You've been able to fool and manipulate me in the past but you well know those days are over. Now go fetch my book and get to washing up from breakfast. Also if you use that kind of vulgar language in my presence again I will slap you."

In the past I certainly played games with him because it was fun, but he should have been able to know that I was being serious.

A mischievous smile seeped into my expression. "You want to treat me like a child? Then I'll act like a child." I slowly leaned across the table and got into his old face. "If I run away you wouldn't be able to stop me. If I swear, you may try to hurt me but I can hurt you more. If I make a mess, you wouldn't be able to clean it up. Pretend you're in control all you want, Oli, because you have nothing but your ego these days."

The tips of his pointed ears turned bright red and his face contorted as he tried to stay in control of his emotions.

"You're nothing but an ungrateful nobody." His face went back to a normal color and he composed himself. "There was a point in time when you were pretty enough to have your background ignored and luckily you got married to me during that time. But remember Genevive, without me you will be back to being a lowly nothing with no prospects and not even looks to fall back on. You're smart enough to know that, you will not go against my word."

I scoffed, "Watch me." I didn't hesitate for a moment. I leaned away from him and walked right out the front door. I untied my apron and threw it down on the ground just outside the door. He shouted after me but I didn't hear a single word.

My heart still pumped quickly as I walked through the trees, on my way back to the family home. I was still on fire, replaying that entire encounter over and over again in my head. Every replay got me more and more heated.

I grumbled to myself, "He thinks the way he can hurt me is by saying I'm not pretty anymore? What a dunce. Of course I'm still fucking pretty."

Outloud I could rant and rave about him making those dumb comments about my looks, but inside I knew it was him calling me a nobody and worth nothing that cut deeper than anything else. Oli couldn't find a way to hurt my feelings very often, but once he knew something hurt me he would use it over and over. I couldn't show him that it bothered me.

"He's been decaying since the moment I laid eyes on him and he has the audacity to talk about my looks."

I moved past more trees and my old family home appeared and seemed to exist outside of time. It looked exactly the same, with the same flowers blooming around it and the trees surrounding it. It looked like a memory plucked right out of my mind. It was eerie, there was a part of me that wondered if my parents were still living there.

A sharp shudder ran up my spine as I approached the front door. My light brown eyes scanned the facade of the home tucked into the hill, remembering the last time I was inside those walls…I wonder if it still feels like death in there…

I took a relaxing breath and raised my hand to knock on the door. Before I could connect my knuckles to the wood, the door swung open and there stood Lydia, grinning from ear to point ear. She grabbed me with a hug.

"Thank you for making it, Gen," she said.

"I told you I would make an appearance, didn't I?" I chuckled. I gave her a quick hug back before leaning back to look at her. The hugging thing was still something I had to get used to. "Am I the first one here?"

"No actually, Elyssa was the first one here and Rosalind got here not too long ago. I don't know if Percy and Beren will show up but I did speak with both of them. Both are alive, can you believe it?" She stepped aside so I could enter the house.

"That's a bit of a shock." I took a few steps in and then stopped dead in my tracks. "Holy shit…nothing has changed…"

"I thought the same thing when I returned. I have tried cleaning up here and there when I can but it's basically the same as when mom and dad were alive. Isn't it wild?"

My eyes traveled around in disbelief. I had no words I could have said out loud that would have explained the bizarre sensation I had being there again.

I was transported through time and a young hobbit again. I could have forgotten about my life since leaving when I saw the familiar paintings and the knick knacks on the shelves that Mom would kill us for if we damaged them. It was like the house had been holding its breath since we all left and it was breathing again, I could feel the life inside it again. There was life in this house that had been dead for so long…

Lydia grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards the living room where I heard voices. The sun glowed into the living room and I had to blink the brightness out of my eyes to see my family sitting in the room together. They all turned to me and Rose was the first to leap off the couch to embrace me. There was a flurry of dark curls that overtook my vision as she grabbed a hold of me. Again, there had been a surprising amount of hugging in the family all of a sudden.

"Genevive, you look so beautiful! It's so good to see you!"

"You're just saying that because we've always looked the same," I laughed. I had to eat my words when she pulled away and Rose and I were certainly not that similar looking anymore. Having all those children carved deep wrinkles into her face and gray hairs sprung out of her head like weeds. Time had aged my sister and made her…look like mom in a way.

"Oh you're so kind!" she giggled, taking my hand and pulling me down onto the couch.

Elyssa tilted herself into my view and nodded to me properly. "Genevive." Her gaze was emotionless and cold as she sat with her body poised perfectly.

"Elyssa, it's been a while."

"Indeed."

I guess that was all she had to say at that moment.

A haggard voice rose from the corner of Dad's leather chair. "Genevive, I am so glad to see you made it."

I turned and saw a ghostly figure sitting in the chair. Images of Dad in his final moments flashed in my eyes and it took me a few moments to realize that it was Eerin. Lydia moved over to him and sat down by his side.

"Eerin…I'm so glad for the invite, thank you for opening up the house to us again." I tried to swallow the lump in my throat but it didn't go down. He was so thin and pale, he just looked so exhausted and it broke my heart.

Rose said, "I never thought I would see the house like this again. I was expecting to see Mom baking in the kitchen and Dad in that chair you're in Eerin."

I said, "I was thinking the same thing when I came in today."

Lydia added, "I know I was the same way when I first came here as well."

"It's like you never touched anything while you were here by yourself," Elyssa said, looking around the room.

"That's probably more accurate than I'd like to admit," he nodded. "Even though Mom and Dad were gone, it felt like they still lived here so if I tried to move anything they would kick me out or make me sleep outside, like they used to."

We all chuckled, knowing we had all had that experience a handful of times over the years. Lydia said, "I know one time I didn't bring in enough money or food but I still slipped some dinner anyway. Mom caught me so I was kicked out of the house for a week…that probably wasn't normal for a lot of families, huh?"

"Of course it wasn't," Elyssa said sharply.

Rose said, "They did what they had to do, El. They made the mistakes they did when they were younger but they wouldn't have ever thought it was going to affect their kids as much as it did. They didn't have a lot of options so-"

Elyssa interrupted, "You don't need to suck up to them anymore, they've been dead for ages now. They were criminals and raised us to be criminals. That's not something we should be grateful for, it's made our lives a million times more difficult than it needed to be."

Lydia frowned at her and her expression darked. We had all seen that look from Lydia a million times before she lashed out at El. Even though me and her always got in the most physical altercations while growing up, Elyssa and her had the most verbal matches. I think we were all a bit surprised when Lydia's voice stayed oddly calm though. "Come on now. It's not like that was all they ever did for us kids."

"Not all of us got loved on by Dad the way you did. While you got to go run around in the forest, the rest of us had to learn how to cheat and steal and run for our lives."

"Anyone could have joined us, we could have used more hands when we were out hunting. But it doesn't matter, if Rose wants to remember the positive things about our parents she's allowed. If you want to be bent out of shape and bitter about what they did wrong, go on ahead. But you don't need to try and ruin her perception of Mom and Dad, she grew up with them too. We're not forgetting anything, I promise, but some of us are looking to move past that."

"Calling me bitter…" She crossed her arms at her. "Some of us were able to rise ourselves out of the situation we were born into, some of us weren't."

Lydia cocked her eyebrow. "What are you implying Elyssa?" Eerin tried to interject but Lydia held her hand up. "No, no. I'm curious what she has to say to me after knowing nothing about my life. Go on ahead."

"All I'm saying is that some of us moved above our station, married and have amazing children and a legacy to pass down to fix our family line. And some of us will be stuck as waitresses at a lowly bar for the rest of our lives."

Lydia had a malicious grin grow onto her lips. "Thank you Elyssa."

"For?"

"For finally giving me a good enough reason to smack the shit out of you!"

I jumped up and blocked Lydia before they could get into it with each other, as much as I would have enjoyed Elyssa being taken down a few notches. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Come on Ladies! I'm sure Eerin didn't gather all of us here to watch us kill each other!"

"Actually this is quite entertaining."

"Eerin!"

"Alright, alright. Elyssa, Lydia, please sit down and talk like a couple of adults. Not to mention El, Lydia was practically engaged to a king for a time so if anyone has risen above their station it was probably her."

Lydia swung her head around to our oldest brother. "Eerin Barclay! That is not your business to share."

The rest of us stared at them with wide eyes as a heavy knock came from the front door. She sighed and went over to let in whoever was here.

I tilted towards Rose and whispered, "Did he just say 'king'?"

"He most certainly did!"

"Do you think that's true?"

"I have no idea. Where does one even find a king around these parts? Certainly Elyssa would have known if there was and tried to entrap them if there were."

Elyssa's face fired up. "Rosalind, I swear-!"

A deep voice entered the room. "Somehow I knew I would show up to a cat fight about to happen."

We all turned and Percy walked into the living room with…Beren thrown over his shoulder? Percy, who looked like he had done nothing but lumber trees and eaten pies the last ten years, dropped our other brother down onto the floor in the center of the room.

He wiped his hands off on his pants. "Look who I picked up along the way. Who knows how long he was pacing up the road."

Beren rolled around, his eyes swimming as he looked up at all of us. "I-I was on my way here! I just got lost."

I narrowed my eyes on him. "Beren, are you drunk?"

"It's how I found him," Percy said, sitting down next to me on the couch.

"When I came across him in Bree that's how I found him too," Lydia sighed. "Thank you for bringing him, Percy."

"You're welcome, but it's still Percival. I'm not a child."

We all rolled our eyes. I said, "Who wants to be called 'Percival'? Not even Mom and Dad wanted to call you that, they always called you 'Percy' too. They just thought it was right for them to name one of their kids after Dad's brother and you're the unlucky kid that got stuck with it. Take the nickname, it's cute."

"You're still annoying as hell, Gen." He threw an arm over my shoulder and shook me a little bit. "You're not nearly smart enough to have such a big mouth."

"I've always been smarter than you and you've always had a bigger mouth than I have, Percy." I shoved off his hand and he smirked.

Lydia and Rose attempted to get Beren off the ground while we bickered with each other. The both of them had managed to sit him up and Elyssa looked incredibly uncomfortable by the display of his drunkenness. The Ice Queen must have been writhing with embarrassment at the reminder of her family roots.

Eerin seemed entertained though, looking among his siblings quietly.

He spoke up and said, "Let's all have something to eat. Then we can all sit down and talk about why everyone is here."

"Yes, we also need to discuss this so-called 'king' in your life Lydia," Elyssa stated, standing up with her arms crossed. "Any man who owns land does not qualify, by the way."

Lydia rolled her eyes and assisted Eerin to his feet. She seemed reluctant to put El in her place, which seemed odd. I think if any of us had a one-up on her we would take it and run with it as far as we could, but she just focused all her attention on Eerin while the rest of us funneled into the kitchen to have a meal together.

Beorn stumbled behind us, trying to keep up. Hopefully some food in his system would help sober him up so he could participate in the undoubtedly heavy conversations that were going to happen that day.

Eerin was already coughing a lot, I'm sure most people already knew the news that was going to happen. But, by what must have been a miracle, all of us were gathered together again. We were all alive and here in our family home again…never thought I would see the day.