The Annual Migration of the Kin

Fiction

Father, The Kin arrived on Tuesday. They came through the north pass in a grey blur, smelling of wet slate and old wool. They are currently huddled in the low meadow, exactly where you told me they would be twenty years ago. You forgot to mention that they leave a silver-burn on the rye. The grass is already curling. It looks like a chemical spill. I spent the morning hauling the salt blocks. The price of spectral brine has tripled since the last migration. I had to buy the cheap grade from the valley mill; it is clumped and smells like sulfur, but the dead do not have the luxury of a refined palate. They crowd around the blocks, shivering in that rhythmic, mindless way they do. It is not a spiritual experience. It is livestock management. Uncle Silas is the problem this year. He has decided he dislikes the current trajectory of the wind. He has parked himself right in the center of the migration path, refusing to budge toward the veil. The rest of the ancestors are piling up behind him like a traffic jam on a one-lane bridge. They are agitated. The air in the house is humming with their collective impatience, which is making the dogs howl and the milk sour in the fridge. I tried pushing him with the iron rod. He just looked at me with those milky eyes and sighed. It was a long, rattling sound that lasted three minutes. He thinks he is making a point about ancestral sovereignty. In reality, he is just a nuisance who refuses to vacate the premises. I am tired, Father. My back aches from the salt bags and my nerves are frayed from the humming. You left me the land, but you forgot to mention that the land comes with a seasonal infestation of our own bloodline. I hope wherever you are is quiet. I hope there are no ghosts there who think they still own the pasture. Do not bother replying. I am too busy scrubbing silver-burn off the fences.