Ties of Blood

PROLOGUE

| PROLOGUE |

     [ Tuesday, November 05, 2019. ]

The slap was of ferocious quality. With so much potency, it sent our mother stumbling back, hands cupping her face with wide eyes. The harsh sound of skin on skin contact halted all the momentary shouting, plunging the vast space of the dinning hall into a truly astonished silence.

     My mouth gawked open.

     The bustling noise of our annual Guy Fawkes night party behind me faded into a distant buzzing sound as I stared in from one of the outside windows.

     Nova's hand fell limp by her side and she didn't show an ounce of remorsefulness on her flushed face, not even when our father rushed to his wife's aid and helped her become steady on her feet once more.

     Both adults in the room stared at their daughter like they didn't recognise her. As though she were a stranger who had happened to gatecrash this party. I take a step to rush inside, ready to intervene and drag Nova away before she was permanently disowned, but then the shouting restarts, only this time, it was solely our father who provided the reprimanding in a brutal tone.

I wondered whether he was trying to cut Nova as deep as she had to our mother, but using his words instead of physical violence.

     It didn't have the objective affect however. Because, in the midst of his outrage, I lip read Nova very calmly tell them, "there's a special place in hell for you both," before whirling around and striding out of the room, slamming the door shut on her way out.

     I don't waste a moment. Dumping my sparkler into the water butt that is beside me, I hurried around the side of the house, reaching the front just as Nova emerged and started making her way up the driveway.

Her face was buried in her phone, fingers going about a mile a minute across the screen. There wasn't any sign of a bag but she had slipped on a baseball cap. She also, thankfully, had put on her favourite baby pink teddy puffer jacket, a piece of clothing that had seen much better days — it had frayed at the bottom and at the sleeves, and bits of fabric were coming loose and unraveling — but she refused to throw it away as it was brought by our grandmother.

     Nova was oddly sentimental like that.

"Nova," I call out, toning down my naturally loud voice into a much more feeble one. I didn't want to give anyone at the party a reason to become distracted with our family drama. Gossip around here is rife, especially if people think there's a golden opportunity to make themselves seem better by talking about the sordid tales of others. "Nova!" My call has transformed into a shrill cry now. She knew I was coming and it wasn't like I was trying to be inconspicuous with her, but she didn't so much as lift her head, not even to tell me to fuck off.

     A burst of anger ignited inside my chest and it surged me forward, my steps increasing in speed, my worn out docs crunching the gravel of the drive loudly under my soles.

     I grab her forearm and forcibly spin her around to face me, with so much pull that was it not for her quick reflexes, her phone would've clattered to the ground and cracked right under our noses.

Peering down briefly to the hand in which she clutches her phone with, I squint at the illuminated screen, which is open to a conversation with someone called Jade. That name didn't sound even remotely familiar but Nova tucks the small device into the back pocket of her jeans before I have a chance to read the lengthy white and blue bubbles, and jerks out of my grip.