“Katrina, it’s nearly nightfall.  Please make sure the tent flaps are secure.” 

“ ‘K, Mom.” 

“Josephine, please get the water ready to boil.” 

“Okay.” 

“Honey, can you start the fire while I finish sharpening these knives?” 

“I’m on it.”

“Everyone else, just….relax”. 

I looked up from my position on the gnarled tree trunk as I methodically honed each blade to a perfected brilliance.  Pride swelled within me as I watched my daughters take to their tasks almost innately. Pride, in the sense that they were doing exactly what needed to be done, despite the circumstances. 

The last year had been excruciatingly hard on our family.  I had been unemployed from the mortgage industry and we were barely meeting our most basic of needs with my husband’s meager income. There was no hope on the immediate horizon for my finding a job in the slacking economy and being partially disabled made any job hard to come by for me. We were forced to sell almost every worldly possession and were maintaining on fifty dollars a week for groceries, paying bills every other month in an effort to get by…eventually, the eviction notice came….

It was the perfect opportunity for my relatives to condemn us…yet, again.

I had always been the “black sheep” of my family.  I married young, to a black man and early on had been disowned by the entire lot of them.  When my first daughter, Josephine, was born, my grandfather wanted to meet his new great-granddaughter.   I stood my ground and told my family that I had my own family now…we were a package deal… and they had to accept all of us, or none of us.  Over time, a few people came around and before long, we were partially embraced back into the hearth… while smirks and disdainful looks were cast.

The only member of my family that fully supported us was the one who was the most adamant about the union in the first place….my grandmother.  She was a staunch Roman Catholic, Sicilian woman.  Although her stature was small, she led the family as a true matriarch. It was because of her that everyone else tolerated my "unholy" marriage.  She and I had always shared a special bond.  I was her eldest grandchild and her namesake and I was never more at peace then when we reunited after those few, bleak years apart.  We’d spent many afternoons together  before she passed only four years earlier, sharing stories and family secrets…we bonded over the fact that she understood me….she and my grandfather having been ostracized by his family for their marriage, as well;  having to do it all alone.  She apologized for her behavior and gave me courage to pursue our love and happiness. I longed for the comfort of her presence, but maintained strength from the lessons I’d learned from her. 

“Jo, make sure the dogs get tied up to the tree before it gets dark.  We don’t want them wandering off and becoming coyote bait”. 

“You’re such a girl scout!” My daughter laughed musingly at me as she rounded up our dear doggies for the evening.  I stuck my tongue out at her in fun and laughed to myself.  She used to always tell me that whenever I beat her at the one and only board game our family owned, “Worst Case Scenario”.  The object of the game was to answer obscure questions about survival skills and move along the paths through woods and mountains until the person with the best skills won.  

“Mom watched too many of those “Man versus Wild” shows!”  Katrina laughed, joining the conversation.  It was true.  I even surprised my husband, the ex-special forces soldier, with my expertise.  He loved it, though…and often our game of matching wits turned into frolicking and foreplay.  He grinned at me now as he stoked the fire, assuring warmth through the cold autumn evening.  I winked at him and blew a kiss over the air as I examined my grandfather’s old fish knife as it gleamed in the setting sun.  The striations were perfect. 

My grandfather had been a navigator and captain in the once booming tuna industry along San Diego’s shores.  He had taught me to navigate by the stars, knit netting and keep instruments like knives and hooks sharp and rust free.  He took me on many excursions into the open waters to deep sea dive and swim with the sharks.  The ocean was my second home and reflecting on those days with him as a young girl almost made me feel claustrophobic in the nest of looming trees and thick branches surrounding us.  I smiled lightly as I gently placed his old knife on the cloth with the others and turned my thoughts to thankfulness for his instructions. My grandparents were gone now, but they had left their legacy deeply embedded in my heart and mind.   

I stood up stretched my limbs in the brisk mountain air.  “Girls, can you get everyone’s jackets?”  My girls scrambled from their positions to bring each of us a little added protection for the evening. 

“Mom…”  Katrina whispered as she drew close to me.  “They’re all just staring at us…it’s creepy.”  I glanced around at the other family members who had accepted the invitation I’d extended to join us for an evening at our new home, as they hung around, silently staring at my darling family in horror as we made preparations for dinner, roasting marshmallows and telling scary stories by the fire.  I could see the hatred in their eyes that they had for us, evident and clear.

“They think they are too good for this kind of lifestyle,” I assured my daughter.  Don’t worry about it.  After tonight, they will see that this is for the best.  Go check on the kids and make sure they are still asleep…I don’t want the younger ones to get scared if they wake up in the dark.” 

Katrina scooted off to the larger ten-man tent to check on my nieces, nephew, young half brother and young cousin, all napping inside after a long afternoon of fishing and frolicking in the stream nearby, so tired, we had to carry them back to the campsite. 

I joined my husband by the campfire.  “Did you get all of the trenches dug and secure the perimeter?” I asked him. 

“Yes, ma’am”, he dutifully chuckled. “Everything is set.  Nothing’s getting in or out of this campsite without us knowin!” 

“Thanks, baby”, I offered, surveying the outskirts of our site, just beyond the trees.  

“When’s your aunt gonna be here?” He asked.   “You know her!” I replied, rolling my eyes. The cell phone in my pocket buzzed. I flipped it open…. “Speak of the devil!”  I laughed.  “Hello?”  I listened to her rant between the static and offered to send my husband to her just as the last of the pre-paid minutes on the phone died out. 

“Where is she?”  My husband asked. 

“By the playground.”

“ I’ll go get her then.”  I silently prayed he had enough gas left to get there and back and waved to him as he pulled away.  

I looked around at my family.  “Bedina’s on her way.  As soon as she gets here, we’ll get the party started.”  They glared at me in silence as the last glimpses of light faded out of view.  I glared back at them and cursed them inwardly for the hatred they’d spewed over the last twenty years of my marriage.  They all shared the same self touting, self righteous attitudes.  But, tonight….tonight they would know who the strong ones were. Tonight, we would prevail over the threats and backstabbing. 

I walked near to the big tent and waved my girls out.  “Come on….let them sleep.  They can eat when they wake up.  Her majesty will be arriving any moment.”  My daughters followed me to join the others around the fire just as our Jeep rounded the last corner to our home.  

As my husband pulled up with my aunt, she jumped out of the Jeep and stumbled over rocks and tree roots in her high heels.  She was the biggest hypocrite of them all. 

“Where is everyone?” she yelled into the night, making her way closer to us in out of the dark.  

“Everyone is around the campfire, I hollered back, waving my arm in a huge sweeping motion towards the other members of my family, my daughters standing firmly by my side. 

She stopped cold in her tracks and stared in disbelief at the sight of our entire family bound and gagged with duct tape, hanging nearly lifeless, from shark hooks in the trees as my husband crept up behind her…

“Get the sheets,” I ordered. Quickly and quietly, we fitted each of the bodies with sheets slit with eyeholes…. 

.…“Everyone have a marshmallow?”  All of the children edged closer to the fire with their treats. 

“Where’s mommy?”  My three year old niece asked snuggling into my arms. I ignored the question and gave her a big hug. 

“Who wants a scary story?” I asked as the eyes of the other children lit up in affirmative response.  “Is that why you put up all the ghosts in the trees?  To scare us?”  My young half-brother asked. 

“Yes!”  I giggled.  “Now, listen close….” 

...Great Grandma told me once that a very long time ago, there lived two young people who fell in love.  The girl was from a very wealthy family of aristocrats in France….Great Grandpa’s family.  The boy was from a poor family in Italy…Great Grandma’s family. 

They met in the woods of the girl’s neighboring home when her carriage broke down.  The young man offered to help fix the carriage so that they could be on their way.  The girl’s father called the poor young man horrible names all the while allowing him to fix the carriage. 

The young girl liked the young man and offered him a seat at their table for dinner for saving her and her parents.  Her parents were angry at this, but allowed him to join them.

Over the next few weeks, the family put him to work on their large estate, giving him meager food and board for his services.  During this time, the young couple fell in love and decided to announce their intent to marry to her family. 

Her entire family scorned her and mocked them both for their decision.  They stood their ground and ignored her family’s outcries and married in secret.  Soon, however, word of their marriage got out and the girl’s family disowned her and cast her out of their home.

With no where to live, the two made their way to the woods, away from her family’s prying eyes.They lived off the land for many months until the winter approached. With little clothing or food, and the weather about to turn bitterly cold, the couple became destitute.

They decided to set a trap for the carriages traveling through so that they could ambush the people in them and steal their food and anything else of value so that they could live.  They went about strewing the path with fallen trees limbs and large rocks and digging holes in the road.

One day they heard a carriage coming along the path near their hiding place in the woods.  With their plan in place, the carriage had to stop as its wheel plunged into a hole in the ground.  The two climbed aboard the carriage and swung open the door to find the girls parents inside. 

Her parents, who did not even recognize their own daughter, pleaded for their lives.  The two had pity on them and offered them a seat at their fire so that they could at least have a warm place to stay for the night. 

The girl’s parents mocked the couple and laughed at them for how little they had.  The husband ignored their rude words and told his wife’s parents that they had each other, and that was all they needed.  Her parents laughed even louder, hoarding the best meat for themselves and taking the places closest to the fire, leaving the two out in the cold for the night.  

The young girl cursed her parents for their insensitivity and swore to her husband that that very night, she would love them no longer and find a way to keep them from ever hurting the two again….and together, the two killed her parents as they slept. 

Carefully, they skinned the bodies and dried the skins to use as covers from the cold.  They washed and cooked the organs of her parents to eat throughout the winter months.  And the bones they sharpened to make knives. 

More and more travelers began passing through the woods and they each met the same fate as the girl’s parents.  They only spared the lives of the children and made them part of their family.

The woods became know as haunted, for many people were known to go in and never return.  Once in a while, one or two people escaped, and described the activities of the family in the woods to anyone who would listen.  Terror grew among the people and no one dared go in them again, for fear that they would end up dead; and the legend of the Skin Hounds was born. 

“That wasn’t very scary!” My nephew pouted. 

“No?”  I asked smiling coyly into the eyes of my dying family hanging from the trees around us.

“I’m cold.  I want to go to bed!”  One of my nieces muttered. 

“Yeah!” Came the cry from the crowd of children. 

“I’m still hungry! What’s for breakfast?” One of them asked. 

“I’m not sure… but I’m sure your mother will be glad to help figure it out,” I offered, leading them off to the safety of the tents.