I paused this time to let this sink in, then turned to my uncle.  “How did the feud start?  Why do we fight?”

He was confused at being put on the spot and looked to his wife for help, but I shook my head and told him it was his question to answer.  I wanted him to answer because he was a lot like my dad – someone who went with the flow, and I wanted him to face the answers to these questions himself.

“It – it started centuries ago,” he said slowly.  “Millennia, even.  I don’t know why.  It’s just always been the way things are.  Hydras and kapras fight.”

I considered this, and then decided to drop a particular bit of knowledge on them that I’d learned at Rosen Library.

“I’ve been studying at Rosen Library for the past eight years,” I told him, and the others.  “And I learned what started the feud.”  This immediately got their attention, and Toph’s, too.

I smiled just a bit, but it wasn’t a happy smile.  “Years ago, before Rosen Library was even established, there was a large community of kapras and hydras living in what is modern-day Greece.  They were cordial – friends, even.  Then the kapras started creating a new kind of dye from shells they found in the ocean.  The hydras ran a shipping line and they planned to ship things together.”  My family was all blinking at me, wide-eyed.  “The first shipment, though, things went wrong.  The ship sank in a massive storm.  The hydras blamed the kapras for over-stocking the ship and the kapras blamed the hydras for ineffective repairs on the ship.  They argued until it turned bitter and they both split, heading in opposite directions.”

I waited for this to sink in.  “The feud started over a trading dispute.  A dispute that came about because of a massive storm, regardless of whether the ship needed repairs or had too much cargo packed on board.  A dispute that only covered one ship – and the crew survived, by the way.  The only loss was monetary, and had they just been able to set aside their pride for a few moments, they could have rallied and recouped the loss on subsequent shipments, but both sides were upset and blamed the other instead.”  I paused.  “For the record, the crew was saved by a kraken, and the kraken said both sides were right.  The cargo was overstuffed and the ship was in need of repairs.  So at the end of the day, both sides were right – and both were in the wrong, as well.  But those issues might not have meant anything, if the storm hadn’t happened.  It’s very likely the ship would have made it to its destination despite the issues, and it’s likely the storm would have sunk the ship anyway even if the ship had gotten the repairs and had less cargo.”  I eyed them, then amended my statement.  “According to the kraken, anyway.  It lived in the Mediterranean Sea for some centuries and this was far from the first shipwreck or storm it had seen.  It said they were both right about the other party, but both wrong that it caused the ship to sink.  The storm sank the ship.  Period.”

I took another moment to let them process this.  “And this, this is what you want us to fight and die for?  For a trading dispute thousands of years ago that didn’t bankrupt anyone, only set them back a bit.  You want to see your cousins, your children, your nieces and nephews, your grandchildren, your friends, and their children – you want to see us all willing to risk our lives for a trading dispute from centuries ago?”

I let my incredulity seep into my voice, because for all their claims that this was a noble cause, I couldn’t see it.  They didn’t even know why it had started, and I wasn’t sure if knowing would change anything, but it felt even more stupid and pointless when I did find out the origin.

I stopped, trying to regain my emotional control before I told them what I really thought about it all – not that I would mind with some people, but these were my family and I wasn’t going to win a verbal war with them if I tore into Marilyn and the other leaders right out – but Toph decided to step in.

“Have you all noticed a change since the curse?  Not just the lack of magic and fights, but a change in the feel of the town?”  He gave them a reassuring smile.  “I understand the first kids who grew up under the curse have started school within the past couple of years.  On the way over here, I saw some of them, laughing and playing together in the school yard.  Did your kids ever do that?”  He asked my grandmother, then turned his eyes to my aunt and uncle, then my dad.  They all looked troubled and didn’t answer.  “Have any kids ever done that?  Just been laughing and having fun playing together, not worried because their lives might be at risk just for going to school?”  He gave them a sad sort of look.  “I can’t imagine growing up as a child in this town, where I was afraid to go anywhere because it very well could result in my death.  And to be honest, I can’t imagine deciding to have children in that environment and not only not worrying about the world they’re being brought into, but then encouraging them to join in that fight.  Are there no instincts to protect your young and try to keep them safe?”

In another person, those words might have offended, but Toph sounded so sad that it was hard even for my aunt to get upset.

Instead, she mumbled something about it just being the way things were, but neither she nor my uncle would look at any of their kids or at Toph.

My grandmother was staring at the ground, her brows furrowed.  “You can’t understand our way of life,” she stated at last.  “It’s different for you.  You’re not one of us.”

“No, I’m not,” Toph agreed.  “But Winter grew up here, and she saw it all firsthand.  Is that really what you want for your grandchildren – to grow up on a battlefield and for the best case scenario to be chosen by the next town leader to engage in even more fights?  That is what you want for your grandchildren?  To constantly go into war and risk their lives with no end in sight?”  He gave her an aggrieved look.  “I never knew my grandparents, they died long ago, but my mother would have given her life to protect any of us from danger until we were able to do so ourselves.  Not only that, she made sure we had the tools we needed to go into any career.  Yet from what I understand, your education system has been massively lacking, and any of your young people who go out and try to get a college degree – for example, the ones who decide to be nurses, maybe?  And come back to town to help? – they have to get another year or two of education just to try to catch up to everyone else, maybe more, even.  That alone would make many parents move, to get their kids into a better educational system, let alone the dangers they face.”  He looked at my family, his expression earnest.  “Did none of you ever sit back and think about what was best for your family?  For your children?  Feud and family history be damned – just what was best for them?”

The adult members of my family all remained studiously quiet, not looking at him, with expressions ranging from guilt to anger at being called out.

But at the same time, they couldn’t contradict him, either.  They clearly hadn’t put the needs of their kids first.

I had calmed myself by now, so I quietly – but still firmly – resumed my speech.  “It’s time for the feud to be put to rest.  It’s been carried on for far longer than it ever should have been allowed, for reasons most of the town residents can’t even articulate, just because that’s how things have been done.  Well, it’s time for change.  Forced change if need be, but change nonetheless.”  I looked at them, fearlessly.  I felt strongly about this topic and Mother had given me the magical ability to back up my claim.  “The feud started for foolish reasons that shouldn’t have lasted beyond a generation at most.  It serves only to add more deaths and more deaths and will never stop if we don’t choose to stop it.  And it has destroyed this town and so many families, so many futures – all for nothing more than the fact that this is the way things have always been done.”  A bit of bitterness in that last part, but I decided it was valid under the circumstances.

“So to be clear, I will not lift the curse until I see that the feud is genuinely and completely over.  Until I can see that children can go to school without fear and that won’t change.  That teachers will actually provide education without favoritism to one side of town or the other.  That hydras and kapras can interact politely and even shop at the same stores and see a nurse from the ‘other’ side of town if they need to.  I’m not demanding forgiveness immediately – that’ll take time, for both sides.  But Mother gave this town the curse as a gift – a way to finally end this senseless feud once and for all.  Until I see that this town is truly embracing that gift and that everyone, not just handfuls from each side, is dedicated to a future where fear and violence are no longer the rule of the day, then the curse cannot be lifted.  I cannot in good conscience lift the curse knowing that it will mean more deaths and an endless cycle of violence.”

I scanned them slowly, not sure if they all understood.  My cousins were old enough they were capable of comprehending what I was talking about, but it was honestly the older members of the family I was more worried about.  They’d been stuck in this tradition for so long I wasn’t sure if they were capable of understanding another point of view – or how wrong their way of life was.  Did they really understand how bad life was for kids and those who had to face violence on a daily basis?

“I can’t read.”

This statement shocked all of us and we turned to look at Manuel, who looked slightly embarrassed, but then raised his chin defiantly, his eyes focused on his parents.

“You never knew this, but for the first three of so years of school, I barely went.  Instead I usually hid out in the lake, waiting until school was over, and then pretended to go to school.  My teachers didn’t report me because they didn’t care enough to do so, so they let me pass the classes even if I hadn’t attended a single one.  I started going a little more often after I made some other kapra friends, but even then, I didn’t go to class much.  I just went to school.  And I didn’t learn anything.”  He gulped a bit.  “I didn’t even realize how much it could hurt me not to have attended and learned some basic stuff.  Like how to read.  I never learned how, and by the time I did try to attend classes, the teachers didn’t even notice that I was lost and when I tried to ask one of them for help, they’d just brush me off and tell me it didn’t matter, I didn’t have to understand anything to pass the class.”  His hands tightened into fists.  “That’s why I got the job making shingles.  You think it’s too blue-neck and I should have gotten better, but I can’t.  It’s a job that doesn’t need me to read, so it’s the only thing I can do.”  He stopped, looking almost lost.

I felt a little shocked that I’d never realized it, but then, Manuel and I didn’t overlap classes and I’d never seen him doing his homework.  I’d assumed he didn’t care, like most of the students, but it hadn’t dawned on me that he just didn’t know how to read and didn’t know how to get help by the time he was older, especially when the teachers would just brush him off like that.

“I’m trying to learn now,” he added, a little more stoutly.  “Online.  My boss realized I was struggling and told me about some websites that help you learn how to read.  But,” he glanced at me, then at Toph, and then straightened his shoulders a bit while he looked at his parents, trying not to be nervous, “Winter’s right.  And Toph’s right.  This feud has cost us all so much and it’s time – it’s time to end it.  It’s time kids don’t have to be so scared of school that they hide in the lake and never learn how to read.  It’s time to let it go.”

He looked at his parents, almost pleading with them to understand.

His dad looked almost defeated, but my aunt’s response genuinely shocked me.  She sat down at the kitchen table and started bawling outright, wiping at her face with her apron every now and then.  The younger kids attempted to discretely scatter at her outburst, while my grandmother went over to the stove mumbling something about schools that I couldn’t quite catch, but – but at least she wasn’t mad at Manuel.

As I watched Manuel awkwardly attempt to comfort his mom and his confused dad, I felt the first glimmer of hope.

Maybe, just maybe, even the die-hard feud/Marilyn fans could see the light, after all.  Maybe they could realize that this feud had affected them in ways they didn’t even realize yet and that ending it would be best for everyone, regardless of the pain in the past.

It was time to put the feud to rest.  Hopefully, the entire town would understand and agree to this in time.