Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) Read online

  A car splashed along the pot-holed road out front, beeping its horn in a friendly way and waving when the driver saw me sitting on the porch. I didn’t have the first clue who it was, but that was just the Irish way. I waved back, glad to have something to distract me from the guilty memories of that night.

  My hand disappeared into the box again, retrieving a few papers, jagged on one side, obviously torn from a book, and stapled together.

  “The Coming of The Fairies” By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  I knew that name. Searching though my long forgotten English class assignments I remembered he had written the Sherlock Holmes series, in addition to being a very well-respected scholar of his day. Again, Phin’s highlighted passages led me through the essay.

  Their bodies shine with the effect of rippling water in the sun...a very beautiful fairy figure, somewhat resembling a figure of Mercury, without winged sandals...He has Greek features and resembles a Greek statue--like a figure out of a Greek tragedy...He has a very beautiful face, and is concentrating his gaze on me...Their arrival causes a bright radiance to shine in the field, visible to us sixty yards away. She is very autocratic and definite in her orders, holding unquestioned command...She has a very beautiful face with an expression as if inviting Frances into Fairyland.

  Each description jumped off the page at me, spoken in an imagined little girl’s voice as she recounted her frequent meetings with the fair folk to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He went on to proclaim their existence in the essay based on these interviews and photographic evidence the cousins from Cottingley, England produced. Sir Arthur had long suspected there were other forces at work in our world and thought we were foolish and blind to think we were the only ones. The little girls from Cottingley gave him all the proof he needed to risk his career making such a proclamation. Phin’s proclamation scribbled across the final page:

  BEGUILING BEAUTY

  Last, but certainly not least, I pulled out a letter, hand written in pencil on lined notebook paper.

  I stared blankly at the single notebook page quivering in my hands. The chill of guilt that had washed over my body earlier became a full on tidal wave of arctic waters, turning my blood to frozen ice, my breath to a cloud of snowflakes, my heartbeat almost snuffed out by the truth I held in my hand.

  Could they be real?

  Abigail certainly didn’t seem like a lunatic. She seemed eloquent, and well versed, smart enough to hide what she knew from a world that would never believe, but too convinced to forget. And what was more, Phin had obviously sought out her answer, learned of her experiences and hoped to glean some answer from her words. His conclusion lay at the bottom of the page, just under her signature.

  MIND CONTROL

  I lost track of time sitting there. Tangled in the web of thoughts Phin’s box had spun in my mind. I’d dismissed it all as silly superstitions, the wild ramblings of Clonlea, intended more to bolster the tourist trade than to protect them from harm. But sitting alone on that porch, staring past Rose’s garden to the mysterious mist-cloaked fields—still glowing green despite the heavy gray blanket—I began to wonder if something more could be hiding there. Watching me, watching others like me. Waiting for us to get too close to the danger we would never see coming.

  When the phone rang loudly, I startled, gasping and trembling as if a ghost had just brushed icy fingers over my soul. With trembling hands I placed the letter back in the box, pulling a blanket around my shoulders to combat the constant chill settling into my bones as I raced to answer the call.

  Of course the caller had hung up by the time I got there.

  Rose and Phin’s ancient computer sat on a desk beside the phone. I quickly pulled up the Internet and typed three words into the search bar: “Are Fairies Real?” I was amazed by the number of webpage addresses that populated the screen before me.

  I clicked on the first one and read an article that interviewed an American man claiming to have witnessed fairies dancing in the night while he and friends were camping. The next webpage was dedicated to religions that still worshipped the fallen demigods.

  But the most interesting of all were the accounts from the middle ages, when some fairies still openly roamed the world of humans, ruling over remote villages—protecting them with their magic and imitating the life of normal human beings. They were the stars of the original fairytales that struck fear and admiration in the hearts of humans long before Hans Christian Anderson sanitized them for children’s ears. I was shocked to read the original tales of my childhood heroines. Disney certainly knew how to turn nightmares into dreams.

  A car’s engine rumbled in the distance and I quickly turned the computer off. Phin would be home soon, and I didn’t want him to think I was being nosey. He had hidden all this away for a reason. A reason that called to me in my visions and now had me overflowing with questions. Yet I didn’t know how I could bring up the painful past he had locked away to try and find answers.

  When I crossed the threshold, dread settled over me. I was too late. Phin was standing by the table, holding the pictures from his distant life in his hands.

  My heart dropped. I closed my eyes and sighed with regret.

  Lingering in the doorway, knowing my guilt was as exposed as his; I didn’t know what to do. So, I stood there stilled by uncertain remorse.

  When he looked up at me, pain and sadness registered behind his normally cheerful blue eyes, and I felt like a death row criminal.

  “Phin, I’m…I’m so sorry…I…” I stammered with my words, not really sure that any apology would be enough to earn his forgiveness. He closed his eyes and shook his head. The pictures spilled from his hands and fluttered down to the wet porch at his feet. I moved immediately to rescue the delicate pages as he blew past me into the house.

  I scrambled to gather everything up, placed it back in the box, and ran in behind him—continuing to stumble over my apologies as I went. He stood statue still at the kitchen counter looking through the gingham curtained window, his back to me as he was assaulted by the unexpected memories from a life he had locked away. He reached for the bottle of Irish whiskey that lived on the top shelf of Rose’s kitchen cabinet and poured a large glass. He quickly drank it down and poured another.

  His back was still to me when he finally spoke. “I love our Rose. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anything in this world. But I didn’t know her then. She didn’t come into my life until I needed her most.” He drank down the second glass, slamming in onto the counter top before he turned to face me. His eyes stayed on the ground. “I had to lock that life away if I was ever going to live this one.” His shoulders slumped and his head still hung down before me.

  His tone was almost apologetic, like he was afraid I was mad at him for cheating on Rose. It made me feel even worse.

  “Phin, you don’t owe me an explanation. I never should have been digging around in your stuff. I’m so sorry.” I shook my head and put the box on the kitchen table between us. Securing the safety of his memories from prying eyes with the click of the lock. His head popped up immediately as if conditioned to the sound of the box’s latch like Pavlov’s dogs.

  “No use in keeping secrets, now. Imagination often makes a story much worse than the truth,” he said as he grabbed his bottle and glass and made his way over to the table. He sat down and poured another glass before he pulled the leather box over to him. I sunk weakly into a chair across from him but didn’t say a word.

  He took a deep breath before he turned the little key. The latch flipped open once again, and I wondered how long it had been since Phin had locked these secrets away. I watched as his rough hands delicately lifted the stack of papers from the box. After they were all laid neatly on the table before us and Phin had taken a bolstering pull from his glass, he began.

  “We were children when we fell in love. We had stars in our eyes back then and were dumb enough to think the world was ours.” The edges of his eyes wrinkled like a paper bag as he looked into the box.
“I had promised her we would marry as soon as I had made enough money from my riding to buy us a house. I was so successful at it that we were engaged at 18. She was a beauty, all right. More than a few local men tried to steal her away, but she only had eyes for me.” He picked up the engagement photo and it fluttered in his trembling grip.

  One of his great hands moved to cover his mouth, and he rubbed back and forth against his scratchy day old beard before he continued.

  “It was a few days before our wedding date. She had been visiting a friend in the next village over and was supposed to be back for dinner at dusk. She never showed up, and the town launched a nighttime search party. The land was different back then. There were still dangerous things in these parts, and a woman alone in the night was not safe. We searched for weeks but never found a trace of her.” The rain picked up again outside the window and hit hard against the roof above. I turned to look out the window and Phin poured himself another drink before he continued.

  “Rumors began to circulate—mostly by the men who had wanted her for themselves—that she had gotten cold feet and run away so she wouldn’t have to marry me. I knew that wasn’t the truth. I knew my Emma Lee. She was fiery, and if she didn’t want to be with me, she would have had no problem telling me that herself. I knew someone had taken her. But when no human suspects turned up, I turned to other answers.”

  “I was too proud to believe the truth. I was looking for any answer other than her not loving me. I just couldn’t believe it was true. So I followed my own leads. I became quite obsessed with it, as you can see.” Phin fingered through the pages of notes before him. I held my clasped hands tightly between my knees, not moving a muscle as he poured his painful past out like the whiskey in his glass.

  “I met Rose right after my accident. She breathed life into my dying soul like she was my guardian angel. I knew if Rose and I were going to have a real life, I would have to lock this old one away. It was the only way. I told her my secrets, and we agreed to leave them in the past. I haven’t looked at this since.”

  I watched as he continued to look over the pages, his fingertips tracing along the lines of words he scribbled to himself years ago. An odd smile played at his lips.

  “Did you ever find out what happened to her?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “Huh? Oh…” Phin said, snapping back to the realization that he wasn’t alone. “Yeah, she came back about ten years later. She offered no explanation for where she had been and expected us to pick up exactly where we had left off. But Rose and I had been married for years at that point. Emma Lee quickly left, and I never heard from her again.”

  “Do you ever wonder what would have happened?” I asked sheepishly, wondering if I was prying too much.

  “Never. That first life wasn’t meant to be mine—it just filled the years until I found Rose. This is where I belong. Even if I had to lose everything I had to get it—it’s where I’m supposed to be.” Phin reached across the table and patted my hand. The sparkle was back in his eyes when I looked up at him. I sighed with relief.

  “So, do you believe...all that?” I asked, nodding my head toward the box between us, doubt crinkling my face like it always had before whenever locals started talking their crazy talk—although I was slightly less sure of my skepticism than before.

  “Tis a foolish man who says he knows it all, Faye,” he said in an overtly thick Irish brogue and winked a dancing blue eye at me.

  Chapter 10

  Only a Dream

  “I’m really sorry about the other night. My friends can be idiots sometimes.” Lucas’ words echoed around the cement walls of the wash rack, startling me and the new horse I was tacking up.

  “Oh,” I gasped, spinning on my heel to face him. “No worries. It’s fine. April already told me that,” I offered a cheerful smile and shrugged my shoulders to dismiss the earlier encounter as if it hadn’t been horribly embarrassing for me. Encouraged by my welcome, he quickly grabbed the brush I offered and began grooming the new horse with me. An awkward silence filled the room. Conversation had never been difficult between Lucas and I, but standing there I could almost feel him struggling to find something to say. Several times, Lucas looked at me and started to say something. Every time he stopped and turned back to the horse. I knew he had something on his mind, so I remained silent and smiled at him as I always had whenever his eyes met mine.

  In April’s mind, my first festival had been a huge success—I had danced with the one guy in Clonlea every girl was dying to dance with. It didn’t matter to her that the only reason he had danced with me was because he felt some weird protective pity a big brother might feel for his homely little sister.

  After Dayne DeLaney’s seemingly bi-polar behavior at the dance, I had decided he was not going to get the chance to break my heart. I had convinced my mind that forgetting him was a good thing. My body, on the other hand, refused to listen. My resolve to forget him would’ve been easier if I hadn’t had to see him at the barn everyday. Of course, he still had the same effect on me he always had—I felt tingly in all the right places and managed to make a total fool of myself if an opportunity presented itself. But despite my rebellious body, I kept from falling at his feet like some rock star groupie.

  I had also decided April was right about Lucas. He was the perfect kind of guy for a summer fling. So I forced myself to fill my brain with thoughts of Lucas and forget about Dayne. As if that was possible.

  “So…do you forgive me enough to dance with me at the next festival?” Lucas finally got up the nerve to ask as a slight blush and a hopeful smile spread across his face. I was still new to the dating thing, but I was pretty sure it meant he liked me.

  “Of course. I would love to,” I said, releasing the hoof I was picking out. We exchanged another smile as I wiped at a stray hair with the back of my hand. I was having trouble getting the hair because my hands were caked with dirt from the muddy hoof. Lucas reached over and tucked the unruly strand behind my ear. His hand lingered against my cheek a second longer than it should have. See? I told myself. This whole forget about Dayne thing was going to be super easy. We continued on in silence, but it wasn’t awkward anymore.

  When Lucas’ arm rubbed against mine as he was reaching to brush the top of the horse’s back, he stopped. His arm rested comfortably on my shoulder and he took a step closer. Just inches away from me, the weight of his eyes made my ears blush and my belly begin to somersault with nervous anticipation. Was this it? Was I finally going to get kissed?

  “Faye, I really like…” his whispered words caught in his throat, interrupted by a flurry of movement at the wash rack entrance. We both turned to see Dayne leading LeSheen into the open stall beside me. LeSheen’s huge body, and Dayne’s presence, stifled every bit of courage my words had given Lucas. Lucas quickly dropped the brush back into the bucket, flashed me an embarrassed smile, and mumbled something about getting back to work.

  “Was I interrupting something?” Dayne said with his back to me. I heard him swallow a laugh.

  “Nothing,” I said shaking my head and staring at the floor over my shoulder, refusing to look at the guy I was trying to hate. Dayne never tacked up in here, and his presence made the place feel unfamiliar. I tossed a brush toward the bucket. It clattered off to the side even though I usually never missed, and we both reached down to pick it up at the same time. Dayne was quicker than me, and was standing, holding the brush out to me, before I made it to the ground.

  I slowly stood back up and reached out for the brush, but just as I was about to grab it, he pulled it away. Without even thinking about it, my head jerked up to his and my brow pulled into a deep question mark. A devilish little grin played on his lips. I was totally caught off guard by his behavior. Aside from the festival, he hadn’t said two words to me since I had worked at Ennishlough that weren’t instructions about the horses. And now he was teasing me? In normal girl-boy world, teasing usually equaled flirting. But this wasn’t normal girl-b
oy world; this was me and my exquisitely perfect boss. Danger signals flared somewhere in the distance, but my body refused to listen to my mind. That was all it took for me to become putty in the hands I had vowed to pretend didn’t exist.

  I looked down at the brush he held out in his hand. My eyes slowly traced up his arms, over his shoulder and up to his eyes. I studied his face, looking for an explanation as to why he was suddenly being so…nice? His smile widened, sending me into near cardiac arrest, as he handed me the brush. As if nothing had just happened, he turned back to LeSheen and continued tacking up.

  “Thank you,” I sputtered at his back, the slight trill of shock clearly making my words sound more like a question than a statement. What had just happened? This was new territory for me. I knew what the basic rules of boy-girl world would suggest this interaction meant. But that was simply impossible.

  “Where are you riding today?” He asked casually, obviously not as affected by me as I was by him.

  “Um…out to the eastern pastures,” I said, thankful that half my brain was able to form words while the other half still obsessed with what had just passed between us. I snapped back from my silent musings and turned to groom the horse in front of me so he wouldn’t see the effect his simple gesture had.

  “Yeah, that’s a nice ride this time of day,” he agreed. A chorus of squeaky leather and jingling girth buckles ended with a solid thud as he slung a saddle onto LeSheen’s back. Maybe Dayne was bored and looking for a friend? Anyone would get lonely living in a castle by themselves. There was no way the little old lady he lived with could offer much in the way of company. Aside from LeSheen, Dayne didn’t have any friends in town. Maybe he had decided I was the lucky one?

  He finished tacking up and the clip clop of LeSheen’s hooves echoed down the barn aisle as he began to leave. I don’t know why I said it. The words were out of my mouth before I even knew they were in there.