Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) Read online

  Amber was the one who really caught my eye, standing amongst the friends that had taken my place, her long black hair tied in loose waves, wearing a blue gown that was almost the exact same shade as her eyes. The group fussed and posed as proud parents snapped photos in the eerily surreal light that always follows a spring rainstorm. Amber smiled at one of the girls and laughed when her boyfriend snaked his arm around her waist, pulling her close to steal a kiss. I found myself smiling too despite the empty feeling tugging at my stomach. Part of me was glad Amber had moved on with her life, even if I wasn’t a part of it anymore. The other part of me would’ve given anything to be standing beside her in one of those gorgeous gowns.

  An unfamiliar ache squeezed my chest as I watched them from my hiding place in a row of overgrown azaleas. It took me awhile to realize it was regret that gripped my heart like a vice that afternoon. The contrast between them—looking like Hollywood starlets— and me—dressed as a grubby barn hand—was painfully obvious. It was impossible to pretend my life was nothing if not regrettable at that moment.

  I startled slightly, lost in my own depressing thoughts, when the limo horn honked twice and the parents waved at the group pulling out of the driveway. Excited squeals carried clear as day from inside the limo as it rolled away. The sunroof opened and one by one, the girls’ heads emerged from the top of the white car where they waved again like beauty pageant contestants.

  I jumped into the middle of the azalea bushes as they passed, not wanting to be seen. Spitting out a leaf, I peeked through the branches in time to see Amber staring at my house as they passed with an empty look in her eyes. She always stared at my house like that, like she still didn’t understand why I’d abandoned her. But neither of us had ever tried to make things right. Up until that point I hadn’t admitted to myself how much I cared.

  But crouching there, hiding in the bushes of my own front yard like the loser I was, I realized how stupid my decisions had been. I realized how much I’d missed by giving up my teenage years and suddenly, I wanted the chance to do it all again. But graduation was weeks away, and unless there was a fairy godmother hanging around I had never met before, my life wasn’t getting any better anytime soon.

  I untangled myself from the bush where I’d taken refuge and slung my bag over my shoulder with a great sigh. Walking back to the car door, I stopped and sighed again—those gasps of air were the only thing keeping tears from cascading down my cheeks. Suddenly, even riding didn’t seem like fun. It was only a reminder of how many hours I had spent at the barn chasing a stupid equestrian scholarship while everyone else was living a normal teenage life without me. I kicked at the tire with the well-worn tip of my riding boot and turned back to the house, sighing again because it was the only thing making me feel better.

  “What are you doing here?” Mom looked at me with a wrinkled forehead over a pair of über trendy half reader glasses when I walked through the kitchen door.

  “I decided not to ride after all,” I answered while keeping my eyes safely on the floor, and tossed my bag onto the kitchen table.

  “Oh, well I haven’t even thought about supper. You’re on your own tonight.” She didn’t even bother to look up from her party planning notes as she slid the three ring binder we kept to-go menus in across the counter.

  “I’m not hungry.” I pushed the notebook back to her.

  “Well, order something anyway, please. Your father’s going to be hungry and I don’t have time.” Her cell phone began ringing and I knew dinner for the family was up to me...again.

  “Hey, Lucy! Have you seen the flowers we’re using for the table centerpieces? I know…I know. Aren’t they gorgeous?” Mother gushed as she walked into another room to take the call. I think my mother and I both knew she would be way better at being a teenage girl than I was.

  I flipped through the carefully page protected menus. Being the perfectionist she was, my mother prided herself on her over-the-top organizational skills. She refused to let me cook, insisting it wasn’t safe for a girl like me to be in the kitchen—further proof that my mother’s crazy. She rarely cooked, which left the task of ordering dinner to me almost every night.

  I flipped to the menu for my favorite pizza restaurant, hoping it might cheer me up.

  The order was placed and I was grabbing a soda from the fridge when mom came back into the kitchen.

  “What are you doing here?” She asked absently, as if we hadn’t had the same conversation five minutes earlier.

  “I didn’t go to the barn.” My words were slow and deliberate, as if I was talking to someone who didn’t understand English. Slowly, I turned to face her, trying desperately to hide the sting of her indifference with a wildly confused look as if I was worried about her mental stability. It worked.

  “Oh, right. I guess I forgot. I’m just so busy with this party.” She waved her hands wildly through the air, making an excuse but not really apologizing for forgetting what her own daughter was doing. I was used to it.

  An hour later I was in my usual Saturday night outfit of leggings and an oversized t-shirt when the pizza arrived. I grabbed plates and a roll of paper towels and deposited everything on the coffee table in the den. Flipping through the channels, I found a Jane Austen marathon, and the thought of spending an evening with Fitzwilliam Darcy was more appealing than ever. If I couldn’t have my own fairytale night at the Prom I would lose myself in Austen’s magical world.

  Shortly after Darcy dissed Elizabeth at the ball my mother flitted in for a piece of pizza, her glasses holding escaped tendrils of graying ginger hair off her face.

  “Oh, I have always had a crush on Darcy. He is the perfect man. Don’t you think?” She held a paper towel under her piece of pizza as she ate standing up.

  “Yep.” It wasn’t an answer I had to think about. Who wouldn’t love Mr. Darcy? It didn’t matter which version of the movie you watched, he was always worth swooning over.

  The fact that my mother and I could find anything in common these days shocked us to silence as we appraised each other suspiciously over our pizza slices. Then it dawned on me why Darcy was the common ground we shared.

  I was adopted. My mother and I didn’t share a single strand of DNA, which kind of explains why the only thing we had in common was something we also shared with every woman whose ever read or seen Pride and Prejudice. I sighed—something that was quickly becoming a theme for the night—and turned back to the TV.

  The smell of cheesy goodness rousted my father from his office for the first time all afternoon. He crashed onto the couch beside me, sending the familiar scent of books and pencil lead from his office wafting over me, and chose a piece of pizza so large it hung off the edges of his plate.

  “So, was Amber heading off to Prom this afternoon?” He twirled his finger around the stubborn strands of cheese melted to the box and popped them in his mouth. From the corner of my eye I could tell mother was frozen in place, staring at me with golf-ball sized eyes and her mouth hanging open.

  Leaning against the armrest with my knees curled into my chest, I was frozen too, wondering how I could avoid the inevitable drama this revelation would earn from my mother. In my hand I held a frosted glass of Coke in the little space between my bent legs and body. I concentrated on drawing designs on it with my thumb, tucking my head down to study them and stall for time while I thought about how to answer.

  The room was quiet, except for Mrs. Bennett bickering about how Elizabeth should be more like Jane, her prettier and sweeter sister.

  “Um…yeah. Prom was tonight.” I looked up at the TV, trying to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, and feeling even sorrier or Elizabeth Bennet than I normally did.

  “Faye...” My mother drawled my name like a foghorn of disappointment, drowning out the chorus of Mrs. Bennet’s disdain on TV. “How could you miss your senior Prom? It’s…its like a teenage right of passage. Don’t you have to go to that to graduate?” She tossed her half-eaten slice of pizza on the box
top and hovered on the edge of a chair across from me. It was the most undivided attention she had given me in forever.

  “Well, I didn’t get asked. And that’s not something you can go to alone,” I said, still staring at the TV, intentionally avoiding eye contact with her.

  “How could you not get asked?” She looked all around the room in disbelief, as if the answer to her rhetorical question was going to spring from the darkened corner of the bookshelf. “You’re a pretty girl. A little tomboyish maybe, but still.” She shook her head and cocked it to one side. I’m not sure if she pitied me for not being asked, or herself for having to explain at Women’s Auxiliary Club why she didn’t have any Prom pictures of her daughter to share like everyone else.

  I shrugged my shoulders and finally looked into her eyes, finding the same broken disappointment that seemed to greet me daily. The weight of her look only added to the regret I had been wrestling with all afternoon. At that moment in my life, I was equally frustrated with who I’d become. But what could I do about it? High school was almost over. There wasn’t any time to make up for lost time. Graduation gowns were ordered. Yearbooks were signed. Finals were two weeks away.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. You got this from St. Anne’s College today.” Dad, who had remained characteristically silent while my mother went on her rant, pulled a letter from the chest pocket of his button down shirt and handed it to me before he headed back to his office.

  My excessive hours at the barn had finally paid off when St. Anne’s College in California offered me a full scholarship to ride on their equestrian team. At the mention of St. Anne’s my mother’s demeanor changed as she stood to leave. Probably because it reminded her I would be 2500 miles away at college when fall semester started and officially out of her hair forever. Not to mention I would be getting an Ivy League education for free—something even she couldn’t find anything wrong with. She didn’t know I hadn’t fully committed to the scholarship just yet.

  Something was holding me back. I had been accepted to the local state college as well, and even though that would mean going to college with the same losers I had gone to high school with, the fact that it was only 65 miles away from home was really appealing. Honestly? I was scared, though I hated to admit it. I had never known anything other than my little world, and even though I was more ready than ever to live any life other than one I was currently living, my fear held me back.

  “Thanks.” I took the envelope from his hand. I still had time to make this decision. I had all summer.

  “Mom?” She paused in the doorway when I called her name. “Do you mind if I call Aunt Rose?”

  “Cousin Rose,” she corrected, trying to hide the annoyance that pinched her face whenever I talked about Rose. I had long suspected my mother was jealous of the close relationship I formed with her first cousin when our own relationship began to fall apart. But Rose was all I felt like I had sometimes and I clung to her. “Sure, just don’t talk long.” She left the room and I reached for the cordless handset.

  I dialed the country code for Ireland and after a long pause and a few muffled rings Rose’s warm voice purred through the receiver into my ear. I instantly felt better. She didn’t have to say a word, just knowing she was there and she wanted to talk to me, even if it was one in the morning her time, made the disappointments of the evening a little more bearable.

  “Rose? It’s Faye.” I pressed the receiver to my ear with both hands. “Did I wake you?”

  “Oh, heavens no girl!” The soft lilt of Rose’s Irish accent drifted through the handset, putting a smile on my face and relaxing muscles I hadn’t realized were tensed. She always had that affect on me. “You know our Phin keeps me up later than a woman my age should be. It’s so good to hear your voice. How are you?” The rustle of sheets whispered across the phone and I was pretty sure she was covering a yawn.

  “Oh, I’m okay. Just wanted to hear your voice. Do you know if you and Phin are going to be able to visit us this summer?” Rose and Phin made the journey to Atlanta every summer. Their visits were the highlight of my year. This year their plans were still up in the air.

  “Oh, sweetheart. I don’t think we’re going to be able to visit you this year. Phin’s still short a worker at the barn and I just don’t know how he could manage to take the time off without being fully staffed.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice. Of course I understood. Phin managed one of the top horse breeding facilities in Ireland. He had a very important job. “That’s too bad. I was really looking forward to your visit this summer.”

  “I know sweetheart, I was too. But, I’m sure you’ve got lots of things to keep you busy this summer. You’ll need to pack for college and say goodbye to all your friends…” her voice trailed off as soon as she mentioned my non-existent friends. She knew more than anyone how tough the last years had been for me.

  “No, not really. I’m just going to spend the summer working at the barn, I guess.” I nervously picked a hangnail on my thumb—my immediate reaction to any unsettling situation— as the second major disappointment of my night settled in. “I was really hoping to see you guys.” I was surprised to hear the quiver in my voice and feel the hot sensation of tears beginning to build in the highest recesses of my throat, and sighed to keep them at bay so I didn’t turn into a blathering fool.

  “I know sweetheart. I was really looking forward to seeing you too. But unless Phin hires someone quickly we won’t be leaving Clonlea this summer. I’m so sorry.”

  “No, its okay. I understand.” The phone was silent for a moment.

  “Say, is your mom around? Can I talk to her before we hang up?”

  “Sure Rose.” I got up off the couch and began to walk into the dining room. “I love you,” I said before I handed the phone over to mother.

  “I love you, too, honey,” Rose said. Jealousy flickered in mother’s eyes as I handed the phone over to her. I went back to my movie and cried harder than usual when Elizabeth and Darcy finally found their way to each other. Life sure seemed easier when you had a Prince Charming.

  The first thing I saw the next morning, before my eyes had seen the sunshine, will be forever branded into my memory. Black and white visions I was used to. Over the years since 9th grade, I’d found a way to push those visions to the furthest reaches of my subconscious as soon as they registered. They were completely forgotten by the time I brushed my teeth. This vision was different.

  I didn’t know the man; maybe he was a boy. Definitely older than me, but not much. Normally, I didn’t think twice about a vision of a random stranger. A stranger as beautiful as him, though, couldn't possibly be forgotten. But his beauty wasn’t the only reason I would remember him. The vision started out black and white, as usual, but as the emotions that accompanied the vision poured into me, a single color began to glow from the depths of his stark image.

  Piercing, emerald green eyes glared at me from the shadows of his face, hypnotizing me in a trance that turned my body to jelly. As consuming as the full moon in a starless sky, with a gravitational pull to match. I couldn’t move, paralyzed by some incomprehensible spell. My body was pulled to him like a puppet on a string, and I didn’t want to stop it.

  I wasn’t afraid of him, though I probably should’ve been. The look in his eyes told me he could shatter just as easily as he could save, but I didn’t feel like I was his prey.

  “Faye…..” His lips never moved, but my name whispered, in a long, slow hiss and I was certain the disconnected voice belonged to him. Whether he was relieved to find something he had searched too long for or whether he was warning me, I wasn’t sure.

  He held me in a way that left me breathless, desperate for more. Standing still as a statue, except for the rise and fall of his chest with breath, his unblinking eyes radiated warm jade light. When a smile tugged his pillow-soft lips over a row of perfectly porcelain teeth, I gasped. The sharp intake of air broke the spell and the vision vanished.
r />   I kicked the covers off my burning body, my muscles once again under my control. Gasping for air as I stared wide-eyed at the white ceiling, trying to make sense of what I had just seen.

  I was torn by the vision. Part of me thrilled at the thought of that beautiful stranger being somewhere in my future, but the rational parts of me despaired over the fact that color had somehow seeped into my black and white world, which made me fear my handicap was getting worse.

  Sitting up, I buried my face in my hands.

  “Will you always be such a pathetic freak, Faye Kent?” I moaned, shaking my head back and forth. With a sigh I grabbed my pillow and threw it across the room, stalking over to my desk, firing up my computer and pulling my unruly blonde curls into a rubber band.

  My morning routine—clicking through a handful of equestrian interests websites and checking a very sad email account—I hoped would get my mind off the vision long enough to forget it.

  After reading an article about how Native Americans used to tame the wild horses of America’s western frontier, I yawned and flipped to my email, the beautiful vision all but forgotten.

  “Huh,” I squinted suspiciously at the little inbox envelope with a (1) beside it. Junk mail? No, it was from Rose.

  Happy Graduation!!

  Love Your Aunt Rose and Uncle Phin

  “No way!” My face went slack with shock when I saw the forwarded itinerary for a flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Shannon, Ireland with my name on it. Blinking my eyes, wiping at them and refreshing the page to be sure I wasn’t still dreaming, I began to laugh in a slightly hysterical way.

  Leaping down the stairs two at a time, I found my mother, once again busy with her work from the night before in the dining room.

  “Is it for real? I am really going? You’re going to let me?” I felt like a maniacal cheerleader, jumping up and down in a ridiculous way.