Riven: Young Adult Fantasy Novel (My Myth Trilogy Book 1)

by Jane Alvey Harris

The little girl hangs her head in apology. As their reflections fade, the scowling woman sighs, unfolding her arms. I’m not angry, Emily. Just very disappointed.

  I turn the corner at the head of the stairs. Ian and Meg stand in the entrance hall below. Jacob, Aidan, and Claire are by the tall round table at the back of the foyer. One by one, every head turns to stare up at me.

  I concentrate on my feet. I don’t want to trip and fall on my face.

  Seven years makes my great aunt and uncle look smaller than I remember, maybe because I’m bigger. Ian’s hair is more white than gray now, and thinning. He’s still lean and tan like I remember, from working in the sun. His expression is serious but there are crinkles around his eyes. Echoes of his booming laugh fill my childhood memories. I have a longing to skip into his arms like I used to when I’d find him in the barn after a long day exploring the forest. But of course I can’t… ‘there’s a time and a place for everything’, and this is not the time nor the place for the kind of ‘familiarity that breeds contempt’.

  Most of the platitudes engrained in me come from Great Aunt Meg. She stands next to Ian, holding his hand. She’s refined—almost formal—her skirt pressed with a crisp seam, her stylish hair frosted at the tips, her blue patent leather pumps polished to a shine. Zero crinkles flank her eyes.

  Giddiness from the Valium turns me tipsy. Inappropriate questions zip around my brain: did I shave both legs? Which underwear do I have on? But I squash them. I’m determined the tiny piece of pill I took won’t cause any problems. I’ve already decided I won’t beg or cry or even say anything at all to these people. I’ll just nod and accept my fate, whatever it is. I’m not going to shame Mom by acting like a silly child in front of her family.

  I force false confidence onto my face and bend my left knee, bobbing a shallow curtsy. “Hello.” Oh, brilliant.

  Uncle Ian’s eyes are clearest gray. He studies me.

  Heat rises in my cheeks. Back straight, head erect, I can’t seem to stop myself from offering him my hand.

  “Come ‘ere doll,” Ian laughs, gathering me against his chest. He smells purpley-green, like sweet alfalfa. I’m caught off guard by how good it is to have his arms around me.

  Aunt Meg makes a soft cluck of impatience. I step back from Ian. “Hello,” I say self-consciously. I only know one word, apparently.

  Meg nods, looking down her nose at a spot on my forehead just left of center. “It’s been a long time. You look like Sandra.” She sounds disapproving.

  My feigned bravery wears thin. I’m exhausted and itchy in my stupid cardigan. How will I survive this family council? Why isn’t Nancy here yet?

  Awkward, I turn to join the kids by the table and see Gabe standing off to one side in front of a potted palm. He sparkles like an oasis in the Sahara.

  “Gabe!” I bolt across the room, throwing my arms around his neck. “You’re here!”

  Before he can answer a commotion erupts in the entry—three loud crashes followed by a curse. A very good-looking youngish-man I’ve never seen before pushes past Aidan to my great aunt and uncle with a curt, “Get out of my way.”

  Crossing the foyer I kneel next to my brother, helping him gather up the fallen marbles from the stone solitaire game.

  “Sorry.” His voice is miserable. “He knocked into me and I bumped the table. He must not have seen me.”

  I tousle Aidan’s soft blond hair. “Don’t be sorry. I love you, you big dork.”

  “Your MOM’s a dork.”

  I cram mad giggles back down my throat. Aidan is the most irreverent boy I know. Thank God for him. I stiffen my shoulders and walk over to the newcomer. He’s talking to Ian. “Excuse me,” I say to the back of his head. “We haven’t met.”

  “Yes. We have.” He doesn’t turn around.

  “Kaillen,” Meg chides. “Say hello to Emily.”

  Kaillen? No. WAY.

  He glances at me over his shoulder like I’m putrid cheese.

  Sharp granite flecks harden my spine. I drop into a full-on Lizzy-Bennet-meets-Mr. Darcy curtsy, raising my Valium-brave hand sarcastically in front of me while never once breaking eye contact with stupid Kaillen whom I hate.

  He stares at my extended hand, sniffs, and turns back to Ian. “As I was saying, the rain means an early harvest. We need to leave as soon as possible. I’m going to suggest—again—that we leave the younger siblings behind with that Nancy woman.”

  My nervousness evaporates. “What did you say?” I speak slowly because I know the anger seething inside me is dangerous. I can’t lose my temper and embarrass my family.

  This time he turns all the way around, appraising me from head to toe. I stare straight back.

  “They’ll be in the way. You can at least look after Sandra while she recovers from her latest attention-grabbing stunt. The detox facility recommends weekly family visits. I’m not going to let Meg babysit the younger ones. Our livelihood is more important than your ridiculous family drama.”

  “Oh? It’s important?” I ask. “To whom?”

  “To all of us.”

  “Why are you even here? What does any of this have to do with you?”

  “Ian is training me as his viticulturist.”

  “I have no idea what that means and I couldn’t care less.”

  “Really? Where do you think any of you would be right now if it weren’t for your aunt and uncle’s money?”

  “Oh, so now you own us? You came here uninvited and think you can make decisions about our lives without asking any of us!”

  “You didn’t seem to be in any condition to make decisions yourself.”

  My teeth clench spasmodically. “I HATE YOU!”

  Without warning a vivid hallucination hijacks my vision. Nissa’s enchanted leather gauntlet encircles my right forearm, stretching over the back of my hand and between my fingers, spikes extending from the knuckles. I smash my fist viciously into Kaillen’s jaw just below his left ear. His head snaps back and to the right. The spikes rip jagged gashes in his chin, spattering his blood hot on my face but it isn’t enough. I want more. I need to feed him pain.

  The delusion vanishes suddenly. My un-gauntleted right arm is caged in front of me ready to strike, my fist inches from Kaillen’s chin.

  Dizziness slams into me. My head swivels as the room tilts sideways.

  Strong familiar arms encircle my waist as my knees buckle. “Gabe.”

  “I’m here.”

  Everything goes black.

  Fifteen

  I hate everyone.

  I hate this stupid van, I hate this stupid drive, and I especially hate stupid Kaillen. His stupid head sits smugly on his stupid neck in the front passenger seat of the van; ignorant of the hatred-holes my eyes bore through it.

  There’s something extremely dignity-negating about being unceremoniously dumped in the back of a rented twelve-seat passenger van while you’re unconscious. But at least I missed the family council.

  This is entirely your own fault.

  Shut-up shut-up shut-up, I write in the notebook on my lap. Shut-up you horrible woman in my head I hate you SHUT UP.

  She doesn’t shut up.

  It’s for your own good. Someone needs to tell you. Look what happens when you don’t listen to me. It isn’t Kaillen’s fault you took that pill and humiliated yourself and your entire family.

  I’ve slept fitfully most of the drive so far in this stupid wrinkled up sundress, which is better than being awake, I suppose. I’m guessing they emptied the rest of the Valium down the toilet after I passed out again. I must be some kind of featherweight when it comes to meds.

  I know they’re all judging me. ‘Like mother like daughter.’

  FUCK. THEM. I scribble, pressing hard against the page.

  Claire sits next to me. She notices I’m awake and leans over to see what I’m doing
. Her eyes widen before I can cross out the word. OMG she mouths with what I know is legitimate concern for my eternal salvation.

  I’ve never written or said the F word before but I’m too pissy to apologize. I’m amazed that bitch woman in my brain isn’t yelling her head off at me.

  But I am sorry Claire saw.

  She takes the pencil and notebook from me, flips to a new page and writes in perfect round penmanship: Are you okay?

  I write back: My back is really sore and I have a huge headache. Plus I’m grumpy. How are you?

  BORED.

  I write: I think we’ll be there soon. Maybe two more hours?

  Claire pauses then writes: Are you really okay?

  Her lip quivers. I undo our seat belts and pull her next to me, buckling us into the same belt. With my lips against her silky hair I whisper, “I’m sorry Bug. I’m so sorry.”

  Instead of answering out loud she writes on the notepaper: What happened anyway?

  I make myself write: I took one of Mom’s pills again because I was freaking out about the family council. I thought it would calm me down. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t actually punch Kaillen, did I?

  She writes: No. But I wish you had. He’s a jerk. Even if he IS hot.

  I write: FYI he was NOT hot the last time I saw him. I didn’t recognize him at first!

  She writes: Where did he even come from?

  I don’t write ‘Hell’ even though I want to.

  Instead I write: His mom was a Hispanic migrant worker. Do you know what that means?

  Claire makes a so-so gesture with her hand.

  I write: Migrant workers are people who come to America from other countries to find work. They do really hard jobs for hardly any money, usually on farms planting or harvesting.

  Claire gives me the thumbs-up to show she understands.

  I keep writing: Well, Aunt Meg hired Kaillen’s mom as a maid at the main house. Kaillen was just a baby. I don’t know all the details, but they helped them both get citizenship. Kaillen’s mom had a stroke when he was seven and he didn’t have any place else to go.”

  “WHAT?” Claire gasps out loud. “He’s an orphan?”

  “Shhhhhh!” I glance up to the front. Thank God no one turns around.

  Claire draws a frowny-face and a tear on the page and writes: He was only SEVEN!?

  There’s a photograph of Mom and Dad sitting on a couch at the Vineyard looking very young and kind of like hippies. Between them is the most beautiful, chubby-cheeked, black-haired, huge-eyed little boy I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Everyone was crazy about Kaillen. In the photo he holds a squirmy toddler on his plaid-panted lap. Me. But Kaillen isn’t looking at me or at the camera. He’s staring up at Mom, adoration on his face.

  Claire nudges me and points to the paper with the eraser. She’s drawn more frowny faces and tears and the words: That’s sad.

  Ugh. A kitten-soft paw of compassion prods at me. I smother it quick. Kaillen doesn’t need or want my sympathy.

  I write: Yeah. Super sad.

  But I’m not sad. Ever since I can remember, Kaillen has been an enormous douche. He picked on me relentlessly when we were younger. Now he’s like the prize-winning hog on Grandpa’s farm.

  I’m not bitter that Mom’s family stopped visiting us. It must have been hard for them to admit they had a convicted felon in the family tree. I know they put pressure on Mom to divorce Dad, and kind of shunned her when she wouldn’t. Kaillen’s the only one who didn’t stop calling her. But it wasn’t to give support. I have zero idea why Mom kept answering his calls because whenever she hung up the phone after talking to him she would be in tears.

  The memory of the photograph and the hollow ache that starts in my chest when I imagine what it would be like being an orphan at seven kicks my over-active empathy gene into high gear and now I’m weepy about him too even though I know better.

  I write: I shouldn’t have said ‘I hate you’ to Kaillen. And I’m sorry for writing the F word.

  “It’s okay,” Claire whispers. “It’s been a weird week. Besides, he really was being an ass.”

  I can’t stop a giggle. “Claire!” I whisper back. “When did you start swearing?”

  “About the same time you did.”

  Aidan turns back and looks at us from over his seat. “What are you guys laughing about?”

  “Claire has a crush on Kaillen.” I whisper.

  She snorts and elbows me hard in the ribs. “I do not.”

  “You’re the one who named Nissa’s bodyguard after him.” Thankfully Aidan lowers his voice. “I like the Kaillen in the story, but real-life Kaillen is kind of a dick.”

  “Aidan Michael Alvey!” I cover Claire’s ears.

  Claire moves my hands away. “Kids say that all the time at school, Emma. Speaking of the story, will you tell us more about the Fae when we get to Scott’s Valley?”

  Cracks form in the frozen pond that is my hastily patched façade of sanity.

  “There isn’t any more, Bug,” I lie.

  “There has to be. Where did Nissa go? What happened after the Fae got banished? Where are they now? Do they ever get back home?”

  “She’s right. It’s a really lame cliff hanger,” Aidan says.

  Jacob turns around, taking out his earbuds. “I want to know what happens, too.”

  My brittle bravery begins to splinter and there is nothing I can do. Impending doom rushes to meet us every mile closer we drive to the Vineyard.

  Through the van window I stare at a wake of vultures feasting on road kill. I’m afraid the First Realm won’t let me go until I’m picked clean.

  “Sure,” I say. “I guess so.”

  The boys turn back around in their seats. Claire snuggles closer, pulling my arms around her tighter. She writes on the pad: Emma?

  “What?” I whisper.

  She writes: Will you maybe try to not pass out anymore?

  I kiss her head. “I won’t do that again,” I whisper. “I promise.”

  Sixteen

  The most delicious breeze from the open window sends a flurry of goosebumps up my arms. My eyes flutter open. Quietly, so I won’t wake Claire, I swing my bare feet to the woven rug on the floor. The temperature balances between chill and warmth. I’m tempted to lie back down and bask in the perfection of the morning.

  But I can’t. The breeze pulls me up, a long lost best friend. It was late when we arrived last night and I went straight to bed, falling immediately into a dreamless sleep. Now, gazing out the guest room window, I’m shocked by how familiar everything is. How could I have forgotten this place? It was such a huge part of my life growing up.

  It makes sense, though, that if I’d shut away memories of the Seventh Kingdom I’d have shut away memories of the Vineyard, too. This is where the Seventh Kingdom was born. This is where it came to life.

  I slide into the flip-flops at the foot of the bed, pull my cardigan over my yoga pants and tank top, and tiptoe into the hall. Opening the back door with an excited shiver, I slip outside.

  The house nestles in a copse of birch at the edge of Big Basin State Park. Thick wet fog clings to the redwood canopy that marks the far-end of the property line. I wrap my arms around myself in the early light. Everywhere is cold compared to summer in Dallas.

  My sensory input system shifts into overdrive. I’m more alive here in this place, in this moment, than I’ve ever been before. I don’t need pills to help me discern the subtle kiss of each individual birch-leaf filtered sunlit shaft as it lands on my upturned face.

  The creaky old rope swing still hangs from the biggest oak in the yard. I used to climb this tree, make circlets from her leaves, and when I’d kick up on the swing so my toes nearly touched the next branch up, I’d pretend it was my wings propelling me so high.

  I sit down on the wide woode
n plank and push off from the ground, arcing back and forth on a long slow pendulum. Eyes closed, I relive the hallucination of lying next to Mom on the couch the other night…of shrinking down inside myself…of the countless specks of light. What if two of those lights were my own Spark and Flame? What if they’d awakened my own wings, causing them to strain and stretch against my skin from the inside out, desperate to escape their cocoon?

  My own wings.

  It wasn’t real.

  Maybe it WAS real, Emma. Now you can let your wings out! The crimbal can’t get you here. This Vineyard belongs to the Fae.

  Stop it. Emily is too old for this nonsense.

  My feet scrape in the dirt, halting me abruptly as a watery memory swims to the surface of my mind and I remember: I used to tell Mom about the Fae, about the First Realm and the Seventh Kingdom. She thought it was cute I believed in faeries. She liked it when I would entertain Jacob, Aidan, and Claire with my stories at bedtime. But around my eleventh birthday it stopped being cute.

  In my memory dark smudges spread beneath Mom’s eyes, blocking the light that used to shine from her face when she looked at me.

  Not long after Dad went to prison, Mom took me to a psychiatrist. He had a beard and wore glasses at the end of his nose. He prescribed Ritalin and warned me that people who couldn’t separate fantasy from reality were seriously unhealthy.

  That’s why she made me stop telling the stories. That’s why she took away the Celtic box. That’s why the woman and the little girl argue about the Seventh Kingdom.

  Petulance gathers my lips into a bloodless crinkled bunch. How is it fair for a mother who self-medicates to the point of abandoning her children and attempting suicide because she can’t handle reality gets to give her eleven year-old daughter meds so she’ll stop daydreaming? I locked my imagination in a lightless cupboard so Mom would accept me. What utter bullshit. Well. Not anymore.

  Kicking off from the dirt again I tip back on the swing and let my wings unfurl from their subdural prison, opening and closing them defiantly. Air moves in liquid streams along their surface the way hair flows weightless under water. The headache and pain between my shoulder blades that have been plaguing me for days disappear immediately.