I Belong to the Earth (Unveiled Book 1)

by J. A. Ironside

  When Grace and I were little, we played doctors and nurses. Grace always got to be the patient, while I was a doctor trying to figure out what was wrong. Grace was so good at lying still, that she often played at being a coma patient. She’d hold herself limp and unresponsive, while I tried frantically to revive her.

  Until it didn’t seem like a game anymore. I would start to believe that Grace was really was unconscious. Maybe dying. Her breathing was so slow that sometimes I couldn’t tell if she was breathing at all and then I’d panic because what if she was really dead? What would I do without my big sister?

  And just as I was about to cry, Grace would suddenly sit up and shout, “BOO!” I always yelled at her and punched her in the arm, because being angry that she had fooled me again was better than being teased for bursting into tears of relief that she hadn’t left me. And Grace would always laugh and tickle me until I laughed too.

  The thing was, the game got kind of addictive. I hated the moments when I thought Grace had really died, but the relief that she was okay kept me coming back to the game again and again. I knew nothing about death then. Nothing about real loss. The fear of it just hovered on the horizon for me.

  I wasn’t six years old anymore but looking down at Grace’s limp, blue-white form, for a moment I still expected her to leap up and startle me. Just pretending. Just like always. Situation normal.

  But Grace didn’t move.

  Her eyes had slid shut again. She was corpse pale and breathing so slowly…

  Having a meltdown was going to have to wait. Grace was ill. That weird electric charge probably hadn’t helped. Like we all became part of a circuit that somehow got switched on, then blew a fuse. I still didn't understand what Ciarán and Haze had been talking about, before I did…whatever it was I had done did. It sounded like they knew each other. Hated each other. More questions and no time.

  "Wha…what happened?" Ciarán was still rubbing his head. "Why do I feel like I drank all of Uncle Bri's home-brewed poitín? I've got the mother of all hangovers."

  I had no sympathy for him. Some help. He'd charged in and now Haze had marked me as a target. Ciarán had made everything worse. I'd been right to think that I couldn't count on anyone but myself.

  And I really didn't like the way Ciarán was looking at Grace.

  "Is she alright?" He brushed a strand of her hair from her pale face. I remembered his fingers brushing the skin of my face as he did the same for me ten minutes ago. I turned abruptly away.

  "J-just fainted I think. Sh-she needs to get huh home and w-warm." I didn't care what Ciarán thought. I didn't. We weren't even really friends. I barely knew him. I swallowed past the blockage in my throat.

  "She can't walk like that. Is there a shorter way to your place? Away from the village I mean?" Ciarán didn't seem to notice anything wrong. Dismally, I wondered what he remembered.

  "Yuh yeah. We g-go up this w-way. Leads into the orch orch…Garden." I kept my eyes trained on the ground. Moss, twigs, crushed heather, a smooth oval stone.

  "Right then." Ciarán scooped up Grace without much effort and started in the direction I'd pointed. She looked like a fairy-tale princess being rescued by her prince. I wanted to barge into them, knock her out of his arms. Maybe knock him down a slope while I was at it. I hated myself for feeling like this. Hadn't I always known I couldn't compete with Grace? It was only a matter of time.

  I followed them, feeing jerky and ungraceful. A raw collection of joints and pulleys in need of oiling. Grace's hair gleamed in the sunlight as it trailed over Ciarán's arm. It had definitely changed—now a dark reddish-brown. The scene now like looked like a romantic painting of Romeo and Juliet. I gritted my teeth.

  Grace didn't come round until we reached the kitchen door. Everything was sharp and clear, as though the moment was carved from crystal. Buds had appeared on the fruit trees. One or two petals from early, wind-ravaged blooms drifted down. It smelled fresh and faintly sweet - a perfect spring day. I couldn't enjoy any of it. It tasted thin and bitter now. I opened the kitchen door and Ciarán eased Grace into a chair at the table. She stirred.

  As though he'd been here a hundred times before, he filled the kettle and found mugs and teabags. It was a different sort of cold I felt now. One that came entirely from me. Nothing supernatural about it. The cold of distance. Of warmth being taken away. I had no idea what Grace thought had happened and I didn't care. I glanced up through my hair in time to see Grace's face soften into a smile at Ciarán, who glanced back at her over his shoulder. She gave him a doughy look. He returned to the table with two cups of tea, one for her, one for himself.

  I was completely invisible. I'd make my own tea then. Not that I wanted any. Not from him. Ciarán's gaze ran over Grace's face and hair. His expression grew wondering as he smiled at her. The last of the warmth disappeared from the day.

  I hate her.

  This time the darkness was all mine.