“No way, Faye Kent! You aren’t getting out of this. We’ve watched you mope around campus long enough. You’re going tonight if we have to drag you there kicking and screaming.” It was obvious I was going to lose this fight. So, I said nothing, focusing instead on my hands folded in my lap.
“I need you there, Faye.” Sam gulped at the remaining peanut butter. “Mattie’s going to be making out with Thomas all night, and I need a wing-woman. Please...” She drew out her begging to the point that people started staring. As I looked at the strange faces staring at us—or more likely, only at me—I just wanted them to stop.
“Okay! Fine!” I said throwing my hands wildly into the air in surrender, hoping to make her stop.
Sam went back to her boisterous bouncing and Mattie swallowed a smug grin as she tilted her head back to catch sunlight filtering through the leaves. In my mind, I was secretly hoping I would fall off a horse at practice and have a reason not to go with them. But I knew I wasn’t that lucky.
St. Anne’s campus was idyllic. Its beauty completely unblemished, as if the landscape had long ago accepted the alien growth of grey stone buildings and weathered slate roofs as its own. Over the years, the forest had graciously consumed every stationary surface, covering walls and walkways with green swaths of fluffy moss and slick coats of lichen. Even the trees hovered closer to the ground over St. Anne’s hallowed campus, protecting the secret little world beneath a tangle of gnarly branches.
It became a bubble—like a child’s snow globe—a picturesque place buffered from the dangers outside its glass. Upon exiting my dorm in the cool, damp mornings, a brisk ocean breeze would tangle in my hair and carry me toward class. Its salty breath whispering as softly as the winds from Banshee Point. On those mornings, when a sleepy sun peeked through the canopy to cover me in a delicate sheen of clear morning light, I could fool myself into thinking I was walking my way to Ennishlough. St. Anne’s and the surrounding forest were every bit as green as Ireland, and every bit as mysterious. With age came secrets, and it seemed as if every shadow I passed had a story to tell. Maybe that’s why I felt most at peace wandering the lush campus grounds—I kept plenty of secrets myself.
It was those mossy walkways I followed Sam and Mattie down later that afternoon, cheese pizza sitting like a brick on my stomach. Never had I feared riding a horse. But that afternoon I did. It had been months since I’d sat on a horse. What used to be the only thing that mattered to me had quickly become a memory too painful to face. As Sam and Mattie prattled on about Seth and plans for the evening, I was busy taking deep breaths and trying to calm the nerves in my belly.
I inhaled deeply, turned my face toward the tangle of gnarly black branches overhead and relished the soft kiss of sunlight on my cheeks. It’s going to be okay. I repeated to myself over and over. I was going to be fine.
Slowly, Sam and Mattie’s voices faded away and I found a clear moment of concentration, something that had eluded me in the months since I left LisTirna. If I could find my center, I could concentrate. If I could concentrate on just riding, and block out the painful memories associated with riding, I would be fine. My first lesson would be a success; I would more than earn my spot on the equestrian team, and maybe it would be a solid first step in putting my life back together. I know it was silly, but I hadn’t bothered to pick up my old life again. A human life seemed insignificantly temporary to me now. Dayne was coming back for me. He had promised.
With a sigh, I lowered my head and opened my eyes, expecting to see my friends ahead of me on the path.
Only I didn’t.
Somehow, in the handful of seconds I’d taken to raise my face and clear my head, the world around me had changed completely. Gone were the lush green surfaces of St. Anne’s campus and the virgin forest beyond. Gone were my friends and their endless talk of boys. Gone were the spider web of branches filtering the sunlight and breeze.
I was standing in a desert of sorts. Though not a hot one. The ground was dusty, rocky, and hard beneath my feet. I gasped, whirling around, unsure of what was happening. Black gravel crunched under foot. The sun burned so brightly in the sky I had to cover my eyes. A loamy musk hung in the thin, dry air, stinging my nostrils. St. Anne’s couldn’t be further from this arid landscape I found myself in. I began to panic, breathing so quickly I feared I would faint.
To my left rose a mountain, its peak disappearing into fluffy white clouds. Only it wasn’t the sloped, golden mound of a California mountain. Its surface was slick black rock, jagged in places where spikes had sheared off in long, black shards. I stood on a lesser mountain, its slope a little more forgiving, but no less dangerous. As I swept a panicked gaze down to my right I saw a lone figure. His shoulders towered over the earth, much like Dayne when he was in Sidhe form, only this body shone with the golden light of sun.
Without really considering my decision, I began to run toward him. It wasn’t hard to see that the figure who approached me held great magic in his arms. A magic as old as Dayne’s. As I picked up speed, so did he, our bodies running toward each other along the mountain slope. Was he the answer I’d been waiting for? Had he been sent by Dayne?
As he neared, his eyes took on a feral glow, a malicious golden swirl of angry color. His lips curled over glinting, alabaster teeth into a vicious snarl. A growl rose from his throat, as a scream ripped through mine. One thing became clear—he wasn’t the answer I was looking for. My fear swelled to epic proportions and I knew his was magic I should fear.
Quickly, I spun on my heel, running away from him instead of to his arms. But it was too late. His footsteps were faster than mine and in seconds the presence of his unmistakable power eclipsed me. Running was no longer an option. Fearing for my life, in whatever alternate reality had consumed me, I fell to the dusty ground, clawing into the solid earth with my fingernails as I searched for something to hold onto, something to save me.
In the instant his body should have overtaken me, a great whoosh of wind washed over me. A whirlwind of dust kicked up in my face and I gasped as I looked up. Above me hovered an enormous bird. Its feathers black as wet night and a beak like a dagger. I rose and, shielding my eyes from the sun, stared at the bird that had been a man seconds ago. His eyes burned a wicked ochre as he glared at me, body erect in the air, wings flapping at his sides. His cry echoed over the mountains as he gained height and turned to fly away.
“Faye?” My name was barely audible through the ringing in my ears. The bird’s echo still clung to my brain, and it wasn’t until a hand clasped around my arm that I was brought back to reality.
A strobe of white light blinded me, and the vision disappeared. The dream vanished just as quickly as it had come. The desert mountain range was gone. The bird was no where in sight. My ears no longer ached with his call. St. Anne’s damp green surroundings consumed my senses again. Sam and Mattie looked at me as if I had nine eyeballs on my head.
“Faye, are you okay?” Mattie asked again, shaking me slightly in her grasp.
I still stood, hand to my forehead, staring into the distance where the man-bird would have disappeared. Slowly, I rolled my eyes to left and to the right, looking for some sign I wasn’t losing it. Hoping I hadn’t just hallucinated as I feared I had.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Mattie said, guiding me to a nearby bench and handing my book bag to Sam.
“Should I call someone? The school nurse?” Sam asked, whipping her cell phone out of her pocket.
“No, she’ll be fine. Episodes like this are common with PTSD.” Mattie informed Sam with the cool calm of a nurse under pressure.
“PTSD?”
“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She’s been so worried about her first riding lesson this afternoon. It probably triggered some memory from the summer.” Mattie explained as she took my hand from my forehead and replaced it with her own, feeling for a fever. “Faye, can you hear me?”
I didn’t know what to do. Of course my hallucination wasn’t PTSD, a disorder
my parents insisted I had. But I also wasn’t prepared to tell people I was having full on magical hallucinations. Truly? I wasn’t sure what had just happened, but I decided it was best to play along with Mattie’s theory.
I let a shiver roll down the length my body, as if snapping back to reality, and fluttered my eyes like I was regaining my sight. I looked from Sam to Mattie helplessly.
“What just happened?”
“You blacked out for a minute. But you’re fine now.” Mattie said, offering me water from the bottle in my book bag. I took it, nodding my head in thanks. Strangely, I didn’t have to fake the tremor in my hands.
“Are you feeling okay?” Sam asked, voice full of concern.
“Yeah, I just…” I let my voice trail off as words failed me. I couldn’t lie to cover my tracks. All I could do was shut up and let them assume what they would.
“Faye, I know you’ve been worried about your riding lesson this afternoon. Do you want me to tell the coach you aren’t feeling well?”
I thought about Mattie’s offer. It was so tempting. I wasn’t entirely sure what had triggered the vision I had just experienced, but stress seemed a good enough reason as any. As much as I wanted to say yes, I couldn’t run from my past forever.
“Tempting, but no.” I answered and stood, trying out my legs to be sure I wasn’t wobbly. It was really just for show. I felt fine, confused, but fine. Visions used to trip me up, and weird as this one was, it was no different from any others. It was part of my life I’d learned to live with. “Can’t run forever.”
Mattie stood and offered me a dazzling smile. She locked her grey-blue eyes on me and took my shoulders in her hands.
“You are going to be great today. Those girls aren’t going to know what hit them when they see you on top of a horse. Just remember, St. Anne’s wouldn’t be paying for you to go school if you weren’t a badass in the ring. You got this girl.” She released my shoulders and held up her fist like teammates often do.
I bumped her fist with mine, struggling to swallow the dopey grin playing with the corners of my mouth.
“Yeah, you totally got this!” Sam chimed in, holding up her fist, and sounding every bit the boarding school girl she hated being. “I almost forgot!” She exclaimed, diving into the oversized messenger bag slung across her body. She dug through the sleeves of paper and text books in her bag, a frown creasing her forehead as she struggled to find what she was looking for.
Mattie elbowed me in the ribs and we shared a silent laugh. Sam was forever losing things. It had become a running joke with us, but it was just who she was.
“Here!” She beamed proudly, finally finding the trophy of her quest in an outside pocket of the bag. In her hand she held a small box of sugar cubes, obviously taken from the coffee bar in the cafeteria. “I had a pony when I was little. He loved sugar cubes. I thought you could bribe the beast if all else failed.”
“Thanks, Sam. That’s really sweet.” A wide grin scrawled across my face as I took the box from her hand. “I didn’t know you rode horses?”
“I don’t. Getting thrown by a shetland pony was enough to scar me for life. I just loved him from the ground until daddy donated him to a petting zoo for a tax write-off.”
“What?” Mattie and I both exclaimed at the same time, unable to believe anyone would be heartless enough to take a little girl’s pony.
“I told you my dad’s a jerk,” Sam shrugged in an unaffected way and looked at her watch. “Mattie, we gotta go. We’ll be late.”
I hugged them both and we parted ways.
Chapter Two
After The Fall
“Whoa!” Sam’s eyes went watermelon-wide when I shuffled through my dorm room door, shoulders slumped in defeat, dragging my book bag behind me. “What happened to you?” She turned from the mirror where she had been applying mascara, her eyes warily tracing me up and down. I sank onto my bed, dragging my hands down my face.
“Meghan,” I hissed the name as if it burned my throat to utter it. “Meghan happened to me.” Shaking my head in disgust, I flicked a few crusts of dried mud from my forearm. After Mattie’s pep talk, I was determined to prove what a good rider I was. I was given a horse named Diablo to ride. And after an hour’s lesson with the coach, I was certain of earning my place on St. Anne’s team. Until a redheaded witch named Meghan had caused a commotion in the ring that sent Diablo into a bucking fit a bull rider couldn’t have stayed on. When it was all over, Meghan and her minions were roaring with laughter, I was on the ground covered in mud and poor Diablo was tangled in a jump wondering what had attacked him.
“Red haired Meghan?” Sam tucked her head down to catch my eye as she took a seat on my bed—carefully sitting far enough away to keep her vibrant purple dress clean.
I nodded my head without looking up from the floor and sighed, more angry than disappointed with myself. Meghan, as it turned out, was not only the nasty redheaded, ring leader of the group of girls who spent their lunch hour talking about me, but also the captain of the equestrian team. Apparently, she was not impressed with my celebrity or my riding skills.
An opinion I had been determined to change. And if I hadn’t tried to show off and prove to Meghan that I was a better rider than she thought I was, I wouldn’t have been kicking myself for being such an idiot. In the chaotic aftermath of my fall, I had come dangerously close to ruining my carefully constructed world, and I was pretty sure Meghan wasn’t going to let me forget any of it.
“I really hate Meghan. She’s such a bully. We went to the same boarding school for a while. Steer clear of that girl. She lives to ruin people’s lives,” Sam offered with an awkward pat on my shoulder—the only spot on my right side that wasn’t caked with dirt from the arena floor.
“Eww...Faye!” Mattie observed my tattered appearance with a wrinkled nose as she appeared in the doorway, hair dripping wet, wrapped in a striking silk kimono her mother got her on a recent trip to Japan.
I held up my hand to stop her, already knowing what she was going to say. Mattie, who was supermodel beautiful with her hair soaking wet, wearing a Japanese bathrobe, was also a neat freak.
Without her having to ask, I hauled myself up from the bed and went over to the little cubby by our door where we left our shoes. The only good thing about ancient dorm rooms? They were huge.
“Faye had a rough first day at the barn,” Sam brought Mattie up to speed as I went to remove my dirty boots. “You know that girl Meghan in our Spanish class?”
Mattie nodded, looking me up and down, obviously unimpressed by the amount of dirt I had collected on my clothes, as she walked passed me to her dresser.
“Apparently, she’s on the equestrian team,” Sam finished and both girls went silent as they watched me wrestle with my boots.
“Captain of the team,” I corrected unenthusiastically, unzipping my boots and lining them up beside the door.
“Ouch!” Mattie empathized as she retrieved underwear from the top drawer. “I told you it wouldn’t be easy, Faye,” she shrugged, not looking at me. “My first day of practice? Someone put icy hot on the inside of my swim cap.”
“Oh my gosh! What did you do?” I asked, wide eyed, padding sock-footed over to the mini fridge to grab a bottle of water. Eyeing the pile of sand of I had left on my comforter earlier, I opted for a seat on the floor, and plopped down cross legged to watch them get ready.
“I showed them I didn’t need a stupid swim cap to beat their best times!” She threw a confident smile over her shoulder and wiggled into a pair of panties without removing her kimono. She looked like an empress standing there in her imported silk. “You can’t let them break you, Faye. That’s exactly what they want. Claim your place on that team, girl. It’s yours, and there’s nothing Meghan can do about it.” Mattie’s face was hard with determination and she pointed her comb at me to emphasize her point. At that moment, I wished I had the confidence that seemed to come so easily to Mattie. But any resolve that had bubbled up in me that aft
ernoon had been washed away by a tidal-wave of arena dirt and mud when I hit the ground.
Mattie turned to the mirror over her dresser to begin untangling her hair with a comb. I sighed and picked at the water bottle label in my hands.
“Where’d you get that kimono, Mattie? It’s gorgeous,” Sam admired the latest gift from Mattie’s mother.
“Mom sent it last week,” she answered, twirling around to give us the full effect of its bright pattern.
“Lucky girl. Wish I got weekly presents from all over the world like that.”
“Wish I had a mother who could stay in one spot for more than a nanosecond!” Mattie retorted with an exhausted look on her face. Mattie’s mother was an international flight attendant for a major airline, which meant she jetted from one exotic locale to another.
“What time are you guys leaving for town?” I asked casually as I took a sip of water.
“WE are leaving in an hour. I suggest you get in the shower.” Mattie’s face was hard again, and I knew this time her determination was focused on getting me to The Underground.
“I really don’t…” I began shaking my head and was immediately cut off.
“I really don’t care…” Mattie turned to me, “...what you were about to say. You are going. If you don’t? Meghan wins.” Mattie shrugged as she turned to me, hands on her hips, just waiting for me to try to argue my way out of going.
But I didn’t. She was right. There wasn’t a single fiber of my being that wanted to go sit in a smokey barroom where I was certain every shadow would hold a memory of Dayne, but I couldn’t let Meghan win. If I didn’t go, she would’ve succeeded in ruining my afternoon and my evening.
“Fine!” I sprang to my feet and wiggled out of the muddy riding clothes, shoving them to the bottom of my laundry basket so I wouldn’t be reminded of my failings every time I walked by.
Sam hadn’t said anything, so I turned to see what she was thinking about the whole thing, after all she was the only one of us who actually knew Meghan. She wasn’t even paying attention. Instead, she was discreetly looking through the little trinkets on top of my dresser where she had been applying mascara when I walked in.
Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2)) Page 2
