Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods)

by Rosemary Clair

  I met April in town that afternoon. Alana and Norah joined us. We sat around a little table on the tavern porch, drinking our Cokes in solemn silence.

  “I can’t believe she’s gone,” April said, staring at the table.

  I was relieved that Alana and Norah were actually being nice girls today without Tara around to impress. I wondered if they felt guilty for teasing Christine. Norah actually dabbed at her eyes every now and then.

  “Who was that guy she was dancing with last night?” Alana asked me.

  “I didn’t know him. He asked me to dance at first, but then…” My voice trailed off and I looked to April.

  “He was just a tourist in town for the festival.” April didn’t bother telling the girls about why I didn’t dance with him. Instead, she looked out on the foot traffic walking in and out of the shops. Half the population of Clonlea on a given summer day were tourists.

  “They’ll find her. Maybe it was love at first sight and she ran off to get married,” Norah hypothesized. I nodded in agreement.

  “She was certainly in love last night, from the look on her face.” I remembered how captivated she had been by him. I really needed to believe that she was okay. I wouldn’t let myself think about how close I had possibly come to danger. Maybe I should have thanked Dayne last night.

  “Just think. She’s going from never been kissed, to married before all of us!” Alana tried to joke, but her words were clipped and shaky and I had to wonder if she was jealous or feeling guilty about being so mean to Christine last night.

  April and I left to help Rose close up the bakery. We walked down the street in silence. A man in front of us stopped at the light pole and hammered a sign to it. When he stepped away we saw Christine, staring back at us, smiling in her senior picture. The edge of the paper fluttered in the wind, sending one of the memories I had forced to the very back of my mind screaming back at me like a bullet.

  For a second, the world around me switched to a familiar black and white. It was the same missing poster I had seen in my dream weeks ago. The dreaded guilt I thought I had left behind crashed into the pit of my stomach like a wrecking ball when I realized what I had done. I could have saved sweet Christine from a fate I had known about for weeks. Even if, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but feel like it was supposed to be me.

  Chapter 9

  What’s Wrong With This Picture

  Rain pattered softly against the window, gently waking me to welcome another day. The house was quiet except for the melody of nature outside. A gentle breeze blew in, billowing the curtains and bringing with it the smell of the earth, washed clean from above. The breeze prickled goose bumps on the parts of my body not covered by Rose’s hand-made quilt, and I wiggled them into the warmth.

  It was cozy there on the couch, snuggled beneath the blankets, my warm little shelter from the cold outside. I wondered what time it was. How much longer could I pretend I was still asleep? I decided it didn’t matter. Phin would wake me up when it was time to go. There was something so soothing about the raindrops. Their rhythmic falling lulled me back to dreaming.

  As soon as my mind settled back into sleep, I was really glad I was a procrastinator. The dream that took over my body in those briefly fleeting moments when my eyes closed again was one of the best dreams of my life. One of the really good lucid ones, where it all seemed so real, like the night in the barn.

  I struggled to move my arms so I could reach out and touch his face, but they wouldn’t move. Instead I just stared into his eyes. My body was buzzing and tingling like it does when an adrenaline rush takes over. My heart beat so loudly in my ears I was afraid I was going to faint—but I refused to close my eyes in the dream…it was that good.

  Dayne’s face was so close to mine I could feel the heat of his body radiating against my cheek and neck. I had the sensation I was lying down on cool wet pavement, surrounded by night. His arms were somewhere around me, but my body was so electrified by his proximity I couldn’t tell exactly where they were.

  His hand came up and gingerly stroked the curls away from my face. This wasn’t the same Dayne I knew in real life. This was the Dayne of my dreams, but I tried really hard to forget that and convince myself it was real.

  He was gentle and careful with me, like he was afraid I might break. His face was soft, and in his eyes I saw a tenderness I had never seen before.

  I could tell he was worried about me. Had I discovered some secret or was I in danger? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that Dayne was with me, and his presence alone was pushing the bad things away.

  His hand left my hair and rested warm against my cheek for a moment. I didn’t want it to be a dream. I wanted him to want me like this for real.

  His eyes sparkled with the newfound wonder of first love, and his brilliant smile slowly spread across his face. He bent closer and rubbed the tip of his nose playfully along my cheek, at which point I was reminded it had to be a dream. Dayne only looked at me like this when I was playing make believe. But still, I didn’t care. My dreams would have to do…. it was the only place Dayne would ever be mine.

  He arched away and looked into my eyes again. The smile left his face, and he began to focus on my lips. His head moved toward mine, and I knew he was about to kiss me. The anticipation of his lips touching mine raced through my body. A scream of excited delight bubbled in my throat. As if in slow motion, his lips approached. He licked them slightly and left his lips parted, just so, waiting for my lips to slide into his. We were just about to make contact when it happened.

  In an instant, the dream world around me turned into a black and white fuzzy blur, snapping me into the reality that I was seeing the future. My heartbeat quickened, spurred by the fear of what future role Dayne would play in my life.

  I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to know what was coming, but my visions didn’t listen to me. Struggling wildly, harder than I ever had against a vision before, I managed to force my eyes open, but the familiar surrounding of home didn’t greet me. The muscles around my eyes twitched, and the lids fluttered together faster than butterfly wings. Even then, with my eyes open, the black and white world with Dayne stayed in my sights and I quit trying to push it away.

  I began to have the sensation I was spiraling backward out of control through a long dark tunnel, but he was still there. His face just inches from mine. Together we tumbled through the darkness and I felt the softness of his lips connect with mine. The tender, but urgent, need of his body pressed against me as the scream of excitement melted into of moan of wanting in my throat.

  The visions disappeared the moment I screamed, and I fell off the couch, tangling myself in the quilt that covered me as I landed with a thud on the ground.

  I knew what black and white meant. I had seen the future. But what I couldn’t understand was how in the world Dayne DeLaney was ever going to want to kiss me? There was just no way.

  Maybe I was dreaming I was seeing the future because I wanted it so badly? That’s the only way a vision like that could make sense. Right? Dayne hated me. At the very least he was indifferent to me. There is no way his lips would ever touch mine for real, and I wondered if I was losing my mind.

  Phin shuffled into the room.

  “You sleeping on the floor now, Faye?” he asked through a yawn.

  “Um, no…I thought there was a spider on the couch,” I lied quickly to explain why I was in a pile of covers on the floor. A chilly breeze blew in from the cracked window and sent my hair swirling around my face. I pulled my blanket closer around me and retreated back to the warmth of the couch, trying really hard to forget what I had seen.

  “No use getting up. This weather’s set in for the day.” Phin said when he saw me start to fold the blankets of my makeshift bed.

  “Are you sure?” I faked disappointment for his benefit.

  “Don’t need any sick horses or sick girls. I’ll be back after while.” He pulled a heavy coat over his clothes and an oiled cowboy h
at low on this head. He cussed as he reached the truck. No doubt he had left his window down all night.

  Rose had been gone for hours. It was her busiest season with the tourist trade of summer. I was all alone facing an entire day with absolutely nothing to do. I had a long list of places I wanted to explore in Ireland. There hadn’t been time for sightseeing since I arrived. Another look out the window at the gray blanket that surrounded the cottage and the rain that fell like a water hose spray from the sky told me today wasn’t going to be the day to check that list off. The weather was abysmal…even for Irish standards. I would have to find my entertainment indoors today.

  I finally talked myself out from the coziness of my shelter and into the warmth of a shower. I wasn’t used to such cold dampness in the summer. I showered leisurely, taking the extra time to do all the frilly girl things like slathering on a body scrub and deep conditioning my hair that I hadn’t had time for recently. I folded the pile of clean clothes I had left in the laundry hamper and dressed in an oversized St. Anne’s sweatshirt and blue jeans.

  I spent time unpacking the last few items remaining in my suitcase and stuffed it under my bed so it would be out of the way. After tidying up the little room, I was two hours into my day and had run out of things to do.

  I grabbed my iPod from the bedside table, placed the earbuds in my ears and cranked the volume up to drown out the deafening silence of an empty house. Halfway down the hall, on my way to tidy up the den, the door between my bedroom and my bathroom caught my eye. It was the only place in the house I’d never been. I remembered Rose telling me it was all of Phin’s old riding stuff—which I imagined would be dusty old tack, dry-rotting from years of neglect, and spider webs. Pretty boring stuff. But on a rainy day that forced me inside, it sounded as exciting as a National Geographic expedition.

  I turned the knob, and the door slowly swung open on its rusty hinges, protesting loudly to be disturbed from its slumber. The door fell open and landed with a hollow thud against the wall, stirring swirls of dust into the air as it passed. Light filtered in from a dirty window on the far wall, showcasing trophy lined shelves from Phin’s racing career, glass boxes sheltering the brilliant emerald green and gold of his racing silks, and pictures of a young Phin aboard magnificent animals, draped with the rose covered garlands of victory.

  “Wwwooooowww…” I whispered, wide-eyed, as I slowly took stock of the treasure chest Rose had dismissed as Phin’s old riding stuff. I stepped into the smells of mothballs and must, where time lay trapped in cobwebs, dragging my fingers over the priceless memories of a forgotten life. My fingertips left trails in the thick varnish of dust covering the room.

  Why would anyone ever want to lock all this away?

  Phin’s accident had been horrible, incomprehensible even. Stolen a promising career from him when he was at his prime, but he had accomplished so much before his fall. His career was the stuff of legends. Regardless of how untimely its demise seemed he was still the best rider to ever come from Ireland’s western shores. It didn’t make sense to hide it all away instead of proudly displaying his successes to the world.

  I studied picture after picture, each one labeled and dated with fat black marker in a fluid female handwriting I didn’t recognize as Rose’s. Trophies and ribbons and newspaper clippings—more than I could read in a day— all spoke to Phin’s unrivaled horsemanship. An old desk sat in the dustiest corner of the room. I opened one of the drawers, finding it stuffed full of old notebooks. I grabbed one and opened it up, seeing Phin’s handwritten notes scribbled in the corners of various track maps and programs as he prepared for the races he inevitably won.

  In the middle drawer, I found an old leather-bound box with a lock on the front. It’s key dangled from a string. I pushed it in, despite its rusty resistance, and the latch flew open. I lifted the top off and was greeted by a picture of Phin when he was my age, grinning ear to ear as he held his arm around a girl who was not Rose.

  Black and white tunnel vision took over my eyes. I gasped as the vision from a few mornings before flew back from the dark place I’d pushed it to. My pulse quickened, as it always did when one of them came flying back to me, and I closed my eyes to calm it. Taking a few calming breaths, trying to warm the air that had gone iced cold in my lungs, I open my eyes and looked down at the strangers in my hand. This was the past, Faye, I told myself. Not the future.

  The headline read “Local Sports Hero to Wed.” It was an engagement announcement for Phin and some woman who wasn’t Rose. The article was dated eight months before the accident that had stolen his career.

  “What?” My skepticism broke the silence as I rubbed my thumb over the textured surface of a photo that was older than I was.

  I was torn. On one hand, Phin had locked all this away for a reason. On the other hand, however, a vision had led me to this photo, and even though I hated my visions, I couldn’t help but feel like there was a reason why I had them. With a resigned grimace, I snapped the lid shut on the box and tucked it under my arm.

  After making myself a cup of peppermint tea, I ventured out onto the wide front porch where Rose had a table and a few chairs set up to enjoy the view of her fragrant garden after a long day’s work. I pulled a blanket around my shoulders before I opened the box again.

  I read the article in its entirety. Phin had been engaged to a beautiful young girl from a neighboring town named Emma Lee Lynch. They were exactly my age, and as the girl smiled up at me from yellowed newsprint I could certainly see why Phin would love her. She was simply beautiful, in a refined, non-fussy way. She had straight black hair, swept into a low, loose bun under a billowy white hat. The tale-tell smile of first love spread across her face and I could tell, by the way her body arched into Phin’s, that he had every piece of her heart.

  Phin was young and strapping beside her, long before the accident that bent his legs into their current shape. He was all dressed up in a matching three-piece suit and had his arm draped over her shoulder. They were completely in love in the erratic, passionate embrace of unbridled youth. No wonder Rose had never mentioned this before. But I had to wonder what had happened. What had made Phin change his mind?

  There were a few other old photos of Phin and Emma Lee, mostly still shots after a race, with Emma Lee standing beside a mounted Phin in the winner’s circle. I placed them carefully on the table and dug further into the box.

  The next newspaper clipping was the same picture from the engagement announcement. In the reprint, it was only Emma Lee with a caption reading “Local Girl Goes Missing Days Before Wedding.” No wonder Phin had locked these secrets away. They’d probably broken his heart. And the more I read, the more Phin began to feel like a stranger, having lived a forgotten life I knew nothing about.

  Clippings filled the box, mostly articles reciting the last places Emma Lee had been seen and telling of any leads the local police had chased down. There was always a fervent plea from her parents and then the request to contact the local authorities with any information. Every hair on my body stood on end when I realized she had disappeared into thin air—just like Christine.

  I carefully read through each article and then put them on the table beside the pictures. I looked back in the box and recognized Phin’s handwriting again.

  There were tons of scribbles, most of them illegible, written into the margins of pamphlets, torn book pages and articles. Words were underlined, and as I began reading, things began making less sense.

  On top of the stack lay single page. A large tin-type image of a young boy in a shorts-suit and slicked-back hair sat, smiling at the camera, in yellowed black and white print. It looked official, as if it may have been part of a police investigation or something.

  RORY MCINTYRE - aged twelve.

  The caption below the photo read.

  SOUL SUCKING

  Phin’s own handwriting scrawled across the margin beside the photo. And below it, heavily underlined excerpts from the report:

  Dis
appeared without a trace one evening while herding livestock home from the fields. Reappeared five years later, barely aged a day with no recollection of where he had been. Family noted a distinct change in the once jovial boy, who appeared almost catatonic after his return.

  I slumped down in the chair, a wrinkle forming between my eyes as I stared out over Rose’s rain covered garden, contemplating Phin’s handwritten note.

  I shook my head and dug into the box again, carefully placing the little boy’s photo on the metal table.

  My fishing produced a single, glossed page, pulled from an academic journal according to the footnoted citation. Double columns ran down the page, teaming with typed words, such a jumble of font with hardly any free space my mind dulled at the idea of reading it all. Lucky for me, Phin had already read it ages ago.

  INNOCENCE AND YOUTH

  His proclamation once again blotted out a large portion of the page’s margin. Spread halfway down the page, an entire paragraph was underlined, though somewhat faded with time.

  Not much is known as to why these strange creatures prefer to prey on souls full of innocence and youth. Speculations run rampant—purifying their own debauched souls, relishing the destruction of what good there is remaining in our world, or maybe the innocence of youth makes one naive enough to fall under their spell.

  This last one sent a chill straight up my spine. Not for my own safety, sitting there alone on the porch, but thinking about sweet Christine, and how she was everything innocent in the world. I placed my elbows on the table, resting my forehead as I remembered that night, a cold rush of fear or regret or maybe guilt seeping into my bones.