Mortals: Heather Despair Book One
Page 1
MORTALS
HEATHER DESPAIR
Book One
by Leslie Edens
Spectricity Books
Bellingham, WA
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Spectricity Books
Bellingham, Washington
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Copyright © 2019 by Leslie Edens
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices. For information address Spectricity Books.
Fourth Edition
Cover art by Mariah Sinclair
To D.H. Dreamer and P.B. Dreamer
and all our double-wide dreams.
Chapter One
The Teardrop Trailer
Ten miles from civilization, way out in the desert, sprawled my stepfather’s junkyard. All around me, an ugly pile-up of cracked tires, dented car bodies, rotten wood and rusted wire, corralled behind a rattling chain link fence. Even though the dirty, faded sign said Slade’s Salvage Yard, everyone called it Bruce’s junkyard.
No fifteen-year-old girl should have to live in the middle of such a mess! All I wanted was to get away from this desolate place. I thrilled whenever the school bus came. Anything for a ride into town. Even a tiny New Mexico town like Portales Espirituales was an improvement over this junkyard.
One Sunday evening, I’d been outside all day. I wandered between the junk piles for as long as possible, avoiding my stepfather, Bruce Slade. The sun finally dipped to the horizon, splashing the sky with brilliant colors. Hot and bored, I climbed up the tallest tire pile to catch a breeze. I sat on top and imagined I was a sky-dweller, walking among cloud castles above. The peach-golden glow of the sunset made my heart ache with strange longing.
“Yeah, right,” I said to no one in particular. “Like I could get up there.”
Stuck, probably for eternity, in Bruce’s junkyard. I jumped to the sand below. I glared at my stepfather’s stupid trailer where I had to live. The sandblasted double-wide squatted at the junkyard’s head, blocking any view of the highway, its big picture window turned in. Watching the junk instead of the world.
The sun slipped lower on the horizon, until the junk piles cast long shadows across the sand. Darkness thickened around me. I shivered and dragged myself into the double-wide, through the back door. A creepy, cold feeling made me shake and tingle. Probably near heat stroke from being outside all day.
I dug around in the fridge for a bottle of water. I chugged it, then I hunched over the plywood desk in the living room and pulled out my notebook. Naturally, Bruce wouldn’t buy me a phone or a laptop. He lorded over the television like a petty dictator. And my own mother wouldn’t stick up for me. She went along with whatever Bruce wanted, because he owned the land and the house.
I sat there, writing in a plain paper notebook. At least it belonged to me. Sometimes I wrote stories or poems. That evening, I felt a major attack of angst-writing coming on. I’d write down every complaint I couldn’t voice out loud. First, my name.
Heather Despair, I wrote at the top of the page. What kind of name is that?
I ignored my mother banging around in the kitchen—from the greasy smell, frying hamburgers.
I wrote, I call my mom Shirleen. Not to her face. That’s because she doesn’t act like a mom. She could stand up to Bruce, but she backs down and lets him do whatever he wants.
Bruce creaked in his lounge chair and slurped beer, as usual. I could hear him fiddling his mega-remote, about to awaken his monster TV and blast all thoughts from my mind.
“Dinner soon,” Shirleen called.
I turned a page, still writing. More angst. Stuff like I hate this hoarded-out junkyard. I can’t wait to run away from here. I have a grand total of two friends at school. Bruce is SO annoying and his beer smells.
The sudden quiet—so thick it seemed to hum. My neck prickled. Something’s weird, I wrote, then my hand shook until my pen slipped down the page.
The humming grew stronger, resonating from all directions, and my ears buzzed with strange sounds, ghost moans. My vision warped; my notebook twisted and morphed. On the page, I saw a whirling tornado, a funnel of gray. Spirit voices laughed from within, warbling like the confused sounds of an orchestra tuning instruments. One voice hissed above the rest.
—Cross over.
In the center of the whirling funnel, I saw a black shadow in the shape of a human form. A chalk-white face emerged, its eyes like deep, black holes. I stared into those eyes, mesmerized.
Who are you? I wanted to ask.
My body vibrated out of the living dream; the vision blackened and curled away aflame. I opened my eyes to the plywood desk and lounge chairs—the living room. What just happened?
I had to peel my cheek from the damp paper of my notebook. The words “Cross over” spidered across the page near my limp pen hand. Had I written that?
A pink slab dropped down on the words. I jolted in alarm. Dazed, I saw it was only my stepfather’s hand. Bruce Slade’s stone-blue eyes glared down at me and he hissed. No, he wasn’t hissing. He’d only cracked open a can of beer. My nostrils stiffened at the sour smell and my head throbbed with confusion.
“Looks like your mother could use some help with dinner,” said Bruce.
“Oh, I’m fine,” said Shirleen. Plates of hamburgers and fries clinked on her arms and hands. She’d been a waitress and could balance four orders like a circus performer.
Bruce lifted his hand to muffle a belch. I glimpsed the spidery words between his fingers. No way I wrote that myself. Something or someone spoke through me, to trance-write those words. That vision had been so crystal-clear, so real! All those voices! Then the dark figure in a gray whirlwind, with a pale face and black eyes like holes.
What was going on? I knew one thing. I couldn’t tell Bruce or Shirleen. They’d flip out if I so much as mentioned seeing anything strange. Officially, strange things never happened around here.
“Heather, food’s ready. Come eat,” said Shirleen, her voice tense. She and Bruce hated me spacing out.
“I’m not really hungry.” I groaned, my hand on my forehead. “Have to finish this.”
If they would just leave me alone for five minutes, maybe I could figure out what happened!
“Oh, I hope we’re not too loud for you,” said Bruce. His thin lips curled between ruddy jowls. Shirleen slid plates onto metal TV trays, turning her back on us both.
“She’s working hard on homework,” Shirleen said in a paper-thin voice.
“She’s ignoring us!” Bruce’s voice grew louder. “Heather! Come and eat right now.”
“Fine!” I stomped across the room, clutching my notebook, and fell into a lounge chair before the TV. Bruce always made us watch his stupid show, Spirit Hunters. Everyone hated it but him. Sitting in the overstuffed lounge chair, I peeked into my notebook pages, searching for the strange words.
I growled. On top of everything, he had to remind me how I have NO freedom. I slammed the pages shut. The sound reverberated like a death knell.
Bruce’s eyes darted to my notebook. “That sure is a lot of writing for a school assignment.” His eyes narrowed. “Let me see that.”
“It’s private.” I hugged the notebook to me. I held my head high, my throat closing up. Death knell.
“Hmph. Baloney. Give it here,” said Bruce, opening another can of beer. He could smell fear the way a mean old dog could. He slapped my notebook away and tore through it, ripping pages in his rush.
My shoulders tensed toward my ears. He might see the strange handwriting. Also, somewhere in there, I’d written, Red cheeks, blue and white eyes—Bruce looks like an American flag when he’s angry. Like those tiny flags he puts on the dirt patch out front he calls a lawn.
My hands tingled, but I wired them tight to my sides. I wouldn’t let him get to me. Just like with a dog, if I ignored Bruce, he’d crawl back into his dirt hole, growling.
Bruce’s finger pointed as he lurched through the words, reading with stops and starts. “‘The spirits . . . need help . . . delivering messages . . . communing from beyond’—what is this nonsense? What kind of ideas are you hatching?”
“Hey—I didn’t write that.” Did I? I scanned the page. The handwriting spider-webbed from line to line, all sling and curve and curlicue. So unlike my own tiny lettering. I certainly didn’t remember writing it. My eyes collided with Bruce’s in confusion. He winced.
“Stop staring at me with those weird eyes,” he growled, lowering his gaze away. His hand relaxed, releasing my notebook to the floor. My direct gaze never failed to unnerve Bruce.
“Heather’s eyes aren’t weird. They’re golden,” said a gruff voice.
Bruce’s head bobbed up. I grinned at my brother Sam in the doorway, his black leather jacket and torn jeans, his spiky hair. He stood there like our father come back to life—the same lean face and intense green eyes. Tall like Dad too, now that he was nearly eighteen. Not short, like me, with blond, curly hair. I looked more like our mom—except my golden eyes. No one else in my family had eyes like mine.
Bruce snorted. “Yellow eyes, like a snake. Now look who’s shown up. If it ain’t Sam-hane. The devil’s own. Where you been, boy? Raisin’ Cain?”
“Sam. My name’s just Sam,” said my brother.
“It’s Sam-hane! Ain’t it, Heather?” said Bruce, showing his square teeth. His blue irises popped against bloodshot sclera and rosy jowls. American flag.
Sam smirked, flicked a glance at me, and hummed Hooray for the Red, White, and Blue. He got me. Sam got my messages.
Bruce sneered at Sam and announced, “It says Sam-hane right on your birth certificate.”
“It’s pronounced ‘sah-win,’” I said, voicing the soft syllables of his proper name, Samhain, with care. Oh no. I sounded snobbish—like a librarian or an English teacher.
Bruce’s lips tightened, his eyes hardened slate. “I can read and it says Sam-hane! You two think you’re so smart.” He huffed, his arms crossed in disgust, then he clicked his remote. The giant television burst into life, Spirit Hunters emblazoned across the screen, theme music blasting.
“What are you blithering about?” Shirleen peered from the kitchen.
Bruce’s hangdog face begged her for sympathy. “Don’t it say Sam-hane on his birth certificate, Shirl?” he asked.
“You know it does. But it’s ‘sah-win’—remember?” She muttered something about going to bed early, deposited her plate into the sink with a clank, and swept down the hall before Bruce could protest.
“Aw! But what about our show? We were going to watch Spirit Hunters!” said Bruce. He squashed deep in his chair, arms folded in disappointment.
I loathed that show almost as much as Bruce loved it. I hated reality shows anyway, but this one really rubbed me the wrong way. The investigators raced around like they were playing laser tag with the ghosts, all terror and adrenaline. They showed no respect for the spirits of the dead, so the ghosts never appeared or spoke, only stormed around them in whirlwinds of horror and dread.
But really, why should I care? Mom, though, had good reasons to avoid Spirit Hunters.
Sam crossed his leathered arms with a creak and scowled. “She’s got good reasons not to watch it,” he said.
“Why? ‘Cause of Able?” said Bruce.
A cold shiver passed through me as Bruce spoke our father’s name. Sam twitched.
Bruce took a pull on his beer and laughed. On the screen’s expanse, a goateed man rolled his eyes in darkness. The close-up camera had distended his face into wide-set fish eyes and a swollen forehead. He jiggled knobs on a meter, some kind of ghost-detecting equipment.
“This show is stupid,” said Sam. “How’s that thing going to find ghosts?”
The man on TV gibbered into a microphone. A warped, twisted feedback sound erupted, recalling the orchestra sounds from my vision. I covered my ears while Bruce, a sloppy grin on his face, shook his finger at Sam. “Now, now, Sam-hane. Since you’re the devil’s very own, you ought to know the answer to that. Since Able said you’re the next great fortune teller of the family.”
“Shut up about my dad. Don’t talk about him!” said Sam, his hands trembling. My hands shook and buzzed—why wouldn’t Bruce stop?
“You think my show is dumb?” said Bruce. “These guys have technology. Unlike Able, these guys don’t get drunk with every nut case in town. They don’t rip people off telling fake fortunes. Besides—” Bruce’s face slipped into a triumphant leer. “All those séances and visions didn’t save Able, did they?”
Bruce locked eyes with Sam, whose clenched fists shook with rage. I concentrated my thoughts at my brother.
—No, Sam! He’s baiting you. Don’t give him an excuse to start a fight!
My stomach flip-flopped. I dug my fingernails into the chair as the buzzing in my hands spiraled up my arms and fired my shoulders like burning wings. This feeling—it was so strong, like electricity zapping through my whole body. I couldn’t hold back, couldn’t control it. Sam had to back down!
Bruce clenched his fists and Sam tensed. Bruce launched toward my brother.
“Stop it!” I screamed.
The buzzing shot to my head, lancing my vision with jagged streaks of blue, my body throbbing with hot energy. POP! Shards spattered over me. Pop! Pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop! Glass from broken light bulbs shattered like sand onto the carpet. The TV fizzled and died. Darkness soaked in around us, and if Bruce swung at Sam, nobody saw it.
Terrified, I clawed up from my chair in the darkness. Blue stars still spun before my eyes. I felt faint. I slumped against the prefab wall. Leaning there, my heart lifted within me, like a wild thing torn free. A strange crackling pulled my eyes upward.
A thick current of blue electricity rippled from my hand along the length of the wall, illuminating Bruce’s wide eyes and open mouth, and the grim line of Sam’s jaw. Their fists clenched, they watched me extend my open hand. I breathed in deep, the electricity a warm buzz in my palm, clenched my hand, and tugged it toward me. My fingers twitched a spastic dance as the blue electricity retreated back into my hand. When the last spark disappeared, I closed my fist tight. Darkness folded in.
I quivered in the darkened room, fearful and exhausted. Why did that happen? I’d felt the buzzing before, mostly when I was upset. Never anything remotely that strong.
Bruce swore, echoed by a loud clunk and a crash. Sam’s hand touched my shoulder.
—The teardrop trailer. We need to talk.
I shivered, then sent my thoughts back.
—I’ll meet you there.
I stumbled through the dark, my notebook fluttering benea
th my feet. I scooped it up. A crack of starlight opened in a far wall, and Sam’s shadow slid out. He moved through pure blackness with the ease of one who didn’t need to see. Not with his eyes, anyway.
But I did. I groped toward the kitchen, hands before me like a sleepwalker, and collided with the back door. I eased out and under a canopy of stars. In the sand below the double-wide’s steps, I sank down, still shaking. I gazed up at the endless spangled sky.
Inside, Bruce thumped toward the back bedroom. Voices rose—Bruce, Shirleen, Bruce. Soon they were shouting. Hot tears seeped into my eyes, and I swiped them with the back of my hand.
Officially, strange things never happened around here. Sure. But unofficially, we all knew the truth. Sam and I were strange—and getting stranger.
I tried so hard to hide it. And Sam, he stayed away a lot. Yet somehow, we always did things—weird, unnatural things. Then Bruce and Shirleen would fight. It scared the bejeezus out of them, I knew. And that light show, tonight—that was the worst it had ever been. Even I had been terrified. All my life, energy buzzed in my hands, but I’d been able to conceal it. Mostly. But tonight . . . it was as if something in me opened up another dimension.
I peered at my notebook, at the name I could just make out by starlight. Heather Desperate Despair. How could I hope for better things, with a name like that? So ridiculous and so fitting, given my life. And Sam’s name, too—Samhain Despair. Both our names sounded like miserable jokes.
I collapsed back on the sand, eyes open to the stars, tears running down my face and soaking into my hair. I didn’t hate Bruce. Really, it was myself I hated.
I might have lain there longer, but a soft wind settled over me like a breath, gentle and cold. I shivered and rose, creeping across the sand lot behind the double-wide. The teardrop trailer shone in the moonlight against the darkness of the junk piles, a white, tear-shaped globe. Two-wheeled and tiny, it stared at me with one round window, like an eye. Bruce propped it there long ago, its trailer tie on a cinder block. It hadn’t moved since.
Behind the teardrop, the junk. Dark, narrow corridors lacerated the mass of junk into high-piled heaps. Bent metal, beat-up cars, mountains of tires, even an old crashed bus. Weird, twisted shapes creaked and groaned over my head as the desert air cooled in the night.