Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) (2 page)

Everyone loves a secret...especially those who have no intentions of keeping one. I was not one of those people. There was no embarrassment I wouldn’t suffer to keep the secret festering inside me safe. Which made me wonder: Was it really a secret if everyone remained oblivious to its existence, or just a luckless circumstance of my unfortunate life?

I read once that the most interesting secrets often hide in the most mundane places. Which has to be true, because, I, Faye Kent, was utterly ordinary until the summer before my freshman year. After that summer I carried a secret that would send most normal people running for cover—if they didn’t die from shock first.

Sometimes I entertained myself by imagining what people’s reactions would be if I let them in on my secret. If I let it slip that I’d
dreamed
about their future, and that my
dreams
always came true.

Amber, my former best friend, for instance. What if I’d walked up to her that fateful morning our freshman year and said—

“Amber, I know you and Camie are planning to lure me to the girls locker room all alone and cut off every strand of hair on my head. I saw it in black and white in my dream last night, so it’s only a matter of time before it becomes reality.”

Knowing Amber, her nostrils would have flared like they always did when she was angry, about the same time her blazing blue eyes narrowed to seething snaky slits. An eternal second would have passed while her mean-girl brain thought about what she should do to me for my betrayal. She might have laughed at me, enjoyed the impossible color of red my cheeks would’ve flamed to have the entire school laughing at my insane claims.

After that, she would have done it anyway. I couldn’t change the future without people suspecting what was going on—no matter how badly I wanted to— and that’s just who Amber was. My fiercely loyal best friend ever since we became neighbors in suburban Atlanta, Georgia at age five. Everyone knew better than to cross Amber. Once she felt betrayed, or wronged in any way, her tenacity boiled into vengeance, and she didn’t rest until she felt avenged. She was a great friend, but a horrible enemy.

I didn’t really blame her. She had plenty of reasons to hate me, but the only one she knew about was that I’d flaked out on her when her father finally left home. I’d known about it for weeks, which made it impossible to be around Amber. Because when is it ever a good time to tell your best friend her father is leaving?

Omission is the same thing as lying to me. So I couldn’t help but feel that my silence was the ultimate betrayal of a friend who had been like a sister to me. Sometimes, it felt as if the weight of that guilt might crush me.

Our friendship ripped right down the middle after that. By the time Amber was done humiliating me and smearing my name for the worthless friend I had become, no one in our high school wanted anything to do with me either.

I decided living with the handicap I did was easier without friends.

Of course, I’d said nothing to Amber that morning. I dutifully walked into the gymnasium after lunch, believing my punishment was well deserved for silently betraying my best friend, and knowing I had to show up to keep my secret hidden.

Four years later my hair had grown back; our friendship hadn’t.

Losing a best friend was horrible, but it paled in comparison to dealing with the fact that I was no longer normal. Seeing the future made me an alien among my peers, and there was no one to turn to for help.

My visions started during the summer before high school—a summer when teenage girls already have a million things to worry about. At first, seeing the future was kinda fun. The black and white visions that took over my dreams had been harmless. Just little snap shots in time that inevitably popped up in reality the next day like déjà-vu. I’d try to hide my secretive, knowing smile as I watched every familiar piece of the scene fall into place.

The visions were nothing major back then—my mother cooking, Amber howling like a hyena at some inside joke, Dad coming home from work. All innocent stuff.

Weeks later, the simple snap shots became full motion pictures. That’s when things got way too serious. My innocent dreams became lucid nightmares, black-and-white-Alfred-Hitchcock-type-horror-films starring people I knew. And I was powerless to do anything about it.

It’s impossible to live normally in a world you know too much about unless you’re a superhero, something I was not. My body was constantly poised on the edge of my seat, anticipating what I knew was coming. I picked nervously at my fingernails until the cuticles were rough and bloodied, always fearful someone would discover the secrets I kept. Unguarded comments slipped out of my mouth when I wasn’t paying attention. Off-handed remarks about the future no one could possibly know were always met with an its-so-creepy-when-she-does-that scowl from whoever was listening.

Normal became way too hard for me. So I pulled away from the life I’d known. My secrets became my prison, impenetrable walls built by guilt and held in place by my perceived helplessness.

So its no wonder I was a friendless nobody by the time high school graduation rolled around years after my visions appeared. Most days I could convince myself I was happy enough. Other days I longed for what I’d had to leave behind.

What I didn’t know then was that my clairvoyant visions were nothing compared to the dangerous secrets waiting to enter my world. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to take you back to where it all began.

It was a gloomy spring Saturday
in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, which always put me in an equally dismal mood.

“April showers bring May flowers,” my mother parroted absently as she breezed past my perch near the window where I was pleading with the drizzle to go away.

“I don’t care about flowers. I just want to go to the barn,” I answered her without even looking. It was normal for us. She’d never understood why I’d checked out of life, and I’d never offered her an explanation. These days, our main interaction consisted of passing courtesies, no real conversation.

As if the rain gods were granting my pouty pleas to disappear, a single beam of sunshine filtered through the drifting cloudbank in a beautiful golden ray, bringing the return of my good humor with it. Seeing my chance to finally make it to the barn, I ran upstairs and threw on my riding clothes.

Minutes later, I clomped down the wide hallway to the front door, the solid thud of my heavy leather heels echoing throughout the house.

“I’m headed to the barn!” I yelled to no one in particular. Dad was in his office as usual, hard at work on some case he had next week. Mom had disappeared back to the dining room, pouring over her latest to do list for the Ladies Auxiliary Benefit Auction, a task that seemed to occupy every waking second of her life.

It wasn’t unusual that my announcement was met with crickets-chirping-silence. The horses I spent most afternoons with were more interested in my boring little life than my parents were.

I was unlocking my hand-me-down Camry when a shiny white limo glinting in the remaining rain puddles and sunshine caught my eye. My hand flew up to block the glare as I squinted to see what celebrity was driving down my street. Instinctively, my feet began to move and I was standing at the end of my driveway before I knew it.

The blinker turned on and the limo pulled in eight houses down and across the street from mine. It was the same driveway I had drawn chalk hopscotch boards on as a kid. It was Amber’s house.

I watched in awe as her front door opened and a rainbow of colored chiffon dresses and penguin suit tuxedos billowed onto the porch. They were gorgeous. A group of girl’s my age, tanned to perfection, made-up like high-fashion models, all wearing formal gowns that begged to be twirled around a dance floor.

Amber was the one who really caught my eye, standing amongst the friends that had taken my place, her long black hair tied in loose waves, wearing a blue gown that was almost the exact same shade as her eyes. The group fussed and posed as proud parents snapped photos in the eerily surreal light that always follows a spring rainstorm. Amber smiled at one of the girls and laughed when her boyfriend snaked his arm around her waist, pulling her close to steal a kiss. I found myself smiling too despite the empty feeling tugging at my stomach. Part of me was glad Amber had moved on with her life, even if I wasn’t a part of it anymore. The other part of me would’ve given anything to be standing beside her in one of those gorgeous gowns.

An unfamiliar ache squeezed my chest as I watched them from my hiding place in a row of overgrown azaleas. It took me awhile to realize it was regret that gripped my heart like a vice that afternoon. The contrast between them—looking like Hollywood starlets— and me—dressed as a grubby barn hand—was painfully obvious. It was impossible to pretend my life was nothing if not regrettable at that moment.

I startled slightly, lost in my own depressing thoughts, when the limo horn honked twice and the parents waved at the group pulling out of the driveway. Excited squeals carried clear as day from inside the limo as it rolled away. The sunroof opened and one by one, the girls’ heads emerged from the top of the white car where they waved again like beauty pageant contestants.

I jumped into the middle of the azalea bushes as they passed, not wanting to be seen. Spitting out a leaf, I peeked through the branches in time to see Amber staring at my house as they passed with an empty look in her eyes. She always stared at my house like that, like she still didn’t understand why I’d abandoned her. But neither of us had ever tried to make things right. Up until that point I hadn’t admitted to myself how much I cared.

But crouching there, hiding in the bushes of my own front yard like the loser I was, I realized how stupid my decisions had been. I realized how much I’d missed by giving up my teenage years and suddenly, I wanted the chance to do it all again. But graduation was weeks away, and unless there was a fairy godmother hanging around I had never met before, my life wasn’t getting any better anytime soon.

I untangled myself from the bush where I’d taken refuge and slung my bag over my shoulder with a great sigh. Walking back to the car door, I stopped and sighed again—those gasps of air were the only thing keeping tears from cascading down my cheeks. Suddenly, even riding didn’t seem like fun. It was only a reminder of how many hours I had spent at the barn chasing a stupid equestrian scholarship while everyone else was living a normal teenage life without me. I kicked at the tire with the well-worn tip of my riding boot and turned back to the house, sighing again because it was the only thing making me feel better.

“What are you doing here?” Mom looked at me with a wrinkled forehead over a pair of über trendy half reader glasses when I walked through the kitchen door.

“I decided not to ride after all,” I answered while keeping my eyes safely on the floor, and tossed my bag onto the kitchen table.

“Oh, well I haven’t even thought about supper. You’re on your own tonight.” She didn’t even bother to look up from her party planning notes as she slid the three ring binder we kept to-go menus in across the counter.

“I’m not hungry.” I pushed the notebook back to her.

“Well, order something anyway, please. Your father’s going to be hungry and I don’t have time.” Her cell phone began ringing and I knew dinner for the family was up to me...again.

“Hey, Lucy! Have you seen the flowers we’re using for the table centerpieces? I know…I know. Aren’t they gorgeous?” Mother gushed as she walked into another room to take the call. I think my mother and I both knew she would be way better at being a teenage girl than I was.

I flipped through the carefully page protected menus. Being the perfectionist she was, my mother prided herself on her over-the-top organizational skills. She refused to let me cook, insisting it wasn’t safe for a girl like me to be in the kitchen—further proof that my mother’s crazy. She rarely cooked, which left the task of ordering dinner to me almost every night.

I flipped to the menu for my favorite pizza restaurant, hoping it might cheer me up.

The order was placed and I was grabbing a soda from the fridge when mom came back into the kitchen.

“What are you doing here?” She asked absently, as if we hadn’t had the same conversation five minutes earlier.