Children of the Earth Read online

  Unless it already was.

  A thin layer of sweat clung to his skin by the time he reached the messy circle of squatters who had gathered at the bottom of the dark path down to the track. “What happened?” He shouldered past the men, ignoring the sour scent of their beer breath and unshowered bodies.

  “Looks like she’s having a seizure,” someone grunted.

  “But I wouldn’t get too close,” another cautioned. “Lookit what she did to him.”

  Ignoring the warning, Owen stepped to the front of the crowd.

  Daphne convulsed on the ground, flopping like a minnow in the bottom of a rowboat. Her eyes were narrow white slits, and her lashes beat furiously against her cheeks. A few feet away, a man lay unconscious, stringy hair feathered around his head. His eyes, one gray and one brown, were open but unseeing, the red still draining from his face and a patina of bruises decorating the stubbled skin of his neck.

  A knife marked the ground between them, its blade throwing slices of light from the drifters’ headlamps and gas lanterns.

  “Daphne!” Owen rushed to her even as crooked hands reached for his arms and tried to hold him back.

  “You don’t wanna do that,” someone warned. “We pulled her offa him, but it wa’n’t easy. Girl’s got a demon grip.”

  “Call an ambulance!” Owen broke free and rushed to her side. He wasn’t afraid of her, even if the rough-and-tumble drifters were.

  He knelt by Daphne’s convulsing body and slipped a gentle hand under her head. She stiffened at his touch, and her eyelids flew open. But the eyes that bored into his weren’t hers—they were barely even human. They blazed with fear and distrust so sudden and unexpected that he snatched back his hand.

  Daphne’s body jackknifed, her legs spasming as her hands flew to his throat. Steel-strong fingers closed over his neck, crushing the air from his lungs.

  “I told ’im not to go in,” he heard one of the squatters say, but it sounded like it was coming from far away, from another continent on another planet in another lifetime.

  He sputtered for breath. He was losing air, losing consciousness. The world telescoped inward, its edges black and fuzzy, static filling his ears like sand.

  He was going to die. The realization shot a cannonball of adrenaline through him, and with the last shred of his waning strength he brought his hands to his neck and closed his fingers over Daphne’s. He imagined strength pouring up his arms and through his hands, pictured Daphne’s vice-strong grip turning to jelly under his fingers. The vision squeezed through the choked-up passageways of his windpipe, rushing from nerve to nerve.

  My fingers are steel, her fingers are jelly. These words would be his last thoughts, he realized through a thick film of panic. If only they were true: if only Daphne’s strength really were waning, if only the crushing tension in her muscles would relax into flesh and beyond flesh, into jelly so soft he could spread it on toast. As he pried at her fingers, gasping for breath, he thought he felt her hands loosen under his, her strength give millimeter by painstaking millimeter.

  A sliver of air rushed to his lungs, just enough to give him a better grip. The refrain of my fingers are steel, her fingers are jelly pounded in his brain. He breathed in again, the sound raspy and desperate as he wedged first one, then two, then all of his fingers into the growing gap between her hands and his throat. With a final burst of strength, he freed himself and threw her aside.

  Daphne’s arms flopped in the dirt. Black dots floated in Owen’s vision as he rubbed his throat, the bruises tender beneath his fingers. Air had never tasted sweeter, and he sucked in giant lungfuls of it, the pain in his windpipe a stabbing reminder of how close he’d come.

  “Damn.” A nearby prospector shook his head, whistling air through his teeth. “That was close. How’d you do it?”

  “I don’t know.” Now that he was out of immediate danger Owen could feel power surging through his body, sparking from his mind down to the tips of his fingers in electrical currents that made his skin seem feel hot and too tight. His brain was on overdrive, the echo of my fingers are steel, her fingers are jelly dancing there like a song that had stuck in his head. It almost felt like those thoughts, rather than his own strength, had saved his life.

  Daphne shot to sitting like a zombie rising from the grave. Her eyes flew open, and she looked around wildly, taking in the knife and the man lying unconscious and the circle of drifters. When her gaze reached Owen, she shrieked and scuttled back in the dirt. Her face was drawn in terror, and she whimpered as if the sight of him caused her pain.

  “Daphne.” He kept his voice low and gentle, knowing she must be disoriented. “It’s okay. It’s me, Owen.”

  “No!” She turned her back to him and clutched her knees, curling into a ball and rocking back and forth.

  Still gasping for breath, he crawled over and wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders. She shrugged him off at first, still whimpering into her knees, but as the keening wail of the ambulance grew closer and the drifters began to scatter he tried again.

  “You had a seizure, Daphne,” he said softly, his lips close to her ear, soothing her the way he’d soothed his little sister after a nightmare in his previous life back in Kansas long ago. “I know it’s scary, but you’re okay. You’re going to be all right. I’m here.”

  She relaxed and let him envelop her, wrapping herself in the scent of earth and motor oil that never left his skin, resting her head against his chest and drying her cheek on his T-shirt. This was Owen, the real Owen. That other Owen, the one who’d blazed huge and evil in her vision, didn’t exist. He couldn’t. She’d been hallucinating, her mind riled up in self-defense and playing terrible tricks on her.

  But as the siren swam closer and the sky pulsed red and she sobbed into Owen’s shirt, another thought nagged at her, one she couldn’t ignore. Because, whether or not she wanted it, she was a prophet—and prophets didn’t see mistakes or hallucinations. They saw visions from God.

  3

  THE DOG WAS BARKING. BELLA stood on the pink lump that Janie made under her sleeping bag, pawing at her shoulder and yapping in her ear, awakening her from a heavy nap dotted with restless dreams.

  “Shut up, Bella.” Janie swept the dog onto the floor, but Bella landed on her cream-colored paws and went right on barking, dancing back and forth from the couch to the TV and making the cherry vodka on the milk-crate coffee table slosh in its plastic bottle.

  As she struggled out of the depths of sleep, Janie slowly realized what the dog was fussing about. Someone was knocking on the door, the pounding echoing through the empty halls of the half-finished mansion atop Elk Mountain.

  “Crap.” She sat up, throwing off the sleeping bag, and ran a hand through the rat’s nest of her hair. She dimly remembered something about Hilary coming to visit, a text message exchange from yesterday or the day before—it was easy to lose track of time when all you did was sleep and watch Teen Mom.

  “Janie, it’s for you!” Deirdre Varley’s nagging trill floated up from the lobby and bounced off the vaulted ceiling.

  “Coming,” Janie called back. But it came out sounding like a croak.

  She found her slippers and padded down the hall, tightening the drawstring on her sweatpants as she descended the stairs.

  “Hey, girl!” Hilary’s voice was unnaturally bright, the brightest thing by far in the towering, empty lobby of the half-finished chateau. She wrapped Janie in a hug that smelled like baby powder and fresh laundry, making Janie wonder what had happened to her old best friend who had always reeked of cigarettes and Rihanna’s Rogue perfume.

  “Close the door, you’re letting cold air in,” Deirdre admonished. She gave Janie a pinched glare. “I wish you’d remembered you were having company,” she sniffed. “I had to come all the way down from our wing to let her in.”

  “Sorry.” Janie looked down at her slippers, t
hreadbare Smurfettes staring mournfully from her toes. “I’ll remember next time.”

  Like there would be a next time. It’s not like anyone ever came to visit her—even her mom had gotten sick of Deirdre’s sniping and stopped coming round, choosing instead to nag Janie by phone.

  “It’s good to see you.” Hilary smiled and pushed away a stray corkscrew curl that had fallen over her eye. “It’s been too long.”

  Janie didn’t know how long it had been, exactly. Lately she’d been losing track of time, whole days disappearing between commercial breaks and fitful dreams. But it must have been a while, because Hilary didn’t just smell different, she looked different, too. She’d put on some weight, and her face was rounder, the skin taut and glowing and her old acne pockmarks nearly gone.

  “Yeah, well.” Janie gave a vague shrug. “I guess we should go upstairs.”

  She led Hilary up the wooden skeleton of a wide, sweeping staircase that would one day be finished in marble, past doorways with no doors that peeked into rooms whose only decoration was yellow sheets of insulation stapled to the walls. With the lawsuit against Janie’s father stalled and the Varleys hurting for cash, they’d sold their ranch house in town and moved the family to the chateau on Elk Mountain before it was finished—and judging from the way money had been lately, it seemed like it may never get done at all. Vince Varley swore they’d get it fully insulated and heated before winter, but there had been no workers for days, maybe even weeks. The Wyoming air was chilly even in early September, wind whistling through the cracks in the walls like lost children crying to come home.

  “Brrr.” Hilary hugged her arms and shivered as they entered the den. It was the only room in the west wing—Doug and Janie’s wing—that was fully furnished, but the old leather living room set from the Varley’s ranch house still seemed dwarfed by the vast expanse of plywood floor. “It’s cold in here.”

  “I’ll build up the fire.” Janie dredged logs from a cardboard box and poked at the smoldering coals, watching them jump and hiss before licking at the wood and filling the room with smoke. “At least there’s plenty of wood on this land.”

  “Remind me to bring you a space heater next time I come.” Hilary perched on the end of the couch and looked around, slowly taking in the panorama of the Savage Mountain Range from the huge bay window. “Sure is some view, though.”

  Janie guessed it was okay, but she preferred to face away from the lonely peaks, staring instead at the fireplace or the flat-screen television Doug had propped somewhat precariously on a milk crate.

  “Want a drink?” Janie held out an economy-sized plastic bottle half-full of the cherry vodka she’d taken to sipping throughout the day. The strong, clear liquid burned sweet trails down her throat and kept her mind hazy and soft, away from the thorny edges of thoughts that caught and ripped at her brain: memories of the birds that had fallen dead from the sky on the day of her shotgun wedding to Doug, of Daphne holding her stillborn infant son in her arms, of Doug pushing her into the dirt and screaming over her as she sobbed, blaming her for their son’s death. “It’ll warm you up.”

  She realized that maybe she should go to the kitchen for glasses (it’s what a good hostess would do, what her mother would do), but that meant a long trip down the cold stairs and dark hallways, and possibly meeting Deirdre Varley’s disapproving face over the vast kitchen island, silently judging her daughter-in-law while she attempted a new casserole with some phony-sounding French name.

  But Hilary shook her head. “I don’t really drink anymore,” she said. “I know—crazy, right? Me, turning down a drink? But, well, ever since everything happened, with Trey going to God and them finding that ancient tablet and—well, you know . . . what happened to you.” She averted her eyes, color creeping into her cheeks. Janie knew. Sometimes, it felt like it was all she knew.

  “Anyway, I’ve been trying to live a little cleaner since all that,” Hilary went on. “Pastor Ted says the Rapture’s coming any day now, and we all have to get right in the eyes of God. That means no drinking, no swearing, no getting down before marriage—which is great for me, ’cause now Bryce keeps talking about putting a ring on it.” She grinned wickedly, a flash of the wisecracking old Hilary superimposed over the clean, shiny new one.

  Janie took a swig from the bottle, seeing as how Hilary didn’t want any anyway. Maybe it wasn’t exactly polite, but what did it matter? It wasn’t like Hilary was the queen of England. As the liquid warmed her insides, she looked up and saw concern flash in her old friend’s eyes.

  “We miss you at church.” Hilary sounded like she was trying to coax a scared dog out from under the bed.

  “Yeah, well,” Janie shrugged. She already wanted another swig—it seemed like she needed more and more to take the edge off lately. “I’ve been real busy up here.”

  Hilary’s eyebrows knit, and for a moment Janie saw herself through her friend’s eyes: hair matted around her face, bundled in her old Carbon County High sweatshirt and a cheap pair of sweatpants that, honestly, she hadn’t changed in a few days. She must look pathetic, like a washed-up housewife who couldn’t even get it together to do laundry. Not that the laundry hookup was even close to ready in the Varley mansion, and Deirdre, being too proud to let them go to the laundromat in town, insisted they hand-wash their clothes in the sink. Screw that: Janie had better things to do. Like sleep. And watch TV. And drink.

  “Well, we’d all love it if you could find time to come see what we’ve been up to at the church!” Hilary sounded too upbeat, too positive—the very opposite of her sarcastic former self. Had Janie been that annoying when she was on her big Jesus kick? She couldn’t remember. Everything about the past, the time before she married Doug and lost her baby and moved into the house at Elk Mountain, seemed so far away, like it had happened in another lifetime to another person. A happier person.

  “So many people have moved into town since Pastor Ted got that show on the Christian channel,” Hilary continued. “There are all these great new folks now, we’ve started a youth group and everything, and the Sunday sermons are packed. Seriously, Janie, you would not believe it: standing room only! It’s a good thing your folks are donating the money for a new church, and that’s close to done, too, so we’ll have room for everyone who’s ready to be saved.”

  Hilary leaned forward on the couch, eyes glowing. “Just come to church this Sunday, Janie. It would mean so much to your folks, and to Pastor Ted, and . . . well, to me.”

  Janie couldn’t hold out anymore. She grabbed the bottle and took a good, long gulp. The vodka burned, but it was so much easier to swallow than Hilary’s words. She’d believed in the church—in God, in Jesus, all of it—with all her heart before. But where was God when she’d cried out to him to let her baby be delivered safe and sound? Not listening, obviously. So why should she put her faith in him now?

  She set the bottle down and wiped the back of her mouth with her hand. “I’ll go,” she said.

  “You will?” Hilary scootched forward on the couch and wrapped her arms around Janie, a hint of her old fierceness in her grip. “That’s so great! Pastor Ted will be so excited—and Daphne, too! She’s there every Sunday now, and you wouldn’t believe the fuss people make about her. I guess not every congregation gets to have its own real, live, honest-to-goodness prophet.”

  “That’s . . . awesome.” Janie tried to force a smile, but it just wouldn’t come. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Daphne, not exactly. Just that she didn’t buy into all that prophet baloney. A real prophet would have been able to save her baby. A real prophet wouldn’t have let an infant die in her arms.

  Hilary sat back on the couch and kept talking, her chatter rapid and meaningless. Janie tuned out, sneaking occasional nips from the bottle and nodding along numbly as Hilary gossiped about their old friends and raved about Pastor Ted and waxed on about clean living and the Rapture and that weird new club in town, the
Vein, which Pastor Ted said was a hotbed of sin they all must avoid if they wanted to be swept up to heaven in God’s golden light. It was a relief when her friend finally ran out of things to say and Janie could escort her downstairs to the door, the naked worklights strung through the hallways yellowing their skin as they said goodbye.

  “So you’ll really come to church on Sunday?” Hilary asked for what seemed like the millionth time, clasping one of Janie’s cold hands in both of her warm ones.

  “Yeah.” Janie nodded thickly, knowing it was a lie. But if a promise would get Hilary off her back, then she was more than glad to make it. The vodka had worked, finally, and the world was sleepy and slippery around her, a snowglobe filled with static. “I’ll see you there.”

  “Great. I can’t wait!” Hilary kissed her cheek, and then she was gone, and Janie was blessedly alone again, her footsteps ghostly echoes in the huge, silent halls. She trudged upstairs, swaying, a little off-balance thanks to the booze, and tipped another shot into her mouth as she turned on the TV. A little girl’s face filled the screen, lips pink, eyes rimmed in fake lashes. One of those child beauty-pageant shows. Perfect. Janie loved those.

  Bella leapt onto her lap and snuggled into her, the dog’s cuddles one of the few honest pleasures still left in her life. Janie felt her head tip sideways and her mouth fall open, the booze and couch and the dog’s tiny patch of warmth pulling her eyelids shut into a heavy, troubled sleep.

  • • •

  An arrhythmic thumping jerked her awake. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, only that it was dark outside and her head was pounding, her mouth dry and scratchy from her lips all the way down to the sour slosh of old vodka in her stomach.