Time - Chapter 12
“This place is gross,” Veronica said as we pulled into the trailer park.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.
Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.
But nobody can run from their destiny forever.
After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.
Bronard, Missouri.
Home.
She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.
Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.
But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?
“This place is gross,” Veronica said as we pulled into the trailer park.
She wasn’t wrong. I had lived in my fair share of trailer parks in the past ten years. On the whole, they were clean, if rudimentary, but this place was dingy and sad. Every person we passed looked like the hope had drifted from their eyes long ago. Some of the faces I recognized from my last trip to the park over ten years ago, or from school and around town. All of them relics of a bygone age, hollowed with time and drained of all signs of life. They stared at my boat of a car as we slid through the dirt road littered with plastic and glass bottles.
Crumpled bits of paper rolled across the ground like tumbleweeds. I followed Starr back to her unit, staying far enough behind that she wouldn’t recognize me. She was in the same derelict unit she occupied so long ago, even more dilapidated now, just like her.
The last time we met, I remember thinking the woman seemed like she was at death’s door. Somehow the years had taken even more from her, thinning her out until there was little more than a skeleton, in a suit made of skin, shambling up the stairs of her unit and struggling against gravity to make her way inside.
“Stay here,” I said to Veronica as I put the car in park and locked the doors behind me.
“Shouldn’t leave your kid like that,” a gruff voice called from behind me. I turned to see a pot-bellied man with a five o’clock shadow going on nine if he didn’t find a razor soon. His jagged teeth caught me by surprise as he moved toward me, yellowed, with several having given way to rot and others fallen out completely. “Not safe, that.”
“I don’t want any trouble, mister.”
“Jake. They call me Jake. You can call me ‘honey’ though, love. You’re a delicious-looking one, ain’t ya?” He licked his lips, accentuating his jagged teeth. “Yeah, yer a tasty one.”
“I don’t want any trouble, Jake.”
He stepped forward, grabbing at the belt on his waist as he went. “And what if I want trouble?”
“Leave her be, Jake!” a woman screamed behind us. I turned to see the red-haired woman who tended to the Oracle. “Don’t be an animal. It’s not even a full moon tonight.”
“Come now, Charlie,” Jake said. “I ain’t causing trouble.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Charlie said, scampering up to us. Unlike the woman she served, she was as spry as ever, though she had packed on a couple of pounds in the face and more in the stomach. The extra heft suited her. “Go watch your stories and leave the girl be.”
Jake threw up his hands and turned away, ambling back to a frayed lawn chair and picking up a beer bottle with the label mostly peeled off.
“Thank you,” I said to Charlie.
She dipped her head in acknowledgment. “You look like a girl looking for answers, and if my associate and I know anything, it’s how to find those answers for people.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” I said.
“You here for a reading?”
“I’m not sure, but I am looking for answers.” I pointed to the car. “The girl—she’s in a bad way, and I need to figure out how I can help her.”
“We usually don’t do readings for people that young. Never works out well for us. Had some bad experiences in the past.”
“I—I get that. She’s already had a reading, though, but her mom—well, she’s my responsibility now, and her mom didn’t get a chance to tell me about her prophecy before she—before the girl was left in my care.”
“So, she’s got a prophecy on her, then?” Charlie thought for a long moment, ping-ponging her eyes between Veronica and me as she stroked her chin. Finally, she gave a nod. “Bring her in.”
I unlocked the door and eyed Jake warily as I pulled Veronica out of the car. We followed Charlie toward the double-wide and up the rotten wooden stairs to the door. As it creaked open, the distinct smell of stale smoke smacked into me. My stomach leaped into my throat, and a memory flashed through my brain, the memory of a scared little girl, trembling with fear, watching the Oracle thrash across the table, telling her she was going to die and take everything she loved down with her.
“Starr,” Charlie sang sweetly as we made our way into the trailer. “We have a customer.”
Starr moaned, rousing from a couch next to the door. She stared at me with sunken eyes, and the hatred I had for her melted away. Time had taken more from her than I ever could. She destroyed my life, but life destroyed her just the same. All that was left in me toward her was pity and shame that I carried such hatred for her for so long.
“It’s fifty,” she said. “If you wanna stay in the room, then it’s a hundred.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the money I had just gotten from Jennifer at the Dress Barn and handed it to her. This better be worth it. Otherwise, I had just wasted my nut chasing phantoms.
Charlie pocketed the money and helped Starr to her feet. They shambled together across the trailer into the same little booth where I had sat once before. I brought Veronica over and sat with her on the other side of the booth.
“Veronica,” I said as tenderly as possible. “This is my friend Starr. A long time ago, she helped me find my place in the world, and now she’s going to help you.”
“N-nice to meet you,” Veronica said, her voice trembling.
“It’s nice to meet you too, child.” Starr’s voice was raspy, and her feral eyes moved from Veronica to me. Her eyes seemed to look through me, not at me, as she pondered me for a moment. “And you, yes, I remember you. Evil things I saw in your future. If this child has something to do with your fate, then I want nothing to do with her.” She turned to Charlie. “Give this woman back her money and send her away.”
“No!” I shouted. “Please. I have to know if this child has something to do with my prophecy. I have to know what to do with her. You owe me that much after what you did to me. I’ve been on the run for ten years.” The anger bubbled back into my stomach, and I clenched my jaw, trying to fight it off. “Please.”
Starr Wolfsong shuddered visibly. “I traveled across this whole country, trying to unsee the things I saw in your future—trying to escape the feeling of hopelessness that your vision brought to me, but everywhere I traveled, you followed me.”
“And after your prophecy, I ran away from home trying to avoid my future, only to be forced back here and to this trailer park, where I found you, again. Whether you believe in fate or not, that’s too big a coincidence to discount, don’t you think?”
“The fates are fickle mistresses, but yes, I admit I have felt compelled to return here as if every move I made to turn away from this place led me here again. I have often wondered why the universe kept me alive so long, in so much pain. Perhaps it is to be here, now, in this moment.” She swallowed, a painful grimace settling over her face. “I’m sorry for what happened to you and for what you must sacrifice—what you have already sacrificed.”
“Thank you for that, but right now, I just want to find out what this girl’s part is in this whole plan and how to help her.”
Starr reached her arms toward Veronica. “My sight has been blocked since that day with you, but I have other ways of telling the future.” She managed a smile. “Place your hands in mine, girl, palms up.”
Veronica looked over at me, and when I nodded, did as she was told. Starr leaned forward and stared at the little girl’s palms for a long moment before shaking her head slowly. “Your lifeline is broken so early…yet, it continues. I have never in all my years seen anything like this, and your fate line—” She turned to me. “Let me see your palms.” I turned them over for her. “Identical. I thought as much.” She closed both of our palms. “Your fates, I fear, are intrinsically linked, and they are both bound to the fate of us all.”
“What did you see that night?” I said. “When you gave me my vision?”
Starr looked at me for several long moments before she spoke with a trembling voice. “I saw the Earth, overrun with demons and all manner of Hellbeasts…and then I saw your death. In your eyes, there was a new beginning, as the past burned.” She pressed her hands tightly into mine. “It is not fair, but life is not fair. Not for any of us.” She sighed and looked over at Charlie. “Give them back their money. They will need it more than me.”
I slid out of the booth and took the money Charlie held out. “Thank you.”
Starr dropped her head into her chest. “No, thank you. I feel a great weight has been lifted off my chest. I only wish I did not have to place it on you instead.”
I smiled sadly. “You didn’t do anything. Fate did that.”
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.