Time - Chapter 13
After I left the Oracle, we headed to the lot Dad recommended and sold the car with no problem.
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?
After I left the Oracle, we headed to the lot Dad recommended and sold the car with no problem. It was an old junker, so I didn’t expect much for it, and I didn’t get much for it. When Dad came to pick us up, he asked me about my day, but I could only answer that it was “fine.” Any more depth than that, and I’d have to give the awful truth: I was going to have to leave them again. I didn’t want to. The longer I spent in my childhood home, the more I realized how unmoored I had been in the past decade, traveling from town to town, searching for a modicum of peace.
Humans have an innate ability to acclimate to their surroundings, and I’d grown to believe the hollowness inside of me was normal, but now I knew that was a lie. The hollowness came from being away from my home and the people I loved, quarantining my heart from the rest of the world. It had all come flooding back to me now. Like a numb hand regaining feeling after a long sleep, the pinpricks of pain meant I was feeling something, and I liked it.
I don’t know what I had hoped the Oracle would say. Maybe that she was wrong, and it was all a big misunderstanding. “Whoopsie, I made a mistake” would have been really nice. My intellectual brain knew that would never happen, of course. And my emotional brain was an idiot that couldn’t find its way out of a paper bag.
When we got home, I decided to do chores to clear my head and figure out my next steps. If I had to leave my parents again, I wanted to remember the feel of the soil on my fingers before I fled like a thief in the night.
“What are you doing?” Veronica’s voice said from the end of a row of tomatoes.
I turned to her, stunned to find that dusk had settled on the farm. I had been in my own head for hours. I wiped the sweat from my brow and gave a deep exhale, looking down at my basket of rotten tomatoes.
“You can’t let the rotten fruit stay on the tree. It corrupts the whole crop.” I held up one of the bruised tomatoes. “See?”
She leaned forward to look at the rotted and bug-eaten tomatoes I’d pulled from the vines. “Gross.”
“Have you ever heard the expression ‘a few bad apples spoil the bunch’?”
“Mommy used to say it.”
I smiled at her. “She’s a very smart lady, but it’s not just an expression. This is where it comes from. If we let these bad ones grow, they’ll attract all kinds of nasty bugs, and if we don’t pick these rotten ones, they can destroy a whole season’s crop. So, I’m going through and picking them.”
“Can I help?”
I pushed the bucket over to her, and we looked for rotten tomatoes until it was too dark to see anything but our noses. I remembered back to my own father teaching me how to tend the crops, and now here I was, passing the knowledge to a new generation. Part of me wished we could stay on that farm forever, tilling the fields and watching them grow, but the rest of me knew that was impossible.
If we stayed together, all of us—Mom, Dad, Veronica, and I—would be in danger. Starr told us that our fates were intertwined, and if that was true, then perhaps this little girl would die with me, and I couldn’t let that happen. The only thing that would protect us was to separate from each other, as far as possible, with no way to contact each other.
“Supper’s ready!” Pop yelled at us from his spot at the back door. “Don’t let it get cold!”
I picked up the basket of rotten tomatoes and walked hand in hand with Veronica to the compost bin, where I tossed the rotten fruit so at least they could do some good. A few bad apples can spoil the bunch, but just because they’ve gone rotten doesn’t mean they can’t still be useful.
“What are we having?” I asked as I took off my shoes inside the house. “I’m starved.”
“Meatloaf,” Dad called from the kitchen. “Thought we’d have a nice, family dinner together.”
That did sound nice, at least until I walked into the dining room and saw Kimberly sitting at the end of the table. My heart sank. Instinctively, I knew that she had found a place for Veronica. I squeezed that little girl’s hand so tight, and I never wanted to let go, even though I knew it was the right thing—the only thing.
“Nice to see you had a change of heart,” Kimberly said. “And that you’re back where you belong.”
I didn’t respond. I took Veronica into the bathroom, where we washed our hands together. Desperation swirled in my stomach. I couldn’t acknowledge that this would be the last night I spent with Veronica, the last meal I shared with her. You barely know this little girl, Lizzie. Screw your head on straight. We finished cleaning our hands and took our seats just as Dad slid the meatloaf onto the table.
“Eat up,” he said.
“It smells delicious, doesn’t it, Veronica?” I asked.
She nodded. “Totally.”
“And hello to you, Veronica,” Kimberly said. “Since Lizzie won’t do it, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Kimberly. We’re going to have so much fun together tonight.”
Veronica cocked her head to the side. “What kind of fun?”
“We’ll talk more after dinner, but I was hoping you would come with me on an adventure.” Her voice was whispered but excited. “Do you like adventures?”
Veronica looked down at her lap. “I used to like adventures, but then—” She didn’t have to finish. “Now, I just like farming. Did you know that a few bad tomatoes can spoil a whole crop?”
Kimberly took a bite of her meatloaf. “I heard something about that. It’s nice you’re learning something. I have a friend who is an excellent teacher. If you like learning, you should really meet him.”
“I don’t want to meet new people for a little while.” Veronica looked over at me, but I focused on swirling barbecue sauce in my mashed potatoes. “You’re here to take me away, aren’t you?”
That took us all by surprise, but Kimberly recovered properly. “You’re very smart. How did you know that?”
“You used the same voice Lizzie did when she brought me here. With adults, the worse the news, the higher their voice.” She took a bite of meatloaf. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“It’s for the best,” I said, half trying to convince myself.
“How do you know?” Veronica asked. “What if I’m supposed to be here with you?”
“I’m no guardian, kid,” I replied. “You need to be in a loving home, with parents who—who can take care of you better than me.”
“What about Carl and Junebug? You said you’d take care of them. Why can’t you take care of me, too?”
“Because I can’t. If you stay around me—I’m trying to keep you safe, okay?”
“You promised to look out for me, and now you’re just going to give me away? And I don’t even have a say in it? That’s not fair!” She slammed her fork on the table. “Why didn’t you just leave me with my mom if you’re just going to abandon me?”
She pushed out her chair and rushed upstairs. I started to go after her but felt the tug of my father’s arm on mine before I could stand.
“You stay here. I don’t think she wants to see you right now.”
I nodded and watched him leave the table. Kimberly waited until he was up the stairs and out of sight before she spoke. “I suppose you’ll be leaving too, before long.”
“I came to make sure Veronica’s taken care of and say goodbye to my mom. I’ve done both of those things, so the best thing for me to do is move on.”
Kimberly chuckled. “You really are an idiot.”
“Excuse me?” I scoffed. “I mean, I know I’m an idiot, but to what specific reason are you referring?”
“Even after all this time…” She shook her head. “Don’t you think your parents would rather have you here, even if it puts them in danger?”
“That’s not their choice to make.”
She stared at me, unblinking. Kimberly’s steely demeanor always unnerved me, and more so at that moment. “Maybe not, but you should let them make that choice.”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to them.”
“And that’s why you’re an idiot, a selfish idiot. Your parents are good people, and they’re dying. Whether they burn in a fire or die in their bed, they will be gone soon, and I don’t think it matters to them how. What matters to them is that you’re here with them for the end, not off on some stupid noble quest.” She shrugged. “But then, it’s not about what they want, just what you want, right?”
“That’s not fair.”
Kimberly took her plate to the sink. “It’s the fairest thing I could possibly say about you.”
Footsteps creaked on the stairs. Dad walked into the dining room just as Kimberly came back from the kitchen.
“She’s packing now,” Carl said with a deep sigh. “She doesn’t like it, but she’s doing it. That girl is hard-headed like a mule. Reminds me of somebody else I know.” He turned to me. “Are you sure this is the best idea?”
“That doesn’t matter, Carl,” Kimberly said. “It’s the best thing for her, and that’s all that matters.”
Low blow, Kimberly. Low blow. I calmed myself before I spoke. “No matter what either of you thinks of me, I’ve only tried to do what’s right for the people I care about.”
“I know,” Dad said, squeezing my shoulder. “It’s just funny how trying to do the right thing can lead you to so many wrong decisions.”
Low blow, Dad. Low blow.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.