Children of the Earth

by Anna Schumacher

  The thumps grew louder, suddenly familiar. It was Doug, stumbling down the hall. So it was late, then. He always came home late, and often drunk—not that she had any right to judge. She held her breath, wondering if it would be one of those nights he wanted something from her or if he’d just pass by, heading to the large, lonely bed in the master bedroom they supposedly shared.

  Things had been different with Doug since that night, the night of Jeremiah’s funeral, when he left her sobbing in the dust by the bonfire. He’d apologized, of course: Doug was good at apologizing. He’d gotten down on his knees and said he was out of his mind with grief, so broken up about their baby that he didn’t know what he was doing. And she’d forgiven him, because she didn’t know how else to respond and because she loved him and wanted things to go back to the way they were.

  Not that they had. Now they were ghosts orbiting each other in the giant house, Doug finding as many excuses to leave as Janie did to stay. She didn’t know where he went. All she knew was that he came home drunk, sometimes wanting her body and other times wanting nothing more than bed.

  The footsteps stopped, and he appeared in the doorless doorway, weaving slightly on oversized feet, his big head blocking out the work lights from the hall. Disgust and desire welled up in her, battling for control as he lumbered toward her and lowered himself to the couch with a heavy grunt. Even as the whiskey on his breath repulsed her, she found herself arching out of the sleeping bag to meet his groping hand.

  He didn’t say a word as he unbuckled his belt and grasped her hand roughly, guiding her to him. She didn’t either, although her breath quickened and she felt herself lean toward him, anxious for even the quickest, sloppiest kiss, the most fleeting connection to what their life and their love had once been.

  Her cell phone jangled on the coffee table, startling them both. It was late, she knew—too late for anyone to call.

  “Mom?” Her voice was rusty with disuse. “What’s up?”

  She listened, her eyes widening, before hanging up and slipping the phone into her pocket.

  “What?” Doug fell back on the couch, staring woozily at the mournful sliver of moonlight outside the bay window as Janie chased her shadow around the room, looking for the boots she hadn’t worn since her last trip out to gather kindling.

  “It’s cousin Daphne.” Her voice was hollow. “She had an accident or something, and she’s in the hospital. I gotta go.”

  She found her imitation Uggs under the couch and mashed her feet into them, sweatpants and all. She fished the keys to Doug’s truck from his pocket and looked down at him one last time, at the blanket of sleep that had already fallen over his face and the gently snoring mouth that had once declared his undying love. She didn’t know whether she wanted to kiss that mouth or kick it, and so she did neither.

  Instead, she let herself out of the house and started his truck, shivering as she drove off into the night.

  4

  MUSIC THROBBED THROUGH LUNA’S BODY, pulsing the blood in her veins and making her skin feel warm and alive. The tips of her multicolored dreadlocks brushed her bare back, tickling the sensitive skin where a tree tattoo sprouted from her root chakra and spread over her back and down her arms. She threw back her head and closed her eyes, letting the music roll over her shoulders and trace trails in the air from her fingertips.

  Even in the darkness behind her lids, she could feel them watching her, hungering for her. Their eyes left hot retina prints on her hips, which swirled lazily, keeping the twinkling circle of her LED hoop aloft. From time to time she sensed a grubby hand reach for her, desperate to stroke even the tiniest patch of skin on her calf, but it was easy enough to send the hand’s owner stumbling backward with a well-timed kick of her vegan leather boot.

  The Vein was packed, the music deafening, the air thick with crushed dreams and frustrated desires. Her Earth Sisters Freya and Abilene moved like panthers behind the bar, green eyes flashing as they poured shots down the prospectors’ throats and tucked their ample tips into holsters slung low on their hips. Orion winked at her from the DJ booth while Aura sent fog creeping across the floor and lasers dancing over the walls, and Gray and Kimo moved silently through the crowd, clearing glasses and mopping up spills, their lithe bodies no more than shadows that left the Vein’s patrons feeling inexplicably cold and empty as they passed, making them shiver and curse and hurry to the bar for another drink.

  Oh, how the prospectors could drink! It took gallons of booze to fill their vacant souls each night. Their greed was massive and oppressive, their desire for easy money and cheap thrills so strong that sometimes Luna found herself forcing back bubbles of nausea while she twirled her hoop atop her go-go platform, above it all.

  Radio signals of want radiated from them, so loud at times that Luna wanted to scream at the prospectors that these desires would leave them even emptier in the end, just as the alcohol drained not only their wallets but also their souls. She wanted to force them to see the beauty in the earth, the blinding happiness in a simple life spent worshipping the land, the incomparable joy of respecting every living thing. She wanted to make them understand the damage they did each day when they went tearing up the foothills looking for oil.

  But she knew that route didn’t work. Her people had been trying to turn the tides for centuries, from the druids of Ireland to the monks of Tibet to the gentle hippies who had raised her on a commune called the Children of the Earth. Their warnings never worked. People were just too greedy, just too blind.

  With the earth on the verge of destruction, the planet’s veins bled of oil, its airways choked with smog, and the water in its cells polluted with toxic chemicals, it was Luna’s responsibility to tap into the ancient power of the earth and take action. She had to stop the destruction before it was too late.

  But she couldn’t do it alone. She needed the Children of the Earth—all of the Children of the Earth—at her side.

  Somewhere below the go-go platform, a fight broke out. Glass shattered, and an arc of blood sailed through the air, the sound of fist meeting flesh exploding over the music’s driving beat.

  Luna put down her hoop and leapt to the floor, landing silently on the thick rubber soles of her boots. She flowed through the crowd like steam, and it automatically parted to let her pass. In a moment she was between the brawling men, the solid center in a swirl of flying fists and hamburger-meat faces, of bloodied lips and bloodshot eyes.

  “Stop.” She held up her hands, a palm facing each of them. She felt the magic build inside of her, the indigo-colored force that started in her throat chakra and roared to life in her veins. It sensed the men’s desires radiating off of them like a foul smell, knew by instinct that their fight wasn’t really over a spilled mug of ale but because they were frustrated, their thirst for approval and women and riches never slaked.

  She fed on them, these desires, and now she knew what to do with them. The men may have thought they wanted to fight and win, but she sensed the need underneath: to feel completely safe and protected, the way they’d felt as infants in their mothers’ arms.

  Luna glanced from one man to the other, the buzz of power pulsing through her. Up in the DJ booth, Orion cut the music, and the Vein fell silent.

  “You don’t fight in my club.” Her voice was quiet, her eyes cool. “Understand?”

  “Yes’m.” The men murmured, bashful, staring down at their muddied shoes. Their anger fizzled and seemed to leak from their suddenly unclenched fists. They didn’t dare meet her gaze.

  “Now get out.” She raised her face to the teeming crowd, meeting all of their eyes at once, making them blush all the way to the roots of their greasy hair. “All of you. We’re closing up for the night.”

  Moving as one, the staff of the Vein pushed the mob of prospectors toward the exit. Within minutes the bar was empty. Only the Children of the Earth remained.

  “Are ther
e any left?” Luna asked Kimo as he slipped by with a push broom.

  Her Earth Brother stopped. He tilted his head to the side, so that his stiff black Mohawk almost disappeared, and sniffed the air delicately. His eyes went a shade greener, glowing incandescent in the bar’s gloom.

  “There’s two in the bathroom,” he said. “You don’t even want to know what they’re doing.”

  Luna nodded. “Get them out.”

  Kimo hurried away, and she grasped the railing of the spiral staircase and took the steps two at a time. Orion paused from packing up his turntables to give her shoulder an affectionate squeeze as she wafted past him and through a black door.

  Ciaran sat at a desk in the management office, counting the night’s earnings. His fingers were dragonfly legs dancing across the backs of bills as he sorted them into piles. They didn’t stop as he looked up.

  “Evening, Earth Sister.” He tossed a long, honey-colored lock of hair from his eyes.

  Luna kissed his golden cheek. “We do well tonight?” She perched on the edge of his desk, swinging her legs.

  “We cleaned up, like we always do.” He punched numbers into a calculator, his smile never losing its glow. “If those prospectors knew how to make money like we do, they’d stop looking for oil in all the wrong places.”

  She tapped him on the nose. “If they knew how to make money like we do, we wouldn’t make money like we do.”

  “Touché.” He opened a safe in the wall and placed the bills inside. “But you’re not happy,” he observed. “Something’s bothering you.”

  Her legs stopped mid-swing. Ciaran was the first of her Earth Siblings to arrive in town after Owen, but she still wasn’t entirely used to the way he could see inside her mind. It was his power, just as manipulating desires was hers.

  She got up and closed the door, then leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “He isn’t back yet.”

  Ciaran’s brow wrinkled. “That guy? The one who was supposed to take care of Daphne?”

  “Yeah.” The word tasted dark. “Something happened. Something bad. I can feel it.”

  Ciaran scratched his knee through a hole in his jeans. “Maybe it’s a sign,” he said finally. “From our gods. Telling you that this is wrong.”

  Frustration simmered in her throat. “How can it be wrong? I’ve tried everything else: reason, begging, magic. Owen won’t leave her. I know that deep down he wants to be with us—when I sleep, I can feel him reaching for us in his dreams. But that girl has a hold on him, and until we get her out of the picture, he won’t come back. And without him, we can’t—”

  She broke off, unable to face the enormity of what it would mean to lose this war. It meant that the greedy and ungrateful would go right on pillaging the earth until their beautiful planet was nothing but an empty, smoking husk hurtling through space. It would mean that she had failed.

  Ciaran placed a hand on her shoulder. His compassion broke something inside her, and she felt the lump of frustration move up her throat and push against the back of her eyes.

  “I just miss him.” Her voice trembled, and she glanced down at her knees. Ciaran held her by the shoulders, his hands soft and soothing.

  “I need him,” she continued. “We can’t do this without him. Without all thirteen of us, we won’t have the full strength of the circle, and we can’t call the Earth God to heal the planet.”

  “I know.” Ciaran’s voice was like cool moss on an open wound. “It’s okay, Luna. He’ll come back, and we’ll be able to work our magic. We’ll do what needs to get done.”

  She looked up at him. She hated feeling this vulnerable, this lost, but Ciaran understood. He understood, and he didn’t judge.

  “Yes.” Their eyes locked, green on green. “I promise, Luna. Owen will come back, and our circle will be complete.”

  5

  AT FIRST ALL SHE SAW was white. The shapes were fuzzy and indistinct, overlaid with horrific remnants from her vision like slides held up to the light. She saw the man with stringy hair and different-colored eyes, the knife glinting in his grasp. She saw flames clawing their way into the sky around the oil derrick, and the unbearable hugeness of the shadow drawing them closer. She clawed at the air, trying to grasp the visions and tear them apart, and as she swam into consciousness, her eyes cleared and the white came through, antiseptic and safe.

  “Daphne!” Uncle Floyd flew to her bedside. “You’re awake.”

  Concern dragged at the leathery folds of his face, but the weight of his hand on hers was a relief. Beyond him, other figures blurred into focus: Aunt Karen, Cousin Janie, and Pastor Ted.

  “Where am I?” She looked around at the white walls and perforated ceiling tiles, the IV trailing into her arm and the rails on her bed. “The hospital?”

  “You had a seizure.” Aunt Karen smoothed back her hair. “But you’re fine now. See? Your whole family’s here with you, me and Floyd and Janie, plus Pastor Ted and, uh . . . Owen from the rig, too.”

  “I was asleep . . .” Her head felt heavy and dull, like someone had stuffed cotton between her ears.

  “They gave you a sedative.” Owen leaned against the wall, his face half-hidden by oil-colored hair. “In the ambulance. You were still kind of freaking out.”

  Floyd narrowed his eyes, and Daphne wished she could tell her uncle how good Owen truly was, how much he meant to her. He wasn’t the monster everyone in Carbon County thought he was. If only there was a way to make her family see.

  “Oh.” She shook her head. “I was having such weird dreams.”

  “You’ve been through a terrible trial, Daphne.” Pastor Ted stepped forward, his round, smooth face solemn under uncombed hair. He must have woken up in the middle of the night to come to her bedside, she realized guiltily—and he was so busy with his new TV show and growing congregation as it was. “The man who attacked you may not have been an ordinary man. I suspect he was an agent of the devil, sent to erode our faith by murdering our prophet. It’s only by the grace of God that you were able to defend yourself.”

  “You did a darn fine job of it, too.” Pride percolated in Floyd’s voice. “Put ’im in a coma, using just your own strength.”

  “But Floyd.” Pastor Ted turned to her uncle. “It may not have been just her strength. You see, when someone is touched by the Lord, they sometimes become a sort of conduit for divine power. God saw that Daphne was in trouble and channeled His own power through her to vanquish the evildoer.”

  “Thank goodness He did.” Tears brimmed in Karen’s eyes. “Can you even imagine . . .” she sniffled, unable to finish the thought.

  “Now, Daphne, this episode you had . . .” Pastor Ted gazed down at her intently. “Do you remember anything from the time you were out? Did you hear or see anything, maybe receive a message?”

  “I—” Daphne gulped, her mouth suddenly dry. She couldn’t help sneaking a glance across the room at Owen, remembering the way he’d appeared in her vision: eyes burning with evil, his giant hands coaxing flames from the foothills to engulf the oil rig.

  “Go on, Daphne.” Pastor Ted leaned forward. “You can tell us. You’re in a safe place.”

  Her voice came out in a rough, hoarse whisper. “There was a fire at the rig. It was huge—it swallowed the whole sky.”

  Pastor Ted gripped the railing on her bed, his knuckles growing pale. “That’s from Revelations 8:6!” His voice turned deep and sonorous as he quoted the Bible, but he couldn’t quite mask the glee that always crept into his speech when he talked about the Rapture. “‘When the first angel sounds his trumpet, there will be a mixture of hail and fire that will burn up a third of the earth.’” He turned to Daphne, face flushed. “Anything else?”

  “Well . . . there was a shadow, like the shadow of a man. He was holding his hands up to the flames. It looked like he was controlling the fire . . . like he was trying to bring it closer
.”

  She knew she should tell the whole truth: that the “shadow” was Owen and that she saw nothing but evil blazing in his eyes. But how could she? If she confessed what she’d seen in her visions, the already-suspicious townspeople might drive him out of town.

  Plus . . . it was Owen. Owen had held and soothed her while the bruises from her hands were still fresh on his throat; he’d traveled in the ambulance with her and even braved her disapproving family, just to stay by her side. How could she possibly admit, even to herself, that the evil figure in her vision had been him?

  Pastor Ted gasped. For a moment, he was speechless.

  “What?” Daphne sat up straighter. “What does it mean?”

  The pastor shook his head slowly. “Of course, I can’t say for sure, but when a prophet sees a dark figure controlling fire—well, it can really only be one thing.” He took a deep breath, and everyone in the room leaned forward. “The devil.”

  Before they could react, a raspy voice jerked their attention to the door, where a portly cop stood scowling. “This Daphne Peyton’s room?”

  “Why, yes, Sheriff Bates.” Floyd still looked dazed from Pastor Ted’s words. “She’s right here.”

  “Great. I’m gonna hafta ask you some questions.” The sheriff barged past Pastor Ted, his bulk devouring the rest of the space in the already cramped room. He was a large man, soft around the middle, with thinning hair and a doughy chin. Beside him, his head just level with the cop’s ample stomach, hovered a boy of no more than six or seven years old.

  “Well, hello, Charlie.” Pastor Ted knelt and ruffled the boy’s otter-pelt hair. “Are you helping your dad fight crime?”

  The sheriff glared at him. “He’s here ’cause I got nowhere else to put ’im when I get a late-night call. Now, if you don’t mind, I got questions to ask, and it’s gotta be witnesses and family only. So Ted, you can go ahead and skedaddle.”