Divine Mortals Read online

  Divine Mortals

  J Allison

  Table of Contents

  Chapters

  1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7

  8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14

  15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21

  22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29

  Epilogue

  Book 2 Coming Soon

  For my Mom – Who taught me what it is to love a good book.

  And for my Husband – Who taught me what it is to love.

  Wisdom begins in wonder.

  – Socrates

  1.

  “Ouch. Dammit.”

  I rubbed my forehead where it had hit the window, abruptly ending my nightmare.

  A snigger escaped the sugar smeared face of a small boy across from me, I glared until he ducked his head, pushing against his mom in search of cover.

  The lull of the train had kept me asleep through most of my trip, but now my throat was scratchy and I couldn’t sleep any longer.

  Not that I wanted to.

  The dream was constant and repetitive, a slow torturing reminder of that night two weeks ago.

  My doctor had prescribed sleeping pills in the aftermath, now I think I had slept more in the last two weeks then I had in the past six months.

  A thick brown curl fell across my eyes tickling my face, blinding me again momentarily, I swept it back with a sigh.

  It had been surprisingly easy for me to talk my grandparents into letting me take the train to Huntington. Although people were giving me pretty much whatever I wanted these days, it was one of the many things that came with sympathy I suppose.

  Everyone tiptoed around me, unwilling to make me any less happy than I already was, although I was starting to wonder if it were possible to be more unhappy.

  My grandparents had flown back two days ago, affording me just under forty eight hours on my own, and I had enjoyed every moment of that solitary silence, it was a nice change from the constant hubbub of the last few weeks.

  Brushing the hair from my face once more I rolled further back into the seat, pushing myself hard into the stained upholstery.

  I focused on the small things at the moment, like how I was able to sleep for long periods of time (thanks to the pills).

  Contemplating anything bigger than the immediate tiny things that surrounded me was still too much, still too hard.

  One small thing I was definitely thankful for was the fact that I was on a train and not a plane, flying terrified me. I couldn’t remember a time I had ever felt comfortable in the air and so family trips had always been within driving distance from our home in Chicago, no Disneyland for me.

  Thoughts of Mom and Dad had me squeezing my eyes shut again, willing sleep to claim me once more. But I had let my mind wander too far already, my brain was too engaged for me to pull back into the zombie like state I sought constantly.

  I pushed my face further into the dark seat, it smelt musty but I didn’t really care, my health was right at the bottom of my list of priorities at the moment, along with eating, drinking and general personal presentation. I had begun to let myself resemble the zombie that I felt.

  Another part of my brain, the survival instinct, still fought on in the background, some days telling me to pull myself out of this, to keep going and things would become bearable. However the devil on my shoulder was winning the war, pulling me down into my own personal hell that the depressed side of my mind relished.

  “Ladies and Gentleman,” the voice over the PA was robotic,

  “Our next station is Huntington, arrival in ten minutes.”

  I clenched my eyes shut, but I knew it was useless. Opening them again I sighed loudly and pulled myself into sitting position. I could faintly make out my reflection in the window, my hair had come almost completely free of its ponytail and resembled a rather unruly brown hay stack. Curls twisted in all directions like the snakes of medusa and even in this bad reflection I could see my skin was pale and drawn, my hazel eyes lifeless as they stared back at me, framed with dark circles despite the number of hours I slept.

  I grasped at my hair sweeping it back, trying with little success to bring some semblance of order to it. Pulling my knapsack from the rack above my seat I dug around until I found my lip gloss and dabbed it on quickly, hoping it would help me look a little more alive when Nan and Pop collected me, after all they were hurting too.

  Nan and Pop, Norma and Fred to everyone else in small town Huntington, had held up amazingly well over the past two weeks. Their strength had been the only thing for me to draw on during my last days in Chicago, I wasn’t sure how they managed it, maybe that kind of strength was something that came with age. I would be eighteen in just over six weeks, they were in their sixties, I guess they had the experience advantage when it came to dealing with grief. Although I don’t imagine losing a child would ever be an easy thing to live through, no matter your age.

  I, on the other hand, had never attended a funeral until ten days ago, unless you counted the numerous fish and budgies that had died when I was a kid and in light of my recent experiences I didn’t. I couldn’t help but feel it was unfair that my first real experience with death had been my parents.

  The word death swirled inside my mind seeming to bounce from side to side within my head. It still hadn’t sunk in, and I grasped onto the crazy notion that my parents would call any day now, perhaps from London, to tell me they had made an unexpected trip to see my brother Joel. Again the logical and unwelcome part of my brain spoke up, Joel had been with me just yesterday in Chicago, we had said our goodbyes out front of Mom and Dads house, my home, and had then gone our separate ways to very different destinations.

  Joel, of course, had offered to take me with him, but I couldn’t imagine trying to fit in to his new life in England. I would be a third wheel in his marriage and that would make me even more miserable, well that and the prospect of the long hours on a plane that were a necessity if I was to go to England. The nail in the coffin, a bad analogy in this case, had been the thought of that flight.

  Besides, Nan and Pop had already offered to have me come live with them, in fact they had almost pleaded I come and stay, I guess I was the only tie they had left to their son, well the only tie still in the country.

  This option hadn’t been overly appealing either, but according to both Joel and my grandparents I was still too young to live on my own in Chicago. So now I was heading towards my new life in Huntington, a fourteen hour train trip south west of Chicago, nestled in the heart of Colorado.

  I watched without any interest as the fields outside flew by in a blurry mix of greens and brown, even though it was the beginning of July snowy peaks still capped the mountains that rose up in the distance.

  Most people found this scenery beautiful, peaceful compared to the hustle and bustle of a city. I found it repressive, I wasn’t only coming for a week this time, I was coming to live, and I had no idea when I would be in Chicago again.

  My mobile beeped quietly, bringing me back to reality, reaching back into my knapsack I groped around inside until I found it.

  The text was from Julia, the message simple,

  ‘I miss you already.’

  ‘I miss you.’ I sent back, that was something else I had struggled to leave. Julia and I had been best friends for years, we had grown up on the same street, learning to ride bikes and later drive cars together. And now I had left her hundreds of miles behind me, the same place I had left everything that was familiar in the twilight hours of last night.

  The scenery outside was beginning to move past at a less hectic rate, I sighed, this was it.

  Swinging my knapsack onto my back I started to pull the first of my two huge suitcases
from under the seat, the second case had become wedged after the long trip, I grunted bending my knees to pull it free.

  Sometimes I wished I was stronger, I seemed to be pathetically lacking in the muscle department or whenever it came to anything that required physical strength. My dad had always teased my girly weakness, telling me that my slim arms and tiny wrists gave me the proportions of a T- Rex. Of course he was only joking, I didn’t have a huge bulk of a body, I was annoyingly slim all over, often wishing that I had more shape.

  “Welcome to Huntington Station.” The monotone voice sounded again across the PA, “Please disembark from the left side of the train.”

  I was glad both suitcases were the rolling kind, I pulled out the handles and towed them behind me, stepping clear of train and into the shining sun of Huntington.

  The heat hit me in full force as I stepped from the carriage, my bags bouncing heavily over the small empty space between train and platform.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, blocking out the bright rays, blinding after the dim interior of the train. A breeze blew gently across my upturned face, it smelt different here, I had forgotten, fresher somehow.

  I began to be jostled as a few people stepped around me and I was quickly caught up in the passengers that were now departing the train en masse. I blinked once more and headed slowly towards the scanner, the last ticket check before…what? I wasn’t sure yet, before tomorrow, that’s as far ahead as I could look.

  I didn’t know how this arrangement would work or even if it would work, I loved my grandparents dearly but I had never spent more than two weeks in their presence and now to live with them full time?

  They had pretty old fashioned ideals, how could they not, it was thirty years since they had had teenagers of their own at home.

  My mobile beeped again, deep within my knapsack, it was impossible to check it now. Swiping my ticket I shuffled through a small spinning metal arm into the main station building.

  The main building, if that’s what you could call it, was barely the size of my lounge room in Chicago. It seemed to serve only as a means to get under cover if it rained, it wasn’t large enough to contain even a carriage load of people and consequently everyone headed in a long line towards the door on the other side. I shuffled along with them, trying my best to arrange a suitable smile on my face before I found Nan and Pop.

  Another thing I had learnt about myself over the last few weeks was that I have an intense dislike of sympathy.

  Everyone I had spoken to since the accident had tiptoed around me as if walking on egg shells, giving me sympathetic looks and sad smiles, I couldn’t stand it. The expressions they wore, the tone of their voices, the looks they sent my way when they thought I wouldn’t notice.

  It had all been enough to drive me insane.

  The exit opened immediately into a tiny car park, a perfect fit for the tiny station, and then it hit me, perhaps I thought everything was so small because I was used to Chicago, where car parks and stations had to cater for so many more people. Here these things probably weren’t small at all, they were adequate. I felt a little unsteady at this realization, I was in no mans land, in a town filled with farmers, horses and small town ideals, somewhere that everyone knew your business and if they didn’t they made it up.

  I groaned loudly causing the old lady beside me to stare as if I was quite demented, I smiled at her sweetly probably not helping the crazy girl image she had already formed about me. I prayed she wasn’t a local or my lack of sanity would be all over town within a half hour.

  Looking away from her I quickly scanned the parking lot for my Grandparents, I couldn’t see either of them so I pulled my bags towards a bench seat, sitting heavily, and prepared to wait.

  My grandfather was perpetually late to everything, he didn’t do it on purpose, he just got too involved with what he was doing and forgot he was supposed to be elsewhere.

  Remembering my message I reached into my backpack. Another message from Julia, at least she was still treating me like a normal person.

  ‘Jake just asked me on a date – soooooo excited!’

  I smiled, imagining her bouncing up and down as she sent it. She had been flirting with Jake for months.

  “Ava,”

  I looked up to find both grandparents beaming down at me, I consciously adjusted my face into what I hoped was a suitable smile.

  “Hi.”

  Standing quickly I greeted them both with a hug and a kiss. They had that secret smell of old people, the smell people over sixty seem to get, of fresh baking and soap powder, however today it was mixed with the faint scent of sunshine and grass.

  “Did you have a nice trip?” Nan asked hopefully.

  “Long.” I groaned, still careful to smile.

  “Well let’s get you home then,” Pop, ever practical, grabbed the handles of both cases and started hauling them across the near empty lot towards their shiny black Ford pickup.

  My Pop has a thing for pickups, he always has to have them new and top of the range, he treats them like they’re his children, polishing and waxing them every other day and never letting them get older than a couple of years before updating to the latest shiny object of his total devotion. I wondered briefly what I would drive, I doubted it would be this.

  With a strength that went against his years Pop swung both cases easily into the bed of the pickup, before giving me a quick smile and jumping into the drivers’ seat.

  So far so good, they were treating me normally, maybe the sympathy was best left in Chicago, that way we could all get on with our lives, even if our lives were totally different to what they had been just two weeks ago.

  We drove through the main street of town, it was wide and looked almost deserted with only one set of traffic lights at the main intersection.

  Pop waved to a number of people he knew, calling greetings to them through the open window.

  It was already like a bad country film, I wouldn’t have been surprised if banjo music started to play.

  There were only a few shops scattered along the main street, a bank, the grocery store, a few diners and cafes and the token hardware store. Nan was chatting away easily in the front seat, never needing acknowledgement or answer, she was just chatting to make noise as we moved from the towns limits onto the open road.

  The turnoff to my grandparent’s ranch was only a few miles out of town, however the track to the house was about five miles long, unsealed and bumpy, it lead us towards the hills and mountains that lined the valley Huntington was home to.

  As we turned onto the track we passed under a large wooden sign that swung gently above the road.

  ‘River Stone’

  My grandparents had named the ranch for the huge river that runs its length. It was beautiful from what I could remember, great for swimming in the summer with huge Willow trees lining its banks, their low hanging branches trailing the water below and creating a green curtain on either side, blocking the view of the meadows beyond.

  Grans voice broke through my thoughts,

  “We’ve given you the room with the en-suite love, thought you would prefer that, the other guest rooms are bigger but they don’t have their own bathroom.”

  “Oh that’s fine.” I answered, I hadn’t even considered which room might be mine, actually I had tried not to think about this move at all.

  “Got you a horse too love,” Pops voice chimed in, I saw him glance at me in the rear vision mirror, ready to judge my reaction.

  “You what!” my voice broke slightly, I fought the urge to panic.

  “He’s a good boy Ava, he’ll be a great one to learn on.”

  “Oh, ah…” I didn’t know what else to say, a large rock shifted into the pit of my stomach and my palms started to sweat, I rubbed them off on my shorts.

  So they wouldn’t kill me with sympathy after all, they would do it more quickly and painfully via falling to my death and being trampled under iron shod hooves.

  I, like most gir
ls, loved horses as a child until the last fateful trip I had made to the ranch when I was twelve.

  Showing off to one of the farm hands I had taken a fall and broken my arm. Since then I had never been on a horse again and never wanted to.

  I decided to keep quiet on the horse subject, I didn’t want to hurt Pops feelings, he was obviously very proud of his gift and from the self-congratulatory look he wore he had mistaken my terror for wordless amazement.

  I turned my attention to the ranch again, either side of us as far as I could see were fields, long grass rippled in the wind making the landscape move like waves on the ocean. In the distance I could make out the shapes of hundreds of grazing cattle, cattle I wasn’t so afraid of, much, perhaps because I knew they were even more scared of me then I was of them, unlike horses.

  It was late afternoon and the sun was high in the sky and moving steadily towards the mountains, I was looking forward to bed.

  Pop slowed a bit and I noticed we were approaching three small log cabins set just off the track.

  “Workers huts.” Pop explained simply as we drove past, these were new since I was last here.

  The three huts looked small, no more than one bedroom in each judging by the size of them and they were identical, windows and doors all in the same places with a dainty chimney poking through the top left hand side of each of the three iron roofs.

  A minute later we approached the back of two large sheds set on either side of the track. I turned to look back at them as we drove between the two buildings, remembering that these were the machinery shed and stables.

  The stables was a huge timber building, its large double doors thrown open, with horses grazing in small pens set to the right of it. I shuddered, wondering which one of these were mine.

  Directly ahead of us was the homestead. The six bedroom giant had whitewashed timber walls with an iron roof that hung over all sides forming a huge porch. I guess you would call it colonial.

  A hammock, swaying gently in the breeze, was set at one end of the porch and just outside the back door a wooden outdoor setting stood next to a portable barbeque.