Post by Robbie Piken on Jun 11, 2009 6:48:41 GMT -5
Seer
A Story of Imagination
vampyers, werewolves, faeries, and seersOh My!
A Story of Imagination
vampyers, werewolves, faeries, and seersOh My!
01. Ten Years
I kicked the stand down on my bike, propping it against the brick wall of the book store Prose of a Rose. I tossed my backpack onto the ground, not really caring what I might break. Did I even have anything breakable in it? I don’t know my mind wasn’t really thinking about anything but one person. I crouched down towards my bag, forcing the zipper down and rummaging through it. Searching. Still searching. Found it, my bike chain.
I locked the bike wheels together, standing back up and stretching my legs out. Today the quarter of a mile I had to ride from my house to here seemed incredibly hard to trek Or maybe the roads here in God forsaken, middle of nowhere Ohio had gotten worse. That was more like it.
I tossed my helmet off and onto the seat of my bike not really looking where it landed. I ran my fingers through my hair to give it some non-helmet head life. Like that could happen. “This is why it sucks to not have a car.” I muttered as I casually meandered up the stairs and opened the door entering with a smile.
“Well what do we have here!” Proclaimed the very perky Lyssa. She was the ideal teenage girl; perfect body, appearance, and attitude. She had long nearly floor length hair that when she bounced around it would almost sweep the ground. It was a perfect blonde too, the wispy pale white color that matched her pale complexion. And she never had a bad day. In the last ten years of knowing her she never spoke angrily or harshly. Her stature was petite, standing at barely the five foot mark which matched her angelic like voice that was like hundreds of tiny bells ringing.
“Hey Lyssa,” I replied warmly, as she bounced out from behind the front counter and hugged me before wheeling back around and returning to her seat beside the sole reason of my daily ventures to the little bookstore.
The most gorgeous man I have ever, in my twenty one years of life, laid my eyes on: Alexander Hainsworth. He was gorgeous; let me stress that to the point that he was painfully gorgeous. And I, being the stupid person I am, had on occasions gawked at him in mid-conversation. And it wasn’t just his looks it was his personality.
Lyssa whispered something softly to Alex, I could barely hear her. It was a soft sound that was so quiet you would have thought it was the almost silent beating of a butterfly’s wings. But it sounded like, “We know why she came.” My eyes flickered form Lyssa’s smiling face to Alex. He sat straight up on the stool; his jaw clenched tightly shut and hard set, his nostrils flaring, his eyes glaring harshly at the petite blonde beside him.
I mustered my best cool and relaxed face, while my stomach did somersaults and some very bad cartwheels. “Hey Alex, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine you?” His words sounded painfully stiff. He wasn’t always this stiff; he normally was the ideal of pleasurable conversations and reciprocation of my flirting
Flirting. Yes, where had that gone? It seems to have left me insanely nervous and close to feeling sick. “Good,” was all I could muster.
Alex rose from his stool, giving Lyssa a scathing look as he strode out form behind the counter with amazing grace and beauty even though he had an if-looks-can-kill face. He didn’t move a single muscle as he entered the back room of the store.
As soon as Alex was out of ear shot Lyssa turned and looked at me with an exasperated face. “Sorry ‘Brina, he had a bad night in Cincie last night.” She explained as she leapt of the stool and began organizing books on a bookshelf near me.
“You know Lyssa, if I didn’t know better I’d think he was PMSing.” I was very much so hurt by the coldness Alex had displayed. I felt a tear in my heart. One that unfortunately always nagged at me. I reached for a book on the shelf and began thumbing through it before continuing. “Am I not right? Every month he seems to go though a “time-of-the-month” spell.”
Lyssa’s only response was a bell like laughter as she shifted to the other side of the book case. “He’s just-“she broke off trying to think of a word. She made a squeak like noise having found the word. “Moody! That’s it! He’s just moody!” Never before had I heard someone so happy to inform me that someone was moody.
“Lyssa,” I began. I was determined to ask this question. Now that I had a moment alone with Lyssa, she could maybe let me know.
“Yep?” Lyssa popped her head around the corner of the bookcase when I didn’t say anything else.
“Does Alex like me?” The words ran out of my mouth the second I thought against this idea. I could feel the hot blush creeping across my face. I turned on my heels and went down another aisle of books. But she followed me. Having similar persistence that I have she wasn’t gonna give up now that I said it.
“”Sabrina, here’s a question do you like him?”
My eyes grew wide and I swallowed hard. I turned away again but hit the bookcase with my elbow and knocked a large number of books off in my flustered attempt to flee her question. “I didn’t mean to ask. Just forget it. I didn’t mean to blurt it out. Don’t tell Alex.”
“Don’t tell me what?” The velvet like voice asked from behind me. I jerked around with a cringe on my face.
“That she knocked all of these books off of the shelf.” Lyssa replied, her singsong voice rolling the lie out easily.
“I’m sorry. I am such a klutz.” I kept my head down as I crouched down to the books. I was scared to death he’d freak out and scream at me, with the mood he had been in.
But instead he replied with a sincere smile and a smooth tone. “It’s alright.” I looked up at him as he bent down to help. His eyes were kind and not quiet as cold. I smiled back at him, still not making full eye contact. I nearly fell over when our fingers brushed as we reached for the same book. “Sorry about before, I was in a foul mood. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“It’s fine.” I was watching how his fingers kept intercepting mine. How he kept touching my hand. His touch, like ice. “Where you outside?”
“What?” Alex sat back on his heels. A look of confusion on his face. Was he thick? Did he not feel how cold he was?
“Your hands, they’re cold.”
“Oh…” Alex gave a quick glance to his hands. As if to try to recall if he had been outside seconds before. “Yeah I went outside briefly.” He was a bad liar.
I shrugged off the lie and played along. I grabbed his hands and shook the viciously. Fully feeling just how cold they were. “Gloves, Alex, gloves.”
He nodded with a lop-sided grin. My heart nearly leapt into my throat as he gave me a wink. “I’ll remember that next time.”
I was surprised by his total attitude change. He went from one mood to the polar opposite in under thirty minutes. Whiplash anyone? But I was glad to find him returned to his normal, cheerful and teasing self.
“So when are you going to get back to me about working here?”
“Well, with Lyssa here and you’re our only regular costumer I’ll have to say no.” He gave me a smile. And I knew he knew I was crushed. I had only pestered him about the job for the last three years. “If it wasn’t that way I’d say yes.” Liar!
I sighed and looked away. You know I was going to be bold and try my luck. I had nothing better to do. “We should go for some coffee sometime.” I didn’t look at him when I stated it, not asked. I wasn’t asking him on a date. I was just simply stating that we should go drink coffee. There is a difference. But, nevertheless I couldn’t look at him.
“That’d be nice. I’m busy today, so maybe some other day.”
“Let me know?” It was more question than statement like I had planned. I wasn’t looking at him as he stood up and began straightening the books on the shelves behind me.
He nudged me in the back gently with his elbow as he passed by me, “Will do, Sabby.” I loved his nickname for me. I always had. Ever since I was ten. Yeah he used to talk to me even when I could barely form a sensible sentence other than ‘Uhhhh.’
I still didn’t fully comprehend that. Eleven years and he was still perfectly flawless and ageless. Not a wrinkle or a graying hair. Nothing that would indicate change. Except for me, I had grown up. I wanted to be just like Lyssa when I grew up. She was the ideal teen in my ten year old eyes. But then I became a teenager and she was still the petite teenager of my younger years. Alex technically should be thirty something, but I sometimes couldn’t believe I thought he was twenty. He looked so young.
The worst part wasn’t them never aging. That was actually kinda cool. No, it was that no one else noticed. They shrugged off my questions and then stared at me like I was mental. It was always how those I asked would look after the question. Vague and clueless.
I remember clearly when I was around seventeen I had seen some cheesy cheap-budget made for t.v. movie. The story was that the leading lady had met some amazing guy when she was a kid. Then she never saw him again for a really long time. Maybe ten years? Then one day she saw him again and he hadn’t aged because he was the one and only one for her. It made me determined to believe that Alex was my one and only. Waiting for me to grow up. My prince charming.
Then I hit my eighteenth birthday and nothing magical happened. I lost all hope. And heaven forbid I question either of them about it. I’d only get told I was crazy by the only people who really seemed to like me.
I had always seen odd people. Now I think it was and is just an over active imagination. But then I get that nagging voice, back in the back of my head that whispers to me that I’m not crazy. Voices? Now, that actually could be a sign of craziness. But the people I saw no one else saw. The unusual person across the street, there and gone in the blink of an eye or pass of a car.
Doctors have been diagnosing me with everything under the sun, long before I met Alex. Learning disabilities, mental retardation, growth development, maturing defects in my genes, you name it and I could have had it. But thing was I was, intelligent, my body formed normally, I was mature, and I never displayed the full list of symptoms. Then one doctor announced that I had an overactive, non-developing imagination. Pretty much in my opinion, they told us I was insane.
Maybe they were right, maybe I did flirt with someone twice my age and I just thought he looked young, maybe weird looking people were shown like the reflection in a carnival mirror in my mind, and maybe there-and-gone people were never really there at all. Maybe I lived my days hopelessly caught in a never ending dream world. Believing that I was sand, when truthfully I was fit for a white padded room and a straight jacket.
Nope. I knew I was right and everyone else was just blind. It was a pompous statement but get over it. People are blind. They get too caught up in growing up and aging that they forget to look around and see the world.
I gave Alex a grin as he looked at me through the other side of the book case. “So what was Cincinnati like?” He went there once a week, almost every week.
“Horrible. It was not a good trip at all.” He shrugged and pulled a book out of the case. “Come here. This is a good book for you.”
I meandered around the book case and took the book from him. Reading the elaborate gold leafed title. “Eighteenth Century Prose and Poetry. Sounds good.” It was true, and he knew it, I was a poem junkie.
“Came from my own personal collection.” He handed me another, slightly thicker book. Clearly coming from the same line of books. “Seventeenth Century Prose and Poetry.”
“Thank you,” I responded as I inspected the two books for their prices.
“Don’t. No. It’s free.”
“No. I couldn’t,” I tried to hand the books back to him, but he simply walked back to the counter. “Alex,” I followed after him with my eyebrows scrunched together in frustration. “Come on! You’ve been giving me books for the past two years.”
“Because, I know you’ll take care of them. Others don’t so they have to pay. Besides, you normally bring them back unless you really enjoy them.”
Or they smell like Alex.
“You aren’t a library, let me pay.” I stressed the last three, one syllable words. Making them sound firm and serious. I plopped the books down on the counter. Raising my eyebrow menacingly, with my hands on my hips. Once I set my mind there was no getting around it. “You are not going to win, Alex.”
“Fine!” He raised his hands in defeat, eliciting a laugh from me. He sighed heavily, trying to guilt me as he rung up the prices and took my money. Shaking his head and giving me a stupid-girl look. “You sure do have Irish in your blood don’t you?” I noticed how weakly he said the word blood.
“Yeah I don. How about you?”
“A little this, a little that.”
“I’ve got Swedish and Danish.” Lyssa chimed in. I looked to find where her voice came from. Finding her sitting on the top of one of the wall ladders, having been carefully watching us.
Stalker.
“You look like it.” I replied dryly. It was one of Lyssa’s only bad attributes. She was always butting in to my conversations.
I didn’t want to go. But if I lingered it would be a bit too obvious. So I convinced myself to part. A daily ritual of self argument. “So, I’ll see you guys later.”
“Good bye Sabby.” Alex gave me a wave as I started to leave. I was smiling from ear-to-ear, this was my happy drug. Almost every day I came here to talk to Alec and Lyssa. They were my only friends, now. My few friends I had growing up are all gone. They skipped the joys of the rural Ohio life for the high lives of Ivy League colleges and glitzy jobs.
Me? Well my excuse was my parents didn’t want me out in the world. So, I was stuck living at home and mucking stalls and feeding cows. With no car too, keeping me tied down ever harder to a small area.
That’s pretty much my life. I’ve never had the benefit of doubt or innocent until proven guilty. But there have always been the quiet whispers of my parents when they think I’m not listening. The whispers that say I’m crazy.
I’m not crazy, I’m serious. I don’t know what I am, but I know I’m not crazy. Okay, so even if I or was if I wasn’t crazy that isn’t much creditability. Just go with me and believe that I’m not crazy.
Not even Google has helped me figure out what I am. What I see. It’s become part of my life. You can see that clearly by the way I feel for Alex.
The way I feel for Alex is like no other feeling I have ever experienced before. Sometimes I wonder if he feels the same way for me, or if he’s just being kind. I mean he has known me since I was ten. He has seen me through all of those gawky years; my nose to big, my teeth too big for my mouth, braces, the worst of acne. And Alex? As far as I remember I’ve never seen him look bad or for that fact, age.
~
I sat my pitchfork down, wiping the sweat from my brow. I rubbed my hands on my shirt to get rid of the sweat, before reaching for the pitchfork again.
“Hello!” I jumped around at the chime like voice that came from behind me. Unfortunately it lacked any grace. My foot caught on a lead rope lying on the barn floor as I turned. Causing me to trip. And not just onto the floor. No, that would have been one thing. I on the other hand fell backwards into a wheelbarrow full of, you guessed it, horse manure.
“Sabrina!” I was pulled out of the stinking muck by Lyssa. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I gasped as I touched the back of my head. My hair was caked with the manure and throbbing from the impact of skull to metal. “What are you doing here?”
“Well,” Lyssa put both hands on her hips and putting on a matter-of-fact face on began her reason for coming. “I was going to take you with me and my boyfriend to Cincinnati today.”
“You have a boyfriend?” That was news to me. She had never mentioned one before. I gave her a tell-all look.
“Yep!” She jumped up onto a nearby bale of hay, swinging her legs joyfully over the edge. “We’ve been together for a couple months. He’s waiting out in the car. So if you’d like to…” She made a hand motion to my filthy body and then promptly grasped her nose between to fingers.
“Oh.” I glanced down myself. “I’ll be back in a flash. I raced out of the barn to go take a shower.
They were waiting in the Lyssa’s car when I came out of the house. I was wearing a pair of holey jeans, which I had long before it became a trend, and a blue baby doll top.
I opened the door of the hybrid and slid in, “Hi, I’m Sabrina.” I offered my hand to the dark haired man sitting in the passenger seat.
“Nice to meet you Sabrina, I’m Nicholas. Call me Nick.” He shook my hand tightly, grinning through a short beard. It grew up into his hair line, creating one solid mass of hair.
“Thanks for inviting me Lyssa.” I buckled my seat belt as she pulled out of my home’s rugged driveway. “I haven’t been out in a while.”
“I should’ve called. But you have to admit it was sort of funny.” Lyssa started to laugh, which spread to Nick who had obviously been informed of my fall.
“It’s not the first time it’s happened.” I replied, giving a slight chuckle. My hand stroked the back of my head. It hurt. A lot.
“We closed shop early and Alex sent me out. I don’t have clue where he was off to.”
She had caught my interest, “He’s been kind of odd lately don’t ou think?”
“Nope.” He answer was simple and I didn’t think she was going to continue. But after a nod of the head from Nick she continued. “Well,” it was a timid beginning. “He’s kind of just odd around you.”
I felt a rush of blood to my head. I could hear the blood thumping my ears. My face burning hot.
“Why?”
It was a stupid answer or question. Whichever. But she answered all the same. “Well, why do you act odd around him?” She made a quizzical hum.
“Good point.” I was mortified. I sank back into my seat. I felt tiny.
Then I noticed the difference in ages between Lyssa and Nick. He had to be mid to late twenties. And yet Lyssa still looked sixteen or seventeen, as always.
“How’d you two meet?” Desperate attempt to keep the subject off of me. Or Alex.
“Alex.” It was a unison reply. They both looked at each other laughing.
Lyssa looked in the mirror at me, where I sat deeply in the seat, trying for invisibility. She smiled at me with a knowing look.
I sighed in relief as she turned the radio on and I was able to get into the music. Zoning out. The subject of Alex and me had thoroughly stressed me out.
~
Cincinnati was great. I always loved a tip there. Even better was getting to go to the mall, which is where we were headed.
The trip was firly uneventful for most of the day, until around lunchtime. Then in a matter of speaking all hell broke loose.
The subject of Alex was brought up yet again. My face might as well have been a giant neon sign for emotions.
“So Sabrina how long have you known Alex?” Nick wrapped his arm around Lyssa as she ate her salad.
“A while.” I wasn’t entirely sure if I should announce the fact I had know him for ten or so years.
“About ten years, right?” Lyssa seemed to have read my mind. Nodding my head I stuffed my mouth full of my sandwich. Hoping it would keep questions at bay.
Never before had Lyssa brought up the subject. The never quiet discussed apparent ages. I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.
“That’s been a long while.” Nick took a large bit out of one of his nearly raw burger. It made me want to hurl at the sight of the red juices dripping from it and onto his plate.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” The words ran out of my mouth as I pointed at his sandwich. Lyssa was a strict vegan and from what I saw of Nick he was a whole-hearted carnivore.
“Nope.” Lyssa gave the short answer as she continued to eat her salad daintily.
I shrugged while trying not to watch him eat his hamburger. Beef had never been my forte. It disgusted me. I however watched as Nick and Lyssa seemed to silently communicate. My ears strained to listen. It was impossible. Nick must have amazing hearing because all I could hear was Lyssa’s exhales.
Exhale. Nick would nod in agreement.
Exhale. He realesed a low growl. His eyes darting to look at me from the corner of his eyes as he stared at Lyssa.
Exhale. His face was hard. Shaking his head in disagreement.
Then she inhaled deeply and he spoke. “Might as well someday.”
When they both turned to look at me, my breath caught in my throat. And so did my sandwich. I started coughing, trying to catch my breath. It felt like the wind had been knocked clear out of my body,
“Are you okay?” I jerked around in my seat to see Alex. What was he doing here?
“Yeah.” I squeaked my reply out, finally finding my breath. He sat down next to me. I shivered. It felt like cold blast of wintry wind. “Hello.”
He gave Lyssa and Nick a nod and a rather dark glare before turning back and giving me a wide grin, revealing pearly whites.
“Hello.”
I swear my heart stopped.
“So what brings you here?” Lyssa questioned. She was uncharacteristically stiff. The playful grin that normally tugged her lips was gone. Replaced by nothing.
“I came here on my day off.” His tone intrigued me. It was a mixture of anger and pleasure. “How’d you get here Sabby?”
My eyes grew wide and I swalloed my bite of food whole. “Oh, er. They invited me.” I motioned to Lyssa and her boyfriend with my sandwich.
A frown creased his face. Making deep lines on his forehead. Someone had done something wrong. Please don’t let it be me. I don’t think it’s me because he’s giving Lyssa one heck of and icy glare.
“I told you no.”
You know that feeling that you’ve walked in on someone’s conversation and you’re completely lost because you’ve only heard half of it. That’s how I feel right now. The worse thing is I think it’s a conversation about me.
Lyssa let out a whisper of a reply, eliciting a hiss from Alex. “Speak up!”
“I just thought it was a good idea.”
“It’s not.” The sound in his voice was making the hairs on my neck stand on end.
There was a small girl sitting at a table across from us. She was watching Alex, Lyssa, and Nick curiously. Like she saw them as I saw them. How they didn’t look human. The way the spoke perfectly, moved flawlessly and looked otherworldly.
“Can you see?” The little girl mouthed to me. Her eyes looking scarred. I nodded slowly. She looked away and continued eating her lunch. Never looking back.
Alex was starring at me when I looked back to him. He didn’t look as angry as before. “Want a fry?” I offered him my plate. He shook his head, pushing the plate back.
“No thank you.” He glanced down to his watch and back to me. “Would you like me to take you home?”
I looked to Lyssa to see if she would care. But she didn’t even look up from where she studied her salad with her fork. “Sure” I would’ve been stupid to say no.
He dug into his pant’s pocket, pulling out his wallet. “You ready then?” I felt a blush burn my cheeks as he laid a twenty out on the table.
“Thank you.” I gave him a grin as we both rose from the seat. He nodded to my comment as we left the restaurant.
He walked ahead of me slightly. His hands buried deeply in his pockets. “What was that about?” I inquired.
Alex stopped suddenly turning his head to the side. “Nothing.”
“Well, it was something.” I closed my eyes, praying he didn’t get angry with me. I had a habit of pushing things too far.
“Sabrina don’t.” He turned to face me. I would swear to you that in that moment, when his eyes met my eyes the world around us slowed to a near halt.
“Okay.” I blinked my eyes several times. His stare was making me physically sick. It was pitiful.
“Sabrina,” he began, our eyes still locked in place. “it’s not time to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” He seemed to be closer to me. His face was very close to mine. I was holding my breath.
“Sabrina. “ It was a soft warning. Then he was gone. Alex was walking at a fast pace and I had to leg it after him.
He didn’t say another word until we were both in his black Mustang and speeding out of the parking lot.
“I’m sorry.”
I turned to look at him, from where I had been watching out the window. Why was he apologizing? “What’s that for?”
“Can’t I just apologize?” He ran his fingers through his hair. His eyes never leaving the road.
“You have haven’t done anything wrong, Alex.” Not that I knew of. Or he knew of. So he had hurt me every time we had a moment like that back at he mall. When he seemed like he was going to make a move in the direction I wanted.
“You don’t understand. We can’t be.”
My whole body went completely numb. If someone broke my arm just then, I’m sure I would’ve asked them to do it again because it would have felt better than the words that just came from his lips. I couldn’t speak. I just sat with a absent look.
“Sabrina-“
“Don’t.” I didn’t let him finish, “Just don’t.” My mouth felt dry.
“Why?”
“Ten years Alex. Ten years!” There I said it. Think I’m crazy Alex. I don’t care.
“That’s why.” His only words before we both fell silent.
When I got home I went straight to my room. Tears at the brink of running down my face. As I shed my clothes and dawned riding clothes and rushed down to the barn. I had to ride Blackberry. I had just let go.