Children of the Earth Read Free Page A

Owen.”
    “No!” She turned her back to him and clutched her knees, curling into a ball and rocking back and forth.
    Still gasping for breath, he crawled over and wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders. She shrugged him off at first, still whimpering into her knees, but as the keening wail of the ambulance grew closer and the drifters began to scatter he tried again.
    “You had a seizure, Daphne,” he said softly, his lips close to her ear, soothing her the way he’d soothed his little sister after a nightmare in his previous life back in Kansas long ago. “I know it’s scary, but you’re okay. You’re going to be all right. I’m here.”
    She relaxed and let him envelop her, wrapping herself in the scent of earth and motor oil that never left his skin, resting her head against his chest and drying her cheek on his T-shirt. This was Owen, the
real
Owen. That other Owen, the one who’d blazed huge and evil in her vision, didn’t exist. He couldn’t. She’d been hallucinating, her mind riled up in self-defense and playing terrible tricks on her.
    But as the siren swam closer and the sky pulsed red and she sobbed into Owen’s shirt, another thought nagged at her, one she couldn’t ignore. Because, whether or not she wanted it, she was a prophet—and prophets didn’t see mistakes or hallucinations. They saw visions from God.

3
    THE DOG WAS BARKING. BEL LA stood on the pink lump that Janie made under her sleeping bag, pawing at her shoulder and yapping in her ear, awakening her from a heavy nap dotted with restless dreams.
    “Shut up, Bella.” Janie swept the dog onto the floor, but Bella landed on her cream-colored paws and went right on barking, dancing back and forth from the couch to the TV and making the cherry vodka on the milk-crate coffee table slosh in its plastic bottle.
    As she struggled out of the depths of sleep, Janie slowly realized what the dog was fussing about. Someone was knocking on the door, the pounding echoing through the empty halls of the half-finished mansion atop Elk Mountain.
    “Crap.” She sat up, throwing off the sleeping bag, and ran a hand through the rat’s nest of her hair. She dimly remembered something about Hilary coming to visit, a text message exchange from yesterday or the day before—it was easy to lose track of time when all you did was sleep and watch
Teen Mom
.
    “Janie, it’s for you!” Deirdre Varley’s nagging trill floated up from the lobby and bounced off the vaulted ceiling.
    “Coming,” Janie called back. But it came out sounding like a croak.
    She found her slippers and padded down the hall, tightening the drawstring on her sweatpants as she descended the stairs.
    “Hey, girl!” Hilary’s voice was unnaturally bright, the brightest thing by far in the towering, empty lobby of the half-finished chateau. She wrapped Janie in a hug that smelled like baby powder and fresh laundry, making Janie wonder what had happened to her old best friend who had always reeked of cigarettes and Rihanna’s Rogue perfume.
    “Close the door, you’re letting cold air in,” Deirdre admonished. She gave Janie a pinched glare. “I wish you’d remembered you were having company,” she sniffed. “I had to come all the way down from our wing to let her in.”
    “Sorry.” Janie looked down at her slippers, threadbare Smurfettes staring mournfully from her toes. “I’ll remember next time.”
    Like there would be a next time. It’s not like anyone ever came to visit her—even her mom had gotten sick of Deirdre’s sniping and stopped coming round, choosing instead to nag Janie by phone.
    “It’s good to see you.” Hilary smiled and pushed away a stray corkscrew curl that had fallen over her eye. “It’s been too long.”
    Janie didn’t know how long it had been, exactly. Lately she’d been losing track of time, whole days disappearing between commercial breaks and fitful dreams. But it must have been a while, because Hilary didn’t just smell