Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) Read Free Page A

only thing making me feel better.
    “What are you doing here?” Mom looked at me with a wrinkled forehead over a pair of über trendy half reader glasses when I walked through the kitchen door.
    “I decided not to ride after all,” I answered while keeping my eyes safely on the floor, and tossed my bag onto the kitchen table.
    “Oh, well I haven’t even thought about supper. You’re on your own tonight.” She didn’t even bother to look up from her party planning notes as she slid the three ring binder we kept to-go menus in across the counter.
    “I’m not hungry.” I pushed the notebook back to her.
    “Well, order something anyway, please. Your father’s going to be hungry and I don’t have time.” Her cell phone began ringing and I knew dinner for the family was up to me...again.
    “Hey, Lucy! Have you seen the flowers we’re using for the table centerpieces? I know…I know. Aren’t they gorgeous?” Mother gushed as she walked into another room to take the call. I think my mother and I both knew she would be way better at being a teenage girl than I was.
    I flipped through the carefully page protected menus. Being the perfectionist she was, my mother prided herself on her over-the-top organizational skills. She refused to let me cook, insisting it wasn’t safe for a girl like me to be in the kitchen—further proof that my mother’s crazy. She rarely cooked, which left the task of ordering dinner to me almost every night.
    I flipped to the menu for my favorite pizza restaurant, hoping it might cheer me up.
    The order was placed and I was grabbing a soda from the fridge when mom came back into the kitchen.
    “What are you doing here?” She asked absently, as if we hadn’t had the same conversation five minutes earlier.
    “I didn’t go to the barn.” My words were slow and deliberate, as if I was talking to someone who didn’t understand English. Slowly, I turned to face her, trying desperately to hide the sting of her indifference with a wildly confused look as if I was worried about her mental stability. It worked.
    “Oh, right. I guess I forgot. I’m just so busy with this party.” She waved her hands wildly through the air, making an excuse but not really apologizing for forgetting what her own daughter was doing. I was used to it.
    An hour later I was in my usual Saturday night outfit of leggings and an oversized t-shirt when the pizza arrived. I grabbed plates and a roll of paper towels and deposited everything on the coffee table in the den. Flipping through the channels, I found a Jane Austen marathon, and the thought of spending an evening with Fitzwilliam Darcy was more appealing than ever. If I couldn’t have my own fairytale night at the Prom I would lose myself in Austen’s magical world.
    Shortly after Darcy dissed Elizabeth at the ball my mother flitted in for a piece of pizza, her glasses holding escaped tendrils of graying ginger hair off her face.
    “Oh, I have always had a crush on Darcy. He is the perfect man. Don’t you think?” She held a paper towel under her piece of pizza as she ate standing up.
    “Yep.” It wasn’t an answer I had to think about. Who wouldn’t love Mr. Darcy? It didn’t matter which version of the movie you watched, he was always worth swooning over.
    The fact that my mother and I could find anything in common these days shocked us to silence as we appraised each other suspiciously over our pizza slices. Then it dawned on me why Darcy was the common ground we shared.
    I was adopted. My mother and I didn’t share a single strand of DNA, which kind of explains why the only thing we had in common was something we also shared with every woman whose ever read or seen Pride and Prejudice . I sighed—something that was quickly becoming a theme for the night—and turned back to the TV.
    The smell of cheesy goodness rousted my father from his office for the first time all afternoon. He crashed onto the couch beside me, sending the familiar scent of