Secret Keeper (My Myth Trilogy - Book 2): Young Adult Fantasy Novel Page 5

  Well, the jokes on them. I’m not a Hero, and I’m fresh out of flying horses and Gorgon heads. There’s no fight left in me. I think of hangman Emily in her scrawled noose.

  Game over.

  “I imagine this must be difficult to hear, Emily.” Nancy’s BS shrink-talk yanks me back to the den.

  “Difficult to hear?” I spit. “That’s an understatement.’”

  I guess there is some fight left in me after all. But why am I angry at Nancy? She didn’t do anything…

  EXACTLY.

  She didn’t do anything. None of them did anything.

  Nancy winces. She reaches for me, but I pull back. Removing her glasses, she wipes at her eyes with the tissue that always seems to be in her hand. She stares at me and I stare right back, betrayed. An unknown rage pulses through me. It wants me to grab her by the throat with both hands, to squeeze until she gasps and begs. I push the image away, but I hold fast to the wrath, cling to it like I’m drowning. Anger is the only thing keeping me from sinking into the swirling suck of the vortex funneling sanity from my soul.

  “I trusted you,” I snarl. “I told the truth. To YOU. You were supposed to protect me!”

  “Clearly your expectations haven’t been met.”

  Expectations? She wants to talk about expectations? Why does she have to be such a therapist all the time?

  “Yeah. I guess I ‘expected’ that when I told my aunts and uncles that my ex-convict father molested me when I was seven, they’d care. I guess I ‘expected’ they wouldn’t just send me and my younger siblings back to live with him. I guess I ‘expected’ they’d protect me and Jacob and Aidan and especially Claire: his next victim, most likely. But it’s almost like they’re too busy…”

  I stop myself saying it out loud just in time. An enormous tremor runs through me as I finish the horrible sentence silently in my head: it’s almost like they’re too busy with Uncle Ian to care about me.

  I’m such a selfish piece of crap.

  My neck is suddenly too weak to hold up my head. I slump forward. The middle three fingers of each of my hands press half moons into my eyebrows. My chipped thumbnails dig jagged hollows beneath my cheekbones, trembling under the weight of my grief.

  “Emily…” Nancy stretches her hand onto my knee.

  My wingback chair scrapes against the hardwood floor as my body pushes away from her touch.

  “I thought at the very least you’d do something, Nancy.”

  “I don’t blame you for being upset, Emily, but I’m hurt you think I haven’t tried to help you.”

  The sudden snuffle of clogged sinuses makes me look up from my lap.

  She’s crying. I’ve made Nancy cry.

  This isn’t even her problem. She left her husband and home in Dallas to drive all the way to stupid Scotts Valley because she loves me and my brothers and sister. Because she basically helped raise Mom and loves her, too. But just like everything else I touch, I’ve poisoned her with despair. I’m emotional strychnine in the village well.

  “Steve and I have offered to have you children stay with us, indefinitely, or at least until your Uncle Ian is better. But as I said before, your father has threatened a lawsuit if we or anyone in your mother’s family tries to interfere…”

  A lawsuit?

  No.

  No, no, NO.

  She didn’t… I don’t remember her saying that. When did she say that?

  Nancy is still talking, explaining again, but my audio’s been disconnected. I watch her mouth move—I’m transfixed by her mouth: the chapped, rose-tinted lips, the one front tooth that’s just a tad crooked—but I can’t hear a word she’s saying.

  Focus, Emily. This is important. This is what they’ve decided. This is what’s happening. You need to hear this. With all my effort I tear myself away from the narrative and reconnect the audio circuits.

  Nancy’s voice clicks on in my ears mid-sentence: “…Sandra has refused, and Jacob insists he’s staying with them. Your parents won’t force the issue with you, Emily. The problem, of course, is Aidan and Claire…”

  Jacob wants to do what?

  Is it possible for organs to calcify? That’s what it feels like is happening: my insides are growing rigid and stiff, becoming masses of bony shards.

  What did Dad say to Jacob? I can hear him now: ‘Hey, your sister says I molested her ten years ago, so now everyone’s freaking out. If you take my side, we stay together as a family. If you believe her, screw you.’

  Has someone already told Aidan and Claire, too?

  It isn’t fair. They’re too young to deal with this.

  “Wait!” I’m on my feet, propelled by an amazing idea. “When Sophie’s parents got divorced, she got to choose who she wanted to live with because she was thirteen. I specifically remember her saying the law in Texas is that if you’re over twelve you get to decide who to live with…”

  But then I remember. Claire isn’t twelve. She’s ten.

  I deflate all over again. My spine is useless jelly.

  Nancy’s beside me, pulling me against her matronly chest. She pats my back, making gentle tsk-tsk-ing noises. “That’s not the way it works anymore, Dear. If there were a custody battle between your parents and your great-aunt and uncle, a judge would interview Aidan and Claire and ultimately make the decision.”

  I’m struck by déjà vu. “I went to a courtroom in our first hypnosis session,” I whisper, wiping my nose on the back of my hand as the courtroom scene from our hypnosis session a few days ago flashes on the stage in my mind: the decrepit smile of the defense attorney, the prophetic game of Hangman. “My subconscious knew this was going to happen. It was a premonition, wasn’t it?”

  I’m asking myself, not her, but she answers anyway.

  “Absolutely not. Hypnosis does not predict the future.” Nancy hands me a tissue, pulling me closer. “This is not happening because you visited a courtroom in your subconscious, Emily. Do you understand?”

  “All of this is my fault.”

  “No, Emily.” She holds me at arm’s length, peering into my eyes. “It is extremely important that you understand. None of this is your fault. You didn’t ask to be molested. You didn’t ask to be abandoned. And telling your aunts and uncles did not cause Ian’s stroke. Tell. Me. You. Understand.” She enunciates each syllable.

  Ian’s stroke. I caused Ian’s stroke? Oh my God, that hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’d been so caught up in my alfalfa romance with Kaillen... But obviously, it was me. My revelation, the terrible bomb I dropped.

  A huge stone of self-blame plummets through my hollowed out chest, straight to the undercurrent of agony roiling in my gut. Nancy wouldn’t be trying to assure me I didn’t cause Ian’s stroke if she hadn’t considered the possibility herself.

  Chapter Eight

  I can’t believe it took me this long to connect the dots: Uncle Ian wouldn’t be in a coma on life support right now if I’d kept my big mouth shut.

  Just like Mom wouldn’t have overdosed.

  Just like Jacob wouldn’t despise me.

  I lock my knees, stand up, and straighten my spine. Fortifying myself. I wipe my eyes and blow my nose into the tissue. I command myself to shut off all emotion. See me? No self-loathing here. No pain, no problems.

  But it isn’t Nancy’s words that stop my sniveling and steels my resolve: it’s the anguish on her face, the biting grip of her hands on my arms. Her distress is my fault, too. If I don’t pull it together, more bad things will happen. Nancy will probably have a heart attack next. I can’t bear to be the cause of any more suffering.

  “It doesn’t end like this, Emily,” she says.

  “It doesn’t?” Does she really believe that, or is she just saying it to make me feel better?

  “No. I think your father is bluffing. I think he uses shock and awe to cow people, and I think your uncles backed down because they’re preoccupied with Ian.”

  My lungs allow one tiny breath in as Nancy continues.


  “Tell me, Emily. If you were in charge, how would you solve this problem? In a perfect world, what would the outcome be?”

  In a perfect world?

  Well, in a perfect world my father wouldn’t have molested me.

  In a slightly less-than-perfect world, every fine hair on my body would raise upward on my arms as I witness a bolt of white-hot lightning snake through the clear blue sky, splitting Dad in two perfectly symmetrical halves.

  But I have no Greek gods in my back pocket ready to exact cosmic justice against my tormentor with supernatural acts of vengeance.

  Why ask what I’d do in a perfect world? This isn’t even an okay world. It’s a world where the people you trust most can hurt you the worst. Where minors don’t have any power or control. Where my voice means nothing.

  I squeeze my eyes shut against the impossible image of Uncle Ian, sitting straight and strong in the weathered blue rocking chair on the front porch, a shotgun on his faded denim lap, waiting vigilantly until Dad gives up and goes away. Mom bounds out the screen door, healthy and whole, telling us she’s through with Dad and that the mere thought of him makes her sick to her stomach. She holds me and says over and over that she’s sorry. She holds me for a long, long time.

  I hate these hopeful images, and I hate myself for creating them. They’re fantasies. Dreams. They only make things worse. Reality is that Ian’s in a coma, and Mom isn’t ever going to leave Dad. She’s the one who was always telling us that ‘blood is thicker than water,’ and that ‘no matter what, God commands us to forgive, even seven times seventy.’

  “Emily?” Nancy waits for what she wants to hear.

  “I’ve got nothing,” I rasp. “I honestly thought you—they—would take care of things.”

  “Yes. That should be how it works. But Emily, you aren’t helpless or weak.”

  “Yes. I. AM!” I slam my hands on my knees, sending the pale, bare flesh into a bright pink flush.

  “You aren’t. Remind me how you defeated Drake in the Third Realm.”

  Gooseflesh prickles up my neck. I told Nancy about the First Realm, but never about the Third.

  “Forgive me, Dear,” she says, evidently noting the spooked look my face. “You talked in your sleep while you were in the hospital. I know you Traveled to the Third Realm, and that Drake tracked you there with the medallion he’d made for you. I know you spoke with your mother—the Princess Nissandra—whose mind had been trapped there by Drake, and I know you did something with the weapons so he couldn’t get them. But at the end everything happened so fast, I don’t know specifically how you defeated him.”

  “I didn’t defeat him.” The memory is still so vivid, so real. “That’s just it. I wasn’t strong enough.”

  “Nonsense. You easily have as much strength as Drake, with or without the weapons.”

  “But I’d only just learned how to See with my eyes, Nancy. He has so much more experience than I do. His secret Realm was unraveling. I knew the only way to stop him was to expose him, so I pulled down the sky and wrapped myself in Darkness.”

  “Brilliant.” Nancy’s eyes shine with admiration.

  “Brilliant? I hid! I thought exposing him would be enough, but he’s still out there. All I did was destroy the barrier between the Realms.”

  “You need to go back, Emily.”

  “I can’t go back. The Third Realm was destroyed…”

  “Not to the Third. To the First.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because in that world, you have faith in yourself. You are Ovate, meaning you have insight into both elf and maiden perspectives—male and female—as you explained, right? You have immense power there. You just need to harness it.”

  “It’s all make-believe, Aunt Nancy.” I shake my head, as powerless as ever. “A ‘coping mechanism,’ remember? It doesn’t solve anything.”

  “It isn’t just make-believe, and coping mechanisms do just that: help us cope. Any time you tap into the limitless potential you keep hidden, it makes a difference in whichever Realm you call reality. If you search, you’ll find the person with the wisdom to help you. A person who has so much authority, you have to believe what he or she says. A Champion. This individual will give you permission to believe that your own wants and needs, that your Purpose is important.”

  I just stare. Is she serious?

  “I don’t know how to make myself go there. It happened before because I was taking pills.”

  “You won’t need pills anymore.” There’s a knowing glimmer in Nancy’s eyes. “I’m going to teach you self-hypnosis, Dear.”

  Chapter Nine

  This morning at the butt-crack of dawn Aunt Meg rang the triangle on the back porch. Everybody came running because no one ever rings the triangle and we all thought the house was on fire.

  Alas. Nothing so painless.

  When we’d all assembled, panting and out of breath, Meg announced we were going to church together to pray for our family. She announced we were fasting, too. It’s almost as if she knows that when I have nothing good going on I survive by looking forward to food. She literally took away my last hope for survival.

  “Sorry I won’t be there with you,” Kaillen says to me privately. I’m standing next to him as he pours himself a cup of coffee.

  “I guess viticulturists get a pass on holiness during harvest season,” I frown, grumbling at his steaming mug. I don’t even like coffee, but I’d kill for just a sip of his right now. Yet it isn’t my extreme fear of hunger that’s gotten my panties all in a twist. I’m grumpy because I haven’t even seen Kaillen since our alfalfa-field moment. I’d willingly go to church…twice a day, even…if it meant I could hold his hand and lean against his yummy shoulder while breathing in the crisp, clean scent of his aftershave.

  “You’re so adorable when you pout.” He grins, kissing my forehead right in front of everyone as if our meandering metamorphosis from contemptuous childhood playmates to barely-civil teen antagonists to boyfriend/girlfriend is completely normal. “It won’t be that bad. I hope.”

  I’m head-to-toe scarlet, but no one says anything, not even Claire…though it does look like her eyes might bug out of her head.

  “Wait…What does that mean you hope it won’t be bad?” I ask. “Is it usually bad?”

  “Well, it’s a huge congregation in a very small community.”

  “So?”

  “So nothing. I’m sure it will be fine,” he backpedals.

  “No, tell me what you mean,” I plead, louder than I intend to.

  “I just mean that pretty much everyone in Scotts Valley goes to the same church, and everyone knows everybody’s business.”

  “That isn’t helpful, Kaillen,” Meg admonishes, walking in through the back door. “We have quite a large fellowship of young people your age, Emily. Several lovely young women, in particular.”

  Meg stands between Kaillen and me. Over her shoulder he’s shaking his head and waving his hands in warning. It’s hard not to giggle.

  “It might be nice for you to meet some people your own age after being shut up inside for so long.” She turns around and Kaillen freezes. “Didn’t you used to date that nice Minali Pantha?” she asks sweetly. “So exotic!”

  I can’t help but laugh at the chagrin on Kaillen’s face at the word “exotic.”

  “We hung out,” he mumbles. “It wasn’t dating.”

  “Well I seem to remember you were quite fond of her,” Meg continues. “I’ll be sure to introduce you to her, Emily.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Meg.” I skirt around her and follow Kaillen through the mudroom, reaching around him to hold open the door since he’s got coffee in one hand and a banana in the other.

  “Good luck,” he says, planting another quick kiss on my head. “You’re gonna to need it.”

  ***

  Sandwiched between Claire and Aidan on the pew, I haven’t heard one word of the sermon. I arrange one of each of their arms across my lap as they lean against me so they’
re almost touching, and spend several minutes enthralled by the variation between their two skin tones, Claire on the right, Aidan on the left.

  The top of Claire’s arm is covered in freckles as if splashed by a car as it plowed through a puddle of apricot-colored rain. But underneath, where the inside of her elbow creases together, she’s a creamy pink. The skin on Aidan’s arm has bronzed to the exact shade his summer-lightened hair. He’s sun-kissed copper from top to bottom.

  I stretch my own forearm between theirs to compare. Left to right we are a primary color-wheel of undertones: Aidan is yellow, I am blue, and Claire is red. I try to recall Jacob’s undertone, but I can’t. All I can picture is the back of his head as he drives down the road away from the Vineyard. My failure to remember needles me with guilt and worry.

  Gabe texted late last night:

  ‘Hey, Babe, we made it safe. We’re going to get everything ready. I’m psyched for you to get back to being a regular family again and for you and me to be a normal couple finally ’

  I was wrong, I do have something other than food to live for: setting Gabe straight about the fact that we aren’t a couple and that we aren’t going to live happily ever after. Who needs Krispy Kreme when you have weird non-relationships to break up and hearts to crush?

  But instead of taking the bull by the horns and telling him I never agreed to be his girlfriend, I just thanked him for letting me know they’re safe. Maybe he and Dad will be so busy remodeling homes together that he’ll eventually forget about me.

  I’ve been texting Jacob every few hours, but so far my brother has been dead quiet, ignoring all my messages.

  Claire turns her arm wrist-up on my lap and nudges me. She wants me to tickle her hand, something I used to do all the time when we were watching TV or when she couldn’t sleep. While I run the tips of my nails lightly over each of her fingers—going slow so I won’t miss any spots—I turn my thoughts to contemplating the multiverse Nancy says lives inside my head.

  I tossed and turned all night, trying to work up the courage to try self-hypnosis, but I couldn’t do it. I was slightly worried about waking Claire, who sleeps next to me in the guestroom bed, but mostly I was scared about going back to the First Realm, of becoming a maiden again, of carrying the weight of a mysterious world that somehow feels more real than the real one.