Author’s ramblings: Well, I’m surviving my first ’bout of allergies. Blechy and yucky rolled into one. It makes my head run and everything so stuffy that I can’t stand to look at a pc screen, much less to think straight. *sigh* But I’m handling it a bit better today, the rain is helping, so I’m braving a headache to putter out a bit of Friday Fiction. This is an idea for a longer story, perhaps a serial, I’m not sure yet, featuring a family with a human mother and gifted family members. I figured I’d best start out with some obvious conflict, so here we go. Adecus is their word for God/Creator.
Enjoy the read!
SNIPPET : CHRISTIAN FANTASY : CONTEMPORARY
“It’s a horrible rainy day.” Sophie flopped onto the living room couch with a pout. “I hate the rain.” She whined.
“As we all know.” Her father folded the newspaper and placed it on
the end table by his elbow. “You haven’t stopped telling us since it
started.” He frowned. “Can’t you amuse yourself some other way than-”
“But I wanted to go out!”
“No one is stopping you, darling.” Her mother soothed, with a
half-glare at her husband seated in the recliner. “You can go outside
and play in the rain.”
“I hate the rain!” Sophie glared at her mother before burying her face in her arms. ” ‘sides, Tony’s out there.”
“Anthony?” Her mother bristled. “That freakish-!”
“Stop it, Dilla.” The man frowned, rising from the comfortable
armchair, his mood disrupted. “If Anthony wants to go outside can. The
same for our dear little Sophie.” He scowled. “And I won’t have you
filling their heads with your worthless ideas. You have only yourself to
blame.”
“Blame? I’ve done nothing that no other mother wouldn’t have-“
“But you’re not even like the others!” He snapped. The glare darkened by several shades and something rumbled
distantly in the background. “I warned you. I gave you plenty of time to
come to your senses. You chose this path.” He closed the gap between
them, his face, inches away from hers as he stared her down. “You chose it, Dilla. Don’t you
dare turn this back on the children–they are no more guilty than you are
innocent.”
“I may have chosen it.” She threw back at him. “But I didn’t ask for this bucketload of misery!”
He stared at her. The flickering blue eyes darkened to a shade of black and glittered, faintly, before he whirled on his heels and stalked out from the room. A very loud crack of thunder made the house shake.
Dilla clutched a hand to her chest and suppressed a shiver.
“Momma?” Sophie slowly slid off the sofa, worry showing on her round face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, baby.” Her mother smiled, shakily. “Just a little argument. That’s all. Why don’t you read that new book you got from the library?”
“Don’t feel like reading.” Sophie tossed her golden curls over one shoulder. “I just feel…I don’t wanna be inside.” She shifted restlessly from one foot to the other. “Momma? Momma, what’s wrong?”
~*~*~*~*~*~
The rain had slowed to a patient drizzle when Sophie ventured out of the house. She found Tony exactly where she’d left him, sitting at the far end of the wrap-around porch, his feet threaded through the railings and hanging over the edge–getting him practically soaked, except for his back.
She shuffled towards him, wary.
“Sophie.” Tony grunted as she stopped a few feet away, close enough to speak, but not to get wet. “Got bored enough?” He taunted.
“Shut up.” The preteen glared at her oldest sibling.
“You made them fight again, you know.”
“I just…I didn’t!” She twisted her hands. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You know they fight when we do. They can’t help it.”
“Then why do you always have to-”
The rain abruptly began to pour down in harsh, pelting drops.
Sophie gulped. “Right.” She nibbled her lower lip for a long moment. “Okay, fine, I’m sorry, okay?”
The rain didn’t ease up.
“Tony!” She inched closer. “Stop it, you’re scaring me.”
“Am I?” He said, tonelessly. “You don’t have a clue what you’re doing and everything in your little world just runs perfectly without a care of how and who it affects. How much longer do you think we can all keep this up, huh?” He painstakingly extracted himself from the porch railings and stood up, tall, dark and menacing in his black turtleneck and sweatpants.
“I’m not trying to pretend that-!”
“Don’t!” He hissed. “If you can’t tell our parents–our dear parents who have never done anything, but love and care for us since we pranced into their lives–then tell me. Don’t you dare lie to me, sister of mine.”
The blonde swallowed hard. “I-I…”
“I mean it, Sophie. Dear Lord, help me, I do.” He fairly trembled. “This is not a curse, it is a gift.”
Angry tears leaked out of bright blue eyes. “A gift?” She said, hoarsely. “How can something this devastating be a gift? Tell me, Tony!” She stomped close enough to shove him back to the railing.
The rain splattered down in angry rivulets, blowing every which way. “So you would rather think it a curse?”
“I control storms, Tony!” She shrieked. “I open my mouth and-“
Lightning and thunder sounded off, the ground rumbled and shook. The rain began to turn to ice.
“Being a stormcaller is not a curse.” Tony looked away. “I can’t…I can’t explain everything to you.” He said, at last. “But you can’t keep doing this. You’re pushing us all away and it’s tearing everyone apart. Do what you have to do and do it soon!” He growled out.
“Do what, just-“
“We all have to go through this.” He looked at her, black eyes eerily similar to that of his father. “No one escapes The Rage, but you don’t have to do it alone and you know we’ll always be here for you. Just like Adecus will be. What happens during that and after, it is between you and Him. None others.” The thin teenager sagged against the slick wooden railing. “You can’t stay here any longer, Phee.”
“I don’t want to leave!”
He tilted his head back to catch the stinging, icy pellets. “You know you can’t stay.”
“I can’t leave like this.”
“You can’t stay either.”
Lightning streaked down in giant forks. The harsh flashes lighting up two faces, two sides of the same circumstance.
“Take care of yourself.” Tony drew in a deep breath and blew it out. “Look out for shadows behind.”
“You say that like you care.”
“You say that like you don’t.” He returned.
She stood there and stared at him for a long, long time. Then her bright blue eyes burned black and in a sudden flash of lightening, the girl disappeared.
Tony stood there, braced against the railing, for a long time afterwards. He didn’t say anything when his dad stepped out. he didn’t say anything when his mother did. He remained silent as his parents wove their selves around him, wrapping him in arms that were strong and warm, their tears falling and mixing with the rain.
He took a long, slow, shuddering breath.
His mother pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’m sorry.” She whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
His father hugged them both, saying nothing in a way that somehow said everything.
“I won’t do it again.” Tony said, abruptly. He pulled away from their embrace, and the icy pellets returned to their watery state. “You all can deal with Callista and Elliot.” He frowned. “I won’t be the one to send them away.”
(c) Sara Harricharan
A/N: So, what did you think? Enough drama? lolz. I was aiming for the drama with this opening bit. The Rage is kind of a stage of maturity for all Stormcallers and Sophie was avoiding hers. Dilla, the mother, is human and understands to some degree, but not all of it. Anyway, let me know what you think!