I turned, eager to flee.
Not possible. Not in heels, which sank into the mushy soil as if the soft earth itself yearned to claim me. Not when mourners had risen from their seats and were lining up to toss soil and tributes onto the casket. I struggled for breath, my heart knocking double, triple time like an angry jackhammer abandoned in my chest.
I steered a path through the crowd. Ignored a young man in the middle row whose skin held the first yellow specks of iridescence. Who was he? Did it even matter who he was? I sighed. It wouldn’t be much longer for him anyway. I ignored the woman with the red-rimmed eyes, holding onto his arm. I didn’t want to see him patting her pale hand and giving her that watery smile.
Will she be alone, like me, when he’s gone? Who will pat her hand then?
Turning away, I kept walking. Didn’t want to look anymore. Didn’t want to see any more glowing people.
I breached the throng and paused to breathe.
To wait for my erratic heartbeat to slow down.
To forget I left my friend behind, alone in the unforgiving ground.
Dead Radiance - Chapter 2
The first time I’d laid eyes on Joshua, he’d already begun to glow. What a way to kick off week one at Craven’s only high school. At the time, I had no idea what the aura meant, and there was no one I could talk to about it.
Not in Craven. Not anywhere.
I was the new kid in town, an outsider. New towns unnerved me. No surprise since I encountered a new town every few months, running the foster circuit, pushed around by funding cuts and just plain burnt-out foster parents who were never real parents anyway. And Craven was no different.
My foster mom, Ms. Patricia Custer, had tried to make me feel welcome, even insisting I call her Mom. Her big, broad smile matched her generous hips—tacit proof of her scrumptious cooking. Enormous white teeth in a mouth curved in a permanent smile, even when she scolded. But if Ms. Custer threw some sunshine onto my life at Craven, then North Wood High epitomized the dark zone. North Wood’s warm, redbrick buildings were at odds with the aloofness of the student body, the distant teachers and the near-vicious vice principal.
Arriving just in time for senior orientation didn’t help at all. Not as if I would fit in anyway. So I kept a low profile. Steered clear of the popular crowd, the jocks and the smart kids. Mouth shut. Head down. Waste of effort making friends. Even if they stuck around, they ended up turning on you. And if they didn’t turn, you left.
Two days later, the arrival of an unexpected package disturbed my usual process of new town assimilation. Lawyers handling my father’s estate had finally tracked me down. An official-looking letter confirmed it as a much-delayed sixteenth birthday gift. I moved around too much, wouldn’t have been easy to find.
I escaped to my room to unwrap the shoebox-size cardboard package. A flat rectangular box, covered in a deep green fabric, lay buried within piles of foam chips. I’d never received mail before. Giant butterflies fought for space in my stomach and I wondered what the box could possibly contain. I fiddled with a tiny gold wire clasp holding the lid shut tight, jiggling it, careful not to destroy the intricate filigree. At last the clasp gave and I lifted the heavy lid.
Within the box, on a bed of black satin, lay a pendant so exquisite, so entrancing, it stole the breath from my lungs. A warm, ethereal glimmer emanated from the elegant amber teardrop, as wide at its base as a dollar coin and encased by silver filigree lacework.
The gemstone sat in my palm, a little shining sun, warm and tingly and entrancing. The thick leather string should have clashed with the elegance of the silver filigree, yet it meshed. Richness tempered by the earthiness of the raw cord. I tied it around my neck and stood before the mirror, staring. The pendant sat in the hollow of my throat as if made and measured to fit, and after that day, it never left my neck. Its warmth soothed a little of the loneliness within the heart that beat beneath it.
The comfort of the amber jewel hadn’t taken my mind totally off of my new-school blues, but it certainly made things easier in the first few days. I could deal with the sideways glances, the up-and-down inspections, even the solitary lunchtimes.
I managed well enough on my own until I ran into Joshua. Yeah, I managed.
Until the day star quarterback Joshua O’Connell radiated the first dustings of gold. Sprinkled on his cheeks, shimmering in the sunlight and growing brighter each time I saw him.
A glow only I could see.
A glow that kept my eyes trained on him throughout our first Biology class together. I stared. And he noticed. He frowned at first, then grinned and winked. I paid little attention to the lesson, distracted by the glow on his skin and the clear warmth in his eyes.
After class I fumbled in my locker until the rather loud sound of a throat being cleared drew my head out of the metal space. Surprised, I looked into the eyes of the glowing boy.
“Hi,” he said. His cheery grin hadn’t faded. “You must be new. I’m Joshua.”
I stared at the hand he’d stuck out, then reluctantly grasped it. My first real welcome. Wow.
At least he didn’t assume I was stalker material. We hung out after school that day, and every day. He was safe. Safe because Joshua and I didn’t have the whole chemistry thing going on. Just friends. He wasn’t my type; I knew that much even though I hadn’t yet defined a personal type, romantic or otherwise. And my height posed a problem. Hardly the best start to a romance, towering over a guy.
So we talked. A lot. I assumed he’d never understand me, but Joshua surprised me. He understood being different. He was beige. Not quite black enough, not quite white enough; his mom was Indian and his dad one hundred percent Irish, straight off the plane.
He was awesome enough to look at, with all that naturally tanned skin and black, black eyes. The ebony hair made him look all the more bad-boy. Which he totally wasn’t.
But it didn’t take long before I couldn’t bear to be in his company for more than a few minutes at a time. Looking at his ever-brightening face hurt my eyes, bringing on strange, persistent headaches. Avoiding Joshua rocked the foundations of our friendship. I had hurt him, but he didn’t take my sudden aloofness lying down.
He insisted on walking me home one day, ignoring the fact that I was ignoring him. “Why are you avoiding me?” he demanded, a dark scowl wrinkling his good looks. I didn’t look at him, just put one foot in front of the other and gritted my jaw against the headache gnawing at my temples.
I couldn’t tell him that it hurt to look at him. I couldn’t tell him that I had this weird gift. The ability to see strange auras around random people wasn’t exactly useful, and I’d learned the hard way to be careful who I told.
I’d seen the glow before. Had seen it since forever. No amount of psychiatrists could make it go away. For some strange reason my father understood and accepted my weird visions. I remained grateful until he was no longer there to stand by me. After that, I never spoke of it again.
Even if I told Joshua he’d never believe me. And I would’ve been fine staying silent if it hadn’t been for Aimee Graham. I’d seen her around school, on and off. The short, dark-haired girl had glowed and brightened, soon matching Joshua’s glowing intensity, until she stopped coming to classes altogether. I’d had no idea what the golden auras meant until she returned to school one fall morning, and the rumors began.
Cancer, they said. Some sort of leukemia that ate away at her body like a woodborer munching on old furniture. I’d stared at her as she walked by my locker, then looked away, looked anywhere except at the rainbow patchwork headscarf covering her bare scalp. She shone with such radiance, blazing like a small sun, so bright that my eyes teared. She’d turned and met my gaze. And smiled.
And never smiled at me again.
Aimee had made it back to school for only a single day. The next morning, Mr. Freeman addressed the class, his voice soft and subdued, as if a loud voice would be disrespectful.
Aimee had died during the night
.
I finally knew what the glow meant.
I was a freak and Joshua was going to die.
# End of DEAD RADIANCE Excerpt #
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About the Author
I have been a writer from the time I was old enough to recognize that reading was a doorway into my imagination. Poetry was my first foray into the art of the written word. Books were my best friends, my escape, my haven. I am essentially a recluse but this part of my personality is impossible to practice given I have two teenage daughters, who are actually my friends, my tea-makers, my confidantes… I am blessed with a husband who has left me for golf. It’s a fair trade as I have left him for writing. We are both passionate supporters of each other's loves – it works wonderfully…
My heart is currently broken in two. One half resides in South Africa where my old roots still remain, and my heart still longs for the endless beaches and the smell of moist soil after a summer downpour. My love for Ma Afrika will never fade. The other half of me has been transplanted to the Land of the Long White Cloud. The land of the Taniwha, beautiful Maraes, and volcanoes. The land of green, pure beauty that truly inspires. And because I am so torn between these two lands – I shall forever remain cross-eyed.
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GODS ASCENDENT
THE APSARA CHRONICLES BOOK 2
Copyright © 2018 by T.G. Ayer
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Cover art by Eduardo Priego
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