Read Autumn Rose: A Dark Heroine Novel Online
Authors: Abigail Gibbs
Autumn Rose: A Dark Heroine Novel
O Angel, ravish me in my youth!
Render me incapable of thought
And reduce me to the primal eldest joy,
For I am yours,
Until the day Christ calls.
Contents
I suppose I always knew I was different;
that my fate was set in stone, and that one day,
I would sit on a cold, hard throne.
A symbol of what I am. A deity of my kind.
A deity among many.
I
was not conscious. I was running through the green grass, screaming her name in a tongue as familiar to me as the shadow that the tall gray-stone building cast in my path. Tears streaked my face and I struggled to climb the steps, hearing the babble behind the closed entrance doors, like the stream beside the lodge that would swell after the winter rains. My polished, square, school-approved heels squealed in protest as I burst through the double doors, coming across the same sight I had seen a thousand times: hundreds of faces turning to me, and then blackness. I waited, breathless though asleep, for the scene to replay itself as it always had in the past.
But this time was different. Instead of waking up in a cold sweat, cheeks wet, bed soaked, I drifted into another scene. Now, a tall statue loomed in front of me and sunlight glinted off pale paving and the tumbling water in two identical fountains. Almost as though somebody had hit fast-forward, the scene sped up and I watched, captivated, as thousands of suit-clad humans and camera-carrying tourists rushed from one side of a square to the other. The clouds sailed across the simmering gray ocean of a sky, the square darkening as day turned to night, Nelson lighting up on his column as fewer and fewer people passed by. Eventually, Trafalgar Square emptied of all life except for a few pigeons and a lone girl.
The scene slowed and focused on the girl. Dark hair framed her face and she wore a long black coat, half-unbuttoned to reveal the darkened outline of cleavage and hoisted high enough to show the hem of her black dress, which she tugged down every few minutes. She wasn’t pale, but neither was she blessed with a tan; most striking of all were her eyes,
purple,
which glowed above the light of her mobile.
Slipping her phone back into her pocket, she moved to sit on one of the long stone benches beneath the trees that lined the square. After a single minute, she perked up again, alert and tense.
Abruptly, the scene cut and was replaced by another. Darkening, congealing red liquid coated the ground and stained the water of the fountains like wine. Bodies littered the ground and I looked on, sickened as their life and energy drained from their necks and seeped across the city I knew and loved;
the city I was torn from . . .
I was wrenched back to consciousness. Bolting upright in bed, I reached for the light on my alarm clock, surprised. It had only just turned one o’clock in the morning.
I was sweating now and heaving in air, hugging the clock to my chest so its light illuminated the room. It was empty, but every time I blinked I could see blood, and bodies, and purple eyes . . .
Groaning at the vivid images still implanted in my mind, I grabbed a pen and reached up to the calendar above my bed, crossing out and therefore marking the start of another day of the fast-evaporating summer holidays: July 31.
W
ell, look here, it’s everyone’s favorite recluse.” An apron came flying my way and I caught it, unfolded it, and tied the strings behind my back.
“Good morning, Nathan.”
“Did you hear that, Sophie?” he asked, turning to one of the new, young waitresses, whose arms were stacked up with crisp white plates as the much older Nathan emptied the dishwasher. “It’s a
good
morning. How unusual.”
I stared at the girl and tried to decide if I’d met her before, or if she was just totally indistinguishable from the other skinny jeans–clad and powdered-orange Saturday staff.
“And how am I a recluse?” I asked without tearing my eyes off her.
She returned the gaze with wide eyes as sweat began to trickle down her temples. Her fingers nervously tapped against the rim of the lowest plate, and as I sidestepped her to grab a pile of menus, she scrambled back and squeaked. The plates in her hands dropped toward the tiled floor.
Haven’t met her before, then.
With a flick of my finger, the plates froze in midair and floated onto the worktop. Before she could react again, I left the cramped kitchen and made my way toward the front of the Harbour Café, flipping the Closed sign on the door so it read Open. It was the end of August, and though it was still early, I could see through the window that tourists were already beginning to crowd the busy walkway from the working harbor to the more upmarket marina; in the distance, trawler fishing boats squeezed between jetties, bringing with them the smell of fish. Neither was the glass a barrier against the sound of chinking masts and the cries of the gulls as they swarmed for their chance to snatch a portion of the day’s catch—the score that accompanied every morning in the bustling fishing town of Brixham.
Nathan rounded the counter and crossed the café in a couple of bounding strides—not hard, because of his tall and lanky build. He cocked his head apologetically.
“Before you arrived, she was telling me she’s never seen a Sage,” he explained in an undertone.
I shrugged. Her reaction came as no surprise. In the year I had worked at the café, only Nathan—the chef—and I had been permanent, and every new member of staff had given me a wide berth and left shortly after. The only reason I hadn’t lost my job over it was because my boss knew she could get away with paying me less. I wasn’t about to put up a fuss. She had been the only person in town willing to offer me any work at all.
Nathan placed a tattooed left hand on my arm as I went to pass. “And recluse because you haven’t answered my texts for a month.”
“You were in Iceland, and I was in London.”
“You still could have replied.”
I grabbed the sleeve of his chef’s whites—which were, in fact, black—and removed his arm. Released, I laid the menus containing the day’s specials on the tables, working my way across the café with Nathan following.
“How was Iceland?” I eventually asked to fill the silence.
“Beautiful. Democratic.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes as my back was turned.
“The humans and Sage there live together as one community, not divided like here.” I straightened up to see him jerking his thumb back toward the kitchen, where Sophie was. “Or anywhere,” he added as an afterthought.
I’d heard his rhetoric on Sagean-human relations before, but he had saved up for so long to afford his holiday that I didn’t want to burst his bubble. And yet . . .
“Sage? Only Extermino live there.”
I couldn’t see his eyes, because his hair—curly, brown, and almost down to his shoulders—was covering them, but I thought I saw him avert them.
“Extermino are Sage, too, they just believe different things.”
“And yes, their scars turn gray just because they play happy families with humans,” I mocked, but I didn’t find the matter funny at all. “They’re violent extremist rebels, Nathan. They are enemies of the Athenean monarchy, and of all other dark beings too. Don’t forget that.”
He looked toward the ground and adjusted his rolled-up cuffs. “I just think things aren’t great as they are, while people like you get marginalized—”
The tinkle of a bell interrupted him and we both startled and turned toward the door, as if surprised that customers actually might be coming in. The three girls in the doorframe paused, as startled as we were, and then proceeded to the table beside the window.
“Good luck,” Nathan muttered, and retreated back to the kitchen.
I took a deep breath, pulled out my notepad, and approached the group.
“Good morning, what can I get you?” I chirped, pretending they were total strangers.
The nearest girl flicked her long black hair over her shoulders and leered at me from behind her heavy bangs. She was tall, and her shoulders very wide; she didn’t have to tilt her head far to meet my gaze.
“The usual, witch.”
I gripped the pen tightly, trying to focus through the window on the steady lap of the sea against the harbor walls.
“I’ve been away for a month, I’m afraid I can’t remember what you and your friends have, Valerie,” I said through clenched teeth.
Valerie Danvers was what could only be described as a bully. My school’s bully.
Her sustenance was my misery, not a damned coffee.
She muttered something to her friends about Sage, and then begrudgingly gave me her order, demanding that half the dish be omitted. Her friends were only slightly less unpleasant.
I went and got their drinks and was thanked with the usual grunt. A minute later I was in the bathroom, back to the door, forcing myself to take deep breaths. It was a Saturday-morning ritual, and had been ever since Valerie Danvers had discovered the café was the perfect place to torment me.
With my eyes closed, I could almost see the short outline of a woman—my grandmother, growing older but still in her prime— with her head bowed toward a small child, half her height, and talking. Always talking.
Sagean children are like ivy; you grow fast and live very long. Human children are like butterflies. They are ugly in their chrysalis, until the day they finally emerge and become adults. The ugly chrysalis is jealous of the ivy, you see?
I squeezed my eyelids tighter together.
Breathe . . .
Hammering on the other side of the door wrenched me back. The small room was still dark, and I grabbed a cord, flooding the room with sterile white light.