A Beast Among Gods (The Mac Tire Chronicles) by Garnet Davenport (big screen ebook reader txt) 📗

crossed their face was of pure happiness. I tried not to talk about my mom because I thought they wouldn’t want me if I was sad all the time. But they wanted me to talk about her. On her birthday, they made a cake and had me blow out the candle with a wish for peace.

I stayed on their property for the next ten years and always saw Aodhan like clockwork. One week before the anniversary of my mother’s death, he would come walking onto the property out of nowhere. He would let me tag along as he re-enforced the protective shield at the edge of the property. Sometimes I felt like he took time to show me exactly where the property ended.

“When will I be able to go to school like normal kids?” I asked John one day.

“William, you know it’s not possible. Aodhan has always kept us all safe. But he hasn’t given us any indication that you can step outside of the protection barrier,” John explained.

“I know. I just want something normal,” I said, kicking a rock as he fixed the wood fence.

“I know you do. But it’s just not the time, yet.”

I kicked a few other rocks with the toe of my shoe.

“I know you know. When it’s safe, I promise we will get something more normal.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” he said.

One year when it was almost time for Aodhan to come, I had decided to disobey the rules. I lied to Diane and John. Told them I was going down to the creek one summer afternoon. But instead I went to the edge of the property, right where Aodhan had placed the protection spell year after year. I placed my hand flat on the invisible shield. I felt a slight zap from electricity, but pushed my hand through. The air felt thicker where the barrier had been placed. But I pushed through. Once I was outside of the barrier, I took a deep breath and discovered there was nothing different about it. I had a moment of disappointment. I thought it would at least feel different. To be just more than how it felt on the other side.

Saddened by this, I turned around and pushed back through the barrier. I raced back home and washed up for dinner. As we sat at the table and ate, I pulled at the chicken while Diane and John watched me cautiously. At nearly eleven, they were always watching me, but lately it had been different.

“Did you feel something earlier today?” Diane asked John.

“Like what?” John asked. I looked up to watch them talk.

“I’m not sure. It was like a pop in energy or something,” Diane said.

“A pop?” John asked.

“Isn’t that what I said? A pop,” Diane said with a humph.

“Okay, okay,” John said to calm the situation, “I didn’t feel anything.”

“Well, I’m worried about it,” Diane said.

“Don’t be such a worry-wart. It’s been silent for years. He’s in prison. The barrier is still intact, and nobody knows about us.”

“I know,” Diane said, leaning toward John for comfort.

I didn’t want to tell them I had gone through the barrier and that I could have been the reason for that weird pop of energy. I didn’t want them to be mad at me. I hated the idea of it. I would keep my mouth shut and get in touch with Aodhan. They had to have his phone number around somewhere. If I couldn’t find it, at least I knew Aodhan would be by in about a month to complete the spell to re-enforce the protection barrier. And like John said, “He’s in prison.” There was no reason to worry. No one had been looking for me or where I went.

After bedtime, when everyone had gone to sleep, I crept down the stairs and searched the desk for a phone number or address for Aodhan. After about an hour of not finding it and feeling too tired to keep looking, I decided to go to bed and see if I could ask without them knowing in the morning.

I stumbled up to bed and hit it face-down to fall asleep immediately.

➣ Chapter 7

Ripped From Protection

When the morning came, I walked down the same stairs I had walked down every morning for the last five years and sat down at the table just like normal. But this morning something had been different. Diane was not in the kitchen making breakfast, and John was not sitting at the table. I looked over to the clock on the wall and realized it was a little later than normal. I got up and started to search through the house to find them.

I stretched out my senses and could see the house was silent through my mind’s eye. I tried to stretch out my senses even further and couldn’t see them, but I did hear heartbeats. Multiple heartbeats. Six for sure. Two were rapidly beating and panicked.

I felt a heat flood into my system as if my entire body was on edge and ready to attack. Something happened in that moment, and I ran for Diane and John. I had to get out to the barn. Maybe I could help somehow. As I approached the barn, the heartbeats increased even more. That was when I started to hear what the other people in the barn were saying.

“You’ve kept him from me. My own son,” a gravelly voice shouted.

“You never treated him as your son.” Diane said back in a manner I had only heard when I was in the deepest trouble I could imagine.

“You think you’re his mother, don’t you?” He laughed with malice.

She stayed quiet, and I moved faster. As soon as I made it to the barn door, I saw Diane and John on their knees with their hand behind their backs. There were four other men surrounding them and holding them. I had to do something. But before I could, they noticed I was standing there.

“William?” Diane whispered. It