The Children of Hercules: Haemcotheos

By Jessica Johnson

Between her unstable parents, dysfunctional family life, and talent of finding herself in strange situations, Alice has always struggled with feeling insignificant and out of place in the world. More than anything she longs to find out why she doesnt feel capable of being normal and figure out if she will ever be good enough the way that she is. When Alice, her younger sister Nina, and adoptive parents move from Washington to California over the summer she meets a strange group of people who help her make sense of all the mysteries in her life and she discovers that not only was she never destined for an ordinary life but that being different means she has more power and value than she could have ever imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514455951

Jessica Johnson

Jessica Johnson was born in Provo, Utah and currently lives back and forth between Northern California and Eastern Idaho while finishing her B.S. degree in Biology. Jessica is very self-motivated and independent and has a remarkable ability to create which she displays through, music, pencil and paper, photography, and written word. Her first love is running, and she runs cross-country daily. Jessica developed an interest in reading and writing during elementary school and read at an advanced level early on. During these years she wrote and illustrated several children's books and was requested the rights to publish one of her articles by the publishers of The New Era magazine. Much of her work is contained in shorter descriptive essays, which she uses not only to entertain but also as a way to express emotion and discover herself. In 2012 she published her first book, What You Need To Know to Understand, a nonfiction/health/psychology novel, and was featured on Good day Sacramento in an interview on the inspiration for the book. She plans to continue to pursue writing as one of her passions as long as life permits.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The air in the moving van reminded me of an oven. Even with the AC full blast, the heat baked my skin like bread crust, and I could feel the nylon belt across my chest burning a sideways into my body.

Reaching up with one arm still on the steering wheel, I dragged the back of my hand across my forehead. It came back dripping, as if I'd run my hands under the faucet and skipped out on the hand dryer at a public restroom.

While I had no tolerance for this type of heat, it didn't seem to bother Nina who, at the moment, seemed incredibly content looking out the window at the blurry yellow lines painted on the asphalt and listening to whichever pop/rap/hip-hop boy band she had on her new IPhone---her consolation prize from me for having to move from our old home in Washington to this new one.

I glanced at my hand again, glistening in the bright sunlight, wrinkled my nose, and turned my attention back to the road while reaching over to the passenger seat and wiping my hand on my fifteen-year-old sister's leg. As soon our skin touched, she whipped around to face me and then looked down at her left leg, wrinkling her nose, with an expression that said, Eww.

I glanced back over at her and stifled a giggle.

She tried to mask a smile and punched me in the shoulder, then took an earbud out of one ear, and shifted in the cracked leather seat so her body faced me.

Alice, you're really weird, Nina said.

I didn't even have to look at her to know she was joking.

You know that it runs in the family, I replied, winking at her. Sooner or later, you are going to end up just like me!

She rolled her eyes.

"We're both adopted, so the crazy . . . is going to be stuck with you." She shifted again to face the front of the van.

Hey, Alice, she asked, suddenly serious, her smile gone, what do you think it's going to be like?

What do you mean? I asked.

California, she stated. I mean living there. Do you think it's going to be like what's on TV?

I laughed, but it wasn't more than a short burst of air from my lungs.

Nothing is like what's on TV, I said.

She didn't respond, just continued to stare at the dashed yellow lines on the road as they were sucked under the van. I looked over at her.

Hey, it's not going to be so bad. Mom and Dad will meet us at the new house tomorrow, and they did say they had another surprise for us!

Honestly, that wasn't really saying much. Usually, the surprises for us were things that just made our parents' lives easier. I'd been convinced that they really only used us to rationalize their extensive purchases for each other so they wouldn't feel bad about never getting us anything we wanted.

Nina's new electronic distraction was the first real present that had been given to her in three years---I didn't normally have too much money to spare. Last year on her birthday, our parents had given her a blender.

So you can make shakes, Mom had said; and then after that, our dad had proceeded to ask Nina to make him a shake whenever he had a craving for one, which, arguably, would have been at least once or twice every day.

My last birthday present had been a makeup kit with blush, lipstick, and foundation colors that were all, just accidentally, perfect for my mother's skin tone and far from mine; and since it was so expensive, and there were no returns, we just had to keep it. Though by nineteen years with them, I knew that I was expected to be oblivious and generously offer it to my mother to solve our big problem. So I did, and they were blissfully happy that we could figure out such a great way to not have to waste anything that has been purchased.

I didn't want to say that I resented my parents. I just wished that they wouldn't be so ignorantly selfish, especially when it came to Nina. Maybe I had a mother's protective instinct because my mother never seemed to take that role. Maybe I just loved her; all I knew for sure was that when it came to my baby sister, I would do anything to keep her safe.

I looked at her as she pressed her cheek to the glass of the window. Her bangs fell forward; and for the brief second, before she flipped her head to the side to flick them off her face, I was able to see the half-circle scar just behind her left eyebrow.

She kept her scar covered with her hair most of the time. It was the main reason she kept her bangs long. Even though she had gotten it when she was five and it was little more than a pale white mark now, she didn't like people staring or asking questions. I had never blamed her for that either. I had my closet full of memories I would rather not shed light on because of things our parents had done---or not done. I understood the look she was trying to avoid---the look that always started as a raised eyebrow. Then both furrowed. The look that always came before dozens of prying questions and then a hand on the shoulder and unnatural eye contact, like whoever it was, was trying to pry their way into your soul.

The thing that I had always hated the most about that look wasn't the expression or even the questions themselves. It was the fact that they ever occurred in the first place. It was the fact that something had to have happened to draw that kind of attention. The fact that, not only could I not trust my parents, but that they made it so obvious to everyone else that I couldn't; they were so deeply rooted in not caring about either of their children that they didn't even try to cover up the fact that they drank too much, yelled too much, or that their parenting skills resembled the relationship between primary school kids and bullies.

Growing up, I never had to worry about getting abused on the playground; but as far as other adults were concerned, that was where it happened. It was easier than telling the truth. I didn't want to deal with more of those looks, so I lied.

But I didn't want Nina to have to lie.

I did my best to be her guardian angel, to protect her from our bullies. I was there when she came home, and I was there until she left. I made sure she ate dinner and that she got her homework done, and I made sure that they didn't touch her---at least I made sure as much as I could.

The day she got her scar, I didn't know until I came home after school. She was sitting in her room on the floor, big round tears pouring down her pink cheeks, red streaking her face and her hands. As soon as I opened the door, she reached out, and I scooped her into my arms, rocking back and forth on my knees to comfort her. I held her till her sobs subsided, and then I carried her to the bathroom where I washed the dried blood from her face and helped change her clothes.

The cut had gone deep but not deep enough to need stitches; so after I stopped the bleeding, I bandaged her with medical tape and gauze, sent her off to play in her room, and then went looking for my parents.

I searched the entire house, but no one was there; but that's not to say that I couldn't tell where they had been.

Red wine leaked from the kitchen countertop to the linoleum floor, glass scattered in masses; shards and splinters covered the floor; and a doll belonging to Nina lay next to what remained of the neck of the bottle of wine. A tiny scarlet handprint had been smeared onto the floor. To my ten-year-old eyes, it looked like something out of a horror movie.

In that moment, I felt wounded hatred toward my parents. My temperature rose and then boiled inside of me. My jaw clenched involuntarily, and for a moment, I forgot everything but that anger.

When I realized I had been holding my breath, I exhaled, hot and loud; it came out like a snarl. I remembered picking my way through the glass and grabbing the doll by a leg and shaking it---the glass chiming as it fell. Then I had turned my back on the kitchen, away from the wine and the glass, away from the story those cold clear daggers told, and walked slowly back to Nina's room to keep her safe.

I shrugged away the memory uncomfortably and looked away from Nina's face, sighing when I saw the cord to her earbuds twisted around her fingers, something she only did when feeling uncomfortable.

Reaching over again, I placed my hand on hers and squeezed her fingers briefly.

Nina, I said softly, together forever, remember? Just you and me.

She looked up at me for a moment and half smiled.

Together forever, just you and me, she said, squeezing my hand in reply before reinserting her earbud.

A few clicks and a muffled chorus later, and I knew her music had blocked out the rest of the world.

I wanted to live that world---free of everything but a melody and the chorus of few words repeated. Everything in that world seemed so simple compared to the real one. Just one song, just one problem, just one set of chords played over and over. The best thing about that world was that once the song was over, so was the problem. The heartache of the twanging, bass-voiced country guy ends because the song ends. The horrible drinking father who beats his children is gone because the song is over.

I wished that my life could be the same, a musical where all the problems ended when the song did, and all I'd have to do is sing. But I knew, like so many other dreams of mine, that it wasn't possible.

I reached for the AC dial and cranked it up the rest of the way. The whir of the air grew louder, drowning out the whisper coming from Nina's earbuds, and I let the smile slip from my face. I missed Conner. I missed his smile; I missed the way his green eyes lit up when something excited him. I missed the way that he talked with his hands, always gesturing to this or that, showing the size of things using his whole body, not just his words. He could paint any picture with those hands. Words were only his canvas. Those gestures, though, they were his masterpiece.

It had been so long since I had seen him last---long enough for the pain to subside and me to move on with my life and long enough for me to finally admit to myself that, mostly, what I really missed was the feeling of belonging. The feeling of knowing that someone understands you so well you don't need words to speak. With Conner, I had been the closest I ever felt to home.

I never would have met him if it weren't for my first day of college at Washington State and my parents' unreliability bending my patience. I always had a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, though I guess it was less of a habit and more of a curse where questionably frustrating, dangerous, awkward---and whatever other adjective you wanted to throw in---things happened around me.

It started at five years old when my father had taken me with him to the bar on a Friday night. Granted, that was the wrong place for a five-year-old girl right off the bat, but that was my father.

I can still remember the pungent smell of Marlboro coming from the corner booth to the left of the bar where my dad had plopped me down next to him, and I can still see the black stains of wear on the teeth of the cigarette's owner. I can feel the unfinished wood scratch my legs as I slid forward---little shoes dangling, feet off the tile floor---before I turned onto my belly to grip the stool and let myself fall onto the floor.

The whole time, my father was busy hitting on the pretty bartender who was probably only just barely twenty-one to his thirty. He didn't even turn his head when I stumbled away from his side to make my way to the group of men smoking on their faded red bench seat.

I looked up and made eye contact with a man to the side of his black-toothed buddy. His eyes seemed to glow at me in the yellow light, but when I looked closer, I realized it wasn't the lighting but that instead of the normal white surrounding his black pupils both his eyes seemed to have no color to them at all. Where I should have seen color, they were completely white; and the area surrounding them was the off-white shade of butter, like bad teeth.

The man sitting across from him had eyes that darted about the room every few moments, and he was talking low and fast, though the white-eyed man seemed to have stopped acknowledging him, looking only at me intensely. I took a small step back; and he reached a brown leathered arm out to me, palm side up, and waited, still gazing at me expectantly.

I remember stepping forward, curious, and in his palm was a white marble. My little eyes took in the tiny orb, and I took another step forward, reaching for the clouded marble; but he closed his fingers around it and withdrew his hand.

I looked up at him confused, and he looked down with a quarter smile on his face. Beginning to lose interest in the man, who didn't seem to want to give me what I wanted, I started to turn away for the second time when I heard him whisper,

Alice.

His voice was rough and slimy at the same time---like the sound the feel of a toad's skin would make if it had a noise. I quickly turned back to face him and stared into his face, searching for the answer of how he knew my name. Instead, he pointed at my father---who was, undoubtedly, drunk at that point---and asked,

Is that your dad?

I turned and looked at my father. He had his back to me and leaned over the counter to whisper in the bartender's ear, and nodded my head. The man leaned back against the red leather of the bench and gestured to his friend across the table.

How would you like to have your own marble like this? he asked, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger so I could see it.

As the light from the hanging lamp bounced off the glass surface, it glinted; and for a moment, it looked as if the white clouds inside were swirling in endless circles.

I remember reaching up for it before he snatched it back up.

He shook his head at me.

Nuh-uh-uh, not this one, little love, he said, leaning down to be closer to my level. If you want one of these, my friend can take you to our car just outside where we have a whole bunch of them.

I looked back and forth between the two men, still not saying anything, and nodded quickly. Black tooth smiled a full smile that showed his whole mouth and glanced over at the white-eyed man before standing and extending his hand to me, but as I reached to take it, a crash sounded from my father's direction.

I snatched my hand back and swiveled around in time to see my dad push himself up off the floor, staggering to keep his balance.

BENJAMIN! his bass voice boomed through the bar. The white-eyed man stood, slipping the marble into his front pocket.

Nelson, he answered, cocking his head to one side. How unexpected to see you here. With Alice.

A sly smile crossed over his face.

You st-t-ay away from my daughter, Benjamin! my father yelled, pointing.

The man named Benjamin laughed sarcastically.

"She just came over to say hi since you were otherwise occupied."

He jerked his head in the direction of the bartender.

You shouldn't bring her to places like this, Nelson. You never know what trouble she could get into. His voice was low, and his eyes were dark.

"She's mine, My dad snarled. I can do whatever I want with her."

I stood paralyzed between the two men, staring at my father as he struggled to stay on his feet.

Alice! he yelled, and I ran over to him. We're leaving.

He grabbed onto my arm, yanking me to his side, and stumbled forward, then turned to Benjamin, shooting him one final glare before pulling me with him out of the bar and into the black night.

I still remember that night as vivid as yesterday's memories, though now I know how naive I had been to willingly agree to go with those strange men.

Whenever I think back now, it makes me shudder to think about what might have happened to me if I had.

I will always wonder how the man knew me, why he wanted me. The way that my father had responded suggested that it hadn't been the first time Benjamin had tried. One thing is clear, though: without a doubt, I had been in the wrong place at a very wrong time, and whatever those men were into, I never wanted any part of.

The recollection had distracted my thoughts from Conner, but as the memory faded, my thoughts returned to him and the first day that we met.

I'd want to say that our story was something special---some crazy, exciting love story that takes to the skies with fairy wings and captures hearts like a young knight---but I would be mistaken to assume those things, especially since Conner and I never got our 'happily ever after' like those stories do. That being said, although we were far from a fairy tale, the first time we met was still just as magical to me.

I think that was part of the reason why reminiscing was so bittersweet. When you love the beginning of a story, you think it deserves a great ending; and since we didn't achieve the latter, it made my heart sore.

The night that Conner and I met, I had left the house out of anger. I came home after my first day at Washington State exhausted, with what seemed like an entire week's worth of reading and a project that had been declared to take until midterms to finish. Not only had I been haggled by every single professor for hours about the superior importance of their class compared to all the rest of my classes, but I had been late to my 9:00 a.m. because my mom had decided to wake up with a hangover and refused to get out of bed to go to work. Since she was still at the house, I had to wait with Nina to keep her safe---just in case---until the bus came to take her to school.

When I got back home, since Nina was already out of the house at a friend's, my mother and father had dropped all of what little parental guise they had, which, on top