Prophecy

Prologue

I can still remember the very first time I met Embry and Gabriel, two mysterious men who came out of nowhere and inserted themselves into my life. The details were fuzzy, more like a dream than a memory, but I knew they were important. I always felt special when they came to see me, even if I didn't know why. I was so young that I didn't understand the gravity of the situation, or how these men would eventually become my dark knights in shining armor, keeping me safe from all the scary characters from my nightmares...

I was five years old and Grams had just died. She had been the one taking care of me ever since 'the cancer' took my mom away. I used to make Grams look under my bed almost every night because I thought 'the cancer' was a monster, like the boogeyman. They always talked about it in hushed voices, and I knew it was the reason my mom left me. Instead of admitting there was nothing that she or anyone else could do to protect me from it, Grams humored me with a flashlight and some herbs that she would leave under my bed, to make sure it wouldn't come while I was asleep. She would go through different phases, sometimes putting salt by the windowsill as a protective barrier, other times hiding garlic in the closet. The smell was terrible, but it made me feel safe. Grams convinced me that burning sage to cleanse the house and all of her other tricks could help ward off 'the cancer' and other misfortunes. I didn't realize they were old wives' tales until 'the cancer' ripped Grams from me as well.

I hadn't counted, but it looked like there were hundreds of people gathered in the manor I grew up in. It was unnerving when I had never met a single one of them before. The manor was big enough that every curious mourner could lurk in their own room and I would never run into them. However, the East and West Wings were roped off, so everyone was crowded in the parlour. Mr. and Mrs. Boyd, the groundskeeper and his wife, were in charge of me until someone else could be found to take me in. Neither my mother nor my grandparents had any siblings or relatives to mention, and I knew nothing about my father, other than a blurry picture of a man whose face you couldn't see.

Mrs. Boyd was always vocal about her opinions, such as how horrible it was that the townsfolk were using Grams' funeral to gain access to our elusive manor. There were real estate agents and lawyers wandering as far as they could, trying to get lost on their way to the restroom, sniffing around for clues as to who was inheriting the property and whether they were likely to sell. Mrs. Boyd made certain none of them felt welcome, and a few of them literally retreated from her steely gaze. She had always been fiercely protective of us, and her fiery red hair, though slightly graying, made it clear she was not the type of person you wanted to mess with. I was grateful it meant no one dared come near me, but I could still hear their whispers.

I would never have called Grams suspicious or eccentric, but that was how the strangers in my home described her. They spoke as though they knew her and her crazy old woman behaviors, but they didn't know about half of the odd things we did. I could only imagine what they would say if they knew we ate strawberries and jumped into the creek for summer solstice, had soul cakes instead of trick-or-treating for Halloween and filled the house with fresh cowslip. Not to mention the bonfires. Or the locket. In movies, girls wore lockets with pictures of people they loved, whereas my locket was incredibly old and sealed shut. Grams had wanted me to wear it all the time, but it smelled funny, so she said it was okay as long as I wore it around the end of October. She never elaborated on the purpose of the locket, or what she was protecting me from, and she did get most of her information from books and movies, but she ingrained in me from early on that something terrible would happen if I didn't follow these practices. When she died, I saw it as proof that none of it was real, but then again, maybe I just hadn't tried hard enough to do everything she taught me.

The townspeople knew none of that. They only knew that Grams was a recluse who never mingled with the outside world. A few people had come to visit us once or twice over the years, but we never left the manor and after my mom died, there were no more visitors. Mrs. Boyd did our grocery shopping and her husband took care of any errands we had.