Sympathy For the Devil

13

I ate everything from waffles to bacon as I tried to ask questions in between bites. Washing each bite down with an unhealthy glob of blueberry syrup.

"Slow down, Ellie. You'll choke to death." Uncle Charlie spoke as he sipped at his coffee.

"Hardy har har." A waitress shot me a grotesque look. I am not winning anyone over today. I am covered in dirt and I appear homeless based on my current gluttony because I couldn't move enough to be able to dress into the clean clothes Uncle Charlie had brought for me.

"Anything else?" The waitress named Claire said as she refilled my teacup and Charlie's cup of strong brewed coffee. Black and tasteless.

I added three spoonful's of sugar and a splash of milk as Charlie said "Just the check." Charlie flashed a smile in the waitress's direction who looked to be around his age. She blushed and rushed off.

My Uncle Charlie is only twenty-five. I felt guilty for him uprooting his life due to our entanglement with the Gods and Goddesses. He recapped a lot for me in the past two hours. 

Uncle Charlie was born with one human parent and the God Ogma. Gods portray this youth and beauty that lures humans towards them and allow them to reproduce leading to offspring children known as halflings (half God and half human). Les, Julian, and I are only twenty-five percent gods and are not considered full bred halflings, but we still have some benefits to being related to the Gods like coming back to life when you die in a brutal and painfully nasty way. Most of the time, halflings do not reproduce since they tend to die early on in painfully nasty ways. Vomit-inducing ways. And when halflings become Banshees, they are unable to have kids. I was a long way off from having kids, but having the choice taken away from me hurt more than I'd like to admit.

The God of Death Ankou, or the Grim Reaper as he is more modernly known as, cannot collect the souls of the offspring or ancestors of the Gods, but when they are scheduled to die prematurely, he can alter their genetic makeup and use them as servants to the Underworld. They are known as Banshees and Banhees. It's a process called divine intervention. 

Uncle Charlie also mentioned that the only souls that are collected are of people who do not die of old age or other human illnesses. The only souls collected by Ankou are the ones that die in painfully nasty ways. The ones that live a full life are able to rest easily and their soul ventures to the human sector of the Otherworld. 

"But what does any of this have to do with my mom being alive? I saw her brain splattered against the sidewalk and smeared on the dumpster." I winced at my candor.

"A mirage. You have always been able to see this supernatural world, Ellie, but your human mind will play tricks on you to mask the underbellies of this Earth. The supernatural hide in plain sight by allowing the Earth to fool humans. If a human found out that people are inhabiting the Earth that can claim the souls of the predetermined dead, you would think that the humans would also try to obtain that power that is unobtainable to them, right? Nobody wants to die when this world does not allow them to truly live."

"Then if my mom is alive, where has she been all of those times when Les had a nightmare or Julian flunked a test because he couldn't sleep, or when I stopped-" I wavered my words but ultimately decided to speak the last word of an unfinished thought. "Caring?" I slumped down in my chair as my eyes became sunken and focused solely on my food. But I had now lost my appetite completely.

Charlie reached out and touched my hand, but I kept my eyes trained on my high-top sneakers. "Your mom didn't grow up knowing about this world. Her father abandoned her and her mother raised her normally until I was born.

Ogma, my father, told your mom about things. Horrible things plagued Emelie's mind. For years, those thoughts remained dormant to her until recently. When you're younger, you tend to block out the miraculous aspects of this world. Chalk it up to a wild imagination, but when she took one class just out of a piqued interest a few years back on Celtic mythology, her memory began stitching itself together and her obsession grew. Her father, Lugh was teaching the course under his human alias Luke Daniels.