End Times by Anna Schumacher Page B

plate in front of her. She grabbed the pitcher of syrup and poured it generously over everything, even her toast.
    “I think so,” she said. “Galen said they summoned the God of the Earth that night, and we were created by the power of community—and the earth—and magic.”
    “It sounds like an orgy,” Owen said flatly. He pushed his omelet away, repulsed by the mounds of cheese vibrating gelatinously on top.
    Luna crunched loudly on a piece of bacon, continuing to talk around it. “It was a ritual. It was sacred. This is where we come from, Earth Brother, like it or not.”
    “What do you mean, ‘Earth Brother’?” Owen felt ickier by the second. “Are we related?”
    She shrugged. “We were conceived in the same ritual, on the same night, by the same group of people, and we have the same eyes. Call it whatever you want, Earth Brother, but we’re here for the same reason.”
    He sat back and put his head in his hands. “So my real father could be anyone,” he said to the rutted wooden tabletop. “Yours, too. It could be the same guy, or someone totally different. And I’ll never know.”
    He felt an old dream from his childhood slip away, the dream of someday finding his biological father, of looking up into a face that he could finally, honestly call “Dad.” It was yet another thing he’d learned to stop asking his mom about, knowing that it made the softness in her face go hard.
    There was a touch like feathers on his hand, and he looked up to find Luna’s fingertips on his knuckles. Her eyes were vernal pools basking under a spring sun.
    “It’s okay,” she said, not unkindly. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? The God of the Earth is our father. And once we carry out his plan, we’ll meet him face to face, and it’ll be more beautiful than any experience you can imagine.”
    Owen shook his head disbelievingly. He had the same sad knot in his stomach as the Christmas Eve he’d snuck downstairs to catch Santa in the act, only to find his stepdad placing presents under the tree. The more Luna talked, the more it sounded like the Children of the Earth were just a bunch of dirty hippies making up excuses to do perverted things in the woods.
    No wonder his mom had always refused to talk to him about the place he was born. She’d been young, and stupid, and probably on drugs. He suddenly regretted all the times he’d pestered her for answers: She was just trying to keep him from turning out like Luna. The strange, troubled girl across from him—his Earth Sister, or whatever—had grown up on the commune his mom had escaped, believing that their orgies were beautiful rituals and Galen Murdock’s hackneyed hippie dogma was the truth. She’d been duped.
    Stop it! a gravelly voice thundered.
    Owen sat up straight, his heart pounding as his eyes darted around the restaurant. Everyone else was oblivious, the waitress trading gripes with the line cook while the lone lumberjack at the end of the bar quietly drank his coffee and Luna drowned a forkful of hash browns in ketchup.
    “Did you hear that?” he asked.
    “Hear what?” Luna cocked her head.
    Blood slammed through his veins. There was no question that someone had spoken to him—or that it was the same deep and terrible voice from his dreams. But he was the only one who had heard it; it had almost sounded like it was coming from inside his head. He gulped down the dregs of his coffee, not caring that it was still hot enough to scald his throat, and wondered if he was going crazy for real.
    “Nothing.” He looked down at his plate, trying to shake away the echo of the voice still vibrating in his mind. “So, any idea how we’re going to pay for this feast?”
    “Leave it to me.” Luna winked, then slipped out of her seat and onto a stool at the end of the bar, next to the lumberjack. Owen watched as she tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to look at her, his gaze registering surprise and then something more opaque, a cross