Chapter 1
Giggles and screams rang through the large house as three small children ran from room to room. Two little girls rounded a corner with their six-year-old older brother bounding after them. Another turn around a corner took them into a room where their mother sat in the corner chair reading a book.
As the children came running into the room their mother, Kate, put her book down in favor of watching them. No sooner had she looked up, then the children rounded another corner, only this time the little boy's socks slid on the slick wood floors. The giggles stopped as he crashed into the large bookcase across the hall, and before his mother could do more than drop her book, the bookcase came crashing down on the small boy.
His mother jumped from her chair and bounded across the room before kneeling down and lifting the bookcase off the sniffling boy. She pulled him out of the wreckage and into her arms before checking him over for injuries as the two smaller children peeked back into the room to find the source of the commotion.
"Donny, where does it hurt?" Kate asked the crying boy. Nearly the same time he gestured to his forehead, thick, red blood seeped out from under his hair. His mother lifted his shaggy hair off of his forehead and found the source of the bleeding, a gash that ran the length of his forehead diagonal above his left eyebrow. "This is definitely going to need stitches." She said as she lifted the boy off her lap. "Amy," She said to her five-year-old, "Go get me a wet wash cloth for his forehead please." She turned to her four year old. "Asher, sit with Donny while I get the little ones awake so we can go to the hospital."
Asher nodded before sitting down with Donny. Almost as soon as she sat down, she reached over to push his hair out of the way. Something about the way Asher was looking intently at the gash on her brother's forehead made Kate stop for a moment. Looking back she was glad she did. Asher lifted her hand and pressed her thumb against the edge of the gash, then, slowly but surely she ran her finger the full length of the cut.
Kate's eyes widened as Asher lifted her hand from Donny's forehead. Under the smeared blood where Asher had trailed her thumb, nothing but the smooth pale skin was left other than a thin white scar. The children's mother stared in astonishment.
"Asher," She said. "Ho-how did you do that?"
Asher looked up at her mother with a large grin. "Did I do good, mommy?"
"It's well Asher, 'Did you do well.'" She automatically corrected. "Never mind. Now answer my question. How did you do that?"
The girl gave a shrug. "I don't know."
Kate a sigh of frustration. "How do you not know?" She forced herself to take a deep breath before looking back at her daughter. "Who taught you how to do that?"
By that time Kate's other daughter came bounding into the room holding dripping wet washcloth.
Kate lay her head in her hand before pointing to the confused boy who was sitting on the floor, smearing blood all over his face trying to feel of the cut. "Clean up the blood while I talk with your sister please."
Amy slowly nodded with a confused look on her face. "But I thought-"
"Just do what I said!" Kate yelled. She took another deep breath. "Please. I'll explain later, if I can."
With that Kate turned and guided her younger daughter out of the room and into the kitchen by her shoulders. When the door closed behind them, Kate turned her daughter to face her. "Now, who taught you to do this?"
"The garden man at Grandy's house." Asher said cheerfully.
"How did he teach you? What did he do?" Kate asked as she gripped her daughter by the tops of her arms.
"I was chasing Amy because she stole my shoes and then I tripped. I fell onto the-" Here Asher stopped and her nose crinkled as she thought. "What is that pole thing with the bowl on top called?"
Her mother looked taken aback. "What are you talking about? What pole with-Oh! The birdbath."
Asher nodded. "Yeah! I fell on the birdbath and my arm got a huge hurt on it. When I was crying, the garden man came over and my head started hurting a lot and then he touched my cut and it went away. But my head still hurt."
Kate opened her mouth to speak, but before anything came out a shrill cry broke through the air. She gave a sigh as she released her daughter to go tend to her newborn. 'I plan on having a talk with my mother's gardener.' She thought as she made her way through the hallway.
(¯`'•.¸* ~12 years later~ *¸. •'´¯)
"What do you mean you might accept!?" A red headed girl screeched at her best friend, Blane, as they walked . "You're just going to leave everyone here and go to New York for some dumb school for gifted kids!? How in the world are you gifted anyway!? You are the most average person I know!" The girl stopped yelling for a moment to catch her breath and Blane decided then was a good time for him to interject.
"Asher, calm down. I'm not going to accept. I only said that if I didn't have so much here then I might consider going." he said. "I'm not going to accept."
Asher calmed down a little bit but she still pouted as they walked to his house. Every time Blane tried to start a conversation Asher would give vague, monosyllabic replies that frustrated Blane until he gave up. "Please just talk to me!" he begged, but she turned her head away from him and flipped her frizzy red hair over her shoulder.
When they arrived at his house they threw their backpacks on the floor before starting up the stairs to his bedroom.
"Blane, is that you?" His mother yelled. "Come down here, you have visitors."
Asher looked at Blane. "Some of your gifted New York friends?" she asked before turning and heading back down the stairs. "I'm here too Mrs. M!"
"We're in the living room dear!" She shouted back.
When Asher arrived in the living room, she saw three people she didn't recognize. A bald man in a wheelchair sat near the end of the couch across from Blane's dad, a tall girl with long red hair sat beside the bald man on the couch, and beside her sat a brown headed boy wearing sunglasses with red lenses. She felt a twinge of recognition at seeing him, but she brushed it off. Though she did find it weird that he was wearing his sunglasses inside. 'Must be a New York thing.' She thought.
Just as Blane walked into the room a wave of pain shot through Asher's head and her knees gave out on her. She would have crumpled to the ground if the brown headed boy hadn't jumped up and grabbed her around the waist. He sat her on the couch, but that was all Asher knew. The pain was so intense that she felt herself begin to black out. This kind of thing had happened before and she knew exactly what it meant.
"I have to get home." she said.
"Scott, give her some air." The red head said.
Blane was over by her side in a second. "Just lie down, it will be okay."
Asher shook her head as she struggled to sit up. "No. I have to get home." She said, but Blane pushed her back onto the couch. Asher felt a heat building behind her eyes. "Let me go!" she shouted as her strength returned to her and the pain stopped, her eyes still burning though. She finally broke free and started towards the door. Scott made a motion to follow after her but halfway between steps he stopped and sat back on the couch.
Asher heard Blane yelling at her, but she ignored him. She ran the entire three miles to her house, down her long twining driveway, under the sign declaring 'Welcome to Starks Ranch' in big bold letters. She ran straight past her big brick house and into the field behind her house. As the heat behind her eyes grew, she suddenly felt another headache rock her before the heat became unbearable and she literally saw red.
When she opened her eyes again the burning had stopped with no sign of returning and her headache was gone. She smiled before she looked at what was before her. Dirt was scattered and rocks were thrown across the field and the grass was scorched around the edges of a large gaping hole. A twist of smoke lazily made its way out of the hole before it hit Asher that the burning behind her eyes made the hole in front of her.
She turned slowly and headed back into the house in a daze. 'Who were those people at Blane's house?' She thought.