The Children Of Alverdine

"There weren’t always dragons in the Valley."

I read the old script from one of the cards that was laid out on the table.

There was a total of six and they all said something outlandish and weird but the blue haired woman in front of us seemed to think that she could use them to tell our future.

I looked over to Charlie as he furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head to the right.

"I didn't pay you to feed me hobbish,” he snapped.

I winced at the aggression of his tone, but the psychic paid him no mind as she smiled and pointed to the cards.

"Pick which space to choose your fate," she repeated again in a sultry raspy tone that seemed to wrap around my whole being.

Charlie was adamant about coming to see her once he found out that she was passing through town. I tried talking him out of wasting two hundred bucks on nothing, but he was sure she'd give him the answers he so desperately wanted, to questions he didn't even know himself. So here we were spending money that would have gone towards some clothes, shoes, and some food that didn’t come out of a can.

Shockingly Charlie touched the card that read "Blue roses are nature's apologies."

I wondered if he'd felt as drawn to that card as I did about the card with the dragons. I half expected him to choose the dragon card based on his obsession with them alone, but his eyes were glued to the navy-blue roses painted on the cards surface around the words.

The woman looked over at me and smirked before yanking Charlie’s palm over to her bosom.

"There's a lot of blue roses in your life for someone so young and there's more to come," she revealed.

I felt Charlie tense up beside me as he leaned over the table to see whatever she was seeing on the palm of his hand.

I huffed in annoyance hoping it'll push her along. Life sucked we didn't need a psychic to tell us that. I'm sure she could tell that we weren't coming to her from a loving home that provided all of our needs.

It had been weeks since either of us had used a comb to our heads, or a washer for our clothes. My left shoe had a hole that my big toe poked out of whenever we walked, and Charlie's were missing the tongues of his shoes all together.

Yes, life had dealt us a shitty hand.

"You're looking for an adventure," she whispered running the pad of her finger softly against the inside of his palm.

My head snapped in his direction at the same time that he looked over at me.

I ignored the tingle that went up my spine as I remembered him saying those exact words while we walked the four miles to her little set up in the middle of nowhere.

"I still think it's a crock of-"

She continued on, speaking over my denial as her eyes squinted at his palm.

"This adventure will give you the capability of shooting for the stars, but it can also leave you broken and lost."

This time I ignored Charlie's shocked stare and focused all of my attention on the woman in front of us.

Charlie claimed that this year would be the year that we'd shoot for the stars. He always said that we were going to do great things because we were already at the lowest that we could go so the only way to go now, was up. It was as if the moment we'd turned eighteen something had unlocked inside of him. He was always searching for something new. Looking for something different.

Without notice, the woman reached over and grabbed my right hand placing it next to Charlie's left.

I watched as she traced the lines of our palms that seemed to connect at every angle.

The tingling in my spine increased as I watched the sweat form at the woman's brow.

"You two alone are strong but together you hold great power" she whispered.

I tried to make sense of what it all meant. He was my twin there was nothing shocking about our palms being identical. Right?

“There’s four of you” she added on a sharp intake of breath.

Charlie nodded his head quickly as he stayed completely focused on staring at the palm of our hands.

I started doubting my own beliefs as she moved from tracing our palms to tracing the matching tattoos that went up the inside of our wrists. Another one of Charlie's great ideas that he had when we'd first turned eighteen.

He went through a phase where he was obsessed with dragons and scrolls. I wasn't much of a reader, but I enjoyed hearing about the stories he'd read on dragons being the protectors of realms and the knights that rode them. It was always a great escape from the life we dealt with on a daily.

The tattoos were supposed to signify our strength, as great as dragons, and the scroll represented our destiny that was yet to be revealed.

"You are the source," the woman claimed tapping a fingertip on the large vein of my inner wrist.

"And you are the guide,” she added repeating the same gesture on Charlie’s wrist.

Her eyebrows scrunched together tightly once again as if she were trying really hard to put everything together.

“There’s also a seer and there’s an empath.”

My denial wouldn’t let me admit that the burning sensation that I was feeling on the skin of the tattoo was from her.

“Your power will only work together. You cannot have one without the other,” she continued.

“But you just said that we were strong on our own” Charlie argued.

I shoved him with my shoulder in disbelief.

“You’re not actually believing this are you?” I asked him.

“Of course, I am Ash,” he countered halfway standing so that him and the mysterious woman were head-to-head looking down at our hands.

“How else would she know so much about us. She even knows about our brothers.” he added.

“Your destiny is yet to be seen

until you choose to believe,

that your life is worth more

than what you’ve received,”

She sang it like a tune from a melody that I’d heard long ago but had forgotten the words.

“Just don’t be deceived,

by those who come in between;

The chosen four

Children of Alvadine”

I sat back snatching my hand away from her in both fear and shock. There was no way that she could have known that. No way Charlie could have slipped her the information when we had gotten inside because he didn’t know either.

I’d went to the record hall for months digging through all the old files to find our birth parents. Charlie never cared about finding them like I did and neither did our brothers. To them our parents were just people of our past who didn’t want to be a part of our futures. They were okay with not knowing while I wanted answers.

I jumped up and headed outside the small tent leaving Charlie to finish the session. I repeated the song over and over again in my head trying to figure out where I’d heard it from as I walked to the main road to meet up with our brothers.

As I got closer my heart stopped in my chest as I caught the two of them humming the same exact tune as they threw rocks over the large trees.

Phillip seen me first as he playfully shoved Talon to mess up his throw.

“So, what now are we going to shoot for the stars?” he asked causing a deep dread to settle in the pit of my stomach.