Birthday Blogfest

My dear friend Elizabeth is hosting a birthday blogfest today. Check out everyone's contributions by going HERE. Below, you'll find my scene, written just for the blogfest. I hope you enjoy it!

***

I expected my fifteenth birthday to suck, but I didn't think I would spend a large portion of it barricaded inside the bathroom.

The irony of it all was that I had locked myself into the bathroom so I wouldn't have to hear what everyone said (or yelled), and yet here I was with my ear pressed against the chipped blue paint, listening intently.

"There's the Serpent coming up the drive," Dad was saying.

"Don't call her that!" Mom said, and I could hear her slap him on the arm.

"Even if I don't say it out loud, you know everyone's thinking it," said Dad. "Including you."

When Dad was right, he was right. Even Mom knew that and shut up. I did hear what sounded like another slap, though.

The Serpent was my grandmother. My mom's mom, and the scariest woman to ever have walked the earth. Obviously I had not invited her to my birthday. But the Serpent had a tendency to turn up anyway.

I heard the distant sound of a mighty woman's boots on gravel, the door bell, and then Mom's fakest cheery voice.

"Hello mother!"

"Sweetie," the Serpent said in her deep voice. "You look lovely. Why do you try to hide it behind that hair cut?"

I couldn't hear Mom scowl and pout, but I knew she did.

"Margaret," Dad said stiffly.

"David," the Serpent replied in the same manner.

"Now," the Serpent said then. I could hear her rub her hands together, and instinctively held my breath. "Where is the birthday girl?"

"Um," Mom said. "Around here somewhere. Why don't you come into the living room?"

I heard steps and some rustling and a door being shut. And then nothing, except very muffled voices. I sat on the edge of the bathtub and tried to think hard. Which was difficult, because I was panicking.

The problem with having locked myself in the bathroom was that they would figure out where I was really quickly. And then Mom would plead with me through the door, and then Dad would shout a little, and then Mom would shout more, and then, if I knew her at all, the Serpent would probably use force to break down the door or smash the window or try to smoke me out.

If I opened the door, it would creak, and everyone would hear. So climbing out the window seemed like the best shot I had.

While squeezing out the window I tore my favorite shirt, and when I dropped to the ground I kind of hurt my foot while it was squashing one of Mom's favorite roses. But I was already too freaked out to care much about either of those things. I just made for the shed as fast as I could, circled it, and paused to catch my breath behind it. Then I ran into the forest, my foot hurting and my heart pounding.

What we called the forest was no more a forest than my grandmother was an actual snake. It was just a clump of trees with a fence going through them, which was where our garden ended and Matt's family's garden began.

Matt was sitting on said fence, his dirty sneakers resting on the lowest rail. He didn't say anything until I had reached him.

"Aaaaah," he said then. "I see... You are fleeing from a monster!"

"Shut up," I said and sat next to him.

"You definitely look like you've seen a monster," Matt said. "Pale, sweaty, and-"

"Thank you."

Matt grinned in response to my icy stare. Then he dug a bag of licorice out of his pocket and handed it to me. I didn't know whether it was a peace offering, a birthday gift or just pity food. I didn't ask. I just put a black triangle in my mouth and sucked on it.

"Honestly," Matt said. "I don't get why today is such a big deal for you guys."

"It's my fifteenth birthday," I said quietly. "It's the day they check for the Gift."

"I know," Matt said, rolling his eyes. "It's not like you haven't been obsessing over it for months. I'm just saying, I don't get what the fuss is. Who wants to know the future anyway?"

I didn't say anything, but I knew the answer. The Serpent did, and that's why she needed to stick with the traditions and check me for the Seeing Gift on the appropriate day. She needed to know whether her own vision was correct. Whether I would be a great Seer, like her. Unlike Mom.

"If your grandmother can see the future," Matt said, "why does she have to check you to know? Can't she just look into the future and see it there?"

"It doesn't work like that," I said. "She has already Seen that I have it. Now she needs to check it to know that she was right."

"That's just silly," Matt said.

I wanted to argue with him - even though he was right - because that was what we did. But I didn't get to say anything, because that very moment a twig snapped in the undergrowth and then another. I almost fell off the fence, but it was too late. The Serpent marched straight towards us, with my parents at her heels.

"You silly girl," the Serpent said. "Why are you hiding out here? You cannot run from the future."

Maybe not, I thought, but you could, and should, run from the Serpent. Always. Except that now I was stuck between her and the fence. And her big, paw-like hand was reaching for mine.

"No," I said and hid my hands behind my back. "I don't want to know."

"Please, sweetie," Mom said, and Dad rolled his eyes.

"I don't want to know about the future," I said.

"You will know anyway," the Serpent says. "It's better to be prepared. Believe me."

I shook my head.

"Give me your hand. You have to find out."

I kept shaking my head. It was her who wanted to know, not me. I was going to be a lot happier not knowing whether I had the Gift or not. I liked life being full of surprises, and I did not want to spend it wondering whether my visions were correct or not.

But I didn't stand a chance against the Serpent. She grabbed my arm and pulled it out behind my back. And nobody did anything to stop her. Her hand gripped mine so hard it hurt.

And then I felt cold. A wave of icy nothingness swept through me, and I Saw.

I Saw a space without trees. It had walls instead, and people, and a table with a birthday cake. The cake had fifteen candles on it, and letters in the icing. They read, Margaret 15. A girl stood in the middle of the room, with an old woman in front of her.

"No, Grandma," the girl said. "I don't want to know."

"You have to," the old woman said and grabbed the girl's hand. And I felt sorry for her, forced like me.

The girl's eyes grew wide, and her face grew pale. And then she spoke.

"I see a girl who looks like me. My daughter! She will be a Seer, too."

I blinked, and the scene was gone. The girl, the cake, the walls, all gone. Instead, there was the Serpent and my parents. And the forest.

"What did you See?" the Serpent asked with a triumphant smile.

"I Saw you," I said. "You at your fifteenth birthday. But you were wrong. You said Mom would be a Seer."

The Serpent narrowed her eyes at me.

"I was," she said. "I thought the girl I Saw was my daughter, but it was you. How did you know?"

"I Saw it."

"That's not possible," the Serpent said.

"Yes, it is," Mom said. "Some Seers See into the past, not the future."

"Pah!" the Serpent said. "That's not a true Gift! The past has already happened. Anyone can learn about it!"

And she turned around and stomped back through the forest toward the house. Mom and Dad gave me quick smiles and then hurried after her, presumably to keep her from knocking anything over in her frustration.

I sat back on the fence.

"Huh," Matt said. "That was... interesting."

"It really was," I said.

"So, are you okay with seeing into the past?" Matt asked.

"Yeah. I could be a historian or something."

"Nobody would believe you," Matt pointed out.

"Probably not."

No, probably not. But that didn't bother me. I dangled my legs and thought about the fifteen-year-old Serpent. She hadn't been particularly scary then. Maybe she wasn't so different from me, deep inside.

"You want some birthday cake?" I asked Matt, and he nodded, and we went back to the house slowly and without any panic whatsoever.

I did pluck the squashed rose on the way and hid it behind some empty flowerpots. Mom was the Serpent's daughter, after all.