TALKING TO THE GODS

They walked her to school. Then vanished.

As a child, she worried.
Worried she’d be teased, for wearing a dress, for not wearing a dress, for having pigtails, for cutting them off.
And for talking to the gods.

Yes, she had always talked to the gods.

Though back then, she didn’t call them that.

They were her friends. Her invisible ones. But real. As real as the bruises from the playground.
They were with her when she woke up.
They walked with her to school.
They comforted her when she was left out, and they carried her through the tangled landscape of her dreams.

It never occurred to her that they could leave.

But one day, they did.
Without warning. Without goodbye.

The voices were gone.
The instructions, cross at the next house, not this one, were replaced by a feeling in her stomach.
Her intuition became her companion. Quieter.
Easier to ignore.
Easier to doubt.

Years passed.
So many years, she could no longer remember what the voices sounded like, or if they had ever truly existed.

Until one day, at a coffee shop, a soft-spoken woman turned to her.

No introduction. No small talk.

“When did they stop, dear?”

She blinked. “Who stopped what?”

The woman smiled gently.

“When did they stop talking to you, dear?”

“Who?”

“The gods.”

She grabbed her coffee and ran.

Then, out of exhaustion, she stopped.
Sat on the curb.
And wept.
For something lost.
For something forgotten.

A voice behind her. “Are you alright?”
It was the woman.

She sat beside her, uninvited but welcome.
“It’s okay, dear,” she said.
“All you have to do is invite them back.”

She turned to look.

But the woman was gone.