Below the Moon

by Alexis Marie Chute

  PRAISE for BOOK 2 in the SERIES

  Below the Moon

  “This book will delight lovers of Neil Gaiman. Below the Moon is an accessible but sophisticated fantasy novel that will take readers to a fully conceived world with characters whose fates will matter to you. Chute is a multitalented storyteller whose gorgeous illustrations add another deeply immersive and enjoyable element to her imagined universe.”

  —Andrea Jarrell, author of I’m the One Who Got Away: A Memoir

  “Below the Moon is an imaginative ride; readers are immersed in another world from the first page.”

  —Chelsey Krause, author of All Shook Up

  “In Below the Moon, the second book in The 8th Island Trilogy, Ella and her family continue their fantastical adventure on Jarr-Wya, an island in a parallel dimension. In this book, the protagonists search for a cure for Ella’s cancer, which is closely tied to the fate of all worlds. Below the Moon is difficult to put down. Chute’s words bring the island’s wonders and dangers to life. Her characters, multidimensional, are on a journey to learn to live with both their strengths and weaknesses. Chute has a created a world that leaves you wanting more.”

  —Deb Brandon, award-winning author of But My Brain Had Other Ideas

  “With this follow-up to Above the Star, Chute has produced another book of immense beauty and heart-stopping peril. As this spectacular company of brave yet vulnerable characters race against time towards the Star and a cure for fifteen-year-old Ella, they must battle floods and sea monsters, treacherous mazes, malicious shape-shifting sands, and a host of fierce enemies. With stunning imagery and imaginative prose, Chute brings to life a dark magical world where love and wonder shine brightly. A terrific read!”

  —Fran Kimmel, award-winning author of The Shore Girl and No Good Asking

  “A spunky heroine is a hallmark of any great adventure, but Chute has made Ella unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Ella’s depth, fire, and fragility combine to create a young woman who you’d want to fight beside, and fall in love with. Chute’s 8th Island is a world that feels both unique and familiar, and Below the Moon takes an already breathtaking story into another gear. If you have any love for the fantasy-adventure genre, you need to be reading this series.”

  —Conor McCreery, author of Kill Shakespeare

  “Below the Moon is full of characters I was rooting for every step of the way and new universes beyond my imagination. Traveling through space with Ella Wellsley and her family made me especially grateful for the safety of Earth. Still, the darkness surrounding the Wellsleys makes me wonder: maybe none of us are truly safe! I’m waiting impatiently for the final book, Inside the Sun.”

  —Carissa Halton, author of Little Yellow House

  “Continuing the adventures began in Above the Star, Chute brings readers once again into the magical world of Jarr-Wya in Below the Moon. Our heroine charges forward in the search for the cure to her cancer and a way to save the magical world she has come to love. A master at weaving together parallel narratives, Chute captures the unique perspectives of her characters as they move through the story, neatly tying everything together in ways the reader does not expect. Below the Moon is a wonderfully original and richly imaginative tale that shows us that anyone can be a hero, regardless of our abilities.”

  —Jaci Wells, author of the forthcoming The Lost Priestess

  “Alexis Marie Chute has created an immersive fantasy world with her 8th Island Trilogy. Below the Moon takes readers on an adventurous journey that stretches the limits of imagination all while exploring deeper and darker themes at the very root of our humanity. A wonderful read for young adult and adult fans of the fantasy genre.”

  —Shane Turgeon, author of The Force in the Flesh

  “Below the Moon is a spellbinding tale, built with a truly magical and dreamlike style of fantasy. This story transports readers to other worlds, nay, other dimensions, fraught with peril, yet where the power of love still holds true during a time of great testing for the Wellsley family. Below the Moon is utterly enchanting!”

  —Pierre Dimaculangan, author of The Sage, the Swordsman and the Scholars

  “Below the Moon is an adrenaline-filled adventure that unravels across the page like a windstorm. The character Ella, young and mute, stubborn and tough, takes us all along on a magical journey with her as she searches for the cure to her illness. Chute writes with authority around the family relationship and you can see she understands the heart of her characters. This is a story that will inspire and transport you into a complex and fantastical world filled with likable characters and a young woman you can’t help but cheer for.”

  —Rayanne Haines, poet, performer, and award-winning author of the Guardian Series

  “Below the Moon is vividly – artistically – descriptive and paced in a manner to bring you along for the ride. Chute creates an expanding world in which one can get lost in the storytelling and live through the adventure and emotions undertaken with the characters. Side note: I loved the illustrations; they add an extra layer to the story.”

  —Leslie Chivers, the Lost Town of Fort Kent

  “Below the Moon, like its author, Chute, filled my mind with brilliant color and adventure. In a world far from my own, my imagination bloomed into a wildflower bouquet that only a skilled storyteller like Chute could bring to the page. I challenge you to escape to the island of Jarr-Wya and come home the same as you entered!”

  —Thais Nye Derich, award-winning author of Second Chance

  “Below the Moon by Alexis Marie Chute is a completely unique story that is unlike anything I have ever read… I loved the way that the plot did not focus solely on Ella, but also on her mother and grandfather who are along for the journey... The book was filled not only with unearthly abilities and creatures, but also with life lessons on not giving up, the power of love, and the need to overcome one's fears.”

  —Reader’s Favorite, 5-Star Review

  PRAISE for BOOK 1 in the SERIES

  Above the Star

  “A Wrinkle in Time meets The Princess Bride”

  —Lee Lee Thomson, The Perpetual You magazine

  “Shows readers that there is a power within all of us to change the world.”

  —Jessica Kluthe, author of Rosina, The Midwife

  “Think of Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and Homer’s Odyssey all wrapped up together.”

  —Raymond Gariepy, editor of WestWord magazine

  “Will hold you spellbound until the last page.”

  —Reader’s Favorite

  Below the Moon

  Copyright © 2019 Alexis Marie Chute

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or

  portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Published by SparkPress, a BookSparks imprint,

  A division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC

  Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 85007

  www.gosparkpress.com

  Published 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-68463-004-2 (pbk)

  ISBN: 978-1-68463-005-9 (ebk)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906549

  Book design by Stacey Aaronson

  Interior artwork by Alexis Marie Chute

  All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos,

  trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their

  respective owners.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents

  either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used

  fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is

  entirely coincidental.

  To my fell
ow adventurers: Never give up.

  Chapter 1

  Ella

  Lightning illuminates the sparse room where Luggie and I stand in silence, and causes a lapse in opacity across the enchanted glass walls of his chamber. For a moment, I can see beyond to all buildings and inhabitants of the city. Olearons prepare the wryst drink and vulai bread in the great kitchen for our imminent journey to the Star. Inside a molded-glass nursery, a red-skinned mother rocks her frightened baby. The Lord of Olearon struts around in his fanciest garb, overseeing everything but doing nothing. In contrast, Grandpa Archie and Dad dash here and there helping everyone. Olearons and humans sit at long glass tables, eating the tiny harvest, while others struggle to sleep. Then I see Mom and Captain Nate. Ugh. Their flirting is disgusting. I can’t stomach the sight of them, so I look up.

  The dark sky is lit with splashes of purple, yellow, and blue as the pronged fork of electricity lacerates the atmosphere, cracking it to pieces like shattered pottery. Through the grassy pathways between the geometric buildings, past the warrior-training paddocks, and beyond to the western pasture, I can make out more tall slim red bodies going about their normal lives—though nothing is normal. Not for me in this new world called Jarr, not for the Olearons, or any race on the island of Jarr-Wya.

  Luggie’s yellow eyes squint at me, distrusting. He shoves a tunic into a sack. Both were given to him by the Olearons, and he accepted them begrudgingly. The tunic is for protection from the erratic weather on Jarr-Wya. He needs it. We all do. The sun is pale like an unripe peach. It looks ill in the sky and gives little warmth. It’s easy for me to relate to its feeble quality. I wonder if I’m fading away like the sun and exactly how much fight I have left in me to resist.

  The sack was given to Luggie to carry his belongings on our journey to Baluurwa the Doomful, the mountain where our new company hopes to find a tunnel to the hiding place of the Star. Not all of us will set out on this mission. Not the dead ones: Olen; the Maiden of Olearon; Eek; or Valarie, the cruise director, twice-killed. Luggie’s sister Nanjee wasn’t the only casualty.

  Luggie is painfully stubborn, like me—though I’d never admit that to Mom. He is almost six thousand sunsets old, which, if my math is right, makes him sixteen in human years. He’s still learning to wield the Bangols’ control over the earth, rock, and clay. His head-stones have grown in, but they’re not like the ones that also break through the skin of the adult Bangols above their cheekbones. He’s immature, which is obvious from his stubbornness alone.

  Luggie is mad at me. He hasn’t spoken a word since we were rescued by the Olearon, Kameelo, out of the eastern sea and flown to the glass city. True, I had to punch Luggie in the face to knock him out. If I hadn’t, he’d have continued to resist Kameelo and might have drowned all three of us.

  I smile weakly in Luggie’s direction—a white flag of peace—but this only further sours his mood.

  Rain begins to patter against the glass. Great. Yes, I’m being sarcastic. The only thing my cancer hates more than physical exertion is physical exertion through mud. The one solace I have is that, right about now, I’m missing my grade nine social studies exam on technology through the ages. I planned to study on Constellations Cruise Line, aboard the Atlantic Odyssey, but then Grandpa Archie used the portal jumper, a Tillastrion, and accidentally transported our whole ship to Jarr.

  Besides causing exhaustion, my cancer has stolen my ability to speak. It’s been months. The no-talking thing hasn’t truly bothered me until now, when I have something important to say.

  “What do I have? What here is my own?” Luggie says, fuming, finally speaking to me as he stares at the sack that hangs in his hands like a deflated balloon. The tunic the Olearons gave him is a brilliant blue like their warriors’ jumpsuits. “How can I wear it, Ella? The color alone makes me want to wretch. I have loathed the Olearons right from when I was birthed from stone. And it is justified, I might add. Stop shaking your head at me, Ella—I have learned what humans mean when they turn their necks like that.”

  I can’t yell at him to tell him to grow up, to stop whining. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m unable to communicate except through my drawings with ink. I care about Luggie, but there are many things I want to say in the heat of this moment that I might regret. I, too, stubbornly believe I’m right.

  “One day I will shred this garment, or bury it, or enact one of ten other ways to dispose of something so putrid.”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes at him. Luggie continues to mumble under his breath, now in the Bangols’ sharp dialect, as he concocts more ideas of how to destroy the tunic at his first opportunity. Tentatively, I take the three steps across Luggie’s small room in the Olearons’ glass city. I touch his arm, but he wrenches it away.

  “I have packed it not because I forgive them, or you, but just in case,” he says, relenting. He nudges his shoulder against the glass wall that is cut so precisely that its molded magic curves are barely discernible. The wave of cloudy glass shimmers and turns transparent at his touch. He’s learned how his place of refuge among the Olearons functions, and he now watches the red creatures through the translucent shimmer as they hustle to and fro in the rain, donning the overgrown leaves of the blue forest like storm slickers.

  “How can I trust you after your blow to my face and Kameelo’s hot hands on me, stealing me from the eastern shore? You two stopped me from mourning my fallen Bangol soldiers, friends, and family. From mourning for Nanjee.” Luggie nearly chokes. I can tell he feels a pang of sadness at his sister’s name. He shuts his eyes, dulling their lemon light to a faint glow that radiates through his eyelids.

  Nanjee is my only regret. I’ve never had a sibling. It’s hard for me to understand how Luggie feels, though I have lost someone I love—Grandma Suzie. I know that grief is like being cut in two. My annoyance toward Luggie wanes. Yes, I saved his life by punching him, but in doing so I delivered him into the care of his enemy. I’d be mad, too—and heartbroken. I think back to when Grandma Suzie died; that was my first experience with death, and I don’t think I’ve become much better at dealing with it since.

  One moment, Grandma Suzie occupied space in the world. There was an energy around her that caused anyone nearby to light up, to smile. I remember running from room to room in our Seattle bungalow, searching for that feeling, for Grandma after she died. All I discovered was weak traces of her on her clothing and books, in her stained teapot decorated with painted strawberries and their curling vines, and on the breeze when I ran along her daily walking path. For a while, the ruts from her walker inscribed that path like handwriting, but the ruts grew shallower, fainter, like my memory. In the spring, they remained, frozen in time. Even now I imagine her smile and creased cheeks when I close my eyes.

  I suspect no one ever becomes better at grief. It’s not like practice makes it easier. Humans—I can’t speak for the Bangols or Olearons—must learn to hide its pang stealthily. I did my best to comfort Grandpa Archie, but I was too young. All I understood about grief was the confusion of absence without explanation. I brought Grandpa my favorite toys and rolled myself into a ball on his lap, his heart beating against my cheek so it wasn’t terribly lonely in his chest. Grandpa Archie had me and Mom—and Dad, too, until he disappeared—to lean on. Luggie must feel all alone.

  “My first desire is to weep,” Luggie admits, as if reading my face and wandering thoughts.

  I’m startled briefly, pulled away from missing Grandma to be present in Luggie’s glass room with its grass carpet—back to this Bangol who peers over his shoulder to where I stand awkwardly.

  He goes on. “But my second desire is to avenge. If Kameelo had not robbed me of my right to mourn, I would have climbed from the sea and up the stone pillar that supported the cells above it. I would have collected what was left of Nanjee’s body and given her the ritual burial that is the Bangols’ way, not the scorching ceremony of the Olearons. We Bangols are of the earth. Our bones are made of clay. Our blood flows with t
he waters of the deep. Our eyes are shards of sunshine, scattered in tiny quantities, sunbeams planted in the dirt. Can you even understand this, Ella? I am speaking your language, but can you understand?”

  My head bobbles quickly in a nod that is both an effort and apology. I lift my hand to touch his smooth grey skin, but he shuffles beyond my reach. Luggie smashes the sack onto the grass. He exposes his teeth. I don’t mean to, but I stumble back, afraid.

  Luggie says, raging, “The sunlight grows into our beaming eyes, giving vision to our young, touching us with light. The Bangols come from the foundation of Jarr, from the very island of Jarr-Wya. It is only right that Nanjee, the princess of the Bangols, be returned to the place from where she was birthed. Those Olearons, they knew. Taking me away from the east … I will get back there. Maybe all that will remain is bones, but I know Nanjee’s head-stones. I will find her. I will honor her life: my beautiful, brilliant sister.”

  Luggie lifts a hand to the glass wall and scratches five straight lines with his sharp nails. He steps away so the distortion returns, shielding him and me from the activities of the city. The opaque reflectiveness is a dull mirror, though it vibrates at the cut lines.

  Luggie’s muscles are tight, rippling through him to his clenched fists. I’m sure his nails puncture his palms. He grinds his dagger-fine teeth and growls. “And Ella”—Luggie whispers now—“Ella, why them? Why did you choose them over me?”

  He kicks the sack. It bounces against the glass door, which shimmers, and for a moment the mirror returns to glossy translucency, allowing Luggie and me to catch a glimpse of Duggie-Sky running by. The boy pauses, then steps back as he notices us. The four-year-old rushes to the door and presses his nose into a pancake against it. I can’t help but laugh, which comes out horribly. Cancer has corrupted even my laugh, trapping me in a silent world, though it’s loud in my head, the place where I collect all the things I wish to say.