“Thanks,” the boys said, and she walked away.
“Thanks, boys,” Mr. Sunner said, then went after her.
***
October 30, 2049, 6:14 pm
Zaivyer was alone in his room, sitting on his bed. His guitar was on his lap and a notepad and pencil were on the bed beside him. He had taught himself guitar when he was ten and had improved a lot since his senses were enhanced when he turned thirteen a month ago.
The song he was working on now had been building inside him since that night, and now he was ready to write it down. It was a song about growth and change, everything that had happened to him, everything he had discovered, and how he felt keeping such a large secret.
Zaivyer had never written his own music before, but that didn’t matter. The words flowed onto the page. The notes cascaded from the strings. It was as if the song had always been there and was only now leaping fully formed from his head.
He was just finishing the song when there was a knock on his door and his mom came in.
“That was beautiful,” she said. “What was it?”
“An original,” Zaivyer said. “Is it time to go?” Tonight was the last night of the haunted house.
“Yes. You’re supposed to be there in fifteen minutes and it takes ten minutes to get there, so hurry up and get changed.”
“Okay.”
He put his guitar and the sheet music in his guitar case, changed into white clothes, and put on his jacket. Two minutes later, he and his mom were in the car, on their way to the house.
“Good luck,” she said once she’d parked in the school parking lot. “I’ll come through later.”
“See you,” Zaivyer said, and got out of the car. He closed the door and Joanna pulled out of the parking lot and drove away.
On his way across the parking lot to the house’s side entrance, Zaivyer noticed four men in their early twenties heading for the line, which was already very long. They seemed to be close to having an argument, talking loudly and gesturing a lot. He could almost hear them. Curious, he walked towards the concession stand near the men, focusing on their conversation.
“...gig in two weeks,” one of them said. “We need a new rhythm guitarist.”
“Yeah, we do,” said another. “Have any of you had any luck finding someone?”
The other three shook their heads.
“Darn it, guys,” the second one said, “We need someone. At this point, I don’t care how old he is, as long as he can play.”
“I’d say he should be at least sixteen,” said the third man. “We want some skill, not just basic knowledge.”
Maybe I could do it, Zaivyer thought. A month ago, he wouldn’t have considered it, but he’d changed a lot since then. He might be good enough for this band. It wouldn’t be permanent, obviously. He’d just fill in for a few gigs. Although they’ll have to think I’m older.
He stepped into the shadows of the building, out of sight, and shifted to look like he was sixteen, making sure his hair covered the plate on his temple.
“We’ll have to start advertising,” the fourth man was saying as Zaivyer approached them.
“Maybe not,” Zaivyer said. The men turned to look at him. “Sorry. I heard you say you’re looking for a guitar player?”
“Yeah,” said the second man. “You play?”
“Yes,” Zaivyer said. “I could fill in for a while, not sure how long.”
“Man, what are the chances we’d find what we’re looking for here, of all places?” said the fourth man.
“Wait,” said the third. “We need to hear him play before we decide anything.”
“You’re right,” the first man said. He pulled a business card out of his pocket. “Here’s our card. Give us a call and we’ll set something up.”
“Sounds good. Skylark—cool band name,” Zaivyer said. He glanced at his watch. It was just after 6:30. “Shoot, I have to go. I’m supposed to be in there.” He pointed at the house.
“Oh, are you a student?” asked the third man.
“Yes.”
“Senior?” asked the fourth man.
“Junior,” Zaivyer lied. “I really have to go. I’ll call you.”
“We look forward to hearing from you,” said the second man, and they went their separate ways. The band members continued to the line, and Zaivyer slipped into the shadows to shift back to himself before going into the house.
***
October 31, 2049, 10:45 am
Zaivyer had told his mother about his encounter with the band Skylark as soon as they got home from the haunted house the night before. It had taken some convincing, but eventually, she allowed him to call them and audition.
“Not tonight, though,” she’d said. “Tomorrow.”
Zaivyer had agreed.
Now he was on his way to a downtown building where Skylark practiced. He had already shifted to the same way he’d looked when he met them last night. A few minutes later, he locked his bike to a rack on the corner and entered the building a little way down the street, his guitar case on his back.
One of the band members was waiting for Zaivyer in the lobby. He stood up when Zaivyer came inside and glanced at his watch. “Early. I like that.”
Zaivyer wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just smiled and said, “You know, I realized last night that I never got your names.”
“And we never got yours.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Brad.”
Zaivyer shook his hand. “Zaivyer.”
“Nice to meet you, Zaivyer,” Brad said. “Our practice room is this way.” He led the way down a hall at the back of the lobby to a large room with acoustic panels on the walls and ceiling. The other three band members were gathered around a red drum set, talking.
“Hey, guys!” Brad said as the two of them entered. “This is Zaivyer. Zaivyer, this is Mike, Ben, and Dan.” Each man raised his hand as his name was said. “Mike is our keyboardist, Ben is on bass, Dan is drums, and I’m lead guitar. I also do most of the singing, but sometimes Ben or Mike take the lead.
“Now, let’s get started. How long have you been playing guitar?”
“About three years. I’m self-taught.”
“Okay,” he said doubtfully. “How about you get warmed up and then I’ll have you play a bit.”
Zaivyer set his case on the floor, opened it, and pulled out his guitar. He slung the strap over his head and started tuning, playing each string and slowly turning its key until the string was in tune.
“No tuner?” Brad asked. “You can borrow mine if you need one.”
Zaivyer looked up from the strings. He hadn’t bothered using a tuner—his hearing was good enough that he could hear each individual vibration of the string if he wanted to.
“I don’t need one,” he said, “But I’ll double check with the tuner if you want.”
“Please do, at least this time.”
“Sure.” Zaivyer plugged his guitar into the pedal tuner and went through each of the strings again. Brad stood next to him and watched the display screen.
When Zaivyer was done, Brad looked at him, impressed. “Perfectly in tune, every one of them. That’s hard to do by ear.”
“Thanks.” Zaivyer ran through his warm-up: major and minor scales, a minor pentatonic scale, a blues scale, the Aeolian and Dorian modes, then several chord progressions and a little improvisation.
When he finally stopped, Brad clapped a few times. “That was some good playing. I was going to ask you for some scales and progressions, but it sounds like you covered all the main ones.”
“You’re a pretty good improviser too,” said Mike, the keyboardist. “We could have some good jam sessions.”
“Maybe another time,” Brad said. “Come over here, guys.” He waved Mike, Ben, and Dan over to the other side of the room. They stood there, talking quietly. Zaivyer could have listened in easily, but he decided not to. He rotated his guitar strap so that the instrument was slung across his back.
After
a few minutes, they returned. Dan sat at his drum set, Mike on the keyboard bench, and Ben and Brad leaned against the wall. Brad crossed his arms. “Zaivyer, you’re definitely talented, and we’ve agreed that you can join us for as long as you’re able,” he said. Zaivyer grinned. He’d made it!
“I just have a couple more questions,” Brad added. “More to satisfy my curiosity than out of necessity.”
“Okay,” Zaivyer said.
“First, do you sing?”
“Sometimes. I do a lot of pop and rock covers, mostly seventies to early twenty-first century.”
“Awesome. So do we. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of great music out there, but most of it, in my opinion, is from that time. Now, do you write at all?”
“So far, I’ve only got the one song I wrote yesterday. Maybe I’ll do more in the future, but I don’t know right now.”
“That’s fine. Would you mind playing it for us?”
“Sure.” Zaivyer turned his guitar so it was in front of him again and made sure the strings were still in tune. “I call it ‘When Comes the Stroke of Midnight.’”
The melody was slow and simple, the notes quietly reverberating and blending, and the lyrics brought back memories of everything that had happened in the past month.
After a short introduction—two notes—he began to sing.
A normal day, or so it seems—
A normal boy, with normal dreams.
‘A day like any other. Will nothing ever change?’
He has no way of knowing
He’ll never be the same.
The day begins, the hours pass;
He counts them one by one.
‘The sun is down, the time is up,
It’s time to have some fun!’
As he entered the first refrain, his voice grew quieter, barely above a whisper, and dropped into lower notes. A few deep, harsh notes entered the guitar accompaniment, marring the simple melody.
Then comes the stroke of midnight
And there’s a blinding pain.
Then goes the stroke of midnight
And he’s forever changed.
Partway through the second verse, Dan attached a string of beads to one of his cymbals and started to play with wire brushes, softly supporting and embellishing the song.
The song continued, Zaivyer describing how the boy relearned who he was and explored the new paths open to him. As the song went on, the harsh notes became more numerous, reflecting where the boy was in the process of self-discovery, affecting but never ruining the melody. As the boy grew and his outlook developed, the harsh notes faded, and the simple melody returned, now bolstered by richer notes and chords.
In the last lines, when the boy fully accepted who he had become, Zaivyer was half singing, half talking, his voice low. He gestured to Dan to stop playing. Dan grabbed the edges of the cymbals to cut off the sound.
No going back—he knows that now,
But now he doesn’t care.
‘When comes the stroke of midnight
You know you’ll find me there.’
Brad, Mike, Ben, and Dan were quiet for a while when the song was over. Finally, Ben broke the silence.
“That’s a good song. You said that’s your first one?”
“Yeah,” said Zaivyer. “Those drums—that was perfect. What’s that bead thing you put on the cymbal?”
“It’s a sizzler,” Dan said. “Keeps the cymbal going longer.”
“Well, I loved it. That, plus those brushes—it was just enough sound.”
Brad uncrossed his arms and stood upright. “I have a feeling there’s a story there.”
“There is,” Zaivyer said, “but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Really.” The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. “Well, now I’m curious, but I won’t push you.”
He glanced at his watch. “Well, I think that’s everything.”
He looked around at the others, who nodded. “We practice here every weekday at 4:30 and weekends at 11. If you can’t come, just let us know. We might have a gig Friday night—hopefully, we’ll get an answer by practice tomorrow. Maybe we could work in your song. I liked the cut off at ‘no going back.’”
He looked at his watch again. “Wow, look at the time. We should get going.”
They all shook hands with Zaivyer.
“See you tomorrow,” Zaivyer said.
As he walked back to his bike, he thought about a few of the lyrics from his song. He wasn’t entirely sure where they’d come from.
His origins are a mystery,
But soon they’ll be quite clear.
Meet three new friends, help make amends.
The future’s drawing near.
Acknowledgements
And book two is complete!
A brief (I hope) note before we get to the parade of names. Remember that haunted house that Zaivyer and his friends were so excited about? Well, it’s real. Or, rather, it was. Unfortunately, the house was demolished in 2018.
The real-life fundraiser, run by Catholic Memorial High School, was held in the Casper Sanger house in Waukesha, Wisconsin, every October for ten years. I worked in that house for six of those years, and I wish I’d come up with Zaivyer’s room sooner! (If you work in a haunted house and do something like it, let me know!)
I don’t think there was a bomb shelter in the basement (although it wouldn’t surprise me if there was), but every other detail I shared in this book about the house is true. It really was an asylum at one point, and there have been many unusual incidents, especially on the third floor. Yes, even strange voices in the radio!
Now we get to the acknowledgements part.
Thanks once again to my family for your support. As of this writing, Chloe is the only one who has read the draft. Thanks, Chloe, for your priceless reaction at the ending. Yes, you’ll get more. Eventually.
Thanks also to my beta readers: LynAnn, who helped with the Student Development Group scene; JE Gonzales, who suggested more realistic medical responses to Zaivyer’s differences; Ralph Johnson, who gave me feedback in record time; and Tammy Goodwin, who read the first draft of Beneath Which Sky and accepted my request to come back for book two.
Thanks again to all my professors at SCAD who enabled me to take on a big, long project, and to design my own book cover.
Thank you also to the team at the Commons in Milwaukee and my fellow interns. I’ve loved working with you this summer! It was my first time doing group projects with people who aren’t UX or graphic design students, and it helped me a lot in improving my design work!
Once again, Facebook groups were a big help, especially Authors and Writers Helping Each Other Grow and The Writers’ Lounge. They’re where I turned for beta readers, among other things. When I first started working on the cover, trying to make it consistent with book one, I was having trouble with some of the design elements. Thank you, Amanda Armeni, for your help with that post! I also started questioning the long title during the design process. Thanks to everyone who responded to that post—I’m glad I decided not to shorten the title! Also, thanks to everyone who gave feedback and suggestions on the final draft of the cover. I had so many slight variations to choose from and there’s no way I could have made a decision without all of you!
Thanks to the authors of all the articles and blogs and websites I read throughout the process as I searched for information about everything. Also, thanks to Cathy Fyock for your tips about writer’s block and silencing the negative voice. They’ve been very helpful!
Thanks to BookBoro for providing a platform for an early read test, way back in January 2019. Several people read it. I don’t know who you are, since it was anonymous, but thanks for your support!
Thank you to everyone at Kindle Direct Publishing and Draft2Digital who made this book possible.
Finally, thank you, reader. Time for book three!
—Madeline Walz
Don’t miss book three of Otherworld, C
hosen. Coming soon!
Focus. The bullet was a yard away when John raised his hand, invisible power humming in his ears, moving down his arm, out through his palm. You can do this.
John Damien Michaels has always been the new kid. Other than that, he’s pretty normal. Or, at least, he was. On his sixteenth birthday, John wakes up to find a black strip on his ear. As the day goes on, he discovers strange new abilities—abilities connected to that mysterious black strip. He’s no longer an ordinary new kid. It isn’t until the sun sets, though, that John learns just how different he’s become. While he explores his new reality, John must come to terms with a growing suspicion: something big is coming, and he will have a major role to play.
In this third installment of the Otherworld series, you will meet one of four people who are destined to save two worlds.
About the Author
Madeline Walz is a recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she studied user experience design. Originally from Waukesha, Wisconsin, she now lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her family of six people, a dog, and a parakeet. She loves reading seven books at a time, doing math puzzles, and browsing for typefaces. You can visit her website at madelinewalz.com or find all her social links at linktr.ee/mawalz21.
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