Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

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  And in the in-between novella, Resonance.

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  Newsletter

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  About the Author

  Lindsey Fairleigh lives her life with one foot in a book--as long as that book transports her to a magical world or bends the rules of science. Her novels, from post-apocalyptic to time travel and historical fantasy, always offer up a hearty dose of unreality, along with plenty of adventure and romance. When she's not working on her next novel, Lindsey spends her time reading, planning her future farm, and trying out new recipes in the kitchen. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her rather confused cats.

  For more information on Lindsey Fairleigh:

  @LindsFairleigh

  lindsey.fairleigh

  www.lindseyfairleigh.com

  Read More from Lindsey Fairleigh

  www.amazon.com/Lindsey-Fairleigh/e/B00BJQTQK4

  Come the Dark

  Rebecca Hamilton

  Come the Dark © Copyright 2015 Rebecca Hamilton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Created with Vellum

  About the Book

  Come the Dark

  A Heart-Wrenching Paranormal Romance

  Book Two in the Bestselling Forever Girl Series

  Rose desperately wants to escape the abuse of the father who impregnated her and the dark spirits that haunt her life. Being thrust from Georgia 1961 into the era of Salem’s infamous witch trials isn’t what she had in mind, and now her daughter is left hopelessly out of reach.

  The only way to return to her daughter is by facing certain death to banish the dark spirits that plague Salem. If she doesn’t eliminate these dark spirits in time, they will destroy civilization and trap her in this strange new place, ages away from her daughter.

  Even if she can complete the task in time to return home to save her daughter, there’s still one problem: she’s falling in love with a man who can’t return with her. Achieving her goals will force her to choose between the only man who has never betrayed her and a daughter she can’t quite remember but will never forget.

  A heart-wrenching tale of a mother’s love for her daughter, this romantic paranormal fantasy underlines the depravity of both historical and modern society while capturing the essence of sacrifice and devotion.

  Come, the Dark follows a different character from the Forever Girl series but in the same world. It is a complete standalone and can be read without having read the first book in the series..

  1

  August 1961

  Nobody wants to talk about what Pa did to me.

  Especially not Mama.

  We sway on the porch swing, drinking her sun-brewed Tetley iced tea sweetened with cane sugar and chilled with ice from our cracked freezer tray. During our chats, her gaze flits around, never settling on anything for much too long. Especially not my belly. She must not like shutting her eyes, either, as there are always dark circles under them. Maybe the Darkness won’t let her sleep anymore.

  Does she see those shadow men the same as I do, or have they become a part of her?

  “Nice day today,” she says.

  The words mean to fill the air between us.

  Life has stood still since the Darkness came, as though time itself were as lazy as the summer days are long. I watch over the muted and pale sky, the dirt roads and faded grass. Forever in the sun, the dusty, bluish-white paint peels away from the decaying boards of our porch, and the muggy air, dead of a breeze, makes my skin itch.

  The weather’s just another pressure in my life, suffocating me, and the swell of my uterus against my lungs isn’t helping.

  If I had a friend to confide in, they might say I should give the baby up, that the baby would be a reminder of all Pa has done. And maybe they would be right. But once upon a time, Mama told me all babies are a blessing, and I could use a blessing.

  Mama tucks a grayish blonde strand of hair into her sunhat. It’s not fancy. Just something she wears to hide her unkempt hair.

  “Georgia summer,” she says, all breathless-like. “That’s why I like it here. I like these Georgia summers.”

  I do not like Georgia summers. They smell like animal piss and wet concrete cooking in the sun. But it’s not just the summers. I don’t like anything about Georgia. Georgia is a black hole—the home of the Darkness. Home of the shadows that scurry in my periphery. Only the edge of my vision catches the figures gliding past, but they are gone the moment I turn to look.

  They are here now, too. Always. Ever since that car accident my Pa and I should have died in all those years ago.

  I glimpse a shadow at our window, but when I turn my head, there’s nothing there. Nothing but the blinds moving lightly. Another shadow crouches behind Mama’s rose bushes on the other side of the porch rails. This shadow-man crowds the edges of my vision, watching me. If I look straight at him, he’ll be gone, so instead I watch from the corners of my eyes. Not afraid anymore. Only aware.

  When I tire of being stared at, I glance over. All that’s there are Mama’s strawberry plants, about to be overcome by the vines crawling along our porch, and a few dragonflies humming as they mate in the air above. A praying mantis feasts on a butterfly’s cocoon attached to one of the porch spindles beside where an old rope loops around one of the rail posts. In the crawlspace below, animal traps snuff out small and innocent creatures. Sometimes I hear them scratching to get free.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  Silence.

  I wonder if Mama can see my overripe stomach from the corners of her vision the same as I see the shadow men. If she looked, would it all go away?

  It’s probably too late for Mama to look now.

  As I sip my tea, Mama talks about the cloudless day. But it’s not really a cloudless day. If Mama would glance to the horizon, she would see the coal black storm clouds rolling in, casting our sunny day in a dreariness more fitting for our lives.

  But clouds are something nice to talk about. Better than talking about the swell of my stomach, or the way even my face and ankles have gotten plump. ‘Still a skinny little thing,’ Mrs. Kelly says, when she passes our porch on her morning rounds. ‘It’s in your bones.’

  She probably thinks I’m an easy girl, got knocked up six months before my eighteenth birthday in the bed of some young man’s pickup truck. No one’s going to tell her otherwise. But we can’t just ignore what’s coming. Today has been a constant reminder, my abdomen so swollen that it crushes my stomach, quelling my appetite completely. Off and on, sharp pains have been stiffening all around my midsection and cramping in my back.

  I take a sip of my sweet tea, even though I’m not a bit thirsty, and twist a small emerald birthstone ring on my finger. My swelling has made it fit too snug to remove.

  “When the baby—” I start, but Mama’s mouth smiles in a silencing way.

  She keeps touching her face, the way she always does when she’s anxious. So much so that, lately, sores have appeared along her jaw. It’s as though she’s in there, somewhere, still a mother enough to worry—but part of her mind and soul have been taken. As if her body isn’t her own anymore.

  I know how she feels.

  I close my eyes, w
ishing myself away from here. One day it will be just me and my baby, Anna. A better life, one day soon. God, please let it be one day soon.

  Mama chews at the scabs on her lips and nods to the hills across the street, to the waves of wheatgrass seeded with wildflowers. Closer to the road, poppies grow in bright clusters that make the roadside more vibrant, even in the dull light of our cloudy day.

  “You used to play in those fields,” Mama says.

  I don’t say anything. Mama doesn’t mind if I’m quiet. I just have to nod along as she tells her stories, as she lives in the past, talking about how Pa used to take me to the carnival and how Pa used to braid my hair and how Pa used to take me to see the horses. I think it makes her feel better.

  I’m old enough to know I should be angry with her. Old enough to think she could’ve stopped him. But I’m not mad, and I don’t blame her. It was the Darkness that did this to our family. They took Pa when I was twelve. Made him different, first with his unnerving stares and discomforting touches. Then something more. The Darkness blinded Mama, or trapped her somehow. But the Darkness never took me.

  Well, not directly.

  Mama and I sip from our glasses and pick at last night’s crumbling cornbread until the late afternoon light reddens the porch. A lot of days, when we’re sitting out here, she knits, but never anything useful. It’s just to keep her hands busy, pearling together doilies or another pair of oven mitts. She has a lot of those.

  After much sitting and sipping and pointless conversation, Pa comes home. Mama’s smile falls away, and she gets quiet and carries the pitcher of tea inside. I follow her, catching my balance on the doorframe as I step over the threshold into the house. The floorboards seem more uneven today, and queasiness tumbles through me.

  Shaky from heat and discomfort, I head to the bathroom to run a tepid bath. The shush of the water is soothing. I lock the door and sit on the bathroom rug, leaning back against the wall. I won’t miss this place. When Anna comes, I’ll take her away from here. I’ll need to get my own pitcher for tea, and some clothes for her, and some diapers and pins. And of course a real crib, not that box I’ve set up in my room.

  At any rate, we’ll make do. I’ll give her a childhood where fairytales can happen in our backyard. All little girls like fairytales. Even me. And I know I’m having a girl, for sure, because I’m carrying high and craving sweets, and Mrs. Kelly says that’s why I look such a mess.

  I’ll take Anna north to Seaside, with the cookie-cutter cottages right on the beach. Nobody will look for me in Jersey. Jersey is so...unromantic. The kind of place people go only because they have to visit family or take a job. It’s exactly what I need.

  Exactly what Pa is never going to let happen.

  I ran away once. Snuck out of the house late at night with a sack of clothes, my old shoes separating at the sole and then smacking back together again with each step. I had on me only what little money I had stolen from Pa’s jar in the kitchen. I was going to get away to where he couldn’t hurt me—to where the Darkness couldn’t make him do things to me.

  My bike took me two towns over before the cops picked me up. If not for them, I would have gotten away. I begged them not to return me home; I pleaded, I told them everything. Everything—the things I could bring myself to say and the things I hoped implied what I couldn’t.

  The cops’ mouth tumbled out all the words Pa promised they would:

  “We hear this from your type all the time. Kids blaming their parents. You oughtta watch making such claims about your own Pa.”

  “Learn some responsibility, young lady. Can’t go around making up stories to get out of trouble.”

  Pa had spent years painting me as a problem child, and it worked.

  I couldn’t shake the reality away. Soon I was home, my Pa apologizing to the officers for all the wrong things. Apologizing on my behalf, as if I was the one who done wrong. Same way he’d convinced the school my missed days were from my playing hooky. As though I chose to stay home. As if he weren’t keeping me there to hide the bruises.

  That night, I lay awake in bed, trying to think up a new way to escape.

  The next morning, Pa drug Mama in my room by her hair. Pa had never hurt Mama before, but that day he blocked my doorway and pounded on her until her eyes were black and her mouth bled.

  Then he said it: the words that changed everything.

  “If you leave, I’ll kill her.”

  It wasn’t until Pa knocked me up that I decided I could live with that.

  The whole world had already betrayed me. Every single one, except for this baby that never asked to be part of any of it. I was done helping others. Now I was going to focus on Anna and myself. Stop caring what people think. What did I have to lose? The only thing left now was my humanity—and what was the point of having humanity in a world with none?

  Yes, I could leave if it meant Pa would never have the chance to hurt my baby, my Anna. Above all else, I was responsible for her. Nothing else mattered anymore. Not even Mama.

  I used to think everyone had a right to freedom over their own body. Now I realize that’s something you have to fight for. Because if you don’t take control over your body, someone else will, and taking ownership back will come with a cost. Perhaps the cost will be Mama’s life.

  But leaving is my only hope. Since pregnancy has not left me well fit to travel, here I am, waiting for Anna to come so we can escape together. I might not have the money, but I’ll find a way. I’ll hike down to the train station and go wherever. Anywhere is better than here.

  And now that I’m an adult, the cops can’t stop me.

  I’m tossing and turning on a lumpy mattress when my water breaks. I still myself. This can’t happen now. Not tonight, not while Pa is home. I’ll never be able to get away with the baby then.

  The moonlight looks bluish on my walls as I lie here, staring at the paisley wallpaper that’s curling away from a fist-sized hole. It was pretty once, cream-colored and soft blues and greens and yellows and pinks. The night is mostly quiet, just the hum of my fan and leaves that rustle outside my window like a hissing rattlesnake.

  My eyes sting from lack of sleep, and the room feels impossibly humid. My hair is so damp from sweat that it has darkened to the color of blood against my cream pillowcase. The electric fan on my dresser does little more than push a musky odor around the room.

  It seems like ages ago that I found out I was pregnant. Ages since Pa’s doctor-friend told us that, if we scraped the funds together, he could scrape the evidence of Pa’s abuse from my womb. Rid me of his baby and . . .

  My baby.

  It was that last part I couldn’t move past.

  Undoing situations like these...it was legal now. But legal didn’t make it right, didn’t stop those flutters begging me not to blame Anna for how she came to be.

  I didn’t care one lick if she was conceived out of abuse; she would be born out of love. She was mine now. Entirely, completely, utterly mine. If Pa wanted her gone, he would damn well have to kill me, and I told him as much. For months, I even thought he might.

  I kick off my threadbare quilt, and there’s another rush of warm fluid pooling on my sheets beneath me. I want to crawl out of my own skin, away from my body, but I don’t move.

  Please don’t let this be my water broken now. I would rather that I’ve just pissed myself. If Anna can wait until morning, wait until Pa leaves for work, everything will be okay.

  The shadow men whip past my bedroom window, crouch in the corners of my room, hover near the ceiling, outside my window, and in the hall outside my door. They scurry away each time I look, each time I try to catch them in my sights.

  Usually I ignore them, but I don’t want them here anymore than I want Pa here. I keep looking at them, hoping to make them disappear, but tonight they do not leave. They move, they move, they move, but still they remain, crowding me in darkness.

  Somewhere in the distance, glass breaks, and part of me wonders if it’s them
—if the Darkness can touch things now.

  I shift between sleep and consciousness. I keep falling into that place in my mind, the place I always hide when Pa comes into my room. I couldn’t let him kill what’s left of my soul; I had to escape in some way, save some part of me, the part of me I call Cordovae. Now here, in this place I can only dream of, I spread my arms and lift my head and twirl around, untouched, unharmed. It’s my prison and my protection, where only those who know my heart can reach me.

  I’m safe here.

  But then the pains begin, ripping me from that world. Bringing me back to the unfortunate life I was born into. At first, I feel the way my stomach hardens, the way it squeezes around my little Anna. But as the night drifts deeper, the pain intensifies and spreads through my entire body.

  I can’t quiet my breathing. I close my eyes and try to envision the cramps disappearing, but I can’t think straight. I hum the only lullaby I know, the one Pa always yells at me for humming.

  “That ain’t no damn song I ever heard,” he always says.

  But I know the song, and it’s as familiar as the sun rising.

  The pain shakes my body, and I let out a long, low groan. I don’t want to make any noise. I try using a painting I’ve made for Anna as a focal point. I’d mixed the juice of winterberries with glue and painted the mixture over leaves on paper and pressed sticks and small pebbles into the blue and red and purple swirls, until I’d created our future—a dream of a cottage in the woods where no one would ever find us.

  My efforts to embrace a mental escape are crushed as the pains overlap and a pressure builds. I grit my teeth, but another groan forces its way past my lips.