by K T Durham
K. T. Durham
Copyright © 2014 by K. T. Durham.
Illustrated by Raquel Diaz
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906232
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4828-9110-2
Softcover 978-1-4828-9109-6
Ebook 978-1-4828-9111-9
k12
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue
The Girl From Nowhere
Chapter One
On The Strike Of Twelve
Chapter Two
The Collage
Chapter Three
The Party
Chapter Four
The Portal
Chapter Five
The Shoemaker and His Wife
Chapter Six
Greymore and Hobbes
Chapter Seven
Of Pineapple Buns and Book Worms
Chapter Eight
Soybean’s New Friend
Chapter Nine
No Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Chapter Ten
Migration from Tree to House
Chapter Eleven
Of Pennies and Piggy Banks
Chapter Twelve
The School Fair
Chapter Thirteen
Afternoon Tea on Pine Street
Chapter Fourteen
Fly Me to the Moon
Chapter Fifteen
The Comeback
Chapter Sixteen
What Goes On in the Blue Room Stays in the Blue Room
Chapter Seventeen
What Lies Beneath
Chapter Eighteen
The Beginning of Things to Come
Epilogue
About The Author
To my international family, who are scattered all over the globe: in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Elly will explore these places, and many more.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing this book has truly been a labour of love. Sometimes it really does take that first small push to get the ball rolling. Once I had finally mustered up the courage and strength to do it, the ball just wouldn’t stop. Though it was a tremendous amount of work, I really loved every moment of it. Countless hours and late nights after getting off my day job, pages and pages of scribbled notes and doodles, and almost daily visits to coffee shops and cafes in between lessons gave birth to Ellanor and her story.
I love my family. From the bottom of my heart I want to express my deepest thanks and gratitude to Dad and Mum for your many loving sacrifices for the family, and for having always provided, encouraging me to read and draw, to use my imagination, and for allowing such easy access to crayons, paper, and books from an early age. Hubert and Michael, my two big brothers—thank you for being there for me. My gorgeous nieces Chloe and Mikayla—you give our family such immeasurable joy! Both of you darling girls remind me of the innocence and pure magic of childhood.
My dear husband, Sam, you are my best friend, my rock, and soulmate. I love you. Talking late into the night with you about Elly and her story has been truly precious. Your scrumptious cooking, sense of humour, creativity, and undying support have kept me sane.
I’m grateful to Jennifer Woo and Mari Webb for staunchly supporting and encouraging me. Your faith in me has meant the world. Thank you for reading through my manuscript and for being such gracious critics, because you are first and foremost my friends.
Raquel Diaz, my awesome illustrator, I am grateful to you for contributing your immense artistic talent to this book. One day soon, I hope to visit you in Sweden, where Elly definitely wants to explore.
Much solitude was necessary in writing (and rewriting) this book. Though I was often alone, I never once felt lonely.
The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can’t wake up.
—D.H. Lawrence
PROLOGUE
The Girl from Nowhere
The dead rat looked at her with staring vacant eyes.
She stared back silently as she took out a piece of chalk and drew another tally on the cold concrete wall. This was the fifth one this month. It must have drawn its last breath as it tried crawling back to its putrid home somewhere behind the wall.
She had to get rid of the carcass before the smell became unbearable and its comrades came feasting on it. But she really didn’t want to touch it, not yet.
She glanced at the cheap plastic clock on the rickety wooden desk: it was almost six. Her heart sank. Veronika would be bringing down her supper soon. She wondered if she might find mould on the food again.
Quickly, she sifted through the sheets of paper before her and retrieved the geography homework that needed to be done in the next fifteen minutes. She scribbled her name in the top right hand corner. She hated her full name, so she always insisted on going by Goldie.
She could have finished her homework half an hour ago. But she had once again pored over the world atlas at the back of her dog-eared geography textbook, playing the game she had been entertaining herself with for the past year: She would close her eyes and randomly put her finger somewhere on the atlas, and see where it would end up.
This time it was Botswana, in Africa. In her scrapbook, she doodled sketches of herself and imaginary friends encountering strange and fantastic adventures in Botswana, and lamented that she had never been to any place so far and exotic. In fact, she had never been out of Hemlock. She would trade all her pencils for just one plane ride to anywhere in the world, if it meant she could get away from this basement forever.
She could spend hours playing that game. There wasn’t any television to watch, and she was sick of rereading the same mouldy books on that old shelf in the corner, over and over again. She didn’t want to ask for new books. She hated asking Veronika for anything.
With a frown, she tried to concentrate on the remaining questions on the homework sheet. In class, they were learning about demographics in different regions of the world. She hadn’t known that almost one quarter of the world’s population lived in China, or that there was a place called the Vatican City in Rome that was actually a country of its own.
As part of the homework exercise, she had to put down her own demographics: her age, where she was born, how many family members she lived with, how many rooms her house had, and so forth.
But she did not have the answers to so many of these questions. As a baby, a custodian had found her on the doorstep of a church in the dead of winter, swaddled in warm blankets inside a basket,
with her name written on a piece of paper tucked inside. In fat red letters over the worksheet, she scrawled: “Orphan currently living with yet another foster family.” This should shut the teacher up.
Why should I be good and kind? Don’t go expecting kindness from one who has been shown none, she thought bitterly.
The light flickered, and she glanced up in annoyance. It was a wonder that her eyes had not yet been damaged by the constant pool of weak light cast by the bare electric light bulb in the ceiling.
As she glanced up, she saw her reflection in the little silver Christmas ball that was on her desk. Christmas had just come and gone, but she always kept the ball with her. It was the only keepsake left from whatever family she might’ve once had, tucked into the blankets of her baby basket on those cold steps of the church. The entwined letters TJ that were engraved on the smooth surface stood out, even in the poor light. It might’ve once adorned her real parents’ Christmas tree.
She blinked and rubbed her eyes. Why was she seeing weird things again? She had short hair, not long hair. And the horrid pink night dress she was wearing certainly wasn’t purple.
She looked into the gleaming silver surface again. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
Maybe it was a hallucination. She hadn’t been sleeping well, after all. The heater wasn’t working properly; the freezing cold and the strange dreams she had been having kept her up most nights.
Then she heard footfalls approaching, and her heart started racing. The door to the basement was yanked open, then slammed shut, and Veronika was walking down the narrow steps in her strappy high heels, holding a plastic tray with Goldie’s supper.
Goldie froze and quickly turned her geography worksheet over.
Veronika looked very glamorous tonight. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a stylish knot, her face immaculately made-up, and the shiny red lipstick was almost the same shade as her beautiful cocktail dress. She probably had another dinner party to go to with Henrik and their bratty son, Johann.
Goldie couldn’t think of a more beautiful-looking couple. Or more terrible.
Veronika raised one perfectly drawn eyebrow when she spotted the dead rat in the corner. She put the tray down on Goldie’s small bed with its threadbare blankets. “I see the rat poison has been doing its job. But why haven’t you cleaned up the mess?” she asked coldly.
Goldie felt her palms go clammy. She clenched her fists and plastered a smile on her face. “I was about to. I just wanted to finish my homework.”
“Oh?” Veronika’s icy blue eyes roamed over the desk, and suddenly they gleamed. Goldie did not realize the red marker she had used was a tad too strong—it showed through the paper.
Veronika reached out a manicured hand and turned over the geography worksheet.
“Ah, I see. So we’ve been lumped into the other foster families that could not stand to keep you, is that right?” Veronika said softly. “After all we’ve done for you? You have a roof over your head and three meals a day, and you get to have a proper education at our son’s prestigious school. Still, you are dissatisfied?”
Goldie looked at her silently, her face shouting defiance.
Veronika sighed. “I really want us to get along, Goldie. You shouldn’t make it so hard for me.”
Goldie held her breath and closed her eyes.
The blow came as expected. Veronika slapped her across the face, so hard that she was thrown backwards, and she felt her head slam against hard concrete.
Before she blacked out, Goldie thought she heard someone calling her name.
CHAPTER ONE
On the Strike of Twelve
“No! Get away from me!” Elly cried out and wrestled her eyes open, gasping for breath. She sat bolt upright, her heart pounding wildly as she squinted into the crisp sunshine.
Sighing, she rolled onto her back and tried to remember the dream. All she could recall was fragmented, and there was an inexplicable sense that two dreams had been rolled into one: petrified screaming, head slamming against concrete, bony hands clawing at her, cruel gleaming eyes…
“Ellanor Celendis! Get up right this instant and come downstairs!”
It was Mama calling from the kitchen. She wasn’t running late for school, was she? The hourglass on the windowsill indicated it was still early. Arching her back, she yawned and stretched. Despite having fallen asleep earlier the night before, she did not feel fully rested.
Then it came back to her, somewhat hazy: In the middle of the night, she was woken by frantic footsteps amidst the sound of tolling bells. Anxious voices were shouting, “Hurry! They’re getting away!” But the clamour seemed to abate in a matter of seconds, and she had fallen back to sleep after Mama hurried into her room and whispered soothingly, “It’s all right, darling. Just a false alarm. Go back to sleep.”
Elly stared up at the leafy ceiling, wondering what all that had been about. Then the delicious smell of her favourite cinnamon sweet cakes with maple syrup drifted up the stairs, and her frown dissolved into a beaming smile. Her griffin, Marlow, gave a low squawk as he opened one dark eye to peer at her, not too pleased to be disturbed earlier in the morning than usual.
But today was special. It was her twelfth birthday, her coming of age!
She leapt out of her hammock. She’d better get downstairs quickly, before Mama went hollering for her again. “Hello!” she called out to the bees that were buzzing at their hive outside her window. “Be sure to leave me some honey!”
The acorns on her windowsill were being devoured by a couple of squirrels. Looking at the acorns, Elly thought about the bonding ceremony that was to take place under the Grand Canopy later in the evening. She wondered which royal acorn would fall. Which acorn would the Tree choose to be her Royan?
Out of habit, whenever she was thinking, she twirled some strands of hair around her thumb. Her long, thick, unruly black curls stuck out in all directions. Absent-mindedly, she grabbed a ribbon from her cluttered dresser, accidentally knocking an empty goblet onto the floor, which was strewn with piles of books. Then, in the mirror above the dresser, she saw something that made her freeze.
Her face stared back; they were the same rosy cheeks, bright emerald-green eyes, and leaf-shaped ears. But in the reflection, her wild, curly black hair was short, and she was wearing some sort of pink nightdress, which was impossible, because she hated wearing pink, and avoided it at all costs. She rubbed her eyes.
Her reflection was back to normal. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
Shrugging, she promptly dismissed the odd trick her eyes had played on her and quickly pulled her hair into a ponytail. She gave Marlow a peck on his forehead before tossing two more acorns to the squirrels. As she leapt downstairs, a yellow butterfly landed on her shoulder for a free ride to the kitchen. On second thought, Marlow decided to follow; cinnamon sweet cakes were one of his favourite foods, too.
Elly skipped past the singing golden harp in the sitting room, its strings being plucked as though by invisible fingers. The green vines that snaked over the oak walls in the house were dotted with the small, star-shaped golden flowers that were her namesake—the ellanors were in full bloom. She took a moment to breathe in their sweet scent before darting into the kitchen, where her mother was fussing about at the counter.
Mama smiled. “There you are!” she said cheerfully, kissing her daughter on both cheeks. “I wanted you to come down earlier today for a special treat. Happy twelfth birthday, my darling girl. Oh, you’re just growing up too fast!” She stepped back to take a better look at Elly, then scowled. “Oh, for Freya’s sake!” she exclaimed. Today Elly’s hair looked even messier than usual. The ribbon was already unravelling from its knot, as though the bouncy curls didn’t want to be restrained.
Mama shook her head and sighed, absent-mindedly running a hand through her own hair: long, silky, straight, and black. Elly’s astonishingly wild, curly
hair was unusual for elves; it was one of her daughter’s many… unique attributes.
Mama decided not to comment further. Smiling, she gestured at the golden flowers that blanketed the kitchen walls. “Look Elly! This is a good sign!” she said brightly. “The ellanor blooms most prettily on auspicious occasions.”
Elly thought Mama was stretching it a bit. What was so auspicious about her birthday? She bet nobody in her class would’ve known it was her birthday if her mother hadn’t sent them dratted party invitations without her consent. Elly still felt extremely annoyed about it.
“Zooooom!”
Elly saw the flying cucumber first, followed by her younger brother Luca. He dashed into the kitchen as the cucumber whizzed ahead of him. She scowled and rolled her eyes. Luca had just learned how to make things fly, and he was obviously having far too much fun with it. He leapt up gleefully when he saw his sister. “Happy birthday, Elly-Belly!” he chortled, sending the cucumber whizzing around her head.
“Aarrgh! Stop it! It’s making me dizzy,” she howled. A deep voice thundered down the stairs. “Luca Celendis, cut that out this instant!”
Papa’s huge frame loomed up, his shoulder-length black hair gleaming in the sunlight.
Luca skidded to a stop, and the cucumber plopped to the ground. Marlow swiped it with his beak and swallowed it in one gulp.
Papa laughed and patted Marlow fondly, and then he scooped Luca into his powerful arms. “Good morning, my darlings!” he boomed, kissing his wife and two children.
Elly’s stomach growled longingly as the enticing aroma of the sweet cakes grew stronger.
“Hmm, something sure smells heavenly!” Papa said, rubbing his stomach.
Elves who were not close to their family usually recoiled at the sound of the Celendis name; but when it came to sweets, they conveniently became forgetful. Many travelled from all over Alendria to Nidah’s Sweet Secrets in Evergreen City. Who really cared about what one black sheep of the Celendis clan had done so many years ago, if it meant that one could savour the most delicious sweet cakes in the land? After melting the silver coins they earned, her papa—the renowned silversmith, Sereth Celendis—would craft all sorts of fine things in his workshop, from swords, spears, and daggers to armour, rings, and necklaces.