Forbidden: Book One of Wild Sky Saga

by Tanna Marie Angers

  FORBIDDEN

  Book one of Wild Sky Saga

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Forbidden

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  To my three beautiful children. Whose love I am so, so thankful for every single day.

  Acknowledgments

  I have a lot of people to thank — my family, my children, and my friends who stood by me from day one. Throughout the process, every time I wanted to throw in the towel these people pushed me forward and kept me going. I cannot thank these people enough. I want to thank my editor, Ann Westlake of Writer’s Cramp Editing Consultants. She is amazing. She pulled things out of me without me even knowing, and if it hadn’t been for her I wouldn’t have rewritten my book, and many of my favorite scenes wouldn’t be in it. I’m so thankful to have found her and to have her in my life. Zoe Simmons, the contest coordinator at the International Page Awards is an amazing and patient woman. She convinced me to not give up on my story. She spent time and through many emails, helped me to write the back cover text. James Mehl took the beautiful cover picture. As soon as I saw it I knew it was what I wanted. I also want to thank The City of the Fallen for allowing me to use their song “Gabriel” to help promote my book. And last, I want to thank the people who helped me get my book edited and published. You can’t know how grateful I am. To all of you, thank you so very much for being there for me — my Wild Sky tribe.

  Forbidden

  Aira, in a sweat, opened her eyes to the sound of her alarm. She swore it was one of the most unsympathetic sounds ever invented by man. Though it probably wouldn’t have been that bad if she hadn’t of just fallen asleep only a few hours prior, something that seemed to be happening a lot the past couple of months. These constant recurring nightmares had more than a lot to do with it.

  What made this particular morning worse – it was the first day in over two months since she actually had to wake up to its dreadful sound. It was clear, her summer was now officially over.

  Defying the orders of her alarm to get up and embrace the day, Aira turned the alarm off and pulled the blanket over her head.

  Her phone began to vibrate violently on the nightstand next to her bed, making its way to the edge. Still hidden under her blanket, she grabbed her phone, and knowing it enough without looking, turned it on to speaker phone. It was her best friend Avery.

  “I’ve been up for over an hour, what are you doing?” Avery was obnoxiously moving the phone around and dropping things.

  “Sleeping?”

  “Well, get out of bed, you’ve had all summer to sleep. It’s our last year of school and we’re going to enjoy it.” Avery was an over enthusiast.

  Avery’s parents had moved to this small and unpretentious town in the middle of the school year when she was just five. There was a high demand for doctors here, and her father needed a job.

  Though this town was ordinary, it was one of the most beautiful places you could imagine. With a population just over six thousand, Hope, B.C. was named the chainsaw carving capital of Canada. Located at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland region, it was nestled inside the surrounding beauty of the Cascade Mountains and both the Fraser and the Coquihalla rivers. (The sound of those rivers, if you closed your eyes, could somehow calm almost any disturbance you had inside yourself.)

  The weather was always very sporadic. It could never seem to make up its mind, and usually when it did, its gloom hovered and rain reached to make its way everywhere. Everything then seemed to look greener, calmer. When the sun did decide to show its face, the town became alive and almost magical. The way the sun danced off the leaves of the populous trees was breathtaking.

  It was definitely something, though, that Avery and her family had had to get used to. It was a lot different from the fast-paced life of Mississauga, Ontario.

  Aira still remembered in kindergarten when Avery had walked into the small classroom on that rainy day in March. Aira had been drawing something, she was in her own world. Her teacher had brought Avery over to sit with her and introduced them. Aira had said hi and continued to draw.

  “What are you drawing?” Avery had asked her.

  “A rainbow.”

  Avery had leaned over, grabbed a pencil crayon, and colored over the yellow with orange.

  Aira just watched her.

  “Orange is before yellow.” Avery smiled. Even at that age she had been a perfectionist and very proud of it.

  They’ve been inseparable ever since.

  Aira groaned. “You’re such a downer, I’ll see you in sixty.” She hung up the phone, sat up and looked around her room.

  Her room was decorated typically for an almost eighteen-year-old girl. A stereo sat on a small desk in the corner by her bedroom window with CD’s scattered all around it. The nightstand next to her bed used to be her grandfather’s. It was made from dark wood, was old and rustic looking. A laptop sat on the floor by her bed with the charging chord still in it but not plugged into anything. Above her dresser on the wall were pictures of her and Avery growing up and funny pinned notes they had sent back and forth to each other over the years. She also had a picture framed on her dresser of her with her grandparents when she was young. Her room was on the top floor of her two story, four bedroom home. She had a small bathroom inside her room with a shower, and a large bedroom window, covered with dark green sheer curtains that hung loosely on the floor that looked out to the side of her house. Aira’s favorite color was dark swamp green, and was also the color of the down-filled blanket covering her queen-sized bed.

  Aira’s hair was long, a dull mousy brown, and a mess from sleeping, but even then she was beautiful. Her eyes were crystal blue, her skin quite pale, and very clear. Her most favorite things about herself were the beauty marks at the top part of her left wrist that perfectly made up the constellation of the Big Dipper, her favorite constellation.

  In only a long, low-cut T-shirt and underwear, she sleepily got out of bed, walked over to her stereo and turned it on. She went over to her dresser, grabbed some clothes and made her way to her bathroom.

  Pulling off her T-shirt, she then put on a black sleeveless shirt and one of her most beloved sweaters. A low cut, grey cashmere, it was one that always gave her comfort, a constant feeling of being hugged. Aira always wore sweaters. They reminded her of her grandfather.

  His name was Philip, well, that’s what he had gone by. It had been his middle name — his first name was actually August. His presence had been warm. He had been a hardworking man. He had started his own business as a gravel truck driver, helping make roads, supporting Aira’s grandmother Freda and their nine children. (Aira’s mother was the youngest.) He had had dark brown hair and dark, dark brown eyes, and his eyebrows had been very sharp. He hadn’t been overweight, but had had comfortable meat on him.

  Aira remembered one summer day in particular when she was five years old. Her grandparents had been expecting some company. Her grandmother was trying to put snacks together and Aira hovered around her wanting to help. Her grandfather gave her a spoon and said she should go over behind his shop and see if she can dig to China. The shop was made of old looking dark wood and was big enough to pull a semi-truck into. It also had a basketball hoop bolted on the back doors that appeared to Aira to be thirty feet high.

  Being five, Aira had really believed it was possible to dig to China. She was excited. (She knows now he said it to give them some time to visit with their company.) So Aira wen
t out, found a spot, and dug, and dug, and dug. About a half hour later her grandfather came walking out with a boy Aira’s age, who also had a spoon in his hand. Aira looked up, covered in dirt. Her grandfather laughed because it was all over her face.

  “I brought you a worker, you might get there faster.” He smiled and walked away.

  Even though Aira was aware that the boy was there, she continued to dig. It wasn’t that she was intentionally being rude and ignoring him, she was on a mission.

  The boy walked around a bit. Aira looked up every once in a while to see what he was doing. The boy seemed curious, but hesitant. He didn’t want to interfere with what she was doing. She seemed to be really concentrating.

  Finally, after a few minutes, he found a place on the ground and sat across from her. He started to push the dirt around a bit with his spoon.

  “Are you really digging to China?” he asked calmly, excited by the idea but not really believing it.

  “Yes,” she answered, somewhat irritated because her wrist started to itch and it was distracting her. She rubbed her left wrist on the side of her tummy by her hip and kept digging.

  “My grandpa said I could.”

  The boy smiled delighted and moved a little closer.

  “My grandpa says I can fly.”

  Aira stopped what she was doing and looked at him for a quick second. His eyes seemed strange to her, like stars were twinkling in them or something.

  She looked back down, then gave him one more look and continued digging.

  “My grandma says that’s why she married my grandpa. She said he taught her how to fly.”

  The boy smiled, leaned down and started to dig with her.

  “Maybe one day I can teach you.” He spoke simply, moving himself to sit up on his knees, digging away.

  They dug all afternoon in the heat, saying no more.

  Eventually a lady came to get him. She was his mother but looked different from him.

  “It’s time to go, say goodbye to your friend.” She spoke in a soft tone. She seemed gentle, and Aira thought she was very pretty.

  The boy stood up and his mother wiped the dirt off his clothes.

  Aira felt sad. The lady was taking her new friend away.

  “Can he come back after supper?” Aira asked in a sweet, raspy voice.

  The pretty lady walked over to Aira and bent down. Aira remembers looking into the lady’s kind brown eyes. They looked strange like the boy’s.

  “Oh sweetie, we’re actually moving today, we came to say goodbye to your grandparents.”

  Aira’s disappointment must have been obvious.

  The lady smiled at her. “Don’t be sad,” she said wiping the dirt from Aira’s face, “we’ll be back one day.”

  The lady stood up, took the boy’s hand and they walked away. He kept looking back at her as they got into their truck and drove down the long winding driveway.

  Aira continued to dig, but got only as far as a five-year-old would. Her grandma called her in for supper and, not long after, it was time for Aira to go back home.

  Her grandpa drove her, as they lived in town at the time. She loved his old red and white Ford diesel truck. She loved the sound of it, and the grey and red tweed seat coverings. She was always sad when she had to leave, but her mother always brought her back so she could spend the weekends with them.

  The next weekend came and her mother dropped her off as usual.

  Aira ran excitedly into her grandparent’s kitchen, and was searching in a rush through one of the drawers for a spoon when her grandfather walked in.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “A spoon,” she answered with a cute, high-pitched voice.

  “Oh, that’s right, China.” He smiled looking down at her and walked to the door.

  “Well, let’s see how far you got.” He spoke while making a head movement to go outside.

  He and Aira walked out behind the old shop, and the moment she got to where she had been digging her eyes widened. She looked at her grandfather in disbelief. The tiny little hole she had spent half a day on now looked to her like a canyon. Of course it wasn’t that big, maybe fifteen feet in depth and twenty feet in length and width.

  “Grandpa!” She looked at her grandfather with the delighted eyes of a child. “What happened?”

  Her Grandfather smiled. “I was helping you dig to China.”

  Aira never forgot that. He actually needed the dirt for something else, but he made sure he took it from where she was digging. That’s how great of a man he was. He passed away two years later.

  In only her sweater and underwear, Aira fixed her hair and put on some Carmex lip balm. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, her natural beauty was obvious.

  She remembered her grandma giving her that same lip balm to use when she was younger. It used to make her lips tingle and she loved the smell of it. Wearing it now reminded her of running around her grandparent’s property in the summer time, whether only her grandparents were around, or when they were putting on one of their many barbecue extravaganzas.

  Her grandparents had married and bought this property when they were eighteen. Driving up the long winding driveway of 66026 Kawkawa Lake Road sat a small, three bedroom house surrounded by massive trees. The property was huge, and the backyard actually led right up the mountain. It was there she always felt free and wild, and would run like she was. Wearing the lip balm reminded her of the long hot summers she had spent digging in her grandmother’s garden for radishes and eating them, dirt and all. It also reminded her of when she had listened to the birds making songs, never knowing where they actually were, and watching through her grandparents large kitchen window as deer came down off the mountain early in the morning. It reminded her of the people she loved and the days she had spent with them that meant everything to her. It reminded her of who she was, a free spirited little girl who loved everything about life, a time when everything seemed magical.

  It’s funny how one thing can help hold onto things like that and make them live forever.

  Aira’s grandma had passed away just before Aira’s seventeenth birthday. She had been a heavy-set woman with short brown hair that she used to get permed all the time. She had had vibrant green eyes and an infectious laugh. She had been beautiful, her spirit full and everybody had loved her. People had gone to Freda for anything. She helped anyone, and when they went to see her, they felt like they were going home. She used to play the guitar and sing and Aira loved her voice. It had been strong and when she sang you could hear the inflections in her voice which was very distinct.

  She had been a paramedic for many, many years. She and a few other people had secretly started running an ambulance service for the first few years. Before then, Hope didn’t have one. Aira wasn’t sure if it was her grandmother’s bad dreams or just that the things she had seen, but it became too much for her that she had eventually quit.

  Both of her grandparents had been very spiritual. They had believed in it wholeheartedly, which was probably why Aira is the way she is, always trying to make sense of anything, always thinking there’s more to everything.

  A man had been hang-gliding and had gotten lost for quite a few days in the mountains. No one could seem to find him. Aira’s grandmother kept having dreams, the same one over and over. She saw him stuck in a mountain ravine. She told her husband Phillip she believed she knew where he was, and told him about her dreams. He told her she should call the police and tell them, so she did. They looked, and he was there. Aira always believed her grandmother had magical powers.

  Losing both of them had been really hard on her. She felt alone in a way that no one else really understood, a deepness in her like they had possessed, her soul.

  After her grandma’s passing, the house was put up for sale and strangely burnt down only a few months ago. Aira still goes t
here sometimes just to put her feet on the ground, like it’s the only place that really knows her, and where she can still feel close to them. One of the last things her grandma had said to her was that everything happens for a reason, and if it ever happens without reason, it’s always corrected.

  Aira was startled by her phone vibrating and dropped her lip balm in the sink. She picked up her phone and read a text message. It was from Jaidas. I can’t wait to see your beautiful face.

  Jaidas Mane was a very handsome, very charismatic young man who came from a wealthy family. His hair was dark caramel blonde, his eyebrows dark and prominent, shaping his perfectly charming face. He loved tattoos. Every one he had had specific meaning to him. He was definitely what most would call a pretty boy. His eyes were deep hazel and his smile was where he carried all of that charisma.

  Jaidas lived in a very small, secluded town twenty minutes outside of Hope called

  Rosedale. He had been born in Hope and started off his first six years of school there, but then his parents decided to move to Rosedale just before the beginning of seventh grade. He had wanted to continue going to school in Hope because of Aira and all of his friends. His parents agreed.

  The thing between him and Aira had started off in Kindergarten. He had chased her around, pulled at her hair, basically been a bratty little boy trying to get her attention. His actions fit to the old saying, if he’s mean to you that means he likes you. It irritated her, and not much changed over the years. Their relationship was, though, endearing in a way. By the time they had gotten into high school, the feelings between them became stronger. They were a part of each other, and no one really saw them any other way.

  Jaidas, as a fifteen-year-old boy, still did quirky things to get her attention. He was a show off, loud and abrupt. Though they weren’t officially together in any verbal way, there was one day in particular that he finally made it known, that yes, she was his. Another boy had sat down beside her, simply asking her a question about a science project that they had to do together. Jaidas had been wrestling around in the grass with his friends. He stopped, looked over, and jealousy flooded him. He quickly got up, walked over to them, pushed his way in between them and sat down. Aira knew what he was doing. She shook her head and let out a light half-way embarrassed smile.