Fierce Reads

by Ann Aguirre

  He lifted a hand to gingerly touch the nape of his neck, which was unscathed. “That’ll work,” he said.

  “I think this will keep the sun and flies off your back without clinging,” Genevieve added. She’d brought a loose, lightweight shirt and a bowed, oblong framework that he recognized from a kite kit his brother Rafael had owned once. She clipped the framework to the inside of the shirt collar so the material would drape loosely behind him, not touching his skin. The resulting contraption had a flimsiness he doubted, but she tested its spring with a tug, and it rebounded in a way that was flexible and durable enough to last, at least for a while.

  “Feeling any better? That first dose of morphine should have kicked in,” Myrna asked, taking the stool again.

  He was.

  The food was helping, too. Mabrother Cho handed him another bowl of soup and more bread. Then he set before Leon a saucer with a few of the cinnamon-and-sugar-coated apple slices. “You always liked these,” he said.

  Leon looked up, noting the cook’s kindly expression.

  “You know each other,” Genevieve said, as if she were just figuring that out.

  “More or less,” Mabrother Cho said, smiling. “He used to sneak down here nights when he was little, now and again. Your boy here’s made lots of friends I suspect you’ve never known about.”

  Leon reached for an apple slice and bit into the sweetness. “Not so many,” Leon said.

  “Enough that you’ll be missed,” Mabrother Cho said. “Don’t be gone forever, Mabrother.”

  Leon didn’t know what to say. He had no idea what he might find in the wasteland or if anything lay beyond it. It seemed unlikely he’d ever come back. He watched while his mother and Mabrother Cho packed food and supplies in the pack: mycoprotein, dried fruit, cheese, a little tea, flatbread, and a canister of baby formula. They added matches, a candle, flint and steel, a small pot, and a knife. Mabrother Cho filled four lightweight, metal canteens, capped them, and looped them to a sturdy belt.

  How many supplies had Gaia taken? Leon wondered. How long could she last on what she could carry? And she had the baby, too. The thought made him impatient to leave.

  “You want a blanket?” Genevieve asked. “It’ll get cold at night when the sun goes down. I can pack it small.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “A hat,” Myrna said.

  “I have one here,” Genevieve said, offering a beige one with a wide brim.

  Myrna showed him where she was putting medical supplies in the outer pouch of his pack. “Your back will start to itch when it’s healing,” she said. “You won’t win any prizes for enduring the pain. Use the morphine, and keep up with the antibiotics.” She shook a small container. “Two pills a day until they’re all gone. Promise me.”

  He lifted the bottle to eye the contents. “If I outlast them.”

  “Don’t say that,” Genevieve said.

  He glanced across the table to her. His mother stood with her shoulders proudly straight, but he could see the fear and stress in her troubled gaze. He accepted her help with putting on the shirt, which billowed slightly behind him. Then he dipped his head into the strap of his pack, straightening to lift its weight and shift it to the most comfortable place along his chest.

  Genevieve reached for the water belt and slung it over her shoulder. “I can take this as far as the wall for you.”

  He didn’t argue with her. Donning his hat, he took a last glance down at the table with its bowl of reddish water, the dirty towel, and Myrna’s tools. Myrna was regarding him gravely, but she held out a hand to shake his.

  “Good luck,” she said simply.

  Mabrother Cho lifted a hand in silent farewell.

  Strangely moved, Leon reached past the cook to snag a last slice of apple from the bowl. “Thanks,” he said.

  The cook gave a twisted smile. “Get going, then.”

  Leon followed Genevieve out the back door of the kitchen, past the rubbish barrels and the empty crates left from deliveries. The night was edging toward dawn, and Genevieve’s white sweater was visible as muted gray over her slender form, sliced by the black of the belt and canteens over her shoulder. As they headed uphill, side by side through the dim, cobblestone streets, he watched warily for guards, still not trusting that he was safe with his mother. The open space of Summit Park was quiet except for a lone cricket, and from that elevation, the high point of the Enclave, he had a view out toward the wasteland, where the horizon was visible as a line of gray meeting with faint pink above. Vast seemed the wasteland, and trackless. Finding Gaia was going to be nearly impossible.

  The alternative was staying in the Enclave and waiting for the moment his adoptive father decided to put an end to him once and for all.

  They left the park and headed down the last curving streets. The occasional streetlights flickered on as they approached, triggered by sensors. At one corner, a mute camera was aimed at the intersection.

  “He’s watching us go, isn’t he?” Leon asked.

  “Yes,” Genevieve said. “He’ll paint you as a coward and a traitor, but you’ll be safe. You’ll be gone.”

  He glanced at her profile. “He can’t be very happy with you,” he said.

  “I’m not very pleased with him, either,” she said, and smiled. “Don’t worry about me.”

  He considered that. “I will, though.”

  She laughed briefly. “Just so you know, Emily turned in the ledgers tonight. I just heard, when I was gathering your things.”

  “Did they give back her baby?”

  “No. Miles advanced the baby. He thinks she had a copy of the birth records made. She had enough time.”

  Leon stared ahead to where the wall that surrounded the Enclave was coming into view. Gaia’s friend Emily must be frantic about her advanced son, and she’d be helpless against the injustice of the Enclave. He was glad Gaia didn’t know, for he was certain she would blame herself if she did.

  “See what you can do about that,” Leon said.

  “I will. I’ll try. But we also need to be sure our children are secure.”

  “It proves Gaia didn’t take the ledgers with her,” Leon said.

  “I know.”

  “So will he call off the search for her?”

  “That I don’t know. She’s still a criminal for stealing them in the first place,” Genevieve said.

  “Advancing the babies in the first place, though,” he said dryly. “That doesn’t count as theft?”

  “You know it doesn’t,” Genevieve said. “That’s completely different.”

  “Tell that to Emily.”

  “No, you think it over yourself,” she said, “and imagine what your life would have been like if we hadn’t raised you.”

  He laughed bitterly. “You can still say that, when my father has just had me tortured for four days?”

  She paused, and he was compelled to turn beside her. “I’m not going to try to excuse him,” she said. “But can we not argue about him? Just for now?”

  He could make out her eyes enough to see how troubled she was. His feelings for her were confused by the bitterness he felt toward the Protectorat and her own complicity in his cruelty. On the other hand, she was likely the only one in the Enclave who had the power to save him from his father, at what personal cost to her own well-being, he couldn’t guess. He couldn’t stay hardened against his mother, not when they only had a few more minutes together.

  “All right,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  The North Gate, seldom used, was smaller than South Gate but it, too, was patrolled by the requisite guards. They nodded at Genevieve as if expecting her, and when they opened the tall wooden gate, Leon passed under the arch to the outside. He glanced behind him for the last time, at the quiet, treelined street and the lightless towers of the Bastion, just visible over the rise of the hill.

  Before him, the hill sloped down toward an arid, windswept, shadowed landscape of boulders and stunted brus
h. His future. The cold uncertainty of it chilled him, and yet he did not look back again. The likelihood of finding Gaia’s tracks was essentially nil. He could scan for movement by day, and at night it was possible a campfire would show to guide him to her, but probably his best chance was to head north, looking for civilization, and hope Gaia found the same place.

  He briefly considered circling back to ask Emily what she knew of Gaia’s departure, but it would be risky, and set him back several hours, and he already knew Gaia intended to head north for the Dead Forest. If it existed. Gaia believed it did.

  I’ve done smarter things than this, he thought.

  Wordlessly, he took the belt from Genevieve, settling it around his waist so that the canteens rode to the sides where they wouldn’t impede his stride.

  “Here. One last thing,” she said, and passed him an extra roll of socks. “For your feet,” she added, as if he didn’t know. “It’s important to take care of your feet when you’re going so far.”

  The ball was soft in his hand. “Mom,” Leon said, strangely moved.

  “I’m just so sorry about this. If there were any other way—”

  He shook his head, and pulled her near to wrap his arms around her. She couldn’t hug him back properly because of his wounded back, but she held tight to his collar and kissed his cheek.

  “Please be safe,” Genevieve said.

  “I will. Give my love to Evelyn and Rafael,” Leon said.

  “Come back to us,” she whispered.

  There was no answer to that. For a last, long moment he held her, filling with sad tenderness, a kind of forgiveness and loss that normally would have made him feel weak. Instead, he felt human, honest. “I’ll miss you,” he said, and knew it was true, despite everything.

  When he left his mother and started down the hill, he trod carefully in the shadowed space between boulders. He hitched once at the belt around his hips, tucked the socks in his pocket, and began his vigilant search for motion along the horizon. Somewhere ahead of him, Gaia was traveling with her baby sister. Whether what he was doing was stupidly reckless or nobly brave didn’t much matter, because the only thing left to do was try to find her.

  BLUE MOON

  Nikki Kelly

  BY NIKKI KELLY

  ~ The Styclar Saga ~

  Lailah

  Gabriel

  Meet Nikki Kelly

  I was born and raised only minutes away from the chocolaty scent of Cadbury World in Birmingham, England. So it will probably come as no surprise that, when I’m not dreaming in vampires and angels, I dream in chocolate. At age seventeen, I packed my bags and moved to London, and for ten years enjoyed a career as a personal assistant. I now write YA fantasy fiction full-time, and I live with my husband and my two gorgeous and equally naughty pups—Alfie (the pug) and Goose (the Chihuahua).

  As a tween and a teen I spent hours and hours reading books and, when I wasn’t doing that, I was busy writing my own short stories—usually involving animals and, of course, cute boys. I had a short story published at age twelve, and my dream was to one day write a novel and see it on a bookshelf. Initially, there was the first spark for what became Lailah, which emerged in the form of a dream I had one night. Now, to be fair, I had slightly overdosed on vampire-themed TV that week, so perhaps that’s why I dreamt what I did. In my dream, there was a girl who was helping what was very obviously a vampire in a derelict shell of a building.

  I remember the scene so vividly, even now: The girl never came into focus; all I could see was her long blond hair streaming down her back while she aided the vampire, who was injured. But then, from nowhere, and somewhat like a horror film, she snapped her head over her shoulder and all I remember seeing were striking sapphire-blue eyes. As she blinked, they changed into a fierce red, and it startled me so violently that I woke up.

  The nights that followed I continually found myself thinking about the girl and asking myself, What is she? It was shortly after that that I realized I was asking the wrong question. While the what was important, the far more imperative question was the who. Who was this girl? I decided to find out by telling her story. And so, I began to write …

  One thing I was really set on doing was creating something original, and I wanted to give a rich and deep history behind the supernaturals of the story. While the journey is centered on Lailah, and she is the pivotal point, there is always something greater going on beyond her (as in our own lives), and so came the world-building. I wanted to ensure that all my supernaturals were as unique—and as different—as possible. For me, that stemmed from asking various questions: Where did they come from in the first place? When, and how, did they come to be here? And then the two most important questions (you might notice a theme here!): What are they and who are they? The final questions that needed answering were, of course, what motivates them all? What do they want?

  In answering all of the above, and borrowing a little here and there from my own belief system, I was able to create new worlds and beings, but utilize existing belief or myth on which to base them. For example, the two worlds the beings emerged from were based on the concept of Heaven and Hell. I then spun that into something else entirely. I took the myths about vampires and angels, etc., and tried to demonstrate how, through storytelling and the game of telephone, the idea of what they are has become quite different from the truth—the truth of course being the reality of things in my books!

  The setting of Lailah features some fantastic locations, including Ireland, Wales, England, and France. I like to write about places that I know well and, for those that I don’t but want to include, I will visit them to get a sense of the place and the people firsthand.

  About half of the book is based around the Carcassonne area in the south of France, ranging from a small village called Neylis, where Lailah resides for some time, and branching out to various other locations, such as Mirepoix and Limoux. I am very lucky that my auntie Gill and uncle Ken retired to Neylis a few years ago, because they hosted me for various weekly visits so that I could both conduct research and write in their beautiful garden. My uncle is fantastic, and he loves the history of the towns, villages, architecture, and art. He took me on countless day trips and excursions, and when we weren’t doing that, he was keeping me well fed and watered.

  Towards the end of the novel, the Pyrenees Mountains—which sit behind the barn conversion that Lailah stays in—become a setting. Having spouted all my talk of making sure I saw everything with my own two eyes, my auntie and uncle insisted that we go to the exact spot, high within the mountains, where I wanted to set the final scenes. Great, I thought, until they explained to me that you could only travel so far by car and then it was a further two-and-a-half-hour hike up the steep mountain through the forested tree line! Yeah, not so great. Used to spending most of my time behind my writing desk, with a teapot and an endless supply of cookies, and as someone who denies that exercise is important, you can imagine my horror at the thought of such a climb. But I conceded. I’m not the type of writer to put my characters through something that I wouldn’t myself be prepared to do or face (I say this with reasonable limits, as it is a fantasy after all!), and so I agreed—albeit with much fear. The trip was planned for the final day of my visit, but due to freak weather conditions on the day, it wasn’t safe enough to do the climb up Monts d’Olmes. (Phew! Dodged a bullet there.) In the end, I drew from photographs my auntie and uncle had taken on their last climb, which was probably for the best—I really did think that I might not return.

  My journey to becoming a fully fledged published author, I think, is a good representation of the modern and connected world we now live in. After writing Lailah, I soon discovered Wattpad—a community for readers and writers. I serialized the novel, and within six months, Lailah had garnered over one million reads and thousands of comments and votes. There was some press around the success of the story, which happened to be seen by just the right person, at just the right time. I was approached by the ass
istant editor at Feiwel and Friends and was asked to send over my manuscript. Three weeks later, I received an e-mail from the editor-in-chief, offering all three books in the saga a traditional publishing deal. In just one e-mail, the dream I had worked so hard to realize had become a reality.

  What you’ll read here is a story called Blue Moon, a mini-prequel to book 1 of The Styclar Saga, Lailah. The story unfolds a few nights before the opening of Lailah. The story is told from Lailah’s perspective, and I think the most exciting element is the introduction of Darwin, a young gentleman from Chelsea, who is not featured in Lailah; instead, we meet him in the second book, Gabriel. He’s a super-important character who will play a pivotal role in the final book of the trilogy, so I was delighted to be able to show Lailah and Darwin’s first encounter by writing this short story.

  BLUE MOON

  by Nikki Kelly

  The moon is so beautiful. It’s a big silver dollar, flipped by God.

  And it landed scarred side up, see? So He made the world.

  —Two-Face

  Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

  THE WATER RIPPLED AROUND HIM AS HE SANK TO THE CENTER OF THE PLACID LAKE. The shining blue moon acted as a button, bringing together the night’s navy sky and the undulating water.

  As the blond-haired boy released the buckle that held together his shirt, his movements pulled the seam that stitched the two worlds together.

  He hesitated before tugging away his shirt, peering up at the fair-haired girl who watched him at the shore. A wondrous smile crept up his cheeks, causing his dimples to deepen and his iridescent eyes to beam.

  The girl rested her palm flat against an aging yew tree, as she carefully slid off her shoes. Then she tiptoed barefoot over the yew’s curling roots. She swept her long braid over her shoulder and nervously placed her fingers on the Juliet sleeves of her white muslin dress. She paused, and the boy slid his arms from the soaked shirt, letting it drift behind him. He nodded encouragingly, treading water while he waited.