Between Wild and Run
Jennifer G. Edelson
Contents
Praise for Between Wild and Ruin:
1. In La Luna, We Rest
2. The Mountain Speaks
3. Ghosts of Glorieta
4. Over Again
5. Guardian Angel
6. History Lessons I Haven’t Learned
7. Cherry Pie Forever
8. If I Only Could
9. The People We Become
10. In-Between
11. Really, Real, Reality
12. Falling to Ruin
13. Wild Open Spaces
14. The Trick Is to Open Your Eyes
15. Four-Letter Words
16. The Storm That Blew My Heart Away
17. Aftermath
18. Forest for the Trees
19. Crash Course in Falling Apart
20. You Have to Leave to Come Back
21. Paper Heart Cut from Stone
22. Folklore
23. Bold New World
24. Road Less Traveled
25. Everything Unknown
26. What Matters
27. The Hero Never Dies
Coming Soon
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for Between Wild and Ruin:
“What could be a corny premise turns into an exhilarating, fun ride in Edelson’s adept hands. Her characters are smartly drawn, and readers will easily identify with Ruby, a strong yet insecure young artist on the verge of adulthood, who is still recovering from her tragic past . . . Fans of Twilight and modern fairy tales will fall in love with Ruby and root for her eventual romance.” — Blue Ink Review (Starred Review)
* * *
“Between Wild and Ruin is a stunning story of legends, romance, and destiny with themes of starting over, small towns, beauty, and community . . . Edelson perfectly breathes new life in mythology by honoring the oral tradition of a small community and the ruins that bring to life Ruby's destiny.” — Manhattan Book Review
* * *
“Highly recommended to mature teens through new adult and adult audiences, this is a story that lingers in the mind long after its final revelation.” — Midwest Book Review
* * *
“Author Jennifer Edelson’s on-point dialogue, multicultural characters, and atmospheric setting, keenly conveys New Mexico’s rich cultural roots and narratives, weaving a story that incorporates both folklore and romance into an engrossing, unforgettable YA story.” — Ryan Sprague, Author and Host of ‘Somewhere In the Skies’ book and podcast, co-host of the The CW’s 'Mysteries Decoded.’
* * *
“Between Wild and Ruin is, beat for beat, very close to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight saga . . . which, thirteen years ago, captured the hearts of high school and college-aged girls everywhere, except instead of vampires vs. werewolves, it’s cops vs. demons vs. mountain lions with a bit of a twist at the end.” — San Francisco Book Review
* * *
“A great addition to young adult urban fantasy.” — Seattle Book Review
* * *
“Descriptions of the New Mexico landscape are rich and atmospheric, arousing the senses with references to the scent of smoke and juniper, the predatory roar of mountain lions, and the brilliant dazzle of stars in the desert sky . . . The writing conveys a sense of timelessness, making it easy to believe Ruby’s sense that the land is spirit-haunted and that Leo, the handsome young man she encounters near the ruins, is somehow connected to it all.” — Clarion Forward
* * *
“An intriguing historical tale and an over-the-top love-quadrangle romance.” — Kirkus Reviews
* * *
“The paranormal aspects of the tale are credible and richly steeped in traditional lore, and the plot is finely crafted . . . Between Wild and Ruin is most highly recommended.” — Reader’s Favorite (5-Star Review)
For every untamed dreamer and romantic.
For every person who ever thought to look below
the surface and ask ‘why.’ For Elijah and Gabriel,
the wildest dreamers in my life.
One
In La Luna, We Rest
Toward the back of the small store, a tall endcap filled with assorted cookies catches my eye. Crouching over the scuffed tile floor, I grab a pack of Double Stuf Oreos from the bottom shelf, teetering on the balls of my feet while I squeeze a red plastic grocery basket against my side. When Mom was alive, she made us live like health freaks. Over the last ten months, I’ve made it my duty to support the junk food industry.
Down the aisle, something flashes. For a split second, I see my mother standing motionless between two shelves of cereal. Then just like that, she’s gone, phantom to ether. Startled, I shoot up and look around, but the aisle is so empty I can hear my own breathing.
Pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers, I briefly close my eyes. It’s bad enough you’re stuck riding out senior year in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico. Now you’re seeing your dead mother, too? Nice, Ruby.
Dim lighting casts creepy shadows over the aisle. Still shaken, I whip around, knocking into something fleshy and solid.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I squawk.
A boy with a face like a car crash stares bullets at me. Our eyes meet, and I freeze, startled by the damage.
“Excuse you.” He crosses his arms over his chest impatiently, glaring as if I knocked him over.
I want to apologize again. I really do. But instead, my mouth drops open.
“Let me guess, you flunked out of charm school,” he says curtly.
The boy’s large frame blocks the aisle. He’s proportioned, and muscular, but his face is unreal. Knotty skin twists across angular planes, forming jagged boundaries around smooth glossy patches of skin near his mouth and cheeks. Near his hairline, a scar stretches down between his eyebrows, cutting along the center of his nose to his chin, dissecting his features.
“Didn’t your mother teach you it’s rude to stare?”
“I … yes,” I say, trying to stop gawking.
The boy’s intense eyes pin me to the spot. “Yeah, I can tell.”
I feel like a jerk for being so rude and more than a little mortified.
“Next time try paying attention,” he scowls.
I start to say sorry, but the boy turns and stomps off down the aisle toward a cash register. After a moment, I manage to unstick my feet and follow him, almost tiptoeing toward my aunt, Liddy. I poke her in the side as we wait in line, surreptitiously pointing him out. “I almost knocked him over,” I whisper. “It really pissed him off.”
“Smooth move,” she whispers back, giggling at the blush spreading across my cheekbones. “You okay? It’s been a long drive.”
I poke her harder, talking between my teeth. “Did you see his face?”
“Sad.” She nods.
“I wonder what happened.”
“Something terrible, I’d gather.”
My stomach churns while I watch the boy pay for his groceries. His anger is palpable; I feel it physically, like a leash that tethers him to me, bridging the distance between us. And his face makes me sad. Thanks to Mom, a.k.a. former model extraordinaire, I’ve always hated that people care so much about what other people look like. I hate knowing that appearances matter. Even more, I hate other people thinking I care about the surface of anything.
“Don’t feel bad,” Liddy whispers. She flares her nostrils, flattening the sharp tip of her nose exactly the way Mom used to whenever she was caught between amusement and irritation.
Liddy rubs the small of my back, then pulls several bills out of her purse when the checker begins swiping our items. Two lanes over, the
boy finishes paying and glances up at me. He grabs his bag off the checkout belt, glares for what feels like an hour and marches out of the store. Through the front window, I watch him load groceries into a worn black pickup truck. Slamming the tailgate, he turns and squints at me, then jumps into the cab, revving up the engine before squealing out of the parking lot like a banshee.
Liddy raises a manicured eyebrow at the checkout clerk.
“Ezra.” The clerk nods toward the window. “That guy’s got a heck of a chip on his shoulder.” Under his breath, he adds, “Asshole.”
Trailing behind Liddy, I silently pray that the next time I meet someone new, I’ll be smoother—or at least that the rest of La Luna’s residents aren’t as touchy. Leaving my friends back in Los Angeles sucked. Starting over in a remote town full of people who hate me when I still suffer from bouts of self-doubt myself would be horrible.
Liddy drives toward a pine dotted butte, heading through the pass above La Luna. Lush and wooded with piñon, La Luna is a haven nestled against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It’s a small town but compared to the village we drove by on our way into the pass — blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Glorieta — it could be Los Angeles.
“We’re almost there,” Liddy says, pointing at the looming mountain ahead of us. “Didn’t I say it was breathtaking?”
I nod my response, mesmerized by the craggy peaks framed by the windshield. It just isn’t the home I’m used to.
“You okay?” she asks. “You’ve been pretty quiet all day.”
Alongside us, tall junipers, and ponderosa pines line the road, swaying in the wind as we drive. “I thought you liked quiet,” I whisper, awed by nature’s abundant use of green to mask the desert. “Isn’t that why we left Los Angeles?”
“We left so we could start fresh.” Liddy’s already pouty lips purse into a frown. “And last I checked, you were all for it.”
“I’m fine, Lid. It just all looks so different.” I inhale, breathing in sage and piñon. “And it smells … odd.”
In the foothills above La Luna proper, Liddy pulls into a long gravel driveway and stops in front of a secluded wooden house, letting the car idle for a moment. Majestic pines frame the rectangular wood-sided structure. From this angle, it looks like it grew out of the bottom of the mountain.
“Liddy,” I exhale. “You never told me.”
“I tried, babe. But your mother always sabotaged the conversation.”
“I can’t believe she didn’t want to move here. It’s so beautiful.”
“It’s not urban enough.” Liddy tips her head slightly, as if in deference to Mom’s memory. “At least, that was her excuse. You know how she was.”
We unload the Volkswagen. There isn’t much to bring inside. Liddy already packed and sent forward almost everything we own a few weeks ago. She flew out to New Mexico, settled things with the university, where she’ll join the Chemistry Department in the fall, and enrolled me in my new high school. Always go into battle armed with a breadth of information and an organized mind—that’s her motto.
After we unpack our groceries, we gorge ourselves on frozen pizza and junk food around our old table in our new kitchen. Neither of us say much; it’s been an achingly long few days between here and Los Angeles.
“I guess I’ll go to bed, Lid,” I finally say. “If you don’t mind.”
“All right.” She drums a burgundy nail on the table. “But let’s go into Santa Fe this weekend. We’ll do a little shopping and get some dinner.”
“Deal.” I smile.
I toss our plates into the trash, stopping near the table before heading upstairs. Stretching over the back of Liddy’s chair to reach her face, I kiss her pale cheek and brush a long piece of copper hair out of her eyes. Liddy has a beautiful head of wild hair that she almost always wears loosely down her shoulders.
“I love you,” I whisper in her ear.
She leans back against the chair and smiles up at me, raising an arm to brush my cheek with her fingers. “I love you too, babe. Good night.”
For the first time in my life, I have my own bathroom. Upstairs in my underwear, I stand in the small yellow space and quickly brush my teeth, turning away from the mirror. I know my face as well as I know Liddy’s. But I can’t look at my chipmunk cheeks, or at my nose, which has a small rise at the bridge, or at my chin, which I’ve always thought seems a little sharp, without seeing my mother. Except for my green eyes, everyone used to say we looked identical.
I find a pair of sweats in an unpacked box near my bed and throw them on. Uncertain, I stand in the middle of my new room, staring at the pale beams of near-flawless wood lining the floor and ceiling, offsetting brilliant red walls. My easel and a large box of paints lie against the wall under the rectangular window overlooking the backyard creek, and my fingers itch just staring at them. Washed in moonlight, the backyard looks ethereal.
Uncomfortable in an unfamiliar house, I kill the lights and linger near the picture window, gazing down at the pines and creek below. Vast as the forest seems from the safety of my new bedroom, it’s a little intimidating. Beams of moonlight pierce the windowpane, staking my bed to the floor. They cast shadows over everything.
I rub my eyes, something Mom used to nag I shouldn’t do if I want to avoid crow’s feet. For the briefest moment, colorful sunbursts pop in the windowpane. Then my eyes adjust, and I notice a figure stirring near the creek. A dark blotch casts a shadow on a boulder near the banks of the stream. Uneasy, I step back out of the window frame as the shadow stands and stretches. When silvery light illuminates its face, I realize I’m staring at a mountain lion.
The longer I watch the lion, the worse the night plays tricks on me. The forest comes alive, and the lion tilts its head, angled up toward my window like it’s looking for something. Ghostly shapes fade against the sky, then spring to life when I blink. Eventually, my eyes grow so tired of trying to focus, night becomes an inky smudge. The lion disappears. I have no clue if it’s still out there. But I’m not so keen on the idea that it might be watching me.
Clouds obscure the moon, shadowing the backyard. City girl that I am, I freak and dive for my bed, pulling the comforter over my head. Burying my face into my pillow, I mumble, “Stupid, Ruby.” After everything, I don’t need a shrink to tell me that I’m overtired and excitable, and probably making mountains out of molehills.
I close my eyes and try thinking about the long drive from California to New Mexico. Then I think about my mother. We weren’t close. But I loved her. And I’m not always sure who I am anymore without her around to tell me. If she were alive, I’d find her and tell her the lion scared the bejesus out of me. I’d tell her how nervous I am about starting over in a small town like La Luna. Ten months have passed since Mom died, but in my new room, hiding under the pile of blankets shielding me from both my new life and the secretive night outside my window, it feels like forever.
Two
The Mountain Speaks
Liddy hands me a bagel, then slides a tub of cream cheese across the table after it. “Want to drive up to Las Vegas?” she asks, staring absentmindedly out at the creek through the kitchen’s bay window.
“When are you going?” I follow her eyes to the creek that cuts our yard in two, itching to explore the woods behind our house. The kitchen is warm and cozy, but the gnarled junipers and ponderosa pines lining the backyard’s border are more enticing. It’s almost as if I can feel the forest’s pull.
“It depends on whether you want to come.”
Whenever Liddy travels, she makes it a priority to seek out the area’s historic Jewish neighborhoods. Once upon a time, Las Vegas was both New Mexico’s biggest city and the seat of the state’s Jewish population. I understand why she wants to visit. But getting to know yet another new town doesn’t sound like the best way to spend my last two days of freedom.
“You know, I think maybe I’ll just grab lunch in La Luna or take a hike or something.”
She squints at me. “How a
re you going to get to La Luna?”
“Walk?” I shrug.
“It’s at least three miles.” She frowns.
“I hiked all the time back home.” I shoot her a super-exaggerated you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me eye roll for good measure. Before Mom died, the Santa Monica Mountains were my home away from home. Three miles will be like walking up the driveway.
Liddy shakes her head at me as though the fact that I’d rather hike than connect with my heritage amuses her. But her compassionate smile makes me feel bad. She’s stuck with me, not the other way around, and Duh, Ruby, you don’t need to constantly remind her.
“Fine,” she says cheerfully. “Just be back by dinner please.”
Eager to get outside after being stuck in a car for three days, I quickly finish my breakfast and pack up the compass Mom bought me for my eleventh birthday, along with my pocketknife for good measure. Outside, I stop for a moment at the base of the mountain near our property’s border, at the beginning of what looks like a path leading straight up into the forest. From the backyard, our wood-sided house seems to merge with the bottom of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range. Tall pines blend with its frame, and I inhale in awe, breathing in the late summer scent of lavender.
After walking through dense stands of pine trees, I follow the remnants of what may have been a trail toward the top of the mountain. Higher up, the pines and junipers dappling the mountainside grow taller, but there aren’t as many. As they thin, small gusts of wind whistle through the forest, echoing through the trees. Otherwise, the forest is completely silent.
Closer to the top of the mountain, the rocky ground levels off and the land spreads across a plateau below the mountain’s peak. Unlike the forest, the plateau is more like a jungle, marked by thick hanging moss and clusters of tall, unidentifiable conifers. Trees stand like sentries several rows deep. Beyond them, fallen logs lie scattered among overgrown shrubs and boulders in circular bands like rings on a tree. I walk through it all, making my way past thick brush into a clearing.
Between Wild and Ruin Page 1