“Shush, Abigail! I’m just getting to the good part!”
I sigh and lean back in my ancient rocker. To my right, blasts of heat from the open fireplace roll over me like the flames of Hades. Toasty, Jack calls it.
I feel like I’ve been here before.
Across the room, my brother Jack leans forward in his chair, propping his elbows against the massive oak slab we call a dining table.
The people here have always thought me peculiar.
Me and my family. A tyrannical, penny-pinching father. A harsh stepmother. And, of course, cold, forbidding spinster sisters.
It’s the rumors about me that make me laugh the hardest. To the people of this fair city, I’m also a kleptomaniac who’s stolen from her own family.
August 31st
3:20 a.m.
I crept along the shadows of Buck’s Row in London, humming a song underneath my breath. Brownstone buildings loomed over me, and my foot clacked against a circular black plaque.
I giggled, a slightly intoxicated sound.
“Careful where you’re walking there, missum,” said a voice with a heavy London accent.
With my publisher’s demand for a retraction—practically a resignation in this journalistic environment—hanging over me, I approached the production booth. Through the window, I watched Clint Bell at the microphone bringing his show to commercial break.
“You’re deep in The Bell Hole, live on Eastville’s ZAP-95 FM. We’ll be back after these
Alaric and I had fled west, narrowly escaping the assassins from our world. After a month with no further attempts on our lives, I began to breathe easier and embraced Earth’s comforts—even settling into a routine. My brother, on the other hand, stayed vigilant. He didn’t believe that the assassins had given up.
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I was but a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old, the summer I worked grounds crew at Camp Sand Lake.
Sand was a given, being smack in the Mojave Desert, and it would’ve been omitted altogether in an alternate universe where “Camp Lake” made good branding. The eponymous lake, however, was a mystery. How deep was it?
The most terrifying day of my life was humid and hot—the type of weather that either makes people love summer or wish for winter. I stood in front of Rimlain Canyons, casually scanning the uneven cliff walls with Mr. Krinkleton, a librarian and fellow adventurer. Rumor had it there were riches to be found here, yet many who went searching for them never returned.
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“If we said wedding vows, do you think we’d say ‘‘til death do us part,’ or ‘‘til death bring us together’?” I raised my gray, ghostly hand to view it in the moonlight.
“I don’t know, Eliza, but d’ya think you can ask this question again after we stop two raging yōkai from…
“For first place in the Camp Conniption popsicle stick sculpture competition, we have two winners!” Camp Director Naomi Addison addressed the auditorium of middle school girls. “Our judges gave both Melissa Logan and Zinnia Zunk a perfect ten.”
The girls clapped as Zinnia and I came up on stage to accept our ribbons.
“Get him! Behind you!” Jax jabbed at the controls with his thumbs. “Die, wolf beast!”
“I got him!” I punched my controls, as we hunched in front of the TV screen, fighting werewolves on Wolfsbane Vengeance 4 in Jax’s dark basement.
The screen flashed red. Jax dropped his controls, groaning. “We’re never going to
Sketchbook in hand, I leaned over the watchtower’s edge. Dark shadows crept across the hills toward us.
Below me, a dozen farmers added sweeping strokes to the canvas in the center square. Hard to believe these men’s artistic experiences once extended only as far as the furrows their plows carved into the earth.
6th June, 1944
Twelve miles from shore, we climb into the landing craft.
“Remember,” the coxswain warns, looking at each of us as we set out. “Save no one. We need manpower on the beach.”
No one responds. What could we say? None of us wanted to face the possibility of leaving our friends behind.
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