“How does one communicate with a sea spirit?”
High-pitched shrieks continued to reverberate throughout the vessel as I dropped the question on the engineer. My crew and I stood with plugs in our ears, but our methods to keep ourselves sane were failing.
“You’re asking me, an acoustical engineer, if I know how to talk to an invisible force
Kai Zimer had a useless gift. People praised his voice as angelic, but what value did Merfolk have for a male siren? The two most popular career choices for Mermen were tending the coral farms or joining the military. But since he couldn’t even keep a shellplant alive for more than a week,
Read it now
What Susan noticed first was the purse.
Susan always noticed them. She prided herself on having the most unique purse at any event. She had learned early that if she didn’t want to be known as Susan The Deaf Girl, she had to be memorable in some other way.
She had always been imprisoned inside the stone walls of the tower. She did not know why. It was just how it was—the way it had always been. The darkness of the place was part of her now.
Her favorite place was the windowsill. She loved to sit with her back pressed
Theresa plopped into a chair and plugged her ears; she couldn’t help herself. But it made no difference. The sound came from within.
A hand squeezed her shoulder. Her husband, Malcolm, studied her, his forehead wrinkled with concern. “The ringing’s back?”
“Yeah.”
“You could go see another doctor—”
“No.”
Miracle lay in the prickly grass stalks. She scrunched her fingers in the cool dirt and took slow, deliberate breaths to absorb the brown, earthy scent of autumn. And she listened. The wind rustled the seed-heavy grass heads swaying above. A tree creaked nearby. Apple and pear floated on the breeze,
Read it now
The noise in Thomas’s head was getting louder.
Medical examinations came up empty. Doctors were stumped. It wasn’t tinnitus, they said, or brain tumors, or sinus problems, any other condition they’d diagnosed before. Nothing they attempted, from ear drops to oral meds, solved it. In the end, he just had to deal with it.
“Now, see here!” Rex glared down at the little black dog sinking its teeth into his toe. “If anyone in this family should be devouring enemies, it’s me.”
The dog craned its neck to peer at the dragon. There was a moment of blessed silence. But then… “Woof! Woof-woof! Woo-oo-oof!”
The doorbell jingles. I stuff my nanocell into my khaki pocket and paste on my customer-service smile. The doors slide shut behind a woman and two men. “Welcome to the Nanotech Center!” I say.
My smile wavers at their dark clothing. They match the descriptions of the Sound, the infamous gang—
Always last to everything.
Jonah is the last of his class to change, both physically and developmentally.
He hears the cries from out in the hallway. The scuffling playfights, the macho name-calling. Everything he seeks to avoid as he slinks from the dressing room into the whitewashed cubicle, towel tight around his waist,
His brother used to make voice memos every night, and now, three months after Justin’s fatal accident, Colbert still couldn’t sleep without them.
The time glared at him from the lockscreen of Justin’s old phone. He scrolled through a year’s worth of recordings until he found the one he’d left on last night.
Time is running out.
So help me, if I can’t get this stupid locker open and retrieve my dragon’s muzzle, I can’t go to my Dragon Hatcher’s Apprenticeship class. And if I miss one more class, I’ll be kicked out of the program, and my life-long dream of becoming a full-fledged dragon hatcher
Recent Comments