Pushing Gran’s wheelchair across the threshold into the city’s largest art museum, I was immediately struck by the grandeur of the place. A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. I wasn’t sure whether Gran’s apartment or this museum held more fascinating paintings, books, and artifacts.
For today’s weekly excursion, the care home
I’m focused, minding my own business, quietly eating my breakfast of rice, miso soup, and grilled salmon in the dining room. It’s what I do every morning while studying my book of ancient Japanese history.
I’m so entranced that I almost miss the crackling female voice. “Why aren’t you married yet, Airi?
Under the shade of the baobab trees, I watch. I see their wide-eyed looks of awe. I hear the gasps of wonder. Eager tourists face their guide, waiting for him to expound on the phenomena of the rainbow sand before them.
I’ve listened to him teach all day, that the dunes of Chamarel…
Searchlights lit the night sky, mounted on the aliens’ vehicles that raced over the hill. Iya, ever on guard, barked orders. “Tembo, quickly, to the trees. Tiou, help the young. Indloyu, with me.”
There wasn’t much hope. Someone was going to die. Iya pushed two of her daughters out of the way…
As the Imperial heir, Sergei received virtually all within our mother’s possession upon her death: title, wealth, lands—even the loyalty of her Court and Council. She ordered them to raise their hands and vow over her deathbed to support Sergei. Such an oath holds more power than any law.
Yet to my mother’s…
“Wake up!” Mama seems scared as she shakes my shoulder. I hear someone yelling in the kitchen. Mama doesn’t like it when people yell.
“Mama? What’s going on? Why are you scared?”
“Hush, Zephyr. I need you to listen to me closely, okay?” Mama opens the window next to my bed. “I need you
Flames swept across the living room as the young dragon wailed. One fireball incinerated a garland while another illuminated the Christmas tree.
Coppelia Potts stared with mouth agape. She’d have to update her résumé once again: full-time Nightmare Hunter, part-time babysitter, and elder sister to a temperamental dragon.
Coppelia grabbed a blanket
Mark ducked away from a barrage of hail moments before the gunshot clacked. The bullet skimmed his shoulder as a gust, gritty and wet, kicked him to the sidewalk. The tornado slashing through the Indiana countryside was closing in—debris and trees rotating in a torrid sky like dust in a vacuum.
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After my brother Barney and I complete the second wrapping of tinsel, we spread out Mami’s lock-lid ornament tubs.
Barney nudges me. “So, Arnold, any thoughts on the job offer? I know, you’re an”—faux crystal bell in each hand, he air-quotes—“entrepreneur. You can still be your own boss. A boss that
The swamp has swallowed Mom whole.
I halt, feet lodged in muck. Cleo’s boots clomp clomp clomp as she keeps trudging along, splashing gray-brown water against my pants.
“Wait,” I say.
Cleo grips her pack straps with grime-streaked hands. “You can’t stop now, Clara. Mom needs us!”
If Mom needed us, she would’ve
“I don’t want to.” Annie tucked her hands under her arms, backing away from Grandma’s desk, her shoulders hitching up to her ears. “You can’t make me.”
Grandma looked at her with eyes full of sadness. “I know, dear. None of us want to. This is our purpose.”
Annie shook her head
“Who does she think she is? The daughter of a villain, trying to be a hero?”
A punch hit me square on the cheek, smacking my head against the road. Fingers tightened around my throat, and I struggled to breathe—an all-too-familiar feeling.
Decay’s superpowers activated. I gasped as my fingertips began to shrivel
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