Shadows of New York (21 page)

Smiling at the revelry around her, Mab the Fairy Queen took flight in the tiny chariot that had been parked on the president’s table. She had enjoyed the evening’s festivities thus far, but had an important mission to attend to, something she promised the president that she would see to personally.

Her chariot speeding along at an almost incomprehensible pace, Queen Mab flew the thousands of miles from New York City to the island of Atlantis in mere minutes. Queen Stelo, as Mab had expected, was awaiting her arrival in the white marble throne room with its many tall windows overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

“What news have you, my old friend?” Stelo asked, once Mab landed on the arm of her ornately carved, plush, golden gilt throne.

“Madame President sends you her warmest housewarming wishes and hopes that you and your brethren are at peace here on this island paradise.”

“Meaning that she sent you to spy on us?”

“Something like that.”

Stelo sighed. “It certainly is a lovely place, much more beautiful and comfortable than any isle we have been on for centuries. And it is, indeed, a comfort to know that the island is magically hidden so as to repel those who might otherwise stumble across it unawares.”

“Yes,” Mab agreed. “And the gardens are quite lovely, I noticed as I flew in.”

“Indeed,” Stelo said. “And beyond the gardens, there is much of the wild green growth that we hold so dear.”

“How lovely!” Mab enthused in her tiny little fairy voice.

“And yet…” Stelo said, her soft voice trailing off.

“Yes?” Mab urged.

“It is still an island, a prison,” Stelo said. “We are still not truly free.”

“After what Markus has done,” Mab said, “can you blame them for their precautions?”

“No, I cannot. But we still dream of freedom.”

Mab nodded, at a loss for words.

“And speaking of Markus…” Stelo prodded.

“Yes,” Mab said. “About that. I am afraid…the news is not so good. There has been no sign of him. I’m afraid he is lost to you. I am very sorry for your loss, my friend.”

Stelo’s head tilted to the side, and she looked skyward. “No, I feel his existence. He is out there, somewhere, continuing the mission I gave him. Markus will free us. The son of Mira will see that he does.”

Heather Fraser Brainerd is a renaissance woman. After earning a degree in Anthropology, she embarked on an incongruous career as a workers’ compensation insurance adjuster. She rapidly climbed the claims-handling ladder before surprising her colleagues by leaving the high-powered world of lumbar strains and carpal tunnel syndrome to run a child care center. Thousands of dirty diapers and gallons of strained peas later, she decided that maybe the insurance industry wasn’t quite as bad as she remembered. Unfortunately, it was. Fortunately, a few years later, she met the most wonderful man in the world. Now a stay-home mom to three amazing boys, she is able, at long last, to focus on her writing. Heather lives in New York with her family and their crazy pug/terrier.

David Fraser was born on March 25, 1973. March 25, incidentally, is International Waffle Day (Vårfudagn in Sweden) and Tolkien Reading Day (The Ring was destroyed on March 25). Elton John shares his birthday. So next March 25, you should eat a waffle while reading
Lord of the Rings
and listening to Rocket Man. I know Dave will.

Before deciding to become an internationally-famous author, Dave held a number of different jobs. He processed small business insurance policy changes, tested software on digital copier/printers, put out little orange flags in pick-your-own strawberry fields, installed internet cable in schools, shelved books in a library, taught college calculus, and handed out raffle tickets at a Barry Manilow concert. Granted, this last job was a one-day temp job, but it was awesome.

He currently does little fix-up jobs around his house and chauffeurs his kids while trying to find time to write.

* * * *

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MuseItUp Publishing

Young Adult Paranormal Mystery Romance by Heather Fraser Brainerd

As if high school wasn't tough enough, sophomore Sarah Pasmore has one extra little problem: ghosts have started appearing to Sarah and they seem to want something from her. With help from her brainy best friend, as well as a few new friends (including the hottest guy in school), Sarah must solve the mystery of what the spirits want in order to put them back to rest. To complicate matters further, a more evil spirit will go to great lengths to make sure this doesn’t happen. As they investigate the past to unravel this supernatural mystery, the teens learn a lesson in the powers of friendship and love.

I could not believe it.

He was walking over to me. He was actually walking over to
me
. Panic should be setting in. My breath ought to stick in my throat, and my cheeks should burn. Instead, I felt amazingly calm.

While I stood at my locker during the chaos between classes, Nate Spencer, the most gorgeous guy in the junior class, cut gracefully through the throng of scurrying students to walk directly over to me, Sarah Pasmore, a mere tenth-grader. His blond hair was perfectly tousled. His gray eyes gleamed from beneath their dark lashes. He smiled as he walked up to me and said, “Hey.”

Opening my mouth to speak, I wasn’t even sure what would come out, yet I felt utterly confident that it would be the perfect thing.

That’s when I woke up.

With a groan, I looked at the clock. Not quite 3:00 a.m. Good; I could sleep some more. Maybe my dream would pick up where it had left off. Not likely, but not impossible. While adjusting the covers and rolling onto my left side, my brain registered a glimmer of movement near the window.

Scared, I lay as still as possible, my heart thundering in my chest. Looking toward the window, my eyes made out a faint shimmer in the air.
Okay, this is freaky.

The slight luminescence became momentarily brighter, more solid, and then faded entirely. My entire body shivered involuntarily. The room suddenly became ice-cold.

It took me a long time to get back to sleep.

* * * *

Beep…Beep…Beep…Bee—

Hitting the snooze button, I interrupted my screeching alarm.

“Dang.” I desperately wanted to snooze for the allotted nine minutes, but having done that twice already, I couldn’t spare any more time. Grumbling, I dragged myself out of bed, practically sleepwalking to the bathroom. While waiting for the shower water to warm up, I stared blearily into the mirror. My long brown hair hung limply on both sides of my pale, white face. My hazel eyes, usually my best feature, were rimmed in red and had dark circles underneath. I usually didn’t mind my tall, thin build so much, but today my reflection just appeared gaunt. In short, I looked like crap.

It didn’t really matter; no one at school would notice. Not being big on attention, I tried to fade into the scenery as much as possible.

The shower made me feel a little more human. Throwing on jeans and a random T-shirt, I then headed down the spiral staircase to the kitchen.

My annoying twelve-year-old brother sat at the ginormous island that dominated the center of the kitchen. Short for his age and a little on the heavy side, Peter was a quintessential techie geek, glasses and all. He watched me hurry down the stairs while slurping his way through a bowl of cereal, sloshing milk all over the granite countertop in the process. Gross.

“Mom, Sarah’s not even eating yet! She’s gonna be late for school!” he called out with obvious glee. I glowered at him. He returned my glare with a smile, his wide grin making his cheeks appear even rounder than usual. “Wow, you look like crap!” he said cheerily.

Our mother hurried into the kitchen through the door to her master suite. Her high heels clacked noisily on the etched concrete floor. She wore one of her skirted power suits, as she called them. Her hair was currently curly, blond, and chin-length, though this changed at least once a year. Her makeup was, as usual, perfect.

“Sarah, honey, did you stay up too late again?” Mom asked as she rushed around the kitchen, gathering the day’s necessities. “You know you need your rest, especially on a school night. If you miss the bus, you’ll have to walk. I don’t have time to drive you today. I have an early meeting.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. I wasn’t up that late.”

She paused her morning routine, taking the time to really look at me. “But honey, you look like crap!”

Great. It was unanimous.

“I woke up in the middle of the night and had a hard time getting back to sleep. Must have had a bad dream or something. No big deal, Mom, really.”

“Okay, then. Grab a protein bar, and I’ll drive you out. Grab one for me, too, while you’re at it, please. The peanut-butter kind.”

Mom dropped a quick kiss on the top of Peter’s head as she breezed past him. It seemed like each day of my mom’s life was a race. At least she could drop me at the end of our extremely long, rather steep driveway. It snaked through the woods that surrounded our house, making the walk to and from the bus more like a hike. I smiled a little as I thought of Peter hiking it in an hour or so when his bus arrived.

Mom braked near the road, gave me a peck on the cheek, and told me to have a good day. Hopping out of her silver SUV, I watched as she peeled out of the drive, tires squealing, on her race once more. Shaking my head as her truck disappeared around the bend, I smiled a little, amused by the crazy pace of her life.

Hearing the bus before it came around the curve in the road, I sighed, dreading its approach. The bus ride itself didn’t bother me, it was what waited for us at the end of the ride: another day in the purgatory known as Frakes Senior High. Our school district was set up in kind of a strange way. Lots of little elementary schools channeled into two junior high schools for grades seven through nine, which then congealed into the sprawling senior high where the inmates spent the remainder of our time. So, as a sophomore, this was my first year in senior high. We were about six weeks into the school year, and I still felt completely out of place.

My friend Anna sat in our usual seat, her nose buried in a book. The curly black cloud of her hair could be seen haloing out around the volume.
Fabulous.
She’s hooked again
. When Anna was really into a book, the rest of the world pretty much ceased to exist to her. Over the summer, she had read
Lord of the Rings
, and I’d barely seen her for weeks.
Please don’t let it be another trilogy
.

I sat down next to her. “Hi, Anna!”

“Hey,” she muttered distractedly.

“Whatcha reading?”

“
Twilight
.”

Oh, crap. Weren’t there like four or five huge volumes in that series? She’d be obsessed for the next month.

“You should read it,” she said without taking her eyes off the page. “It’s really good.”

“Those vampire books? You know I don’t like horror.”

“Vampires, yes. Horror, no. It’s more like a love story.”

“Ugh, even worse!”

She sighed and put her book down in her lap, glancing at me. “You look awful. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, just tired. I had a bad dream and couldn’t get back to sleep.” Gazing out the window, I watched the red, orange, and yellow blur of autumnal trees rolling past. “At least, I think it was a dream.”

“What do you mean, you
think
it was a dream?”

I thought about her question while opening my peanut-butter bar and starting to munch. “God, these things are dry!” I grimaced. “Should’ve grabbed a bottle of water to wash it down.”

“Sarah, stop stalling and answer my question. Either you had a dream or you didn’t. So what’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. See, I woke up from what was most definitely a dream, a very nice dream—”

“Featuring Nate Spencer?”

I blushed a little; busted. “Maybe. Anyway, I saw something moving across my room.” Telling her about it made me shiver. “It must have been a dream, right? Things like that just don’t happen.”

Anna gave it some thought. I liked the way she really considered a question before giving an answer. Sometimes the wait was a little annoying, but I was used to it by now. We’d been friends for a long time, and I knew that her thoughts were worth waiting for.

“Well,” she finally said, “It could have been like a dream within a dream. Like, you thought you woke up, but really your dream just shifted. Or it could have been a pre-seizure aura. Is there a history of epilepsy in your family?”

Where the heck did she come up with this stuff? Sometimes having a brainiac for a best friend could be a little weird.