My new book is currently available on amazon and Kindle! It is a real departure from my other books - I would define it as middle grade, Christian fantasy. At a book signing for my book Subgirl, my son lamented that I didn't have any boy books, so
Not As They Appear is the result.
In honour of the release of my book to the world, I thought I'd post some of the first chapter here. Enjoy!
Chapter
One
My sister
Jessica never saw the dragons. Or at
least she claimed she didn’t see
them. I kinda thought she was faking,
trying to be cool and popular – but thinking back, maybe she was telling the
truth. She certainly wasn’t the only one
who couldn’t see the dragons.
I
remember the first time I saw one. I woke
in my bed, covered in dried sweat, my heart racing. Terror gripped every nerve, but I couldn’t
remember why. Did I have a
nightmare? If so, I couldn’t remember
even a fragment of it. Perhaps someone
had been in my room, but I was too scared to check.
Then
I heard it – the horrid screeching like ten thousand nails across a rock. Deafeningly wretched. My heart thumped faster and I forgot to
breathe.
I
hid beneath my pillow, but the sound penetrated, barely muffled. I called out to my mom – our mother, the one
we had been fighting over since I was born, until we wore her down to a nervous
point. Our arguments deflated her,
though we didn’t know this at the time.
For
once, she did not appear instantly at my door.
Where was she? I could always
count on her at night. Somehow, she
could manage compassion and gentleness in the dark, though she couldn’t face it
in the light of day.
The
sounds continued at least a quarter of an hour and then ceased completely. Though I was enveloped in panic, this did not
translate to my limbs. They remained
frozen in my bed. When the noises
ceased, I finally emerged from my blankets, padded to my window and lifted the
blind half an inch.
A
giant yellow eye stared back. I screamed,
but no sound came out. The eye seemed to
xray my heart and soul. I let the blind
drop and bolted back to my island of imagined safety. I breathed again, tears trapped inside,
trembling myself to sleep.
The
following morning our mother was gone.
“Way
to go, twerp,” Jessica said over a precariously full bowl of fruit loops. There were none left in the box for me.
“What?” I whined.
“You ate all the cereal.”
She
thrust a giant spoonful into her mouth and grinned at me through the colourful
ohs.
“Yfph
mph mopth leeph.”
I
punched her in the stomach and she spit the partially gobbled cereal into my
face.
“You’re
gonna pay for that, you little brat.”
She
chased me around the room and I didn’t even notice our mom was missing until it
was time to go to school.
“Hey,
where’s mom?” I poked my nose into Jessica’s room.
“I
told you this morning,” she pulled a brush through her long blond hair. “She’s not here. I heard you screaming last night. You must have kept her awake all night, like
you always do and then she decided she couldn’t take it any more.”
I
moved closer, worried. “What are you
talking about? You never told me she was
gone.”
She
grabbed her backpack and stormed out of the room.
“Jessicaaaah,”
I keened with the perfect inflection to set your teeth against one another.
She threw her hands up in the air and
turned on me. I slammed into her by
accident.
“I’m
not your mother,” she screamed. “And I’m
never gonna be. If you made her leave,
you’re just gonna have to figure out what to do with yourself.”
She left the
house then, turning the key in the lock behind her. I was four years old. I’d never been alone in the house before.
Immediately,
the silence creeped me out. I turned on the television. After two episodes of PowerRangers, I called
out:
“Mo-om! I’m hungry!”
Nothing happened, which wasn’t unusual.
“Mooooooom. Moooooooooom!” I said her name with increasing length and
strength of voice.
When
I tired of this, I wandered into her room.
She hadn’t made her bed. Nothing
seemed to be missing. Her purse waited
on the hook by her door. I rummaged
through it until I found $4.87 in change.
I pocketed the money and stomped back into the kitchen. Jessica hadn’t finished her cereal. The colourful circles had bloated and
disintegrated into the milk, turning it an awful greenish-brown colour. I slammed the side of the bowl, spilling the
contents onto the table. I felt some
sense of accomplishment. Then I looked
through the cereal cupboard for another box, but could only find a stale box of
crispy flakes. I hated that cereal, but
grabbed a few handfuls to tame the knot of hunger and unease in my belly. After that meager feast, I found a half-full
container of grape juice and drank it straight from the jar. I spilled some down my shirt and a few drops
onto the floor. I swiped at them with my
Spiderman pajamas. Then I found some
marshmallows and chocolate chips in the cupboard to round out my meal. I returned to the solace of the television again,
lulled by the high-pitched voices and gun sounds.