Moribund Read online

  First Published by Monster House Books, LLC in 2017

  Monster House Books, LLC

  34 Chandler Place Newton, MA 02464

  www.monsterhousebooks.com

  ISBN 9781945723087

  Copyright © 2017 by Monster House Books LLC

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Dedication

  For all you sleeper-princesses out there.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Syl

  Can you see them—the fair ones, the dark ones?

  Lurking just beyond the edge of light

  They are there, waiting for you

  Waiting, waiting for you to Awaken

  - Glamma’s Grimm

  If dreams are supposed to be prophetic, then I must be destined to be a track star. I’m always running in this dream, running through the wet city streets after the crash. My leg is bleeding, a piece of iron shrapnel sticking out, glinting in the streetlights. The shadows warp. There are…things chasing me. Dark and terrible things.

  And among them, her.

  I’ve never seen her face, only a flash of sapphire-blue eyes ringed in gold. She’s not human—because, of course she’s not. Goodness knows, I can’t have normal dreams—but I’m drawn to her, the deepest part of what makes me me tugged and stretched and pulled inside out until I’m aching.

  Until my heart is an arrow pointing straight at her.

  Also, she’s chasing me, but also she’s helping me escape.

  Also also? I think I’m totally crushing on her. And her on me.

  How can I tell? Because dreams are officially dumb.

  Apparently, so am I, because for the first time ever in my dream, I stop running. I turn, waiting for her to come out of the night, my huntress, my savior. Her shadow moves in the darkness, closer, closer…

  I’m just about to glimpse her—

  Clink! Clank! I jolt awake to the clatter of dishes ten minutes before my alarm. Ugh. I was so close. Not to mention, today is not the day I want to wake up early.

  I roll over, tucking the covers up over my head. It doesn’t help. Clank! Clatter!

  Mondays are Mom’s day off—Mondays and Saturdays. The rest of the week, she’s up before the street sweepers and gone hours before I even think of rolling out of bed. She’s a business of one, cleaning the schools before anyone is even in them. I guess it’s good she’s a morning person.

  Right now, I wish I were. Because I’m so not.

  I lie there in my makeshift blanket fort, straining to get back to my dream, to where I was just about to see…her.

  But nope.

  In trying to be quiet, Mom’s louder than ever. Every clink and chink is followed by an “oops” or sigh or the frenzied sounds of someone trying to quiet their actions while somehow managing to make even more noise. I love my mom, but of all days—

  Clank! Claaaaaaaaaank!

  Seriously? I shove my beat-up e-reader off the bed and stuff my pillow over my head. I’m regretting my poor life choices in staying up till one a.m. to finish “just one more chapter.” Maybe that’s why I’m having crazy dreams. Too much Irish folklore. I’ve been obsessed ever since Ms Duffy assigned that “personal heritage” project freshman year. Whatever. That e-reader’s been my best friend this entire summer.

  Ever since Fiann started ditching me. Right after the accident.

  I was dead for like two minutes, or so the doctors say.

  Fiann was supposed to be my best friend, but hers was the only face that seemed unhappy when I awoke, when I recovered, when I came back to school for the last few weeks before summer break…

  We’re not friends anymore. Not really.

  Our “break up” has been brewing for a while now. Ever since midway through my freshman year. My dad’s checks stopped coming, which meant less money, which meant fewer extracurriculars. Which meant…I couldn’t keep up with Fiann and the rest of my friends.

  She started treating me different right away—ignoring me, excluding me, ditching me…

  The night of the crash was the final nail in the coffin of our friendship.

  All summer, I’ve been a regular hermit. A pariah.

  “Syl!” Mom’s voice echoes down the hall of our shotgun apartment.

  Gah! “Just ten more minutes.” I am so not a morning person. Even the idea of opening my eyes is painful.

  My alarm goes off. It’s clearly a conspiracy. I give up on sleep, on my dream, on seeing her. “Fine! I’m up.”

  “You don’t want to be late,” Mom calls from the kitchen like some cheerfully disembodied Jiminy Cricket. “Not on your first day as a sophomore.”

  Don’t I? Dreams are scary and all, but it’s reality I’ve been dreading. The idea of having to face Fiann and all the girls who I’d thought were my friends sucks the life out of me. Big-time. That, along with having to explain how I—we, Fiann and me—survived a train wreck. Now she’s a local hero, and I’m just the weird “girl who lived.”

  It sounds all Harry Potter cool, but it’s not. Not by a long shot.

  Aside from my weird dreams, I don’t even remember anything about that night. It’s all a blare of blinding white—heat and burning flame.

  Apparently, Fiann dragged me from the train, a huge spike of iron shrapnel sticking out of my leg. She saved my life, and now she won’t even talk to me? It doesn’t make any sense. I heave a sigh. When you’re going through hell, just keep going. That’s what my Glamma always says.

  Said, I remind myself. Glamma died four months ago in May. I was in the hospital, in surgery to remove the shrapnel from my thigh, when it happened. Her heart just stopped. Mom still won’t talk about it. She always got this scary, haunted look in her eyes whenever I asked what happened, so I stopped asking.

  Anyway, Glamma didn’t tolerate anyone being whiny-pants, as she called it. She was Irish through and through, straight off the boat. And even though she had some weird ideas, like fairies actually being real and needing to keep her own book of Fae lore—her Grimm, she called it—her lamb stew was the best I ever tasted, and she was one tough cookie. The whole time I was in physical therapy for my leg, I tried to imagine myself half as tough as her. And well…

  Glamma wouldn’t be caught dead being whiny-pants about Fiann, and neither will I.

  I drag my butt out of bed, limping a litt
le. My leg is always stiff and sore in the mornings until I work out the kinks. My red hair is so tangled it looks like it aspires to one day be a rat’s nest, but totally can’t be bothered.

  My alarm goes off again, and I resist the urge to punt it across the room. It’s so old it’d probably smash into a thousand pieces, and then where would I be?

  Not being able to listen to Euphoria, that’s where.

  I turn the dial, hoping WCKD will come in. It’s a nearby college station out of Richmond VCU, specializing in local bands. Their frequency is iffy at best. I guess hearing college kids fiddly-farting around on the radio isn’t high on anyone’s list of priorities, but they do play a lot of Euphoria. This morning, right on cue, darkwave synths and electric violin fill my room.

  Euphoria’s voice cuts in, sweet and dark.

  A flash of my dream comes to me—those sapphire-blue eyes ringed in gold. Somehow, Euphoria always reminds me of her. The girl in my dreams. Not that I’d be so lucky.

  No more dreams. It’s time to face reality, Syl.

  But when I listen to Euphoria, I feel like I belong. At least somewhere.

  I’m sure Fiann’ll have all kinds of cool stories about seeing Euphoria’s secret shows at the Nanci over the summer. Fiann’s a regular celebrity now. A pang of regret stabs me.

  I miss my high school hangout. I miss my friends.

  Last year, there wasn’t a day I didn’t take the trolley to the Nanci and meet up with Fiann and Lennon. Pizza, video games, we’d try our hand at pool, though we all sucked. I’d bring my camera and take fake glamor shots of Lennon beating all the boys at the fighting games and Fiann flirting with the ones brave enough to put their quarter up for next round.

  But that was before Dad’s checks stopped coming. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch my Elephant Thai takeout polo on the back of my chair. It smells like satay sauce and girl-sweat.

  Mom needs help with the bills, so I do what I can.

  Rubbing my eyes, I pad down the hall to the bathroom. A quick, lukewarm shower and tooth brushing later, a pick dragged hastily through my hair to deal with the worst of the knots, and I deem myself school-ready.

  I’m not exactly what you’d call a debutante.

  Nothing can hide my wild, curly red hair and grey eyes, or the dusting of freckles across my nose and cheekbones. I’m too pale for most makeup. It’s like my Irish heritage wants me to be a misfit or something.

  I should probably prepare for the usual leprechaun and Lucky Charms jokes. Fiann used to protect me from all that, ever since sixth grade, but…

  Not anymore.

  “Morning, bug.” Mom looks up from her coffee and toast. Her hands are careworn, raw and chafed even though she uses gloves. But her eyes are bright, and her strawberry-blonde hair is barely touched with grey. She’s looked tired lately—ever since my accident—and I feel like I have to constantly tell her I’m okay.

  “Morning.” My vision blurs for a sec, then slips into that weird second sight I’ve had ever since I died and came back. It comes and goes without rhyme or reason, but it lets me see people’s moods and emotions as a cloak of colors—their auras.

  Glamma would’ve called it “Fae-sight.” At least, according to her Grimm, which…I might have snuck a peek-see at once or twice when I was younger.

  Before Glamma died and the Grimm vanished.

  But honestly, I hit my head pretty hard in the crash. I’m sure my “Fae-sight” is just some weird woojy-woo leftover from that. Despite my fascination with Irish folklore, I don’t really believe in magic or fairies.

  I mean, not really really.

  I’ve gotta admit, though, Mom’s aura looks tired, coloring the air around her like a personal gloom-cloud.

  She works too hard. Vowing to pick up extra shifts at Elephant Thai, I shake my head to dispel my Fae-sight and squeeze her arm as I slip past her into the kitchen nook.

  The hazelnut coffee smells delicious—flavored coffee is one of Mom’s few indulgences—but this morning I go for tea. My small stash of caramel crème brûlée hides in the back behind the toaster pops and the coffee filters. I put the kettle on and slump against the scarred countertop.

  I am so not a morning person. And I am so not looking forward to this morning.

  “School today.” Mom says it gently. She gestures at the pan of scrambled eggs and toast she’s left on the counter.

  “Yeah.” I smile, but it goes sideways.

  She sees it but only sips her coffee, looking at me over the rim. “I haven’t seen much of Fiann around lately.”

  I sigh inwardly. It was inevitable that she’d ask. When the checks stopped coming and we had to move out of the sprawls of the Fan and into the narrow tenements of Jackson Ward, everything changed. She blames herself for me losing my friends.

  I don’t. I blame them.

  “It’s all right, Mom.” I shrug. What can I say? That they don’t hang out with me because I have a takeout delivery job and a crappy pay-as-you-go track phone, because my jeans have holes in them, and not the cool, factory-distressed kind? That Fiann only deigns to talk to me because I’m the school paper’s photographer and she wants to make sure I get her good side during her cheering competitions? Or that she’s barely looked my way since the accident? That I’ve heard her say not-so-nice stuff about me behind my back?

  “Well,” Mom says.

  Other kids would have to worry about a Mom-ism at this point—an “It’s their loss” or some other motivational poster response.

  My mom only pins me with those bright eyes. What is it about moms? Seriously, do they learn interrogation techniques in secret mom school? I shift and squirm, but she’s a pro. She keeps staring.

  The kettle goes off, the broken nozzle wheezing where it should whistle. Like a train. I shudder. After the accident, I’d torn the whistle part out. I dream about the crash every night. I don’t need any more reminders.

  I busy myself pouring the hot water through the strainer, watching the leaves float and then sink to steep. The rich, dark scent of caramel is heavenly—the only thing other than reading, photography, and Euphoria’s music that really calms me—and I take a deep whiff, aware that Mom. Is. Still. Staring.

  “It’s not a big deal,” I finally say, turning with my combo tea steeper/mug and a slice of toast. I take a bite, but my throat’s dried up over my lie. I chew for what feels like forever before I swallow.

  Her aura bleeds from grey to a light blue that means she’s concerned. She holds my gaze a moment longer before releasing me. “All right, then.” She never argues, never fights. She sags a little in her chair, looking for all the world like holding that coffee cup is the only thing keeping her up. I lean over the counter and kiss her temple.

  “Want me to make you a bento?” I pull my own battered Kiki’s Delivery Service bento box from the drawer. Lennon’s the one who got me into bento. For her, it’s fun and artful and cute. For me it’s a way to make our meager food last longer and look not so terrible. I’ve gotten pretty good at hot dog octopi and panda-face rice balls.

  Mom says it always cheers her up to see those smiling faces. I know it does. I’ve seen the flashes of pink in her aura.

  “Won’t it make you late?” Aaaaand…she’s studying me again. She’s kept that shrewd eye on me ever since the accident. I remember it, lying in the hospital bed, my knee and thigh bound up in bandages. The doctors couldn’t get the shrapnel out. They didn’t know if I’d walk again.

  But I didn’t cry until Mom came in crying. It wasn’t until I saw what losing me would have done to her that I felt it—all the guilt.

  I’m all she has. “Nah.” I grab the small stained pan from the cupboard and the packet of sticky rice from the bottom cabinet. I take her coffee mug and pour her another cup. “Why don’t you go grab a shower? I left the hot water for you this morning.” Most mornings she doesn’t shower so I can.

  She smiles, and her aura lights up in pink and lavender. “What’s this, a shower coffee?”r />
  A smile cracks my face. I remember that morning when I was ten and so excited I brought her a coffee in the shower. Of course, I spilled it everywhere, but she just laughed, even though the rug was stained forever after that.

  She ruffles my red hair and kisses my cheek.

  Making her bento is totally going to make me late. Whatever. It’s worth it.

  I can handle getting into a little trouble to see Mom happy. After all, I did walk again, and without a limp. Some days, I can be as tough as Glamma. And I’m determined to leave the train, the accident, and everything about it behind me.

  Where it belongs.

  Chapter Two

  Rouen

  The Wild Hunt is coming

  Over road, river, and rail

  The dark Fae sluagh have your blood-scent, sleeper-princess

  And there is no escape

  For either of us

  - Euphoria, “The Wild Hunt”

  I plunge out of the busy club and into the night, onto the rain-soaked streets of Prague’s Old City. With a shrug, I hitch my violin case higher on my shoulder, the club’s neon sign flashing on my face, advertising Euphoria. Advertising me. A pang of wistfulness strikes me.

  How I wish I could escape into my Euphoria stage persona forever.

  But the show’s over, and it’s time to leave Euphoria behind and become who I really am.

  Rouen Rivoche. Dark Fae. Sluagh, outcast.

  I am a Huntress, and it’s time for the Hunt.

  Even now, I feel the Huntsman’s command burning in my blood, compelling my obedience. I turn the corner into the cobblestone alley, and there he is.

  The Huntsman. He’s waiting for me.

  “Hello, Rouen.” He leans against the wall, every line of his leather-clad, muscular body brooding and coiled as if to strike. He looks up through a curtain of stark-white hair, his eyes as soulless as a shark’s, though I know he postures for my benefit.

  In the hopes I might find him attractive.

  Gross.

  “Agravaine.” I try to keep it short and sweet. Just the facts, Roue. “I’ve fulfilled your Command. I made first contact with our prey.”

  Agravaine’s eyes dilate darker, and I smell the hunger on him—the need for the Hunt, the chase, the capture, the fear of our prey—noxious as burning rubber. “And she swallowed the bait?”